Osu’s Tragic Journey:
Bloodlust Avenger (Joke Title)
The Tale of Two Years and Some Change.
A young… man stepped onto the deck of a ship when he heard Lightning Country would be in sight soon. The wind teased his purple hair as he waited to see the shores of his homeland after all this time. The small sigh that escaped him caused a nearby sailor the start thumping his head against the deckhouse while chanting “Not a woman.” Forcing himself to ignore the all too familiar sight Osuteno went for higher ground in the hope of seeing land just a bit sooner. The rope upon which he sat would reveal to an observant eye that he did not weigh as much as even his slim size suggested, perhaps not even half as much as appearance suggested. Despite having grown considerably taller these last couple years Osuteno had lost weight even though he had been rather slim before. This caused him to sway considerably on the wind but neither he nor anyone else on the ship had concern over that at this point. It was honestly silly for him to be waiting up here to witness the appearance of land since it would still be the next day until they made port.
Osuteno grimaced to himself when he thought back to the last time he was in these waters more than two years ago. Nothing at all was the same as back then. A voice from behind him spoke up, “Osuuu~ I thought you would be happier about being back here. You wouldn’t be thinking about that little shipwreck with that face.” Osu grimaced harder as he had not gotten to that point in his recollection yet.
In the weeks leading up to his thirteenth birthday Osuteno decided he would go on another fishing trip to Moon Country. Of course, since he wasn’t on a mission he thought he would travel like people normally would and completely underestimated how difficult it was to get passage on short notice. He ended up departing while sharing a room with the gun powder. “Osu~ you are going to get bitch face if you keep that up.” Whose fault did she think that was? Using rather inappropriate phrases a voice from inside his head suggested that both he and the woman were constant sources of annoyance for her particularly since they had messed with her library and that he could go choke on his gripes. Maybe Uso was feeling nostalgic as well considering her phrasing… Or maybe solastalgic would be more appropriate? Honestly for most people what they might be feeling in Osu’s shoes would be PTSD.
*Insert wavy transition scene ;P*
The little, girly and cute twelve-year-old Osu sat rather grumpily in his “bunk”, more accurately named a window, and endured the overpowering smell of gunpowder that was stowed with him. He managed to sleep through the first night with no small amount of difficulty and were apparently done sailing near the coast. Soon they would be leaving Lightning controlled waters. The large expanse of ocean between those seas controlled by nations were generally safe unless one ventured into bad weather but occasionally one might run into pirates should they be near uncontrolled islands or parts of the coast with less patrols. Some nations with less developed navies would also often host pirates unwillingly or secretly but that was an issue for international politics. The more concerning issue is that the period right now would be the most likely time for pirates to appear during this voyage per the sailors.
Osu, being an avid reader of adventure stories, couldn’t help but feel it was very bad luck for the crew to say such things aloud but also felt too embarrassed to bring up a discussion on tropes in real life. Still he was much too genre-savvy to dare say or think things like “as if that would happen” or anything else those main characters would foolishly do in stories. He smiled a little at the thought of some people he knew back in the village who would purposefully say protagonist type things. He would never wish it for himself of course, he was much happier and comfortable supporting others from behind. He’s a medic after all. Suddenly Osu got a chill and sneezed simultaneously. Was he coming down with a cold? This trip simply refuses to go his way doesn’t it?
* * *
A few hours later dinner had been served and the crew began switching out for night duty. The skies were clear as a half-moon rose and the stars were shining in the sky. Not as many were up at this point particularly since the navigator said tonight looked to be calm but that just meant the few who were up were free to engage in some conversation to pass the time. It was just typical small talk really. What they got up to at the last port, what they planned to do at the next, how unfair it was that the captain got to eat with that little ojou-chan who was heading to Moon on their ship of all things.
“Really though Captain Tsukino flirting at the little girl aside… No that is rather hard to ignore, isn’t it? Even the captain isn’t stupid enough to make a pass at that ojou-chan, right Hino-San? Right??”
“Calm down Mizuno. The captain, as desperate as he is, won’t try anything funny with the kid. I’m sixty percent sure.”
From above them a voice called out, “What about that forty percent!? That forty percent is too high!!! You’re not sure at all!”
A fourth voice, Aino the navigator, popped in at this point, “Kino you are being too loud, quiet down and keep on lookout. And you guys should have more faith in Captain Tsukino. You shouldn’t doubt his integrity just because he is stupid beyond belief, desperate for women, ugly as hell, greedy as a lower noble, unreliable as a friend, a terrible sailor, an senseless alcoholic, possibly a lolicon...”
“YOU DOUBT HIS INTEGRITY THE MOST!!!” The other three shouted at the navigator.
Aino, despite being interrupted in such a fashion, calmly thought about it for a moment. “I suppose you are right… I’m going to go check on the captain and make sure he isn’t trying anything funny with that little girl.”
As Aino left to the Captain’s cabin the other three sailors sighed and Mizuno went back to the topic he initially meant to start. “Anyway… Why do you two think that little girl is on our rat-infested block of scrap wood? Surely for as much as our greedy bastard lolicon of a captain probably charged her she could have taken an actual passenger ship. I mean I haven’t heard of her claiming such but that is a princess of some noble family if I’ve ever seen one. And why is she traveling alone? Shouldn’t she have guards?”
Kino who was hanging upside-down in a rather silly looking fashion above them nodded while scratching his chin, “Yes she seems rather naïve and gives off a proper ojou-chan type air. She doesn’t seem to be dumb mind you, but… Well she had the sense to try claiming she was a boy for her travels from what I heard at dinner but she failed to realize she needed to change her yukata into something more boyish like pants. Even if she did put on pants she fails to realize how cute she is betraying her story. The moe is strong with that one, gonna break some hearts in her life.”
Hino had a concerned and distant look on his face. “My daughter is already grown and married, but even now I wouldn’t dare let her on a trip alone with a bunch of dirty looking sailors like us. In fact, since that little ojou-chan is almost certainly a princess in some regard I can’t imagine why she is alone and heading to Moon… You don’t think she is a runaway, do you?”
Lightbulbs seemed to turn on over the trio’s heads. “That must be it,” Kino muttered.
Mizuno nodded, “That does make a lot of sense. That little ojou-chan is probably running away from home. But then the question is what would cause her to do so. I mean she seems like such a good child.”
The three mused about it for a bit before Hino spoke up again, “It occurs to me that it is common for girls her age to be engaged among nobles, sometimes even married.”
Kino was surprised at this information, “Noble kids get married at her age? Why would they do that? Still that should be a somewhat adorable wedding, wouldn’t it? Two little chibis all dressed up and everything.”
Mizuno grimaced and shook his head, “Nothing of the sort Kino. The girls might be ojou-chan’s age but the men are often your, my or even Hino’s age. Young women often have healthier kids and can put more of them out in their life if they start early which is important to those noble types… Not to mention that they simply like showing off young women despite being old themselves.”
Kino now seemed horrified, “That ojou-chan is way too little to have anything to do with baby-making! There is no way her family would allow such a thing, is there?”
Being a parent himself, Hino was rather dissatisfied as he explained, “Depending on her family’s actual rank they might not have any choice. When guys like us look at nobles we just bow and get out of their way all the same. But amongst their own kind they must use different levels of deference for all sorts of complicated reasons. Like if the ojou-chan is from some branch family of a lower noble house, all it takes is for some slimy noble to have some dirty thoughts about her and use some casual threats before her parents ship her off to be his concubine. In this case though the ojou-chan in question is unmistakably going to be an overwhelming beauty so they may have even auctioned her off to the highest bidder. It wouldn’t surprise me if some nobles with tastes like our captain fought and bid amongst themselves for her. Hell, Aino imagine how she will grow in the next few years and tell me that in a good four or five years you wouldn’t sail a hundred storms to marry her yourself despite being a decade her elder.”
“Forget five years, imagine ten or so from now when that girl is fully a woman through and through,” Mizuno said with a rather stupid yet understandable grin on his face. “She might even be saving the country from a civil war by escaping like this hahaha!”
Kino seemed confused at this point while Hino simply rolled his eyes. “Ignoring that bit of stupidity Mizuno is leaking out it is very likely that by running off to another county, Kino, the ojou-chan is probably trying to escape marriage with a creepy old man like the captain.”
Kino, despite being a bit slow compared to most of the sailors, wasn’t quite sure they were on the right track. “I just don’t know guys. If the girl were that important how did she escape this far on her own? Wouldn’t someone be chasing her down? If she were really important to anyone wouldn’t we have to worry about our safety as well?”
“All of that was nonsense. Do you three think you are detectives or something? Still… Despite being wrong on nearly every assumption made in that ridiculous story, it is a bit impressive that the all-important concluding thought is correct.”
The three sailors confusedly turned their attentions to the deck railing where an unknown girl was sitting. She was an incredibly odd sight with strange black clothes with red frills and a matching bow, condescending eyes as dark as the night, and the halberd she held that had to weigh more than she did. The girl couldn’t have been any older than thirteen but something about her gaze told them that the wrong move could prove to be their end. The gigantic halberd she somehow spun casually in one hand also suggested this.
As the eldest, Hino’s instinct told him danger was upon them and he needed to try and get them out of it safely. “… Good evening miss. You wouldn’t happen to be a shinobi would… Never mind. Is there anything we can assist you with?”
The girl seemed both surprised and disappointed with this reaction. “Really? We can’t do the ‘Where did you come from’ bit or anything? I mean it is obvious that I didn’t board this ship at port yet we are out in the sea with no other ship in sight. You should at least be trying to demand some sort of answer from me aside from trying to be helpful. Gaaah, listening to that stupid story you three made while waiting for the right timing to make my entrance was pointless.” The three sailors had no idea how to go about comforting what they believed was a pouting agent of inhuman destruction. They had always heard that shinobi are all a bit unusual but this simply seemed troublesome.
Suddenly the girl seemed to recover. “Well whatever. Tell us the room Osuteno is in. I know from traveling with him in the past he goes to bed early and if we don’t spill blood along the way it will be easier to capture him before he puts up a fight.”
The sailors had various reactions to this statement but all three turned to surprise as another voice spoke up from behind them. “There is no need to ask them Chiai. The rest of the crew on the deck all said that the child is in a gunpowder room. I sent the siblings on ahead.” The man who spoke this time was massive. He stood shy of seven feet and his shirtless body displayed rolling muscles. Propped on his shoulder was a double-sided axe that was as large as the girl was tall. But where their eyes became glued to was a symbol that he wore around his neck. The mark of the Jashinist religion. Whose grandmother hadn’t scared the piss out of them as kids with tales of Jashinist coming to snatch bad children away in the night to sacrifice to their dark god? Kino fainted.
The monster in human skin smiled broadly. “Oh~ that was a good reaction! Such honest fear is nice to see. I might let him die painlessly in his sleep as a reward for his respect.”
At this the girl’s eyes widened. “Baka-Senpai! Your axe is covered in blood! You were supposed to wait until after Osuteno was captured to start the cleanup! I have told you repeatedly that he is sensitive to blood flow!”
The man casually cut the three sailors in half while using a pinky to clean his earwax. “That’s Baka Priest-Sama to you squirt, you are years away from becoming a full priestess. Besides the kid is weaker than you right? You should stop overestimating your little boyfriend regardless of the fact he is…”
An explosion tore through the ship which was starting to crack in half and sink. The realization of what happened dawned on the girl first. “Baka-Baka-Baka! You sent the twins down into the gunpowder room?!”
The Priest who was unceremoniously being called an idiot by his underling opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before nodding, “Though it is probably fine, I will allow criticism just this once.”
“Baka! Stop standing around saying stupid things and rescue Osu! I mean capture Osuteno safely!”
“That’s no-good Chiai-Chibi. If you say something that plainly shows your affection to the boy and then rephrase it it makes you seem like a tsundere. You normally act more honest than…”
“MOVE YOUR ASS AND SAVE HIM!”
* * *
A few minutes earlier, a cultist duo slowly stalked down the underbelly of the ship. Dressed in a fashion that would make you wonder if they were heading to a gimp convention. If one asked for defining details they would be hard pressed to answer with anything aside from the both being about 170 cm tall and possessing lean builds. Every bit of them was completely bound in black. One held what appeared to be an oversized butcher’s knife the length of a sword while the other held a whip with sharp pieces of metal in it. They came up to the door of the gunpowder room and nodded to each other. Fire burning in the hand of one of them and electricity in the other’s hand. As they struck to burst into the room and captured Osu a voice behind them exclaimed, “Wait, don’t! That’s the- Blood Shield!”
Osu had long notice that the people on the deck above him had been quickly killed with their blood pointing everywhere and had noticed he was probably the target of what he assumed were enemy shinobi. He had set himself up to ambush whoever came after him directly but the actions of these twin gimps had not been in his expectations. The fire and lightning they sent into his room were more than enough to set off the gunpowder. Despite shielding himself, with what little time he had it was impossible for him to do enough to fully protect himself. The resulting explosion knocked Osu through several walls but he had managed to keep himself in one piece. The same could not be said for most of those on the ship. Osu was far too aware of the pouring blood and ceasing hearts around him even over the thunderous cracks of the ship falling apart. Most of the crew was dead, and those left alive would very likely die from their injuries or the freezing water they were sinking into. As much as Osu wanted to act to save them, it would be impossible to even begin treatment with two, no… four enemy shinobi after him. As he thought such, the twin gimps burst out from some rubble cracking their bones and stretching as if they were getting up from a nap rather than a deadly explosion. From what Osu could tell they survived the direct impact without much damage. They were incredibly hardy somehow.
Osu knew that this was all a bit much for anyone to expect a lone preteen medical shinobi to handle. His only real option was to try escaping. The pair in front of him seemed to sense his intention to flee. The one with the whip came directly at Osu from the front trying to shock him with lighting jutsu and capture him with their weapon while the butcher gimp sought to cut off Osu’s escape with a wall of flames. Shields of blood sprang forth to block the strikes from the front while he slammed a wave of blood into the wall of flames to break through and make his escape. Waiting where he broke through however was the butcher gimp. Osu narrowly escaped from the following slash at his legs but he was forced back towards the whip holder. Osu flipped up and planted his feet into the descending ceiling to dodge the horizontal slash made with the whip. Halfway through his hand seals however Osu sensed a heartbeat right above him and sprang to the side.
The broad side of a massive ax burst through the ceiling where Osu had just been standing and before he knew it, two more heartbeats entered the fight and the four surrounded him. No one made a move as the dust and rubble cleared. The identity of one of them captured most of Osu’s attention. “Wh- Chiai?!”
“No honorific!” Chiai exclaimed while blushing a little.
The huge man with the ax chuckled. “Your little boyfriend seems quite surprised to see you Chiai-Chibi. He might almost be relieved if I say we are here on business and not for your pleasure.”
Chiai clearly looked irritated with the large man as she shifted her halberd to where she was pointing it directly at her superior. “Shut up Baka-Priest!” She then turned to Osu with an awkward and guilty smile. “Uhm Osu… -Kun, no honorific is too much, it has been too long. Could you please come with us quietly? There really is no escape for you and I really don’t want to beat you down again. Some things between a man and a woman are too much to do in front of others you know. You should also know that those twins are each as strong as I am and Baka-Priest here is, well, a full priest and not just a trainee.”
Osu was quite clueless as to why any of this was happening. He looked around knowing he really didn’t have an opening to escape. Perhaps if he got down into the water and… The gimp with the whip snapped it in what appeared to be a sign of impatience though the one with the over-sized butcher’s knife put their hand on the other’s shoulder to calm them. Chiai became very visibly angry with the whip gimp but kept her attention on Osu.
The so-called priest seemed bored. “Listen here kid, I can understand your aversion to walking away quietly with people you don’t know and even more so since you are the focus of Chiai-Chibi’s affection. Wouldn’t wish that on my greatest enemy. However, let’s just say your dad is a strict boss and he wants us to bring you back in as few pieces as possible. If you knew anything about him you would understand how out of character that order is and how important you must be for his plans.”
Any intention of fighting or running away suddenly left Osu. He wasn’t sure what he just heard. Or, he did, but he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. All shinobi training aside, it is hard to expect a twelve-year-old orphan to remain calm when someone says their father sent for them. The others didn’t let the slip in Osu’s guard go to waste. Chiai knocked Osu onto his back and pinned him down sitting on his chest with his arms pinned by her leg and her free hand as she held her halberd against his neck. The gimp with the whip had managed to bind his legs tightly while he fell and the gimp with the butcher’s knife simply sat cross-legged next to him with the blade pressed against Osu’s stomach. Despite Chiai’s squirming and her embarrassed, blushing and obviously pleased face he knew she as well as the other two were intent on keeping him captured. He wasn’t a front-line fighter in any way and all three of his captors were much stronger than him physically. But rather than hopelessly trying to find a path to escape, Osu remained focus on the priest. “Do you really know who my father is? He told you to do this?”
The twin with the whip appeared to be agitated with how little mind Osu paid them but the priest nodded with a cheery smile. “Probably would have opened up with that if I knew it would be that easy.” He looked around where only the debris of a ship remained and shrugged, “Well got a different sort of quota fulfilled anyway. Yeah kid, you can’t get my position or higher without being on your pop’s good side. Well it isn’t like I get to talk to him directly. Orders from him were passed down to my boss then to me.” Seeing as how Osu appeared to be willingly coming along the huge priest took out a cigar and lit it on some debris that happened to still be on fire and took a long drag to relax himself.
“No offense, but you seem nothing like your father kid. Chiai-Chibi said she saw the resemblance but the kids he has… adopted seem more like him than you do. You look exactly like your mother right down to your bloody pupils but hell you don’t seem anything like her personality-wise either. Really makes one think about that old nature versus nurture thing.”
“You know my moth-“
“Chill kid, your mother has been missing for years. Signs of her only pop up after she is long gone from a place. Anyway, standing out in the middle of the ocean is no place for long conversations. Chiai, prepare the kid for transport while I signal the ship.”
Osu finally turned his attention to Chiai who released one of his arms and brought a pill out from a pouch. She placed it between her lips and began to move in for a kiss, but the gimp with the butcher’s knife stopped the sexual assault by pulling back on Chiai’s hair, taking the pill from her lips and forcing it into Osu’s mouth. Seconds after being forced to swallow the pill Osu felt his consciousness fading fast and began to sink into the water as he couldn’t even maintain his unconscious expenditure of chakra to keep afloat. The last thing he remembered was Chiai starting to throw a fit at the butcher gimp.
* * *
When he began to wake up, Osu immediately felt queasy and groggy. He tried to gather chakra but nothing was coming to him and the attempt nearly split his head in two, not in reference to the headache it most certainly gave him, but the fact a scimitar became embedded in his… bed right above where his head lay. With even more effort than it normally does to look around when one first wakes up with a hangover, Osu looked where his guard stood leaning against the wall with several more scimitars and enough arms to carry them all. He didn’t outwardly appear to be paying Osu that much attention, but Osu, with so much calm it surprised himself, laid his head back to where it had been and accepted that for now he couldn’t do much. It seemed likely that his guard would be stronger than himself, the drugs that were circulating in his blood were dosed with him and his bloodline in mind. There was also the fact he was chained down.
At least for now, Osu could try and listen, though even his ability to hear blood was severely dulled. The climate… seemed on the cooler side. As he relaxed further he could faintly hear more heartbeats further away but he couldn’t keep his thoughts together enough to count the number of heartbeats much less figure out physiques or general health. He hadn’t felt this useless since that mission he kept getting… kidnapped. If Osu had more time to continue stumbling down that train of thought, he might have come to realize something particularly odd concerning the frequency he was held captive but Uso chose that moment to regain consciousness as well.
“What… What is… I feel so… so… ugggh. Words. Can’t move. Idiot. Osuteno. Why? Bastard?”
If Osu really had the brain capacity to think more clearly than he did at that moment, he would have been impressed with how Uso could manage that much coherency. All he could manage to reply with was, “Kidnapped.”
A few moments of processing later Uso transmitted her feelings quite clearly with a very slow but impressively long string of profanities. The conversation took longer than either participant was aware of. Osu hadn’t noticed that more people had entered the room and one was poking at his cheek.
The finger was far too close to his face for Osu to have any hope of focusing on it in his current state, so his eyes slowly followed the arm up and saw a grinning Chiai. “Hello there sleeping cutie. How are you feeling since we lowered you dose a bit?”
The vacant expression Osu answered with brought a laugh from the girl. “Look how helpless you are! You can’t give me such a dangerous look Osu-Kun. I. Might. Just. Eat. You. Up.” That last bit was spoken in a low tone right into Osu’s ear, but before he could even register what was being said Chiai was abruptly thrown out of the building.
The butcher gimp from earlier stood with her back towards Osu and staring after the girl she just threw. “You keep trying to ignore your orders not to sexually assault the Blood. This isn’t like you at all, Chiai-San. You are lucky the head priest hasn’t gotten angry with you and simply ordered a couple of us to keep an eye on you when you visit the Blood.”
An angry howl from Chiai was swiftly followed by her halberd that came through the open entrance towards the butcher gimp. Anticlimactically, it was caught by Osu’s multi-armed guard who gave it a slight twirl before tossing it back out and drawing a very audible grunt from Chiai. The blunt side had hit her gut and winded the girl. “Girls, stop causing a fuss,” Osu’s guard said tersely.
Without any fuss both girl’s replied, “Yes Priest-Sama.”
Osu was finally starting to catch up mentally as the girls quietly fussed over whether Chiai was actually trying to assault him or simply giving a playful hello. After a bit of struggling he finally managed to organize his thoughts and ask, “Where is my father?”
The two girls looked at Osu with a look of confusion before Chiai thumped her fist against her palm. “He asked ‘Where is my father?’ That medicine has really done a number on him, hasn’t it? It sounds like he has a mouth full of cotton.” The two girls then turned their heads towards the priest.
Noticing three sets of eyes asking him questions the priest once more gave a curt reply, “Wait for the Blood Moon.”
Chiai turned back towards Osu and said, “Sorry Osu-kun, I can’t say much aside from you will meet Him in a week.”
His question wasn’t answered at all and now he only had more to ask but as long as a priest was watching him it didn’t look like Osu was going to get any answers, even from Chiai. Rather he wasn’t sure why he was expecting Chiai to volunteer information so easily considering she was one of the people who kidnapped him. He wasn’t even sure if he and Chiai were on good terms or not. The last time they saw each other she beat him into a pulp and kissed him was he was losing consciousness. She kept speaking politely to him but also kept… well, she kept assaulting him. Did she like him? If so, why did she seem so eager to help these people kidnap him?
From deep inside his brain Uso called, “Dumbass. Stop fussing over the pervert. Figure out who these assholes are. Argh my head!”
That… Right… What was he doing? He was aware that these people seemed to be of the same religious sect as Chiai and somehow his father had the ability to give their clergy tasks but it never occurred to Osu that he didn’t know what or who they worshipped.
“Who are you-,“ But before Osu could continue with his garbled face sounds, medicine was poured down his throat by the butcher gimp.
“Apologies but it is not yet time for you to be awake. If Chiai-San didn’t take so long to fix her hair we would have been on time.” Once more Osu felt something slip and passed out.
The other three… or rather four in the room watched Osu fall into a deep sleep. Chiai turned towards the butcher gimp and asked, “What was he saying there right before you gave him that medicine?” The butcher gimp simply shrugged and the guard priest simply didn’t care. As far as the three Jashinists could tell it was simply gibberish.
While the two girls left while arguing over how necessary it was for the butcher gimp to comment on Chiai doing a bit of grooming before coming to see Osu and the guard continued making sure no nonsense occurred on his watch, an unnoticed figure gazed down from the shadowed rafters. If you ignored her complete lack of presence and the precise angle in which she sat to be unseen by those below, it would be hard to claim she was hiding at all. Proudly sitting as if she were on a throne, the woman looked down on the sleeping Osu, all the while thumbing through a book that had a rather impressively sinister appearance to it.
For another two days, the woman watched without rest or moving from her spot until it drifted to night once more. She was already aware when the guards would switch shifts, when people ate, did prayers, and most daily habits. Now was probably the best time to act. Gracefully she slipped down from the rafters and silently landed on the floor near the guard. The guard continued staring forward as they had all day, unaware of the illusion they were caught in. Subtle illusions worked best. Like the illusion she placed on the children who, once again, visited to give Osu his medicine, where they only gave him half the dose they were intended to.
In the light of the moon, it was much more obvious that the woman was a beauty. Lovely purple hair dangled down to her shoulders and framed a young and handsome face. The intensity of her red eyes could overwhelm a person in multiple fashions depending on her expression. Right now if one could see her face as she gazed down on the child who inherited her looks they would likely say that she adored the child more than the world and that it inspired more than a little fear.
The woman squatted down in a very unladylike fashion to where her head was level with Osu’s as he slept. Into his ear, she whispered, “Oσθενο.” He didn’t stir. She giggled to herself and once more said, “Oσθενο.” Finally, with the same loving tone but a very dark expression in her face she whispered, “Osuteno. Wake up calmly dear child. Wake up my Osuteno.” She brushed her hands over his face using the little healing she knew to try and stir a reaction.
As Osu opened his eyes he thought he was gazing into a mirror. In fact he was initially gazing into a reflection as the woman wore a small circular mirror from her neck. That just made it even more obvious that the woman’s face looked exactly like his as he stared her in the eyes. As he opened his mouth she interrupted him, “Not now child, your guard won’t be trapped in his illusion forever. It is very important that I read a bit of this book to you and while it may sound strange I need you to open your mind and accept its words. Do you understand?”
Osu stared blankly unsure if this was some sort of dream or trick, but his trusting nature along with the loving look the woman gave him caused him to shake his hand to where his palm was open despite his arms being chained to his sides. “Blood.”
It was the woman’s turn to be confused. She had merely asked him to keep his mind open while she read to him. Still she was more than a little curious. Blood began to seep out of her fingertips without being cut and she placed Osu’s hand inside hers. She felt a slight tug at her mind and she recoiled a little despite herself. It didn’t try to pull her in, it didn’t feel anywhere strong enough to do so, but it was trying to guide her. Osu merely said, “Come in,” with a very exhausted expression. With the next tug at her mind she slipped in.
The woman gaped for the briefest of moments being controlling her expression again. She was surrounded by a wondrous library that was so tall one would have to look straight up to notice the highest levels. Osuteno was just a bit off desperate to make it to a chair so he would have one less thing to focus on. A voice from a bit further in yelled at them. “You bastard! Did you let one of those religious freaks in here? How drugged are you dumbass? It better not be that damn little girlfriend of yours either or I-“
As Uso rounded the corner, leaning against tables as being a purely mental being didn’t stop whatever drug was messing with their head from doing a number on her, she stopped shouting at Osu and went wide-eyed at the sight of the woman. The woman herself turned rather pale as she saw he girl had many features she herself at her age. It… No there was too little time to act. She was quite literally in Osuteno’s… in THEIR mind. All she had to make sure of was…
The woman looked down at her hand which held the tome. It was a rather special book for several reasons, the least of which was that only one copy could exist and one copy would always exist. Various other properties it possessed made it not very surprising that she did manage to bring it inside their mind but it certainly wasn’t the original plan. The woman silently wondered if she could simply…
The woman walked over to a shelf while the two children seemed to be racing through a thousand questions in their minds, removed a book from the shelf, and placed the tome in its place. The little girl suddenly began to catch on that she was falling several steps behind and tried to make up for lost time.
“You are! Are You?! No, what is that book!? How did she bring a book in here? Osuteno you answer me this second!”
Osu, despite being a very bright young lad was simply trying to catch flies with his mouth. Perhaps it was for the best he hadn’t recovered yet as more things began happening. Despite the bookshelves never really caring how they returned books to the shelf before this moment, the library itself seemed dissatisfied. Obviously, this new book was in the wrong section entirely. Magic belonged on the fourth floor after all. Access to the second floor and above was restricted? That can’t be true. After all, a book that belonged on the fourth floor was on the first and it had to get there somehow. At the very least all the floors up to the fourth had to be available.
Thunderous cracks resounded through the library as the massive locks on several doors gave way since proper access had been established. The book, as a measure of convenience, shot through the air and made its way to the proper section while Uso shrieked, “The second floor is open!” She did this while shaking Osu half to death. There were too many things happening at once to make proper sense of the situation. If this wasn’t real life and instead some piece of literature Osu would have a few words to say to the author about pacing. At the very least this swift influx of characters and organizations without any real lead up was rather rough on him. But life very seldom has a proper sense of timing or prose.
The woman who seemed to know what was going on appeared to be done with whatever she was planning to do for now. She turned to the two and said gently, “Alright there is much to do and so little time to do it. Child stop shaking your brother so much, it is very unladylike despite how cute it is that attached so attached to him. Osuteno take proper care of your sister and listen carefully. I will give you the rest of your dose when I leave so no suspicions are raised. You are not to say a word should you get the chance, which isn’t very likely. On the night of the blood moon you are to do as the priests say and… meet your father. I will step in when the time comes and you will be coming with me. Now how do I… ahh so I can leave anytime I desire. Very good.”
The woman poofed out of Osu’s head without giving the children a chance to react at all. By the time Uso had managed to recover and force Osu to exit their mind and try to get some answers the medicine was already trickling down his throat. It was very unfair.
The woman gently brushed Osu’s hair as he passed out, her adoration even greater than before. Everything was falling into place almost as if she didn’t need to do anything at all. The potential rewards were increasing and long unconfirmed theories were displaying results. It was almost as if she were destined to succeed. She smirked when she realized for a moment she believed fate could possibly exist. As she made her departure from the Jashinist base it was hard to not suspect some other force at work than her own.
“How in the world did that child develop such a complex inner mind? Does it have something to do with his sister’s soul existing there as well? I have so much to ask them once they are mine again… Both of them…” She dwelled on that last thought until she was a safe distance away. Her breathing turned a bit ragged and her complexion was paler. She pulled out a packet of powder and swallowed it before sitting down to rest.
For a while she sat there recovering and staring in the direction of where her children slept. The fact that it was children and not child was still drilling at her mind. “I should have named her back then…” Not that it would have done much good. Even if she had known the girl’s soul had attached itself to Oσθενο rather than perishing there would have been no way for her to have known that name after they were left with those idiots of Kumogakure. Raiden’s folly, she had even left those fools a note with Oσθενο’s name on it and they had butchered it to Osuteno. Well she didn’t truly expect everyone in Kumogakure to known that tongue. Her own mother only knew a bit of the Old tongue and she herself knew even less. At the very least they could have instructed the boy on his proper name.
The woman shook her head and began thinking about more important details. When she had left their mindscape, the tome had indeed vanished from her hands. Chances were that it would be multitudes more effective this way, but she (if only a little) did regret not having it in her possession any longer. Later, she would have to see if it were possible to recover it.
Her heart began to hurt again and a different powder was ingested. That recurring pain was a reminder she didn’t really need at this point. Every reach for power would have its cost. It was mostly about risk management and how much one was willing to give up. She was sure her plan would succeed at this stage, the problem came after that. Gods were many things powerful, most had mortal beginnings as far as she was aware which made them very human in their actions, and most importantly gods were immortal. They weren’t at all omnipotent from her experiences. It was indeed possible to lie to them, to trick them. She would succeed once more in stealing from Jashin, and far more this time. The problem with gods happened to be that they were very human apart from their immortality and power. They became very upset when things didn’t go their way.
The best option at this point was to keep moving and acting to limit the form in which vengeance could take. The woman regained a bit of her strength and stood once more. She knew when and where their little ritual would take place for a very long time. She had been the one to tell them how it needed to be done after all.
The next time Osu woke up, the evening sun was beginning to set and there was a lot of movement. Osu didn’t know it but every member of this particular Jashinist sect had returned for the Blood Moon. Several dozen trainees ran around following the directions of the priests in preparation for the ritual. In no way were lunar tetrads common and preparation for this day actually began around 14 years ago. Everything had to be perfect.
Osu, in his clueless state, simply wondered if tonight was the night he would apparently meet his father. Normally he would have been far more suspicious of that point but between Chiai, who for some reason Osu was sure wouldn’t lie to him, and that woman from the other day, who Uso had just confirmed was not a dream and had indeed put some strange unintelligible book in their head, he felt like the part of meeting his father was the most truthful part of all this. Uso, who Osu would have sworn would be more practical about all this and insist that they escape, was hesitant and very nervous about this entire situation. Neither of them mentioned the fact that the woman the other day insisted they were siblings with absolute surety and what that, as well as her appearance, implied about her identity.
On a serious note though, despite being trained as a shinobi, Osu was only twelve years old. You couldn’t kidnap him, drug him constantly for who knows how long, drop in the fact his parents are indeed alive and around, mix in some religious cult a girl who inspires weird feelings inside of him is part of, throw in the fact the very mean girl in his head is his sister, put a mysterious magic thing inside his head, and leave him chained to a bed under 24-hour supervision and expect him to have a handle on the situation. This situation was the exact opposite of handled. How was Osu supposed to know what to do, if he was in any position to do anything that is. He was chained, guarded by nameless and obnoxiously big people with sharp objects, and couldn’t get hold of his chakra because of whatever drug he was flooded with. Most his physical capabilities came from some creative manipulation of his blood with chakra. Without that he might as well be… well a stronger than average twelve-year-old chained to a bed. Blood manipulation aside, he wasn’t some crazy strong taijutsu specialist anyway, metal chains would be too much to ask him to break without ninjutsu.
Completely overwhelmed by everything that seemed to be rushing him, Osu resigned himself to whatever the hell was going on. It was about this time that Chiai popped in. “Happy birthday Osu-Kun!” Correction, he was a thirteen-year-old without a clue. Much better.
“Thank you very much Chiai,” Osu replied with all the fucks he had possessed before missing. “Tell me what exactly do you all worship?”
Chiai completely missed the fact all emotion was gone from Osu’s voice and completely focused on the fact he once more addressed her without an honorific. Blushing, smiling and fidgeting excitedly Chiai answered, “We worship the Great Lord Jashin, O-Oh-Oss-Osu. Osu… Osu… Osu.”
Osu had no idea who Jashin was. Still, this was progress. Also, saying his name without an honorific seemed to be very enjoyable for Chiai. It was at this moment that he noticed it was just he and her alone for once. Where did his guard go? Well he might as well try to use this time effectively. “Chiai, could you tell me about this Blood Moon thing?”
“Yes Osu,” Chiai was beaming at this point. “You have probably noticed but we have had a series of solar eclipses the last couple years. This is because we are going through a lunar tetrad, where four lunar eclipses occur with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses. Some centuries you might have several tetrads while at other times you can go half a millennium without one. During normal lunar eclipses that Lord Jashin can touch the world more than usual. However, the eclipses of the lunar tetrad, also known as blood moons, allow more of his power in with each successive eclipse. The fourth and final blood moon is when his power can most fully touch this world. As you might imagine, this isn’t a very common occurrence. Not every lunar tetrad is visible to us to do such rituals should they not be visible from where our temple or if weather prevents up from getting a strong connection. Even rarer this time is that the blood moon is also what is commonly referred to as a super moon. In other words, the moon is going to be extremely close tonight. I don’t know about other sects, but ours is taking this very seriously.”
Osu nodded. He understood that rare cosmological events were taken very seriously in some religions and this one appeared to have a… well… an astronomically low chance of occurring. “What is your sect planning to accomplish tonight then? And how is my father involved?”
Chiai crossed her arms and closed her eyes with an expression like she was trying hard to come up with a clear explanation. “Well… tonight… Your father and, to a lesser extent, you are the main players tonight. You will meet your father, your worth will be judged, and then you will act as a conduit for Lord Jashin’s power.” Osu was amazed at how normal she made all of that sound.
“I will be a conduit? Why am I being judged? My father who I have never met will be judging me or this Jashin or who? What am I being judged on?” This was starting to sound more dangerous the more Chiai explained.
“Well yes you will be the conduit considering you were conceived by making sacrifices to Lord Jashin with the date of your birth timed so on the night of this Blood Moon you would turn thirteen. So yes to both marks, your father Lord Jashin will judge you. When He judges you worthy he will give you power and you will be groomed to lead our sect and help bring about the next age of slaughter.”
Osu stared blankly at Chiai.
“And after you become one of us we can get married. Oh! I don’t want you to misunderstand, I do respect you as one of the Lord Jashin’s direct blood and that was why I initially traveled with you, but that time we fought… when your blood cut me and engulfed me, as you seeped under my skin, and when I felt you under my fist is when I fell in love with you Osuteno. That scene of pure violence we painted into that white snow using our blood is why I am sure Jashin will judge you worthy. You have the beauty of destruction inside you more than anyone.”
Osu stared blankly at Chiai.
“And normally our sect doesn’t have marriage or allow us to have children but as a child of Jashin I am sure you can be an exception and-“
“Chiai,” Osu finally managed.
“Oh I’m sorry, I just got so flustered at the thought and got a bit carried away. What is it da-darli-… Osu.”
He had to be very careful now. Too many red flags were waving about everything. If he ever made it back to the village, he might never willingly leave it again.
“Chiai, what happens if…” Osu had no idea how he was supposed to address this ridiculous cult’s deity since they thought Osu was its son, “if I were to be judged unworthy.”
“That couldn’t happen,” Chiai said confidently.
“Chiai. Tell me what would happen.” Osu was having one of those rare moments where his patience was running very thin.
“Goodness if you speak like that it makes me think you would instead beat me down if we fought right now!” Chiai said with a rather embarrassed and flushed expression. “In the impossible case that occurred you could still be used as a conduit for the energy but instead of you keeping it, your life would be extinguished and the power that would be yours would be given to Jashin’s most devout practitioners at the ritual. In other words, should Lord Jashin be pleased, the full priests and priestesses would likely receive more of his blessing.”
This was bad. More than a little, this was very, very bad.
“And on what sort of basis will I be judged?”
“Lord Jashin is the god of slaughter, and he loves death, general violence and entertainment, usually in the forms of combat or torture. So, he will likely use how violent you have been to judge you.”
This couldn’t get worse. He was a doctor for Raiden’s sake. How what he did daily was the opposite of slaughter aside, Osu was having trouble puzzling out the identity of the phenomenon Chiai was describing. Osu wasn’t irreligious, he often threw a prayer to Raiden, but he also didn’t believe the gods would intervene directly just because they were called upon, holy dates or not. Every god he prayed to had been mortal at some point so he believed they understood the importance of letting people lead their own fates. In truth was the judgement a ruse and they had some method of human sacrifice that drained strength from the victim and passed it on? He couldn’t really expect Chiai to help him out of this since she firmly believed he would be fine.
There was still a light of hope in all of this. A woman who almost had to be his mother at least seemed like she was going to interfere with this ritual when the timing was right. From the way his mother spoke though, his father would indeed be there. Was he one of the cult leaders manipulating the rest? No matter how he looked at it, if his father was somehow involved in all of this, he probably wasn’t a good person.
While Osu was trying to apply reason to the situation, someone else was starting to lose their grip on reason. All this talk about judgement pulled at Uso’s thoughts and she eventually remembered an event that she had long repressed. When they had drowned inside a giant heart a few years back. The hallucination she had then…
The sky had been pitch black except for the light of an eternal Blood Moon. For as far as the eye could see there was nothing but a sea of blood not that anyone's vision could penetrate so far in the unnatural place. There was but one place that stood out, a marble square without decoration except for a simple throne bathed in red. Atop the throne sat a monochrome figure of such a frightening countenance words fail to do his smile justice. To make the attempt anyway, the smile was the product of true nightmares. The emotions it evoked were those from the blackest depths of man's terror. The horror of the nightmare where one's family is held hostage by a murder clown and have to choose between the lives of their family and a mad dash for survival and choose to flee only to be caught anyway and beaten to death with their own skull. The sort of sickening sensation of opening ones eyes to find that they are covered and slowly being consumed by centipedes. The crawling insanity that pulls at you in a nightmare where one is being chased by an unseen assassin and no matter how long or how far they run they can never see their stalker or escape the pressure of its gaze, commit suicide to seek relief and only find that the gaze had been waiting in hell for them all along. But at the time his smile did not reach his eyes. Uso remembered crawling to the bloody sea not to find her reflection but untold numbers of the dead with their arms raised as if trying to escape their fate. The monochrome man’s voice raised every heckle and goosebump on her body and gazing into his eyes turned her hair from black to white. She remembered the figure saying she and Osu were dull to watch, disappointing. He expressed his wish that they try harder to entertain him before he picked them up by their heads and plunged them into the bloody sea where the dead reached up to claw at them. Briefly before she woke up she had seen a mark of a circle within a triangle on every skull.
It had to have been a nightmare. That thing couldn’t exist for real. Uso was panicking. Simply from remembering that nightmare her survival instincts simultaneously kicked in and crashed, paralyzing her with fear. From deep inside the library of their mind Uso quietly said, “Osu?”
Osuteno, partially shocked because Uso had not called him Osu since… ever, stopped trying to reason these events out. “What is it… Uso?” He thought back.
“We need to leave. He… Their god is bad news. Please.”
Both saying please and the act of pleading were things Uso had never done before. Despite usually being the one telling him to keep it together, she was more than a little afraid. Had Uso ever openly shown fear like this? Did she believe they would really meet some sort of slaughter god?
Chiai, who had been oddly patient and cheerful while Osu tried to think everything through, spoke up while checking the light outside. “Well Osu, looks like it is almost time. I’m sure you will do great! Well if they catch me in here flirting with you instead of preparing I might lose a hand. Bye!” It had never occurred to Osu before, but Chiai was a rather carefree girl. Not one part of her could see how this wouldn’t go in Osu’s favor. He didn’t really need that kind of support. In his current predicament, he would have far preferred Chiai to have no confidence in him whatsoever and help him escape whatever fate a slaughter cult inflicted on its victims. Slaughter obviously, but as for the method he was in the dark which left him with far too much freedom of imagination.
He didn’t have to wait very long. His multi-armed guard from before and a rather thin and lanky man covered in needles came to retrieve him. As he was wrapped up in arms on one side of his original guard and carried out of the building that had been his prison Osu had several thoughts mostly aimed at distracting himself from how helpless he currently was. Things like a tooth capsule with a general-purpose antidote or metabolism quickening medication being a sound investment and that this Jashinist cult was more popular than he would have guessed for a religion he had never heard of before. From an outside perspective, it might be unusual that he hadn’t heard of it before except when one realizes that Osu didn’t really have anyone to scare him into being a good child by using tales of the Jashinist dragging away naughty children and the conversation just never came up in his thirteen years of life. While it is understandable how he made it this long without hearing about them, it was turning out to be a rather dangerous piece of ignorance.
If appearances meant anything, most the people here were trainees like Chiai. Of course, with this many trainees the very small number of clergy stood out more. There was also a concerning issue that among the priests and priestesses there seemed to be noticeable age gaps between each. “The number of trainees doesn’t add up,” Osu mumbled quietly.
“With the rise of each new member of the clergy there is a glorious tribute,” the man carrying him began explaining without warning. “When enough are eligible they are painted in the ceremonial patterns, they are locked within the church and then they use one another to display their love for Lord Jashin. Unfortunately, the next group won’t have enough until the year after next. We should have delayed the last one to have occurred this year.” However, the man lived his life to have a voice reminiscent of a rockslide, it really forced one to note every word with some sense of importance. Especially when you realized he was talking about what seemed to be a good 40 people being dropped to one if he was guessing the age groups correctly. That the selection wasn’t occurring this year seemed to be a point of contention as the lanky man rolled his eyes and someone nearby groaned as it was brought up.
Everyone, including the involuntary Osu, were making their way to a one story, but considerably large stone structure with no windows or outside decoration aside from a triangle within a circle above the doorway. That… was probably the church. He could smell death all over the place. Fantastic, he was worried this situation wasn’t ominous enough.
The next few minutes went by rather quickly. Osu, still chained up, was placed on a raised altar exposed to the sky, incense was being burned, scrolls were rolled out and marked with blood, chants were starting up. Oddly for a slaughter cult no human sacrifices were being made but that just made Osu focus more on the note he was chained and resting on an altar. If you couldn’t tell who the human sacrifice is at the cult ritual… well it was very likely you. He did need to try and be a bit more optimistic, maybe the super ultra-rare, not going to happen in the next millennia astrological anomaly was one of those ritual events that didn’t involve a sacrifice for the staby, slashy murder cult.
Seven? There were only seven priests and priestesses as far as he could tell. Maybe that was a lot considering the age range. Keeping calm by giving himself a thought puzzle, Osu guessed that for one to be eligible to be clergy they had to at least be sixteen. If it wouldn’t be for two more years… Osu looked at the youngest priestess for a bit. They likely performed the selection every four years. That meant Chiai for instance wouldn’t be up for her trial for six more years. He didn’t really want to consider the possibility that Chiai would be locked up in this place for some sort of slaughter fest. Osu realized he had regained most of his senses by this point, but still didn’t even consider escape possible. He didn’t even entertain the idea he could take on any of the clergy in a one on one fight much less seven on one and he would likely be killed before he could remove the chains. There was still his… that woman who looked remarkably like him out there somewhere. She told him to just sit and wait and unlike him she seemed to have a plan. Independent action could very likely ruin his only hope for getting out of here alive.
A bit too sudden for comfort another heartbeat seemed to just pop into existence beside him. From the man’s outfit, which was the only one he saw that bore any real sense of decoration, and the fact he was by far the oldest person here with some grey in his hair, Osu believed this was the Head Priest.
If Osu couldn’t see the crazy looking scythe the man held and lacked knowledge about the crazy killing cult, he might have thought this was just a kind oji-san. The kind looking uncle reached down, placed his hand on Osu’s chains, and crushed them with a gentle squeeze.
… Alright then. With a twist and a flick of his wrist the uncle destroyed several links of the chain and freed Osu, if only physically. He motioned for Osu to sit up, and the chains were tossed to the side.
“I thank you for not making any move to run off, I may have stopped aging many years ago but I still feel like an old man. Catching you would have been a bit of a chore. I am sure you have many questions young… I believe I was told your name is Osuteno these days, but we have little time until we need to begin.”
Bloodlust Avenger (Joke Title)
The Tale of Two Years and Some Change.
A young… man stepped onto the deck of a ship when he heard Lightning Country would be in sight soon. The wind teased his purple hair as he waited to see the shores of his homeland after all this time. The small sigh that escaped him caused a nearby sailor the start thumping his head against the deckhouse while chanting “Not a woman.” Forcing himself to ignore the all too familiar sight Osuteno went for higher ground in the hope of seeing land just a bit sooner. The rope upon which he sat would reveal to an observant eye that he did not weigh as much as even his slim size suggested, perhaps not even half as much as appearance suggested. Despite having grown considerably taller these last couple years Osuteno had lost weight even though he had been rather slim before. This caused him to sway considerably on the wind but neither he nor anyone else on the ship had concern over that at this point. It was honestly silly for him to be waiting up here to witness the appearance of land since it would still be the next day until they made port.
Osuteno grimaced to himself when he thought back to the last time he was in these waters more than two years ago. Nothing at all was the same as back then. A voice from behind him spoke up, “Osuuu~ I thought you would be happier about being back here. You wouldn’t be thinking about that little shipwreck with that face.” Osu grimaced harder as he had not gotten to that point in his recollection yet.
In the weeks leading up to his thirteenth birthday Osuteno decided he would go on another fishing trip to Moon Country. Of course, since he wasn’t on a mission he thought he would travel like people normally would and completely underestimated how difficult it was to get passage on short notice. He ended up departing while sharing a room with the gun powder. “Osu~ you are going to get bitch face if you keep that up.” Whose fault did she think that was? Using rather inappropriate phrases a voice from inside his head suggested that both he and the woman were constant sources of annoyance for her particularly since they had messed with her library and that he could go choke on his gripes. Maybe Uso was feeling nostalgic as well considering her phrasing… Or maybe solastalgic would be more appropriate? Honestly for most people what they might be feeling in Osu’s shoes would be PTSD.
*Insert wavy transition scene ;P*
The little, girly and cute twelve-year-old Osu sat rather grumpily in his “bunk”, more accurately named a window, and endured the overpowering smell of gunpowder that was stowed with him. He managed to sleep through the first night with no small amount of difficulty and were apparently done sailing near the coast. Soon they would be leaving Lightning controlled waters. The large expanse of ocean between those seas controlled by nations were generally safe unless one ventured into bad weather but occasionally one might run into pirates should they be near uncontrolled islands or parts of the coast with less patrols. Some nations with less developed navies would also often host pirates unwillingly or secretly but that was an issue for international politics. The more concerning issue is that the period right now would be the most likely time for pirates to appear during this voyage per the sailors.
Osu, being an avid reader of adventure stories, couldn’t help but feel it was very bad luck for the crew to say such things aloud but also felt too embarrassed to bring up a discussion on tropes in real life. Still he was much too genre-savvy to dare say or think things like “as if that would happen” or anything else those main characters would foolishly do in stories. He smiled a little at the thought of some people he knew back in the village who would purposefully say protagonist type things. He would never wish it for himself of course, he was much happier and comfortable supporting others from behind. He’s a medic after all. Suddenly Osu got a chill and sneezed simultaneously. Was he coming down with a cold? This trip simply refuses to go his way doesn’t it?
* * *
A few hours later dinner had been served and the crew began switching out for night duty. The skies were clear as a half-moon rose and the stars were shining in the sky. Not as many were up at this point particularly since the navigator said tonight looked to be calm but that just meant the few who were up were free to engage in some conversation to pass the time. It was just typical small talk really. What they got up to at the last port, what they planned to do at the next, how unfair it was that the captain got to eat with that little ojou-chan who was heading to Moon on their ship of all things.
“Really though Captain Tsukino flirting at the little girl aside… No that is rather hard to ignore, isn’t it? Even the captain isn’t stupid enough to make a pass at that ojou-chan, right Hino-San? Right??”
“Calm down Mizuno. The captain, as desperate as he is, won’t try anything funny with the kid. I’m sixty percent sure.”
From above them a voice called out, “What about that forty percent!? That forty percent is too high!!! You’re not sure at all!”
A fourth voice, Aino the navigator, popped in at this point, “Kino you are being too loud, quiet down and keep on lookout. And you guys should have more faith in Captain Tsukino. You shouldn’t doubt his integrity just because he is stupid beyond belief, desperate for women, ugly as hell, greedy as a lower noble, unreliable as a friend, a terrible sailor, an senseless alcoholic, possibly a lolicon...”
“YOU DOUBT HIS INTEGRITY THE MOST!!!” The other three shouted at the navigator.
Aino, despite being interrupted in such a fashion, calmly thought about it for a moment. “I suppose you are right… I’m going to go check on the captain and make sure he isn’t trying anything funny with that little girl.”
As Aino left to the Captain’s cabin the other three sailors sighed and Mizuno went back to the topic he initially meant to start. “Anyway… Why do you two think that little girl is on our rat-infested block of scrap wood? Surely for as much as our greedy bastard lolicon of a captain probably charged her she could have taken an actual passenger ship. I mean I haven’t heard of her claiming such but that is a princess of some noble family if I’ve ever seen one. And why is she traveling alone? Shouldn’t she have guards?”
Kino who was hanging upside-down in a rather silly looking fashion above them nodded while scratching his chin, “Yes she seems rather naïve and gives off a proper ojou-chan type air. She doesn’t seem to be dumb mind you, but… Well she had the sense to try claiming she was a boy for her travels from what I heard at dinner but she failed to realize she needed to change her yukata into something more boyish like pants. Even if she did put on pants she fails to realize how cute she is betraying her story. The moe is strong with that one, gonna break some hearts in her life.”
Hino had a concerned and distant look on his face. “My daughter is already grown and married, but even now I wouldn’t dare let her on a trip alone with a bunch of dirty looking sailors like us. In fact, since that little ojou-chan is almost certainly a princess in some regard I can’t imagine why she is alone and heading to Moon… You don’t think she is a runaway, do you?”
Lightbulbs seemed to turn on over the trio’s heads. “That must be it,” Kino muttered.
Mizuno nodded, “That does make a lot of sense. That little ojou-chan is probably running away from home. But then the question is what would cause her to do so. I mean she seems like such a good child.”
The three mused about it for a bit before Hino spoke up again, “It occurs to me that it is common for girls her age to be engaged among nobles, sometimes even married.”
Kino was surprised at this information, “Noble kids get married at her age? Why would they do that? Still that should be a somewhat adorable wedding, wouldn’t it? Two little chibis all dressed up and everything.”
Mizuno grimaced and shook his head, “Nothing of the sort Kino. The girls might be ojou-chan’s age but the men are often your, my or even Hino’s age. Young women often have healthier kids and can put more of them out in their life if they start early which is important to those noble types… Not to mention that they simply like showing off young women despite being old themselves.”
Kino now seemed horrified, “That ojou-chan is way too little to have anything to do with baby-making! There is no way her family would allow such a thing, is there?”
Being a parent himself, Hino was rather dissatisfied as he explained, “Depending on her family’s actual rank they might not have any choice. When guys like us look at nobles we just bow and get out of their way all the same. But amongst their own kind they must use different levels of deference for all sorts of complicated reasons. Like if the ojou-chan is from some branch family of a lower noble house, all it takes is for some slimy noble to have some dirty thoughts about her and use some casual threats before her parents ship her off to be his concubine. In this case though the ojou-chan in question is unmistakably going to be an overwhelming beauty so they may have even auctioned her off to the highest bidder. It wouldn’t surprise me if some nobles with tastes like our captain fought and bid amongst themselves for her. Hell, Aino imagine how she will grow in the next few years and tell me that in a good four or five years you wouldn’t sail a hundred storms to marry her yourself despite being a decade her elder.”
“Forget five years, imagine ten or so from now when that girl is fully a woman through and through,” Mizuno said with a rather stupid yet understandable grin on his face. “She might even be saving the country from a civil war by escaping like this hahaha!”
Kino seemed confused at this point while Hino simply rolled his eyes. “Ignoring that bit of stupidity Mizuno is leaking out it is very likely that by running off to another county, Kino, the ojou-chan is probably trying to escape marriage with a creepy old man like the captain.”
Kino, despite being a bit slow compared to most of the sailors, wasn’t quite sure they were on the right track. “I just don’t know guys. If the girl were that important how did she escape this far on her own? Wouldn’t someone be chasing her down? If she were really important to anyone wouldn’t we have to worry about our safety as well?”
“All of that was nonsense. Do you three think you are detectives or something? Still… Despite being wrong on nearly every assumption made in that ridiculous story, it is a bit impressive that the all-important concluding thought is correct.”
The three sailors confusedly turned their attentions to the deck railing where an unknown girl was sitting. She was an incredibly odd sight with strange black clothes with red frills and a matching bow, condescending eyes as dark as the night, and the halberd she held that had to weigh more than she did. The girl couldn’t have been any older than thirteen but something about her gaze told them that the wrong move could prove to be their end. The gigantic halberd she somehow spun casually in one hand also suggested this.
As the eldest, Hino’s instinct told him danger was upon them and he needed to try and get them out of it safely. “… Good evening miss. You wouldn’t happen to be a shinobi would… Never mind. Is there anything we can assist you with?”
The girl seemed both surprised and disappointed with this reaction. “Really? We can’t do the ‘Where did you come from’ bit or anything? I mean it is obvious that I didn’t board this ship at port yet we are out in the sea with no other ship in sight. You should at least be trying to demand some sort of answer from me aside from trying to be helpful. Gaaah, listening to that stupid story you three made while waiting for the right timing to make my entrance was pointless.” The three sailors had no idea how to go about comforting what they believed was a pouting agent of inhuman destruction. They had always heard that shinobi are all a bit unusual but this simply seemed troublesome.
Suddenly the girl seemed to recover. “Well whatever. Tell us the room Osuteno is in. I know from traveling with him in the past he goes to bed early and if we don’t spill blood along the way it will be easier to capture him before he puts up a fight.”
The sailors had various reactions to this statement but all three turned to surprise as another voice spoke up from behind them. “There is no need to ask them Chiai. The rest of the crew on the deck all said that the child is in a gunpowder room. I sent the siblings on ahead.” The man who spoke this time was massive. He stood shy of seven feet and his shirtless body displayed rolling muscles. Propped on his shoulder was a double-sided axe that was as large as the girl was tall. But where their eyes became glued to was a symbol that he wore around his neck. The mark of the Jashinist religion. Whose grandmother hadn’t scared the piss out of them as kids with tales of Jashinist coming to snatch bad children away in the night to sacrifice to their dark god? Kino fainted.
The monster in human skin smiled broadly. “Oh~ that was a good reaction! Such honest fear is nice to see. I might let him die painlessly in his sleep as a reward for his respect.”
At this the girl’s eyes widened. “Baka-Senpai! Your axe is covered in blood! You were supposed to wait until after Osuteno was captured to start the cleanup! I have told you repeatedly that he is sensitive to blood flow!”
The man casually cut the three sailors in half while using a pinky to clean his earwax. “That’s Baka Priest-Sama to you squirt, you are years away from becoming a full priestess. Besides the kid is weaker than you right? You should stop overestimating your little boyfriend regardless of the fact he is…”
An explosion tore through the ship which was starting to crack in half and sink. The realization of what happened dawned on the girl first. “Baka-Baka-Baka! You sent the twins down into the gunpowder room?!”
The Priest who was unceremoniously being called an idiot by his underling opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before nodding, “Though it is probably fine, I will allow criticism just this once.”
“Baka! Stop standing around saying stupid things and rescue Osu! I mean capture Osuteno safely!”
“That’s no-good Chiai-Chibi. If you say something that plainly shows your affection to the boy and then rephrase it it makes you seem like a tsundere. You normally act more honest than…”
“MOVE YOUR ASS AND SAVE HIM!”
* * *
A few minutes earlier, a cultist duo slowly stalked down the underbelly of the ship. Dressed in a fashion that would make you wonder if they were heading to a gimp convention. If one asked for defining details they would be hard pressed to answer with anything aside from the both being about 170 cm tall and possessing lean builds. Every bit of them was completely bound in black. One held what appeared to be an oversized butcher’s knife the length of a sword while the other held a whip with sharp pieces of metal in it. They came up to the door of the gunpowder room and nodded to each other. Fire burning in the hand of one of them and electricity in the other’s hand. As they struck to burst into the room and captured Osu a voice behind them exclaimed, “Wait, don’t! That’s the- Blood Shield!”
Osu had long notice that the people on the deck above him had been quickly killed with their blood pointing everywhere and had noticed he was probably the target of what he assumed were enemy shinobi. He had set himself up to ambush whoever came after him directly but the actions of these twin gimps had not been in his expectations. The fire and lightning they sent into his room were more than enough to set off the gunpowder. Despite shielding himself, with what little time he had it was impossible for him to do enough to fully protect himself. The resulting explosion knocked Osu through several walls but he had managed to keep himself in one piece. The same could not be said for most of those on the ship. Osu was far too aware of the pouring blood and ceasing hearts around him even over the thunderous cracks of the ship falling apart. Most of the crew was dead, and those left alive would very likely die from their injuries or the freezing water they were sinking into. As much as Osu wanted to act to save them, it would be impossible to even begin treatment with two, no… four enemy shinobi after him. As he thought such, the twin gimps burst out from some rubble cracking their bones and stretching as if they were getting up from a nap rather than a deadly explosion. From what Osu could tell they survived the direct impact without much damage. They were incredibly hardy somehow.
Osu knew that this was all a bit much for anyone to expect a lone preteen medical shinobi to handle. His only real option was to try escaping. The pair in front of him seemed to sense his intention to flee. The one with the whip came directly at Osu from the front trying to shock him with lighting jutsu and capture him with their weapon while the butcher gimp sought to cut off Osu’s escape with a wall of flames. Shields of blood sprang forth to block the strikes from the front while he slammed a wave of blood into the wall of flames to break through and make his escape. Waiting where he broke through however was the butcher gimp. Osu narrowly escaped from the following slash at his legs but he was forced back towards the whip holder. Osu flipped up and planted his feet into the descending ceiling to dodge the horizontal slash made with the whip. Halfway through his hand seals however Osu sensed a heartbeat right above him and sprang to the side.
The broad side of a massive ax burst through the ceiling where Osu had just been standing and before he knew it, two more heartbeats entered the fight and the four surrounded him. No one made a move as the dust and rubble cleared. The identity of one of them captured most of Osu’s attention. “Wh- Chiai?!”
“No honorific!” Chiai exclaimed while blushing a little.
The huge man with the ax chuckled. “Your little boyfriend seems quite surprised to see you Chiai-Chibi. He might almost be relieved if I say we are here on business and not for your pleasure.”
Chiai clearly looked irritated with the large man as she shifted her halberd to where she was pointing it directly at her superior. “Shut up Baka-Priest!” She then turned to Osu with an awkward and guilty smile. “Uhm Osu… -Kun, no honorific is too much, it has been too long. Could you please come with us quietly? There really is no escape for you and I really don’t want to beat you down again. Some things between a man and a woman are too much to do in front of others you know. You should also know that those twins are each as strong as I am and Baka-Priest here is, well, a full priest and not just a trainee.”
Osu was quite clueless as to why any of this was happening. He looked around knowing he really didn’t have an opening to escape. Perhaps if he got down into the water and… The gimp with the whip snapped it in what appeared to be a sign of impatience though the one with the over-sized butcher’s knife put their hand on the other’s shoulder to calm them. Chiai became very visibly angry with the whip gimp but kept her attention on Osu.
The so-called priest seemed bored. “Listen here kid, I can understand your aversion to walking away quietly with people you don’t know and even more so since you are the focus of Chiai-Chibi’s affection. Wouldn’t wish that on my greatest enemy. However, let’s just say your dad is a strict boss and he wants us to bring you back in as few pieces as possible. If you knew anything about him you would understand how out of character that order is and how important you must be for his plans.”
Any intention of fighting or running away suddenly left Osu. He wasn’t sure what he just heard. Or, he did, but he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. All shinobi training aside, it is hard to expect a twelve-year-old orphan to remain calm when someone says their father sent for them. The others didn’t let the slip in Osu’s guard go to waste. Chiai knocked Osu onto his back and pinned him down sitting on his chest with his arms pinned by her leg and her free hand as she held her halberd against his neck. The gimp with the whip had managed to bind his legs tightly while he fell and the gimp with the butcher’s knife simply sat cross-legged next to him with the blade pressed against Osu’s stomach. Despite Chiai’s squirming and her embarrassed, blushing and obviously pleased face he knew she as well as the other two were intent on keeping him captured. He wasn’t a front-line fighter in any way and all three of his captors were much stronger than him physically. But rather than hopelessly trying to find a path to escape, Osu remained focus on the priest. “Do you really know who my father is? He told you to do this?”
The twin with the whip appeared to be agitated with how little mind Osu paid them but the priest nodded with a cheery smile. “Probably would have opened up with that if I knew it would be that easy.” He looked around where only the debris of a ship remained and shrugged, “Well got a different sort of quota fulfilled anyway. Yeah kid, you can’t get my position or higher without being on your pop’s good side. Well it isn’t like I get to talk to him directly. Orders from him were passed down to my boss then to me.” Seeing as how Osu appeared to be willingly coming along the huge priest took out a cigar and lit it on some debris that happened to still be on fire and took a long drag to relax himself.
“No offense, but you seem nothing like your father kid. Chiai-Chibi said she saw the resemblance but the kids he has… adopted seem more like him than you do. You look exactly like your mother right down to your bloody pupils but hell you don’t seem anything like her personality-wise either. Really makes one think about that old nature versus nurture thing.”
“You know my moth-“
“Chill kid, your mother has been missing for years. Signs of her only pop up after she is long gone from a place. Anyway, standing out in the middle of the ocean is no place for long conversations. Chiai, prepare the kid for transport while I signal the ship.”
Osu finally turned his attention to Chiai who released one of his arms and brought a pill out from a pouch. She placed it between her lips and began to move in for a kiss, but the gimp with the butcher’s knife stopped the sexual assault by pulling back on Chiai’s hair, taking the pill from her lips and forcing it into Osu’s mouth. Seconds after being forced to swallow the pill Osu felt his consciousness fading fast and began to sink into the water as he couldn’t even maintain his unconscious expenditure of chakra to keep afloat. The last thing he remembered was Chiai starting to throw a fit at the butcher gimp.
* * *
When he began to wake up, Osu immediately felt queasy and groggy. He tried to gather chakra but nothing was coming to him and the attempt nearly split his head in two, not in reference to the headache it most certainly gave him, but the fact a scimitar became embedded in his… bed right above where his head lay. With even more effort than it normally does to look around when one first wakes up with a hangover, Osu looked where his guard stood leaning against the wall with several more scimitars and enough arms to carry them all. He didn’t outwardly appear to be paying Osu that much attention, but Osu, with so much calm it surprised himself, laid his head back to where it had been and accepted that for now he couldn’t do much. It seemed likely that his guard would be stronger than himself, the drugs that were circulating in his blood were dosed with him and his bloodline in mind. There was also the fact he was chained down.
At least for now, Osu could try and listen, though even his ability to hear blood was severely dulled. The climate… seemed on the cooler side. As he relaxed further he could faintly hear more heartbeats further away but he couldn’t keep his thoughts together enough to count the number of heartbeats much less figure out physiques or general health. He hadn’t felt this useless since that mission he kept getting… kidnapped. If Osu had more time to continue stumbling down that train of thought, he might have come to realize something particularly odd concerning the frequency he was held captive but Uso chose that moment to regain consciousness as well.
“What… What is… I feel so… so… ugggh. Words. Can’t move. Idiot. Osuteno. Why? Bastard?”
If Osu really had the brain capacity to think more clearly than he did at that moment, he would have been impressed with how Uso could manage that much coherency. All he could manage to reply with was, “Kidnapped.”
A few moments of processing later Uso transmitted her feelings quite clearly with a very slow but impressively long string of profanities. The conversation took longer than either participant was aware of. Osu hadn’t noticed that more people had entered the room and one was poking at his cheek.
The finger was far too close to his face for Osu to have any hope of focusing on it in his current state, so his eyes slowly followed the arm up and saw a grinning Chiai. “Hello there sleeping cutie. How are you feeling since we lowered you dose a bit?”
The vacant expression Osu answered with brought a laugh from the girl. “Look how helpless you are! You can’t give me such a dangerous look Osu-Kun. I. Might. Just. Eat. You. Up.” That last bit was spoken in a low tone right into Osu’s ear, but before he could even register what was being said Chiai was abruptly thrown out of the building.
The butcher gimp from earlier stood with her back towards Osu and staring after the girl she just threw. “You keep trying to ignore your orders not to sexually assault the Blood. This isn’t like you at all, Chiai-San. You are lucky the head priest hasn’t gotten angry with you and simply ordered a couple of us to keep an eye on you when you visit the Blood.”
An angry howl from Chiai was swiftly followed by her halberd that came through the open entrance towards the butcher gimp. Anticlimactically, it was caught by Osu’s multi-armed guard who gave it a slight twirl before tossing it back out and drawing a very audible grunt from Chiai. The blunt side had hit her gut and winded the girl. “Girls, stop causing a fuss,” Osu’s guard said tersely.
Without any fuss both girl’s replied, “Yes Priest-Sama.”
Osu was finally starting to catch up mentally as the girls quietly fussed over whether Chiai was actually trying to assault him or simply giving a playful hello. After a bit of struggling he finally managed to organize his thoughts and ask, “Where is my father?”
The two girls looked at Osu with a look of confusion before Chiai thumped her fist against her palm. “He asked ‘Where is my father?’ That medicine has really done a number on him, hasn’t it? It sounds like he has a mouth full of cotton.” The two girls then turned their heads towards the priest.
Noticing three sets of eyes asking him questions the priest once more gave a curt reply, “Wait for the Blood Moon.”
Chiai turned back towards Osu and said, “Sorry Osu-kun, I can’t say much aside from you will meet Him in a week.”
His question wasn’t answered at all and now he only had more to ask but as long as a priest was watching him it didn’t look like Osu was going to get any answers, even from Chiai. Rather he wasn’t sure why he was expecting Chiai to volunteer information so easily considering she was one of the people who kidnapped him. He wasn’t even sure if he and Chiai were on good terms or not. The last time they saw each other she beat him into a pulp and kissed him was he was losing consciousness. She kept speaking politely to him but also kept… well, she kept assaulting him. Did she like him? If so, why did she seem so eager to help these people kidnap him?
From deep inside his brain Uso called, “Dumbass. Stop fussing over the pervert. Figure out who these assholes are. Argh my head!”
That… Right… What was he doing? He was aware that these people seemed to be of the same religious sect as Chiai and somehow his father had the ability to give their clergy tasks but it never occurred to Osu that he didn’t know what or who they worshipped.
“Who are you-,“ But before Osu could continue with his garbled face sounds, medicine was poured down his throat by the butcher gimp.
“Apologies but it is not yet time for you to be awake. If Chiai-San didn’t take so long to fix her hair we would have been on time.” Once more Osu felt something slip and passed out.
The other three… or rather four in the room watched Osu fall into a deep sleep. Chiai turned towards the butcher gimp and asked, “What was he saying there right before you gave him that medicine?” The butcher gimp simply shrugged and the guard priest simply didn’t care. As far as the three Jashinists could tell it was simply gibberish.
While the two girls left while arguing over how necessary it was for the butcher gimp to comment on Chiai doing a bit of grooming before coming to see Osu and the guard continued making sure no nonsense occurred on his watch, an unnoticed figure gazed down from the shadowed rafters. If you ignored her complete lack of presence and the precise angle in which she sat to be unseen by those below, it would be hard to claim she was hiding at all. Proudly sitting as if she were on a throne, the woman looked down on the sleeping Osu, all the while thumbing through a book that had a rather impressively sinister appearance to it.
For another two days, the woman watched without rest or moving from her spot until it drifted to night once more. She was already aware when the guards would switch shifts, when people ate, did prayers, and most daily habits. Now was probably the best time to act. Gracefully she slipped down from the rafters and silently landed on the floor near the guard. The guard continued staring forward as they had all day, unaware of the illusion they were caught in. Subtle illusions worked best. Like the illusion she placed on the children who, once again, visited to give Osu his medicine, where they only gave him half the dose they were intended to.
In the light of the moon, it was much more obvious that the woman was a beauty. Lovely purple hair dangled down to her shoulders and framed a young and handsome face. The intensity of her red eyes could overwhelm a person in multiple fashions depending on her expression. Right now if one could see her face as she gazed down on the child who inherited her looks they would likely say that she adored the child more than the world and that it inspired more than a little fear.
The woman squatted down in a very unladylike fashion to where her head was level with Osu’s as he slept. Into his ear, she whispered, “Oσθενο.” He didn’t stir. She giggled to herself and once more said, “Oσθενο.” Finally, with the same loving tone but a very dark expression in her face she whispered, “Osuteno. Wake up calmly dear child. Wake up my Osuteno.” She brushed her hands over his face using the little healing she knew to try and stir a reaction.
As Osu opened his eyes he thought he was gazing into a mirror. In fact he was initially gazing into a reflection as the woman wore a small circular mirror from her neck. That just made it even more obvious that the woman’s face looked exactly like his as he stared her in the eyes. As he opened his mouth she interrupted him, “Not now child, your guard won’t be trapped in his illusion forever. It is very important that I read a bit of this book to you and while it may sound strange I need you to open your mind and accept its words. Do you understand?”
Osu stared blankly unsure if this was some sort of dream or trick, but his trusting nature along with the loving look the woman gave him caused him to shake his hand to where his palm was open despite his arms being chained to his sides. “Blood.”
It was the woman’s turn to be confused. She had merely asked him to keep his mind open while she read to him. Still she was more than a little curious. Blood began to seep out of her fingertips without being cut and she placed Osu’s hand inside hers. She felt a slight tug at her mind and she recoiled a little despite herself. It didn’t try to pull her in, it didn’t feel anywhere strong enough to do so, but it was trying to guide her. Osu merely said, “Come in,” with a very exhausted expression. With the next tug at her mind she slipped in.
The woman gaped for the briefest of moments being controlling her expression again. She was surrounded by a wondrous library that was so tall one would have to look straight up to notice the highest levels. Osuteno was just a bit off desperate to make it to a chair so he would have one less thing to focus on. A voice from a bit further in yelled at them. “You bastard! Did you let one of those religious freaks in here? How drugged are you dumbass? It better not be that damn little girlfriend of yours either or I-“
As Uso rounded the corner, leaning against tables as being a purely mental being didn’t stop whatever drug was messing with their head from doing a number on her, she stopped shouting at Osu and went wide-eyed at the sight of the woman. The woman herself turned rather pale as she saw he girl had many features she herself at her age. It… No there was too little time to act. She was quite literally in Osuteno’s… in THEIR mind. All she had to make sure of was…
The woman looked down at her hand which held the tome. It was a rather special book for several reasons, the least of which was that only one copy could exist and one copy would always exist. Various other properties it possessed made it not very surprising that she did manage to bring it inside their mind but it certainly wasn’t the original plan. The woman silently wondered if she could simply…
The woman walked over to a shelf while the two children seemed to be racing through a thousand questions in their minds, removed a book from the shelf, and placed the tome in its place. The little girl suddenly began to catch on that she was falling several steps behind and tried to make up for lost time.
“You are! Are You?! No, what is that book!? How did she bring a book in here? Osuteno you answer me this second!”
Osu, despite being a very bright young lad was simply trying to catch flies with his mouth. Perhaps it was for the best he hadn’t recovered yet as more things began happening. Despite the bookshelves never really caring how they returned books to the shelf before this moment, the library itself seemed dissatisfied. Obviously, this new book was in the wrong section entirely. Magic belonged on the fourth floor after all. Access to the second floor and above was restricted? That can’t be true. After all, a book that belonged on the fourth floor was on the first and it had to get there somehow. At the very least all the floors up to the fourth had to be available.
Thunderous cracks resounded through the library as the massive locks on several doors gave way since proper access had been established. The book, as a measure of convenience, shot through the air and made its way to the proper section while Uso shrieked, “The second floor is open!” She did this while shaking Osu half to death. There were too many things happening at once to make proper sense of the situation. If this wasn’t real life and instead some piece of literature Osu would have a few words to say to the author about pacing. At the very least this swift influx of characters and organizations without any real lead up was rather rough on him. But life very seldom has a proper sense of timing or prose.
The woman who seemed to know what was going on appeared to be done with whatever she was planning to do for now. She turned to the two and said gently, “Alright there is much to do and so little time to do it. Child stop shaking your brother so much, it is very unladylike despite how cute it is that attached so attached to him. Osuteno take proper care of your sister and listen carefully. I will give you the rest of your dose when I leave so no suspicions are raised. You are not to say a word should you get the chance, which isn’t very likely. On the night of the blood moon you are to do as the priests say and… meet your father. I will step in when the time comes and you will be coming with me. Now how do I… ahh so I can leave anytime I desire. Very good.”
The woman poofed out of Osu’s head without giving the children a chance to react at all. By the time Uso had managed to recover and force Osu to exit their mind and try to get some answers the medicine was already trickling down his throat. It was very unfair.
The woman gently brushed Osu’s hair as he passed out, her adoration even greater than before. Everything was falling into place almost as if she didn’t need to do anything at all. The potential rewards were increasing and long unconfirmed theories were displaying results. It was almost as if she were destined to succeed. She smirked when she realized for a moment she believed fate could possibly exist. As she made her departure from the Jashinist base it was hard to not suspect some other force at work than her own.
“How in the world did that child develop such a complex inner mind? Does it have something to do with his sister’s soul existing there as well? I have so much to ask them once they are mine again… Both of them…” She dwelled on that last thought until she was a safe distance away. Her breathing turned a bit ragged and her complexion was paler. She pulled out a packet of powder and swallowed it before sitting down to rest.
For a while she sat there recovering and staring in the direction of where her children slept. The fact that it was children and not child was still drilling at her mind. “I should have named her back then…” Not that it would have done much good. Even if she had known the girl’s soul had attached itself to Oσθενο rather than perishing there would have been no way for her to have known that name after they were left with those idiots of Kumogakure. Raiden’s folly, she had even left those fools a note with Oσθενο’s name on it and they had butchered it to Osuteno. Well she didn’t truly expect everyone in Kumogakure to known that tongue. Her own mother only knew a bit of the Old tongue and she herself knew even less. At the very least they could have instructed the boy on his proper name.
The woman shook her head and began thinking about more important details. When she had left their mindscape, the tome had indeed vanished from her hands. Chances were that it would be multitudes more effective this way, but she (if only a little) did regret not having it in her possession any longer. Later, she would have to see if it were possible to recover it.
Her heart began to hurt again and a different powder was ingested. That recurring pain was a reminder she didn’t really need at this point. Every reach for power would have its cost. It was mostly about risk management and how much one was willing to give up. She was sure her plan would succeed at this stage, the problem came after that. Gods were many things powerful, most had mortal beginnings as far as she was aware which made them very human in their actions, and most importantly gods were immortal. They weren’t at all omnipotent from her experiences. It was indeed possible to lie to them, to trick them. She would succeed once more in stealing from Jashin, and far more this time. The problem with gods happened to be that they were very human apart from their immortality and power. They became very upset when things didn’t go their way.
The best option at this point was to keep moving and acting to limit the form in which vengeance could take. The woman regained a bit of her strength and stood once more. She knew when and where their little ritual would take place for a very long time. She had been the one to tell them how it needed to be done after all.
The next time Osu woke up, the evening sun was beginning to set and there was a lot of movement. Osu didn’t know it but every member of this particular Jashinist sect had returned for the Blood Moon. Several dozen trainees ran around following the directions of the priests in preparation for the ritual. In no way were lunar tetrads common and preparation for this day actually began around 14 years ago. Everything had to be perfect.
Osu, in his clueless state, simply wondered if tonight was the night he would apparently meet his father. Normally he would have been far more suspicious of that point but between Chiai, who for some reason Osu was sure wouldn’t lie to him, and that woman from the other day, who Uso had just confirmed was not a dream and had indeed put some strange unintelligible book in their head, he felt like the part of meeting his father was the most truthful part of all this. Uso, who Osu would have sworn would be more practical about all this and insist that they escape, was hesitant and very nervous about this entire situation. Neither of them mentioned the fact that the woman the other day insisted they were siblings with absolute surety and what that, as well as her appearance, implied about her identity.
On a serious note though, despite being trained as a shinobi, Osu was only twelve years old. You couldn’t kidnap him, drug him constantly for who knows how long, drop in the fact his parents are indeed alive and around, mix in some religious cult a girl who inspires weird feelings inside of him is part of, throw in the fact the very mean girl in his head is his sister, put a mysterious magic thing inside his head, and leave him chained to a bed under 24-hour supervision and expect him to have a handle on the situation. This situation was the exact opposite of handled. How was Osu supposed to know what to do, if he was in any position to do anything that is. He was chained, guarded by nameless and obnoxiously big people with sharp objects, and couldn’t get hold of his chakra because of whatever drug he was flooded with. Most his physical capabilities came from some creative manipulation of his blood with chakra. Without that he might as well be… well a stronger than average twelve-year-old chained to a bed. Blood manipulation aside, he wasn’t some crazy strong taijutsu specialist anyway, metal chains would be too much to ask him to break without ninjutsu.
Completely overwhelmed by everything that seemed to be rushing him, Osu resigned himself to whatever the hell was going on. It was about this time that Chiai popped in. “Happy birthday Osu-Kun!” Correction, he was a thirteen-year-old without a clue. Much better.
“Thank you very much Chiai,” Osu replied with all the fucks he had possessed before missing. “Tell me what exactly do you all worship?”
Chiai completely missed the fact all emotion was gone from Osu’s voice and completely focused on the fact he once more addressed her without an honorific. Blushing, smiling and fidgeting excitedly Chiai answered, “We worship the Great Lord Jashin, O-Oh-Oss-Osu. Osu… Osu… Osu.”
Osu had no idea who Jashin was. Still, this was progress. Also, saying his name without an honorific seemed to be very enjoyable for Chiai. It was at this moment that he noticed it was just he and her alone for once. Where did his guard go? Well he might as well try to use this time effectively. “Chiai, could you tell me about this Blood Moon thing?”
“Yes Osu,” Chiai was beaming at this point. “You have probably noticed but we have had a series of solar eclipses the last couple years. This is because we are going through a lunar tetrad, where four lunar eclipses occur with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses. Some centuries you might have several tetrads while at other times you can go half a millennium without one. During normal lunar eclipses that Lord Jashin can touch the world more than usual. However, the eclipses of the lunar tetrad, also known as blood moons, allow more of his power in with each successive eclipse. The fourth and final blood moon is when his power can most fully touch this world. As you might imagine, this isn’t a very common occurrence. Not every lunar tetrad is visible to us to do such rituals should they not be visible from where our temple or if weather prevents up from getting a strong connection. Even rarer this time is that the blood moon is also what is commonly referred to as a super moon. In other words, the moon is going to be extremely close tonight. I don’t know about other sects, but ours is taking this very seriously.”
Osu nodded. He understood that rare cosmological events were taken very seriously in some religions and this one appeared to have a… well… an astronomically low chance of occurring. “What is your sect planning to accomplish tonight then? And how is my father involved?”
Chiai crossed her arms and closed her eyes with an expression like she was trying hard to come up with a clear explanation. “Well… tonight… Your father and, to a lesser extent, you are the main players tonight. You will meet your father, your worth will be judged, and then you will act as a conduit for Lord Jashin’s power.” Osu was amazed at how normal she made all of that sound.
“I will be a conduit? Why am I being judged? My father who I have never met will be judging me or this Jashin or who? What am I being judged on?” This was starting to sound more dangerous the more Chiai explained.
“Well yes you will be the conduit considering you were conceived by making sacrifices to Lord Jashin with the date of your birth timed so on the night of this Blood Moon you would turn thirteen. So yes to both marks, your father Lord Jashin will judge you. When He judges you worthy he will give you power and you will be groomed to lead our sect and help bring about the next age of slaughter.”
Osu stared blankly at Chiai.
“And after you become one of us we can get married. Oh! I don’t want you to misunderstand, I do respect you as one of the Lord Jashin’s direct blood and that was why I initially traveled with you, but that time we fought… when your blood cut me and engulfed me, as you seeped under my skin, and when I felt you under my fist is when I fell in love with you Osuteno. That scene of pure violence we painted into that white snow using our blood is why I am sure Jashin will judge you worthy. You have the beauty of destruction inside you more than anyone.”
Osu stared blankly at Chiai.
“And normally our sect doesn’t have marriage or allow us to have children but as a child of Jashin I am sure you can be an exception and-“
“Chiai,” Osu finally managed.
“Oh I’m sorry, I just got so flustered at the thought and got a bit carried away. What is it da-darli-… Osu.”
He had to be very careful now. Too many red flags were waving about everything. If he ever made it back to the village, he might never willingly leave it again.
“Chiai, what happens if…” Osu had no idea how he was supposed to address this ridiculous cult’s deity since they thought Osu was its son, “if I were to be judged unworthy.”
“That couldn’t happen,” Chiai said confidently.
“Chiai. Tell me what would happen.” Osu was having one of those rare moments where his patience was running very thin.
“Goodness if you speak like that it makes me think you would instead beat me down if we fought right now!” Chiai said with a rather embarrassed and flushed expression. “In the impossible case that occurred you could still be used as a conduit for the energy but instead of you keeping it, your life would be extinguished and the power that would be yours would be given to Jashin’s most devout practitioners at the ritual. In other words, should Lord Jashin be pleased, the full priests and priestesses would likely receive more of his blessing.”
This was bad. More than a little, this was very, very bad.
“And on what sort of basis will I be judged?”
“Lord Jashin is the god of slaughter, and he loves death, general violence and entertainment, usually in the forms of combat or torture. So, he will likely use how violent you have been to judge you.”
This couldn’t get worse. He was a doctor for Raiden’s sake. How what he did daily was the opposite of slaughter aside, Osu was having trouble puzzling out the identity of the phenomenon Chiai was describing. Osu wasn’t irreligious, he often threw a prayer to Raiden, but he also didn’t believe the gods would intervene directly just because they were called upon, holy dates or not. Every god he prayed to had been mortal at some point so he believed they understood the importance of letting people lead their own fates. In truth was the judgement a ruse and they had some method of human sacrifice that drained strength from the victim and passed it on? He couldn’t really expect Chiai to help him out of this since she firmly believed he would be fine.
There was still a light of hope in all of this. A woman who almost had to be his mother at least seemed like she was going to interfere with this ritual when the timing was right. From the way his mother spoke though, his father would indeed be there. Was he one of the cult leaders manipulating the rest? No matter how he looked at it, if his father was somehow involved in all of this, he probably wasn’t a good person.
While Osu was trying to apply reason to the situation, someone else was starting to lose their grip on reason. All this talk about judgement pulled at Uso’s thoughts and she eventually remembered an event that she had long repressed. When they had drowned inside a giant heart a few years back. The hallucination she had then…
The sky had been pitch black except for the light of an eternal Blood Moon. For as far as the eye could see there was nothing but a sea of blood not that anyone's vision could penetrate so far in the unnatural place. There was but one place that stood out, a marble square without decoration except for a simple throne bathed in red. Atop the throne sat a monochrome figure of such a frightening countenance words fail to do his smile justice. To make the attempt anyway, the smile was the product of true nightmares. The emotions it evoked were those from the blackest depths of man's terror. The horror of the nightmare where one's family is held hostage by a murder clown and have to choose between the lives of their family and a mad dash for survival and choose to flee only to be caught anyway and beaten to death with their own skull. The sort of sickening sensation of opening ones eyes to find that they are covered and slowly being consumed by centipedes. The crawling insanity that pulls at you in a nightmare where one is being chased by an unseen assassin and no matter how long or how far they run they can never see their stalker or escape the pressure of its gaze, commit suicide to seek relief and only find that the gaze had been waiting in hell for them all along. But at the time his smile did not reach his eyes. Uso remembered crawling to the bloody sea not to find her reflection but untold numbers of the dead with their arms raised as if trying to escape their fate. The monochrome man’s voice raised every heckle and goosebump on her body and gazing into his eyes turned her hair from black to white. She remembered the figure saying she and Osu were dull to watch, disappointing. He expressed his wish that they try harder to entertain him before he picked them up by their heads and plunged them into the bloody sea where the dead reached up to claw at them. Briefly before she woke up she had seen a mark of a circle within a triangle on every skull.
It had to have been a nightmare. That thing couldn’t exist for real. Uso was panicking. Simply from remembering that nightmare her survival instincts simultaneously kicked in and crashed, paralyzing her with fear. From deep inside the library of their mind Uso quietly said, “Osu?”
Osuteno, partially shocked because Uso had not called him Osu since… ever, stopped trying to reason these events out. “What is it… Uso?” He thought back.
“We need to leave. He… Their god is bad news. Please.”
Both saying please and the act of pleading were things Uso had never done before. Despite usually being the one telling him to keep it together, she was more than a little afraid. Had Uso ever openly shown fear like this? Did she believe they would really meet some sort of slaughter god?
Chiai, who had been oddly patient and cheerful while Osu tried to think everything through, spoke up while checking the light outside. “Well Osu, looks like it is almost time. I’m sure you will do great! Well if they catch me in here flirting with you instead of preparing I might lose a hand. Bye!” It had never occurred to Osu before, but Chiai was a rather carefree girl. Not one part of her could see how this wouldn’t go in Osu’s favor. He didn’t really need that kind of support. In his current predicament, he would have far preferred Chiai to have no confidence in him whatsoever and help him escape whatever fate a slaughter cult inflicted on its victims. Slaughter obviously, but as for the method he was in the dark which left him with far too much freedom of imagination.
He didn’t have to wait very long. His multi-armed guard from before and a rather thin and lanky man covered in needles came to retrieve him. As he was wrapped up in arms on one side of his original guard and carried out of the building that had been his prison Osu had several thoughts mostly aimed at distracting himself from how helpless he currently was. Things like a tooth capsule with a general-purpose antidote or metabolism quickening medication being a sound investment and that this Jashinist cult was more popular than he would have guessed for a religion he had never heard of before. From an outside perspective, it might be unusual that he hadn’t heard of it before except when one realizes that Osu didn’t really have anyone to scare him into being a good child by using tales of the Jashinist dragging away naughty children and the conversation just never came up in his thirteen years of life. While it is understandable how he made it this long without hearing about them, it was turning out to be a rather dangerous piece of ignorance.
If appearances meant anything, most the people here were trainees like Chiai. Of course, with this many trainees the very small number of clergy stood out more. There was also a concerning issue that among the priests and priestesses there seemed to be noticeable age gaps between each. “The number of trainees doesn’t add up,” Osu mumbled quietly.
“With the rise of each new member of the clergy there is a glorious tribute,” the man carrying him began explaining without warning. “When enough are eligible they are painted in the ceremonial patterns, they are locked within the church and then they use one another to display their love for Lord Jashin. Unfortunately, the next group won’t have enough until the year after next. We should have delayed the last one to have occurred this year.” However, the man lived his life to have a voice reminiscent of a rockslide, it really forced one to note every word with some sense of importance. Especially when you realized he was talking about what seemed to be a good 40 people being dropped to one if he was guessing the age groups correctly. That the selection wasn’t occurring this year seemed to be a point of contention as the lanky man rolled his eyes and someone nearby groaned as it was brought up.
Everyone, including the involuntary Osu, were making their way to a one story, but considerably large stone structure with no windows or outside decoration aside from a triangle within a circle above the doorway. That… was probably the church. He could smell death all over the place. Fantastic, he was worried this situation wasn’t ominous enough.
The next few minutes went by rather quickly. Osu, still chained up, was placed on a raised altar exposed to the sky, incense was being burned, scrolls were rolled out and marked with blood, chants were starting up. Oddly for a slaughter cult no human sacrifices were being made but that just made Osu focus more on the note he was chained and resting on an altar. If you couldn’t tell who the human sacrifice is at the cult ritual… well it was very likely you. He did need to try and be a bit more optimistic, maybe the super ultra-rare, not going to happen in the next millennia astrological anomaly was one of those ritual events that didn’t involve a sacrifice for the staby, slashy murder cult.
Seven? There were only seven priests and priestesses as far as he could tell. Maybe that was a lot considering the age range. Keeping calm by giving himself a thought puzzle, Osu guessed that for one to be eligible to be clergy they had to at least be sixteen. If it wouldn’t be for two more years… Osu looked at the youngest priestess for a bit. They likely performed the selection every four years. That meant Chiai for instance wouldn’t be up for her trial for six more years. He didn’t really want to consider the possibility that Chiai would be locked up in this place for some sort of slaughter fest. Osu realized he had regained most of his senses by this point, but still didn’t even consider escape possible. He didn’t even entertain the idea he could take on any of the clergy in a one on one fight much less seven on one and he would likely be killed before he could remove the chains. There was still his… that woman who looked remarkably like him out there somewhere. She told him to just sit and wait and unlike him she seemed to have a plan. Independent action could very likely ruin his only hope for getting out of here alive.
A bit too sudden for comfort another heartbeat seemed to just pop into existence beside him. From the man’s outfit, which was the only one he saw that bore any real sense of decoration, and the fact he was by far the oldest person here with some grey in his hair, Osu believed this was the Head Priest.
If Osu couldn’t see the crazy looking scythe the man held and lacked knowledge about the crazy killing cult, he might have thought this was just a kind oji-san. The kind looking uncle reached down, placed his hand on Osu’s chains, and crushed them with a gentle squeeze.
… Alright then. With a twist and a flick of his wrist the uncle destroyed several links of the chain and freed Osu, if only physically. He motioned for Osu to sit up, and the chains were tossed to the side.
“I thank you for not making any move to run off, I may have stopped aging many years ago but I still feel like an old man. Catching you would have been a bit of a chore. I am sure you have many questions young… I believe I was told your name is Osuteno these days, but we have little time until we need to begin.”