The Impressions that Show Us

Kai found himself in the park using his newly acquired Tanto to carefully slice his skin apart so as to let the black threads out in more places in his body than just his arm. He had recently acquired some extremely fascinating books on the human body, one about where the tenketsu were and what made up the body of a human being. Another one was about the differing bloodlines and what could be done with something called transplants and the warnings about becoming something you’re not was only more alluring to him. ”Well what d’ya know, I can just pick out people’s organs and just pop’m on in. Or, no, I can only do that with hearts? Why hearts?” he pondered to himself as he checked in between his books, his notes, his plans.

”Oh because that’s where the element lives, okay. Oh.” Kai chuckled to himself. Perhaps his favorite thing about books, reading, learning, was taking the new ideas and letting his mind run wild with them. He imagined many differing scenarios where he obtained hearts, perhaps from the black market, organs are bought and sold just like anything else. The alternative would be to kill them and to simply rip it out of their body, no medical assistance was required when it came to the heart, the threads knew this organ like no other.

Something occurred to him, shouldn’t he feel bad about this? He knew in this world it would always be a struggle to survive, but he was also taught the sacredness of human life and not to desecrate them after death. But when the visions of his veins seeping out to take from others to add to himself, he couldn't help but feel like it was the right thing to do. Not morally, but that this was the proper way for him to be, that this was how he was going to survive, to thrive! Memories were surfacing, monstrous scenarios where he had to fight to survive, chose to murder when it could have been avoided, and with it came a mix of intense guilt and pleasure.

He had to snap himself back to reality, his emotions were intertwining too heavily with the fantasies of the strategic mind he developed. The threads were a tool that he could use. They were him, and he had to use himself. He took a deep breath and reached for his favorite jar of grass.

---

EXIT / TWC: 411: