The Life I Could Have Lived [P/L]

"We've never been here before."

".  . . Yet I feel like I know this place."

Kaseki looked forward, his hand holding the small wrist of the boy. The both of them would be staring into the fogged mystery of a long forgotten village. Dead bodies, or at least what remained of them after so many eons, littered the village. Buildings were burnt, or falling apart. There was signs of a fight, and in the great distance, a well in the center of the village.

"This was his home." Kaseki thought to himself. "This is where our father grew up. This is where I could have grown up/"

The thought of being a normal human child with no magical powers intrigued Kaseki, but at the same time it frightened him. It was Ishi would gave him the Gift of Water which allowed him to save his own life. If he was born a normal noble child, would have a cure for his ailment? Could they help him?

But the thought of his father raising him to be a samurai peaked his curiosity. Khaos was a tainted version of the Yoshimitsu blade. It would be his own source of power. But would this change be enough? What would be the effects . .  .

"We'd have never met Xiaowei."

". . . and Pandora would have never existed."

All actions had reactions. Every choice changed the world, his world.

There was only one way to know for sure.

"We must." Kaseki would answer. "I waited my whole life to know where I came from, to find my family. When I met my father, he left my life as soon as he became a part of it. When I saw my home I saw what it used to be." Kaseki would turn to face the small child. His eyes saw the shape of the person he could have been. He would lift his gaze to look only at the well in the distance.

"In both of our stories, that is where it changed." Kaseki pictured the battle long forgotten. He saw the warlords and the samurai. He saw the fighting, the bloodshed, his father. He had to see what parts of the myth were true. He needed to know the truth.

"Often, I wonder what life could have been if our father had never lost his arm. But never do I regret the life I have lived."

Kaseki had to see it. If not for him, for the years and lifetimes he lived. For the friends he lost trying to make it here. It didn't matter if he knew the answer. He needed to do it for them.

For Xiaowei.

They would near the well, the boy's questions unanswered. Kaseki's mind was fixated on a single goal. He only wished to see the place where Kaseki's story truly began. The story that he looked up to, the story of his father.

"In my years," he would speak when he would see the barren well. "We would have met, as we already have. I have no doubts that a version of us from that time is out there, thought I doubt he lived to today." He wondered about it.

Warrior culture.

Neither of them would survive in a world like that. They only got where they were because of how protective and fearsome of the world they were. They were cowards with big hearts, and now they were peaceful rulers who listened to their people. If they had turned cold and cruel, they would have been eradicated long ago.

"It's just a stone well." Kaseki would say, "But something this simple, kept the lives of an entire village in check. This well was the life of our people."

And that's all he needed to see.

And so he understood...