Power comes in response to a need, not a Desire [Contract Search]

[Teke]

Once again Teke would find herself wandering through the golden dunes alone, seeking answers but this time there was no god to answer them and unbeknownst to her, that was the intention of her creator. She'd been taking it easy, soaking in the sights, sounds and smells of the endless wastes before eventually returning to the scene of her "ascension". She took a step onto a large shard of glass, the plate her unlashed powers had created having since being shattered, probably by angry beasts who didn't quite understand what it was or why it was invading their home. It felt strange to say but she could almost still feel the electricity coursing through the air and the cold presence of her Mistress who had seemingly sacrificed herself to endow Teke with a power that the girl was currently having trouble understanding which was one of the reasons for this walk. The other reason was that she didn't like the idea that what she was about to do could end up rendering half of the village to rubble and that's if she was lucky.

"I don't understand how you want me to use this power, mistress... I get it, It wouldn't be meaningful if I didn't figure it out on my own but... nothing at all?" She was clearly frustrated, her body had been going through both mental and physical changes ever since that day and it was stressing her out, to say the least. She felt like she was becoming less and less like herself as time went on, she was actually enjoying and even craving normal, human food when just a few months ago it made her literally sick to even put near her lips. There were some minor upsides, of course, her control over lightning had become quite a bit more powerful, if extremely unstable most of the time and the magenta color it took on was quite ascetically pleasing but other than that it was all a mess. She made her way across the spires of glass and sand, often having the hop over small crevices on the way as she made her way to what would have been the epicenter of the explosion. She looked down at the ground and could still see remnants of the ritual burnt into the glass, now unintelligible but she could still see it so clearly and inside her even right now she could feel the power welling up once again and threatening to burst forth. "Fucks sake.." She groaned, taking a few deep breaths before the feeling subsided at least a little. "I thought this power was meant to make me perfect! Instead, I get to be a ticking time bomb and hurt the people I care about against my will." She was shouting this rather loudly, hoping that by some miracle she would get her mistress to answer but all that followed was the desert winds whistling through the sands and glass. "Why didn't you tell me anything at all about how to control this? I can't even use my jutsu properly anymore and it's pissin' me off!" She screamed, sinking to her knees and punching the ground out of frustration, over and over again.

"All I wanted was to be strong, for you... for them... for him... I wanted to show them that even a fuck up like me can be a hero. I don't care if people hate me or are scared of me, I don't care if they talked about me like I was some kind of freak because they can't understand what I am." At this point, the tears had started to well up and roll down her cheeks for but a moment before falling into the sands and drying almost instantly. "I just wanted to be able to keep them safe, doing the things that need to be done, that they wouldn't understand was good for them... now I'm just as likely to kill them as keep them safe and for what? A promise at being this perfect being who was above and beyond anything humanity had ever seen?" Her ranting stopped at this point though her tears certainly kept flowing and she sat there for a long time, just thinking, why would her god do this to her? had she been mistaken that Teke was the chosen one she'd been waiting for? because it felt like that might be the case. Was her body rejecting the influx of power suddenly introduced to it? All this and more repeating over and over again in her head and driving her mad and it's not like she could talk to anyone about it, people already scoffed at the idea of what happened to be the act of a god so what help would they offer now? How could they help if they refuse to believe the source of the problem?

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<B>Play

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The girl wept for the better part of three hours, barely moving except when to breath. Her long silence was broken eventually as anger once again welled up inside of her as did the beast within, it was so strong and impossible to ignore and she just wanted it all to be over more than anything. "I've worked hard to get to where I am and I won't let you take it away from me!" She roared and turned her face toward the open, blue sky she loved so much. "You can just have your fucking power back!" She was angry and confused, she trusted her Mistress with every fibre of her being and it felt like she'd been betrayed after showing her nothing but love and admiration, it was this thought alone that started to bring the power to breaking point as every chakra point on her body blew out and volatile, electrical chakra pours violently from the girl's body and it was every bit as agonizing as the previous time. Despite the pain, the explosion was nothing compared to the last time, it was far more contained which if Teke could think at the moment she would note as a good thing, alas her mind was lost to the pain as she now clung to the sides of her head, screaming as she struggled to get control back over her body and having little in the way of success.

[WC - 1056]

I will be using my Discovery of Contract of Your Choice card and I wish to find the Kami contract, please~

 

[Toraono Michino]

Silence. The gods nor the demons answered her plea or display of woe stricken energy display. The heated desert wind just kept blowing on over her body shifting the grains of sand that had already started to cover up the glass plane. Nothing stayed abandoned in the desert long before she reclaimed it.
Then a deep cold pocket of air slammed into the girl hard enough to knock Teke out of her huddled form. Then another from behind and two more from each side. The icy air seemed to sweep talons at the girl as if testing for something. For a moment they seemed to just swirl around her before shooting up into the sky. A black cloud began to gather over her and spread out far beyond the glass surface as the smell of rain picked up into the wind. The desert of Wind Country was a grand mystery to many of the people who lived away from the deeper parts of the dune ocean. Mostly due to the insane wildlife that somehow strives out here but also partly because spooky stuff happened out here all the time. It was a land that was once ruled by a race of god-like entities that warred with demons whom both were overthrown by man. It had once been a lush forest and land. So weird weather was nothing completely unusual for this crazy land - however what happened next was in no way normal, even for this crazy desert.

The air around the broken glass began to shake gently, at first, and then full on. It was like a earth quake but instead of under it was all around her. It was there to try and lock down her body to keep it from moving as energy started surging through the black hanging from above. Four lightning bolts struck the ground simultaneously and in their wake were pillars made out of pure white marble. They glowed a soft unnatural aura that seemed to reflect the heat of the desert.

In an instant Teke’s eyes would no longer see color as everything turned greyscale. Four walls sporting the color of gold, the only color she was being allowed to see, froze time itself within their domain. The walls stretched up far beyond the storm cloud ceiling. It was no longer hot or cold. The vibrations slowly came to a stop as everything seemed to freeze except herself and the four figures that appeared out of thin air. They stood at four separate positions surrounding her all heavily cloaked in black. Raven colored feathers sprouted from their backs to show over their shoulders but not into wings. In each of their clawed armored hands was a silver long sword with golden runes etched all along each inch of the blade.. All at once they spoke in a voice that was painful to hear,
“Demonic subject #002112 identified. Commencing cleansing ritual. Do not move. Your death will be swift.”

The four creatures all at once, mechanically, lifted their swords and stabbed down towards the girl.

 

[Teke]

More pain to add to her already breaking body, how could it get any worse at this point, really? The clouds overhead went amiss to Tekes eyes which were firmly focused on the ground as she tried with all her might to turn off whatever in her body had short-circuited. If she had noticed she would have assumed it was her doing anyway, black clouds were not an unusual sight to her, being that her chakra was lightning aligned. The four pillars however she had no explanation for, they were pretty hard to miss as they appeared around her and she had the strange feeling that either her screaming at the heavens had worked or someone had followed her out and was making their move with her in a vulnerable position. She attempted to pick herself up despite the agony she was in but to no avail, she hadn't quite realized she was being held and assumed her body just wasn't listening to her, ignorance is bliss. It was here that everything around her went a little hazy, monotone except for one particular color which suddenly created a visible barrier between the four white columns.

As the four figures stood around her Teke began to imagine the worst and she wouldn't be too far off as she noted each of them was wielding identical blades of what she assumed was polished steel and they had some sort of golden scripture upon them. When they spoke the words resonated within the young ladies head, not because it was painful but because of the words themselves. "Cleanse?" She spat out venomously, she had been correct in the assumption that they were her to take her life. "It'll take more... that four cloaked freaks... to kill me!" She let out an almighty scream as she pushed up with all her might, coming to a standing position with lightning arcing across her form and some even creating whip-like welts on her skin. She hadn't realized even now the force attempting to hold her down as she trembles violently, it took ever last bit of strength she could muster to maintain this upright position, but her own golden eyes shone brilliantly with defiance. "This is not how... I die... this is not... How my story... ENDS!"

She might speak a big game but in the end it all boils down to bravado, being self-assured is a great quality to have no matter who or what you are but it's easy to take that to far and be a bit of a prick, Teke had lived at this peak for so long it was just second nature. Now she stood face to face with her own mortality and honestly could do nothing, she was scared and for all her delusions of grandeur, at this very moment she had nothing and the only thing she could think of to handle this situation was to just let go.

She'd tried oh so hard this time around, she didn't want to explode like last time and despite the state of her she figured she'd been doing pretty well, unbeknownst to her that her body was eating itself away even faster and more violently with this method. She saw one of the figures move and lunge their sword toward her chest and though she couldn't see the others, she could feel them coming for her in perfect harmony. The instinct of survival is a scary and unpredictable thing, Teke willingly let go of her hold on her Chakra, expecting to engulf the five of them in blinding plasma, instead, something else happened. The blades which had all been aimed to pierce her heart all shifted as reflexively she performed a magnetic jutsu, it was weak as she'd never really mastered the element, but it was enough to push the blades off course even if slight. The two at her sides had missed entirely thanks to her lithe stature, bother of them barely a millimeter away from touching her body. The two ahead and behind her respectively however connected, one going through her left collarbone and the other through the back of her right shoulder. She quickly raised her arms up, grabbing hold of the two blades that were stuck inside of her, ignoring the fact that she was cutting into her own hands and staring right into the face of the robed figure in front of her. "I am not, a demon you primordial slime..." She growled as her fists started to glow what looked to be a blinding white, her grip only tightening as the glow became even brighter. "I am a GOD!" Her voice boomed like a dozen cracks of thunder at her probably unexpected announcement, blood cascading from her mouth as she spoke and running down her lips and chin, she started to pull against the two blades she was holding, fighting with everything her body could muster as it still continued to break apart under her own lack of knowledge and bull headedness.

[WC - 837]

 

[Toraono Michino]

The creatures ignored all the things she spoke as they attempted to murder the girl mechanically. Their swords raised up ready to dive down when her magnetic jutsu went off and changed the course of their attacks. As the two weapons that did slid through her body made a pincushion of Teke she would get the unmistakable feeling of lingering death. The runes on the weapons piercing the girl’s body drove to suppress the demonic energy she was throwing around and if the other two even so much as touched her body at the same time it would mean curtains - thankfully her instinct to survive was strong.

Teke’s cry of anger and stubborn passion exploded a source of power in her blood that lashed out against the creatures. It interacted with the strange air around her and caused the pillars to mysteriously shake. Two of the angels having placed their blades inside their foe remained still as the remaining two slowly, calmly, reallocated their bodies to strike and pierce her soul. Once they touched her flesh the four rune weapons would then interact with each other to burn away her very soul until nothing of Teke’s presence remained in this realm. Yet as the other two prepared to strike a powerful wave of demonic energy exploded from the girl’s vengeful struggle forcing the energy of the realm to collapse into one spot. A bolt of black lightning silently formed and struck one of the angels as the third plunged it’s blade through the demonkin’s torso. The three blades inside of her would already begin to form a chain of holy energy that started to fray the lines of her soul.
The angel that had been struck by the desperate power slowly began to mechanically make it’s way into a standing position and ready the blade to drive into her heart. Each step forward would feel like an eternity to the female but as the blade came to drive home it would stop suddenly.

Black lightning flickered across its form causing a sudden paralysis that forced the automated angel to fall down to the ground; petrified in an attacking form. The black lightning, seemingly with a mind of it’s own, leap from the defeated creature into the runic blade of the one who had stabbed through her stomach. With an explosive force the creature was thrown away from the female demonkin, taking its sword with it. The sudden interruption of the holy chain caused an inner reaction inside that forced the remaining two angels to leap back instinctively. The black lightning flickered along the ground like a snake having a seizure as it worked its way back to the injured dark one. One end raised up to form a hand that caressed her cheek before shooting into her body. The black lightning grabbed onto the holy energy inside of her and the demonic energy and began to swirl them together in a double helix all throughout her blood. All at once the deep wounds started to heal as the darkness inside balanced itself out into a controllable form. The power that was threatening to constantly take over her mind and body was suddenly tempered. For the first time it was being handed to her like a weapon - hilt first. In the back of her mind a pleasant male voice whispered not into either of her ears but into her conscious itself,

“Use it. Show us how godly you are.”

 

[Teke]

Teke was desperate, if the power she'd been entrusted with could just manifest already she would be the happiest girl on the planet right now. Things never tend to go the way we want however and it was becoming obvious that despite her sheer force of will, she was on the losing end of this fight and she'd barely managed anything. Her only solace was that the chakra pouring out of her body was slowly acting like a weapon, in that it was lashing out at these strange winged assailants, another thing was that her forearms and hands had begun glowing brightly which they'd never done quite to this level before, it was numbingly painful which was a blessing in disguise as far as she was aware and she saw that as an opportunity at the very least.

Her previous attempts at misdirecting the blades had been a somewhat successful, last-second push but with her mind now racing at all the other possibilities she failed to react in time at the two who had previously missed, one of them pierced their blade through her stomach, eliciting a screech of pain and a torrent of blood to spray from behind her lips. The fourth blade, however, wouldn't make it to Teke at the rage and fear built up inside of her small body and she tried to scream out at them, to curse them but instead, a bolt of black lightning instantly struck from her mouth and crashed into the fourth causing it away from her violently. She'd no idea what this was or how it had come about but she was nothing but thankful.

Teke could feel herself teetering on the edge of death, her already black, white and gold vision was fading at the edges to naught but a white void, she attempted desperately to grip one of the blades jammed into her and pull it free but her strength was fading just as fast, but she refused to let up for even a second there was always a chance and she refused to go down without a fight, her pride simply could not allow that as an option. Her tenacity would further be rewarded as the fourth blade that had slowly been recovering and edging closer to her suddenly stopped almost as if it was petrified before falling to the ground like a statue. The black bolt that had struck it then arced from it's paralyzed form into the blade her hands were so tightly gripping onto and flung the owner of said weapon backward with another crash of electricity, yanking the blade out in the process.

As much as she'd like to believe it was her doing this, she had the feeling that this was something else, something protecting her from the shadows. "Misstress?" She weakly asked out loud as the remaining, unscathed assailants moved away from her, pulling their blades from her and she wasn't sure which was more painful as blood was pouring profusely from each wound and now speeding up her decent to unconsciousness. She watched as the strange, black lightning bolt came closer to her, reaching up to her face but where she expected an impact she instead felt a warm touch as if from a hand before the energy pushed itself back into her body. If things hadn't been strange already this is where it began to really go off the rails, heading straight for an orphanage to top it off.

As the energy had seemingly returned to her body, all the violent chakra that had been tearing out of her calmed, instead of pouring out of her it simply arced over her form, like a gentle aura and the pain and nausea was slowly fading away into nothingness before a voice entered her mind, it was clearly a male's voice which struck her as odd straight away as she'd always expected if something like this ever happened it would be the coldness of her mistress instead it felt somewhat pleasant and almost warm. Her wounds closed up with a speed she'd never seen even from a medical jutsu and quickly she was brought back to peak health and was able to actually process the words in her head properly. "Who?..." She started to ask but was distracted furthermore by how her body actually felt, it was more than just simply healed, it felt lighter almost as if she was floating in fact and the power within her was pulsing gently, waiting to be used. "Okay, questions later... divine punishment first." She said with a smile.

She clenched her fists tightly and immediately she felt the power morphing to suit her methods as her arms and hands started to glow white hot once again, but unlike before it actually felt good, like an actual manifestation of... she struggled at first to actually put a word to what it felt like, it was nothing she'd ever experienced before but slowly a word formed on her lips. "Justice..." As she spoke these words her body moved in a flash of lightning energy to one of the still standing sword wielders and without much of a thought she reeled back and threw a punch directly at his jaw, she was actually taken aback at not only the speed and strength she was suddenly displaying but the fact that it felt so natural and right, as if she'd been doing it all her life. The punch she'd thrown didn't quite end there, however, as the face of the figure began to recoil and pillar of lightning bolted from her fist and engulfed its entire head and forced his body back into one of the pillars like a rag doll. Teke looked down at her fist in amazement, it seems like somehow she'd finally acquired the powers of her predecessor, a little later than she'd have liked but none of that even seemed to matter anymore to the point that tears of joy rolled down her cheeks. "I am ascended..." She commented softly to herself before returning to her assault, choosing the second of the unscathed angels, she moved into its body in a flash of light and was crouching, looking up at it with a smile. "This is the path you chose for yourself, remember that." She accused before raising and delivering an uppercut to its stomach, lifting it from the ground before spinning her body and roundhouse kicking the being and sending it crashing into the same pillar as the previous angel. "I don't like feeling trapped, I've done my time locked in a box and I shan't stand for it again!" She shouted at the two now propped up against the white structure, figuring that taking out just one of them would free her from this almost claustrophobic space.

She moved into their space once again and immediately she would begin to throw punch after punch and each one impacted with a crack of thunder to the point that it would be deafening, but her body didn't let up on its assault, she was going to destroy these two would be assassins along with their weird prison jutsu and getting to test her new godly abilities at the same time was more than enough encouragement for the girl.

[WC - 1214]

 

[Toraono Michino]

Power surged inside and through the small girl. The holy essence intertwined with the darkness that roamed naturally through her veins connected and pulsated through her form in waves. Outside of the little blacked out square of time a shadowy male figure sat on the ledge of a mountain with a smirk on his face. It had been at least two-hundred years since he had seen mankind create such a vessel; at least personally. While his features remained hidden from the overhanging black clouds that shadowed his hooded face even further than the hat he wore was capable of, there was a sense of elation and excitement from the male as he sat and continued to watch the spectacle below.

The black angels scanned the mortal creature before them repeatedly. For the first ten seconds that passed while they all watched in abject horror as their prey’s wounds began to heal the two beings desperately scanned the girl. The mechanical creatures began to click and whistle, seemingly at each other, as they tried to distance themselves. Yet their attempts were futile before the mortal’s speed and power. Teke’s fist collided with the first creature and sent it flying into one of the four pillars that held her prisoner as she screamed out in rage. The second angel now began to feel something akin to fear, which was unnatural as they weren’t programmed to feel anything. Its eyes suddenly flashed red a few times as it recorded pictures of the mortal female’s strength. It raised the sword to the sky as if calling towards something. A bolt of white lightning struck down towards the blade, but, before it could strike the metal Teke rammed an attack into it’s gut region. The bolt of lightning struck the sword that flipped through the angel’s fingers and into the air and buried itself in the dirt of the world. From the pillar both creatures, one upside up and the other on it’s head, looked through their sensors one last time through cracked screens. They both flashed green eyes to scan her power one more time. For the few seconds they had a chance to scan her and for the even smaller window of time that passed while she destroyed them, all scans had returned the same information - error. To the creations of the High Ones the girl didn’t register anything they had known. However using the small amount of data collected from their very brief fight this final scan produced one answer: the Arkosios.

Both of their bodies instantly began to glow with a heavy energy that would have erupted the moment she came within range. Yet her attacks were so fast and strong they she simply walked past their sensors and began savagely beat the two automatons into the pillar. Her blessed fists struck them both with a force that simply knocked out their power before it could reach a critical exploding point. By the time her ninth attack landed the pillar snapped in half. The color of the world returned and the creatures cloaked in black suddenly vanished into smoke. The other three pillars began to copy the creatures she had defeated as their forms could not be properly held up in this realm.

The holy power that had swirled in connection with her darkness fizzled out leaving nothing but the shadowy energy to consume her once more. Having been tamed by the light there was no doubt that the shadowy energy bred into her body would retaliate even harder now but fortunately she had a guardian angel.
The shadowy man on the cliff stood up slowly and took off a wide brimmed hat from his head to knock the dust off his pants as the tattered hood of his cloak remained in place before he placed it back on his head. Casually he proceeded to take a step out off the cliff…

…and then appear right beside the suffering girl. Underneath the dirty gray cloak that hid most of his features was a desert colored trench coat that opened up a little to reveal clothing accustomed to a rancher or a man who herded large beasts. His face was mostly hidden by the hood and hat he used to protect himself from the sun and his lower face was guarded by a bushy blonde beard. A tilt of his head and a gleam of light reflected off a pair of glasses hidden beneath the shadow of his self-made shade. He was standing at about six feet and seven inches and when he bent a knee it barely brought his gigantic frame down to her level. He reached out a hand and placed his open palm against her back without saying a word, if she even was able to sense his presence, and sent a shock of the same holy energy that had been used to fight with. This time the energy didn’t enhance anything but instead did as it was meant to do; fight the darkness. All of Teke’s powers were locked down with the sole exception of her natural born mortal ones that all beings were blessed with in some way. This done with a quiet calmness of a being far more sure of itself than she was and despite locking down the shadows with holy energy he made sure she would feel no more pain than the dizzying feeling of weakness.

“It has been a very long time since I have been blessed with such a sight. You are a most magnificent vessel. The heavens will tremble in their failed mission…

 

[Teke]

The feeling of this flowing, surging power was alien to the young girl, it didn't feel bad certainly but it didn't exactly feel good either. That isn't to say she wasn't enjoying the power of being able to whoop these strange beings into their next life but it was an odd feeling to have a strain on your brain and muscles that did something so good for you and yet felt so exhausting. As the pillar behind the two targets of her holy rage started to crumble, she put a little extra sauce on the final hit which finally shattered the structure and brought color back to her vision once more. She was disappointed that the angels vanished in a cloud of smoke as she hadn't really gotten a chance to push whatever this power was to any sort of limit, not one she could feel at present.

This of course also had a side effect that Teke couldn't have possibly realised and as quickly as the color returned to her vision she could feel the chakra inside starting to lose stability and having no clue how to turn off whatever switch inside her was stuck to on caused her mood to sink quickly and she struggled against the lashing out of lightning chakra and the pain resurfacing once more. The girl hugged herself tightly, digging her nails into her shoulders as she tried her very best to stop before she hurt herself again and the illusion that she might have found her control were already frayed beyond repair. With her mind racing a million miles a second she, of course, didn't notice the looming figure descend to her side, letting out a sharp breath as she felt the warm hand against her back, she turned her head to look up at whoever the stranger could be, half expecting it to be her father but quickly that through was pushed aside. She wanted to pull away from the obviously male figure and scream at him about who he was and why he was touching her but honestly? It felt too good and slowly her grip on her own shoulders softened and her arms lowered to her sides. It had stopped and whatever the warmth was that she'd felt pulse from his hand and into her body had calmed the rage down once again and her hands slowly returned to their normal state and no longer glowed with blinding light. "You turned it... off?" She muttered quietly, relief obvious in her shallow breaths as the fright slowly drained from her form.

The feeling of warmth would not be enough to keep the girl steady though as her brain started to catch up with her body and she could feel the ache of exhaustion but without the pain, it usually brought, yet another alien sensation for her to wrap her mind around. Despite this, she managed to stay up on two feet, even if her legs wobbled a little making her sway every which way the wind blew and strangely the mans hand never once left her despite this. His words proceeded to hit her like a truck, not because they were particularly shocking but if he'd seen something like this before then just who the hell was he? "A vessel? I don't quite get it but I should be more than that... which means I'm either still failing to reach my potential... or was led to believe I am something which I am not..." She spoke softly, looking up into what she assumed were his eyes as she couldn't really see anything but the outline of the glasses. "After all, if you're saying the heavens were responsible for those would be assassins then I clearly haven't made my ascension proper yet." She lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. "I am such an idiot huh? Believing I would just be handed godhood with little in the way of trials and tribulations." She wasn't quite sure what it was about this man but she felt like she could happily rant away as she felt comfortable which is something she hadn't really felt outside of Sousuke in her entire life. "They'll be back, won't they? No matter where I am or who I'm with..." The thought now that she could be attacked in the middle of the village was weighing heavily on her mind, she wasn't even worried about them hurting people but that she herself wouldn't be able to control herself whilst defending her life and do something stupid. "Fuck..." Was the final word she spoke before sinking down to her knees, exasperated and mentally exhausted with no knowledge as to what her body had just put itself through.

[WC - 786]

 

[Toraono Michino]

The large man frowned to see the girl worry so much about her powers and the things that had attacked her. In truth it disturbed him to see such weakness. Not that he thought less of her for it but from what he knew of Vessels they were not supposed to have any mortal emotions at all. Creatures created in the shape of humans in order to keep the Youkai in check could not be allowed to feel emotion. They got enough emotional trauma that most of them often went through from trying to blend in with humans as it was. Yet the overly large man could sense the panic and worry radiating from the small girl and he had to wonder just exactly what she was.

That power was certainty the same as a Vessel’s.

“I see…” he said calmly as he seemed to observe Teke for a moment behind his glasses. With a slight tilt of his head the girl would be able to see two vibrant green irises suddenly reveal themselves. The man’s eyes were extremely friendly with the sole exception that his pupils had a lizard like split.
“I am afraid that there is going to be much to discuss then. For starters though lets at least say that those things that attacked you won’t be coming back any time soon. They have a very special code that must be followed. The Kami are rather lazy, you see. Follow me child,” he quipped as he stood up suddenly.

Taking two steps away from Teke the man raised his hand up to the air with his palm thrusting forward. A massive aura of golden light suddenly poured out of his arm and reached out to grab the edges of reality itself before pulling apart from each other. Again the air stood still as time seemed to be rendered to a stop and a hole in their dimension was torn open. Cool air rushed out to greet the two and the other side appeared to the insides of a large factory of some kind. Casually the large man ducked down and into the hole he had made while waving his hand for the girl to follow him.
Time was literally frozen and she had all the seconds in the world to consider going through that rift. The golden light hands didn’t relent on the hole until she chose to step through of her own free will. The moment she did time reverted back to its natural state and the hole, hands, and light were gone as if they were never there to start with.

What appeared to have been a factory in truth turned out to be a very clean temple stationed high in what appeared to be some mountains. Snowy winds blew through the open stone courtyard as the large man and his trench coat causally walked up to a twelve foot tall steel door. Reaching his hand up the golden aura returned in a copied image of his grasping hand to grab the impossibly large iron ring and pull the steel open. Warm orange light from torches beckoned the both to come inside.
Once through the door the man reached up above them and tugged a hanging chain. A loud echoing of gears turning would cause a metal bar to shove forward and shut the door close behind to keep the cold outside where it belonged. Following along the Teke would notice that the temple seemed to be devoid of any life what so ever. There was chamber after chamber of what appeared to be rooms for monks but for the longest time only the smell of dust and bone was in the air. Before long the man had lead what he assumed was a Vessel into a large common room where a great fire roared. Near it was a stone pot that bubbled up the smell of something delicious that easily fought off the ones of ancient death.

It was here that the man before her obviously lived. Clothes were scattered about, a bed made of old pillows and furs was tucked into a corner, and the smell of ‘lived in’ was just barely beat down by the stew.
“Welcome to my home away from home, as I like to call it. The Judges have yet to even come close to located this plane yet so we’ll be safe to talk about your powers. I think you may be something you’re not. By any chance are you peckish? Usually even standing in the Arkosios form is supposed to be extremely painful and draining of carbohydrates, and you fought in it. Absolute miracle that was…

 

[Teke]

She was relieved to learn that the things that attacked her would not be returning so soon, that didn't mean they wouldn't eventually but for now, it was a small peace of mind. It did make her curious about several other things however but the fact that this man seemed to almost know the Kami personally from the way he spoke about them intrigued her. The fact that this confirmed that the gods were the ones leading this attack on her would also need to be questioned, perhaps they were against another god ascending? That was the best answer she could come up with and it's not like she was about to stop trying because of it either. After this small talk, he would proceed to pull open a tear in space and a gust of cold air came rushing out causing the girl to instinctively wrap her arms around her body. She had been both born in and lived her entire life in the desert so as one might expect she didn't understand the meaning of the word cold much less had she ever experienced it aside from the odd rainy day but this was frigid compared to that.

The interior of whatever this strange tear was didn't exactly come across as inviting and coupled with the obvious chill in the air she was a little cautious about it but she knew she needed answers and explanation and this was the first person she'd ever known who could possibly answer that question. With a deep and final for the time being inhalation of the warm desert air she stepped into the portal and braced herself for the chill. Once through she was greeted not only by the bitter cold but something she'd never seen before, snow. Of course, she knew what it was despite never having seen it but that little bit of childlike innocence in her half wanted to run on over and play with it, her shivering body put a stopper on those thoughts right quick and she moved to catch up with the large man. She watched on curiously as he opened the door of the temple which must have weighed literal tons but he seemed to do so with ease, though once open she was happy to see the open flames on the interior because that meant warmth.

The door closed behind them as they entered, some kind of large mechanical apparatus had been activated with the pull of a chain, certainly not her specialty but she'd seen so many cogs and gears that she grasped the concept easily enough. "This place certainly is interesting, not a fan of the weather though... Means I'll need to buy some warm clothes before I travel to Lightning country, I hear their village is up a mountain." She said all of this out loud but it was meant mainly for her own brain, a verbal reminder for the future, it was also taking her mind off of the smell of dust and old bones which was triggering her slightly as it was a smell she associated with home, her old home with the nomads and that was the last place she ever wanted to be reminded of.

They were quickly away from that thankfully and into a room that was clearly belonged to this stranger. She gave a look around, noting that much like her own room clothes were scattered about like it was a normal thing to do. Upon listening to him talk she would have a look of confusion on her face quite clearly. "Judges? That the name for those things that attacked me? Friggin' assholes if you ask me, all that black, white and gold was throwing me off on top of my powers eating away at me." She complained a little, looking around mainly for a place to sit near to the fire pit, for obvious reasons. "I'm okay on food, for now, my thirst for knowledge is far too pressing... I need answers before I end up killing myself or someone I don't mean too." She truly wasn't hungry despite how pleasant it did smell, she was barely getting used to regular food as it was and didn't want to eat something that would disagree with her at this time and place. She simply found a place to sit herself down and did so. "I guess I'll start with the questions... firstly, I know what I am to a degree, my mistress created us to be... more than human, I guess would be the way to put it but what it is that she did to create us is knowledge unavailable to me especially that she has now passed on. I am curious as to what it is you believe I am though, I've never heard the term Arkosios before." She took a moment of silence as she remembered the woman's face and voice from that day that seemed so long ago now. "She gave the last of her power to me so that I could ascend and become that which she strived to create... I just can't seem to control this power at all and it just keeps nearly killing me against my will... perhaps I am not as perfect as she thought I was or perhaps the gods themselves are rejecting me." She then looked over at the man once more and stared at him with her golden cat's eyes. "You though, you did something that helped me control that... surge of chakra didn't you... I need to know how because I don't want to kill against my will." Clearly the damage to her own body was a secondary thought in this situation, she cared only about not hurting others, mostly her father and the few friends she'd managed to gain despite being the little horror that she is but if only one thing was clear right now it was that she was still just a kid carrying a burden far beyond her and she was desperate for help which for a prideful girl like Teke was huge, asking for help was almost more painful than being torn apart by her own chakra.

[WC - 1032]

 

[Toraono Michino]

“Yes, judges,” he replied and chuckled at her opinion of them. It was something they shared though he kept that to himself. He was somewhat dissapointed that she didn’t have an appetite but something told him that he knew why already. As she warmed herself next to the large fire he slowly removed his coat and hung it on a wooden peg driven into the stone near the fire.
He was wearing a long sleeve white button up shirt that was more dirt tan than it’s natural color now. A black vest was worn over the shirt that had been unbuttoned three times down from the neck and the sleeves rolled up. Upon removing the coat the large man also revealed his beastly size wasn’t just in shape alone - his arms looked to have the muscle to back it up. Even the veins popped up against the skin seemed the glow a soft blue as something entirely otherworldly exuded from the man’s presence. As he listened to Teke he moved next to the pot of food and lifted a large spoon that hung off a stake driven in closer to the fire and pushed it past the thick orange broth to start slowly stirring off any of the burnt bits off the bottom and into the rest. After a few turns the soup turned a little darker.

The story she spoke of was familiar which mean that he probably wasn’t far off from his original guess.
“You are correct, I do know how to control your chakra. I have a good idea of who ‘created’ you, all the gods by name, and the war that has been going on for the last one thousand human years that you’re being dragged into…”
He spoke all of this without facing her. His voice was deep and sounded wise beyond the years of the oldest mortal. The man raised the large wooden spoon from his food to taste and smacked his lips twice. Without a word he hung the spoon back up to drip onto the floor before walking back to a corner where there was miraculously a little dying herb garden. Placing his hand over a wilting sprig of sage golden light tendrils sprung from his wrist and dove into the soil. In seconds the sprig regained its life and then some before he snapped it away from the root with his other hand and stood back up. The tendrils faded away into little puffs of fog.
“Your mother was probably a daughter of Ena, the Queen of the Youkai. Long ago, about two hundred years into our holy war, our great leader decides to get the idea to kidnap a few of her sister’s precious few daughters and…force them to bear us children bred from humans...” the sage seemed to go quite for a moment as he crushed the herb with a single hand using more force than would be nessecary before dropping it into the pot and giving it a stir, “The idea was to create ‘Vessels’ that would allow any one of the Kami to inhabit the body of these half human-half Youkai without breaking a certain Universal Law that keeps them from directly meddling with mortal affairs. In practice it worked perfectly as most thing the Kami set out to do, but, a lot of the Council argued the moral right of their actions. Ina tried to silence a lot of them before she finally folded and was forced to scrap her plan.”

The giant older male lifted his head as he looked off at the orange glow of the flame behind the pot of soup as if remembering something he’d rather not. A glow of orange reflecting off his glasses kept his eyes from showing his real feelings as he continued,
“Nearly seven-hundred years of study and research to find the perfect breeding specimens that would creature children to actually live through the pregnancy our ‘wise’ leader gives out the order to execute the experiment. So of course, naturally, we killed them all. As the fact remained that it was now against Law to take control of a Vessel the demon blooded humans could not be allowed to intermingle with the humans. Lives all over the world for teenagers and adults were cut tragically short after living a life full of terror and rejection from the rampant powers that had been left unchecked by the gods that made them…”

Reaching back behind the fire the man lifted a large stone lid that did little in the way of trying to burn him despite having sat right next to the fire. He placed the heated lid over the soup and smacked his hands together as if knocking off dust,
“However during the early experiments some of the mothers escaped out into the human realm. About four all together, and two of those I know for a fact are dead. Two of the mothers we hunted got away with their children but since it was early on the Kami assumed that the children would die in the womb before they would be born. I’d say your mother found a way to preserve your body until she could find a way to balance out your body so that you could exist…and it ended with her having to sacrificing even her own life just so you can exist…sad really.”

The blond haired man moved his way near where he slept and started lifting blankets before tossing one that covered a whole bunch of books. Pushing them around he picked up one in particular that read in the human language, “Arts of Heaven and Hell - Applications of the Sound Mind.” It was a book that described the attempted mixing of both holy and cursed chakra types into a single body and always failing. No matter what human tried to apply the arts transcribed inside the tome they would end with death and it was so warned in the very first page. He tossed the book over to Teke,
“Keep it. I’ve memorized it and you’ll be needing it in the days to come. What your creator didn’t know was the reason the Kami went through so many years to find the perfect specimen was because the early Vessels would absorb the powers of Holy and perfectly mingle them with the strength of the Youkai into what is known as an Arkosios. I will explain more in the week to follow, I just hope that you can absorb both a good beating and learn fast because otherwise we’ll both be dead by the end of it.”

 

[Teke]

At this particular moment, there wasn't much for the young girl to really say, she needed only to listen as pieces of a puzzle she didn't know existed started to arrange themselves in her mind as more and more of her potential origin was revealed. Though there were a few holes in some of the logic it was making a lot of good sense to her, why she and her people where the way they were and why they'd been considered "Imperfect" up until she herself was born. It really had given her a lot to think about and even more questions to ask, she got the feeling this was all leading to something she wouldn't like the conclusion of and therefore wanted to avoid talking about that for as long as possible.

Teke picked herself up from the seat she'd made herself comfortable on and paced back and forth slowly, keeping near the fire for the warmth. "Everything you've said, I have no reason to disbelieve. Knowing what little I do about who my mistress was it's entirely possible that she is one of those that got away, though that begs the question, where is the fourth?" She framed it as a question but in reality, the answer did not matter to her, for the moment it was inconsequential. "What was strange about your story was... I have a family, I am like... the twentieth generation from the original creations my Misstress brought into the world. I think there's more to the story that we may never know, perhaps it's as simple as evolution was needed to perfect what we were and I am simply the golden egg..." She thought back to that day in the desert a few months back and tried her best to remember the exact wording the woman had used when speaking to her. "She spoke of her own death when we finally met, saying that she didn't figure out how to make us perfect until I arrived if anything I was a very lucky accident and she... I was to continue her will as price for taking in her power." She returned the seat and looked down at it as her mind continued to wrack itself with all this impossible information. "I was to show them all, the humans, that they could be better and that this wasn't their pinnacle and they could be better and be stronger." She looked over to the man and looked him dead in the eyes. "Those aren't the words of the Yokai that I know and have heard of, so it all just seems a little... off, does that make sense? Like I said I have no reason to refute your knowledge but these are things I've experienced..."

She sank down into the seat once more, this time, however, placing her head in her palms and sighing loudly. "It's the Yokai blood that's killing me, right? It's what's in me, rejecting this power because it wants to be in control of me... it's what makes me crave human flesh, it's what craves pain and suffering even when I know it brings pain to people I care about..." He says her body should be balanced, but right now it felt anything but, she'd always been so sure of herself, assertive and prideful but ever since being given the power of what she thought was a god, she'd been changing and if anything it was giving her a crisis of identity and who would truly blame her for that?

She spent some time simply sat in silence, listening if needed and thinking about her life otherwise. The cannibalism, the bloodlust, the need to see people hurt, break and stop functioning before visiting upon them horrific violence, it was all because of her ties to the Yokai and maybe, not because it was actually what she wanted. On the other hand, she knew naught of the world outside of those thoughts and actions and it frightened her to think that she was, is or will be living in a lie. She had no idea when the book was handed to her but she looked down at it and read the title over and over again in her head. "I'll do whatever I have to do, I will learn to control it and I will be the god she wanted me to be..." Things up until this point in her life had been relatively easy and it wouldn't be a lie to say that she thought that no matter what was about to happen she would breeze through it now that she had a proper teacher, the fragile pride of a prodigy was stalwart if nothing else. "I'm going to be a better me or die trying."

[WC - 795]

 

[Toraono Michino]

It had been seven hundred years since he had last seen either of the two Youkai females as they had escaped his grasp. One of them had just simply been wilely enough to get away from them and to her whereabouts he was unsure; however the other had a special memory right in his heart.

When Teke spoke about being the 20th generation in her family it struck a chord in the large blonde’s head. Before the female could get a good look in his eyes at that moment the Judge made sure to tilt his head so that what little light in there would refract off the lens of his glasses; for his eyes were ones of shock. That little tid-bit of information there threw all of his current plans and theories aside. For a moment he was almost unwilling to let the book go as an uncertainty hit him hard. When his emotions became clear again, if the girl was paying any attention, she would see the mirrored look of determination. While she probably would assume that he was just being a good teacher, the truth of it was he had laid out a path and taken its course before checking the tide; now the waters were choppy.


Unlike the other Judges he was a decommissioned model and thus only had so much power left to live on. Once the holy energy that powered his form was gone so was he. For the last three hundred years all he had thirsted for was revenge against the Heavens and those that cursed him with emotions so that he could be controlled. So long he had searched for the missing Youkai Princess and her spawn and in that short moment Teke had unleashed her shadows he thought he had found the correct spawn. The Judge had planned to fill her quickly with the power of the light, create a creature of unbelievable power, and scream against the gods one more time before they took away everything; hopefully taking a few with him. Now he towered over a girl who may possibly be the descendant of the only thing he had ever fallen in love with. So much of him wanted to rip open another portal back to her home and throw her through it. He knew, though, it wasn’t only foolish - it was plain negligent. So long as the powers she couldn’t control raged through the mortal’s body it would always call to the Kami to send more Judges. Eventually her power would consume her or the Judges would annihilate her and everything she loved.

This one would have neither.

“Read as much as you can but remember to also rest. In nine hours the timezone on your side of the world will read 00:00. From then on we will only have one-hundred and sixty-eight hours to teach you how to control your powers before the other Judges can calculate which Realm I’m hiding in…”

His demeanor seemed to change. He had gone from a man so willing to thrust knowledge on Teke to someone who now seemed a little misguided in his decisions and how to proceed with them. It spoke in his slow walk towards the stone pot of food that he sat down in front of to watch. It would be done cooking in the next hour and perhaps then the girl would eat. He had guessed that the Youkai had cursed her existence and forced her mortal form to crave that of which it was borne from. Demons had a Cursed life from the start…but…

“…not all Youkai are bent like that, by the way,” he said after staring at the orange flame for a minute, “Humans, Youkai, and Kami are all actually the same race but with spirits that are created differently - to extremes. The Gods are given Holy Souls that, once created, are immortal and nearly impossible to destroy…however they cannot reproduce only create. Demons are born Cursed and must always struggle against the Void lest they fall in and become an Avatar of Chaos, but, they can breed. Humans are the in-between. Souls that are born without either Holy or Curse energies unless their parents carried the latter with them naturally…but all three sides have their ups and downs…

“Kami are pretentious jerks who are always looking out for the Human’s best interests. The Youkai are a jaded race of rejects always trying to find the better parts of themselves by using Humans. Neither of them can exist without Mankind and the realm that you live on cannot exist without either the Kami or Youkai. Each realm has to have this Balance and follow the Universal Laws or fall. Without the balance the Realm tilts towards one side and an Apocalypse happens. This one for example is what happens when a Holy Soul becomes overzealous and destroys all demons like Ina is trying to do right now…everything freezes over into a stale nothing.

He left her to chew on the words he had given her in lieu of food. Once the soup was done he would offer it to her again before pouring the broth into a bowl and sipping it slowly without a spoon. The Judge was again sitting before the fire deep in thought…

Eight hours would pass quickly. Almost as if in a trance the Judge didn’t budge, blink, or respond to Teke the moment he had finished his soup and sat it down next to him. It was as if he was an android in ‘rest mode’. The second midnight hit in the girl’s Realm he blinked and stood up without any need for stretching muscles that would of been bunched up to hell and back for a human. He walked next to the blonde girl and shook her shoulder to remind her that it was time to start training and began to move outside so that she could dress. She would need to pad up to get used to the weather out here and there were furs to spare lying around inside. Hopefully he could teach her how to regulate her own temperature in twenty hours or so. The Judge kept the giant stone door cracked open so that a chill air would continue to rush in and keep her from returning to sleep - if she had at all. His eyes were staring hard at the alien constellations above as he waited. His eyes were focused hard on a small spot in the star littered sky and it was a lone purple start that was once used to be impossible to find.

 

[Teke]

The words calmed her nerves a little, though it still didn't explain everything she needed to know. She'd always figured the Kami and Youkai were different beings entirely that simply happened to more often than not look humanoid. Discovering that this is in fact not the case and they are the same but with different spirits eased her mind just slightly, it would, however, raise a few questions of what she actually was now. From what she'd understood thus far she was an altered human with some Youkai spirit in her, whatever the ritual performed by her mistress was also added Kami spirit into that mixture and now one was rejecting the other and causing her body to decay quite rapidly as they fought using the chakra within her. A simple way of putting it but this was the best she could muster up, it did indeed mean she was special and very different from other people, beyond human as she'd put it in the past but not a god, not completely at least.

Truth be told, Teke had made all the assumptions about ascending to godhood based on the hand me down knowledge of her people and the stories of their creation that had obviously been bastardized somewhere along the way. When she really thought about it, that day she never once said that she would be turning her into a god or giving her a god's powers, simply that what was about to happen would make her complete and powerful; perhaps the problem deep down is that Teke needed to understand that before she could ever start to harness the power properly but it was probably more likely that the Mistress had made a mistake that needed correcting. This thought obviously pained the blonde girl, learning that your god may not be real tends to shake even the most stalwart, she didn't hate her though, not at all because it was her own assumptions and bad information that had led her on this path and the woman had simply been too polite to correct someone so obviously devout to her even if it was for the wrong reasons.

His words slowly started to make more and more sense to her, like a patchwork blanket it was slowly being put together piece by piece. "Kami are Holy... Youkai are Cursed... Humans, somehow are the balance. It feels like something is missing there, why would humans be the balance without having some special trait themselves?" She pondered on her own words for a short while, never really focusing her eyes in any one place for too long, still taking in the large male and his abode, everything was just being thrust upon her today. "So, Kami aren't necessarily the good guys and the Youkai aren't necessarily evil is what you're saying?" She asked, looking at the man curiously, obviously, she and probably everyone else had been taught that simple, universal truth at some point in their lives but to know it could be wrong was quite a twist. She raised a hand up to her head and rubbed at her temple gently, letting out a soft groan. "This is a lot to comprehend along with my own existential crisis." She said with a small chuckle. "I doubt I'll be sleeping anytime soon, I'll settle for relaxing with a book though." She smiled, picking herself up and moving toward the bad and flopped herself down on it, book in hand.

She spent almost the entire eight hours reading through the book, it was quite large and she was purposefully taking her time, letting it all sink in, this was an education few could ever get and fewer would understand and if Teke wished for anything it was to be better than everyone but perhaps even that drive came from a good place. The second time it was offered she indeed took a bowl of the stew, it at least had some meat in it with was a relief, she still wasn't entirely sold of vegetables but it was pleasant enough of a meal for the youngster. Almost as if in the blink of an eye the man who had remained quite motionless for these silent eight hours finally moved, Teke hadn't questioned it and simply assumed it was just a thing they did. She nodded as she was told to wrap up before heading to follow him outside. She spent a good bit of time picking through the mess to find something that actually fit without risk of it getting in the way and thankfully such garments existed and she was wrapped up like an Inuit before she knew it.

She made her way quietly out of the opening in the ajar door and looked at the man, following his eye line to see what he was looking at so intensely. "I'm coming around to purple myself." She said with a smile on her lips, referring to the clour her electricity had been taking on recently. "So how are we doing this big guy, it seems I've got a lot to do and not enough time to do it so let's forget the warm-ups for now, yeah?" Thanks to the long rest and being able to clear her mind, especially with the book answering many of her questions, small and silly as they might now seem, Teke was finally getting a little of her sass back, probably for the best too.

[MFT - 910]

 

[Toraono Michino]

The cold mountain air roared at the old monk’s temple high up into the jagged rocks. Solid black clouds rolled over and around in the distance in a swirl as if they were surrounding something. Red bolts of lightning flickered around the clouds and struck the ground every now and again. The rolls of thunder could be felt even as high as they were and the settled snow around them shook dangerously. Yet the Judge stood there and stared off into the apocalyptic distance without a trace of concern. He stood at the edge of the cliff the temple had been perched on with his bare hands clasped behind his back. The drop below showed they were easily above general cloud level which placed them somewhere between ten and twenty thousand feet off the surface. The wind roared again as thunder shook the stone garden he stood in. Waiting for Teke to come out and smirking only to himself at a private memory relating to the girl’s comment he would wait until the well bundled human joined him on the edge.

With a single hand the Judge pointed at the swirling black nastiness in the sky above them. His index finger pointed at far away place that he knew she would be unable to see at this time.
“Out there, in the eye of that storm, is a city made of stone. When this world was made it was no more than a plain that was eventually used for farming. As time continued to crawl forward the humans of this realm turned that point into the capital for their entire world because it sits directly on a pocket of Youkai energy. They used this energy to fuel their homes and businesses for generations before the Kami finally caught on when the after effects of the energy began to cause the humans to birth children far stronger than the average mortal. It is there that the war between god, demon, and man eventually lead to this world’s destruction and it is there that we will be going to train for the next three days. In order to get there we would have to spend two days alone climbing down…but…since we don’t have that kind of time…”

From out of the corner of Teke’s eye the large man would suddenly turn into energy and break apart into particles in a sheer second of time and reappear directly behind her. He let an explosion of his aura kick her senses into forcing Teke to turn around and face him to which he would reward with a two finger thrust directly against her heart. Like magic his fingers slipped through the clothes and flesh to directly tap the mortal’s life muscle and send a shock of golden energy into it. The pulse of energy would wake up the power he had sealed inside to unlock and force most of it into the single point he tapped. “Aperi et sana,” the Judge muttered before removing his fingers. With a very real hand he placed his palm against her chest,

“Training starts with you learning which side of you is stronger. One power will always conquer the other. This knowledge is not only crucial on how to tame the energy that is killing you but also how you will survive this,” and with a strong force shoved the girl off the cliff. As she fell down the golden energy he had placed to focus her chakra would force open one of the Seven Mortal Limits. Even if she couldn’t tame the power in the time it took Teke to fall she would survive the landing based just on that Gate being opened up temporarily…but it would hurt like a bitch. As much as he hated training soldiers in this fashion it had become handy in creating his most hardened officers when he served for the Kami. It was even more important now than it had been then that he force this new trainee through the roughest he could think of. The battle ahead was going to be deadly and Teke had only seven days to control her strength or die at the hands of the other judges.

 

[Teke]

The explanation about this world and what had happened to it gave the girl something interesting to think about, it all honesty she was beginning to feel that of the three... "races" the humans seemed to be the more advanced, socially and politically at the very least as the others seemed very stuck in their ways which were a concern to be sure. These thoughts, of course, distracted her just long enough that by the time she actually thought about how they would expedite the journey down he'd already moved her to face him and pushed his hand into her chest, forcing some more of that golden chakra into her and activating one of her eight inner gates. The shock to her system was more than any wake-up call she could have asked for, she couldn't even find the beath to question or protest as she felt the surge of that same power she'd felt back in the desert. Next thing she knew she was falling, plummeting rapidly toward the cloud layer with increasing velocity, in fact, making it that much harder to think.

"What the fuck!" She would eventually scream out in a mix of anger and confusion. Which side of her was stronger? How was she meant to figure that out whilst tumbling through the air? She spun her body around quickly and quickly made her body stable, spreading out her arms and legs in an attempt to increase her wind resistance and give her a little bit of breathing room as she wracked her brain. "What am I supposed to do, sprout a pair of wings?!" She complained. "As if it was ever going to be that easy, I don't even know what I am! How am I meant to figure that out now!?" She figured that at this point she was screaming at no one, she had no reason to believe the man had hearing good enough to listen to her fairly justified panic. Ideas flooded through her head faster and loose and each one was just as improbable as the last, one did stand out as having at least a minimal chance of success however; She could use the strength flowing in her body to push herself and move over to the mountain face and grab it in an attempt to slow down and descend at her own pace, chances are she'd get off with a broken hand even attempting if she was lucky, but she had no idea just how powerful the technique she was using was or how durable it made her body, but it was do or die now and she wasn't about to give up at the first hurdle.

At this point she'd just broken through the cloud layer and started to put her idea into motion, she started with putting her back to the cliff walls and focused all her energy into her right fist. "Guide me, mistress." She whispered to herself before throwing a punch with far more force than she'd anticipated, during the fight when she previously had this power she'd not needed to hold back and it certainly didn't dawn on her till she was slammed into the rough, rocky surface with enough force to make a crater and knock the wind out of her. She, of course, bounced immediately as the speed she was falling continued to drag her down, only now she was close enough to the surface that she was constantly hitting rocks that jutted out naturally. She must have taken seven or eight hard hits before she was able to catch her breath, before taking another hit, however, her amplified reflexes reached out, grabbing the jutting rock and to her surprise it was actually working, her fingers sank into the surface slightly under her iron grip, but if she were to come to a sudden full stop now she'd probably not come out of this unscathed.

It took a split second for her to decide on the next course of action, that was about all she could spare before the momentum caught up with her. Using her gripping hand as a pivot she spun her body down and around to the stone surface, landing for but a moment with her feet against the wall before pushing herself off and rocketing down toward the next outcropping that she could use as a jumping platform. There was little room to even think with the speeds she was having to maintain, one slight distraction or loss of concentration could lead to another devastating tumble, she wasn't even aware of all the cuts, bruises and other internal damage that she'd already suffered, the adrenaline was blocking out the pain which was the only thing keeping her from curling into a bundle on helplessness and bouncing down this cliffside like a loose pebble.

She was actually managing to control whatever the power inside her was and she was starting to feel pretty proud of herself, full of confidence. Unfortunately the moment she got even a little comfortable the universe decided she needed a reality check and as she landed on a piece of rock, it gave way under the pressure immediately and with the sudden loss of footing she once again began to tumble, but the mountain had become less vertical now, starting the slow gradient into a hill and as expected she started to skid, roll and crash from boulder to jagged rock as she once again tried with all her might to regain control of her own momentum. "Son of a fucking frigid bitch!" She yelled out in frustration as she managed to find footing once again and continued down the face of the mountain with increasing speed. Despite this setback and probably several broken or fractured bones and a lot of missing skin, she made it to the base in more or less one piece, though collapsed into a pile on the floor, panting heavily between moans of severe pain and anguish. "What... the... fucking..." She stammered out, attempting to pick herself up but failing miserably as her muscles had become like jelly. "A little more warning... or I dunno... training next time? I don't know what my body... is even trying to do still... I only barely managed to grasp a bit of it and even then...." She didn't even know if her teacher was here, her face was firmly planted in the ground but her little rant had been brewing almost the whole way down and she needed to vent it. "I had to concentrate too hard... I couldn't do anything but move, that's useless... I need to be able to do everything at once!" She continued, she might have come off as angry but in reality, it was frustration at her own perceived weakness, she should have been able to do something more and start to figure out more and instead, she arrived broken and battered having learned less than she wanted but more than she realized.

[WC - 1165]

 

[Toraono Michino]

The Judge stood from the top on the very edge as he watched Teke spiral down into the open abyss. The swears echoing off the rock face did little to change his neutral facial expression but inside the machine chuckled softly. Casually the godly creation took a step off the cliff and stepped on what appeared to be an invisible solid surface. His entire body began to flicker like an old television channel having problems coming through before it turned into pure light. The glowing form compressed itself into a golden ball then shot out down the mountain fast enough to crack the air.

Every now and again the ball would stop and watch the girl as she panicked in one moment, found her stride the next, and then finally got cocky before landing to a stop at the base of the range. The golden orb moved near by through every step and by the time she had landed he was sitting on a nearby boulder watching in judgement. Her body had been trashed as he predicted it might be but it could have been worse. At the very least the activation of one of her seals was doing its job in keeping her from blacking out due to pain.
With a palm against the stone he sat on the Judge lifted himself off to slide down the seven or so feet and land next to the broken Teke. Holding his hand aloft the golden energy began to form into the same palm as he waited for something. After a moment of watching and seeing nothing he slapped the palm hard against the girl’s back to force the energy into her spine. From there it would echo out like a wave to painfully grab the bones and set them back into place before transforming itself into the necessary tissues to repair her body without shaving too much more lifespan. Grabbing the back of the girl’s neck like a kitten the giant man lifted Teke back on her feet.

The base of the mountain showed the world now as it was. Fields of city ruins that had been longed over taken by nature stretched out endlessly from their perspective. Where they stood seemed to be the highest point in the ruins aside from the crumbling towers deeper on. Looking down on the city the youth would notice that there wasn’t a single sign of life. Not that she didn’t see movement from time to time but the entire complex of concrete below just kept echoing the same feeling; death.
Like the Judge had said this realm was a place of pure ‘Balance’ meaning that life had quickly staled out without the interjection of Chaos. The creatures that dared to survive evolved into more horrible beings as time quickly passed…but even they eventually died from starvation. Curled around one of the crumbling towers, in fact, was one of those nightmarish creatures appearing to be the skeleton of some gigantic winged snake; yet it was nothing to what still moved. The Judge spoke as he walked closer to the first bits of concrete,

“It was in my hope that you would find yourself in that fall, but it seems we must move to a different method which changes the schedule a little…no matter.
“The Human Race is of the more complicated to teach because every mortal learns and unlocks their potential at a different pace. I see that your instinct and thinking are both sharp but your mind still panics. You ask why I didn’t train you before demanding your strength? It was because I did not know how; now I do.”

The mystical being walked over towards the start of a small rocky hill that lead into the very edge of a park attached to a suburb. The houses, though now stone grey and barely standing from some kind of fallout, were all that remained of a coercive road. Holding his hand out to the sky a golden lightning bolt struck his fingertips. When he grasped the mass of electricity it vibrated into the shape of a golden broadsword covered in old runes. He suddenly stabbed the hot blade into the rock in front of him as if the stone had been made of butter before ripping off a long strip of his jacket to wrap around the handle. The leather screamed and shrank as it touched the golden metal but conformed to it anyways.
Not yet done the Judge then put his foot at the bottom of the boulder before lifting his toes so that the giant stone rolled back on his boot. Without a single struggle he kicked the rock up into the air then slapped it as it came down. The force of the touch sent the huge stone and sword flying deep into the ruins until it crashed against the tower where the giant snake skeleton stood.

“Your first lesson is to learn to either control your frustration and erase all emotions, or, use your emotions to control whatever power lays inside of you. You are to go into the city and recover the sword I just created while trying to dodge around what has managed to still live down there. By the time you reach the weapon you’ll know what side calls the hardest…or you’ll hurt worse than falling off the mountain.”

The Judge pushed her forward before she could ask any more questions but this time at least it wasn’t off the hill. It was more like a parental nudge to push onward. As Teke left the large man crossed his arms and watched without any expression though on the inside his gut twisted. She would be facing horrors that haunt the dreams of men for it was only they, the purest forms of chaos, that could survive in this world.
[Edit: Post 1337! Yes I'm old.]

 

[Teke]

She didn't lift up her head to look, but she could feel the mans presence there, she remained somewhat motionless as she ran things over in her head. This was obviously not the intended outcome and she wasn't stupid enough to believe this was an exercise forced upon her to do anything but make herself to learn to harness the power within. These thoughts were confirmed shortly after by the man himself, clearly it hadn't gone the way he'd have liked but it didn't mean it was all over which was a relief for the girl to hear at least. Seems he was as unfamiliar with her and she was with the Kami and Youkai currently fighting within her body, she assumed that's what was happening at the very least given the book she'd read just hours earlier and from talking to the man. As her breath slowly returned to her she slowly pushed herself up to her hands and knees before falling back into a sitting position, growling through the aches and pains as she did so, a little adrenaline still pumping along with her natural toughness had it at least that bearable. That didn't last too long though because her teacher had once again healed her through the same means as he had done previously and the forced her up to her feet very much against her will but with everything healed to normal, she didn't have a reason to be sitting about anyway.

Now back on two feet, Teke would take a moment to actually look around and take in the view, it was both what she expected and not of a dead world. The fact that people had clearly once been here and had long since perished, leaving a husk of their former selves was a little surreal and a tad unsettling if she had to admit. She hadn't paid to much attention to the male since she'd been picked up, not to be rude but because it seemed the pair of them were just like that, to the point that she'd long ago realized that neither of them had exchanged names, perhaps it was better that way? Her attention was quickly grabbed back to her lessons though as a bolt of lightning came crashing down nearby, her affinity for the element made it so her nerves were steeled against such things, the fact it didn't come from her own body was the surprising part even though it shouldn't have been.

It was curious watching someone else control and manipulate the element so freely, even more than her she came to realize. "Creating a somewhat stable object out of electricity, I can't manage to quite calm the energy down myself. Perhaps if we have time you can show me how to do that next." She said with a small giggle, watching him then proceed to pick up and hurl the blade along with the stone it was jammed in toward the ruined city a little ways ahead. She could already see where this was going and just waited in silence for the explanation. It was a more thoughtful one than she was expecting to say the least and once again gave her plenty to think about, but she didn't have the benefit of time. "Well, as a girl who's won her heart on her sleeve her entire life and flaunted her inflated ego quite freely, I'd say that is not the correct way to... control it, I go wild, it goes wild but maybe that's what I need?" Despite this self-deprecating response, the youngster was already deep in thought as she was pushed on toward the desolate path that once used to be a road.

She didn't dally and began moving with purpose, looking toward the skeleton coiled building that the sword in the stone had hit, speaking out loud to herself to fill the deafening silence that surrounded her. "On the mountain, It wasn't just wildly charging about that gave me the small pieces of success, was I calm? Calculated and determined perhaps which doesn't fit either path." She looked down at the ground, slowly pushing her open palmed hand into view and looking at them, contemplating. "My emotions are... chaotic at the best of times. Why are they? It's a defense, I don't want the humans to look down on me as weak, so I puff out my chest and act like a bitch... Maybe that's the reason my insides are so conflicted?" She smiled, for a long time she'd avoided self-reflection because she was scared of who or what would be looking back but in this situation, it could literally mean life and death. "I need to change who I am? No, but perhaps I should be more conscious of people? Treat them as... equals?" A shiver went through her entire body as she spoke those words, like a current of electricity through water. "I've been a terrible person and without the help, I've had I'd be naught but an animal, lost in her own delusion, shit." The conclusion was clear as day in her head already, she would always retain the things that made her special and who she is but with less of an edge and much more compassion and, hopefully, no more eating people... maybe...

She would quickly reach the desolated city limits and wander in, still speaking out loud to herself about things but it was all becoming a little clearer now, she had little idea how she would even start to go about erasing all of her emotions and even if it was necessary. Would controlling them not be sufficient? Maybe it would be and maybe she was doomed to fail from the start but here was the time to try and fail whilst she had someone on hand who could correct her as was needed. "I... I must be the calm that brings the storm. Trough my stillness I shall unleash fury from the heavens and the earth." She would settle on this as her mantra, for the time being, muttering it to herself and she quickly moved through the ruined streets of the once quite impressive city unaware of the danger coming her way having been perhaps a little too focused.

"I must be the calm that brings the storm..."

[WC - 1054]

 

[Toraono Michino]

The crumbling ruins around Teke took on a unique pose. From the moment she stepped from the mountain’s natural dirt and onto the concrete it was like stepping into a sphere full of a thin liquid. She was able to move freely through it without any trouble but there was the undeniable feeling of walking through water and feeling wet; despite being dry to the touch. On top of that she no doubt would have jumped a few times in her journey to look up and suddenly see falling debris…held in a sort of stasis. Even when she touched it the broken stone would rotate freely for a moment then revert itself back to the original state it had been found in.
The phenomena she was walking through was known as a time sphere or a ‘heavenly distortion.’ Usually caused by the Kami on some level or another the spheres normally only took up a small block at their strongest and a single room in their weakest. Here Teke was walking through a sphere that consumed an entire city and as she neared the giant building where the stone had been tossed she could see clearly the why and how.

Stepping out onto what appeared to be a large business square with the skyscrapper in the center there was a battle frozen in mid combat. All down the streets, in the air, and on the building themselves Judges with their glorious golden clockwork wings expanded did combat with what appeared to be Youkai, humans, and those that looked to be in between. As she would look her eyes would have to be blind to see that this was an attack from the Kami on those who lived here. There was demons clearly reaching out with worried looks at humans who were forever frozen in time as they were eviscerated by a Judge’s sword. A half-breed family huddling in fear as a particularly large judge towered over them, a group of Kami all stabbing a single human repeatedly in the back, and children attempting to run from an explosion. In the middle of this frozen life mural to the horrors of war was a single human female with a look of grim determination. Swaying from her hand free of the stopped time was an ancient relic that radiated a heavenly blue aura that clung to the flesh of every man, woman, demon, and god. Directly behind the woman the boulder had crashed with the handle of the blade sticking directly up.

“The Corrupt Trial…it never fails to break my heart every time I look at it…” spoke a voice into Teke’s head. It was full of remorse and non of the neutrality the Judge that was training her attempted to hold onto.
“Your standing in a Time Sphere, and probably the largest one in the multiverse. Too many of these in a single Plane can cause a rift that always leads into somewhere…dark. This single sphere alone is about three sizes too big and was the cause for everything you see. That single human right there in the middle was all that stood between the total annihilation of mankind and the Youkai. She chose to freeze this Plane by halting Ragnarok during the final battle and in doing so saved possibly every known and unknown reality. If anything were to happen to her or the Kami frozen in this realm then…well, even among the gods are legends and horror stories…

The Judge’s voice trailed off to leave the simple mortal to decipher what could terrify even the gods and what would drive one to try and draw such ancient terrors out of their prisons.

Between Teke and the sword was a double sided triple lane used for heavy traffic that used to crowd the streets that were now crowded with frozen death and rampage. All she needed to do was walk through the battlefield to to the boulder and remove the sword, but, with everything that had happened so far there was no telling what even stepping onto that field would do.
And sure enough, once she got the courage to move forward, there was a shock deep inside of her chest. It was a feeling akin to having a painful scab being peeled except it was directly around her heart. Golden and blackish-purple clumps of electricity began to bounce away from her body. With each step forward, if she was paying attention beyond the pain that only intensified as she moved, the little bolts were starting to dance around each other and splash against the targets frozen by the time spell. Every now and then it would seem like one of them would move and when they did it was like someone unmuted the volume on a really loud television during a war movie. The moment they stopped, within split seconds, the sound would vanish again to bring about an eerie silence that would undoubtedly make the warrior wonder if she had gone deaf.

Would they come to life if she continued forward?

 

[Teke]

It was hard not to look around in awe as she entered the city proper, compared to home this was something else. All the buildings made from strange stone, glass, and metal stretched into the sky. Of course, the destruction took away a little of the awe and magic of the moment but it would be something the girl would remember for a long time. She was thankful for the distraction of the view too as it gave her mind something to calmly dwell on, giving her chance to practice suppressing her emotions a little. At some point she was focusing on breathing more than watching where she was stepping as she rounded a corner into large area of some sort, her instantly collided with something and stopped her in her tracks. Looking up she was met with a large chunk of grey rock and rebar to which she quickly reacted and jumped back, eyes wide as she watched the large object with confusion as it sat there defying gravity. She looked up and around her and realized there were dozens, if not hundreds of similar floating boulders that had shed from the buildings for one reason or another simply sitting motionless in the air. "What..." She questioned out loud in her confusion.

Snapped a little more back to reality she gave the debris a wide berth and walked around it, heading deeper into the busy square. What she saw from that point on, she wasn't sure if she should be horrified or not, statues of people and what she assumed were Youkai and Kami, fighting in the streets, frozen in place much like the falling chunks of concrete from earlier. She approached some of the random people, inspecting their faces curiously, some scared, crying, pleading and others angry, throwing themselves in front of attacks to protect people, their loved ones perhaps? What made her heart sink most though was that even with her vast lack of knowledge of this world, it was obvious that the Kami were the ones attacking, the ones causing all this pain and destruction and for what? Because the human and Youkai had dared to try and live in harmony with one another? She thought back to the words of the man traveling with her and couldn't help but shake her head in disappointment. All of this because the Kami were scared of the humans and Youkai intermingling, maybe even because they were doing so without them.

As she moved deeper in, closer to the sword in the stone she would spend time examining people and angels trying to wrap her head around the logic behind what ended up being an apocalypse and it was a difficult thing to imagine for sure. More of an explanation came shortly after her thoughts had hit a fever pitch and as strange as it sounded she felt a little comfort in the emotion in his voice which had been lacking until this point. His story of what happened in this reality opened her eyes somewhat but still, it hurt deep down to think that all these humans and Youkai truly just wanted to live their lives and the Kami just couldn't stand it, honestly she felt anger toward them but, even more so pity though she didn't quite understand why at this moment. "A god killer, born of the three races? I figure that sounds about correct." She said with a solemn tone understanding that she pretty much describe herself or at least what her anger was telling her to feel at this moment.

Then came the odd, painful sensation inside of her body, one she'd sadly become slightly used to, she sharply in took some breath and powered through at the electricity starting arcing from her body once again in two distinct colours, gold and a dark purple, different to the violet she'd been demonstrating recently. Again it was safe to assume which color represented each of the bloodlines flowing through her, she had decided which one to adhere to even despite the scenes strewn before her because, in her eyes, she could be better than them, she could use their own strength against them if needs be, so even as the thin, lightning tendrils whipped from her body she did her best to remain calm and tried to focus on pulling them back and controlling them. The sword she sought was just a short ways ahead of her, near the woman holding the relic that had apparently paused time and saved them all from ultimate demise.

The sudden, rapid movements and sounds of war and destruction for sure stopped her in her tracks each time it happened. She'd look around, eventually noticing that the lightning coming from her seemed to be what was causing this reaction. "It's the relic thing, right? My chakras are reacting to it and causing distortion for milliseconds." She spoke out loud, again fully assuming the man could hear her as he hadn't mentioned otherwise. It also didn't escape her attention that if what she thought was true then he'd placed the blade near her purposefully because he wanted her to see this and though she was unsure of his true motive it had lit a small fire in her at the very least, she was determined to show people that the blood of a Kami can be used for more than being the universes assholes. With little hesitation the girl moved forward, trying to ignore and stay out of the way of as much of the fighting as she could, just in case the worst happened.

Moving forward with this chakra causing unwanted animation was frightening to be sure, the thought of it undoing all of this brave girl's hard work and unleashing the Ragnarok that he'd mentioned was a concern to put it lightly. "Calm down, I will not give in to you, I will learn to control you and use you to serve my ends, not the other way around." She spoke to the lightning as if it were a separate entity as an idea popped into her head. It would either go really well or really really bad. She thought back to each time this power had been unleashed, both the painful times and the less painful times, forced open by her angel teacher. "Remember the feeling, open it slowly and let it flow through you. Calm like the eye of a storm..." She'd come to a full halt now, closing her eyes and blocking out the sudden, sharp loud sounds that happened with random frequency. Simply concentrating on her own body, silencing it, making it still. The ache of her muscles throbbing with a slow, heartbeat like pulse, this was the feeling but she needed more than what she had now. How long did she stand amongst the statues of war? If anyone were to look upon her she wouldn't even look out of place as her peaceful expression stood strong against the anguish within. Perhaps it had been a few minutes, maybe hours or even a days but something about this felt correct, then like a crack of lightning from within disturbing the peace she could feel it, the gate that was struggling to contain itself against the onslaught of the two opposing chakras, she reached out within her mind, taking a hold of the golden aura and pushing it through the gate. It felt familiar but different, there wasn't the added sensation of the Angels invading presses nor did she feel any particular pain, instead she felt simply awake. Her eyes opened in a flash, a slight golden aura around her already golden iris' she wasn't quite sure what it was but she knew this was right, her body even felt a little lighter. "It doesn't hurt this time... I like this feeling." She spoke, a smile slowly appearing on her face as her feet started up once again approaching the sword with no hesitation, watching the faces of those around her as she moved.

[WC - 1337]

 

[Toraono Michino]

Silence was the response given to the female’s question on the strange reactions to her presence. Perhaps it was because she stood closer now to the source of the Time Bubble that the Judge was no unable to reach out, or, perhaps the mechanical being had decided that Teke needed to figure out things from here on by herself.

The Time Bubble itself was a thing created by Spiritual Magic and it managed to hold in lock the Kami tee-totally. However the Youkai were only being held in place by the fact that their presence was being thrown off balance by the half-breeds there with them. With every step forward their presence attempted to pull a bit of Teke’s demonic side to them, unwittingly trying to still combat the effects of the time stop. Unfortunately, even if the girl was willing to give out her dark energy to these poor souls, removing them from the bubble would collapse the entire spell. All three components of Spirit, Holy, and Cursed were keeping this large shell active, stable, and from ripping their universe apart. Being a sort of hybrid herself the only way Teke was going to get the sword. The giant boulder stood behind the girl with her swinging artifact and the only way to step forward was to draw on certain single type of power.

Inside the Sunan female swirled all three energies and it was this that slowly ripped her being apart. In order for her to survive she would have to pick between the Cursed or Holy energy and manifest it with the Spirit that was the base of her existence. If she had just continued to move forward with the wrong presence selected she may have re-started the Realm End or even frozen herself in time with the rest of the trapped souls.
It was hard to think that the renegade Judge was willing to risk the entire multiverse just to train this one girl and all for a purpose that was a mystery to all but himself. What was his reasoning in teaching this style of self defense? To further his own vague notion of vengeance? Would the young blonde standing still as a blade of grass on a windless plane even consider these facts as she purged all emotion of her body?

Situation calls for the greatest in us to succeed and in this Teke was able to push forward. With a simple gesture of will from a calm mind she was able to ‘gently’ open the Second Gate as opposed to the forced explosion her master had done only but an hour ago. Among all the wonderful sensations that came with opening that gate and basking in the powers that hid behind it she would feel a nearly overwhelming feeling of relaxing warmth.
Every side of the Powers That Be had their draw back. Humans and those who practiced the power of the Spiritual fought against hubris. Youkai and those who shared their blood always battled against an unnatural blood lust and at least one to three of the Seven Sins. A Kami, and those who drew on their power for whatever reason, had to fight off Nirvana itself in order to use their strength.

Of all three of the powers the Holy was mostly invincible. By nature it healed, brought longevity, and strengthened the presence of mind. Inside of a human body the conscious would be bombarded with endorphins as their mortal shell was treated to the equivalent of a soul massage. During this time that they experienced Nirvana, if they could resist and focus through it, a human soul could wield grand powers that would make their form nearly immortal and heal all but long death. It was the exact same with the gods themselves as they had to fight through this sheer feeling of pleasure and relaxation in order to continuing to maintain a careful balance of their presence in the Realms. It is why you never hear of a “Sleeping God” outside of something that is supposed to be ancient because once a being of that sheer nature relaxes enough to sleep they fall into a coma-like state.

Teke stepped forward channeling this wonderful energy that lifted her mood, healed her wounds, and generally brought about an unnatural cheerfulness. For the moment she was at the very tip of bliss and movement still wasn’t a problem, but unless she quickly learn to balance out the holy energy she had just released with her own spirit…well, Teke would soon find how hard it was going to be to climb a rock that would feel like a pillow to her current touch without falling asleep.