The wind howls in the night. It was two in the morning and he could not sleep. Seamus had dropped him in Alley 4's council housing where rent was cheaper, instead of Hains as it was closed. But he would be visiting the institution in a couple of hours either way and he needed a place to stay.
The silence of the room was thick enough to suffocate anyone who couldn't stand the weight of it. The moonlight filtered in through the cracked blinds, casting a pale, eerie glow across the sparse space. J stood at the edge of the bed, his eyes heavy, but his movements sharp. His fingers twitched, almost involuntarily, like they were anticipating something just out of reach.
The room was bare, except for a small bed, a chipped wooden chair, and a table littered with papers that didn't matter anymore. No pictures, no personal belongings—just the barest essentials. Everything else had been stripped away. It was how he liked it. Disconnected. Empty. He didn't need anything to anchor him. Not anymore.
His eyes fell on the katana resting against the far wall, wrapped in black cloth, the blade gleaming coldly even in the dim light. A single breath escaped him before he crossed the room and lifted it from its resting place. The weight of it was familiar, comforting even, despite the cold steel. He gripped it with one hand at the hilt, the other resting against the handle, his fingers brushing the smooth surface. His movements were slow, deliberate, as if every motion counted, every breath mattered. His chest rose and fell with calm determination, but beneath that calm was a storm waiting to be unleashed.
The mission. Tomorrow. His first day at Hains Institute, a place where everything would soon descend into chaos, and he would be right at the heart of it. It wasn't just any mission. He was there to watch, to wait, and when the time came, to act. But for now, all he could do was prepare for what was coming. All he could do was remind himself of the darkness that lived inside of him, the kind of darkness that thrived in places like this.
He slid into position, feet planted firmly on the cold wooden floor, the katana raised before him, the tip slightly above the floor. His body was tense, every muscle coiled like a spring ready to snap. The silence felt louder now, like the walls were pressing in, but it didn't matter. He needed this. He needed to be sharp.
A long breath in. He was calm. Cold. Focused.
With a swift motion, he drew the katana from its sheath, the blade singing through the air, clean and smooth. It was the kind of strike that felt effortless, but J knew it wasn't. Every motion had been honed, every technique drilled into him over years of practice. Iaido wasn't just about the sword. It was about the mind, the control, the flow of energy. The world was but a leaf, and the leaf all there was, "...all there was." He whispered. To find the balance in the chaos, and, that was what he needed. Balance. Control.
The blade flashed again, cutting through the empty space with precision, his movements fluid, calculated. Each swing felt like it was pulling him deeper into the moment, deeper into the quiet intensity of the night. His focus was absolute. The world outside the walls of the room ceased to exist for those brief moments. There was only him and the blade.
He stopped suddenly, the katana held just above his head, eyes narrowed. A single breath, deep and slow, before he sheathed it again, the motion deliberate. He felt the weight of the night pressing down on him, a suffocating silence thick with anticipation. Hains Institute would soon be the stage, for the chaos that would follow. But tonight, he was still just a shadow in a room far away from all of it.
He exhaled, low and sharp. There was something grim about it.
"Tomorrow... it starts."
His voice was rough, like the gravel scraping the inside of his throat. His gaze lingered on the blade, its gleam catching the last of the moonlight, as though it were waiting for something. But J wasn't sure what. He didn't care.
Tomorrow wasn't about the people at Hains. It wasn't about the mission. It wasn't even about him. Tomorrow is the beginning that had been building for years, the endless thoughts put into this farce.
He dropped the katana back against the wall, and without a word, went back to the table, flipping through the papers that had been left behind. There were names, dates, orders, but they all felt distant now.
Several names beckoned his attention but he refused them, they weren't a priority.
Picking up a paper, a picture of a dark haired girl.
"Elisa Denaire," he muttered. And put it aside. Getting up, he poured himself some tea.
J stood by the window, the cool breeze whispering through the cracked glass. He stared out at the night, as though trying to find something in the blackness that could give him a hint of what was to come. But there was nothing. Just the empty night, stretched out before him like a canvas waiting to be painted with blood.
He closed his eyes for a moment, the weight of everything pressing down on him. He wasn't afraid. Not of the mission. Not of the people he'd meet tomorrow. But there was a heaviness to it. A burden. A feeling that he couldn't shake, no matter how many times he tried to tell himself it didn't matter.
He sipped the tea, feeling the heat sting his throat. He took another sip, the taste coating his mouth. It was fitting. Surprisingly, bitter to him, like everything in his life. Like the reality of the situation.
"So much needs to be done." He said.
He didn't even know who he was talking to anymore. Himself? The world? His own reflection? He didn't care. He wasn't here to make sense of it. He was here to finish it. To burn the whole thing down.
If the worst did not happen, with God's blessings, he would just live an ordinary life.
He grabbed his coat, pulling it on as he glanced back at the door. It wasn't locked, but he wasn't leaving yet. He wasn't ready. He never would be. The moment he stepped out, it all became real.
He walked over to the bed, sitting down, and stared into the darkness. His hand brushed against the katana once more, as though reaffirming that it was there. Ready.
The moment light floods the skies, he would be readier than ever.
He didn't smile. He didn't even feel relief.
Just that heavy, suffocating sense of inevitability, as he stared into his palms.
His eyes lost, for suddenly, the darkness in the room was absolute, thick enough that it seemed to press against J's skin, coiling around his limbs like something alive. He sat there, motionless, staring at his hands. They were steady, fingers slightly curled, palms open as if they had just released something—or as if they were waiting to catch something that would never fall.
Then, a single drop.
Red. Sticky. Suspended in the blackness before him. It moved in slow motion, thick and sluggish, stretching itself into a thread of crimson before finally breaking free. It fell. Time did not.
For a fraction of a second, the world cracked. And he saw mirages of what he left behind, things that never refused to leave his shoulders.
In those mirages, he found a burning field, fire raging akin to an unsealed monster, racing towards the sky. But then, he was inside an office. Fingerprints of blood on the walls, as if the owner begged to leave.
The curtains. Pale, whispering with the breath of a phantom wind, though the windows were shut. Books stacked haphazardly, their spines broken, their pages yellowed and stained with something that looked too much like rust. Then the letter—half-burnt, curling at the edges, ink bleeding where fire had licked it.
"There are no heathens. For it is I—"
Then it was gone.
J's breath was sharp, clipped, the ghost of it barely audible in the quiet. He blinked, once, twice, but the image was already fading, slipping back into the void where it belonged. His hands still rested before him, but now the weight of memory made them foreign, like they weren't his anymore.
A tremor ghosted across his fingers. He curled them into fists.
"Fuck this."
His voice was gravel, cracked and dry. The words weren't directed at anything or anyone. Maybe at the darkness. Maybe at himself.
He exhaled sharply, dragging his hands down his face, palms pressing into his eyes until the pressure burned. It didn't do shit. The red was still there, lingering at the edges of his vision, waiting for him to slip, to let it crawl back in.
"Not tonight."
J let his hands drop to his lap. The weight in his chest hadn't lessened. It never did. But he didn't move. Didn't reach for the katana, the books, the letter. Didn't bother chasing the ghost of what he saw. It would come back. It always did.
And next time, he'd pretend it wasn't there.