Kunikuzushi

There was a thrill in watching the weak squirm under his feet. Watching them crawl around and beg for his attention like maggots on a rotting corpse, crowding and fighting around for putrescent meat. It was fun to watch nobles destroy themselves in their petty sense of rivalry with one another.

Human greed had no depths. It was an endless void that could consume one whole. To the commoners who had nothing, and to the nobles who had everything. How fickle, to find pleasure in materialistic things. Gold, jewels, the finest silk and the heartiest feasts. As such, they wanted more.

It was strange to think that it was the possession of such desires that placed one human above another. He always wondered why nobles were “nobles,” why commoners were just “commoners.” Because to him, they were all the same. They were all beneath him. This entire empire was cradled in the palm of his hand, capable of being crushed at any time.

Famine, inflation, diseases and crime. He was aware of it all, of everything that went down in the streets that he governed. But why interfere? Only the fittest survive. It was either kill or be killed, no more and no less. People would argue that he was turning a blind eye to the suffering of his people, but he begged to differ.

His eyes paid attention to their suffering, to their sorrows and their misery. But why go out of his way to help them when they’ll just be crushed later? It’s either they survive these challenges and live on with strife, or they die in pathetic heaps that will forever be forgotten in the end.

“A tyrant emperor.” They called him, but he wore it as a badge of honour.

---

He knew this was how it would end for him. He knew this was his fate. For only the strongest survive, and he vowed that whoever had the power to overthrow him, he would willingly comply. So, on his knees, at the end of one’s blade, his lips tugged into a satisfied smile, eyes blank with no light as he stared at the hold of the blade.

“I’m impressed, truly.” He chuckled, somehow still regal in his defeat. “To gain the trust of the weak and turn them into strength for yourself to use.”

A rebellion to overthrow the tyrant emperor, to free this country of the man who plagued it all. The blade pressed closer to his porcelain skin, drawing a line of red to coat the edge. Your fierce glare and rigid composure, even in the face of bloodshed. He found himself admiring this newcomer, whom he’d never met. This survivor among the fools he relentlessly tormented.

The blankness in his eyes disappeared, your reflection finally clear in midnight blue. “Do you have the strength to end this once and for all?”