Under the Blood Moon

Next Self

Akiha pov: I stood there thinking about what Wallachia just said: Sion is going to be his next self. I despise that wording so much. People deserve to live the way they want. No one should be able to dictate someone's life.

"It's a girl..."

I remember my birth. The amount of disappointment my father had that I wasn't another son was immeasurable from the start. I was hated and wasn't going to be loved like SHIKI was, even though I still got the special treatment. His resentment couldn't be hidden.

Flashback....

"Akiha!!!" My father boomed. I stopped what I was doing, going stiff to look at him. Next to him were two girls. "As of today, these two will keep an eye on you, okay?" He asked

"Yes..." I softly spoke.

My father can't trust me enough to leave me alone for two seconds, but the other one he allows to do anything he wants...

"Hello, Lady Akiha. I'm Hisui, and this is my older sister Kohaku. It's nice to meet you. Hisui calmly said

"Yes, it is nice to meet you!" I said

My father came back into the room, his look stabbing into me. I took my attention off of my studies to reply to them, and that made him angry. As soon as he left, I spoke again.

"So what brings you here?" I ask

Kohaku answered, "As you know, your father is sick, and we have an ability synchronization that will allow him to heal up."

I was about to ask more questions but decided that this wasn't something I should dig into as of right now.

"Akiha! It looks like your brother may not be able to take up my mantle due to some unforseen circumstances, so you'll have to replace him!" He yelled angrily.

Filling my head up with stuff like that wasn't good. Days passed, and my resentment for both my father and brother grew further and further, spilling out towards Hisui and Kohaku even.

"No matter what I do, I'm not going to be good enough." I laugh

"Lady Akiha, you should take a break." Hisui stated that as she looked at me, I turned to her, too blinded to even notice that Kohaku wasn't by her side.

"A break... I can't take a break. If I do, then everything will have been for nothing. My blood, sweat, and tears have been put into my training. If I take a break now, my father won't look at me. I'll lose everything!"

I should have known my father wasn't looking at me anyway. It was all about my older brother and himself. Kohaku suffered because of him, and I didn't know about it because I was too blinded by everything. Soon, my hatred would grow more and more as time passed, and I would meet someone I despised more than anything else in the world. At the time my other brother adopted Shiki Tohno.

"Akiha! I want you to meet your new brother, Shiki. I have high hopes for him-"

As soon as I heard that my father had high hopes for him, I drowned him out. All I heard was Shiki and the fact that I was going to be replaced, like it was nothing.

Being cast aside gave me more freedom to do what I wanted. I could finally act like a normal child, but at this point, normal wasn't a concept to me. I was being molded to be the next Makihisa and nothing else. I don't even know who Akiha was at that point.

"Where is Kohaku?" I asked Hisui as we began to play with one another.

"She was summoned to your father's room again." Hisui claimed

Again? This used to be a once-a-week occurrence, and now it's happening daily. She hasn't had much time to herself lately either.

All of a sudden, I stopped playing and sat down in front of the tree. I shouldn't be playing.

I don't really remember much from then other than Shiki coming up to me and extending his hand and asking me if I wanted to play with him. I took his hand and felt warmth, but that was short-lived.

Shiki had been mortally wounded by our other brother and was sent to the Arima household, and I was forcefully shipped to a boarding school. I sent him many letters, but all of them were intercepted by my father on the grounds that Shiki didn't exist, so I shouldn't talk to him ever again.

But that wasn't what broke me.

"Bleugh!" I vomited as I figured out what my father had actually been doing to Kohaku. I felt sick to my stomach and had a mental and physical breakdown, so much so that when my father was murdered and my brother escaped, I could care less.

I took the mantle of the Tohno family finally, much to the dismay of my relatives, but at this point, life could never be the same. Me inviting Nii-san back was an act of defiance. My coldness towards both Hisui and Kohaku was me not knowing how to face them after letting those atrocities happen to them. My failure to even want to pursue Roa was me wanting to forget I even had another brother, and now it's all just the past.

End of Flashback...

"Maybe I should have played the role of the bad guy for you two." I suddenly said

"Eh?" Kohaku said

"Maybe I should have tried to make you actually hate me, so killing me would have made you happy in the end."

"Akiha, why are you saying these things?" Hisui asked

"I don't know if I really have the right to say this, but I love you two, so please listen to my last selfish request. Please don't die on me!" I yell

"Akiha, we won't, and when it is time for the three of us to die, we will go to hell with you!" They said

"Heh, you finally finished saying your limes? Please entertain me more!" Wallachia said

No matter what, this won't be the end...