Chapter I: Skylight Blues
"I'm not kidding, it really was the prophecy."
Yukio turned his head the other way and let out a 'tch', chewing on the thin straw of hay, his third one that night. He reached over for his bottle of beer and took a large swig, exhaling a coarse sigh as it scratched down his throat. Then he took another one, armed with the same reaction. "You rich types are allowed to say shit like that." Kami let out a laugh and shook his head dismissively. The two of them sat atop Old Forgetful, as they did around once a month on the last Friday, and they talked about things such as these. On this particular occasion, Kami had chose to reveal the prophecy to Yukio. It had been around a month since Kami was informed of it, and i felt about time that perhaps his best friend should know.
Jinzo Yukio kept looking to the side, and with a quick motion of his hand, pushed over a door-handle and the two listened to the little thing clang its way down the heap that they sat on. "Why would I make up shit like that?" Kami was looking upwards at the sky. The smog index was not a measurement Kami had taken any interest in before, but now it held a poignant relevance to it. If the Yamaguchi son was any more poetic, he might have drawn a relation between this prophecy and the inability to see the stars. It was hard to beat destiny. But Kami wasn't relating his own situation to the starless sky above him. Instead, he just wanted to see the stars as he was told they looked. Apparently they shone and shimmered fearlessly. Apparently they lit up the night.
"They're probably going to demote me soon, put me under protective custody, and lock me away so that when it happens-"
"When what happens? When someone comes by and kills you? You're really preparing for that kinda' shit?"
Kami let out a heaved sigh, and his breath furled into a thin and pale mist before him. It was a chilly time to be out and about, but the alcohol helped as far as it could. The remainder of their warmth would come from conversation. Yukio spit out the hay in his mouth audibly and jumped up to his feet. Turning and facing the other way, Kami's best friend looked over the rest of the junkyard. "And what happens to Yume? Hasn't she lost enough?" Yukio's words were fumbled by the noise of Kami unsuccessfully flicking his lighter, failing to bring it to life even after the third and fourth try. The shivering moist air had laid a curse on the ember within his machine such that each spark died before it had come to life. The cigarette in Kami's mouth quivered with Kami's jaw, as everything shivered in the cold.
"Oi oi just use the fire thing."
"I can't anymore."
"The hell you mean you can't?"
"You're going to get mad... but I stopped learning that shit. Ninja arts just isn't for me Yuki." The children at school used to call Yukio Yuki, to embarrass him. The truth was, Kami had started that nickname endearingly, and a few of the other boys misconstrued it as a taunt. Yukio used to cringe every time he'd hear Kami call him 'Yuki' out loud, but for the past few years, Kami was the only one left who would call him that. And Yukio was the only one who remembered that Kami used to be called 'Red' in school. Everyone was so busy calling Kami something in between 'Hokage' and 'Leader' that the names that mattered slipped through the cracks.
Yuki stepped besides Kami, and while Kami looked straight ahead, on his tenth attempt at bringing his lighter to a blaze, Yukio looked down still. Reaching over, the boy snapped his fingers, calling out a tiny line of fire from his index finger to the tip of Kami's cigarette. Taking what help he could get, the Yamaguchi inhaled forcefully, lightning his face in an orange hue as the cigarette roared in inferno.
"So you've given up?"
"What's the use of learning all this crap about Chakra control and Handseals when I'll be six feet under before I can use any of it?"
"So you..."
"Yeah, I quit."
Yukio reached over, and Kami pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and handed it over to him. Jinzo Yukio was technically a member of the Yakuza Clan. His father had joined, and this gave him the benefit of being a Jinzo. The boy's family had an enormous debt to pay to the Alligator Shark Gambling Corporation, and the Yamaguchi offered to pay if off in return for a lineage of servitude. Yukio had approximately twenty years worth of debt still on his name, bequeathed by his father. But when the Jinzo boy took a long pull on the cigarette, Kami could tell that it was from the same feeling of suffocation that Kami had felt, hearing of his coming demise.
"You have to fight."
Kami held back a grin. What a childish thing to say -- as if all of this were some children's cartoon that could be overcome with heart and perseverance. And even if it was, who was to say that Kami could persevere? A singular cloud drifted past the moonless black above them, and for a moment it seemed as though behind it would be a clear view of the stars. Instead, there was another veil of black, a disingenuous black that was not the same as the space beyond it.
"I know, Yuki."
Kami pulled the cigarette out of Yuki's mouth and pulled at it again. As burning agents of cancer spread quickly through his lungs, he finally looked down from the starlessness above and looked straight at Yuki. Kami did not expect that Yuki was looking at him as well. The two of them shared the same determination in their eyes. As Kami's jaw clenched, so did Yuki's, and the two of them thought of approximately the same sort of thing.
Chapter II: A Broken Crown
His stamina wore thin, and with each step he spent more chakra propelling further. Kami was always faster than him, and it made sense for Kami to be, considering the Yamaguchi did not have access to Chakra Concentration and other such techniques. The two of them wore cheap ponchos, Kami’s was a faded blue and Yukio’s was some shade of green, and the rain pitter-pattered with moments of rhythm and moments of pandemonium.
“Keep up,” came his command, and Yukio pushed a now painful burst of Chakra into his next leap. Still Kami raced ahead, and out of fatigue or hopelessness, the rain seemed to thicken. Yukio was a year younger than Kami, but only Kami really knew that. When they entered school, the entrance exam had dictated that Yukio was far ahead of the first year course curriculum. Walking into second year of the Academy, the shortest and skinniest of the kids there, was a difficult thing to do for Yukio. Not everyone there was a bully, but those that befriended him asked only about his training – whether it was luck or skill that got him past the first grade exams, and so on.
“We’re almost there. Stay on guard.”
“Yeah yeah.”
The teacher had said once that Yukio was very fortunate. Not only did he get to skip a year of the Academy but the children in his class all seemed to be interested in him. Yet Yukio had never eaten lunch with the others. It grew tiresome to talk about his regime and his skills to a handful of star-struck kids. Spending his hour of lunch on the Academy terrace seemed logical at the time. After the first week of devouring his lunch against the caged railing of the terrace, the boy became suddenly aware that he was not alone. It was only a hunch at first – the unnatural creaking of the pipes that ran along the side of the building, or the unprecedented thuds along the ladder. Yukio had concluded, then, that it was just one of the students, trying to get some Shuriken advice from the class ‘genius’.
“There it is. Fuck this rain… we would’ve been here an hour ago if the road wasn’t flooded…”
Kami had come to a stop and Yukio did too, besides his old friend. The two of them panted uncontrollably, the thickly humid air refusing to fill their lungs the same way they had wanted it to. That day, in the Academy, when Yukio detected someone else on the very roof, he had not found what he expected. When the boy climbed up to the top of the water tank that was located at the corner of the terrace, he saw a boy with red hair, dangling his legs over the edge, coughing and wincing as he dipped pieces of his sushi into orange wasabi. It wasn’t even real wasabi – it was the type they made specifically to be packaged in lunches for children. But Yukio focused more on the boy’s face, a face that he recognized. This was Kami, the heir of the Yamaguchi Royal Bloodline, and soon, the subject of the Crimson Prophecy.
Back in the present, both Yukio and Kami looked up, wincing at the drops of rain pelleting their revealed faces, and they stared in awe at how large the fallen statue was. It was the statue of the Vajra Kumara, the Demon King of Hell, buried more than half way into the Earth. It was rumored that the statue was, in its original form, larger than even Her Mercy. Even as only its chest, arms, and head stuck out of the ground, it seemed monolithic. Only four of its eight arms could now be seen.
One held the Chakra, a discus which was rumored to have been the origins of all Chakra-related science of today. The other held the Trisul, a trident that symbolized the tri-partisan nature of the world, told to be the source of the three-branch system that Shinobi had followed for millennia. In his third arm, the Vajra Kumara held the world, with its nails digging into the oceans and the lands, likely an analogy for the birth of energy usage by humans.
The last visible hand of the Vajra Kumara held the skull of God.
“This is weird.”
“Tell me about it.”
When Yukio and Kami had their first conversation atop the water tank at the edge of the terrace, Kami didn’t say many intelligent things. He insisted that he wasn’t up here to avoid the other children. Pointing to the medical teacher, the two of them stared down her shirt. It wasn’t a bad view. And since then, the two of them ate their lunch up at the very top. Kami didn’t ask Yukio about how he managed to get into second year, and Yukio didn’t bother Kami with questions about the Yamaguchi Royal Family. The two of them continued with this symbiosis until Yukio’s dad fell into debt and ran to the Yamaguchi for help. Takeuchi was Yukio’s family name before his father made a deal with the Yakuza Clan. He remembered the burning sense of embarrassment he felt when his father cited Yukio’s and Kami’s friendship as the reason why the Yamaguchi should accept his father’s offer.
In the end, the Yamaguchi agreed. Yukio, his mother, and his father lost the ‘Takeuchi’ in their name, and replaced it with ‘Jinzo’. Yukio didn’t go to class for almost a month, and when finally he was forced to attend, he ate his lunches in the cafeteria.
On this inauspicious morning, the two of them had travelled outside of the village and towards the site of the Vajra Kumara in order to exhaust the last lead they had. If this failed, they would have no line of defense against the prophecy that told that Kami would be killed in the coming future. It was not unreasonable to expect that if a political figure were to die an untimely death, it would be from another human’s hands. But Kami wasn’t a political figure. He was just a kid. Yukio looked at the eyes of the statue. These were all things for adults. The curse of the Demon King, the sacrifice necessary, and the power it granted, these were not things that they had to worry about before. When Kami stepped forward and put his hand on the stone surface of the Demon’s face, Yukio felt a chill run up his spine.
This was all Feira’s advice. She was the one to prophesize Kami’s demise, and she told Kami how to save himself. It wasn’t the sort of advice Yukio would have wanted to hear, but he expected it from someone with such a background. There was only ever one way to see in the dark.
Hunched over in a squat, the Hokage lit his cigarette. He held it close to his lips, under the protective plastic hood of his poncho, as the rain tried its hardest to cut the blaze short. “It should be here,” grunted the Yamaguchi as he inhaled a mouthful of toxic. “Where is it?” Yukio looked around, scanning the protrusion of the ground from where the statue now stood out. The two of them looked for some sign of burial, as Feira had told them that besides the Vajra Kumara’s head there was buried an amulet. If the amulet was still there Kami had gotten lucky, because anyone approaching the statue was inevitably followed by the local tribe. Finding the amulet meant that they knew it even existed, which told the tribe that the visitors were welcome guests. When the tribe arrived, should the visitors have no amulet to show, then the secret location of the Vajra Kumara had been revealed to unwelcome eyes.
Turning back to look at the nothingness in the rain, Yukio thought he saw movement along the far left side of his vision. Instead of following through on what he saw, he turned back to the statue, dropped to his knees, and began digging alongside Kami. The rain made the mud slide back into place, forming puddles at the bottoms of the small ditches they carved out. Kami looked over his shoulder too, probably aware of the same thing Yukio was. The tribe – the Circle of Kahani, a people known for their cannibalism – was here. Yukio dug faster, clenching his teeth as small rocks scratched against their fingers. It was supposed to be near the chin of the Vajra Kumara. It was supposed to be here.
“Yuki…”
“Yeah I know. You’re good with this kind of stuff… talk us out of this mess!”
Kami’s nervous chuckle didn’t help as Yukio pushed his arms down to his elbows, his fingers swimming through freezing cold soil in hope for anything hard. He could hear foot steps behind them now, splashing through the flooded earth, approaching ever closer.
“Kami I say we run…”
Desperation held Yukio by his throat as he prepared to pull his hands out of the mud and throw down a smoke bomb. His mind imagined what the tribe must look like, deformed after so many years of consuming other humans. Would they look harmless, like all of such professions tend to? Or would they have eight arms and the Demon’s face?
They were behind him. Yukio felt an unfamiliar chill run up his spine, forcing him to pull his hands out of the ground and reach for his utility vest. One smoke bomb to their feet and he’d grab Kami by the collar and bolt for it. They would give chase, but Yukio knew enough water Jutsu to take advantage of this situation and even the odds. Unplucking the seal from his case full of small smoke pellets, Yukio armed himself with two of them, enough to cover the area for a good minute before things cleared up. Taking in a deep, anguished breath, the boy raised his hand, ready to launch the pellets down when…
“Found it!,” said Kami’s reassured voice, cracking with happiness as he raised the amulet. It was made of pure gold, with a crimson ruby in the center. The edges curved into one another intricately, some of them ending in sharp edges while others branched out to more curves. From afar, it was shaped like a spade, but upon closer inspection, Yukio thought perhaps it was an upside down heart.
“Welcome, son of Konoha.”
Chapter III: The Lost City
The ride back was burdened by silence. Yukio sat at the front, navigating the motor car along the long and winding road. The vehicle was lead still by horses, the motor used only to make the load a little lighter. The rain had smoothened out the numerous bumps, leaving moist clay in its place, so not even the wheels filled the silence with any noise. The Circle of Kahani was more shrouded in mystery than it was when he had not met them. All of them were theatrical masks, each adorning a different expression, painted different hues of red and gold and black and blue.
The most mysterious part of the meeting wasn’t their appearance, but the way they conducted themselves before Kami. When Kami first raised the amulet for them to see, Yukio could only lean forward, push his pellets back down into his belt, and sigh in relief. But that relief was short lived, and the feeling of anguish, the animal instinct that told him that something was terribly wrong, persisted and grew very much stronger. It was only when they turned around to face their greeters that Yukio noticed his own underestimation. While he had heard merely a few footsteps, in fact, they were surrounded by the Circle of Kahani, and in no trivial numbers.
There were thousands of them.
The rain splashed off of their skin in unison and made them appear to be of the same blood and flesh. Kami and Yukio were surrounded. No technique Yukio knew could get the two of them out of this mess if things were to go sour. Kami rose to his feet, and so did Yukio. The two pressed their backs against the statue of the Vajra Kumara, both caught in the entrapping awe of the moment. The Circle’s eyes were pointed towards Kami, and not a single one of them moved. The rain grew deafening now, and thunder cackled in the backdrop, painting the sky a dark violet for the duration of an instant.
Then the thousands of them all, in one motion, lowered to their knees, with their hands raised above their heads, and their palms facing up. It was as if they all were presenting some invisible gift for the Hokage, who they had referred to as the ‘Son of Konoha’. Yukio had noticed his own clenched jaw, recognized the whitened knuckles from his tightened fists, but didn’t stop. It was his only way of being poised for what was to come.
“My Lord, we are undeserving.”
This time, it was not the closest one that spoke, it was all of them. Their voices sent a hum through the density of the forest, and caused even the rain to skip a beat. Yukio could see that all of them were around the same tone of skin – a dark complexion that was found most commonly amongst those of the desert. There was not a single woman in the gathering, which lead Yukio to wonder about how large their entire clan really was if this was only about half of them. Through their masks their eyes, that held no pupils, looked to the floor before them. They were showing their respects. But why?
Kami was the faster to react, and he walked forward. His hands were not clenched and his jaw was not stiff like Yukio’s. Instead, Kami brushed his soggy red hair past his face, scanned over the many that had come, and spoke with the same declarative tone that he had at the funeral after the Akazora attacks.
“Take me to your quarters. I have business with you.”
Their response was quick and coordinated.
“As you wish, My Lord.”
Enormous horses larger than any Yukio had seen were brought for both of the guests to ride on, horses that tread through the rain-tortured roads just fine. What had begun as a brisk pace broke into a sprint as the horses began to gallop fearlessly forward, with a thousand of the Kahani behind them able to keep up without any sign of slowing down. This went on for almost an hour before the horses slowed and the army behind them did as well. Ahead was a city that the two of them had only learned about in school, a place that should not have existed beyond the realms of story books. Merely half a mile in front of Yukio, where the rain stopped, and the forestation stopped too. In fact, the soil turned from its natural brown to a reddish orange, and only when they moved closed to this abrupt change of atmosphere did Yukio realize that it was sand. Soil had turned, abruptly, into sand.
“We… are we... where is this…”
“We’re in the desert, Yuki. And this is the Lost City of Agora.”
It is believed that there is a place that exists outside of time and space, a place cursed to never exist within the realm of man. Those that returned from this place, made the mistake of calling it 'Heaven'.
Chapter IV: That Which Haunts Us
Yukio turned around, looked to Kami and let out a short sigh. The Hokage had been quiet for the entire trip. Konoha was in sight now, the Great Wall of Fire extending beyond the horizon and clouding the sky. It was a monolithic structure when compared to the trees and shrubberies beyond it. After almost an entire day of traveling, with the backdrop of a setting sun behind them, there was an exhaustion that bore down on the Jinzo boy as he guided the motor car. It no longer rained, and the cumulonimbus clouds that had once thwarted the sun had now dispersed, leaving a brilliant orange in its place.
“You’ve got to tell someone. It’s silly for us to pretend like-“
“Like what? You told me you’d keep it to yourself Yuki. Didn’t think you’d back out.”
“I’m not backin’ out man. But at least tell Feira.”
Kami let out an audible grunt, rustling in the back as he presumably turned to face the other way. He was laying down now, his head rested up against the ribs of the cart, bobbing from side to side as they all trudged along in unison. Yukio knew for a fact that Kami had not slept.
“Okay. I’ll tell Feira.”
Yukio managed to smile, reaching back into Kami’s belongings to pull out the pack of cigarettes. Lighting one and sucking noncommittally on it, the Jinzo blew nonsymmetrical o’s into the air. Kami was not as stubborn as people made him out to be. Yukio recalled the first time the two of them spoke after Yukio’s father joined the Jinzo ranks. It was during a family meeting, where the Yamaguchi were delegating tasks to the different sub-families. Yukio attended absentmindedly, caught up with the theatrics of each interaction with the prestigious Royal Family. What he did not expect was for Kami to attend. Immediately, the red-headed heir cornered Yukio, and began the expected line of questioning. ‘Why’re you avoiding me?’, and ‘Did my family tell you to stay away?’ Yukio’s answers moved from dismissive to immersive, and soon they were arguing.
The next day, Yukio once again began having his lunch on top of the water tank atop the terrace of the Academy. He noted that there was someone else there. A certain Shinsen Reika, who was a year ahead of Kami so two years elder than Yukio, had been trying to climb the water tank. She couldn’t yet use Chakra Concentration to walk vertically, and Kami had managed to knock over the ladder leading to the top of the fountain. So when Yukio helped the girl up to where Kami was sitting, the redhead was understandably enraged. It turns out in Yukio’s absence; some girl had developed an interest in the boy. So from then on, the three of them ate their lunches together. Yukio would be made to sit in the middle by Kami, so that Reika would stop feigning excuses to brush her arm past him or lean her shoulders on his.
But more than Kami’s feeling of inconvenience with such a effeminate interaction, Yukio had wanted to sit between the two of them. He did not understand the feeling at the time, but he despised Reika. However, children are often unable to carry hate within their hearts for very long, and past the first few months, the three of them had become good friends. Yukio would talk about his absurd training regimes, and how his father had once been a high ranking Anbu. Kami and Reika were the only people Yukio had felt comfortable talking to about these things. He would lay back, his hands under his head, and stare at the clouds while recounting the humorous and the heartbreaking tales that had made him such a capable Shinobi at such a young age.
Soon, Kami opened up as well. The stories of the elaborate conventions and the majestic conferences with leaders from around the world seemed as though they belonged in books. Kami’s perspective was always refreshing to Yukio, with how he would describe even the most regal practices with a sense of degrading satire. During those days, Kami really seemed normal. Yukio had not known then that Kami would be declared the first CEO of the Konoha Corporation. It’s hard to stay innocent with such sorts of burdens.
Looking back into the cart where Kami slept, Yukio felt a clenching in his chest. Quickly, he turned around and turned up the speed, letting out a small cough of smoke from his mouth as they moved faster back home.
“And will you tell your family?”
“Yuki.”
“Sorry sorry.”
Perhaps people lose their innocence in sudden, graceless moments of their lives. Yukio had not seen the world in the same light ever since Valentine’s Day at school. By that time, everyone on the grounds knew that Reika was head over heels for the Yamaguchi boy. So there was an understanding that no one else would offer Kami chocolates on that specific day, as it threw a wrench into an otherwise straightforward romance. So with the right dosage of peer pressure and guilt, Reika and a few of the girls from class convinced Yukio to stand guard of Kami that day, and make sure that no one else was able to approach him.
This was particularly difficult for him to explain to Kami, without giving away the plot. Quite a few girls, that year, had thought their chances of scoring a long term relationship with Kami were relatively bright. Unfortunately for them, Yukio was better at keeping them away than they were at getting to Kami. So during the Valentine’s Day Festival, the two of them ended up wandering about on their own, playing the games and losing what little money their parents would afford them. Every moment of that night played clearly in Yukio’s mind as he drove the car past the familiar ‘Welcome to Leaf City’ sign.
Kami’s parents were against him going to this event. They insisted that it was too dangerous. So when Yukio’s mother offered to cover for Kami, telling the Yamaguchi that Kami was coming to Yukio’s house for the day, both Kami and Yukio were quick to jump on the offer. Kami wore Yukio’s Kimono that day, and the two of them ran from one corner to the other in the blue, mediocrely embroidered silk. Yukio had to keep the girls away from Kami until the firework show, and the longer they went on, the easier it became. At one point, on the very top of the Ferris wheel, Kami had said something that made no sense to Yukio at the time. ‘I wish Reika was more like you,’ he had said. Now, in the present, Yukio reasoned it as just the mumblings of a confused child. But at the time, turning to face away, Yukio simply blushed a deep red.
‘That’s stupid,’ Yukio had retorted, hearing something odd in his own voice. ‘She is uh… kind, and smart, and I guess she’s pretty so-‘
‘Yeah you’re right. She’s not that bad.’
Yukio could feel his stomach tensing at the words. At some level, his trust for her was just a derivative for Kami’s trust for her. Had Kami decided to push her off of the water tank, Yukio would not have let her up. Regret swam through his gut, the byproduct of an emotion he did not understand then. They were in their fourth year of the Academy then, and it had been two years since the three of them had become friends.
When the Ferris Wheel came down again to the ground, the fireworks started.
Reika was waiting for them as they stepped out of the line. She wore a yukata of red and gold that Yukio had not thought she could have afforded. Her hair stood still, tied up over her head, as she glided towards Kami and took a hold of his hand. Yukio looked down and watched Kami’s hand, waiting for his friend to jerk it away from Reika as he always did. But on that day, Kami let her hold it. And given this window of liberty, she slid her fingers through Kami’s and pressed her face to the boy’s shoulder.
‘Kami, can you come with me?’
Yukio quickly moved his gaze from Kami’s hand over to Kami’s eyes, curious if they should look back to Yukio for approval. If they did, would Yukio have pleaded Kami not to go? Would he have begged the Yamaguchi boy to stay and spend the festival with him? Kami did not look at anything other than Reika, seeming more pensive than Yukio had ever seen him. ‘Okay, lead the way,’ said Kami, and suddenly, the two of them were off towards the woods. Yukio realized that a few of the girls had been watching, waiting to see what Kami would say, and now they held their cheeks and whispered loudly to one another at the scene of Kami agreeing. This would be the talk of the whole school tomorrow, grumbled Yukio mournfully. But helpless to some morbid curiosity, Yukio followed the love birds.
They walked deep into the surrounding forest, away from the crowds, and then away from the lights. Yukio's heart pounded, noticing before even his eyes did, that Kami had not let go of her hand. When finally Reika stopped, they were in a small clearing where only the light of the fireworks could reach. It cast Reika in the shade while Yukio could see Kami's expression clearly. The boy wore a thoughtful smile, as if he had seen a side to a story that was not there before. Yukio clenched his fists in vain.
'I made this for you,' she said, in a vexing tone that only girls could conjure. Pulling it out of her sash, Reika presented a small box of chocolates to Kami. Did she really make them herself? He wanted to discredit her emotions. But she seemed to be happy when Kami was around. Maybe her feelings for him were genuine. Maybe she deserved reciprocation from someone like Kami. That was when Kami took a hold of the small box with both of his hands, and bowed his head.
'You know, this is the first time I'm happy to receive a gift from someone.'
Kami let out a laugh, keeping his head bowed while holding onto what she had made, but Reika reacted differently. Almost immediately she quivered her shoulders, then burst into tears. Her crying was not womanly, and like a little girl does, she ran into Kami's arms. Burying her head against his neck, she shook with waves of tears, as Kami ran his free hand down her hair as softly as he could. Yukio could not turn away. In retrospect, that would have been the perfect time to turn away.
'I'm glad you like it, Kami-kun. Won't you take a bite?'
It was then that Kami's arms wrapped around the girl, and leaned his chin down on her shoulder. Opening the box, he pushed the first piece into his mouth. Then he leaned away and offered her the second piece. She shook her head, tears flicking to each side when she did. 'I've always wanted to do this', came her words while she looked up into the Yamaguchi's eyes. Yukio felt himself tense up in poise. He had seen enough movies to know what came next. She leaned in close to Kami, her face closer than it had ever been to Kami's. Yukio strained to see if Kami would kiss her. What he expected was for Kami to do it. What he hoped for was for Kami to pull away. But what happened was Kami spat out a thin mist of blood onto her cheek. His eyes darted from her and then beyond her, and he stumbled back.
And she watched him motionlessly.
With a burst of blinding pain, Yukio fell down to the ground from the branch he had stood on, barely conscious. His dimming vision saw only Kami, as his friend dropped to his knees. Yukio's arms would not move even if he tried, and his throat felt dry as it tried unsuccessfully to utter Kami's name. The redhead spat out more blood, this time on Reika's dress. She didn't step away. Instead she reached down and clenched her fists onto his hair. Four others landed around her, one of them with a bloodied knife. It must have been what stabbed him. It wasn't a fatal blow but he felt himself dying nonetheless. He could not, however, take his eyes off of Kami.
'I'm so sorry, Kami-kun,' she uttered, her lips remaining straight-laced as before. 'I'm so...,' she hovered her thumb over his right eye. He was looking up at her with eyes that quivered from either intense anger or bottomless fear. His teeth clenched as she began pushing her thumb's nail into his eyeball. Blood sprang to life everywhere, painting both his clothes and hers an adamant red. He was noiseless, and Yukio had feared that he had died. But she kept pushing, and as a waterfall of crimson shed from his socket, she finally pulled her thumb out. The smile that appeared on her face was something Yukio would never forget. 'I'm so... happy... today. I've wanted this for a very long time. From this day onwards, you'll never mold Chakra again. Unfortunately, you'll probably fall unconscious before they break your Chakra circuits, and that's no fun.' She sounded like a different person as she spoke. He did not stop looking up at her, and Yukio thought perhaps he had seen a tear flow down from Kami's remaining eye.
'Father says I can't kill you. So taking your one eye shall do.'
She let go of him and his head slumped, a clutter of blood rushing through his destroyed eye and onto his lap, pooling near his knees. She turned to leave, a satisfied grin painting her face. Then, in desperation or anger, Kami let out a growling scream, his fists clenching onto the girl's dress as she watched him fade. He screamed as blood gargled in his throat, as blood flowed from his eye and his nose and his ears. He screamed until he had no strength left, and when finally he had given everything he had, Kami fell down, face first onto the blood-red grass.
Chapter V: The Harrowing Depth of Despair
Feira looked older than she did the last time Yukio had seen her, and when she sat down in front of the two of them, she looked only to her hands. Her hands were wrinkled, more so than her face, and they looked jaded with a tar color that make her otherwise peach palms into an off-putting shade. She knew Yukio as Kami’s first friend, and he knew Feira as the Devil Conjurer. It was the name Yukio’s father had used to describe the woman. Being a Koroshi to the Yamaguchi Royal Family, Yukio’s father had access to quite a bit of the family’s darker secrets. The vile and thriving underbelly of a dynasty that could stay in power for so long was far-reaching and terrible.
And at the beating heart of it all was Feira. The rumors said that she was a thousand years old – that she was a descendant of the Gerudo King. But what Yukio remembered the most was his father’s words, laced with slow and deliberate sips of Gin. His father was afraid. ‘Stay away from that lady,’ he had said, in a volume that existed between whisper and scolding. ‘She’s a Devil Conjurer.’
Yukio continued to look at her palms until he noticed them open. When his eyes moved back up towards her face, he saw that she was looking at him. Her slender and dark face took pride in showing her age, but she looked no older than a fifty-year-old might look. She had looked that way for as long as Yukio could remember. For a moment he imagined what his father could have known to have been so afraid of this woman.
”And you let him do it?”
”I tried-“
”You let him sell his life away like this?”
Yukio could feel his fingers tensing as they intertwined into one another. His jaw clenched and he couldn’t bring himself to turn to look at Kami. Kami was never as afraid of Feira as Yukio was. In fact, Kami wasn’t afraid of her at all – or at least, he didn’t show it if he was. Yukio stood quickly to his feet and offered a deep bow. His head lowered down almost to his knees as he held on to the sides of his thighs, keeping the position as he spoke. ”I’ll make sure nothing happens! Please accept my ap-“
”Silence, dog.”
There was something in her voice that made it different. It was an incremental depth to it that resembled the opening of some gate, and out of it slipped a despairing sensation that Yukio could not ignore. Kami would not notice it, because he never noticed such things. Yukio could feel his hands trembling. A blinding shot of relief ran through his veins when he heard Kami stand up.
”Hey Feira, it wasn’t his fault!”
”It wasn’t? You’ve been made aware of your own terrible end. You’re not supposed to think rationally. It is a Jinzo’s duty to protect the Yamaguchi and Jinzo Yukio is no different.”
”He tried to stop me, he did. I just… I didn’t listen to him. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about anyway. This is for the better, Feira, believe me. I won’t die when I have-“
”Believe you? Do you know what you’ve done? Getting assassinated was a much better fate than this you fool!” Yukio had kept his head down, seeing only the tips of her leather shoes that stuck out beyond the drape of her gown. She didn’t dress like someone who was so closely tied to the Yamaguchi. When those very shoes turned to point towards Yukio, he knew that she was looking at him once more. Reluctantly, he straightened up from his bow, his hands rigidly encased at his side and his head still tucked down in apology.
”Please help us Feira. I didn’t know it was this serious. Kami told me about the prophecy and… and… I didn’t know what to do. He told me this was the solution and in the end, I really just want him not to die.” Yukio reflected at the choice of his words. It was an odd way to phrase that. But did he want Kami to live? Did he mind if Kami was tucked away in some hole in the ground, kept alive with dosages of food and visits from friends? Kami wouldn’t want that. But it didn’t seem so bad.
At least Kami wouldn’t be dead. And that’s what was important. It was a disgusting notion, but it was honest.
”Kami, go get some wood. We’re going to make dinner.”
”Huh?” With a look of confusion the CEO walked past Feira and out of the small hut. The door did not swing closed, and it allowed a trickle of sunlight to illuminate the otherwise orange hue of the place. Yukio was much too aware of the fact that he was alone with her, feeling the uneasy intrusion of her presence.
Yukio’s father would never speak Feira’s name, and Kami could not bring himself to understand that. Being wary of such a powerful figure was only logical, but to be terrified of her was uncharacteristic of his father. Yukio had once insisted that Feira was harmless, that he had seen her interactions with Kami and perhaps she was just an innocent caretaker at heart. He remembered his father’s pained laugh at the comment. ‘Harmless? There’s a reason she’s that Kami boy’s caretaker. No one’s will be able to touch him as long as she’s in his room. That’s not harmless.’
”Sometimes, protecting others requires us to hurt ourselves.” The hairs on the back of Yukio’s neck stood in shrill fear. Had she read his mind? Did she know of his irrational terror? Or was it perhaps just a cruel coincidence, concocted by fate to keep him on his toes? She stepped away from him and pushed the door open further. The sunlight shone onto half of the house, while she stood in the shaded region besides the doorway. In front of them, down the path by a few meters, was Kami. He was sitting down on a tree stump, hunched over collecting smaller twigs and branches into a large pile. While he was facing Feira and Yukio, his head was tucked down, so he did not see them watching him. ”I should not be angry with you. I know that you were scribed as well.”
”How did you know?”
”I may be old, but I’m not yet senile. You’ve had yourself linked to him. When he is cut, you’ll feel the pain as well. It is an uncommon procedure. Is this your way of keeping track of him?”
”This is my penance.”
She was looking at Kami, and Yukio thought he caught a smile touch her lips for a moment, but it was gone just as quickly. ”Penance is for regret, Yukio. How can you regret allowing him to die when it has yet to happen? This solution that the two of you went through with… it complicates a lot of things you know. I know I sound like some old soothsayer when I say this… but he’s doomed.” Yukio crossed his arms, his eyes darting from left to right. It was difficult to understand what she meant. Her eyes looked at something distant when she spoke. It must have been the effects of being able to tell the future. After-all, Feira was the one to prophesize Kami’s assassination.
Kami felt bad for her. He regretted having to put her through this. But Yukio was different. He did not vocalize these thoughts, but he suspected that she had known of Kami’s demise much earlier than she claimed. How far into the future could she really see? At times, he wondered if maybe they were all trivial to her – bumps on an otherwise smooth and infinite plane of existence. The story would go on with or without some Yamaguchi Kami and his best friend Jinzo Yukio. And along the expanse of this plane, in every direction that it extended, there were people like Feira – that is, if the rumors of her immortality were true.
”I guess I just don’t understand how he’s doomed. It can only help, to have that kind of power…”
”All power comes at a cost, Yukio. You’ve been given a powerful link to Kami, one that will let you find him wherever he is, and will let you feel what he feels. But you know the cost.” He did, and the cost was the reason Kami had fought to stop him from getting it done. But if Kami was going to go through with his own plan, then this was the least Yukio could do. They would not get this opportunity again. ”A day might come when Kami’s taken away. They won’t kill him quickly. They will torture his mind and his body until he gives in and finally dies. Do you think you will be able to lead a normal life after that – if you even survive?”
”As long as I feel the pain, I know that he hasn’t died. I can find him.”
”Will you get up and walk when you feel his ligaments being sliced and extracted?”
”I’ll get up and run.”
”People of his lineage aren’t privileged to peaceful deaths. How will you save him from this curse he’s undertaken? When you two went to Agora, you did not come back alone.” The same chill ran up Yukio’s spine, a feeling of dread that he had become accustomed to.
”You mean… the mark…”
”The mark is just a gateway… not to power, or immortality, or anything that Kami would want…”
Yukio’s hands trembled again, his senses becoming aware of some invisible darkness that lingered thick and pungent in the atmosphere. Feira reached up to Yukio’s shoulder and placed her hand on him. A sharp surge of chakra rushed through his system and came together at his eyes. ”Kami stared into the abyss when you two went to Agora.” Beyond the initial daze that came with her chakra, his vision had not changed. He looked to her in a panicked stare, and saw that she was looking at Kami. The faint hint of a smile on her lips had faded now, and in its stead was a straight line along her lips.
Instinctively, he turned his head to Kami.
Then he screamed and pulled away, falling backwards onto her table, knocking over the small ceramic cups that had been arranged on top of it. Once contact was broken, he could no longer see it, and he was immediately thankful. Kami was looking up now, having heard Yukio’s voice.
”What’s wrong Yuki?”
”N-no-nothing,” Yukio managed to reply. But he could not forget what he had seen. Behind Kami, in a form of pitch black, its wings spread across the entire horizon. Its horns pierced through even heaven. And its arms wrapped possessively around Kami’s shoulders. It smiled at Yukio, when Yukio looked. Perhaps it was smiling now, the face of dread and evil.
Behind Kami, stood the Devil.
Chapter VI: In God's Shadow
Agora had been like a dream, the type your brain scrambles to forget immediately after waking up. They had walked into the desert-like plain with little to no plan on what to do if they couldn't get out. Yukio's nature made him wary and suspicious, but Kami seemed unfazed by slippery slope they now slid down. He sat at their chair, his elbows pressed against his knees and his hair draped over his face like a curtain of blood, and he made no noise as they pushed the long needle into his spine. It was rumored that the dragon on his back moved -- a rumor some girls he had slept with liked to spread as 'proof' that they had really done the deed. Those who claimed to not see anything move were immediately discredited, so now it became commonplace amongst young girls to claim that they had spent a night with him, watching the tattoo on his back come to life in curves of black and blacker.
Yukio wondered, in the mild heat of Agora, if Kami's tattoo really did move. The Jinzo bodyguard was abruptly pulled out of his trance-like stare at his friend when the redhead let out a stifled grunt. It wasn't like Kami to let his pain enter the world of the audible. Yukio stood, instinctively, and went to stop the procedure, when almost a dozen of the clan members stepped in between him and Kami. He could see Kami's fists clench. Yukio felt his throat catch.
"Oi... you alright?"
A cold shiver ran up his spine when Kami did not respond. Was he in that much pain? Whatever it was that they held, some large dark blade that carved through Kami's back, seemed to emanate with a sickness that caused the air to thicken and smell like boiling blood. "Give the word Kami, we'll g-"
"This is the only way." Yukio stepped away, diverting his gaze. He hated the Yamaguchi. He hated the entire Yakuza. He hated the City and the way it engulfed people in one way or the other. Another of Kami's grunts made Yukio shut his eyes tightly. What a terrible fate to be born into.
"You will never want power again."
Kami let out a scream and his pain rattled Yukio's bones. But he didn't do what every instinct told him to do. Instead, Yukio hunched over his knees, curled up, and pressed his palms against his ears. Kami's screams were louder than what his palms could hold out. The tearing of his flesh was crisp and clear to Yukio's mind. "Son of Konoha, you will know no fear." Yukio trembled as a hot finger of salt traced from his cheek and dropped onto mat below. "You will know no death."
Kami shrieked out in despair. Yukio could hear his friend's ribs breaking. It was part of the procedure. They hard warned Kami about it on their way into the tent that they now had gathered inside. Kami had given Yukio a hesitant look before agreeing. Yukio had suspected perhaps that was the only chance he would have had to stop Kami from going through with this. It must have been Kami's way of offering one window of opportunity for the rational voice to speak up and regain control of the situation. But Yukio had been as caught up in awe as Kami had, and the two of them struggled to believe that the legends were true, and that the Kahani even existed. And just like that, that moment was gone, and now they were here. Something warm pressed lightly against the bottom of his feet, causing Yukio to open his eyes. That's when he saw the blood. It was everywhere. There was a lake of red that soaked through the mats and carpets, into the sand below. In the center of it was the Yamaguchi heir, heaving and screaming. Every inch of his skin was covered in the same red.
Yukio did not expect Kami to look up towards him.
"This is the only way... Yuki..." His eyes were wild and his teeth were clenched. His bones pushed out of his skin and his face had its skin torn almost entirely off. Holes along his back showed signs of where they had injected him with whatever it was that now consumed him like acid against the surface of wet wood. His flesh and bone seemed to melt into the crimson waves below, and he gave a despairing grunt. It reminded Yukio of the noise Kami had made when Reika betrayed him. When possibly the only person Kami could ever love had pushed her finger through Kami's eye, he had uttered a similar, anguished howl - like a rabid dog caught in a bear-trap, barking furiously ahead. Fearless and hopeless.
'Don't fuckin' pity me!' was the first words Kami had said to him when Yukio visited Kami in the hospital, after the incident with Reika. They had broke his Chakra Gates and overloaded it until finally his body relinquished its control over chakra entirely, in exchange for an opportunity to continue surviving. The incident was hushed up effortlessly and all that remained was the flimsy white sheet that fluttered about from one mouth to the other, carrying a story that was too ludicrous to be true. Reika never appeared in school after that and Kami was hospitalized for the remainder of three months. The kids didn't know what to assume, and the parents were too fretful to allow postulation.
'Everyone around me ends up hurt or hurting me.'
Yukio had not done a very good job at hiding his tears, and when Kami said those words, the boy broke back into his state of hysteric sobbing. Kami had uttered those words in a whisper, in between clenched teeth and a balled fist. It was said quiet enough for even the adults near the entrance not to hear. So to them, it must have seemed as if Yukio was just some child crying for his friend. But his tears then had stung more than they would were he mourning. It was the way Kami looked out of the window, his jaw trembling from being pressed so tightly together, that made everything feel lost.
"My lord," spoke the entire Circle of Kahani, including the dozens inside the hut and the thousands outside. "The deed is done." Long ago Yukio and Kami learned of the Kahani from Feira's passing thought. They found out more, kids caught in the pulls of curiosity. The tales told of a simple exchange that the Kahani facilitated. The gap between want and power was bridged by a black acid that flowed through his veins now. It let his blood flow faster, adulterating it with some ashy substance was was said to be enchanted. The Hokage would later describe it as feeling like he was running on fuel. Kami fell face-down into the pool of blood about him.
How far would one go for power?
It was difficult for them to believe, when they were kids, that Feira's warnings could hold truth. The books regarding the Circle were all removed from the Library the next morning, immediately after Kami had inquired about it. How far would one go to live? Yukio looked down at his palms, now soaked in Kami's blood, and heard his friend rustle. The blood was darker than it should have been, and as it flowed outward in one quiet wave after the other, it grew only darker. The Hokage pressed his palms against the floor as he pushed himself up. Yukio didn't watch, but through the corner of his eyes he could tell that Kami was healed. He could not have imagined, then, what sort of power Kami had gained. Without a single scratch on his body, the CEO of the Konoha Corporation slicked his hair back with his own blood. In the next eerie moment, Kami looked to Yukio, and Yukio reciprocated the gaze, his much less confident than the Yamaguchi's.
The two of them would later discover that there could only be one man through which that sort of blood flowed. He was as much a vessel to this power as the power was a vessel for him. What waited on the other side, hungry and thirsting for its first taste of life in a thousand years, would want nothing less than utter dominance. Yukio often wondered, months after that Agora incident, why Kami had not changed. Did he hold back his darker urges, or was he simply in disguise? There would be moments, gaps in time, when Kami would not be who he once was. And in his stead was a newer thing, empowered and fearless.
Would one sell his soul?
"Let's go, Yuki."
Epilogue: Explanation
Again, this is not RP'd as Abomination. Do not look for how this ties into Abomination. The only thing this shares with Abomination are the mechanics. It is RP'd as a deal with the Underworld. Metaphorically, the ink of this deal flows through his veins. Literally speaking: it's some sort of chemical injected into Kami that enables his body to know great power. It comes at a cost, as whatever flows through that black liquid is now allowed into the world, haunting Kami. I am tying science and myth together. Engineering the human body to be more capable comes with the cost of dehumanization, throwing a wrench into the natural process of aging and thinking. The 'Devil' behind Kami is as much literal as it is a symbol of what we sacrifice for power.
I also previewed some of the changes Kami will undergo as he struggles to control and conform to this evil. At the beginning of this trip into darkness, Kami shows no noticeable changes in personality. This was both foreshadowed in the last, and RP'd in the second to last chapter. But with time (a few months of RPing) I will start revealing small windows into the evil within. I do not want the lack of change to be taken as me forgetting to address the subject.
As you might have guessed, I'm trying to shoot own any possible excuses one may find to deny the application. I asked for this to be reviewed by Admin, referring to the conflict of interest as the reason why certain people in Leaf Council shouldn't have any say in my application. I was told by Zenichi that Admin would not review the OCR. So the best I can do is try to patch up all the holes that are inevitably going to be searched for.
