Red

Red Advantage

Just short of ascendancy, I bask in your struggle. I relish the speed, the lithe movement of our body, in the illusion of freedom you find by running, leaping blindly, boulder to boulder, through lush forests whose branches whip and sting our flesh so brightly. The natural world readily fulfills your need for self-flagellation, and you are a child, taking your punishment like the good little pup you wish you were.

We became one and claimed the bitch, the Kagome bitch, and nothing can change that now. How long did we bask, hanyou, licking our bloodied claws, before we took her unconscious form back to camp where others more suited to nurturance could care for her? No matter how fast you run, such questions cannot be obliterated. No matter how loud the wind, you will hear me, hear the red blood pounding in your ears.

Shattered now is any sense that good behavior could purify you of the hanyou stain, the mixed-breed bastard taint. A half-life comes with a price, dog, and I am that price.

It is easy enough to see in retrospect. Your strength has always come from me, through me. The power to protect is equally the power to destroy, a fact you so easily ignored, denied, in favor of the delusion of heroism. Every battle you have won has been my battle; every decisive action came from my determined will.

You are hesitation and doubt, borne of illegitimacy and foolhardiness. You bear your mother's frailty. I am youkai, my father's son, worthy of his name and the right to claim whatever my claws can reach.

Run as long and as far as you wish, child of folly. You can no longer deny my dominance. You are the golden one in name only. My time has come.