Sachihiro

I walk into a world blasting all senses to blindness immediately followed by stinging pain all over my abused body as it taws from the experience locking me in a crunching rigor. I take everything in with my awareness going from confused to outraged identifying the horror of the abused flesh I feel to be my baby girl.

I move regardless of my cracking bleeding flesh crossing the distance billowing a deep aura of unfathomable pain the likes of which I have never before felt.

No no no no no, it can’t be!

‘’I only raped her, I swear I only raped he-‘’ the man with his pants still half done begs as I crush his throat scraping against bone with a fist infused in a dark grey layer of sub-dermal spirit metal. I crush both his body and spirit as I hold it in place with my left hand on his arm in the spiritual reality as my right-hand squeezes all the hate I have into an afterimage infused fist of metal. I pray these spiritual scares persist into the lands of the dead giving you a fraction of the pain you have caused me with what has been done to my daughter.

Does he think he deserves mercy for having ‘just’ rapped my daughter?!

It takes a glance to nearly unman me, I swallow the bile that rises quickly to my mouth as I nearly became undone at the sight my firstborn child has been reduced to. Even as my knees wobble I find a way to hold myself up and face her as I realize she is conscious even now in the state she’s in. This... this is the true despicable nature of the berserker phantom curse. As I make eye contact with her I stabilize myself as I embrace her with my spirit-aura. I show her I’m her da; I am here baby, I am strong and won’t let anyone hurt you again.

Even as composed as I’m trying to be I can’t help the tears that fall as the relief at my presence allows her Rage to retreat letting unconsciousness fully take her.

I tremble as I quickly scan her and pouring numbing healing powder all over her in preparation of setting her bones so I can give her a healing potion. I’m moving as fast and as carefully as I can lighting a fire with a word and rune-stones placing protective runes in the middle. Casting and channelling water all over her as soon as the power dissolves into her wounds.

I clean the filter from her cataloguing all her wounds in my awareness, treatable but worrying. What in all the world happened to allow things to get to this?

Physically she’ll eventually be fine but assessing her I see no way to heal her as thoroughly as is necessary for her to be fully herself again, but at least her soul is whole. They have utterly ravished her body and damaged her and I hate them, whoever they might be I hate them with a hate that could burn the world down to ashes.

I was young once and foolish enough to think that weapons that harm the spirit were not necessary in the world except to make it an uglier place. Now I know the temptation of torturing the spirit of the being who did this as it watches before I completely obliterate it from existence.

The walls of this dark damp chamber dim my awareness but I feel the outside enough to know we aren’t in any immediate danger.

There are fractures all over her body, bites and scratches all over her feet, some of her toes are missing and her spirit body is wounded. There are fractures going up both her legs in a ridiculous tale of a fight that went just beyond animalistic as I feel her vibrations and watch her purple swollen shivering legs. There are fracture vein lines spiralling and spreading like lightning blossoms on her thighs visible even with the naked eye on her abused skin.

Both her hips are dislocated, her arms broken sprawled uselessly at her side making her easier to abuse. Tenderly I clean her before setting her bones one by one in an excruciatingly slow process as tears flow from the faucets on my face. The world has to burn for this.

One after another I set them, each eliciting a moan of pain, each breaking my heart as I hurt her on top of everything she’s already been through.

‘’I'll kill them, I’ll kill them all my baby.’’

It takes much to keep doing what I’m doing, the Rage boiling behind my eyes yet even in the Rage I stay and care for her. Making her drink health and stamina elixirs while keeping her in the embrace of my spirit-aura of unconditional love. It takes self-control I didn’t know I had not to leave her here sleeping and slaughter everyone in this place. Worse of all I think I know where this place is.

It takes a while to calm myself down but the necessity of having to take care of Saya’s wounds, making sure she’s comfortably asleep and feeling safe takes my immediate mind off blood and slaughter. She breathes softly in my arms wrapped in the comfortable cloak of dark concealment, dead to the world in quiet restful sleep.

‘’I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through baby, I’m so sorry for not being here with you.’’

That fucker Phosphorus, he will pay for taking me away from my family. It hadn’t really dawn on me what he stole until this very moment. I don’t know what would have been different without him but this separation is ultimately his fault the opportunist fuck that he is. Yet even more than him the people in this building...

I congeal mana mixing with my incensed spirit-aura filled Rage letting steam puff between my clenched teeth. Steaming doesn’t cool me as it did during the fight with the dead spirits instead makes me more hungry to slaughter in my baby’s name.

This is one of the lower levels of Deep Keep. At her home, they do this to her at her home!

I’m completely outrage, whoever hates me out there got me good this time. They broke me where it hurts most and keep breaking me with everything that’s happening all the bloody time. How do I get her home now?

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I study the dead Alderman shaking my head in pity at what I’m going to do to them, the fear of where the rest of the kids are keeps me from moving hastily. Spirits beyond, please may the little ones be safe.

Dread freezes my rage cold, deep crushing dread. There would be nothing worse than finding more scenes like this would there? This is its own special kind of hell and I don’t wish it upon any father. I should have been here, this should never have happened to begin with.

I need to find my kids quickly then purge a people from existence.

Using the orb I buy more supplies and have a stylus transferred to me connecting my palm-sigil to the library sigil. I ignore all other communication from my librarian as I draw protective wards all around the chamber then using the stylus, I draw my summoning circle on the floor from which comes through a full-length portal mirror.

I don’t know if she could survive in the spirit world so rather rely on the librarians than risk my baby’s life after everything she’s been through. The mirror activates, with Saya in my arms I walk through and I am welcomed with some urgency.

‘’Right this way sir,’’ Mooletre says gravely leading me through a portal into a well-lit room indicating for me to place Saya on the platform.

I place her and step back, watching everything in two realms like a hawk-eagle so no one pulls a fast one. She falls into a deeper sleep with everything slowing down as they do something on the platform.

‘’Are there any special request that needs to be taken in her care?’’

What kind of special requests? ‘’No, just ensure she gets the best care and is constantly monitored.’’

‘’Of course King Sachihiro,’’ he does an elaborate bow I’m not in the mood for.

The title annoys me, I'm a tier 3 but I'm no one's sovereign but my own. I noticed the library summoning circle seems stable and permanent somehow.

‘’How do you keep the summoning circle here stable, not needing redoing?’’

‘’Come this way please.’’

I follow eager for the distraction and am led through two portals arriving in an upper platform looking through glass into a room with the library’s version of my circle drawn in the middle taking up most of the viewed room.

There are a few people down there, a number of mirrors and crates of material. The sigils are active but the circle is closed to the spiritual realm, on but not in use. This is how they’ve been sending me mirrors, it’s a big circle.

‘’The circle is done with spiritually sensitive material, a special mixture similar to how the stylus’ are made. It wears away with continuous use of course but for as long as it lasts a drawn circle can be semi-permanently stabilised to the same point. Was that what you needed sir?’’

‘’Yes,’’ it’s like you read my mind.

‘’I want some of that..., the material,’’

‘’Spiritually active adhesive.’’

‘’Lots of it," I want a way to stabilize portals without having to anchor them on my flesh.

*

The passage is more difficult this time as something works against me trying to prevent my progress, pain won’t stop me from reaching my children. I tumble naked and desiccated onto a hill overlooking a glade of trees blooming in magical lights. There amongst the dancing priestesses, I zero in on a child I know to be mine and pull myself towards her as I heal and get myself armoured.

I find Didi dancing in a white gown sparkling under magical floating lanterns in a group of women moving in a synchronous pattern that builds spiritual power all around them. There is desperation in the way she throws herself into the dance, a longing that resonates with me so deeply I find myself in tears again.

She startles like she’s seeing an apparition, locked in place with eyes popped wide completely out of the trance he was in with the dance. She hesitates and it nearly shatters my heart to see the urge to run from me. I open my arms and am immediately hit by a ball of sobbing flesh I engulf with all my love.

We cry in each other’s arms.

‘’I’m so sorry dada,’’ she says between sobs into my chest as I hold her tightly, I wish to never let her go and I can’t stop my own tears pouring down my face. Oh baby if you knew how very sorry I am.

‘’They took Saya, dada they took Saya and I ran. I ran away da!’’ She says with heart-wrenching sobs heavy with deep-rooted guilt and pain.

"I’m so sorry, I’m- I’m sorry dada," she snots and shakes in my arms and I can’t respond. My throat is clogged, there is a lump of something in my chest and my face is leaking like a sieve.

I cough out a sob holding her even tighter, ‘’you have nothing to be sorry for baby.’’ I send.

I’m so happy, I’m so hurt, I’m so proud, I’m so devastated. I’ve found another of my babies and she has found peace in her own way in this little nitch in the world, a sanctuary. She has suffered under such guilt and shame that she didn’t think she could return home, she was afraid to face me and as a father that destroys me. I exhale the sob that wants to come from my chest slowly and wipe some of the snot leaking from my nose on my sleeve.

"It’s okay baby, it’s okay.’’

She shakes her head against me even as I speak, breathing out bubbles of saliva, snot and tears. "They didn’t kill her cleanly daddy, they didn’t kill her cleanly like you taught us to and they took her away. She bought us time to run and I ran, the things they do to people da, the thi-‘’

"Shhh... It’s okay I found her. I found her and I brought her with me, she’s healing, it’s okay.’’

This news seems to make my little Didi cry even harder and hold onto me even tighter, so loudly distraught in her wailings of relief the other dancers are moved to tears. I let her cry in my arms knowing she is freeing herself from a load that’s been weighing her down on.

One in the audience of people comes forward and I direct a Spirit Oppression on her so suddenly and potently she falls onto her knees before the blessing of her god kicks in dispelling the effect. I ignore the blinding headache that results from using spirit energies in this place.

No one else approaches and slowly Dishna’s sobs subside, slowly her breathing comes back to normal and before I know it my little girl is asleep in my arms. Collecting her carefully I stand, surveying the robed people formed about me in a circle. They have no fucken’ idea what I will do to them if they think they will get in my way, Honour is not in hand but she is humming, outraged in her own way and ready to rend the world. My children need protecting, nothing else matters to us either, she is me but she is worse and keen for my summons.

I look at all these robed seemingly harmless priests and priestesses whose worship I disturbed and I asses their weaknesses, the best ways to kill them, the best way to keep Didi in my arms whilst doing it. Amongst them there are a few I will need both hands to kill I notice but they all part for a short bearded man that walks up to me. A leader of some sort by the feel of awesome spirit shrouded about him so not someone I can take lightly but he will die if he gets in my way. He has no choice but to before me and I will deal with the ramifications of killing a god’s chosen leader.

He sits at my feet unleashing an aura of welcome, an aura of sorrow, an aura of patient acceptance that empathizes with Didi and me in complete sincerity.

I send him tumbling with a kick.

Spirit-aura keeping me immune to such nonsense, everyone around is outrage. Little Dishna stirs in my arms.

‘’Da, you’re really here?’’

‘’Yes baby I’m really here,’’ I say retreating backwards from the people outraged at me behavior. I need to get her through an mirror and see who next I can find.

‘’The others will be so pleased.’’

‘’Others?’’ Are the others safe? My heart can't take any more of this shit.