[WARNING: Do not read beyond this point until you've read all of the edited chapters. (As of this moment, up until Attempt 09.5.) This chapter may contain references from those aforementioned segments, and as such you'll have to read them first to understand.]
:: Attempt 21 | Paint You Wings (Unedited) ::
"I painted a picture of the things I wanted most,
To color in the darker side of all my brightest hopes.
But there's a monster standing where you should be;
So I'll paint you wings (I'll paint you wings),
Now I'll set you free (I'll set you free)."
- "Paint You Wings" by All Time Low
x + x
[Location: A familiar hotel; Okinawa, Japan.]
"What..?"
He stares; his jaw going slack, lips parted as he exhales the word in the midst of a disbelieving breath, his only, evident eye wide with surprise, quickly turning to the usual facade of apathy. "But-- Father-- you mean to say..?" He shakes his head, incomprehensible murmurs escaping his mouth, barreling up from his clogged throat.
"Shino," his adoptive father says calmly - too calmly, in fact. "This is for the best. You know of that day, don't you?"
It isn't a question - it is a nearly inaudible plea, tinged with the regret and the guilt he knows the red-haired man has always carried but has kept under wraps. It is the unheard cry of a man who is barely keeping himself together, who cannot reach out to his own, flesh-and-blood daughter out of the awareness that there are prying eyes who have always been watching him, keen ears which can hear his every word, and tattling tongues which can report of his movements to those he has been wary about since the very beginning.
It is in the silence that follows, thick with tension, that Shinobu exhales slowly once again, breaking the standstill as his gaze looks into his mentor and benefactor's eyes, meeting the azure oculars with his single brown eye which so reminds the redhead of the man he has never forgotten - nor he ever would. It is in this same silence, holding back the wave of emotion he has learned to stifle, to hide almost as seamlessly as this man before him, that his reply comes forth - gushing from between his lips, the lower of which he has unconsciously been biting in an almost subconscious bout of trepidation.
"You want me to watch over my sister," he says, and Sousuke nods, the slightest glimmer of relief in his eyes before he turns away. "So that nothing--" he falters, the unspoken words damning his ability to be forthright with the truth he is certain that is nearly common knowledge with those who know her best. So that nothing of harm can come to her. So that she won't attempt to take her own life. He knows it, and he is damn well sure that their father knows it as well - again, too well. The man has an uncanny mindset to be aware of everything - even those which are dreadful to behold. It is likely to assume that Sousuke would be most aware of those; as in this business, no pair of hands can remain clean for long. "So that she can complete her mission." He replies instead, as aware as the redhead is of the spies.
There are many, all around them - the 'unity' of the organization merely a fallacy that this man before him has woven to keep his authority.
"That is correct." He says the words firmly, succinctly, yet the look in the azure irises tell the truth - "I'm glad you understand."
YOU ARE READING
Eyes of Azure | Assassination Classroom
Fanfiction[OFFICIALLY DISCONTINUED AS OF AUGUST 4TH, 2017.] x + x "I promised to be by your side, even if you want me to go." She is no one - and she must be, for nobody must notice a killer before they strike. She is a monster - and she knows that she is one...
