Soul † Sakura

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Volume II: Light of the Cradle

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Part One: Kindred Spirits

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† Chapter One: All the Same †

WHAT FOOLS THEY ARE. They don't see it, but I do, because I am the observer, bearing witness to the human deeds they have committed since the earliest rays of the dawn.

I was there to behold their unwise choices and laugh at them. Some say that I am the root of the evil in the heart of men that has misguided them for countless ages. It makes no difference where the blame is placed. In the end, the results are the same. No one soul understands this truth better than I.

Though I have repeated this process of life, death, and rebirth for many centuries, I must admit that each and every time that I am roused from the silence of utter darkness, I am not always certain as to what to expect.

There is one thing I have grown certain of, however. The world, no matter what decade, never changes. Regardless of the typewriters, automobiles, and vaccines, humans remain the same. I suppose they always will . . .

And when I open my eyes for the first time and touch the outside world, I am always left with a sour tang on the tip of my tongue and a foul, sewer aftertaste in my throat.

Humans disgust me, like that sewer aftertaste. It fills my mouth like bile and I can't cleanse myself of it, no matter how hard I try. I am forced to live among them. There is no other way to achieve my goal without doing so. If there was some other avenue, I would have already crossed that path long ago.

But that isn't where I began. That isn't the choice I was given. So, that leads me to the question, where to begin? What about with my Sakura?

I almost pity her naiveté. She honestly believes that she will be different from all the other Kimi women, but that's what they all believe in the beginning. In reality, she is no different from her aunt, who was no different from her mother, who was no different from her sister.

They are all the same in mind, sometimes body, and spirit, stemming from the identical origin that is me. They cannot lift a hand against me; I am inborn, the blood that courses through their veins. Emptying their capillaries of me will not change one damned thing.

And to some degree, I almost wish it could.