Chapter Text
A figure sits there silhouetted against the setting sun; they sway slightly back and forth, almost as if their lithe body was being nudged by the breeze. Humming a soft melody the person pays no mind to the presence behind them. The notes are slow and relaxed, drifting through the air like honey. For such calm, the woman's corpse that lay behind them was the opposite, somber and crude with her throat neatly slit, a cigarette laying limply in her open mouth and a glass of whine shattered and pooling on the ground next to her. A soft neon card falls like a feather next to her limp body.
Such a sight, and yet curious eyes watch from behind. Glowing with awe, as if the sight entranced them, the figure had such an ethereal and graceful androgenous beauty that it was near impossible to pull their eyes away.
Suddenly, the figure shifts their head to the side. “Little girl…why do you stare at me in such a way?”
A small girl, she couldn't have been more than 6, stands in the frame of her balcony door, eying the stranger sitting on her wall. “How did you know I was here?” Her voice is high and childish, loud against the previously quiet atmosphere.
The still unidentifiable person chuckles. “Your brain.” They say, as if it should be obvious.
The girl's auburn eyes widen as she gasps. “You can read my mind!?”
The girl shook her head, still amazed, “That’s awesome!” Eventually the little girl looks down, spotting the body laying on the hard concrete, and her mouth drops in concern and as if broken out of some trance, her body goes rigid. “Why is mommy sleeping there?”
The persons shoulders rise in a stiff gesture, curling in on themselves as if they were trying to hide. With their face still down cast in shadows they answer, “I’m afraid that your mommy isn’t sleeping young one.” Twisting towards the girl, their pale face is revealed, though hair and mouth still cloaked by their hood, their blue eyes cast downward, wrinkled with pity and something like grief whirls in them. “Your Mommy did something bad. So I was sent here to punish her.” Oh what a way to downplay the might of their situation. The Gods, if there were any, would scoff at his shamelessness.
The little girl's brown curls jostle as she takes a step forward and out the balcony door. Her voice quivers. “Mommy will be coming back though right? Will you help her? Ai is bad sometimes but Mommy always says that Ai is a good girl after mommy punishes her. Ai always comes back. Mommy will come back too. Right?”
The person takes a stuttering breath. “Ai-chan. Was it?”
“Mhm!”
They stand up gracefully to stand above her. “Grow into a lovely person for mommy, she...will be asleep for a long time.” Their hand reaches out almost as if to pat her head before freezing in front of her and going back to their sides, their fists closed in an awkward manner, gloved fingertips pressing hard into their palms.
“How long is a long time?”
The corners of their mouth lifts into a sad smile and they bow. “Goodbye”. The mysterious person jumps with a flourish and over the ledge. Leaving the young girl, who knows nothing of the world, unknowing of the fact that her mother will never be returning.
—
The sounds of sirens chase Nagisa further into the shadows, wanting nothing more than to sleep as he races home. The girls cries had to have alerted the neighbors, she was such a young thing, he can only hope that she gets taken care of nicely.
You’d think I should be used to this by now…
Nagisa skids through a back alley as cars race down the road, using the lights of clubs and restaurants that illuminate the dark night to get around. His footsteps are light, barely a whisper in the empty spaces.
To think. I could have been helping the lives of children. Now I am explaining to a six year old why her mother isn’t going to be waking up. What kind of scum have I become?
After all these years he can say that he now knows what Irena was saying when she said that killing wasn’t an easy job. Really, he was too naive. Taking a life was easy, but now, the blood would always be on his hands, staining them in red as corpses pile around him, their souls piling onto his shoulders as a heavy weight to keep him grounded but not sane, his guilty conscious gnawing at his morality until there's nothing left. Nagisa knows he’s losing more of himself day by day and he can only wait for the inevitable time for karma to find its way to him.
All he can use to console his aching heart is that tonight wasn’t entirely his fault.
The client had said that this night's target was a single woman who lived alone, selling damning information to his business competitors and trying to extort their company for thousands. Nagisa couldn’t have known that she was harboring a child, one that she seemed to care for too.
His stomach growls as he takes another quick turn. He rests a hand on his stomach, bile rising in his throat at the thought of eating but if he waited too much longer his stomach would eat itself. No matter how much I may doubt, I’m still human. If not in mind, then in body.
Resolving to grab food when he gets home, he clears his mind and hurries the rest of the way back.
Nagisa steps into his small apartment and tosses his shoes to the side the door clicks shut behind him and he immediately locks it.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and Nagisa heads to the couch, not bothering to turn on any more lights. He pulls down his mask and hood and sinks into the cheap cushions, the couch creaks and groans but fortunately it does not break.
Pulling out his phone, he turns it on grimacing as the bright light momentarily blinds him. Blinking fast, he can finally read the notification that had appeared.
From: [Unknown number 570 *** **** - Yo. It’s Karma… Please answer.]
Nagisa's hands shake.
"Well shit."