Sachihiro

I find myself coming to a stop in a smoke-filled area in the company of a being I never wished to have dealings with again. He looks at me conveying with a glance meaning and intention, I set my stubbornness upon myself disbelieving him anything and everything that will come out of his mouth before he utters a word.

‘’You base your thinking on the assumption that we all lie yet you believe the half-truths and outright lies the others say about me so readily,’’ he/It says with a silk voice turning his handsome visage at an angle towards me.

I say nothing, currently not feeling threatened but I know better than to engage with this creature thinking I will get the upper hand. I know this is a false sense of security I currently feel, I’m not threatened because I’m not being threatened but that could change at any moment.

I turn away from the being studying my surroundings instead. Surprised at the lucidity and detail of the dream, I know it's a dream because I don’t remember how I got here nor what my last conscious memory is.

It can’t be anything else but a dream otherwise how would the creature even be speaking to me?

‘’Is it not a spirit that first thought you to distrust spirits?’’ Crystal says to me sauntering over in a shimmering translucent gown that hypersexualizes her in a way I have never before noticed. Her thighs are smooth and thick appearing between the fold of the open sections of the dress gown as she walks, her feminity and ripeness oozing like an aura as I notice every smooth symmetric curve of her body.

‘’Are they your personal experiences that have made you so jaded and guarded against my kind?’’ She asks with a frowning pout as she places a gentle hand on my arm looking up at me with what appears to be genuinity and tenderness on her face.

Wearing the face of someone familiar won’t have me lower my guard; on the contrary my dreams have been warded since I was young. With my onyx necklace talisman and tribal rune tattoo of protection I should be protected from spiritual possession or at the very least make it a difficult prospect even for such as this creature, with my spiritual energy back in such large dense quality I should be able to fight back as well as defend myself need be. And with Honour back fuck everything you think you are ‘cause I’ll cut you.

With the thought of her, I feel the comfortable shape of the graceful weapon upon my back as though it has always been there. Yes, this is not a dream I willingly participate in but I am far from powerless even here.

I look at the creature in Crystal’s skin with all the disdain I can convey ignoring my physical reactions to the allure being projected by the spirit of lust through the guise. It grins at me amused, the gesture so fucking arousing that I turn away trying to pierce through the golden haze surrounding us with my gaze. The ground was white luminous stone a moment ago wasn’t it? I wonder digging my booth into the sandy soil I now find myself standing on.

‘’If you were going to ignore me you shouldn’t have called for me,’’ the creature says lounging gracefully on an elegant couch that suddenly appears to take its weight.

Call for it? I wouldn’t call upon any spirit let alone this one considering the shit that happened with my family.

‘’Ahh... you did not realise. Interesting,’’ the now androgynous appearing being says ignoring me plucking berries from thick air into its mouth. I’m not taking the bait asshole, not that curious.

I get a chance to study it as it turns its head this way and that to catch a stray berry, I have no doubt it's watching me watch it but I’m comfortable looking when its eyes aren’t on me directly. It’s very beautiful in this form I can’t deny that, not even in an illusion have I seen such a beautiful appearing person before. Not just in a sexual way either though sex-appeal oozes out in every gesture in great abundance, there is more to its current appearance than that though.

‘’When you thought you were dying you reached out to me, I imagine you reached out to all your gods.’’

‘’You are not my god!’’

‘’Then why pray to me in your hour of greatest need?’’ A brow arches upward in question.

I turn away quickly, distracted, I didn’t pray to this fucker. Spirits are liars, spirits are liars, spirits are liars.

An exaggerated sigh, ‘’tell me little Sachihiro, when you think of me what do you imagine?’’

Visions of the orgies, hedonistic indulgences that boarder on depravity, lust, strong lust that drives persons to addictions and depths of immorality, loss of control, men and women giving themselves away for more and more stroking insatiable appetites of their flesh. Eros, lust, sex taking over, taking control until nothing of the original person is left.

‘’I see,’’ the being says amused but not concerned. ‘’I take what I am given and I feed off of it, I am not ashamed of this as you find no shame in eating the things you eat. But this is not all I am, this has never been all I am,’’ the being gestures and I see myself with my mates.

I experience myself with Kuyoki sweating in bliss as I moan making slow passionate love to her. I experience myself with Mira grunting giving her every ounce of stamina I can ring out of my body, her body responsive, our very beings intertwined in passion and trust, intimate. I experience a young Ingwe in blissful wonder, learning to enjoy her body and sex at my ministration-

I stumble backward from whatever it is that was, hand over-shoulder on hilt with Honour solid in my grasp, grounding me. This fucken’ creature has the nerve!

‘’Ultimately I am what you make of me,’’ the creature says seemingly unconcerned by any threat I pose.

‘’If you are going to indulge and overindulge I will accommodate you in your passions, I embrace all sexual lusts in their myriad of colours and shades. But you forget that I am both sides of the coin, the sacred marriage bed is within my domain, the beauty and holiness of sex is within my domain, the divine spark that drives procreation is within my domain, love itself is within my domain. You see a side of me, a side of yourself that scares you with its allure and you flee fearing the power and depths of your own sexuality. Finding convenience in demonizing me instead of facing your own depravities,’’ the thing humph looking down its nose at me.

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‘’Going so far as to neuter yourself in your insecurities about your sexual power,’’ s/he says gesturing to my sometimes androgynous groin, ‘’pathetic.’’ The word slaps me with the strength of disgust and disappointment conveyed in it, I feel my face heat at the criticism.

This creature knows nothing of me, ‘’you know nothing of me!’’ I didn’t even do that to myself!

[Hahahahahaha] the laugh is patronizing, scathing. [Hahahahaha], shaming.

‘’You think we call ourselves gods just for show don’t you,’’ the question is rhetorical, humour sparkling in her beautiful eyes. The urge to drive my heel through her teeth is strong but so is the urge to hold her down and fuck her hard, I breathe, hand still on hilt as I move my feet for perfect balance.

‘’Where ever there is sex I am there, where ever there is arousal I am there, where ever there is lust I am there! You think because you see me now clothed in flesh that I am bound in flesh? Fool, I am spirit! I have seen you with a thousand thousand eyes since you were a babe, I’ve fucked you, fucked others through you, been inside you more deeply than any lover ever could!

''You think you know what I am but have the bearest inkling of an idea of what we truly are and how old we are in the greater scheme of created things. Do you think castrating yourself excises me from you? Do you think maligning my name or denouncing the oaths and rituals of Brothel Acolytes takes you away from me? Foolish boy, even in your chastity I am served!"

S/he/It shakes its head reprimandingly. "Boy, I am the spark through which you were conceived.’’

Fuck this shit, [zing] I draw Honour with a flourish, pulling my spirit energy into and through me in a blistering burst of inner power until it's visible flames coming off my skin. My aura clad around me, my body lighter, stronger; I move my feet in a pattern with my body taking a pose left, then right whilst focusing deep within myself, pulling at my chakras. Afterimage activates, a chakra ability acting as a force multiplier on top of all the buffs I already have with spirit aura.

I move, my single step amplified by my shadowy afterimage and its afterimage such that the single step is explosive in launching me forward with x2 the force.

I wake with a start dripping sweat with Honour naked in my left hand ready to be used, ‘’fucking coward!’’ I shout out to the darkness, [coward.., ward.., ard.. ] my voice reverberating back emphasizing the emptiness of the tunnels around me.

Nothing comes, nothing challenges me.

I exhale the power out with a heavy breath feeling tired as the chakra ability deactivates leaving me numb and cold on the inside.

That was fucked up on so many levels, I sigh slumping against the clammy rock behind me. I’m so tired of all this shit, so tired of being lost, so tired of not knowing what’s going on. I bring my hand before me looking at the cold clamminess with my awareness as my eyes remain completely useless at seeing even the nose on my face.

The temperature so close to the snake's lair is chilly, the cold of the rock I’m sitting on seeping into my ass uncomfortably. The darkness is cold, lonely in a way that has me yearning for my loved ones, ‘’I hope you’re all okay’’.

I’m tired.

I slouch in the dark cavern looking at nothing, seeing nothing; cold and miserable with nothing but memories and cold spirit-steel to keep me warm. I caress the blade, familiar with the smooth length of metal like I am with my own hands, cold comfort but comfort none the less. Reminiscing of the pain I went through when this weapon was forged, not just the fact that I lost a hand which was terrible all on its own. The soul forging was traumatizing, a pain screaming, writhing, shitting myself and passing out didn’t alleviate.

In the Conclave Academy, they teach their students to swallow pain and let it out in any way it wants to come out, be it screaming, pulling out your own hair, or any other mechanism. They teach that a woman screaming at a difficult birth bears the pain better than a stoic warrior bears pain in the aftermath of a battle. Such silly teachings, naive. In my experience, nothing lessens pain endured by the soul, nothing.

I wonder at the serendipity of meeting Paulos when I did thinking of all the benefits I got from that man. Saving my life, healing me, enchanting three of my uru ingots and refusing to take anything in turn, telling me where I am and how to get out of this hole. How do people like that even exist, a human being no less? A selfless human being?

And that bloody snake setting a trap for me and letting me spring it. I’d forgotten that awakened beasts are sapient; I underestimated its intelligence and fought like I was fighting any other beast that relies on instincts and its natural advantages to hunt not having even considered the possibility that I was being led into a pincher point. A mistake I never would have made against a humanoid, a mistake I will never make again now that I’ve survived it.

I sigh feeling my connection to Kata and Razor, not looking forward to recovering them but I must. They are mine in a way very few things ever have and ever will be, my connection to them strong even now as they are further from me than I think they have ever been.

With a sigh I get up dusting off my fresh clothes I put on after that near-death incident, coalescing mana within me I project water out of my skin dampening my clothes further before letting the conjured water evaporate leaving my clothes dry again. Water manipulation comes almost as easily as mana manipulation now. I move, hopping forward then striding through the darkness carefully, further away from my weapons into the darkness.

*

The boulder I’m squatting behind isn’t really much of a barrier because of its size but there is nothing else to separate me from the streaming pool of water a stone's throw away that’s the current focus of my attention. It’s ironic that I find myself tracking my steps backward when all I want is to get out of here as quickly as humanly possible.

I chuck a pebble overhead letting it clatter on the stone outside my range, I wait but nothing immediately reacts. I wonder how smart these creatures are, will they consider me a threat and not come out if they see me standing there with a drawn sword? Should I come out and pretend to be oblivious prey here for a drink?

Shaking my head I walk around the short boulder coalescing mana within me holding it there so I’m ready to cast at a moment's notice, I walk carefully forward but make no attempt to silence my passage.

[Pffff] with a spray of water one shoots out of the luminous liquid shooting face tentacles at me as expected. Sheathed zanpakuto in hand I fend the slimy appendages off casting Water Shield as the thing sprays its poison mist into the air.

We struggle, tentacles tightly coiled around Honours sheat pulling me forward with surprising strength as I concentrate on keeping the shield up semi-domed before me. Mana flowing out of me like water from a constricted sponge at the expense, a shield being something I usually cast and cast aside instead of maintaining as I am now.

The noxious mists also wearing away at the conjuration, changing it's constitution forcing me to expend even more mana to maintain control.

Sure enough, more burst out of the water attracted by the struggle, their anal faces glowing in blue streaks as they open spraying poison and shooting tentacles at me from multiple angles.

[Zzweee]

[Zzweee]

Unsheathing and letting go I cut through the tentacles all around me jumping forward to stab into the one now sucking at the obsidian sheat as it rears back.

My mana escapes my control but I’m already twisting in the air momentum taking me through the noxious mist to cut straight through the middle of the screeching thing’s head.

[Splash]

The last one escapes me.

Then shivers start as mana fatigue mixed with whatever poison is in the air starts taking its toll me on the body.

Quickly I harness my weapon, stabbing a hooked javelin into one of the creatures pulling the other by its open face away from the water and polluted air. I’m shivering the whole time, my breath held and eyes closed but I can feel the numbness seeping into my skin. I start losing control of face and hands, the parts directly exposed to the mist.

I pull on my spiritual energy cycling it through the cleansing paths and outward with my aura but Spirit Cleanse does nothing to alleviate the discomfort. I can’t breathe, my last motes of mana I coalesce outward with extreme effort as the low reserves resist being used. A thin layer of water is conjured and escapes from my skin washing it.

As a shivering mess I pass out behind the little boulder, safe from toxins but now suffering mana exhaustion.