if i lose myself tonight

For a long moment Hati was completely occupied with just breathing, his body shaking with reaction. That his fractured mind had conjured Akemi's face when he attacked the pale silver girl did more than startle him, it terrified him. Were the waking nightmares not bad enough, without involving the one person in the world who somehow miraculously loved him?

He hadn't noticed Sucre's heroics, hadn't noticed Twig's slow recovery, so wrapped up in his own problems was he. But something suddenly clicked shut in his mind as he shoved the shock and fear and nightmarish agony into the back of his mind, as though he were locking it in a box, and his body once more relaxed into the lines of his surly, irritable self. That's when he noticed the smallest intruder huddled behind her sister and the red-eyed male. He eyed her haughtily for a second, then demanded, "Now what the hell is her problem?" His voice was filled with disgust. "Didn't even fucking bite her. Some people have no backbone."

He got heavily to his feet. "Do whatever the hell you want, just shut her up before I have to do it." His entire manner was different, the fearful memories suppressed again for now and the rage barely coiling around him, like a poison fog in his soul. If one didn't know better they might think it a different personality entirely, they might think he was entirely insane and well... they'd be a bit right - but they didn't feel the memories straining against his blocks the way he did.



"Speech"

the sins of our father, the sins of our young