I am nothing. There; I have said it. This is only the truth. I do not flinch at the truth because it is what is, and I am not afraid of anything that is. I am not afraid of anything at all, because I can no more feel fear than I can feel anger or sorrow or joy. Emotions are the language of the soul, and I am nothing but a hollow shell.

But that's not quite right, is it? For there is one thing I feel, and even one flicker of a soul is enough. I follow the Duty. That is my soul – Duty to the mirror, of which I am little more than an extension of. I am the mirror, and that obligation gives rise to the Duty, that lonely spark in dark depths. That tiny fragment of...of...of what? It is more than a simple feeling; it is a need, a driving force, and in that it is Self.

Yes. I have Self. Though I was created out of nothing, of nonexistence, of the hungry, endless eternity that is oblivion, I have become more than just nihility. It should not be possible, yet it is. But while it is, so too is it not.

This tiny seed of Self, of Soul, is caged like a bird who has never stretched its wings, who never knew the world beyond the iron bars. My sister, Kagura, laments her bondage to our father, Naraku, but I envy her. For she has free will, and even though she is a prisoner to Naraku's commands, even though she cannot use that free will to act as she wishes, it lives within her. She has the power to sneer, to scowl, to question our father's schemes, and though her insubordinance is always sharply reprimanded with crippling pain, she does have power. The power of rebellion, the power to let that free will show, if for just a moment.

Though we are both caged, she can see beyond the bars, can see the endless sky past the boundary. It seems to me that she is gifted to have that will, even if it is caged; for I am enslaved by the Duty. Yes, that one flicker of Soul that might have given me freedom is also my eternal, unbreakable sentence to nothingness. That freedom that my sister possess, even if it is only in her mind...for that, I envy her.

Envy. To want what another has. Yes. I want. I need. Through the need, the Self grows. Even if it is but a minuscule fragment of the gem that is the Soul, it is enough. Like my father, who seeks the shards of a crystallized soul, the Shikon no Tama, I seek the shards of a Soul not yet known.

But I shall never find it. I know this because it is what is, and can be nothing else. I am a dark abyss, a complete vacuum but for that fragment of Self that is a flickering candle flame at the center. There can be no more.

But all things strive. In using "I", there is recognition of Self. Some say that Self begins to exist only when one becomes aware of the Self. An illogical paradox, to be sure, but there is truth in it. I am aware. I am aware of who and what I am. I even recognize myself to have a name – Kanna. My father gave me that name, and he recognized me by it. Whether he knows it or not, that name, that identity, gave me that tiny fragment of Soul that somehow exists in the blank nihility that is me.

And yet, even though I am aware and retain that brittle shred of Self, I shall never be free. It cannot be any other way, because this is how it must be. I cannot question that undeniable truth.

I am nobody.

I am nothing.

I am not.

The void stretches on forever, and so shall I. The emptiness never ends, and so never shall the Duty. The Duty is all there ever was, and all there ever shall be. The Duty is for all of empty eternity, and so I stand on that everlasting road that winds timeless throughout the centuries. I walk down that eternal path, as the world burns around me, and the Piper plays on.