NICHIBOTSU GA KIMASHITA/SUNSET HAS COME.

Feet do not fail me as i run away.
As i run away from him.

I can feel his pain as he cries out to me to stop,Calling me his 'Flower of shadow'.
Noroi sounds like he is dying and i know for a fact how that sounds but this sound that is in his voice makes my heart feel like it could be about to bleed out with no help fro a sharp weapon.

No.

All that is required is my lack of true will.

No more though.
I fight the urge to look back,he is nearly behind me now and i am forced to do as i learned from my recent months away.
I focus on and apologize to the nearby creatures and take some of there blood using it to will wings like a phoenix but not at all so beautiful.
My speed increases greatly and so does the pained screams from Noroi.I fly away far above the trees feeling an inescapable weight on my heart,I try to will the blood from my wings to become eyes so that i may check on him,realizing quickly i should not have.

His eyes are having lines of blood going down them,actual blood tears.
I am much to far away for him to reach me,the wooded clearing that we rested at is almost a small group of trees and water like a thread to me i am so far but i can see him with these red eyes that begin to drown on there own.

I fall like a comet from the sheer exhaustion of so much power used so quickly,from allowing myself to witness Noroi at his most painful moment.

"My love,i try and i tried...it always fails for us..."

My words are a moan rather than actually language and my body aches from how hard i dropped from the sky and the trees that barely broke my plummet.

Nothing though compares to hearing the sound of a thousand ravens circling,it is like thunder rather than flapping wings,the trees begin to bend and sway to there tumult while i just lay here looking up at them all.
Finding a beauty in the frightening.

Also finding the source of them.

Nine of them land while the others become like a fence of black feathers against the sky and against the forest leaving only i and the nine that landed that rise up taking on the forms of women and each of them wearing long feathered sewn together garments like dressing gowns of a sort,each also having masks of different emotions that signal each.

Orange,red,white,silver,green,blue,purple,yellow and one that is a mixture.

The color of sunset.

I focus on no other raven than that one,the woman keeps her mask on nor moves even an inch and neither do i.

We simply stare at each other while each tries a different attack on me.

Orange attempts to overwhelm my spirit by allow to carry voices that are past happiest memories that fail to deter my attention from the sunset center raven woman.
Next tries silver to use the feathers above us to prick me with thousands of mini cuts and stabbings from the feathers,each one representing each failure to fix this as evident by the memory barrage.

I tire of them both and pull out enough blood from them too drown the other raven women but not before they all truly do overwhelm me with much too much of my pain,the deaths,the children and the vile treatment i had in a few of my lives by Tennami and the worse torment of living only to fail and watch all this evil over and over again.

"ENOUGH OF THIS!!"
My scream seems to cut them with the blood i willed to drown them,the Sunset raven watches on and walks forward to me while i am shaking from the exhaustion of it all.
Just all of it,

"Why couldn't you just stop this,why couldn't you just end this now huh?"

The woman kneels before me,pulls off her raven mask and my eyes behold that of my grandmother but her in her youth.

She isn't the storied type of beauty one would think but i always thought her to be the truest form of beauty.
Her eyes are large and so innocent to behold,like a doe and she has a small but form with little hands that have the just right amount of strength to make what it holds feel safe but small enough that you feel like a warrior when you hold them to comfort her.

She puts that small hand to my cheek,gently wiping my tears that are mixed of clear and blood now,her eyes never fail to look at me with pure love.

"For the same reason you do not,my plan has never even for a moment to hurt you.All the pain was needed to give this locket the amount of will power required to keep my world but also to give you yours.Do you not see it?When it has the the amount required i can keep you in a place safe,with him and you will have children,grandchildren have them forever over and over without fear of anyone or anything taking that away.What is so wrong in us both having what we want forver?All this we both put ourselves through is almost enough,Just hold on to me,to my goal a little longer and no more grief for you and i ever again.Ever."

I watch her and i do feel it.

My grandmothers love.
Her belief.

It is pure sincerity and it makes what i have seen,my memories.
All of it.
So hard to reconcile with the fact that i saw EVERYTHING she did,every line she crossed,everything she allowed me to be and do to stop what i had not known for so long was she and myself.

All of it to keep him from being slain,all of it to keep what had happened to me from happening again too.

I died,really died, four years ago today.

Today is my last day here again and she knows it because the last time things got caught up this fast i was pulled away,that is why i wondered if could kill myself and retain my memories.

"You know better than that my darling.It is almost enough now.I promised you when you were little you would have your happy ending.Let me do so now."

"No...no....."
I mutter and moan 'No'over and over,I try to fight her but it is like i am frozen by the love I still have for her,by the the fact that I believe she is genuine in her actions being right even if they are only bringing happiness to us and ending all else.

I hear Noroi behind me,finally caught up  and I begin to weep harder while Grandmother in her own way tries to spare he and I from this sight but it fails because he sees it now.

He watches my grandmother will my blood into a raven and am gone.

THREE YEARS LATER:FUKUI

"That is all I remember,I do not recall being anything else Dad....You tell me I have been going to University,seeing some man named Eikojo and working at a office somewhere but why do I feel like I am missing something now?What happened to me Dad?What is the real me??"

I stare at my father as he stares at his watch,I grip my grandmothers locket for help,for comfort to help me with these intense dreams that will not let me go,will not let me breathe.

I can not get that mans tears,his pained cries out of my head.It is like I am torn in half just by hearing him and seeing those vivid green eyes with so much blood around them.

My father looks so conflicted now.
What am I.

"Dad...Please.What am I?What is happening to me?"

My Father looks up from his watch,I never noticed  that is has the same tiger and cherry blossom image like my locket does,he rubs his tired gentle eyes then begins to sob.

Afterwards.....

"You are my daughter!The one that is the only one who can end this evil mockery of life.You are the only one strong enough to say no to the temptation of being so powerful you forget who made you.Someone who truly is true love as person who will do what is takes for the greater good.Whatever it takes."

What does that even mean?

Only briefly does a image come into mind,quick and brilliant enough to be a glorious dream then it becomes something else.

A dream of ravens blood and love.

I have to stop my grandmother,I have to stop myself again.
This time is my last chance.

"Do you understand now?Do you remember enough?I kept you hidden longer this time from it,in hopes this could end,that you would be ready to fully do what must be done,what I couldn't and what your Grandmother refuses to do.I hope you can forgive me, I hope you can forgive yourself."

"How can I??Look at what I allowed Dad?"

Dad takes my hand and by the power of GOD did I feel strength.
Enough I think to do this.

"The only way to do something and get it done no matter how hard it is is to DO IT!Have faith and DO IT!"

I am so afraid.

Noroi,my love.
Dad,my beloved father.
Akira,my grandson.
Aoi,a poor soul who I dragged into this.
And.

Nichibotsu,My adored grandmother that I must stop for all of us.

Can I really do this?
Can I do the things I must?