kh_drabble | Challenge 201

Challenge: 201 - Teacher
Title: Making Amends
Word Count: 190
Notes: Hello, everyone. This is my first time posting here, so please go easy on me. Ansem and his regrets.

Undoubtedly, Ansem thinks, it's his fault.

Because he initiated the research and didn't do enough to stop it; because he saw the telltale signs of peril but failed to recognise them for what they were; because he was their teacher and they were his students.

It is too late for apologies, too late to guide them to the right path now that they have reached the point of no return. As a teacher, he has failed his duties by exposing them to danger and allowing them to make the mistakes they made.

But as a teacher, he can help rectify their errors and fix the problems they have caused because even if he can't make amends to them, he can at least make amends for them.

As he approaches, the Nobody turns around. Ansem can see the face of his once-apprentice, can recognise his student despite the wilder hair and darker eyes. For one suffocating moment, Ansem is not certain he can do this.

Then the Nobody smiles and the serene expression is so different, so foreign on that face that the uncertainty vanishes completely.

Ansem takes a deep breath.