to be plucked from his world once again.. it was, needless to say, a pain. but what would wait for him, if he were even to return? a cold, dark emptiness? pain, unbelievable and biting? perhaps he was better off living, albeit living so far from all that he knew and cared for. it was another strange world, with stranger people. their manners uncouth, their intentions unknown. it was a much prettier place, however. he’d heard of the isles from the coast of costa del sol, perhaps the island he questioned now was not too dissimilar from it. he might not ever know.

he had, at first, been breathless. though he would be able to continue any branch of his former masquerade in due time, for the initial cluster of hours of new life he was distraught. death was all too real a curse, all too vivid a memory. he remembered choking on his blood, every part of him alight and screaming, and then... here. even later, walking around a market late at night, asahi found himself only half present. wandering lost as though he was deaf to a recent explosion, as if trauma still had a tight grip upon his throat. 

it was unbecoming. to walk the world so weakly, to even remain clothed in the very bloodstained mark of your end. he was not so much an ambassador as he was a symbol of failure itself. mind still cluttered, he failed to notice the woman before him, not until he’d walked directly into her at least. luckily that blood had long-since had dried, but it still stood out far too bold against the pristine white of his uniform, the four bloody tears from where--- no. he mustn’t think it.