Blade Song

Chapter 13- Haunted Beauty

The next day, when we set off into the Deadwoods, I was like a kid in a candy store. That is, if candy was mutilated dead bodies...Whatever, the point is, I was excited. I was barely able to keep that snail pace we always used, but I did. For the sake of finally having something to make my darlings sing, I did.

And do you know what I got? Nothing! Not a god damn thing. It was just grey tree after grey tree and enough lifeless dirt to make you wonder how the hell the trees ever got big enough to die in the first place.

By the end of the day, I was too agitated to even help make camp. I slunk away from the group just before sunset and went deep into the dead trees, praying that something vicious would find me. I hadn't gotten too far at all before the fox started shadowing my steps.

I sighed heavily and turned around to find him smiling at me. "Let me guess, that damn nose of yours, right?"

"It's dangerous to walk around here by yourself, especially when it's so close to nightfall," he said, completely ignoring my question.

"That's what I'm counting on." I turned back around and started through the trees again.

"What is it you're hoping to find?" he asked, trailing me once more.

"I don't know. A bloodthirsty demon or mad beast? Hell, I'll even take a bunny rabbit with a bad attitude at this point."

He chuckled. "Wild vermin of the Deadwoods beware."

I whipped back around and jabbed my finger in his chest. "Laugh now, fox, but if I don't find something to fill my head soon, I'm seriously going to lose it."

Kiyoshi's smile faded and he cocked his head to the side. "Fill your head?"

I clicked my tongue and continued my search again. "Never mind, you wouldn't understand."

"Try me." He quickened his stride to match mine.

I let out a deep breath. "I need something to quiet my head. It's loud in there and I have no form of distraction or means to drown it out."

"It's loud? You hear voices?"

He was looking over at me with a serious expression, not as though he was mocking or judging me, but genuinely trying to figure it out. It threw me a little. I've never tried to explain the inside of my head to anyone. Usually when you start talking about filling your headspace with things to quiet it, people mark you off as nuts and go on their way. Not him, though.

I shook my head. "No. There are no voices. It's just stuffy, like there isn't enough room in there and it makes it feel loud. Almost like a buzzing,"

"Ah. Like a pressure created by an undefinable ambient noise."

"That's...strangely accurate."

"And you can disperse this noise with violence?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Why? No one ever asked me that before. I'd never even really explained it to Goro or Yasuki. They knew I liked to kill and I was good at it. That was enough. I'd almost tried to explain it to Eight once, back before the dark impulses were clear, before I knew the sound of death was so decadent. I'd chickened out, though.

Eight was one of the purest, nicest people I'd ever known. How do you explain to someone so innocent that you derive joy from the pain of other living things? She was the only one I had back then. The thought of losing her and being all alone in that dark and terrible place was too frightening to risk it.

I didn't have anything to lose this time. There's no risk in talking to a dead man.

"Because the only thing that can cancel out the worst sound is the best one." I slowed to a stop and stared at him. "The sound of blade against blade, the screaming, the cutting of flesh, the gurgling, they're like a melody."