Sachihiro

The young man seems to have aged into a young adult in the span of time it’s taken me to get close enough to see it again, now wearing the extra bodysuit I bought from the library tapping the Orb of Argus casually with its left hand.

I move slowly forward with heart-pumping low, my power held tight in the animal cloaking technique I learnt from Elentril the Ancestral Beast. Every step is carefully chosen and applied in utter silence as I place my left hand gently absorbing the vibration, sneaking closer. On all fours I saunter and slide forward and around, keeping out its line of sight lest it has an extreme sight as I suspect it does.

I make no sound disturb no ground releasing no mana that could be followed. In Shikai its easier to change the frequency at the tips of my fingers and toes, even the heat slightly less scatting in the my current state even with less mana used in cooling.

‘’Come closer,’’ the words startle me out of my concentration stopping me dead. ‘’You have given interesting treasures, I will allow your presence near me for a time.’’

...

I find the grip leaving me, how did I get here? I fall in a plump on my ass not far from the young man wearing my bodysuit, I didn't percieve what happened and that's what shocks me most. I'm completely helpless before this thing.

*Gulp.

Did he teleport me here? My stomach takes a moment to settle, my awareness tightly honed on the figure watching for a move. I allow myself to get my bearings again.

The thing turns its head watching me in a way that makes me wonder how I mistook anything about this creature as human.

Instinctively I jump for my zanpakuto as obsidian eyes blacker than the blackest black gaze at me before they clear again and I find myself panting to catch my breath as the fright disappears from me as suddenly as it came. What the fuck is happening here! My grip tightens around the shaft of the war-axe in frustration.

Clear humanoid eyes gaze at me from the bald pale figure that hasn’t gotten up from its lotus though I hold a large axe and am towering over it in posture. One-step and I could be within reach of a chop at its throat, I can make it.

It notices me consider attacking and inwards snorts with an aura of open humour brightening its eyes the instant between thought and action.

I can feel its amusement so clearly it has to be letting me feel the aura. Taking a step back I lower my guard though energy is brimming to be used within me. A large amount of energy at that, itching to be unleashed I can clearly feel again now that I have Honour in hand.

She feels natural in my hands, her shaft cool and pleasant to the touch eliciting a caressing lightness from my fingers. Her weight familiar and dangerous, encouraging me to swing at everything within reach of the cutting edge silently screaming with sharp activity. I will never drop you again my baby.

Honour in Death wants to redeem itself from its previous failure to cut, her cuting edge is almost screaming with charged activity but no one can hear her but me. I could probably cut this thing now that I've tested my edge on it once, maybe.

Those normal-seeming eyes stay on me, half lidded under heavy lashes. Watching me with mild humour and curiosity without an iota of worry at the threat I might pose to the itself, an unarmed thing in man-skin. Nea, this thing is definely not unarmed whatever else it may be.

I bow at the waist deeply, ‘’it would be an honour to be allowed near you for a time.’’ I say going with diplomacy as the only possible move here.

The being nods then conveys for me to sit which I do. It’s surprisingly apt at communication now than it was when last I was here not so long ago, more than just its appearance has changed.

Closing its eyes it ignores me, my storage pouch sitting heavy right between its feet on the mat I bought with my library points.

I’m somewhat incensed but self-aware enough to know when I’m out of my league. I can’t even tell how powerful the being is whilst in Shikai with all my senses trained on it. In fact, I barely feel its body at all beyond being able to identify its presence, no weaknesses make themselves known to me.

‘’Stop stroking your shaft, it’s distracting.’’

I find I’ve caught my hand mid-stroke on Honours black obsidian shaft, frozen by the voice that spoke within my mind completely by-passing the mind protecting ring still on my finger again. Last time it had its claws in my spine which could have explained tapping directly into my mind, now though... or maybe the ring is broken? I scratch under the armour at my suddenly itchy armpit as i think.

Laying Honour on my lap I do a pose, twisting interlocking arms pulling from my chakra reserves whilst breathing just so. Whatever else I’m not running again. Energy blooms on the tips of my left hand as I practice the release I’ve chosen to start with learning from the book of chakra release seals no longer in my possession.

I usually don’t last very long in the pose but now in Shikai all my physical limits are upped a few notches. With the release established its easy to mentally hold so I also focus on the energy within me brimming at the seams to be unleashed in a torrential flood.

It wants to get out through Honour’s cutting edge in a vibrational storm, it might even be enough to cut this creature open. I want to test it but I don’t know what this energy is or where it comes from, having felt it for the first time right as I entered Shikai. If i attack and its not a killing blow I'm dead so let me not test that but let me search myself.

I allow myself to fall into charge brimming within Honour's edge, feeling its bounds and where within it stems from. Systemically I feel it, from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head and abounding in Honour. Leaching away slowly at the excited teeth of the cutting edge of the curving blade whilst most of it stays within, circulating all around eager for an outlet. I want to cut!

‘’Why don’t you absorb the essence?’’

I’m so startled my fingers scatter open wide as the chakra they held explodes leaving them red and stinging from the backlash of losing the technique. I gaze at the creature after it’s spoken, eyes still closed seemingly in introspection.

My hand smarts badly, its vibrations visibly out of synch with the rest of my body as it pulses warmly with pain. If I could get to one of those mirrors and get that library representative out maybe that’d change the dynamic enough to get me some room to be creative.

I resist the urge to ask the immediate question in mind and try to think what the creature might be speaking off.

‘’How do I absorb this essence?’’ Its either talking about a chakra thing or a thing related to this power brimming within my cutting edge. Sadly it has the orb so I can’t look up ‘essence’ in the library records and find what it might possibly be referring to.

I can’t move.

I’m within the creature's grip again, claws scraping against the bones of my vertebrae as they sink into my spine. This is my death, I was a fool to come here!

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘’Breathe like this,’’ I hear intimately inside myself unable to resist as my body follows the command as induced. ‘’Cycle it like this,’’ the flow of the energy stops and wretches within me in a sudden change. None lost on Honour’s edge as the flow reverses against nature with an effort of will that has me trembling.

What are you doing to me! I inwardly scream trashing against the will pushing my will to drag energy the wrong way scrapping my insides against thorns. Similar to breathing underwater its an excruciatingly painful unnatural way for energy to flow but my body does it as its led to. Betraying me to a compulsive power so smooth insticts can’t distinguish the foreign influence from my own mind forcing me to endure something unpleasant.

I am being crushed, I am being wrung dry, I am being torn apart, I am being burnt alive. Blood, shit and black ooze stinking like innards of a rotting corpse squeeze out of me from unexpected orifices.

Energy heavier than the heaviest mountain, thicker than the thickest fluid, rougher than the roughest sand reverses its natural flow moving painfully slowly from Honour’s brimming edge into the blade, shaft, hand, through my entire body before again reaching the glistering cutting edge and settling quietly as a key resting inside a lock.

It takes a lifetime. A lifetime in which I can’t move, can’t think, can’t be, I can only feel as I breath as forced to and cycle energy as forced to destroying myself in the process in a way I didn’t even know I could be destroyed. I am destroyed. My flesh and bones are ravished by the energies flowing against their previous current from axe to me to axe in reverse to how they should. The Rage isn’t ignited as I suffer ceaselessly. Unconsciousness doesn’t come to claim me in its peaceful embrace. Sweet oblivion is a nails breadth away yet life persists in me still.

Something gives.

I projectile vomit black tar then the energy is flowing much easier up the steep resistance its been flowing against.

I slump dazed on the floor in a puddle of my own excrement tingling all over, weak but otherwise feeling as light as a feather. What the fuck is going on?

It takes a few moments for my head to clear enough for me to drag myself from my own leavings. Disgusted by the putrid stench I awash myself in conjured water mana whilst pulling the armour pieces off as best I can with trembling hands. I gaze at the still meditating monster now over 200m away, sitting in the flat centre of the bowl crater unmoved the whole time.

It moved me and all the shit it forced out of me away. I look around, looking for somewhere clean to rest myself as I think of my next move in getting out of here. Naked I lie on the warm stone, wait.

Weren’t these stones blazing hot not a moment ago?

I breathe taking in the comfortable heat on my bareback without armour or mana use to keep myself cool. He must have decreased the temperature after allowing me ‘near his presence’ after having robbed me blind of everything I own.

A bitter grin plasters my face at the turn my life has taken since I left home way back when. I keep loosing things, I keep losing everything.

I look at Honour still in the black stain of putrid, the Shikai is about to deactivate as the last of my spirit-energy leaves me. I crawl back into the slimy leavings grabbing the implement made from part of my soul before crawling to an area with a semblance of clean.

As Shikai leaves me so too does my zanpakuto dissolve into my naked flesh, staining my hips and thighs like a birthmark before all marks disappear altogether.

The heat isn’t back.

‘’What did you do to me?’’ I ask realising I’m not being burnt alive, realising I've lost mass. Maybe that's why I feel so light on.

The primer on chi lands a hand’s breadth away.

‘’You cycled essence into your core for the first time, congratulations, you’re a cultivator... of sorts.’’

*

Nathanial Ark

My legs and arms pump as i sprint like a child.

‘’Gbnsdbd shdsjhds,’’ the savage language beats at my back like a lash enticing me to run faster. The large brute of a man-thing hot on my heels as it has been the last hour or more, very likely more judging by the burn in my legs and lack of air in my chest as i throw myself forward.

I criss-cross through the foliage, my smaller form ducking between and under thousand-year-old trees the large pursuer can’t smash through instantly as he has most everything else in pursuit of me.

I’ve never been so tired in my life yet somehow my body has yet to fail me, a will to live I didn’t know I had and fear keeps me going.

There, a gap up to the left between those rocks. I pump my arms hard as soon as I’m out the tree line. Please don’t fail me now!

I’m away.

The sprint is everything I know about running condensed into this one moment to escape the death dealer at my back. I throw myself through a gap between boulders coming up in a roll then shuffling forward as I squeeze between the narrow passage deeply as quickly as I can scrapping against rocks..

[THUMP]..

The impact of the large savage at the entrance startles me as his outstretched fingers brush against my arm with his larger form unable to get closer.

I nearly pee myself as I finger brushes my nose.

For the first time since they descended on us I get a close up look at the invader as it rants and raves with its teeth gnashing at me from the entrance of the gap.

I see frustrated madness in his eyes at his prey getting away, I see the glee of the chase that has caused physical arousal on the clearly mad face, I see my death in those hungry eyes. My death is guaranteed as I’ve come to know my enemy written in the unyielding body and unnatural resilience of these dealers of death to conventional attacks. Unnatural resilience to my attacks from the few times I’ve faced them in battle.

Having caught my breath its only now that I think to draw my gladius but I refrain, waiting for a good opportunity as I notice the soft spot.

If I stay here long I won’t survive. I pray these things have all the human soft spots I'm used to.

The battle in the sky abatted some days ago and ever since these brutes have been unleashed upon the land hunting everyone that fleed during the destruction. The outcome of the battle in the sky must have been in favour of the invaders. Who was that that defended the army when that otherworlders came? What level of power was that that allowed two beings to burn the sky fighting for days on end?

These beings, these Bantu-jin-

the death-dealer jams his arm in trying to get at me again and I draw stabbing forward with my body-weight as his finger twitches pulling tightly on my tunic. Our eyes lock as I watch the confusion then realisation dawning on the unarmoured unclothed brute that’s been chasing me as prey across half the forest has a hole in its side.

I stab again extending the whole in its armpit, having gone straight into soft tissue into the heart it dies fairly quickly with thick congealing blood pooling around its folded form. I take the time to breath in relief at my own survival, air is so sweet.

They look much smaller once they die.

There is no water skin on him, no rations or even a knife I could take from the corpse. I clean my blade on the loincloth, hmm. The clothe more ornately designed than I thought.

Looking about myself to check for more alien brutes, I carefully make my way up the rocky terrain and further away from the now crowded forest as quickly as I can.

I hope I’m not spotted, I pray to the Three and all that is holy that I’m not spotted.

The rocky region west of the Plalanta Forest is bare giving anyone who stands at a higher elevation clear view of rising mountainous hill or anyone transversing them from kilometres away.

A blood curling howl alerts me I’m spotted, of course I’d get spotted with my rotten luck!

Steadily I keep my running pace watching my footing as carefully as I can pointedly not looking back where I know my assailant to be gaining on me. It’s a marathon not a spring, I breathe as best I can but at this point I’m coughing out a lung and my limp is more pronounced than it’s been since that second period of running. Or was that the 6th runnning period?

Stambling on loose footing I catch myself scrambling back up, more alert of my footing having gained a mot of adrenaline. There is nowhere to hide here but the forest is now brimming with these alien death-dealers, I couldn't keep getting lucky forever in there.

I run, I run as fast and steadily as I can across the rocky terrain. Not looking back once.

This was a very stupid idea.

[HA HA HA],

Why did I think I could outrun these mongrel bastards clearly designed for slaughter?

[HA HA HA.]

How did I ever think anything involving running could be a good idea?

I collapse in a heap of choking dust my knees burn sliding across the rocky clods.

Ahw Ahw.

Coughing doesn’t get my breath back but my chest keeps knocking regardless.

Ahw Ahw.

I'm parched of water. It’s so hot why is it so hot?

[Mhct.]

The last of my saliva wets my throat drying immediately making the raw burn that much more pronounced.

[Fvvvvlllllw-vvvllw.]

The pulsing in my ears is hot, loud with a persistent pressure in my head.

This is it then Nathanial Silverfox Art, this is your limit.

I turn myself about as comfortably as I can with the least energy used to face my death with naked eyes.

I’m amused to see the two idiots racing themselves to be the one to kill me first. These are kids, this is just a game to them it dawns on me seeing them compete. Seeing them rough-housing each other in childish glee with almost pure joy at having the pleasure of being the deliverer of my death. Childish dealers of death they are.

A smile blooms on my face seeing one getting its knee caved-in tumble face first in the dirt harder than I fell just now. Breathing consciously becomes possible triggered by a silent laugh I didn’t feel starting.

*Sigh.

At least I see it coming.

[DLLAAAA!]

A knee rams through my chest like a galloping corsa killing my lights.

Everything I thought I knew about injuries ceases to exist other than the realisation of how fucked I am.

Yep, I’m fucked.

I land in a wet tumble loud and disgusting to my own ears.

Then all I know is pain, as blood fills my crushed chest cavity.