Kill the Sound
Act I: Containment
Otome rubbed the back of her neck nervously as her eyes met the boy's own. He seemed just like yet another kid, though, given her recent experiences with Komora, Hoshi, and even that Konoha gaijin, the kunoichi did not immediately dismiss him as a harmless target.Act I: Containment
After all, a client had paid the Butcher a great deal of money to strike this wretched soul down and free him of the demon torturing his existence.
"So . . . " the one known as Akatora Shin started calmly as the two stood upon the barren earth, "I suppose you're here to try and end my misery, right?"
Otome nodded solemnly with a sigh as her hand hovered over her katana's hilt. The silver-eyed boy scoffed at her eagerness to complete her mission.
"Good luck; many have tried, and, as you can see, none have succeeded." Blood began to drip from his veins down his fingertips before it hardened into vicious talons. Otome grunted at the spectacle, annoyed that this wasn't as nearly as simple as his distant cousin, Takayama Hinote, had led her to believe. Her hand tightened around the bloodletting hilt of her blade as she unsheathed it's full length.
"I'm sorry it has to be this way," the kunoichi confessed just before the two clashed. Droplets of blood fell and stained the earth beneath them as they fought vigorously.
Then Otome had grazed Shin's face, leaving a nasty scar across the bridge of his nose. For a brief moment, Otome was proud she had finally landed a decent attack upon an opponent. But her smugness quickly vanished as the boy laughed demonically at her feeble attempt.
"Yes!" he exclaimed. "Make me feel the pain! Make me feel like my old self again!"
She narrowed her eyes to slits and readied her blade once more.
"My lord!" she thought as the boy initiated combat this time, blood also dripping from his now completely black eyes. "And I thought I had problems!"
As the two resumed battle, a revelation dawned upon her.
"Hinote has never met you, has he?" she asked, a look of pity on her face as she adopted a more defensive stance. "He has never seen you suffer at all."
"So?" he scoffed as his attacks became more relentless. "You're getting paid to do both of us a favor!"
Otome sighed as she parried blow after blow, knowing very well she could not follow through with her mission as planned.
"Just kill me already! Do it now, before Zansatsu takes over!"
"And if I do? What happens to this 'Zansatsu' then?"
Shin paused for a moment, allowing Otome the opening she needed to plunge the possessed katana into the boy's abdomen. He blinked a few times, unsure of what to make of his final moments.
However, to his surprise, the spirits within the sword began to extract the malevolent being through the blade and into the hilt itself, sealing it within before she sliced through the kid the rest of the way.
"Heh," he chuckled as he started to collapse. "I now realize that you were just like me after all."
Otome returned the chuckled with a half-hearted one of her own.
"Now you're just being mean," she joked feebly as she delivered a coup de grace upon her latest victim.
But even with him gone and the demon's soul contained in her sword, the memory of their brief encounter still haunted her as she made her way back to the village.
[WC: 584]