for your entire life, you have heard that yato are beings of bloodshed. a nearly extinct race as far as the universe is concerned, but one that has helped plague the galaxy with war after conflict after tragedy again and again and again. battlefields are where the yato belong, it's said, battlefields are where they are born and where they will die.

ah, but-- with your smile, ear to ear, bright as the sun, a cursory glance proves to send others a misleading first impression. you don't look the part, with your shorter-than-most stature and rather pretty features. you look out of place.

that's the problem with first impressions, however; they are misleading, almost on purpose. you are misleading, definitely on purpose.

even though you're young, not even twenty, you have earned your title as a "yato." the blood that runs off your fingertips proves just as much.




when you fight, you smile.

the story as to why that is changes every single time someone higher or lower ranked than you asks. sometimes, it's because you enjoy the rush of adrenaline just so much that you can't help it. other times, you say it's so those you're ripping apart with your bare hands can be sent to the next life with a smile.

(one time, you said it was because you had a good lunch earlier, and you were remembering it fondly. this might have been the most truthful answer yet.)

some even speculate that your smile is the source of all the strength you possess and showcase at the drop of a hat; the wider you grin, the more mercilessly you kill. most of the time, you aren't even using weapons. your body is enough as it is. other yato that are older than you and have been in more battles than you (for now) even remark how completely unnerving you are as a creature.

they do this gossiping, though, where they think you can't hear. they, the men you travel with, the men who have seen how bloodthirsty your hands are, know more than ever that there's no way they'd want to be on the receiving end of your smile.

no matter what, it tends to be the last thing someone ever sees.

.

.

could anyone believe you hadn't always been like this? could any of the men that serve under you now, who see you as a young and ruthless commander of a division of space pirates, see you as a young boy? okay, okay, you're young now, yes, and you're quite the brat when you set your mind to it, but you are no where near innocent. it's hard to imagine that you had ever been anywhere near innocent.

very hard to imagine, but there was a time.

a time where your smiles were genuine, when you weren't kamui, commander of the seventh division of the harusame space pirates, and instead were kamui, the little boy who carried his younger sister on his back when he went around town-- it existed, you know this, at least. most others don't. it isn't a story you tell, nor is it one you want anyone to know of.

you've long resigned yourself away from that "kamui," the weak one, the one with real smiles and a pure heart and a family to look back to. that isn't you. you can't tell the story of someone who isn't you.




your mother was strong, beautiful, and the smartest person you have ever known in your life; when you were younger and people said you looked like her splitting image, you couldn't have been happier. everyone knew why-- it was all in the hair. your long, shiny vermillion hair matched and mirrored hers. you kept it long so you could show her and see how her eyes would light up.

(you had eyes like your father, though. strong, impenetrable. a deadly creature through and through. )

your entire family adored your mother to the nth degree-- your younger sister included. she was the best thing all your lives had to offer. even as she started getting sick (and sicker, and sicker), you were determined to make her life easy. you were the older brother, after all. you had to protect them.

your father no longer was around, when she was started getting sick. so he told you that, in his stead, you had to protect your family. it aggravated you, what he said. don't hurt the weak. ants can't bully an elephant. get stronger, get stronger, get stronger.

while your mother was getting weaker, getting weaker, getting weaker.

you did everything you could to hide your scars and pain from her, each time you'd get injured or you would stand still in a fight and not fight back-- her not worrying about you was top priority. she was smart, though. she could see through it and made sure you knew she could each time. you wore a lot of bandages.

(at one point, your younger sister had told you that your bandages made you look tougher and cooler, like the protag of a long-running fan favorite manga. you snorted and snatched the meat buns off her plate.)

you mother gets worse, though, and you get older. you listen more. with the little information you hear you learn why your mother is sick-- you.

she's sick because she chose to leave her home world with your father and chose to have you. and your sister. and this family on a dusty planet.

wheels turn in your mind-- you'll take her, you reason. you'll take your mother back to her planet so she doesn't suffer anymore. so she's alive. even though she tells you that's not what she wants, that she wants to stay with your family, you don't want to listen. you don't want your mother to die.

your blame centers on your father-- your father, who is the reason for your mother leaving her planet, who is the reason she's sick and dying now, is your enemy in this scenario. you know-- you know you're young, really young, but you're also really strong. you can take your mother away. you can take your mother away from him. and-- and, if he tries to stop you, you can kill him. if you prove you're stronger than him, you can kill him.

(you don't, though. you don't kill your father, one of the strongest men in this universe. you don't. all you manage is to rip an arm off and rip the family apart. it's him that almost kills you, because yato blood runs strong about killing all opponents. your little sister manages to stop him, though, from killing you. so, you're young, and you leave. you can't stay. you need to become stronger. )



your mother dies a week or two after you try to save her. you aren't there to see her.

AND THE STAINS COMING FROM MY BLOOD

your goal is to kill your father-- strength is the means with which you plan to do it. so, you decide to follow a man that's strong. one of the strongest yato, even, in order to get this strength. housen is his name, you remember. you had seen him and his division of pirates on the (used to be your) dusty planet from time to time.

("kidnap me," you had said to them the day you left home, not too far from where your family lay broken-- you were speaking to the harusame space pirates, a band of horrible and evil men, bent on stealing and taking whatever they laid hands on, determined to control the universe, "are you such bad villains that you can't even kidnap a child?" you knew they were the villains in this tale, and you knew this was the turning point in your origin story. )

you are so, so, so young, a child, but you are strong and that carries you very, very far. these men you decide to walk with at such a tender age are pirates, but they are no match for you.

they are ants, you are an elephant.

you want strength, so they use you like their own personal weapon to wield-- it's not about the person it's about how strong they are. you are your strength. your worth is your strength and if you aren't strong you'll be thrown to the side and forgotten. that's never a worry for you, though.

you stay with the harusame, you stay under housen, and you grow up strong. you grow up powerful and bloodthirsty and you seep off influences the opposite of everything you ever learned-- this is true strength, not family, not attachment, not bonds, not emotions. you can live for ten years, learning this. you do live for ten years, learning this.

that wide, wide smile of yours becomes infamous across galaxies.

when you're older, you don't give your sister the time of day anymore-- she represents what weakness you left behind (the strength you couldn't muster) and she reminds you of the very things you hate (a place to belong, people to cherish). some time after you left she had gone and found herself some place to live on that weird human planet (earth, was it called?) and you tell yourself you can't be bothered.

you notice that she's gotten weaker, weaker, weaker (stronger, stronger, stronger). each time you see her, you're on opposite sides of the battle, her with the great protagonist and hero, and you with the villains. you fully succeeded in becoming the villain, and she went and made herself a heroine.

that doesn't matter though. these fights should be easy. she's weak, weaker than you.

and you're right, but you're also wrong. you seem to win the battle, but it doesn't feel like a victory with her.

maybe it is because she doesn't concede defeat; she acknowledges that you've changed, that you're not the same little kid that lived on a dusty planet with her and their dying mother anymore, but according to her you haven't changed as much as you've hoped to.

even if you've tried to throw away these bonds, you're all still family, she tells you, even when you win the fights and say otherwise.

.

(your sister and her friends are stubborn and determined. it pisses you off. time and time again they work to drill into you that you have a family. you threw that away on purpose, you say. you don't want it. it works, the first couple times, but when you finally meet again on your old home, something cracks. it doesn't matter how much you've changed or how much you've been corrupted. you are force-fed a family and this time you swallow. )

.

.

TELL ME GO BACK HOME.

there is no home for you, now. that dusty planet where you grew up only has a couple flowers and a gravestone to mark that you ever cared about anything on it.

you don't mind, though-- not anymore. you don't mind that this home is long gone-- your family is less estranged, now, and maybe you and your sister actually get along a bit. maybe.

but, but. you have to come to terms with the fact that you are not the type of creature to have a home like this. not a place home, anyway, not a home of brick-and-mortar. the closest thing you have to home now is merely a concept written in not your yato blood but the blood that ties you to your asshole bald father and your stupid younger sister. they won't let you forget that's where your real home lies.

you, kamui, now a being of and corrupted by bloodshed, only has a home within the blood coursing through your veins-- you have changed, you said. you aren't the same son and older brother, you said.

they do not care. they give you a home anyway.