WOW! That was really interesting! I don't really have words to describe this story but rest-assured it was really good.

I... I'm speechless.

This is, by far, one of the best I've read! You're way up there! How can you say it's not good? VERBALLY ABUSE? This is perfect!

"I can be god." -Isn't that... ironic? Frightening? That's Akito's line! I didn't understand at first, but I read some of the reviews and this is Shigure's way of revenge on her and Kureno, isn't it? In all honesty, I still don't completely understand, so please explain a little more on this part.

I'm not sure if I have this right... The couple in the story, how Shigure made him stab her, is that like Shigure's betrayal of Akito? Is that like "He knows," like this is his way of showing he is angry and he will avenge himself? Suddenly I'm tongue-tied trying to... to...

I can't believe this! I just LOVE IT! This is what Shigure means... "I love him, I love him so much that I want to spoil him and mash him to a pulp..." Or something. This is their dark, sinister love with lies, betrayal, secrets, and fear. But it's love, it's their love, and it's special. I can't get enough! AkitoXShigure has always been my favorite! :'D How can I thank you for this beautiful story?

Are you making more? Are you? This might be the perfect story by itself, but I'd love to read more of your work! I'm going to check your profile right now!

There is a very high possibility that i have fallen in love with this story.

I couldn't stop reading it for a second! It's so well-written! This is one of the best Akito/Shigure story's i've read. The way you captured him hurt when he talks to Akito about the power writing gives him, he was so... in character! I LOVED IT! A lot of people fumble his personality, either down play it, or over kill it, but you got it so dead on. ^_^ (he's my favorite... he and Akito, so i'm very happy to have read this!)

Consider this story 'Favorited!' (whatever that means to you, ha ha ha, i'm sure it's become a favorite of so many people that one more isn't a big deal)

Keep writing! It was brilliant!

RAWR! What an awesome take on how he would tell her he knows. I've written about this so many times, and it's never been in such a subtle formula as this. Why hasn't this gotten more reviews? Tsk Tsk... it's criminal. Nice betrayal of both of them, especially since you digressed them back several years. And your writing style is, of course, well articulated for a one shot. Sometimes it's difficult to keep things less convoluted in order to get everything across in a few pages, but you did an amazing job.

This side of Shigure we seldom but know it's there, I think this fic clearly illustrates that. Thanks for the lovely read.

OMGSH, this is wonderful!

This...is one of THE best Akitox Shigure fics I have EVER read. It is so refreshing to find such a well-written, in-character fic with so much depth and originality. You really have no idea.

I am most certainly favoriting this.

Ooh. I liked it.

I want to offer reasons why I liked it, but I'm afraid I'm hopelessly inarticulate. It just... worked really well, I thought. It also showed that Shigure knew exactly how much he was hurting Akito when he slept with Ren. He wanted to hurt Akito - he chose Ren because he wanted to cause Akito as much pain as he could. It's easy to forget that, sometimes. Very vengeful, isn't he?

Anyway...

I just think this was a very true-to-character piece, and I enjoyed reading it.

That was a really good story!
The descriptions of Akito's feeling are very realistic, I could almost feel it myself. The atmosphere is very well done, and the characters are just as I imagin them: Shigure is complex, scary, he likes manipulating others but he suffers in the same time, Akito is fragile, she wants to be the center of his world and hates the fact she can't control him. Well, actually, it's waht I felt personally :)
They are ones of my favorite characters, and it's always nice to read a good story about them and their complex relationship. They are difficult to write about (geez, I don't think that was correct. Sorry for my lame english, I'm actually french and I learnt it at school), so well done and thank you, I really enjoyed your fiction!

um i thought at the end of it, you meant that Shigure knows Akito loves him, but after that very enlightening speach on how you don't know what will happen next, i was wondering if you meant he knew what it was like to be god or something... um anyway that was really, really good. scary. my throat tightened up reading this. maybe it's how true it is, the thing about authors. i should know, i write all the time, and like shigure i even will spend a whole night writing if it means i can finish the story. this was haunting and crazily good. your discriptions are awsome and i'm enviouse becuase i tried this shigure-can-be-god-thru-writing thing in one of my own stories and it didn't come out nearly this good. keep writing!
cheers
pandafoot

1: YAY KATIA FIC!
2: ZOMG DEDICATION! Mine is an evil laugh. It’s mine, I tell you, mine mine mine! Now… I shall see if I can identify [and remember] what we were talking about that sparked this. If not I shall pester you to tell me.
3: YAY KATIA FIC, I say again.

“Its only companion is the scratching of his pen on paper, the sound as steady as the clock, though it causes more anticipation than the passing minutes.”
- D’oh atmosphere. Love. And… things kind of defined by the noises, and if she’s too quiet then he doesn’t have to see her, kind of thing.

“Just a story.”
- Like just a metaphor. No such thing. Terry Pratchett says so. No… this is very… did I say atmosphereic already? Well, I’m stressed, is all, because TENSION. And, judging from the summary, ‘just a story’… he’s tricksy.

And her waiting there, having to compete with something. Niggling. That he doesn’t get up and drop everything, and… I don’t know. Sks. Nerve-wracking! THAT is the word I’m looking for. Then the story, being so much just a normal Shigure thing… not unusual. That just writing in itself, not so much what he’s writing, is taking him away, that makes it worse.

“She wants him here and now, not on that street corner with the flowery lovers.”
- Triumph, and still… he’ll always go back. And come back. Night comes and day follows and then night again… All just depends on which one you mention last, doesn’t it.

“Tick tick tick, scratch scratch. Wait for him, wait for the pen.”
- Time. Clocks. Wasting time. Noises. I don’t know. It’s a Thread. That she would stop and wait, she must really want to understand this - to know how to handle it, or to be able to stop it…?

“But every time she opens her mouth, something stops her and she closes it again, a little pit of cold circling in her stomach every time he purses his lips in thought or gives a small pleased nod.”
- Little gestures, and they’re unconscious, like she’s not even there. Now the story’s Special.

“It was a love story…they loved each other…why did you make him kill her?”
- So lovely. Her, and then… it so perfectly voices what I, and I imagine most of your audience, is feeling. Makes Akito our voice, her the understandable and relatable one, him unfathomable and cruel. And right away, it’s not ‘just a story’ because obviously there is insertion going on for her to take it so to heart. And also just… because. I mean, I read it and was ‘ZOMG Akito run.’

“Because I can.”
- Speaking of which…

“They weren’t going to get the happy ending they thought. It would have been cruel to lie to them, wouldn’t it?”
- You… write a very chilling Shigure.

“…you can’t trick us like that. You can’t do that.”
- And here I lost it and had to just read, but I’ll go back over now.

“I have to write. They think they know what’s going to happen, but I know what they think, and I get to change it. It’s all up to me.”
- I think I know why every time I look at the title I see “Blood.” Seriously, for some reason… I see the word ink and it turns red in my mind, as far as this story is concerned. Premonition.

“She’s scared, because she can now tell that he’s crossed over some sort of line. His expression is completely open, and it sends thrills of fear down her spine as he looks at her face, so very honestly.”
- Because it’s so effing scary. And because… honesty. Lies and truth and which ones get to be seen when, which is Akito’s forte. One must decide how much truth it is advisable to display so that one’s loved ones make the right choice. Your choice.

“His voice is soft and poisonous, slipping painfully between her ribs.”
- For the blade references, and just… direct route to heart, and… love. Things being other things.

“It must be so hard to be the reader…watching it all go wrong…you can’t change it, can’t stop it.”
- And now he gets to speak for us. In a rather less empathetic kind of way. I just keep hearing that line from that song, “look at the beetle on its back…”

“Everything hangs suspended for a moment, them, his words, even the clock.”
- And his fingers being just-as-good to on her throat, because there’s this whole tone of sympathetic magic here. But… yes. Culmination. Because the pen and the words and clock, our definitions of this world, have all stopped.

“His face is calm again, placid as the smooth surface of a lake. She shivers, knocked off her guard by her brief glimpse below that shimmering surface.”
- Exactly.

“He loosens his grip, gently rubbing her fingers where he had squeezed so hard, and then releases her hands.”
- THAT gesture… makes the ending. Or part of it. It’s so… Shigure. And Akito. So Sohma. I don’t know. And then echoed by his smoothing the pages. Seriously, this thing has enough in-text references for a series all in a few pages. You are a goddess.

“It’s then, standing shaken and bemused in the hall, that it has time to sink in, and the realization runs cold in her blood as she stares at the door after it’s closed.”
- For the blood thing, which makes me think of “ice water in your veins” for bravery, and here it’s for fear…

“He knows.”
- Absolutely KILLER last line, and I adore you for not telling us what he knows. My guess is that he knows, like, what she’s doing, and how it feels, and now he does know there’s no stopping him… but I want you to clarify.

Okay, this fic - LOVE. The whole theme with truth and lies and masquerades, and things being other things, just… you are an Artist.

what can i say? this story is amazing!
the spoken sentence and the unspoken one.

“What are you writing?” i don't know why but i immagine a very young and "innocent"(?!) Akito...an Akito that can't stand it that "he doesn’t acknowledge her."

This isn't just a story for Shigure “It must be so hard to be the reader…watching it all go wrong…you can’t change it, can’t stop it.”
it must be hard for Shigure he knows he loves her, and she loves him back, but this "love story" get wrong and he can't change it.

wonderful :"She was pressed so close that she did not see the knife in his hand... The strike was precise, and she had only enough time for a soft gasp of pain...dying from his dagger even as he held her.’
"She" is Shigure, and Akito kills him, stabbed im back = betrayed,(Julius Caeser and Brutus...and many more)

"even as he held her" the acknowledge that she loves him make this only more painful

“Because I can.”...i guess is "because i can't change it" because you kill me i will kill you...

"...because she can suddenly see something there she didn’t notice before. Its real anger, real pain. He won’t let her back up..."
Shigure the "jellyfish", the "ripple in a pool of water" shows his feelings and emotions

“Have a wonderful night Akito-san…I hope you…sleep well.”
the... between the words...goosebumps...

He knows.
you can write ends for sure...and starts... and everything!

as Akkigure-fan, no as reader, thank you so much for share!

Shigure's so cruel! I pity Akito...

... how sad is it that the only thing that comes to mind is, "A writer can't be without kimono and pen! Well, except I use a computer." [but, he probably gets computer when he moves out. I just find it hard to see computers in the Main House, except maybe where Hatori's family is concerned]

"he doesn’t acknowledge her. Though of course he knows she’s there."

"he seems so focused, so distant and away. She doesn’t like it"

"and descriptions of things she is only just starting to understand." Mm... starting to understand because she's getting intimate with Kureno? [there's a lot of things they could be doing on a street corner, it's SHIGURE writing this] Or starting to understand in that very confused, 'what are these feelings?' way?

"It would be so unkind of me to leave my poor characters to wonder what will happen to them, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose, but does it matter? They’ve been doing the same thing"
Just... so careless of them. Because Shigure couldn't care less about what happens to the people in his story, since he can't even manage to decently care about real people. And Akito already has her Juunishi trapped and wondering and no longer in control of their own futures.

creepy!Shigure. Brr. You do it so well. "gives her a slow smile that spreads like honey over his lips." Because that is exactly how he does it, and I can imagine the eyes that go with it, and...

And it's scary because Akito subconsciously knows what Shigure is trying to tell her. Because otherwise she'd just be, "Well, that's a stupid waste of a story. But they probably deserved it."

“Because I can.”

“That’s why I had to finish. I had to show what happened. They weren’t going to get the happy ending they thought. It would have been cruel to lie to them, wouldn’t it?”

"you can’t trick us like that. You can’t do that.” Because Akito doesn't like not being in control.

"They think they know what’s going to happen, but I know what they think, and I get to change it. It’s all up to me." Which is so biting because it's exactly like an Akito line--they needed to be put in their place. It would have been cruel to lie to them, so I'm giving them the vicious truth.

"He knows." [yay, kicker closing line!]

I wants you to tag "horror" on after the general category. because it's just so... wonderfully done. The beautiful build-up at the end where Akito knows something is wrong but can't quite pin down what is wrong, and is terrified because Shigure is speaking in double meanings and she doesn't have control and doesn't know what he MEANS, so she can't fight it. And... lovely.

-Shinju

hey tht was REALLY good! Shigure's Jelious of Kureno and Akito being together so the book was like a metaphor of Akito and Kureno itz a little ironic aswell

SPOILER!!
I hear Akito does stab Kureno in the back later in the manga! wow! Literally!