Just What They Told Me
Just What They Told Me by Treble Charger
I guess
what concerns me the most
The red splashed before his eyes, dulled to a thick, greying crimson as he settled on his right foot, catching his balance from the heavy swing of his sword.
The alley, silent except for the semi-constant drip from the eaves and heavy panting, stilled from a world spinning and falling and imploding, to a stop, time returning to it’s normal passage and his thought process gaining equilibrium against the weight in his right hand.
It took him too long to stand straight from his hunch, to stop the shuddering breaths and to clear his eyes, simmering from a shade of amber that only the calm before the storm could bring, to a raging sea of grey and violet clouds, churning and fighting and collapsing inwards into his dilated pupils.
After eternity, he snapped his blade and sheathed it, finally standing from his knee where he had fallen onto the cold paved earth, and his eyes were the colour of the sun through the haze of a heavy rain.
We’re getting any younger
So we like to boast
It wasn’t long before they tracked him down - they had, after all, given him the orders. How long since he had washed in the cold water of the river - how long since he had shed all the blood? No, it wasn’t of importance. Their praise fell on partially deaf ears; he walked lightly over the lumps on the ground, the hills of matter soon to return to their origin, as the men partook in cleaning, shovelling, scraping against the ground, against the brick walls.
Did his blood run red, he wondered, as the others’ did? Not once, since his childhood, had he been touched in such affairs - not a scrape, nor a bruise. The occasional ache and pain, the loss of breath - yes, those were inevitable in this line, but, was he inhuman? The others wondered as much as he, about the strange boy’s lineage, his techniques, his power - not as much his humanity. An assassin, a black shadow lurking where people could not see, hidden where the alive feared to tread and the dead were claimed.
Was he immortal, as the rumours said?
Battousai, they called him. Manslayer.
Did he slay, or condemn?
Are the cracks and fissures splintering our lovely lives?
Our acceptance of the shiny brand-new kitchen knives
His katana at his side and his hands inside his sleeves, he made his rounds through the market and the squares, regarding the ground and where it was stepped upon by small feminine feet clad in clicking geta and embraced by kimono hems, or heavily placed tabi sending downtrodden dirt into the air. He could tell much by their steps - who was important, who was not.