Choices
by Michael Treiber

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‘Oh God…’ I couldn’t help the traitorous thought as Himitsu led Paige and I into the weapons room. ‘What am I doing?’ I had never taking a single class on martial arts, never even played at sword fighting as a boy, and here I was trying to choose the particular piece of sharpened steel that would stand between Paige, me, and whatever else this damned, accursed journey threw at us.

And then I saw it. Akui. Malice. Slowly lifting the sword and drawing it from its sheath, I was half surprised that the blade was clean silver and not red, stained with all the lives that Shou Morigami had taken with it.

This though… this was honesty. Akui had never tried to be anything else. Shou had never tried to claim that he used it to bring peace, or protect his loved ones. This was a tool for killing men. Nothing less, nothing more.

Or was it? Maybe it was a choice. There were quarterstaffs and other less than lethal weapons lining the wall. Why choose Malice?

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” I heard Paige’s voice cut through my inner monologue.

As soon as the words registered, something within me twisted, and the blade was flashing through the air in a rising underhanded slash that I suddenly knew was taught to Shou as Parting the Reeds.

“Seems like I do.” I replied to her question, trying to hide my own doubt as to whether or not this was the weapon for me. After all, Shou had been a monster. A bloodthirsty beast. He had killed everyone before him, and destroyed everyone behind him. The way he had used his sister…

But really, was I any different?

My first wish, my first chance to reshape reality as I saw fit, and what did I ask for? To never see my family again. I didn’t know how the wishes worked. For all I know, whatever force was granting them could have simply followed the letter of the wish, banishing them into the outer darkness where no one would have ever seen them again. Yes, they were horrible people, but far too many families are.

I didn’t care how it happened, I just wanted them gone. And so I wished. Would I even have felt bad if they had been destroyed by the wish? It chilled me to the core that I didn’t know.

So really, what separated me from Shou Morigami? A lack of opportunity? A twist of fate that kept my actions from killing anyone?

‘Yeah…’ I thought as I slung Malice over my back. ‘This blade was meant for me.’

After all, like ancient father like distant son, right?



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this stuff waaaaaay down here is just for this stupid table to align right! God I hate it when code is buggy and you have no idea what the hell is wrong, but you know there's some logic to it, but you take the easy way out. This is easy for me.