Warped

The tunnel was obnoxiously long. I had been running at full tilt for well over ten minutes with no end in sight. Even with infinite stamina, ten solid minutes of running with nothing but blank walls to look at was extraordinarily tedious. Even Jashin had been oddly silent since I entered, only giving noncommittal grunts when I tried to start up a conversation.

“Enough of this nonsense. No lesser god may reign in my presence!” With a sudden angry roar I could here with my ears, her dark power settled over the world around me like a fog of malice and unending, caliginous weight pressing down on everything. Oddly, after a brief moment of feeling like I was falling in a vast abyss everything just suddenly felt right, as if I was just where I belonged, as if the power pressing down on me was also lifting me up.

While I was basking in what I had until recently subconsciously not considered a true deity’s presence, the tunnel around me suddenly snapped into a much shorter corridor like a stretched rubber band suddenly being released.

Only as the heavy presence faded did I notice a horrible feeling of utter wrongness in my right hand. I brought the offending limb to my face, eyes widening in shocked horror at what I saw. My hand had mutated into a horrific abomination, limbs it couldn’t have writhing with a will not my own. I slowly turned the writhing, vaguely hand-shaped mass around to see all of it, freezing when I fully rotated to see the back. An eye blinked up at me from the back of “my” hand; black sclera and red iris and pupil making the whole thing seem horribly demonic. I could feel the shark toothed jaw in the palm smiling as the eye locked on me.

Fear driven instinct had my stolen knife in hand in an instant, a single swing cleaving the mutated appendage from my personage. I stared in wide eyed horror as the demon-hand skittered about, flipping itself palm down before skittering up the wall on legs that were once fingers, the gaping wound where it once was attached to me erupting in tentacles coated in teeth and eyes.

I stared, jaw agape as the creature crawled swiftly down the tunnel. ‘Wha-what the fuck was that!” I turned my gaze to my already healing arm; looking back and forth between it and where the hand-demon skittered away.

I could feel Jashin hesitating to respond, “That… was the result of me channeling my power through you in to great an amount. While we have become attuned enough to not instantly warp you into a abomination of flesh, madness, and pain; you are still not fully ready for my full might. In this case, part of your body was warped by even this limited exposure; though a normal man would have been destroyed by even that much.”

Well that’s… somehow both encouraging and immensely disturbing. Encouraging in that I had survived what most wouldn’t and was growing more attuned to the power of a full blown deity, and disturbing because holy fuck I almost got turned into a warp spawn!

A soft voice very distinctly not coming from my head interrupted my minor panic attack, “Hidan the Immortal, I presume?”

I turned to look at the source of the voice, seeing a blonde, bespectacled man dressed in the kimono version of a suave suit (underneath which I could see hints of an actual suit; where he got one of those I have no idea) standing in a large room. He raised a thin eyebrow looking at me like a noble staring at a peasant but I could see the ill concealed fear in those pale green eyes.

I smirked, flexing my new fingers as subtly as I could as the cosmetic details grew in, “Nah, I’m his cousin; Mike the Semi-mortal.”

He blinked, adjusting his glasses to cover his surprise, “Oh. Uh, my appologies-”

I face-palmed, dragging my hand down to give him the most deadpan look I could, “Are you fucking retarded?” I raised my hand to stop him as I saw him attempting to speak, “Don’t answer that; of course you are.”

An affronted look bubbled up on his face, his clenched jaw opened to put words to the accusing finger he pointed at me. Whatever indignant rant he intended to go on never even started as I reached out and grabbed his proffered limb; snapping his extended finger and breaking his wrist as I pulled him toward me.

My knife darted forward to liberate his guts from his flesh, intent on inflicting beautiful agony before I let him die. My eyes narrowed as he seemed to contort unnaturally to avoid the blow, his hand slipping out of mine as though it were made of oil.

My eyes narrowed further; suddenly he was much farther away without having moved to gain said distance. It didn’t feel like a shunshin nor could I see any other signs of more genuine teleportation; it was as if there was just suddenly more space between us than there was before.

The smug bastard smiled at me, once more adjusting his glasses with the tip of his index finger. A more emotional man may have grit their teeth as he spoke up, condescension dripping from every word; I merely frowned. “Well, as entertaining as that little exchange was, Mike; I think It’s about time I put an end to this nonsense.” While his words spoke of absolute confidence, I could see his broken hand twitching as he tried to subtly move it out of sight.

He flicked his wrist, a long, thin blade that narrowed to a needle like point like a kunai that spent a few decades on the rack shot out of his baggy sleeve and into his left hand (whether this was out of preference or simply because I rendered the other hand useless, I don’t know). My frown deepened into a scowl before twisting into a false grin as I took a defensive stance; while I didn’t truly think this fool could kill me, his knowledge of at least my base level (original Hidan’s) abilities made me wary of any tricks. No one who knew of my immortality would recklessly charge me without a plan to deal with it.

He took what appeared to be a practice swing, swiping his thin blade through the empty air without so much as a single jutsu. I watched him closely, looking for any sign of what he planned to do. It didn’t help. One second he was in front of me, harmlessly swinging his blade through the air; the next he was right next to me, his “practice” swing slicing through my neck.

My eyelids become slits as I found my perspective falling away from my body for the second time today (I’m getting more than a touch sick of being decapitated). I ejected my soul from my falling skull, jumping back into my main body and thrusting my arm out to slam into his chest; attempting to obliterate this impudent fool with the only real technique I have (the ritual doesn't count, that doesn't even use chakra).

Shock spread across his face as my fingers wrapped around his side; apparently he wasn’t expecting me to be able to move after being decapitated (not surprising given his knowledge was based on canon Hidan and not me).

Once more the distance between us (as infinitesimal as it was) expanded, this time to the length of a football field. Unfortunately for Brion, however he was warping space also warped my explosion; dragging it along to fill the space he created. A look of shocked horror crossed his face before the air turned to fire, the friction of a small explosion suddenly being made massive and grinding against walls it never should have touched apparently enough to ignite.

The force of the massive explosion threw me into and partially through the wall behind me, my bones shattering and organs turning to jelly on impact even as the thick stone caved to the pressure. I groaned, ignoring my lack of lungs as easily as I did my shattered everything as I pulled myself from the wall (huh, apparently I was wrong about needing my spine intact to stand up straight…).

I barely managed to move before the room shrunk down to less than five feet around; the sudden change compressing the rubble to so much dust… and utterly obliterating my body. The devastation was so near to instant that I didn’t even feel it; just one second I was feeling my liquefied innards slosh about and shoot out my healing neck stump like a geyser, then my soul was left with nothing to latch onto but a stain on some near powderized rocks.

I gave the spiritual equivalent of a scowl and an annoyed huff (like a normal scowl and huff, but ghostly~! Ooh~!). While the rocks thankfully did nothing to my soul, suddenly being sans body was not exactly pleasant. On the plus side, I doubt even the most slippery of cult leaders could have survived that!

...Probably. Hopefully.

Fortuitously, the earth provided just as little resistance as the stones and I easily floated out of the hidden chamber and up into the compound proper. A quick look showed everything as I left it.

I sighed in relief, seeing my scythe still lodged in the back of some loser. A irreverent kick had my soul pulled into the perforated corpse. A groan rumbled out of my throat as I pushed myself up, ignoring the disturbing feeling of having three huge blades where my spine should be and a spool of thick wire in place of much of my brain.

As I stood, pulling the spool of wire from my head and attempting to grab my scythe, the sound of heavy breathing and a angry, contemptuous scoff had me turning around. There, standing with visible strain, was the cult leader.

He was covered in burns, his clothes still smouldering slightly, and the hate burning in his single remaining eye was brighter than the explosion that cost him its twin. His right arm was simply gone; only a ragged, burned stump a few inches out from the shoulder remained. His left arm was, if anything, worse than the right; where the right was simply removed, the left was burned nearly to nothing. Blackened bone was visible in many places and where it wasn't the flesh appeared to have melted. The skin of his hand had melted around the hilt of his blade, forever holding the implement of murder in a grasp he could never release. Half his skull was burned bare, hair still smouldering and a popped eye dribbling down his molten face.

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A snarl is made so much more expressive when half the lips are burned away to show the naked teeth and muscle beneath. “How… are you… alive?”

By this point my head had regenerated and my body was already mostly converted into my “original” form. Evidently he had assumed me dead just as I had assumed him.

I smirked back at him, “Clearly, I'm just better than you.”

Apparently he didn't quite appreciate my well reasoned argument if the way his ruined face twisted in rage was anything to go by. The snarl of rage and the audible sound of leather creaking and flesh tearing coming from his hilt certainly didn’t scream “agreement” to me. Though, perhaps decapitation is just his way of showing his love; kinda like Slaneeshis and eye socket rape.

This time I managed to duck under the sudden teleportation-assassination. For all he was extraordinarily fast, he wasn’t very clever; seriously, trying the same move twice when it didn’t work the first time?

Then again, perhaps I wasn't giving him enough credit; as I shot my arm out to repeat our little dance only to find said limb sliced in half lengthwise.

I blinked, bringing my arm up to stare through it. I found myself slightly chuckling as my arm slowly stitched itself back together. Of course, the blade that slid through the wound, into my eye, and out the back of my head only had me laughing louder. I was never a masochist in life, but now I find the idea of being injured immensely amusing. Just the thought of an enemy seeing me recover so effortlessly and still fighting their hopeless battle filled me with wicked amusement.

My undamaged eye locked with Brion’s, struggling to get words out through my laughter as my healing arm closed around his blade. “Hahahaha why hahaha do you even haha bother?” Malicious humour blazed from my eye as he attempted to pull his blade free. Attempted being the operative word as I twisted my pierced arm, grabbing the blade with my bare hand; gripping tight enough that the blade nearly severed my fingers.

I pulled him towards me, seeing fear over take the hate in his eyes as the massive blades sticking out of my chest grew closer. “Come on, pal; gimme a hug! Heh heh heh heh heh!”

I grabbed his shoulder with my free hand as soon as he was in reach, sliding it down his back in the most uncomfortably sexual way I could as I pull him closer. Before I could roughly penetrate his sternum with my metal cocks, he suddenly vanished.

However, he didn’t quite get away clean; on the end of the longest blade was a drop of blood.

A wicked, malicious grin spread across my face as I swiped the drop on to my finger tip, bringing it to my lips…

Only to get stabbed through the top of the head just before my tongue touched the blood. The cult leader twisted, putting his full weight into levering his blade through my face and torso.

I blinked, giving the cultists a deadpan look; I would have like to outright say “Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Did you think that would work? Really?” But having my throat and mouth cut open vertically made the words come out as more of an unintelligible gurgle than a sardonic admonishment.

Ignoring my amused disdain, Brion pulled his blade from my guts; making sure to twist it as he did in yet another futile attempt to inconvenience me. Rather than just stand there like a particularly gormless training dummy and let him slash me up I reached forward, grabbing his mangled wrist and hold his blade in place.

I pulled him closer, driving his blade further into me in the process. I stared him right in the eye, smiling widely as my face knitted itself back together before bursting out laughing once again.

I knew he would try to use his strange space-warping fuckery to get away so I headed him off, using my immense strength to drive my fingers into his flesh. Even when he warped space to travel, he still actually traveled that distance, thus, if he wanted to slip away, he was going to lose his remaining arm.

The half-melted grimace stretched across across his face in answer to my decidedly less than sane smile told me he understood that quite well. I laughed in his face, spraying bloody saliva over his burned visage; unlike me, he didn’t appear to have any sort of regeneration. I could lose an arm and be inconvenienced for a short time; he loses his last arm and he’s effectively dead without a prosthetic (and considering the only prosthetics I know of in this world come either from dead men or mass murderers, that isn’t likely).

He gave a wordless growl, working his jaw as if he were attempting to speak but only ragged, hateful noises slipped through his fire-blackened teeth. I didn’t bother threatening him. Simply ripping open his jaw with my left hand, slipping it down his throat and clawing at the soft flesh within. Unfortunately, the drop of blood I got off my scythe was lost when he nearly cut me in half; but that would hardly prevent me from reaping a bloody harvest of agony and despair.

With my arm halfway down his throat he was in much the same dilemma as my piercing his hand; though with a significantly more costly price than a limb. My smirk widened to near face-tearing levels at my foe’s obvious distrest; I was not oblivious to the sexual connotations to shoving something down someone’s throat. I know that overtly sexual actions make people uncomfortable; this can be used in combat to off put the enemy and gain an advantage, or in torture to make it just that little bit worse for the victim.

I was about to push my arm shoulder deep to start routing about in his innards when Jashin finally spoke up, “He is the Champion of a God of space. As a Champion his soul cannot simply be devoured; he’s too linked to his patron for a simple murder to put him in my grasp. He must be ritualistically sacrificed…” She was quite for a long moment as I sat back and watched what little of Brion’s face that wasn’t blackened turn blue; I could tell she had more to say and was willing to let her gather her thoughts or confidence or whatever. “Champions are both a God’s greatest strength… and their greatest weakness. If a Champion is captured by another God’s Champion and sacrificed properly, the link between God and Champion will drag the Champion’s God to be devoured alongside them.”

My eyes widened in sync with Brion’s fluttering shut; that was decidedly uncomfortable news. While it would be far from easy to capture me (I’m not sure if that’s even possible considering I can just ditch my body if necessary), it was still disturbing to know my very soul and that of my God could be destroyed no matter how unlikely.

“Alright then, what’s this ritual I have to do?” Uncomfortable as it was to acknowledge my own mortality, the idea that I could kill Gods was just the sort of thrill I needed. Watching the cult leader slowly asphyxiate was amusing, but not exactly conducive to whatever ritual I needed to commit. I wasn’t willing to stop choking him though; consciousness would return far too quickly once oxygen is reintroduced. Besides, it can take upwards of ten minutes for someone to die of asphyxiation; I had plenty of time.

“Create an enlarged version of my symbol out of blood; roughly thrice the size of what you used to stand in during the linked blood ritual, though it doesn't really matter so long as the victim fits within the triangle. Who the blood comes from also doesn't matter.”

Well, if that's step one it sounds like this'll take more than ten minutes; I need some, non-fatal, way of restraining a pseudo-teleporter. I could literally bolt him to the ground, but he'd likely bleed out before I could end him rightly (luckily his burns seem to have prevented him from bleeding out already, though shock may be a dangerous factor).

Pondering how to restrain a pseudo-teleporter for a brief moment as I pulled my blade from my back I was struck with an idea that brought a grin to my face. “Can I lobotomize him first? Does his brain need to be intact?” His body sure as fuck didn't considering the state of it and Jashin’s lack of related complaints.

“Hmmm, I don’t see why not. It’s his soul we need, not his mind.” Makes sense to me; technically we only need his body because it houses his soul.

Now, I could have looked around for a senbon or some such to perform a crude lobotomy; but frankly I didn't give enough of a fuck to bother. Instead, I quickly searched my new (and oversized) clothes for a knife; finding a slightly rusty hunting knife.

Giving the blade a quick look over (and smiling at the wicked serration) I jabbed the blade into his good eye, angling the blade to attempt to hit as much of his frontal lobe as possible without hitting anything else. Once the blade was sunk to the hilt in gray matter I started twisting and turning it, mangling his personality and active functioning beyond repair. When I pulled the blade out, dragging a chunk of his brain with it, I left a mindless husk behind.

The thought brought a smirk to my face as I gutted a few random cadavers, using their still warm blood to paint the proscribed enlarged ritual circle around my mutilated foe. Standing up and wiping my hands off on my pants (meh, they don’t even fit right) I looked over my work for a moment before a thought struck me. “Hey… why doesn’t his god just abandon him if they know this whole ritual thing ‘ll kill ‘em.”

I could sense Jashn considering how to answer for a moment before she spoke up, “There are a number of reasons, though the first is by far the most important: gods cannot abandon their Champion. Once the link has been formed it cannot be broken even if either side wants to. And before you ask; you’re a special case, a loophole if you will. I used a god of time to bring my consciousness back in time to change my decision before I made it; even then I had to place you in the same body and rewrite the Blueprint of your Soul to trick the link even before it had technically formed.”

I nodded slowly, considering what she said, “Okay… but you mentioned other reasons? Why would there be other reasons if the choice isn’t present?”

“The only other reason for a god to allow this ritual to take place -if they can do something about it, which this god cannot now- is if they either don’t recognise the ritual or think they could be stronger than the god seeking to consume them.”

I raised an eyebrow, “That has dangerous implications; can this ritual be reversed?”

I could feel her nod even though I highly doubted she had anything approaching humanoid physiology (or any physiology at all for that matter), “Indeed. The ritual uses the link between champions and gods to connect two gods, allowing -and, indeed, forcing- the deities to devour one another. When the ritual is performed a god will always be devoured; just not necessarily the god of the champion performing the ritual.” Sensing my rising anxiety over the prospect, she sent a wave of comforting cool numbness and faint pleasure, “You needn’t fear; this is a pure contest of strength and I have a decided advantage. I will not lose.”

Mollified but still wary, I glanced about. “Alright then, what do I do now?”

“Cut open his chest, tear out his heart, drink the blood pouring from it, say “Consumptura est infirma”, then eat the heart. Simple enough.”

Simple enough indeed. “Latin, huh? Does this world even have Latin?” Seriously, why do all these vaguely evil rituals involve Latin?

I could feel Jashin’s embarrassment through our link, “I presume whoever invented the ritual was going through a bit of a phase.”

I laughed aloud as I wiped the brain chunks off my blade and knelt down over Brion. Even covered in third degree burns over most of his body, he was losing blood fast; especially from his impromptu lobotomy. A quick check told me he was still alive (if only barely) so I rushed to get the ritual done.

A single slash opened up his chest and exposed his innards to the sky. Face blank, I thrust my hand into his chest (briefly wondering why I even bothered cutting him open) and wrapping my long fingers around his weakly pulsating heart.

One sharp tug freed the organ from its fleshy prison and exposed it to my hungry gaze. Knowing I had little time before the organ stopped beating I held it above my head, quickly guzzled down the blood pushed out with every pulse.

“Consumptura est infirma.” So saying, I shoved the symbol of love and life in my mouth and down my throat.

I expected a lot of things as I physically forced the uncooked meat down my throat; a rush of ineffable pain and pleasure was definitely on the list. Even with the many ideas I had in my head, the sheer discomfort of having my soul be forcibly connected to another before two gods tried to suck each other through them was a shock to the system.

I had expected to pass out, the stress of a god being filtered through my soul overwhelming me. I didn’t. I wish I had; but I didn’t. The feeling wasn’t exactly pain, but it was indescribably uncomfortable. It felt both like I was way to full and uttery starving; at the same time I felt as if the fundamental concept of I was both being eroded and bolstered simultaneously.

I don’t know if it was seconds or centuries later when the ritual ended (though, judging by the fact that nothing had changed around me, I assume it was not the latter) but I felt both wholly the same and utterly changed by the experience. I suppose this is the closest a non-schizophrenic could get to a religious experience without drugs (fitting considering an actual god had set it up).

I took a deep breath through my nose, holding it for a few seconds before releasing it from my mouth. “Well… that happened.” I glanced around, “So what do I get out of this whole debacle?”

Jashin’s laughter echoing through my soul both thrilled and terrified me.