The Raven's Curse

Chapter Twelve

(Y/n) never thought she would cry that evening. Her soul was a little shattered. She stood proudly, yet her face was red and tears poured like a leaking dam. It all began with Kiku's question.

"I want to know, why do you hate me?" he asked seriously.

"Now why would I answer that?!" (Y/n) retorted. She wasn't about to surrender.

"So that I could fix things."

The athmosphere was dead silence. They stared into each others eyes, (y/n) with disbelief while Kiku with determination. (Y/n) thought he was being ridiculous. How could he fix something that had long already happened? He couldn't change the past, he couldn't fix the mistakes of his soldiers. More importantly, he couldn't bring back her grandfather.

"What makes you think you could fix things?" her voice hardened with a deadpan expression.

"If we" he quickly chose his words carefully and calmly, he knew her pillar of pride would colapse soon. This must be a very sensitive subject to her. "don't talk about it, our problems will go nowhere without even the slightest solution." he couldn't believe he was saying this. All these times he believed discussions lead to nowhere. But in this case, it was the total opposite. His three months' observation proved that.

(Y/n) laughed mockingly. This quiet man wanted to discuss? How diplomatic. "Right! You and your discussions." She turned around to leave.

"Atleast I didn't lashed out my anger blindly just to defend my stuck up ego." he said quietly, but enough to had reached her ears.

(Y/n) stopped dead on her tracks. Supressing the urge to punch that smart mouth of his. She turned once again to face him. 

"Fine. Fine! You want to know why I hated you? Because all of you japanese people are just the same. Cold hearted soldiers. I understood that your soldiers would do anything to protect yourself, but what they did during the war, is monstrous."

Kiku realised this had to do with the second World War. But what did it had to do with her? He remained calm, there was more to this story.

"My grandfather, served greatly during the final year of World War 2." when mentioned her grandfather, tears started to well up as she remembered reading her late grandmother's journal together with old letters sent by her grandfather's friends in the army. "and he was the bravest person I'd ever known even though I never met him. And whose fault was it? You ofcourse. You and your bloody soldiers! My grandfather was just a young teenage soldier at that time, insisted on serving the country when he could have proceeded his duties as the next Marquess. And a soon father to be. He married quite at an early age for your information. They were ambushed when they were stationed in that small island, Okinawa. And guess what, he was caught. So I guess your soldiers found entertainment and pride in presenting his head to their high ranked officers and sending the platoon back, a headless corpse as a warning!"

Kiku was dead quiet. His exterior remained calm but inside, his soul was filled with regret. So it was (y/n)'s grandfather. Kiku was there, so it was no lie that it happened. During that time, he went to checked on his platoon at Okinawa for a few days. They received information from their spies that the British Army had landed on the small island. He agreed with the officer's plan to ambush them. But he didn't expect his soldiers to do something so heartless. The soldiers did managed to bring back victory, but that was not the only thing they brought. They had brought the chopped off head of their enemy's army, claiming it as a sign of victory. The officer incharged was very delightful of the matter. They even joked about it. Kiku felt extremely ashamed of his soldiers. What ever happened to their civilised manner? But there was nothing he could do about it, his superior at that time was a cruel man. He was forced to stay silent as the shame slowly ate him inside. He forgot about it after the war, but apparently (y/n) did not.