"Kazuuiiiii. I'm bored!" Naomi whined catching Kazui's attention puling on the bars. Looking at him from between the bars she pulled at them to make some kind of noise. "Let's play a game!"
"I don't know any game we could play." Kazui admitted from where he sat. "All I know is a handful of games we could play without a board game or anything."
"Hmmm...what about we play fingers?" Naomi asked holding out both of her pointer fingers.
Smiling Kazui nodded. "Sure, show me how the game is played." He said holding out his fingers in turn. Over the course of the next thirty minutes they had played a total of twenty games, all of which he lost.
The main thing on his mind was how on earth was she so good at this game? Every time he thought he would win she somehow turned things around in her favor.
"I give, I give!" Kazui chuckled sitting back into his cell. "How are you so good at this?"
"It's the game me and my sister spent hours playing, gotta kill the boredom somehow. So we would do that when we were done with our schoolwork and had nothing to do between then and dinner." Naomi responded with a smile.
"Guess that makes sense, when me and my friends would play a game, We would typically play those multiplayer games where you would have to work together. But we would have separate scores so we'd try to outscore each other."
Naomi took a moment to think about when she and her sister would sneak out of their home to spend a few hours playing games at the local arcade, trying to outdo each other and get the better score.
"You think that they have games here?" Naomi would ask hopefully.
"Maybe? We would have to ask next time they come around." Kazui would say as he was drawn away from the conversation by the sound of the large metal door that was conveniently out of their sight opening.
Expecting to see the typical two guards that brought them their food, or allowed them to come out of the cage and go take a shower like normal people.
Instead a group of five men entered the room, four guards surrounding the tall black figure. A figure that Kazui now knew all too well as their Kami. He was the man responsible for the fact that they were alive, and thriving.
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Kazui raised an eyebrow as he realized that the man seemed to be younger. He saw him before blacking out from being drugged, and he definitely didn't look like a spring buck then. He looked more akin to a corpse. Then again so did hundreds of thousands of others.
The man stopped between their cages staring at them both silently, almost as if he were observing them. Looking for something deeper, but not verbalizing exactly what he was looking for.
"Grab the girl. We will hold the festival tonight, get the boy prepped as well. He needs to know exactly what his immediate future holds." The man spoke in a low tone giving the girl a small smile. "You are going to have a bright future."
"A bright future?" Naomi questioned curiously. Within a matter of seconds the smile on the mans face faded when she questioned him.
"Yes a bright future. One you will know to enjoy." The man spoke turning his attention to Kazui. His piercing red eyes staring into his, almost like he was searching his soul. "Though you on the other hand, might not get to be so lucky."
"P-par-" Kazui was cut off before he could even finish the word by the man lunging through the bars gripping Kazui by the throat. A burning sensation, soon followed by the subtle smell of burning flesh. Followed by a visceral scream of pain as Kazui's throat was promptly burnt as the man squeezed down tighter.
"ONLY SPEAK WHEN I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO YOU FILTHY SLAVE" The man roared slamming Kazui's face into the bars of the cage his face flaring. "Do you understand?" He continued after a few moments of silence drinking in the young mans pain.
Being one to learn quickly in situations he could die in, he quickly nodded in response to the man, being let go shortly after.
"You may be useable after all." He would mutter before turning and proceeding away from them back the way he had come.
When he had learned that there was a hunter in the city that was fighting a infected just a few days before, and that the hunter had survived the bombings that soon followed. He needed to speed up the process, he couldn't afford to wait till he was ready to turn people. He needed to turn people. He needed to get revenge on those responsible. Responsible for his defeat all those years ago.
Curling his lip at those painful memories. Senrei Kagura needed to do this. For the time for him to raise an army, one unlike any the modern world has ever had to deal with. Was now. Especially if he wanted to face off against the Hunters Guilds around the world. Much less face down the king.
"Do you really want to live so bad. That you are willing to turn into a monster?" Spirit heard a voice speaking to him in the all consuming darkness that surrounded him. He was cold, so cold in fact he could hardly believe he felt anything at all. Yet, the cold he felt was different. It was different from the cold he felt from blood loss, or felt during the frigid winters that sometimes struck Japan.
Yet he felt something behind him, a presence that felt familiar.
Turning around, he saw the last thing he ever thought he was going to see. Himself.