It all started as a normal day, Maru hadn't ran into a single monster yet! Not even people he would consider to be monsters so he decided to simply go on his marry way back to the spine of the world skipping his way back to his resident to begin training, Maru suddenly got a feeling that something was watching him so he stopped skipping to look back only to see no one. The masked rogue shrugged to himself, believing that he was just being paranoid when out of nowhere a pair of tongs grabbed at the rogues shoulders. “Shit…” all that Maru could say before he was snatched away! Flying through the air at breakneck speed as it wisped the masked rogue away high above the air, Maru struggled in the grasp of the creature that had grabbed him grasp, trying to get the thing to let him go before looking up to see what had taken him… a damn Kotengu.
The Kotengu's skin was a sickly brown with a huge round humanoid looking nose, dark brown feathers with snow white hair and a large beak that was lined with razor sharp teeth. The Kotengu wore tattered red monks robes similar to that of a yamabushi and a small hat strapped to it's head with a red string. The Kotengu swaked like a crow as it flew Maru through the air, releasing it's prey from its claws.
Maru began his free fall, his arms folded not amused by the monster's idea for a joke. He could hear the Kotengu laughing, deciding right then and there that he was going to break the creatures neck then roast it's legs over a campfire. But before he could belt the damn bird for ruining his walk home, the rogue needed to figure out a way to land safely and NOT fall to his death. So Maru unfolded his arms then flipped in mid air so he could look down, he needed to act fast or he was screwed. Maru realizing that he was wearing his handy cape gripped the border then opened his cape wide so he would be able to use it like a parachute. It's a great thing that he makes his costumes, the para-cape to glide into party's or events he usually wasn't invited to was the best idea he came up with! Couldn't save his own skin of he didn't wear a cape almost all the time now could he? When he glided down to safety, the Kotengu laughing was cut short as it looked down, disappointed that it's victims had survived. It knew it just should've ate him, and boy did this Tengu throw a temper tantrum. ”HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE!” the Kotengu swaked, Maru pulling out his musket from underneath mask he spun it around a few times letting the Tengu land about five meters away. The birds clawed hands gripped it's sheathed katana to threaten the mask rogue again, it panted in anger. ”I won't let you leave this mountain alive human! You're gonna DIE!” the bird rushed at the rogue at an inhuman speed.
Maru stomped on the ground, his demonic aura began to spread causing the Yokai to go from angry to scared in a heartbeat and before the Kotengu got close the the rogue Maru hammered into the creatures mind with a genjustu that made the creature have a vision of its own death through wicked just called The Reaper's Gaze. The Kotengu frozen with fear began to shake, the blade trembling in it's hands and it gazed at the rogue who was already bringing his weapon up to aim at the creature. ”Wh-wha-wha- You- YOU'RE NOT REALLY HUMAN!” Maru gave the bird a shrug. “And you're not really a monster, you're food.” he said almost jokingly, the tengu thought that he was bluffing but unfortunately he wasn't. After blowing the creature away with OMNI-FLASH for trying to kill him, when the sun went down Maru set up camp right where he was them began to roast the creature over the campfire like a giant turkey, slowly turning the stick so the meat would be cooked. Maru pulled off one of the legs from the Kotengu then took a bite out of it, he began chewing then raised his eyebrow looking at the massive leg with a surprised look in his eyes. “This really does taste like chicken.” Kawaii who was floating over a log with her legs crossed gave her weider a disgusted look upon her face.
She was about to give Maru a piece of her mind about acting like a regular human being when she heard the sounds of footsteps coming from the darkness.. ”You hear that Maru?” Kawaii said, attaching her chakra threads to Maru. Maru already was spreading his demonic aura had raised the bone of the Kotengu he was eating ready for a fatal battle. The first thing he saw was an extremely tall red faced, white bearded man with a extremely long nose that looked almost 15 hands in length wearing high priest monks robes. Maru knew this critter was a daitengu, pretty much mountain people much like how his clan lived up in the mountains. He didn't know why it showed up here, probably trying to see what happened to it's lesser tengu or maybe the smell was what attracted it. “Hey, it tried to eat me first dude.” Maru explained to the tengu, he could only imagine how he would feel seeing one of his children being roasted over a campfire and eaten. He would probably would have to go against the Daitengu's sword against him but surprisingly the old man began to laugh as if the rogue had told him a joke. ”You know. I honestly haven't heard of a human eating a Yokai. It's usually the other way around.” the Daitengu said, stroking its beard it didn't seemed interested in battling against Maru which was good but the rouge didn't really like some old mountain man strolling up to his camp. But at least he was one of the good Daitengu's from what he knew so he decided to let the guy stick around.
While Maru didn't realize it, the Daitengu saw that the rogue wasn't just an ordinary human or shinobi rather. He could sense that Maru was a special kind of Youkai that had no true form and no true bloodline. A ability that most of the high ranking Youkai had. The Daitengu gestured his hand to the log that Maru's Kensei spirit was hovering over. ”Mind if I join you and your friend here. I think we have much to talk about.” Curious on what the creature had to say, the rogue shrugged his shoulders then gestured to the log. Kawaii smoothly glides over to where Maru was standing, not really sure if the Youkai was friend or for but the two both stayed prepared just in case the Daitengu was up to anything. The Daitengu sat down criss cross on the ground, studying the rogue and his ethereal partner before continuing. ”You know, I cannot control all of my children. But how you used your talents to slay this tengu, the other lesser tengu aren't going to be bothering you again.” the tengu explained rubbing both of his hands together. ”Your powers right now aren't just an ability you picked up when making a deal you were born with the blood of a high ranking Youkai. You don't have a true bloodline nor even a true form. You are a Remnant of Lord Ena!” the Youkai began to clap his hands and then laugh but Maru's jolted backwards form hearing he had the blood of a monster. Honestly it shouldn't be much of a surprise since the two times he tried to turn holy his dark chakra ended up combating against the good chakra making him neutral, heck even Kawaii was having trouble with becoming holy so maybe his curse rubbed off on her?
Before, Maru could ask how to get rid of the critter blood he has since he didn't want to be a monster the Daitengu spoke again. ”And if you are willing to, I will teach you how to harness your TRUE Youkai abilities. You will have the power greater than most Youkai aaaaaaand...” he paused to build up tension, the Daitengu's eyes looked over at Maru's Kensei spirit. ”You will have the ability to give your companion a bit more mass when you master the power of natural energy. Making her advance from a mere spirit to a Tsukumogami who can move about at her own free will without rituals, spells, and tricks.” Now out of all the things the Daitengu said, he was sure as hell interested in making Kawaii more real. Then she wouldn't have to kiss people in order for people to touch her or he would have to be dragged to the library to study because she wanted to learn more justu. He looked at his Kensei spirit who seemed pretty conceived that she would be able to have an actual body which was all the reassurance he needed for him to happily accept the deal. “Alright, you got me. I will love to be taught to harness my critter powers if it means getting Kawaii a real body.” Maru smirked at kawaii as if to say you're welcome, looking back up at the tengu again. “You seem pretty cool for a monster, what do I like call you?”
”I am Sojobo of the mountains… meet me around the Spine Of The World around midnight tomorrow, for now I suggest you get some rest because your training as a Youkai sage will begin when the night falls….
WC: 1629
Removing Kensei.
_________________________________________
When the last ray of sunshine fade from the day…..
That's when the Yokai come out to play…
Maru skipped his way to the Spine Of The World about 30 minutes before midnight, the rogue was wondering if the Youkai was actually going to teach him or was this just a trick to get him out here just to be assaulted relentlessly by the lesser tengu. He knew him and his signature weapon would be able to handle anything anyway so the rogue decided to come there so he could train in the way of the sage. Besides he was sort of excited to know how Umashi makes that huge ball of energy anyway so perhaps he would be able to learn his new fighting style quickly. Then Maru finally met Sojobo sitting alone by one of Kumogakure's main streams. The rogue had decided to announce that he was here. “Heya there old timer! Ready for this sage training thing.” The rogue said, wondering how would they be starting. The Youkai stood tall from the edge of the stream to approach his disciple with a hint of excitement in the Youkai's eyes.
”Let's start with the easiest, now what is one power that you've seen all Youkai had used?” thought about that weird aura that they all had, the vapor like darkness that most Youkai has that he couldn't really remember and then Maru's demonic aura began to spread. Sojobo nodded his head. ”Goooood… most Youkai are while not always evil have the natural talent of invoking feelings of fear or causing misfortune. While you could do this well enough on your own there is one talent to use natural energy is pretty rare. That is what I plan on teaching you to take in.” Maru nodded, staying silent to hear how would he be able to to get this natural energy. While most believe that getting natural energy would be as simple as to magically transfer the energy over or even a simple forceable transformation. But honestly it was totally different from just regular ol training because to actually become a sage all you really need to do is sit down and take in the right amount of natural energy. Mediation if you will to prevent him from turning into a Kappa for like 3 months because he had taken in too much Natural energy… way too much Natural energy. So the goal is to balance out his Youkai chakra so he doesn't have a repeat of what happened when he ended up accidentally taking in too much Natural energy from Umashi. ”Now the first thing is first is that we need to balance your natural energy intake. Sit down and imagine Natural Energy flowing to you then try to balance it out to make it cursed.” Maru was a bit disappointed that he wouldn't get some weird transfiguration thing but it was fine for him. The rogue sat down then raised then clasped his hands together, the meditation part wasn't really a problem. He usually had to do that in order to train with his signature weapon's world, he began imagining red aura that contained the echoes screams and mischievous laughter flowing into his chest. Maru could already feel himself becoming more Youkai… his skin slowly begining to turn blue and his horns began to–
CRACK!
Maru was snapped out of his trance when the butt end of his signature weapon cracked over his head, upon coming to the real world he realized that the person who had busted him over the head was his Kensei Spirit. “What Cha do that for?” he whimpered rubbing his head. The spirit pointed her finger into Sojobo's direction who was currently fishing. ”He told me to knock you over the head if you began looking like a Youkai. Something about you're taking too much Natural Energy and I DON'T have to remind you what'll happen if you take too much Natural Energy.” his spirit said harshly then without complaining he tried to do what Sojobo told him to do before he was whacked over the head. Now taking in Natural Energy wasn't the problem, but actually balancing it with his own chakra was a real bitch. What Maru thought would take like an hour maybe a day or two to master actually took him a whole month of trying to figure out how this sage thing actually worked. Maru's enlightening moment came when his spirit cracked his over the head pretty harder than normal then began to complain of how she might will end up being suck as a regular ol’ spirit without a real body, so instead of thinking about himself as some all powerful Youkai Lord like he originally did, he tried imagining what the Youkai world actually was. He was greeted by visions of a world that was many things, the world was ugly, but yet it could be beautiful, magnificent but yet it was broken. The world could be anything that a person could want, yet it could be nothing anyone desires. The red aura of natural energy snaked it's way to the rouge as he sat there, focusing on the chakra in the pit of his stomach. His dark chakra and the natural energy blended together like Yin and Yang, though Maru's horns were more noticeable now he had actually completed the sage transformation perfectly. Thanks made him smile then he got up feeling like he was 10x more stronger now but yet he felt like he was more of a monster. Weird but who cares! “YO OLD MAN! I GOT THE SAGE THING PERFECT NOW!” he said flagging the Daitengu down to get his attention. “So like what happens now that I am a full Youkai or whatever?” The Daitengu clapped his hands rubbing them together as he spoke. Well Youkai Sage Maru. This is where the real training begins” Maru groaned, more training just what he always wanted… this should be fun.
___
The Daitengu went on to polish the Youkai abilities that the rouge already had while teaching him in the art of using his new talents like how to make his natural energy evil. He also learned how to activate and deactivate his sage mode whenever he wanted to so he could use his abilities to curse people with misfortune but not only that he could also create Miasma clouds and make them into an evil spear. He learned a lot of things, more on his taijustu choice, how to take control of the environment, how can he make himself stay cursed if he ends up transforming to something else, more training in his kappa form. The Youkai gave him everything that he had to offer, on their break Maru was sipping some tea that the Youkai had made there was something that the rouge was still curious about. “Hey… uhh could I ask you something?” he said forgetting the Youkai's name for a moment.”Why yes, what is it?” said Sojobo curiosly.
“Like when I was trying to teach my student how to summon, there was literally like a whole swarm of Youkai who came out. Do you know what happened?” He asked hoping that he would be able to learn how to control the summoning a bit better. The Daitengu stroked it's beard because something like that sounded familiar.
”Sounds like the 100 demon parade, most high ranking Youkai are able to call on it but I'm not sure. Did your student summon more than one Youkai? the Youkai asked. Maru gave the Youkai a shrug, shaking his head no. “Nah I literally summoned like three Youkai just to like show off or something. Four if you're counting Jeez.” The Youkai then went on to explain to Maru that he probably accidentally called upon the night parade of 100 demons, it's pretty common for someone to put all there chakra into summoning more than one Youkai would most likely accidentally call upon more lesser Youkai that don't really have respect for humans. When Maru had his question answered he looked at Kawaii, it was strange she would be there since they didn't have that symbiotic bond like they had when he was a Kensei. Guess she was so attached to him that now she couldn't leave, while she didn't have a body yet… she will have one soon enough and that would be his next task.
“Well I guess I'll go on and head back home. I'll probably be back again around midnight so I can figure out how to make Kawaii have a body. But until then, I guess I'll see you later.” And with Maru's new power up and with a new forbidden justu he began heading off, it was oddly more misty than he would've wanted it to be but he guess along with Sojobo's training he could ask Kawaii to give him a few pointers. Yeah, he always did liked Kawaii's training so the idea at the time seems pretty fun.. Maybe if he fuses kawaii with natural energy instead of spiritual chakra he will still be able to turn into her whenever he wanted. Guess he'll have to wait and see....
WC: 1536
Archsage Kin App!