hakuoki | Wet, Black Boughs | Okita

[kitsuneasika.livejournal.com]

Title: Wet, Black Boughs
Focus: Okita
Wordcount: 107
Summary: He is a weapon, and death is his art.
Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership over Hakuoki.
Notes: I've been waffling back and forth over posting this for a few weeks now. On one hand, I really, really love Hakuoki and think it needs a lot more fic out there. On the other hand... this isn't exactly a unique idea, and was mainly written just to get the words out of my head. Finally, I decided that I would post this, but I wouldn't crosspost it.

The title is from Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro, but the poem itself has nothing to do with the drabble. I actually chose it due to the sound of the words.

Wet, Black Boughs
Okita is a weapon, and death is his art.

Too many have met their death at the end of his blade, and he himself has stared death in the eyes far too many times for it to be unfamiliar to him. He can no longer remember how many times he's killed, how many times he has smelled the coppery-tang of blood.

Killing is as simple as breathing.

But when he coughs up those first, thick copper splatters of blood, Okita feels the faint, unfamiliar trickle of fear creep into his body.

He is a weapon, but this is one enemy he does not know how to face.