Heartbeat
Ancients may need to eat to grow stronger but humans need to eat to live. If they fail to consume their fill they start to wither and die. A lust for power was all that compelled an Ancient to eat or it being a part of their basic nature such as the case with Orochi. That is why Ancients stayed in Wind Country, this cradle of existence: there was an energy that came from being in the presence of their element or genesis. Orochi's was merely the hunt -
the stalk and the chase. Ironic how the
hunt in and of itself could provide satiety. The Court of the Wild Hunt could be likened to the predatory instinct of the domestic cat. Felines, like all predatory creatures are born with a hunting and chasing instinct. One Kouin is likely sensing for the first time. But nothing is necessarily a born killer but with said instinct it is an eventuality one could suppose. Killing and eating prey are generally learned behaviors. Hunger will not automatically teach a cat to kill, much like a man does not know all of the edible plants in the wild just because he is hungry. A cat can be a skillful mouse killer and yet never eat a single mouse or even desire to eat one.
Thi.... This pounding in my ears...
"It is just your heartbeat," Shiori called back through the smoke.
"You are fine - hunt!" Shiori insisted as she gave him a command.
"Can you hear it? It's telling me to do horrible things..."
She could not hear the voice but she could hear the bounding of his heart. She could hear things nobody else could, cloths moving over flesh and the gurgle of a stomach from afar. The thunderous, synchronous click of numerable valves in blood vessels in not one but dozens of people in any given area. It was all distortion to her at this point, but yes... she could hear it all.
"There is only the two of us here, now find me!"
If I don't need anything, than why am I hungry?! Why is their a disembodied voice in my head? Why...
"Because that is what you are. You can feed without consuming," she claimed. It was the hunt itself, not the kill that would fill him but he would have to feel the respite to understand it.
"Surely you will consume, it is a rite of a victorious hunt but you do not need it. Dull the hunger and hunt!" He lunged at her wildly, if he was acting under his full capacity he would be a greater threat. He was nothing like the stranger she met at the reservoir.
Calm. Methodical. Precise. He would be terrifying if he had control over these urges. The smoke bomb released a thick, choking fog that filled the enclosed space.
An undying hunger for what...
"A worthy hunt," she replied simply as her hands ran through an array of handseals as she created a tangible clone in the smoke.
"Your peers... your masters... your friends and your foes and you will kill every one of them if you do not learn how to reign it in!" She snapped.
Power and longevity? An 'eternal youth' of sorts? Is that what it means to be an ancient? Out living everyone you called friend or loved? Is that my only option?
"A fate your loved ones already suffer outliving you," she reminded him. The life of a shinobi is short and brutal. The one or two 'lucky' enough to know old age are not necessarily blessed with the gift of longevity.
"Either you stop existing or you keep existing, you would not like either fate," she protested. She made the decision for him by ensuring that he lived. The same selfish action he did every time he saved someone's life, rescued someone from a tragic end or was the tragic end for someone. One of the clones explained as it dashed out of the billowing cloud as if to run past Kouin. It would make no attempt to evade an attack, in range for Kouin to lash out and destroy it utterly.
"This is just your instinct and nothing more!" Shiori claimed, she was not lying but she was also incorrect. He was not feeling an impulse, he was hearing an actual voice. The voice was not 'real' or at least it was not something she or anyone else could hear and she did not know that. If she knew that, she would not be quite as keen to be a part of this exercise.
And if I run out of worthy prey to hunt? Must I succumb to the same depth of madness as Orochi? Am I no better than a feral beast than?
"Then make sure you always have a worthy quarry." The response was ominous but true and her voice lowered a full octave as she said it.
She could see what he was doing, she did not need her eyes to know everything that was happening. The blade he made and the self-inflicted damage that released a current of fresh blood from his leg.
"Don't hurt yourself!" Shiori shouted, authority seemed to coincide with her words. They ate and hungered because they needed food -- but what they ate and how they satisfied this need was one of the few choices they had. But instinct was strong.
"You're hungry because you need to eat. Eat for the energy to repair. Repair because you are damaged." She attempted to explain it to him in the briefest way possible. It was why everything hungered and why everything ate. It was easy to look at an Ancient with disdain because they ate differently than humans did but she thought no better of humans. They shove various dead carcasses and roots, leaves, stems and ova of various vegetation that grows from the ground into their facial cavity. 32 protruding bones cut, smash and grind these various 'foods' into a paste-like bolus that they then propel down a passageway with the assistance of a stumpy meaty tentacle into a pool of acid that dissolves these 'foods' into a slurry of digestive juices and their 'meal.' It is pushed down a long narrow tubule where over the course of hours they absorb the essence of these foods and transform it into energy. The remnants once these rough remains have been drained of their nutrients and use are compacted into a log and then banished from their bodies.
And somehow Ancients eating habits are grotesque.
The fog had been pushed away by a current of wind. in the corner of the room was the vial she had thrown aside. She saw his eyes dart in the direction of the dangerous artifact.
"...don't," she warned. Her eyes looked over in the very same direction. She would make her move just as Kouin had, but she would not physically attempt to reach the vial. Kouin was in a bloodlust frenzy and it would only become a physical altercation if she tried. She slipped on the prunes but the fall was hardly relevant as she completed the array and a wall of earth broke through her expensive wooden floor. A bit of her heart ached over that, wood was extremely expensive in Wind Country, specifically in their region.
"You are going to get yourself killed!" She shouted.
Was it the ruckus or the transition of power or the rebirth of a forgotten and terrifying Ancient that drew Mikaboshi like a shark to bloodied waters? The room became noticeably colder a few moments ago but she did not notice the drop in temperature in the heat of the moment. A puff of condensate was released from her maw as she huffed. The shadows seemed livelier as well, they danced and they played as their master same seemingly from the darkness and the gloom.
"Brother?" She called, loud enough to be heard but far from a shout - she could be referring to two possible Ancients with that title: Kazuki the newly appointed Sennin or Mikaboshi the recently dismissed and disgraced Sennin.
"So this is what you have been doing with your free time."
"More..." she answered cryptically.
"More of our own kind." Mikaboshi knew somewhat of her lonesome plight but he was hardly the sympathetic sort despite having similar grievances.
"What manner of creature is this that you've created here, Suna?"
"A half-blood is better than no-blood from our destroyed courts," she reasoned. Despite the state of her home, furniture marred, scratched and askew as well as painted with rancid canned prunes she had an air of dignity in how she replied. Was she embarrassed by her surroundings - no, they were a means to an end and their present, sorry state was the result of necessary child rearing.
"I am feeding him," she replied calmly. She did not give him the specifics regarding the court but it was likely that the learned and experienced Deep Court Ancient would be able to quickly put two and two together. Ancients do not need to 'eat' but they often chose to and by eat one means they active seek human souls. However there was no human to consume. No remains or evidence of a recently slain man or woman unless the carcass is hiding behind that wall -- but a dead body behind a wall? Do not be silly - this is no short story Gothic horror. She was feeding him because to eat they had to be in proximity of their element and his element was an act -- 'a hunt.' There were few Ancients that subsisted off a behavior, a primal behavior that pervaded this region once to such an extent that life sprung from intent much like the burning sun and open skies, the endless seeming sea, the fiery depths and the dark endless pits. There were hundreds of courts in the heyday of the reign of the Ancient race, but again most represented a single element or an amalgamation of a few but they were able to identify them easily. All that one could see in Kouin if they looked at him for a short time was madness -- a voracious hunger, a primal need to chase and sprint and catch and consume. A glutton with a boundless appetite.
Behind the wall unmentioned -- a thread of the blackened heart of Orochi.