By now Shigure didn't bother counting the wounds
His skin had become a journal
Every scar a memory
Every bruise a sentence he couldn't erase
He sat in a broken bathtub in some abandoned apartment
Rain leaking through the shattered ceiling above
The water was cold
His blood made it darker by the second
He didn't bandage the cuts
Didn't reach for medicine
What was the point
They'd open again tomorrow anyway
He stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror across the room
It didn't look human anymore
Eyes too hollow
Jaw too tight
There was no light left in them
The city didn't break him all at once
It broke him slowly
Kindly
Like it wanted him to feel every snap of his soul
Someone knocked on the door
He didn't answer
Another knock
Then silence
Then a whisper
"I know what you are"
The voice was small
Childish
Terrified
He stood and walked barefoot across glass to the door
Opened it slowly
A girl stood there with one eye covered in bandages
Maybe ten
Maybe less
"You're the one who doesn't die right"
He didn't answer
She stepped closer
Held up something small in her hand
A music box
Not his
But exactly the same
"Make it play again" she said
Like he had the power to fix broken things
He stared at it
Then at her
"You should go" he muttered
"I'm not someone you should look up to"
"I don't" she said
"I just don't want to forget him"
He closed the door
Behind it he trembled
Not from fear
Not from pain
But because for the first time in weeks
Someone saw the soul behind the scars
And that hurt worse than all the rest