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Trapped in webs of pain and destruction, can they make this life their own? |
| [Introduction]
Playing pieces in a game with great things at stake are made of the lives of several people. Powerful beings sway the turmoil and fan the flames of discord in their lives leading them to the game board. Demons laugh as they bend the rules of their game and twist the fabric of lives setting fire to their futures. Soen Seijun is a primary target of one particular demon and his existence becomes not his own. Not by any stretch the only victim, Soen faces a choice. Though he was dealt a hand that was difficult to play, he can go with the flow and lose everything, or play harder that the dealer. With his appearance stolen by Toorima the Wicked, Soen find friends like Yuya Curosa, Hitomi Yoshida, and Ikasu Iusari choosing to fight for a better life and show the demons that the human soul is not theirs to toy with. Even with all the resolve in the world, Toorima's darkness threatens to drown them in the shaded corners of their own minds. |
| Darkness like a thousand midnights merged into one saturated his vision. Soen lashed out trying to grasp something. He pushed against a part of his assailant, but there was no give. The hand around his throat pressed him harder against the cold dirt slowly he sank into the mud. Eye wide open, but no light getting through Soen tried desperately to struggle away to scream. There were no words, there was no hope, but he fought and fought ever sinking into the earth. A cruel grin burned his face with it's sadistic enjoyment. The demon sat above him with his eyes leering down at his new pawn. It was all so perfect. "Soen, my dear Soen Seijun. Why do you struggle?" cooed its cold voice livened only by a sick joy. Deep and sultry as the darkness that cloaked Soen's vision the demon chuckled. "It will only be a little rest. Just a little rest and you'll be right back. All you have to do is close you eyes." The cold dirty mouth of the earth began to close on Soen's body. His shoulders had sunk in and his face was nearly engulfed. A solid grip of inescapable holding grasped his body as he sunk. This would be it. Screaming in his mind, Soen saw the burning of that peaceful place. He saw the live cooking bodies of women and children trying desperately to flee their hellish prison once called their home and sanctuary. The smoke in the air was suffocating, but worse yet was the scent of burning flesh, all the while a demon sharing his face walked freely eviscerating people that had called that same visage a friend just hours before. This demon would pay. This demon would pay no matter what he had to do. Soen's teeth set on edge with a blazing heat building in his chest and face. His desire to tear this creature apart obscured his logic, yet he was helpless in his rage. His hands grasped for something to claw, but the scrapes across its unearthly flesh felt unfulfilled. Eye rolling back an strength leaving him his mind wandered playing in flickers. They were all dead, and he'd done nothing about it. He was beaten and yet that smile still glowed down at his fading form. "Shhh," cooed the demon. "You need but remember my name little Soen. Call me Toorima once you can speak again. The mud slowly curled around his head like an acquisitive hand wrapping around a coveted object. The darkness covered all of his senses slowly as his mind receded screaming and roaring into the abyss. Toorima... Toorima... "Toorima!!!" he thundered ripping up through the cold earth. His heart raced and his own voice rang in his ears as the blood pounded through his temples. Shaking raspy breaths pulsed through his lungs as he looked around. It was warm, and bright. His hand went to his brow shielding his eyes from the blinding sun. It was like a mere moment ago he was forced beneath the cold wet earth and now he sat in a hole in the middle of a grassy field. There had been no grass before. Soen let his eyes adjust and then stood slowly taking in the surroundings. It seemed new, all of it. Screams of agony echoed in his mind as he remembered the heat of the flames. Turning he raced back to the village. His feet pounded on the ground beneath him moving like wind between trees. It had to be there. Running seemed noticeably easier. He didn't feel himself breathing hard at all as if it was no labor. Maybe...maybe he could push himself harder. Blood pumping through him faster he urged himself to move. His legs picked up the pace, he'd never run this fast before. Whatever that blasted Toorima had done to him could wait. Trees whizzed by him at incredible speeds and he came to the road leading to the village of Nanul. It would be in his sites in but a moment. The trees cleared and Soen stopped running skidding to a halt staring with wide eyes at the charred ruins. It was nothing but a graveyard. Some of the debris had been cleared and inside the small place where people had been playing, trading goods, and talking about their days just hours ago were rows of headstones. Really, how long had he been gone? How long had that monster been parading around in his skin? Soen's fists clenched as he looked around. "Toorima!" he cried into the empty walls of a dead village. Soen sank down to his knees. He leaned over and pounded his fist into the ground. It didn't hurt at all. He punched the solid dirt again and again. Why didn't it hurt? This was a nightmare. It was all some horribly nightmare that he'd wake up from any minute now. He lowered his head covering his hands over it. He closed his elbows around his ears to try and drown out his inner voice that knew it was no dream. That voice of clarity that he so didn't need right now. Another punch sank into the ground. His right hand was fist deep in the earth this time. Toorima would die. Soen would see to it personally that the demon's head rested on a pike. If he never accomplished anything else he would kill Toorima. A twig cracked behind him with the intensity of a whiplash to his ears. Whipping around instantly Soen spotted two hunters. One of them immediately notched an arrow and kept it aimed at him. The other brandished a thick hatchet. He crept closer. Soen held up his hands and looked between them. "Excuse me, look I don't have anything. Please let me go." he pleaded. He couldn't fight them now. The only one who's blood he wanted was that wretched demon's. The hatchet man looked at his friend curiously for a moment before creeping closer and slowly raising the weapon. Soen's sense of alarm escalated. How did these men know him? Had they seen the demon and thought it was him. "Oh no no, look you've got the wrong person I assure you." he explained. The man kept moving as if he didn't hear him at all. Suddenly the hatched man leapt at him nearly cleaving his head in two with an arching swing. Soen found himself just beside the attack almost without thinking. His brain lit up like a firework show spelling out the man's next move. Some extra part of him felt something else. The notched arrow had been released. Soen stopped the hatchet's second swing to the side by palming the man's elbow. Just as the arrow sliced through the air at his chest he turned his body sliding his feet around and moving behind the hatchet man out of the path of the arrow. As fast as it moved he could almost watch it wiggle harmlessly by and stick in a tree. Ducking, Soen felt the hatched sail overhead and took the chance to sink his elbow into the ribs of the hunter in front of him. The reaction was surprising. Not only did the ribs crumple like they were made out of twigs, but the man they belonged to did the same tumbling backward and laying flat out on the ground. Soen was so surprised by this that he didn't follow his senses when they alerted him of danger a second later. The moment that alert passed he found all the wind knocked out of him. It felt like someone had hit him in the back with the a hammer. Instantly his arms and legs went numb and he toppled. A sharp pulsing pain was exploding in his chest. As he fell the tip of an arrowhead gleamed beneath its bloody coating as it protruded so arrogantly through his diaphragm. The pain grew slowly until it hurt. It really really fucking hurt. Soen lay on the ground with the sound of the archer's pounding footsteps reverberating through the ground as he closed the distance. "Demon, demon I killed the Demon!" he shouted as he passed Soen's body to help his fellow hunter. The man grunted as his ribs creaked and groaned with discomfort. Soen could hear it. The bones scraping against themselves and the man's labored breath as they compressed his lungs. As he found it harder and harder to breath himself, Soen felt blood trickling from his mouth. How could this be the end? He'd fought that bastard Toorima and been spared to come out of the ground be killed by simple hunters? Just as the panic of death was setting in a sense of relief washed over him. The pain subsided quickly only returning in pulsing beats. Soen blinked as his vision returned bright and vivid. Following instinct he reached to his chest and pulled the arrow through. It hurt a lot, but more than the pain was the sensation of yanking a shaft of wood through one's spine and chest cavity. As the arrow passed through his body on its way out he felt everything reconnecting. The arrow was in his hand still covered in sticky red blood as Soen sat up and heard the celebrating of the hunters cease. The archer glared at him and quickly notched another arrow. Unwilling to repeat his recent experience Soen knew his choices were simple and few. Fight or flight. Not wanting to risk hurting them worse than some extremely broken ribs, Soen darted past the archer and into the woods. He knew they would give chase and he knew it as soon as they did, but there was no way they would catch him. Whatever he was now, was beyond their and his comprehension. Three months had passed since his awakening and it didn't take long for him to discover that he'd been hibernating for quite a long time. "Sever years..." he said to himself. He knew how it worked now. No one could hear him but himself. No matter how loud he screamed, no matter how thunderously he roared, he was as loud to others as a pin dropping is to a deaf man. Soen didn't even have breath so blowing out candles or breathing on glass and writing in the frost was a luxury for more privileged people now. All food had no taste. If it tasted like anything it would be charcoal. Bitter and choking in 'flavor'. Sleep would never come to him, and yet he had no need for it. "Seven years that demon has run around in my skin burning and massacring and, I've been in the ground growing roots like some kind of blasted potato." A blasted potato he'd been indeed. Seven years had gone by with Toorima causing random spurts of deadly sadistic chaos in the midst of peaceful cities and villages. All the while he wore Soen's face. Though he hated it, Toorima's lack of leaving survivors aided in Soen's survival. Only people who'd lived after seeing him could give a description. Not many people had that sort of fortune and thus the descriptions of Toorima were diverse and not many were even close. Soen peered out into the alley for a bit waiting for the crowd the thicken. A store was across the way sporting some mirrors. He and Toorima's face stared curiously back at him. The dark blue chin length hair, the formerly green eyes turned a gleaming yellow, the thin jaw and chin and barely pronounced cheekbones. It was his face alright. His brow seemed stained with distrust now though, and he'd always thought his nose looked just a little too small for a guy with his face, but dammit it was HIS face, and one day he'd be the only one wearing it. A surge of people filled the crowd providing the cover Soen wanted. Pulling his black trench coat collar up he made his way into the throngs of people. How long would the city of Gaje be safe for him? ............................................................................................ Miles away in Ra'Liant a group of children circled a man in white who smiled down at them. He was good looking with a pleasant disposition on his fair skinned face. He wore his blond hair short with pronounced bangs exploding in several strands out. His clothes were white and simple. A buttoned shirt, an open thin robe that was hanging on his shoulders, and a pair of brown breeches. His eyes were a silvery gray color and his smiled happily down at the playing children as they bounced around him. Approaching their gleeful circle was another man in simple clothes. He wore a pitch black cloak with dark clothes beneath it as well almost completely concealing his body. Yellow eyes glowed steadily beneath the hood of the cloak. The cloaked figure knelt to one of the playing children and smiled patting them on the head. "Here you are little boy," he said in a voice darker and smoother than all the chocolate in the world as he pulled an apple from his cloak. It was bright red and practically sang it's own perfection. The little boy's eyes lit up as he snatched the apple away smiling brightly. "Thank you mister!" he cheered running off with the other kids giving chase. The apple had invented a new game in itself rallying the children to the child's call. Eyes turned from silver to sharpened steel, the blond man stepped in front of the black cloaked man glaring at him, but the crouched figure simply chuckled watching the children as he stood. "You could have been like them in a different life you know. It's a shame. What do you think would have happened if you and she had a childhood like this, eh Ikasu?" he asked. Ikasu clenched his fists. "What are you doing here? Kikkyoumusha have no business here. Leave." he said sternly. The cloaked man shook his head turning back in the direction he'd come from. "She's alive you know." he said quickly. Ikasu's eyes widened instantly. "Of course take it from old Bagura. People who hunt demons," he paused shaking his head with a condescending "tsk tsk" before he turned his head letting Ikasu see the yellow gleam of his eyes. "They don't stay that way long. Kind of like kids who take food from strangers." Ikasu gasped holding back from attacking. "Y-you wouldn't!" he growled. Bagura simply laughed and walked away leaving Ikasu to dart over to the child who was bringing the piece of fruit to his mouth. .............................................................................. Soen was not having such a bad day for being a cursed man with everything he'd ever known stripped violently away from him and having his skin worn by the same demon who'd done it all. It was always good to be able to look on the bright side when things were their darkest. He reached in his pocket seeing the bakery still open. He had enough money for a few pastries, but then again he remembered the charcoal taste and decided to save himself the disappointment. Still, that didn't stop him from standing outside it for a bit and absorbing the scent. Taking a deep breath Soen savored the deep sweet aroma of apples and cinnamon that drifted from the hot ovens. Nothing would ever take that joy away from him. Just then, a lovely woman walked out of the store. She had long silver hair and unique violet looking eyes. There was a red ribbon on her neck. Her dress was strange though. She wore a white tank top with a brown light jacket over it and tight black pants. Her build was full but athletic and she had a small scar going down her left cheek from near her nose to the back of her jaw diagonally. Soen smiled at her and nodded in acknowledgement as she looked at him wide eyes for a moment and reached both hands inside her bag of bread as it dropped. Soen watched the bread fall so closely he didn't notice the plated knuckles she pulled out of the bag onto her fists. Two baguettes and a cheese danish hit the ground. The flaky crumbs of the danish bounced away from its lifeless mass. What Soen wouldn't give to be able to taste that buttery flaky...and then it hit him. First the realization that the woman was moving forward, next the noticing she looked a little familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it, and finally her plated knuckled uppercut. Soen's head reeled back from the blow. If he had to describe how it felt the closest description would be getting hit on the chin by a pissed of horse's kick. Unwilling to take another shot like that Soen turned and bolted the other direction. "You!" roared the woman. She was no doubt giving chase. The last thing Soen wanted was to fight in the middle of the city where bounty hunters could be anywhere. A price of 70,000,000 ri would bring attention to something a lot less conspicuous than a demon with blue hair. He weaved in and out of the crowed, but his girl wouldn't give in. She was fast and persistent. Somehow she knew him the instant she saw him. "Get back here and fight me Demon!!!" the thundered as they whizzed down the road. |
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