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Yokai Orochi Revived Vice Captain
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 Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 12:44 am
The sound of breathing echoed up from the black throated tunnel and the girl pressed herself closer to her guardian.
How old is she?
No older than ten, no younger than six.
The torchlight gleams off the burnished red of her hair as the locks are unlocked and the chains hiss to the floor.
The tunnel is ancient, ringed with the gleaming white bones of ancient sea creatures crushed into stone and layers of sand. At the edge of hearing the sound of waves on the shore far above can be picked from the rasping breaths.
Some nights if you stood on the shore and listened close you could hear the monster’s breaths. Some nights you could hear it scream.
The bars are new, shining steel turned into burnished copper by the torchlight.
The last chain hisses to the floor with a sound like a serpent and, eerily the breathing stops for a moment.
It recognizes the sound of guests.
The girl is pushed forwards into the dark, down to see the monster.
Closer and closer into the dark.
The gully in the floor is rust brown, filled with a tiny trickle of red. The breathing is sharper with eagerness.
The girl presses closer to her protector but he is cold. His orders are to abandon her down here in the dark.
The gully runs red now with fresh blood and, in the dark ahead, the monster breaks out into laughter.
The girl is shoved forwards.
The monster spits on the ground and rotates his neck.
“Food.”
“No. Company.” The jonin replies, stepping back from his charge.
“Want food.” The monster protests, tugging against the chains that kept him locked tight against the wall.
The jonin ignores it and, in a few moments, the girl is alone.
She greatly wishes to flee out of the dark tunnel but she knows the punishment she will suffer if she does not complete her task
.
The monster slumps against its chains and merely breathes. Blood streams over its pale stomach in a trickle that runs into the carved gully and it has been forced to its knees by the chains.
It is like a skeleton with shrivelled skin close to its bones. The hair obscuring the gaunt face is a filthy white.
“Girl…” It says, its voice harsh and rusty from disuse. “Come here girl.”
Reluctantly she takes a step towards it.
It raises its head. Even its eyes are white with scarring. The inside of its mouth is dark with blood.
“Closer.” It demands then coughs.
She steps closer.
The girl can smell it now, the stink of unwashed flesh and blood.
“Closer!” it insists and the girl stumbles the last few steps towards it.
It wears the remains of a black vest and bandages wind close around its skin. The girl looks away. A monsters servant is a task she did not want but could not deny.
Moving slowly the monster leans forwards against its chains. The metal uncoils far further that she thought it could and the girl’s eyes widen as the white hair tickles her shoulder.
The monster lays it’s head on her shoulder
.
“Please stay?” It says, seeming to look up at her with its blank white eyes.
“Y-Yes.” The girl stutters out.
“Thank you.” The monster murmurs, closing its eyes.
Its breath rasps in its throat rather pathetically.
“I’m hungry.” It says softly.
“Oh.” What would monsters eat anyway? No matter how politely it asked she wasn’t going to let it eat her. “I have an apple.”
The girl searches in the bento she had been packed for the day as the monster opens its eyes and raises its head. The flickering light of the wall mounted torches gleams off the bright skin of the fruit.
“Here.” The girl holds it up to him.
Comically the monster wriggles its hands inside the fixed metal cuffs.
“Oh right you can’t move your hands…” The girl realizes and chews her lip in thought.
It is becoming harder and harder to be scared. It doesn’t even look much like a monster; it just looks like a skinny starving and bleeding man.
Reluctantly she moves a bit closer and holds the apple still.
“I’ll be sure not to bite you.” The monster smiles reassuringly at her as it takes a bite of the apple.
By the time it finishes the apple its lips have cracked and are starting to bleed.
The girl wipes her hand on her dress and tries to rid herself of the sensation that she has been feeding a dog.
“So do you have a name?” She asks, trying to be polite.
It laughs and it’s a pleasant sound.
“That depends do ‘monsters’ have names?”
The girl gets flustered.
“How would I know? You don’t have a name?”
“I did have one but no-one calls me it anymore.” The captive says morosely. “How about you give me a name? It’ll be nice to have a proper one again.”
“Uh…” Now she can’t think of anything. “I guess I could call you Shiro.”
“Then I’ll call you Biyojo.” It smiles.
“Hey! That’s not fair.”
“Why not?” The monster grins. “It’s not like anyone else is going to hear.”
“It’s an embarrassing nickname.” The girl pouts as the monster laughs.
“Are you going to be here for long?” The monster asks and tilts its head to the side. The long white hair falls over his eyes.
“Well for a few more hours at least.” The girl replies as she sits cross legged on the floor.
“And then?” It sounds dejected now.
“I’ll come back tomorrow.” The girl reassures it. She doesn’t want to see a monster cry. That would be strange.
It smiles happily.
“I like you.”
There is a pause broken only by the crackling of flames.
“Are you bored?” It asks after a while. “I’m bored.”
The girl swirls circle patterns in the dust with the tip of her index finger.
“What do want to be when you grow up?” It asks her.
“A ninja.” She replies shyly.
The monster moves its head from side to side as if the room might suddenly sprout a population.
“I can help you with that.”
“Really?” No-one had wanted to teach her ninjutsu.
It laughs again.
“I may be a monster but I’m an old monster and I know many things. I’ll make you a deal. If you listen to my stories I’ll teach you about all the ninja techniques I know about.”
“The jonin’s say I’m not supposed to trust you.” The girl bites her lip and keeps looking at the floor.
“I’m not going to trick you.” The monster says sadly. “I’m just lonely.”
“Then…I guess it won’t hurt…” The girl says and, for the first time in a long time, she smiles.
"Then I guess you should call me Shiro-sensei."
"I can call you whatever I want Shiro-chan." The girl replies defiantly.
The monster sticks out it's tongue then coughs and spits out a blob of blood coloured spit.
"Why are you here anyway?" The girls asks.
"They don't remember any more...But I was summoned to help."
The girl makes herself comfortable as the story begins.
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:02 pm
“A long time ago Kirigakure was just a small village lost in the mists. That time was a terrible time of much fighting and bloodshed until the Land of Fire and the two ninja clans of Senju and Uchiha joined together for stability. The ninjas of Kirigakure banded together to face the possible threat of the Land of Fire’s forces.”
“The founding of the ninja villages. We learn history in school. I know all this.” The girl interrupts.
“Oh?” The monster Shiro looks surprised. “I don’t know much about the education system these days so I guess I can just skip ahead a bit then.”
The girl waits as the monster coughs again and restarts his tale.
“Only a few years after the village was built there was a prophecy, a vision from one of the kunoichi that in four months a terrible disaster would come to destroy them; a wave higher than mountains that would wash away roads and smash houses like they were made of building blocks.”
The monster demonstrates with a dramatic curling of his hands and making a ‘whooshing’ sound under his breath.
“The advisors of the First Mizukage tried to find a way to protect their village. If that wave hit then the village would be destroyed and the Land of Water would be defenceless. They studied all the techniques to control the water but even all working together the ninjas could not control the waves. They studied seals, fire jutsus, and earth jutsus for three moons as they tried to find a way to save their village. Every answer they found , every possible solution was not enough to stop the flow of the earth’s energy for the chakra of the world is far greater than that of any man.”
The girl listens with wide eyes as the monster talks.
“In the end they could not halt the disaster. On the very day, four months from the prophecy, as the sun rose the tide went in and in further and further until the sea disappeared off the horizon and left dying fishes flopping on the shoreline. The three ninja clans of Kirigakure evacuated back to the hills to watch the destruction of their dreams of a Hidden Village. The Mizugakure’s palace stood silhouetted against the rising sun as the dry sea floor began to roar like a thousand lions…”
In the flame touched darkness of the monsters cell the girl swears she can almost see the scene, outlined in a haze of smoke.
“Then from the roof of the palace emerges a woman, belly fat with child, trapped as the wave crests the horizon and cuts apart the mist like a katana. She sees the curling waters and she screams for help, for her husband.”
The girl gasps.
“And the Mizukage cannot leave her to drown. He grabs a summoning scroll and cuts open his hand so his blood drips onto the grass and he summons the strongest demon he can think of.”
“And that’s you?” The girl asks as she gets out her packed lunch.
“And that was me.” The monster nods. “He orders me, he says ‘Take the wave into your body where it can do us no harm’ and so I open my mouth and…”
The monster makes a slurping sound.
“I suck up the spirit of the wave up into my body and I seal it in there in my veins. Then the wave stands still and it shudders then it drops down and falls back into the sea. The sea shudders then.”
The monster snaps his fingers, “Poof! Everything is calm; the mist comes back, the city and the Mizukagure’s wife are saved and I am here in this village. The Mizukage, he cannot dismiss me for I come when I am called. In gratitude I am given much tasty food; sweet sake, fish, rice, fruit.”
The monster smiles.
“And in my gratitude I stay to help protect them.”
“Then how did you end up-” The girl starts to ask but the monster shushes her.
“I haven’t finished telling the story yet.”
“Oh. Sorry.” The girl looks down at her feet in embarrassment.
“The First Mizukage comes to me and, using the scroll that summoned me here, he binds me to a deep contract in blood. He talks with me and he tells me of the other villages and, in return for a sacrifice I in turn promised to make his village stronger.”
The girl licks the last few grains of sticky rice from her fingers as the monster tell her of all the work he had done to build the village. Even though it just looks like a bleeding pale person it must be immensely strong and fast.
“Then, because the ninjas of the mist had no dojutsu of their own, I made them something to even the odds.”
The monster looks down at his streaming stomach wounds.
“My blood…The power of it was what I used to make weapons. Powerful weapons like nothing natural could make. I spilt by blood into an iron bowl and drew from it cool iron. You would know of what I made.” He adds.
“Then, when the first Mizukage died I went to leave this place. My contract was complete. Yet I was not allowed to leave. My power was too great to risk it being lost to another village but not too great to seal. They carved signs into these manacles.” The monster tugs at them and makes the chains clink.
“Then they tried to persuade me to tell them the secrets of my blood but I would not. I was tired and weak after bleeding for so long. They took me down here and cut open my stomach.” The monster falters here. The wound still hurts.
“Then they tried to force me to tell my secrets but I would not. Years passed and they came less and less. The scroll to bind me was lost you see, lost with the first Mizukage and they couldn’t command me, only keep me imprisoned. This whole place was set up to harvest my blood. Now…now they know they can’t make what I can make, they don’t even know how I came to be here. They’re just scared of what would happen if they let me go.” The monsters voice drops to a whisper.
The girl leans in closer to hear the last sentence, barely more than a movement of pale lips.
“They don’t remember I know how to make swords.”
The soft hiss of chains coming undone echoes down the tunnel and the monster looks up.
“And now it’ time for bed.”
The girl stands and brushes off her dress.
“I guess I’ll be back here tomorrow then…”
“You’ll bring me another apple right?” The monster asks and the girl nods. “Then get out of here, I’m sick of looking at you.” He jokes as the jonin returns.
The girl smiles as she is taken away.
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Yokai Orochi Revived Vice Captain
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Yokai Orochi Revived Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 10:00 pm
“And they were so busy arguing they didn’t notice that the sun had started to come over the horizon and, poof! It turned them all into stone.”
The girl smiles.
How old is she? No younger then ten, no older than twelve. Academy age by the pride in her eyes and the neatness of her dress.
“I like that story.” She tells Shiro who she’s stopped thinking of as the monster and started thinking of as Sensei.
She’s spent years down here, feeding him and washing the dirt from his white hair and cleaning his shrivelled skin with a wet cloth. His touch no longer frightens her and it seems, far quicker than natural, he has seamlessly become just another person in her life. Even the gurgling of the gully as he bleeds no longer seems disturbing. It was just a part of him now.
Aside from the fact that the flow of blood never seemed to cease and the wound never healed he didn’t seem like much of a monster.
“So how was school?” A man chained to a wall should not act so much like a parent.
“The teacher says if I pass the final exams at the end of the year I’ll make genin!” The girl announces proudly.
“Well I guess we’d better get practising then.” Shiro smiles. “Why don’t you show me what you learnt today?”
The girl closes her eyes and focuses. To the bound man the curling inwards of her chakra is plain to see.
She forms handsigns, far slower than a professional ninja would but with an admirable precision.
The jutsu heats the surrounding air, agitating dust particles and diverting a portion of energy into a concealing cloud of smoke.
She announces the techniques name out loud for focus.
“Kage Bushin no Jutsu.”
The smoke clears with an exact double standing beside the girl, down to the proud grin on her face.
There is a breif silence.
“I would be clapping if I could.” Shiro says, flapping his hands in the manacles. “But seeing as I can’t I’ll just say it. Well done.”
The girl’s grin grows even wider as she releases the jutsu and, with a swift step forwards, she wraps her outstretched arms around the Shiro’s neck.
With a happy sound somewhat like a purr the captive lays his head on her shoulder.
“You’re such a good teacher.” She says softly.
“No, you’re just a wonderful student.” He replies with his usual smile.
She releases the embrace and takes a step back, being careful not to accidentally step in the blood.
“I wish you were my real teacher, the sensei at the academy is so boring.” She pouts which makes Shiro smile.
“I don’t think having classes down here would suit the administration.” He jokes then smiles like a proud father. “And you’ve gotten so big too. You won’t forget to visit me when you’re a proper ninja out on missions will you?”
“Never.” She vehemently protests and Shiro laughs.
“Tell me another story .” The girl begs as she sits back on the floor.
“What kind of story do you want to hear?” Shiro asks.
If she was in fanciful mood sometimes she asked for love stories and he would tell her of the great hawk demon with black feathers that he had loved.
If she was angry he preached the harshest justice where those who did wrong were shown no mercy but roughly hacked to pieces.
If she was sad he would hold her close and tell her of happier times in the rough mountains of his home.
“Tell me a true story.” She said.
Shiro smiles and, after a few seconds to arrange his memories, he begins.
“Once upon a time there were two brothers…”
The serpentine hiss of chains falling to the ground echoes along the tunnel followed by approaching feet.
“It can’t be time to go already.” The girl says disappointedly but Shiro is instantly alert like a fox that has just heard the baying of the hounds.
“Yes it’s time for Biyojo to go now.” He says with a faint tremor of panic.
“What’s up with you?” The girl asks curiously.
“Go now.” Shiro says, moving back against the wall like he’s trying to hide inside it.
Biyojo stands and is at the turn in the tunnel when the first of the jonin’s approach. One is holding a kunai.
Shiro wriggles further back against the wall.
“Please…” he whimpers.
“What are you going to do with that?” The girl asks with wide-eyes.
The jonin’s ignore her as they flank their prisoner.
To the girl’s immense disgust this makes Shiro start to cry.
The kunai’s point is trailed around the oozing wound. Shiro’s eyes close as his breaths grow shallower, trying to avoid his skin touching the metal.
“Leave him alone!” The girl yells, grabbing the jonin’s arm as he moves the blade back to stab.
The Kiri nin roughly cuffs her upside the head, sending her sprawling onto the cold floor before there is a dry cracking sound like shifting bones.
Stretching his chains to their limits the captive has darted forwards like a snake. Shiro grabs the jonin’s throat with his teeth, twists his head to the side to force the man to his knees then tears out the man’s voice box in one fluid motion.
He spits out the chunk of flesh as blood bubbles from the wounded man. The kunai clatters to the floor.
“Leave her alone!” He screams from blood splattered lips, digging his teeth into the hand of the jonin holding her.
The kunoichi recoils in horror, letting the wide-eyed girl free but the puncture marks in her hand are clear. Screaming the nin collapses to the ground, going into spasms as her porcelain pale skin starts to speckle with red swellings. Her tongue swells and muffles her screams. In a few minutes she is a corpse, dead of disease.
The monster spits on the floor.
Two of the remaining jonin shove a twist of bandage cloth into the captive’s mouth, forcing his deadly jaws closed and smashing his head back against the wall. The third scoops up his superior’s kunai and drives it deep into the stomach wound.
The flow of blood increases as Shiro’s struggles still. Tears drip down his cheeks to mingle with the blood from his jaws.
Biyojo looks over his shoulder as he gives a pathetic sobbing cry and the jonin’s start to beat him. Even through the pain he can feel her gaze on him.
That was the last he ever saw of her.
That night screams would echo from beneath the waves.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 1:37 am
It was many years before he next had a visitor not there to prevent his wound from scabbing over.
For weeks afterwards he would look up whenever he heard the chain coming undone, full of the hope that his Biyojo would be returning to him
.
But she never did and that slow death of disappointment made him turn away.
In the dark he was bitterly lonely.
Sometimes he would talk as if she was still there listening but the flame touched darkness swallowed his words and gave nothing back.
The monster lay slumped in his chains, day after day.
With Biyojo gone he got no more tasty food. There were no more apples, no more rice or fish or water.
Yet he did not die could not die it seemed and the mocking laughter of Kageijin was his only company.
He thrashes in his chains and cried and screamed with no-one to hear him.
Until the time that the hiss of chains did not herald his usual jailers.
“Respectfully this action is not advisable Mizukage-sama.” The nervous tone of the voice carried down the tunnel. “It was sealed her for a reason-”
“I am not devoting valuable resources to keeping a single prisoner in a purpose built facility to farm human blood. I am not Yagura.” A clear female voice replies crispy and there is the sound of a sharp intake of breath.
It’s pouring salt on fresh wounds.
The monster did not look up as the footsteps approach him.
“Are you sure it’s not dead?” A third voice asks and the monster looks directly up at the speaker.
They recoil instinctively.
Deep wrinkles run across the woman’s face and her clothing is formal and sensible.
A village elder.
“Get those manacles off.” The Mizukage orders and her jonin bodyguards flinch.
“Mizukage-sama…” One protests briefly before he is silenced by an ice cold glare.
“Do you want me to kill you?” The Mizukage whispers prettily.
“I would rather die then see you killed by this monster.” The other states, meeting her gaze.
“So you’re here to kill me then…” The monster says softly surprising everyone but one other in the room.
“What makes you so sure?” The Mizukage kneels to be at his eye level.
“Such a beautiful apparition stands before me, only an angel of death could be so divine.” He whispers in return.
“Well aren’t you a sweet thing.” The Mizukage strokes his cheek with a soft hand, long nails a beautiful shade of sky blue.
“Cuffs. Off. Now.” She orders, her supply of patience running dry. “If he tries to eat me feel free to kill it and I’ll accept an ‘I told you so’ later.”
Hesitantly the jonin bodyguards approach, taking heart in the fact that the captive is just looking down and breathing.
The complicated deals on the metal of the cuff etch themselves onto the metal as they approach.
Each jonin forms three different hand signs then presses a palm to the metal
.
The steel of the left cuff bubbles then turns to liquid and melts into silver streaks along the rough sea stone wall.
The elder holds her breath and makes a sign to ward off evil over her chest.
The pale hand flops down to rest on the stone. The fingers twitch but otherwise it stays still. A red angry welt circles the wrist. The constant rub of the metal has worn away at the skin.
The second join looks at his village’s leader for confirmation but finds only determination in her eyes.
The second manacle dissolves away and the monster is freed.
Without the support of the chains he very slowly falls over.
His shoulders twitch as he tries to remember how to properly move his arms.
“Oh do help him up.” The Mizukage says with a sigh, covering her face with a hand.
Her bodyguards take an arm each and haul the prisoner to his feet.
He has very little weight to him, like a bird.
As ordered the second jonin forms a healing aura around his fingers.
The pale thing winces as the digits touch his wound then a sigh of relief as the wound starts to heal over.
The angry red gash in his insides pulls itself back together then closes over completely, leaving just a tiny trail dripping down him.
There is an audible silence as, for the first time since he was captured, the gully that carried his blood runs dry.
For the first time in years the prisoner smiles.
The Mizukage snaps her fingers and takes the captive from her jonin’s and carries him herself.
Tenderly like a new born child he is carried up the tunnel, away from the spot where he as imprisoned for so long, past the gleaming metal bars and into the light.
“Get this man back to health.” The Mizukage orders the nin waiting on the surface and they leap to obey, bringing a wheelchair, nutritional supplements and, after a long heated discussion, a Kirigakure headband.
The pale prisoner strokes it like it was a kitten. The touch of the metal seemed to fascinate him.
“What can I do to repay you?” He says softly with a face full of wonder.
“Don’t get in trouble again.” The Mizukage smiles. “Why don’t you make a deal with me? I’ll give you food, water and a place to live and you will teach the children of this village faithfully.”
The monster smiles and nods.
“Always.”
The mizukage smiles, shakes out her red hair and lightly kisses his forehead.
He didn’t look any older than the last time she had saw him. That was rather unfair but it seemed…fitting somehow for such a strange thing.
He didn't even recognise her.
“Maybe you could tell stories to them…”
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Yokai Orochi Revived Vice Captain
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