Boiling Water

“You cannot see your reflection in boiling water.”

I was once approached by a troubled man. He was eager to live a good life, but struggled to control his anger.

Try as he might to push his anger down and control it, he was prone to outbursts. Daily, he would keep his rage at bay for long enough to live out the day time but by the time the sun set, his anger would take over.

And he would become the very man he did not wish to be.

I showed him a pot of water as it sat on the stove.

‘When it is clear and still, you can see yourself clearly. I can even heat the water without causing it to bubble. It will reflect who you are.

All that will be there is the bubbling water.’

Such it is with anger, so to is it with your secret, Kaine Knightlord.

You desperately try to clutch onto that remaining half of your humanity, holding onto that which is good and just. In the process, you push down the darker side of yourself. You repress that which is unnatural.

But try as you might each day, by night that darkness still bubbles over and pours out of you. That inhuman side is still there, and just like the troubled man’s anger… it needs feeding.

You force yourself to keep yourself hidden, like putting the lid on its pot. You feed it just enough to stop the hunger taking over, but the water is always bubbling away under the surface.

A daily battle to stop those waters simmering, and yet those waters still boil. That human side of you remains clouded in the waters.

Afraid of what would happen if the pot should boil over.

You’d become the very monster you try to hide.

Is that what Lucy is to you, vampire?

Another who you seek to show your ways, to force the lid on the pot in the hopes that squashing it away will stop the water bubbling.

But it only makes the boiling stronger.

You’ll never be rid of that which lies within you.

Neither will she.

And you can chase me, blame me and investigate my past for all eternity but it will not change that, your half-existence is your fate. Your water will continue to boil, for there can be no rest within your soul.

You see the same monster within Tenchu. That which is locked to the date of his past, unchangeable.

I see it differently.

A relic of the Odawara, evolving and developing. Unlike your kind, I can show him the path back to honour.

To restore the name of his clan.

My water is clear.

I see who I am, that who I will continue to be.

Yours is boiling.

Turn down the heat of your investigation before it boils over.