Private A Perfectly Ordinary Proposition [AiT Exam]

[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

"Surgit, Tsuki, surgit..."
Wake up, Tsuki, wake up....

There was a stiff breeze visiting upon the village tonight, making an otherwise hot summer's night slightly more bearable. But within the confines of the Sazuki clan complex, the temperate had dropped by several more degrees as the young, twofold-minded student slept. A voice whispered to him from the darkness, ethereal and otherworldly, speaking in a language that sounded, with long vowels and sibilant syllables. The curse mark on the boy's shoulder seemed to react to the sound of it; it wouldn't activate, but if he let the cursed chakra inside of his body breach the surface of the seal, he would hear the words somehow translated inside of his head. If he opened his eyes, he would find the only light in the room was the moonlight filtering in through the window, and by its light, a black, abyssal mass was shifting, like a shadow given form. It rose up and something peered out from the black.

Spoiler: Two eyes leered at the boy out of the dark, dull and yellow, unblinking.

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"Maledictio. Hoc olfacies possum... In nomine falsi dei portatis. Sed in me Jashin potestatem non habet."
The curse. I smell it on you... You carry it in the name of a false god. But Jashin holds no power over me.

Something reached out at Tsuki, a large, gnarled, clawed hand, composed of the very shadows themselves. It wrapped around Tsuki's throat, but the boy would feel nothing gripping him. The eyes however, came closer, almost nose to nose with the child.

"Scin' quid sim? Carnem iam non habitō..."
Do you know what I am? For I no longer inhabit the flesh....

 

[Sazuki Tsuki]

Tsuki awoke slowly with a heavy feeling in his chest, a tingle from his shoulder as unfamiliar to him as the voice he heard beginning to whisper to him. His sleep was often heavy and dreamless, but he often took his time fully waking up. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes clear as he looked around the room. Tsuki felt his heart drop to his stomach when he met a yellow gaze in the darkness. After taking a moment to process the words spoken to him, he swallowed thickly in an attempt to clear his throat to speak.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he began, shifting his hand beneath his pillow to grip the dart Keiko kept hidden beneath for emergencies. "What curse are you talking about?"

Please tell me you're awake. I might need you, he thought, attempting to communicate to his other half to be prepared. If Keiko heard him, he didn't confirm it.

Tsuki froze as the shadows reached out a hand towards him, gripping his neck with no force. Tsuki was still terrified to be somewhat face to face with disembodied eyes. He considered calling out for Nao momentarily, but if this creature could actually harm him, it probably wouldn't take it long to strike. Nao wouldn't make it fast enough.

Tsuki swallowed again. "How do you know about Jashin? I don't worship that religion, and I don't tell people about it either."

I swear to god if you did something to get us into this mess, I'm going to make you do all the clan work for five months.

Still no reply.

Surely if it came to it, Keiko would respond to Tsuki jabbing his leg with the dart. Keiko always came when he was injured.

Tsuki speech
Tsuki thoughts
Keiko speech
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[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

"So naive."

The voice seemed to switch to ordinary Fuego, the common language of Fire Country and of Konoha itself

"It's maddening, isn't it? The thing inside your head? The other," said the voice, a smile unmistakable in its tone, "you can be rid of it."

The eyes retreated slowly back into the shadows, fading from existence slowly, almost agonisingly so. A strange whistling filled the air, kind of like a stiff wind blowing through the trees and upsetting the sterile silence of the night. The shadows in the room seemed to coalesce suddenly, forming a mass that, this time, rather than being composed of dark, abyssal shadow, was composed partially of moonlight, such that, though it was mostly shadow, the entity had a gleaming, fur-like skin. With gleaming red eyes, it stared at the young boy before it, its head wolf-like with a cruel, pointed snout.

"Repercussus tuum sum."

"I am your reflection."

The thing seemed to hiss, each sibilant sigh hanging on the air.

"Ambo victimæ execrationis sumus."

"We are both victims of a curse."

Its face contorted back into a grin.

"EGO sum tu, in diē cerebrī tui maledictiō diffunditur."

"I am you, on the day the curse spreads to your brain.."

Another clawed hand reached out, but this one felt much more tangible. It grasped the boy's shoulder, tapping a single claw against the tattoo beneath his night shirt.

"The thing on your back and the thing in your head. They are both parasites. You can learn to live with them, of course. You can learn to be in control of the elements. You can learn to make this body wholly, and completely, your own. You can embrace it, and become like me, boy."

The entity withdrew its vast hand, sinking backwards into the shadows but keeping its gaze fixed with the boy's.

"I speak, of course, to you... Keiko. To my proposition, what say you?"

 

[Sazuki Tsuki]

Tsuki listened as the creature spoke finally in a language he recognized; despite being able to mysteriously understand the creature's other language, it was relieving to hear something he was familiar with. However, the things the creature spoke unnerved him. He'd never stated wanting to be rid of Keiko, but Keiko had often spoken of being rid of him. Could this creature think he was his other half? Were they in cahoots with Keiko?

Please say something. I know you can hear me. Keiko?

With silence meeting him still, Tsuki watched as the shadows reformed themselves before him, the creature showing a more visible form of a wolf. Could it possibly be? The one we saw before in the woods? It continued on in it's first spoken language again, the words swirling in his head for a moment before he realized he couldn't make sense of it as well anymore. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to register the words like his brain had automatically before. When he opened them again, he realized he'd lost his spot.

Keiko eyed the creature before them, his eyes filling with intrigue as the words did in fact register on his end. The tap to his cult symbol, right where the curse had been placed, made a small grin spread on his lips. "Are you truly in so much control of your vessel?" he asked. If Tsuki's curiosity was correct, then this beast was speaking as if it had more control than he did, and it seemed as though the truth was that they were in the same boat. "If so, I'm intrigued by your offer. However, I'm looking for a less deadly permanent fix to this. Despite my original thoughts on him when forming here, he's proven to be rather useful."

Are you really going to listen to this thing? We don't even know what it really wants to do. Are you insane? Keiko, I know you're smarter than to trust a complete stranger, especially one that clearly is not human and is something dark and powerful-

With a small huff, Keiko did his best to tune Tsuki out. "You did pick quite the inopportune time to come though. Another hour and I might have been the first one awake, but you caught the parasite itself, and now he isn't too happy about all this." Tsuki was bound to find out eventually, but Keiko had been hoping for just a little while longer. Either way, he was here now. He'd face the aftermath later.

MFT
WC: 423

Tsuki speech
Tsuki thoughts
Keiko speech
Keiko thoughts

 

[Inuzuka Keiyaku]

"You have no subtlety," the creature growled, its lip curling, red eyes still boring into that of Keiko who seemed to be rather enjoying himself. That was to be expected of course, the little avatar of chaos that he seemed to be.

"I exert my will by allowing it to think it has primary control, you see," it explained, seeming to understand the two-fold boy had more or less worked out its identity. But that mattered not, at least not for now, "this is what I mean. The solution I talk of is... deadly? No. Permanent, quite probably. You will ponder this, Keiko; a perfect dichotomy of minds, where a single side holds marginally greater influence. This is the balance you must strike."

Once again, the darkness that composed the creature's body and gave it form seemed to swell, filling up the room until the sparkling moonlight drifting in from outside had been completely suffocated. There was no longer a door, nor walls, nor a floor, nor a bed. Everything was singularly consumed by shadow, as though boy and beast were floating in some kind of strange nowhere-dimension. The thing leaned in close, until it was almost nose to nose with Keiko, and its face contorted into a demented grin.

"You will face a trial. You will demonstrate whether you can be useful to me. If I find in your favour, then fair fortune be yours. Fall short of expectations and you will be condemned to this life of mundanity."

The creature's face drifted back slightly, cocking its head curiously to the side.

"I will ask one more time only. Do I have your agreement?"

 

[Sazuki Tsuki]

Keiko listened intently as the creature answered his curiosities. His other half was correct; Keiko knew better than to strike deals with things he didn't understand, but he'd already done so once, and knew it would earn him great power by what he had seen first hand. As Keiko watched the shadows consume their surroundings, he had a feeling this could offer him another form of power that he could make use of in the future. With eyes full of fire and a grin so wide it nearly made his cheeks cramp, Keiko held the creature's gaze.

"Assentior."

"I agree."

The foreign tongue slipped from him despite his little knowledge of it; he would need to learn more in time, but it almost felt natural to speak.

Keiko went to stand, only to finally notice the weapon gripped behind his back. At least you were prepared to do something. He returned the dart to its place beneath his pillow with a little laugh escaping under his breath, slipping out from beneath the sheets he could only feel in the darkness surrounding them both.

"Though I do hope we can get this trial started now." The boy stretched out his muscles from the warmth of sleep, hoping his body would catch up with how awake his mind was. The fact that Tsuki can rest so very peacefully while he rarely takes the time to sleep always made the body confusing when first waking up. "Or at least have a little fun with me. You've got me itching for the excitement."

MFT
WC: 259

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Keiko speech
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