❝ㅤi wanted to be kept hidden in the darkness that rendered me invisible. because i couldn't bear the thought of being seen.ㅤ❞

†

———Perhaps the best way to describe Shinsuke is unnerving.From his sharp stare, down to his blunt honesty and seemingly no-nonsense behaviour, many are easily intimidated just by his presence alone. Shinsuke lives by the idea that he is built from all the small things he does.He does not believe in gods or a higher power, that everything he does is first and foremost for his own betterment and satisfaction.Most would think that he is content with life, but Shinsuke Kita is still man, after all.Somewhere, deep in his own person, lies a hunger for more.For what, not even he can admit it to himself. But until he can sate the famine of his body and soul, he continues to work hard. To work until there was no more work to be done. To exist until there was nothing to exist for. Not dreaming of ‘what ifs’, or of ‘is there more’, or rather ‘what does it mean to dream’.Those are questions for someone else, someone destined for glory. Not him.He dares not to dream any longer.

❝ㅤFor there is always someone watching and waiting.ㅤ❞

ㅤabilitiesㅤㅤWithin the confines of any bodies of water, Shinsuke returns to the form given to him by the sea: two legs become one limb, the same colour of nacre - nigh endless prismatic colours that reflect sunlight and ocean hues; the carnal manifestation of his bloodline becomes apparent in his sharpened features - eyes glinting like daggers, teeth razor-sharp.The dichotomy of his appearance between land and sea is more apparent the more time he spends within the water. If Shinsuke were to spend days within the depths of the ocean, especially, it would seem like his own sirenic bloodline was reclaiming his body; contorting his mortal flesh into that of a creature only told in stories, found within the nightmares of sailors and pirates alike.And like those almost forgotten legends, Shinsuke's voice is a mystery; there is no denying the hint of magic in his voice. Every person that's heard him sing has said the same: it's almost... mystical, hypnotic and frightening when you shake free of his song's spell, almost as if coming back form a trance.A voice that has drowned men and women alike, lulling them from the safety of their ships, and into the cold embrace of the darkness below.

❝ㅤif there truly is someone watching, why do they not appear when i need them most?ㅤ❞

ㅤhistoryㅤㅤWhat is it that we know of shadows? Creeping, crawling madness; secrets and mystery twine into endless black, often feared for their unknown; an endless abyss that no one can hold. It is a strange thing, these shadows are, but perhaps it’s why Shinsuke has come to find comfort in the darkness. Here, in their steadfast embrace at the dead of night, is where true peace lays for him. A place untouched by the rest of the world.Where did this love of the shadows come from? Shinsuke would give no answer if asked. Not one that could be shared easily, that is. Shinsuke has already accepted that it would be a tale lost to time, only living in greyscale memories and be like the fleeting wind. The only witness left to such history is him, and him alone.Once, Shinsuke was a child of summer, born on the outskirts of Inarizaki’s domain, under the careful eye of the Fox God’s many idols. His earliest memories are the songs of another unnamed god and their unconditional love, while being cradled to sleep in the warmth of his grandmother.At six summers old that Shinsuke discovers who that unnamed god is — what kind of god it is for himself. It is hard work, a deity of lowly status, but Shinsuke has placed all his faith in the work that he has done, until it is that it has become intricately woven into his person. Until the rice season is no longer a chore but his mantra. Until the farmland is not a place to run across from and instead grown golden stalks as proof of his faith.

His childhood passed by as vignettes: every spring filled with the echo of laughter in his family home; summers spent running across the golden acres of rice with his sister dragging him through the crop; memories of autumn blessed with new wisdom bestowed by his grandmother; and the long winter days passed by with self-reflection, if not daydreaming about the next harvest.His world was that something-acres of land under his grandmother's name.He was content with that. He would have lived as nothing more than a boy. Alas, life was never so kind.Perhaps this was the will of the Fox God, telling him that he was not deserving of such a simple life. Perhaps the Fox God had seen him pray to another such being that made Shinsuke earn His ire and cast him aside. For at the age of twelve, all that Shinsuke has ever known was ripped away from him within a single night.Fire swallowed his home. The burning lights too much for a boy barely learning the ways of the world. Too much, everything was far too much; Shinsuke was blinded by the raging sight before him, swallowing everything that he’s ever held dear.Shinsuke was the lone survivor of the fire. With no home, no place to return to, he was instead pulled from the ashes and brought into the castle walls. It was not for charity that he was brought here. Nay, he would be put to work, used as the kingdom would see fit, and the city was in need of new swords to protect its people.

Thus came the end of the boy of summer’s story. Thus began the tale of a man, whose tools for harvest were changed for daggers.Instead of perfecting the ways of the dirt, Shinsuke spent day in and day out refining the art of flaying flesh as if he were just flaying a boar.His routine was no longer centered around lush flora in the sun’s embrace, but began instead in the dead of night in back alleys of Inarizaki said to be tainted by all humanity’s greatest sins.His work no longer involved splitting wood open, and was instead tasked with delivering judgement to whosoever his owner would point their finger to.Blood was no longer a stranger by the time he was of eighteen summers. The light became too much for him to even stand in. Wisps of fire reminded him of what he had lost, what once was his. He does not dare live in the warmth of day.Instead, every night, he dragged himself through the mud and the debris and the corpses he piled in the name of the Kingdom, escaping into the darkest corners of Inarizaki.Shinsuke was already forsaken by God, and like those forgotten, he fades into the cover of shadows, never to be found, never to be known.This was the only peace he has left. This was all that kept him sane, that held the threads of his broken self until God decided his life was forfeit.

❝ㅤi exist, that is all,
and i find it nauseating.ㅤ❞

†

Often, during his missions, Shinsuke would find himself remembering the words of his grandmother. They hang above his head like Death’s Scythe. A reminder of a fate that none could ever hope to escape. An inevitable solace that Shinsuke brings others closer to. Sometimes, his grandmother’s voice is so clear in his mind, sometimes he wonders if she has become Death herself.“Every living being must eat,” he still remembers his grandmother’s words every time his dagger unsheathes.“We must eat if we want to see another day. It is our fate as man. But you cannot eat more than what can fill your stomach, Shinsuke.”This too, he remembers all too well. The sound of her knife drowns out the drag of his blade through flesh. Ichor flows in an unforgiving river, down the target’s neck. The poor man had barely any time to cry. But Shinsuke never allowed himself to listen to their final words, their last breaths, or their desperate pleas to live.Pity was an emotion long since burned from him. Instead, he listens to a memory. That of a soft melody made from dancing metal, in that tiny kitchen in his childhood home. The one thing that grounded him, as much as it haunted him.One of the clearest memories have always been in front of the fireplace, sitting on the dining room chairs as she cut away with Shinsuke by her side.“To be a glutton is considered a great sin.”This was a lesson his grandmother often told him, sitting together in that room whenever she had animal game to serve for supper. The last one was a boar.The same meat he now prepares in the silence of his room with no one to sit next to him.

He remembers the curve of her knife. Well-taken care of, with a shimmer like starlight, dragging its edge through the flesh of the pomegranate she grows every winter.She scores each rib with careful precision, the one thing that Shinsuke had learned from her when he began the art of cutting. It does not bleed like how Omimi complained about it the few times he had tried, or how it stained Aran’s white shirt red and its juice dripping down, down, down the length of the old rusted blade he swore was still okay.She does it cleanly, methodically, and gracefully. Just as she’s always done everything. Just as she had done right up until Shinsuke could finally cut his own fruit and hunt his own deers and boars and the knife was an extension of himself rather than a tool, until it is he has learned to be just as clean, as methodical, as graceful in his cuts, until it is he does it more for the satisfaction rather than the fear of who could see.But that was ages before. Now, it is Shinsuke who has become the dagger. Now, he was the tool wielded by another. Now, it is not the blood of animals he bathes in, but the sons and daughters of this wretched country.“Take what you need, never in excess, and never forget the life that has made yours longer. For you never know who is waiting and watching.”Yet grandmother, there is only me here, he thinks to himself all on his lonesome, dressed in blood and standing over another carcass.There is no one there to watch him when he cleans the blood from his hands and scrubs the dirt from underneath his nails. There is no one around to see him stew the boar and prep the skin for leather. There is no one but him and the all-consuming loneliness of the kingdom walls and the shadows. There is no one he could serve the boar’s purpose to as he has been taught.There is no one to feed save for his lonesome. Perhaps maybe the ghost of a long forgotten past, but Shinsuke does not allow himself that grace.There is only Shinsuke, all alone, with none of that sweet fruit to eat.Instead, there was only the one too many serving of bitter soup. But that was not company; it was just the unfortunate truth that Shinsuke truly has no one.

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