Title: Promises

Author: Ice-Cool
Rating: M
Warnings: Extreme violence and swearing. Very gory.
Summary: In a world with no morals, survival is the key. Can Kaoru get out alive? Can she save Battousai? BK
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me… how sad.

xxxx

Never trust anyone. That's a lesson I thought I'd fucking learnt when I was still a kid.

I raise one blood-smeared hand to push my hair out of my face. Everything is covered in blood. Tables and chairs are in pieces. Glass lies shattered everywhere.

My breath comes in sobbing gasps but I barely notice. My ears are still ringing and the quiet is terrifying. No, I'm wrong. It's not silent. The choked groans and gasps of dying people surround me. I whimper as I gather his battered body closer. I hug him desperately, as if my will alone can make him stay.

You promised.

I can taste the metallic tang of blood as I bury my face in his neck. It's overwhelming, the scent. The scent of blood – of death – is nothing new. But this time, this time he's the one who's dying.

Battousai, you can't…You stupid motherfucker! Don't you DARE die.

My hands slip as I try to stop the blood flowing. But there are too many wounds, too many bullet holes.

I'm always surprised when I see his blood. I forget that his blood is just as red as the blood of those he kills. It seems like it should be black, as black as his eyes, as black as his soul.

He hasn't spoken for so long now. I swallow the scream threatening to erupt. This isn't the first time I've seen death.

xxxx

My first glimpse of a violent death was when I was nine. It was a knife fight in a back alley. I was hiding in the shadows. The man who died was left with blood pouring from the jagged slash across his throat and his guts hanging out. It was my father.

What I remember most is the amount of blood, litres of the stuff, puddled everywhere. Yet he was still feebly moving. I remember thinking there was never this much blood in the movies. So much blood, I could have drowned in it.

I've seen Battousai kill more people than I can bother to count. He started as a bounty hunter. Now he just kills for money.

I've seen him crush a man's foot, the bones shattering with a wet crunch. It looked like a boneless flipper.

I've seen him rip off the arm of a man who tried to shoot me. The guy shrieked as his arm was pulled – the flesh stretching and tearing – pulled until the last bloody threads snapped. Blood sprayed my face even five metres away.

There's a reason they dubbed him Battousai the Manslayer.

And on my eighteenth birthday I killed a man for the first time. The feeling of blood between your fingers, seeping and trailing down to your elbows, wasn't as disturbing as I thought it would be. Knife fights are always personal and messy.

xxxx

This was meant to be easy. The job was already done; all we needed to do was to get paid. We just needed to get paid.

That sonavabitch double-crossed us! Asshole!

No one betrays Battousai, because he'll rip you in half if you do. He used to say that he only had two rules: never betray me, and never touch my girl. Stupid bastard, he's always so overprotective.

How the fuck are you gonna protect me if you're dead? You promised, Battousai.

xxxx

Promise is almost a dirty word to Battousai. He said it's because everyone who ever made him a promise always lied. He said he'd never do that.

He doesn't remember who his parents were, all he's ever known is the streets. No one ever wanted to keep him, even as a kid. After a few months he'd either run away or they'd kick him out bloody and bruised.

He doesn't even remember his real name. I don't know how he got the name Battousai. I heard it was because he used to sleep with a sword. But I also heard it was because of his crazy moods. The least little thing would set him off. Whatever. The streets are enough to make anyone crazy.

When you're alone on the street you can't ever be weak. You gotta fight for every minute you're alive. And if you're lucky, if you're strong, maybe, just maybe you survive.

Battousai would say the worst thing wasn't the blood and pain, it wasn't the mind-fuck of drugs, it wasn't even jail, it was having nothing.

No family.

No one.

Being.

Utterly.

Alone.

Sometimes he stares at me so fiercely it's terrifying, like if he looks away for one second I'll be gone. Like everything about me is a dream. He's almost afraid to touch me then. But when he does he grabs me so hard it leaves bruises. I don't mind, because that way I know he's real. That he's alive. That I'm alive.

xxxx

I can't just sit here doing nothing.

I need to get Battousai out of here.

I need to get out of here.

How the fuck am I meant to carry you Battousai?

Groaning is good right? I mean, it means he's still alive right? Shit, I can't stop laughing, all this blood is good for something. It's making things slippery so it's easy to drag him. I need to get help. This is not going to be my last memory of him.

xxxx

Battousai told me that he fell in love with me the moment he saw me. I told him to fuck off. The first time he saw me I had a black eye, a bloody lip and I was grinding some guy's face into the ground, while his friend lay whimpering and clutching his balls. They thought I'd be an easy lay.

From then on he always seemed to be lurking around. Sometimes he'd talk to me, other times he just seemed to watch me. After a while we became friends. I began to look for him and follow him when he let me.

Sometimes he used to drive me crazy. He'd sulk and get angry at me for no reason and then he'd frighten all my friends away. One time, he broke the arm of this guy who was hitting on me.

Battousai is one of the most fucked-up, psychotic-crazy people I've ever met. He's also incredibly shy. It's so pathetic it's cute. I knew he loved me, that's why he'd get jealous. So I just didn't get why he didn't pull any moves. We hung out for thirteen months before I finally just jumped him. Whoever thinks sex is pretty is insane. There's nothing pretty about it, it's all about grunts and groans and sweat-slicked bodies as they desperately thrust against each other. It's crude, it's hot and it's gritty. It can also be loud, but what can I say, I'm a screamer.

I always knew who – what – Battousai was.

Psycho. Murderer. Sinner.

I didn't care. Death is a part of life. Killing was a part of his life. That's it, nothing more, nothing less.

He never went alone on hits. And one day he took me with him. It was only later that I found out his partner was dead. He'd shot himself in the head.

I didn't mind coming with him. It's not like I was afraid to die. Battousai promised to protect me. I laughed in his face when he said that.

xxxx

I can no longer tell whether he's stopped bleeding, there's just so much of it soaked everywhere. I don't know if it's his blood or everyone else's. Fuck, I don't even know if I'm hurt or not.

I don't know what to do. Someone tell me what to do. I don't know when I started crying. Hell, I don't know if I ever stopped.

xxxx

My dad never kept any of his promises to me. It was only ever him, me and my little brother. My brother was sick so dad was always out working for money. He was working when he got himself killed. Mum died having my brother, so we had to leave and live with my uncle.

Perverted sick freak.

He had a thing for little girls. I kept dad's knife with me. After I nearly sliced his finger off for coming into my room one night he left me alone. More or less. He'd still watch me sometimes. I would have left, but I wasn't gonna leave my brother alone and he was too sick to survive on the streets. He died though. I was fifteen. So I left.

xxxx

My father used to say that finding the one you love most is all that matters in life.

Well FUCK that!

I've found the one I love the most, and I'm watching him die. What the hell possesses us to look for love? To leave yourself open to that kind of pain? We're better off alone! Why the hell don't people stay alone? Let's face it, people are masochists in the end. Loving someone is like playing Russian roulette.

No matter what people say, you can never trust them. No matter what they say they'll always disappoint you.

You promised, Battousai. You promised to never leave me…