- Track 01: Sincerely, Jane ♪♫
'Left the city, my momma, she said don't come back home'
- She never knew her mother.
Her mother was a travelling performer, daddy says who came and left Mist. Nine months later, she leaves a little baby by his door. Gracious, lovely Jane Doe, with sinful hips and a sinful smile and a voice sent from heaven high. She couldn't take care of a child with what little she had. Better little Aika, the result of a tryst, of a quick and hurried love song, grow up in a proper home. A tragic cliché. Good thing a rich Shoukyou was her baby daddy.
The elders found little fault in her addition to the clan. For all that she was illegitimate, she was of clean heritage. Better that she had been borne from a civilian, rather than one with muddied blood. Besides, Shichiro, with his constant vices, needed to learn responsibility and an heir. Her grandfather, in particular one of the elders, was quite thrilled indeed to have a granddaughter and never thought he would have one.
Aika stood out amongst her cousins. Chocolate skinned among the other fair skinned Shoukyou children. She was often accused of being a dirty servant girl by outsiders. But she was hardly treated differently by her own blood. Even the main branch child, Tatsuya, treated her as they would any of his other branch cousins.
Really, she did stand out. Not only for her looks but for the way she dressed. Before she was allowed to buy her own clothes, she would often dress up in her father's clothes. But, as soon as she was able, she always made sure she was in fashion. Or was fashion. The trendsetter, if you will. Perhaps, her dandy look was comparable to the Shoukyou twins princely style. But she carried herself in a more upbeat, musical attitude than the regal, mysterious twins. And she certainly had the style first. One could say that the two brats had adopted it from seeing her.
Years later, far into her adulthood, that sense of style persisted and was refined. Her dandy clothes were always crisp, fresh and clean. Her frizzy, dark hair would be tamed and coiffed, full lips painted a ruby red and black shoes immaculate and shiny.
Even as a child, she was quite charismatic. Boundless energy, animated movements and a way with people that could make even the grumpiest of elders look the other way for her small misgivings. She too was quick on her feet and quicker with her mind, with a knowledge for general trivia and a flair for management both in the micro and macro scale.
Because of this, and because she was not a rising star in the shinobi and medical field, she had often helped manage the clan businesses. The casino, in particular, was quite the playground for her. She knew the comings and goings of the trade, both legal and otherwise. And later, when the Shoukyou twins' grew up, was allowed to act as manager to their Wonderland hidey hole.
When she wasn't managing the ledgers and their employees, she was performing at Wonderland. The Red Queen they had called her. She was just as well known as the twins, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat. Many of their usual clients came to watch her sing and dance her heart out on stage. She wasn't an excellent shinobi. But she was an excellent artist. Daddy says she got it from her mother. Just as lovely and just as gracious.
And when she wasn't performing, she studied the medical techniques under one of the twins. Reiterating, the woman did not excel as a shinobi. But, when she put her mind to something, she could achieve plenty. And, to learn the healing arts would be another way to serve her clan. She didn't know which twin was teaching her. Very few could actually tell who was Akane and who was Akihiko. Rumours had even said that, at the time, they were both in the Medical branch and the ANBU branch, disguising as each other to switch places. Just because they could.
Yet, they had an even darker secret.
- Track 02: Cold War ♪♫
'Do you know what you're fighting for? This is a cold war'
- The twins were practitioners of the Dark Arts!
Although Aika, as well as several of their cousins, did not think lowly of them for doing such a thing, Growing up as they all did, morals skewed, it was hardly what they would call immoral. Those with dirty blood, bloodlines like the Uchihas and Hyuugas, were still the lowest of the low in comparison to those who practiced the Kinjutsus.
If anything, her admiration for their younger cousins grew and she asked to learn the Dark Sage techniques alongside them, although she could only study the theoretical and spiritual aspects of it. It was Aika who helped secure ancient scrolls and the one who found specimen Rai's corpse when they asked it of her. She even went so far as to babysit That Thing, whenever the two could not keep the undead limb on their person. Because of her work, she had grown to be quite the Mist information broker in the sidelines as well. But only for them. Only for them.
Dark times had come to Mist for the Shoukyou as well as the Isaki by then. Rival clans, dirty and peasant blood, were growing in sheer numbers and multiplying by rabbits. The powers that balanced the village were tipped precariously and it was a bad time, as any, to get caught doing such illicit, immoral affairs. When the two great and ancient clans of Mist left in an exodus, she was amongst the loyal. Her father, disloyal to blood, stayed behind to live in material luxury despite all the tension. When she heard of his demise during the Great Freeze, she wept. The only thing that kept her grounded, during all that, had been the news of her half sibling, one who she had started to write with.
Her half sibling lived on Hashima Island and was borne of a different mother. A Kyoujouran. And although they were of dirty blood, she could not begrudge the circumstances of their birth. She reached out to them, only by letters at first and learned a lot through writing. Her sibling was a retired shinobi and was living under the care of a Doctor Mizushima Nanami. That had alarmed her, at first, and they did confess that they had a genetic disorder due to the Shoukyou's inability to properly conceive with those with dirty blood. But it was nothing life threatening or contagious. They had only stayed with the doctor to lend their protection and their services to her clinic. That Doctor Nanami too was a dirty blooded Shoukyou, although only by a quarter, may have played a part in it as well.
Studying the Dark Arts with the twins continued and, before long, she only did that alone. Breaks were taken, only to eat, write letters and sleep. There were no businesses to manage as they went about their pilgrimage and she had been taught all they knew about the medical techniques. By the end of the first month, she knew how to salvage and scrap a body, dead or alive. She gave tribute to the twins' gods: Phobos and Deimos, the twin gods of fear, and Thanatos and Hypnos, the twin gods of death and sleep. All the rituals, every seal and chant, sacrifices to be made, ingredients to be used... every little nuance and every idiosyncrasy one should take were seared into her head by the third.
Aika hasn't quite surpassed her younger masters. Never had and probably never will. But she was a student who could make them proud, nonetheless. If only she had the ability to. Her chakra, unlike the twins', was not wholly suited to the practical application of the Dark Sage rituals. Unlike they, who had spilled blood so many times in the name of duty and in the name of science, she had been relatively clean having spent less time as a traditional shinobi. It left her a tad bit disappointed.
Perhaps, it was because she was far too pure... relatively speaking. When she sung and dance and acted, she felt connected with the characters, the masks she took on as well as her audience. Performing as she did, she connected with people's hearts, minds and souls. She knew, for a fact, that her cousins' had also been empathetic, to a sense. But they were more in tune to each other, rather than to the masses like she was. One could even go so far as to call Aika a bleeding heart, if she hadn't mastered her mask as any decent Shoukyou should. She believed far too much in the human spirit, the very thing that let them get through adversity, to think too lowly of others.
But, after too many months travelling with the Shoukyou and the Isaki clans, she faltered. The twins grew distant from her once they taught all they could and they found that she could not partake in their dark rituals. She was not really as close with any of her other cousins or the Isaki, despite her outgoing nature. After all, all her time had been spent in the company of colleagues: casino workers, performers, information brokers, black market dealers and the likes. Without her career, she felt lost.
She went to Hashima Island.
- Track 03: Wonderland ♪♫
'Your magic mind makes love to mine; I think I'm in love, angel'
- Shoukyou Gin was not as she imagined.
Although they got along well as much as half siblings could, their morals, ideologies and aspirations clashed horribly against each other. They could not see eye to eye. Her brother was far too honour bound and, in her opinion, looked at the world in a far too black and white manner. Upon finding out of her less than savoury habits, he had started admonishing her about her drinking, her sexual promiscuity and her general aloofness to the shinobi lifestyle. This often caused Aika to storm out of their shared apartment and she found solace in performing at the local tavern. That was where she met Osoroshi Tsuru.
Tsuru was an old acquaintance, actually, as she knew the man to have worked with the twins in the Kirigakure Psyche Ward. She was rather surprised, truth be told, to see him without the two. But he had disclosed that he was here on Hashima, looking for their two other colleagues: Isha Ju and Hanayaka Keiji. It was that mutual acquaintance, that shared connection that kept her gravitating towards Tsuru on lonely nights.
The Shoukyou twins had warned her, horror stories of past relations with Tsuru gone bad. And she did take their words to heart. But when the nights became too cold, he was the first one she would seek out. It did not help that he introduced her to another vice, much more dangerous than just alcohol and sex. Experimental medicine that put the fear of god in her. And, oh, the way it made her feel, how it thrummed with her soul made her crave it. And him.
Vices became her religion, she the guardian of the cesspool nest. She frolicked and cavorted with the other degenerates, under the cold, clinical eyes of her lover. Sometimes, she was convinced that she was in love with him and that he loved her back. Lies. Lies to forget her estrangement from her family, her incapability as a shinobi, the downfall of her village. As it ruined their bodies, it healed their minds and souls. Forget, forget, forget. Troubles, worries, doubts and insecurities. Forget it all.
But then, he was gone.
- Track 04: Dance or Die ♪♫
'Zombie, zombie, zombie, where do dreams come from?'
- Gone; vanished without a trace.
There was no hide nor hair of Tsuru, as if he hadn’t been there in the first place. Being alone had hit her hard. Only, she realized that she wasn’t alone. Even during all that time, despite how Gin rebuked and was appalled by her choices, he still loved her as his sister. Aika returned to living at the clinic, where Doctor Nanami aided in her rehabilitation. Cold turkey. The drugs were purged from her system slowly, efficiently. She had decided to cut down on the drinking and smoking as well and she was recovering well under the medical genius’ care.
It was around that time that she caught wind of the Shoukyou twins’ disappearance. She wondered and worried. It caused a great depression in her. For, even if she was the one to leave them to the clan in the first place, she still had fondness in her heart for the two main branch children. Using her old connections as an information broker and even going so far as to hiring the doctor in an official capacity, as a mercenary, they set to work. Starting with Tsuru’s disappearance, as it might have very well been connected to theirs.
Signs, according to their hired investigators as well as the Shoukyou who had last seen the two, pointed to the fact that they were forcibly taken. A trail had been left too, no matter how careful their abductors were. Strangely enough, they led to Hashima Island. The doctor speculated that SAIJIN, the local Mercenary guild, may know something about it. But, that was not a good thing. Cousin Tomiko even travelled to the island to lend aid.
The trail went cold and hit a dead end for some time though. That is, until Ju and Keiji resurfaced. In the middle of one of their investigations, Aika recognized the two and gave chase. As the colleagues of the three missing person, it was highly possible that they were connected somehow. All too right, of course; but, what they found was a much more horrible scenario than they imagined.
Experimentation. They were experimenting on the twins, in order to unlock the secrets of the Dark Sage arts. Akane and Akihiko were not in the best of states, barely alive as they were, chopped up for parts as if their limbs were a gold mine of information. It was during that revelation that made it apparent Ju and Keiji were not aware of who they were experimenting on in the first place. They weren’t the only ones that were horrified. And, even as they made to escape, they were caught.
Aika, Gin and Nanami. Throw them with the other test subjects. Ju and Keiji complied although the look in their eyes promised that they would sort out their errors, right their wrongs. Somehow. But it would be all far too late. These are excellent specimens! They’re reacting positively to the procedures. We may have just found our hosts. Of course, more tests. Much more tests.
It was all too painful, as their very chakra were perverted to accommodate that of a Dark Sage’s. Akane and Akihiko’s own bodies were used as templates, parts of them transferred to the other three. Deaths the two were called. And, later on, they too were given names. The Pestilence doctor and her brother War. She was Famine.
All four... five... four of them were kept in a cell. Dark and damp and smelling of rotting corpses and of blood, piss, shit and other horrible things. She didn’t know how long they were kept there; weeks, months, a year? It was quiet, with the only sounds being that of their own whimpering, moaning and groaning, cries of pain as their bodies tried to adjust and heal to what had been done to them.
There were times that they were not themselves. Famine warred with Aika. The hunger, not necessarily for food, gnawed and consumed at his being. She wanted and wanted. One time, she was horrified to find herself standing over Pestilence’s body after that hunger haze has lifted. Her hands smeared with the doctor’s blood as the woman’s head grew and healed itself. She was always hungry, with different needs to satiate it.
Sometimes, the Deaths would look at them... Famine, War and Pestilence. Eyes glazed, yet they shone with grief and sadness, showing what their stony faces could not. Apologies spilling from their lips repeatedly, a broken monotone record. SAIJIN had made them like the Deaths. And in order to be close to the Deaths, they had to witness plenty of it. Some they caused themselves, although not always of their own accord. They had turned, all of them, into monsters
And they were always surrounded by death. Always. Yet, they too were always surrounded by life. Life brought back from the dead. It was the dark rituals, she would realize. She knew that the Deat- no, Akane and Akihiko knew these too, even as they were off in worlds of their own, too out of it from the pain of being picked apart by those vultures and sewn back together. They had to be put together, to be as one, to even stay alive with what little was left of them.
For a long time, it felt like they would never escape this hell.
- Track 05: Tightrope ♪♫
'This ain't no acrobatics; you either follow or you lead, yeah'
- It was all utterly apocalyptic.
Madness even. The part that was still Aika had to hold back mad laughter. Akane and Akihiko were behind this, she just knew it! The dead were rising up in droves, former test subjects and victims, destroyed everything and killed everyone that dared impede them from their much wanted freedom. Something told her to look for her cousins, her brother and the doctor. But it was a small part, easily squashed, with every second that passed and she was still in chains. Surely, they could take care of themselves?
She could imagine her brother War- Gin... Gin helping Nanami up, running and scouting ahead to make sure they were home free. Akane and Akihiko, despite their limitations, would be mowing down anyone who would even think of getting in their way. Yes, they could take care of themselves. She just wanted to be free! Her binds were easily broken as the wards keeping them were destroyed. Aika bounded for freedom, singing of victory and triumph at the top of her voice. Rally them all, rally the undead. Who cared? She didn’t! Free, free, free! Aika trusted them too, to get the hell out of dodge. She took the first ship off Hashima Island and soon found herself on Stone.
And it was easy enough, to integrate herself into their community. As soon as she had her wits about her, she had her connections from her days of running the casino, to do her paperwork. Her foreign investments helped as well, in gaining her some groundwork. Money in banks gained interest and she found herself in a fortunate monetary state, being richer than she was as a Shoukyou branch member in Mist. Stone was accepting refugees from Mist and Leaf, either way, and she was one of the many. Nobody batted an eye at her, except perhaps for the few who knew of the Shoukyou clan and knew of her.
In exchange for citizenship and basic human rights, she had to render service as a Jounin. A job as a Shaman was offered to her, after a display of her medical talent, but she refused... afraid that her new Dark Sage capabilities would distort the healing arts in some way. So, she had accepted the Main Branch title instead. But, as time and history would attest, she was never a very good shinobi. Had things continued that way, she would be working a slave for several years before she could earn herself proper credentials. But, as it was, she found her opportunity. And being as she was, she took it.
With the political and economical instability that had shaken Stone, as of late, she found herself in good standing with the politicians. Aika knew that money ran the modern world a great deal. So lining those fat cats’ pockets with yen got her in the good books of many. The occasional donation to hospitals, orphanages and other charities made people happy enough not to question her sudden rise in power. At best, she was treated like some sort of celebrity or just some other rich mogul. At worst, the media made up all sorts of horrible rumours about her.
They weren’t completely wrong.
- Track 06: Q.U.E.E.N. ♪♫
'I asked a question like this: Are we a lost generation of our people?'
- Money didn’t grow on trees.
Aika knew that her sizeable amount of funds was not going to remain forever. Not with how much she was spending, to keep her lifestyle running. But, it was to her advantage that she always was a career woman. Calling in all sorts of deals and favours, rooting out the branch Shoukyou and Isaki members hiding in Stone, she started to make for herself a true seat of power. Managing business and people, after all, was what she did best. And, along with that, came the talent of making money... and to an extent, power, grow. Businesses belonging to Aika popped up, left and right, both legal and otherwise. When she couldn’t just be bothered with starting a brand from scratch, she found herself buying out existing ones. One of them which happened to be Arisu’s Wonderland Cafe.
Perhaps it was nostalgia, after all, she was the Red Queen of Mist’s Wonderland Casino. Had the twins been here, she was sure they’d be either ecstatic or seething, ranting about how only they were worthy for the titles Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat. But, nonetheless, it was on a whim that the woman bought the little shop. She let Arisu be the face of it, for the most part, and situated a select few of her people there. The Wonderland Gang, it was jokingly called.
But for her, right now, it was home.