Untitled

By Mohji Kudou

It made me want to claw my eyes out; watching what he did to Her. I could have killed him -- no, no. I couldn't have. I wanted to. But I was bound and gagged and that American sonofabitch had made sure I wouldn't be able to get anywere -- not in that white-haired freak's 'eveningwear', anyhow.

Too many buckles. At first, I didn't recognize the voice. I thought she'd been killed already. My 'lucky star' -- my 'best beloved'. My one and only. My kid sister. She'd woken up. They'd done it somehow, and now she was awake and there I was all tied up and again, I couldn't do anything to save her.

She cried for me. She watched me stare as pale, bony hands moved over her skin, with tears in her eyes. I'd been crying, too, though I didn't realize it until I woke up. I wasn't surprised. I had plenty to cry for. I couldn't even hug her -- and she was awake and alive and begging for me to come and rescue her. I'd always been her knight in shining armor.

I screamed against the blood-stained scrap of cloth that served as my gag when they let that white-haired freak into the room. The madman had a gleam in his eye that terrified me -- like he hadn't seen a girl in ages. And he was /loose/, and that made it even worse. She scrambled to get away from him, but our chains were too short -- I couldn't reach out to her. I tried so hard.

I stared as he unbraided her hair and stroked the soft skin of her cheeks and kissed the sweet, pouting lips that I'd claimed as my own once. My sister. I'm sick as it is, I admit -- but she was mine. All mine. And no one else could have her. So my punishment would be to watch. Helpless. I couldn't turn away. I couldn't close my eyes as she cried and squirmed and writhed beneath him, as he sucked on the softest part of her neck -- she'd always loved to be kissed there.

My hands began to sweat and I had to squeeze my legs together to hide my erection because I was ashamed. So ashamed. My sister could be so beautiful, with her hair down and her cheeks tearstained and blood dripping down the gentle curves of her back. He'd torn her clothes away without hesitation, despite both our wailing. Or perhaps because of our wailing.

They made me watch. They knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes off of her pale skin, the way her flesh quivered when he kissed her in all the right spots. The way she shuddered and whimpered and moaned when he cupped the breasts I'd been dreaming of for nearly three and a half years. I hated him for touching her. I hated him with every ounce of passion I contained. I hated him more than I'd hated Takatori Reiji -- and that was a helluva lot.

She cried for me the whole time. That soft, sweet voice of hers always calling, "Ran! Ran, tasuke-- eeaugh!" or "Onii-sama!!", begging me to free myself and save her from the rape and murder that I knew would come shortly. She shuddered when he forced his way into her, holding her thighs apart and nibbling on her neck. They were spread out so that I could see every inch of her flesh. So that I could watch her arch up against him and claw at his back in vain, trying desperately to get him off of her. She cried and I wanted to hold her and kiss her tears away, but the one with the orange wig tossed his puppy a knife, and soon I was screaming louder than she, as he carved into her delicate body.

He groaned when he came inside of her. I could have killed him then, too. She was dead by that point. It was her corpse that he'd defiled -- and she'd remembered it and the image reflected in her glazed-over eyes was my face. 'Why couldn't you save me?'

She was asking that. Always and forever asking that.

I slumped, numb, against the wall for some time after that, and as the madman licked the blood from his knife, the American snapped his fingers and the youngest stared hard at my innocent -- always innocent -- Aya, and nudged her closer to me. I stared down at her corpse for a long time, cradling her in my arms and stroking her hair. They left me locked up in that cell for days. They dragged her out mid-afternoon of the second day, because the smell was getting too strong to stand. I'd screamed and my tears wouldn't stop and the dehydration was making me hallucinate -- she was all around me, always.

In my dreams, she's always there, and so is he, touching her in the ways we'd agreed that only /I/ could. The ways that our father touched our mother, at nights when they thought we were asleep. It makes me want to tear my heart out, thinking of her and then thinking of that crazed Irishman with the single, twinkling yellow eye. It makes me want to scream.

It made me want to die.

The urge to kill came later, once I'd gotten over the initial shock. Then it was too late. The American had killed his guard dog before I could, and it left me with a void to fill. A hatred with no focal point.

It made me want to tear my eyes out; watching what he did to her.

My hatred moved to all sorts of things. From the madman to the American to my sister, to the shadows of whatever gods there might be in such a world, to Persia and Kritiker and Weiß and everything else I could think of. Until I realized the real thing I hated more than anything else.

Me.

I couldn't save her from him. I couldn't save her and she'd been so close to me -- close enough to almost touch if we reached as far as we could. Close enough to smell her hair and her blood and I could almost taste her tears on my tongue.

My sister.

And it wasn't until then that I realized Fafarello wasn't the only one who'd ever raped my Aya-chan. After all, I'd done it, too. I hated anything that reminded me or her. Hated everything that made me think of what I'd done. I destroyed it all, as swiftly as I could, because I'd lost the most valuable thing in my life the moment I touched her.

And that's what made me do it.

That's what made me kill Tomoe Sakura.