Reborn
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Chapter 3: Dragon's Blood
Finding out that something you thought you knew was completely wrong makes you feel like an idiot right? That's how I felt when my father told me the secrets of the Dragon Sword. For years I had been practicing with the sword of my ancestors, building my body up physically, going through excruciating trials just to make the blade usable. It was like I had broken my entire body and it eventually turned into callus. The muscle tone I had gained in only four years was impressive, however, I never did learn how to properly use the blade until I learned the history of the Hayabusa clan.
I had never been outside of the mountains where my clan resided before I was 14 years. Whenever I went to the summit I gazed down at the world below and every time I did, something inside me made my body tense and surge with a flaming entity. It was as if I could feel another being inside of me, itching to be released. Unfortunately that feeling would only lasted for a brief moment after I reached the summit. Whenever I wanted to feel like I had purpose, like there was something more, I would go to the summit of the highest mountain. The day my father took me out of the confines of the clan was the day I had realized what was burning inside of me for so many years.
Since I was a child my father would leave every couple of months and he would return whenever. The longest I remember his absence was for three years of my life and the shortest amount of time I remember him staying in the village was less then 24 hours. Father was like a rare storm, coming and going unexpectedly and always bringing back a strong force. I couldn't explain it, but whenever my father came back something was different about him. He seemed colder...a little darker if you will. My father had just returned to the village after 5 months of absence and I noticed right away that something inside him was missing. Usually he would only return with minor changes in his attitude and personality, but that time it was as if he was wounded like a beast. He said nothing to my mother or me when he returned...my mother could sense it as well.
“Ryu, I want you to go train with the children, I need to speak with your father--”
“No.” My father interrupted. “Ryu, take the Ryuuken and go into the Eastern Forest. Wait for me there and begin training.”
Note: Ryuuken (Ryuu-Dragon Ken-sword Ryuuken= Dragon Sword)
“Not now Mira, I don't have time.” He cut her off before she could finish her sentence. I could already tell from his blatant expression of ice that he didn't want me to respond but to do what he asked of me. I bowed to him and took Ryuuken to Eastern Forest of the clan.
Ryuuken had gotten easier for me to control, enough so where I could pull of basic techniques, but nothing more then that. When I had gotten forest and began training with the sword as I normally did. I waited for my father for hours, thinking he was talking to my mother, but I later found out from her that he sat in his study meditating for several hours. It was sunset when my father had actually came to the field and he carried a bag on his back. He threw it down and told me to gear myself up.
“Ryu, Are you one with the spirit of Ryuuken?”
“No father, I can't understand what I am to connect to.”
My father looked through me with his dark eyes. I could feel him staring into me, looking for something, when he closed his eyes and took his focus off of me he took a kunai and cut himself on the hand. “Memorize my scent, we're leaving.” He said.
“Where are we--”
“We're leaving!” I bowed my head, apologetically to my father and walked towards him. I took the blade and wiped the blood on my face and memorized the odor of my father blood. I proceeded to cut myself to allow him to do the same but he stopped me. “I don't need it, I already know who you are. You don't know who I am though.” He said. The iron in my father's blood was pungent but it was laced with something even more powerful. It began to make me feel...the same way I felt at the summit of mountain.
We left the village and made our way to the cliff of one of the higher mountains. We jumped down, diving like eagles down off the mountain. We braced ourselves on the bushes of leaves on the tree tops as we dived and once we landed on the ground I could feel how light my body was. For once I could see the outside of our clan and I felt invigorated. Once I turned to my father I noticed his tense person, scouring the area. We had been traveling all night yet it was still rather dark out, the stars still illuminated the sky.
“Ryu there is a shrine north west of our position, there is an important package waiting for us there go retrieve it and make your way back here. If you see anybody other then me, kill them understand?” I nodded my head without hesitation and my father took off. I proceeded in the direction my father had instructed me. I walked for several minutes until I reached a pass, with a sign with the word “shrine” on it, pointing towards the right path.
I entered a thick bamboo forest and something immediately felt off. I heard the whistling of a blade slicing through the air on my right side. I moved to my left, but was pierced in my left shoulder with a shuriken. The bamboo ricocheted the sound of the shuriken. I heard several more heading for me and they all sounded as if they were coming from all directions. I was moving, panicked, through the field and I was hit three more times with shuriken, one in my right leg and two in my back. I climbed to the top of the of the stocks and immediately I saw four shinobi baring spotted black garb waiting at the top. I sensed something familiar about the shinobi, something purely demonic and horrendous. The aura around them was vial to the point I could smell it. The four shinobi leaped at me from all sides and I prepared myself. Keeping Ryuuken in it's sheath, I went in forward using my Shadowless step and struck the first one on the carotid artery, killing him instantly. The two flanking my left and right sides were close in my peripheral vision. I managed to release Ryuuken and cut through the shinobi on my left and regain my composure fast enough to stab the other before he could make contact with me as well. When I turned behind the last shinobi was facing me, mere inches separated our faces. I stared into the yellow eyes of the shinobi and my body felt cold. Before I could regain control of Ryuuken the shinobi struck it out of my hands with his own katana and I leaped back. I was still possessed with the familiarity of the evil I sensed in them but focused myself as he came at me. He lunged and I ducked, grabbing his arm and I stabbed him with a kunai in the heart and came up to slice through his Adam's apple.
“Ryu are you alright?” I heard my father's voice. I jumped down from the stocks and saw my father standing by Ryuuken. “Did you get the package yet?” He asked me. I looked at him and I realized immediately that it wasn't my father. Aside from the fact that I would've been scolded by my father for dropping our clan's most sacred treasure, the odor around the man was soaked with evil.
“No father, forgive me.” I went to him and grabbed Ryuuken.
“We can go together, there's no telling how many more of those men there are.” He said. I didn't know my way out of the forest, so I complied with his wishes as he lead me out. Those shinobi were after the same thing my father and I were. They needed us for it though, they couldn't get it themselves. As we approached the shrine I grabbed the man from behind and pierced him through his heart with my sword and let him drop. I shook the blood of my blade, ridding myself of the scent and looked at the shrine. A talisman with our clan's insignia resided above the tori as I entered. What laid on the steps of the shrine was a small package, I unwrapped it and it was a pendent that looked like an eye. All of a sudden I felt chill, like Ice water replaced my blood. A menacing roar shook the ground around me and I felt a presence under my feet and I leaped away from it. A large demonic being emerged from the ground and stared me right in my eyes.
Suddenly several chains sprung from the ground and wrapped around me and several shinobi came from under the ground. They constricted my movements as I released the small pendent. The demon came towards me, saliva dripping down it's mouth like a mutt. I heard the cry of one of the shinobi and noticed one of the chains dropped. A short man in a kasa hat appeared out of nowhere and started fighting the shinobi. I managed to free myself from the chains but only to be grabbed by the demons monstrously large hand.
“AHHH!” I yelled in pain as the beast crushed me like a grape in his hands. I was being constricted, my bones felt like glass under a hammer, but something else felt just as painful. I felt as if the beast was wringing out my soul like water from a cloth. I gasped for air and for my spirit all at the same time.
That moment was when everything changed for me. All of a sudden the flaming sensation that filled my body at the summit of the mountain returned, only with more dextrous power. I can't remember much after that point, only that my body acted without full consciousness. I felt as if I was drunk with unimaginable power...what I do remember was somehow forcing myself free from the beast's grip and taking hold of Ryuuken and cutting through the body of that monster with ease and when I did...I felt so much adrenalin I felt psychotic...I passed out for a few moments after that.
When I came to, my body was spattered with the green blood of the demon and Ryuuken lay in my hands. Immediately I noticed how light the blade was in hand. I picked myself up and swung the blade several times and to my confused amazement the blade was like an extension of my arm, it was so light and versatile. I regained my focus on the important matter and realized that the man in the hat was gone, the shinobi slain as well as the demon. I noticed the pendent on the ground a few paces before me and I took it and went back to the meeting place where my father waited.
“I see you ran into trouble.”
“Was it obvious father?” I said sarcastically.
“I also see that you've finally become one with Ryuuken.” He said smirking.
“Father...I don't understand, I was on the verge of death and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I gained this extraordinary power that felt so intoxicating and now I can use Ryuuken as if it were a part of me.”
“Wielding Ryuuken isn't something that can be taught, it has to be experienced. Now that you have experienced the rage of the Dragon I can now turn over induct you into adulthood...Now you will take my place as leader of the clan my son.” Those words brought a joy to my father that amazed me. He didn't show more then a smile but I could tell how overwhelmingly proud he was of me. If he saw what came after his death...if he saw the life I lived he would be more then ashamed of me.
Regardless, at that point my father felt proud and that was when I learned everything about my heritage and the duties of the Hayabusa clan shinobi...I learned about the Great Dragons and the Archfiends.
After that night, I had felt so much evil and so much connection with the dragon blood that flowed through my veins. One would think that a master would have foreseen or would have already prepared for the tragedy that befell my village only a few years later...you would be correct, however, I am no master I am only a fool, a fool who would go onto fail his clan in the most shameful way possible.
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Authors note:
This was a change of plan from what I had intended for my third chapter. I needed to advance Ryu's character as a conscious warrior before I could move to the point where chapter 4 will be at. There are some places where it feels like I may have sped through them, you're probably asking who were those shinobi? Where the hell did deamons and dragons come into this? Those questions arew ones that can be answered in the next chapter and that I didn't have room for in this one.
Other questions you may be asking are about the man in the hat, about some of the quotes and attitudes of the characters and my repitition of the evil of the shinobi and fiends (sensei I'm looking at you
). Repitition is good in moderation, especially when it concerns how the feelings like this where the character's entire being is filled with confusion over what it truely means to "see" something. Evil is one of many that will be emphisised and only a few times will their be repitition that I feel is needed.
Also, about the questions that concern somethings, those may be questions that I wanted you to ask so that the curiosity makes you come back :zonder: however, they will be answered (so to speak) later on.
Please read and comment and give suggestions, I want to make this a style of writting I'm more or adequate in so be harsh...but be nice about itwease:
To those who read, comment, and rep thank you, I just want to be a better writter.
Other questions you may be asking are about the man in the hat, about some of the quotes and attitudes of the characters and my repitition of the evil of the shinobi and fiends (sensei I'm looking at you
). Repitition is good in moderation, especially when it concerns how the feelings like this where the character's entire being is filled with confusion over what it truely means to "see" something. Evil is one of many that will be emphisised and only a few times will their be repitition that I feel is needed. Also, about the questions that concern somethings, those may be questions that I wanted you to ask so that the curiosity makes you come back :zonder: however, they will be answered (so to speak) later on.
Please read and comment and give suggestions, I want to make this a style of writting I'm more or adequate in so be harsh...but be nice about it
wease:To those who read, comment, and rep thank you, I just want to be a better writter.
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