[BLUEROSE]

The forests of Sheng whisper in the bones of the trees.

They have not forgotten. They will not.

My name slithers through their roots,

a vein split open, bleeding into temples and skulls.

Jiuweiyo Shiranui. Ninetails. Destined to the Illuminated.

The number nine carved into the marrow of my fate.

--

They bowed. They turned away.

"A pure ninetails could do no evil," they said.

And I walked through their reverence like a knife.

The incense stink clung to me.

Sanctuaries reeked of it. Secrets shoved into my hands,

missions whispered to me behind closed doors.

It made me pure. Even when I wasn't. Especially when I wasn't.

--

The path did not fit. It never fit.

I stepped aside, and the world hissed.

You must offer mercy. Kindness.

Some are unworthy. Others beg.

But me? No one ever asked what I wanted.

--

But I gave them everything.

Bled. Burned. Smiled for no one.

And even before a dying God, I stood-

its carcass split open, a demon feeding on divinity.

When I tried to halt the false peace,

the sky refused to break,

the earth refused to move.

Nothing.

--

"You're not spreading harmony."

"You're wrong."

"You're hurting others."

Their words thud against my chest like dead birds.

Rotting in the snow. Meaningless.

--
Motives?

Not for them. Never for them.

They are for the rare ones.

Those who see brilliance and ruin and know they are a pair.

The average-minded cannot hear it.

Why explain to deaf ears, after all?

--

And yet...

disappointment gnaws the edges of my lips.

It is... metallic. Bitter.

That those closest to me refused to understand,

that was the sharpest knife.

--

They spoke:

"Not satisfied with being the one-in-a-million... you chased sin."

"You can achieve anything, little star."

"I was wrong. I thought you did it for the world."
"You did it for yourself. You get off from it."

--

They weren't wrong.

The spotlight was carved into your ribs.

You were born in it. We were raised in it.

And we never left it. We never changed.
You never changed.

--

You did it for yourself, Jiuweiyo.

For that flame in your chest that would not die.

For the inferno that spread across your veins.

Your ego. Your spark.

--

The winner takes it all.