Six Years Ago

Sensei had cleaned and bandaged the wound as well as he could but Yuudai knew from the the sounds that he made just how bad it was. He was still not sure how he made it back into the hills and the temple, how he found himself banging on the temples front door, of collapsing into his Sensei’s arms.

He lay on his futon, the pain had changed from all consuming to just a spike drilled into his brain. An improvement.

What had he tried to achieve? Why had he done it? Just because he felt a connection to an old man? How had he helped? He had killed a man and left the corpse outside the restaurant, if anything he had made it worse for Hiro-San if not straight condemned the man to death. Not only that but he had lasted all of a few days in his promise to himself that he would create no more copies and the first time he broke that promise he had brought one man into existence and he became an instant murderer, the other brought into the most agonising pain that Yuudai had ever felt in his life. That included the nightmare shinbone incident.

So far, two for two.

Had he learnt anything? Apart from don’t come unarmed to a knife fight.

He had learnt something. Yuudai had learnt that if he wanted to do good he had to do good to what was right in front of him. He could not change the world, he could not save everyone but he could make a difference to the people who cross his path. Maybe that would be enough.

Also, to not hesitate. If he knew in his heart that someone had to die then they had to die. There is no such thing as a fair fight. There is the living and the dead. It was a lesson he should have learnt living in Arcadia.

He should have followed the two men, they were not his real target. The real target was the men who pulled their strings. The ones who sent them out to beat down people like Hiro-San. He should have followed them and killed the men leading them. Stop the suffering at the source.

It would not change the whole world but it would change the little neighbourhood that time had forgotten there.

His door slid open, the darkness meant that he could not see who was standing in the doorway. The voice that reached him though gripped his heart.

“I leave you alone for a few days and this is how you try to get me to return?” Valkyr said.

“Hey, it worked didn’t it?” Yuudai croaked out. Valkyr’s soft nervous laugh was enough to fill the small room.

“What the fuck did you do?” Valkyr said as he crossed the distance and knelt down next to the futon.

“I listened to you. I heard what you were trying to tell me in your own ham-fisted way. I am trying to change, Valkyr.” I paused and tried to find the words, to tell him what I have become.

“I have changed.” I finally said.

We waited in silence for a while as he absorbed what I had said and what I had hoped he had understood in those short words. I couldn’t say the full story out loud yet, it was too large for me to get it out of my mind and into the world.

“Okay.” He quietly said. “I can heal that eye if you would like.”

I wanted to cry.

I had not dared to hope that my friend would return let alone offer to go through his hated transformation for me.

“Please my friend. I want to be whole to continue trying to be the man who you think I can.” I said quietly into the room. Hesitating slightly I reached out and fumbled around until I found Valkyr’s hand. “Thank you my friend. I owe you my….everything. I would ask one more thing though.”

Valkyr squeezed my hand “What?”

“Please if you can, fix the eye but leave the scar.”

Valkyr scoffed “Have you seen it? It pulls from the bottom of the socket all the way down your face. Why do you want to keep that?”

“A reminder.” I said, squeezing Valkyr’s hand tightly. “A reminder that I need to pay the price for my decisions.”