He's caught her.

She's finally pinned to the ground with no means of escape--and the look she bore on her face showed she wasn't planning to. A long smile was spread across her lips, laughing. She's taunting him, urging him to make an attack, and drive his katana into her flesh. But she wasn't scared. Her heart was pounding, beating faster than it should have--but there were no signs of fear.

Meanwhile, he had her restrained and his own body was trembling. Flames erupting around them, left and right. He figured if he'd get to this point--have her pinned to the ground and be able to decide her fate--he'd just pull it off without a second thought. But now... he's here. Atop her, about to aim a blade to her heart. Except his hands are shaking wildly.

Why? He's sacrificed hundreds upon hundreds of lives for this one moment. Just to get to them. To destroy them. "They can't be forgiven," he once said. "All sinners must be destroyed." He's lived up to those words after ending one life... then another, and another. But he can't figure out why he's quivering right now. Maybe it's because he's done too much just to get close to one of them--to her.

Instead of stabbing her as she expected, he pierces the red flower in her hair. Petals rain down on the two of them and something flies from her hairpin. A silver ring shoots out from the layers of petals.

He watches it fly into the flames, and like a bullet a memory strikes him for a brief second. He gave that ring to someone special. A special someone he can barely remember. However the name, echoing so sweetly, comes to him. "Rin," the girl he met in the orphanage after the Karakuri, he only gave that ring to her. Could this woman, Tsubaki, be his missing childhood friend? It was the only way.

After all this time, she... fighting on the opposing side? He, part of a police force trained to fight against her, one of the many in the terrorist group.

She extends a hand, crying for the ring now doused in fire. Her cheeks are stained with tears and though futile, she continues to reach for the ring.

Her vulnerable side is showing after losing the one thing she treasured, and now about to be slained by another thing she treasured.

He stares down at her weeping self, crying, pleading, helplessly begging. He wants to save her, the side of her that was once his friend, his sweet, beloved, childhood friend. But there's the half of her that he wants to rip to pieces, where he craves vengeance for the sins she's committed.

He raises his katana, trembling within his pale fingers, and sheds a tear.

. . .

Word Count: 472

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Side notes: Karakuri Series