How had it come to this thought the man to himself as he sat on the floor of a damp cave, a priestess of hakkin holding a sword to his throat, threatening to take his life the one thing he didn’t want to lose most in the world. As he held a hand up pleading to her to spare him, it glowed a faint neon green the only source of light in the cold dark abyss. After all of his work all of his effort it couldn’t end like this. He had to avoid oblivion no matter the cost.
He could almost hear the cruel laughter coming from the woman now as she bore down upon him and then nothing as the consciousness slowly faded from his body. This was it then, the void was going to claim him, his vision fading to black.
***
Ryuko sighed as she made her way towards the village cemetery. For the last several months she’d been looking for a student or students to take under her wing. She was a Jounin now for Hakkin’s sake so it was about darn time she started teaching somebody of her own. She’d been coming by the academy regularly now looking for potential prospects among the classes that where set to graduate soon.
For a time she thought she’d found the perfect candidate. A young boy named Kenji that was the just about the perfect match for her. Twelve years old and with grades near the top of his class Kenji was as talented as he was popular especially when it came to the sword. Seeing him swing a katana was like watching art, So smooth and graceful. To top things off he was rich and his only living family, an uncle a doctor who had invented a new form of caner treatment. All big pluses in Ryuko’s book.
Everything had been going well until one day, he’d simply keeled over and died. The Doctors overlooking the case had ruled it a random but tragic occurrence and that would have been the end of it if more dead bodies hadn’t started mysteriously piling up three in total the only link between them a connection to the dead boy. Ryuko had been dispatched to investigate. Someone had to solve the problem now before they had another victim on their hands.
The pattern soon became clear. All of them had visited Kenji’s grave and taken ill soon afterwards. The fact so many people can come to pay their respects wasn’t a surprise. Kenji had been something of a hero to his class. Everybody loved him yet he never let it go to his head, always working hard but never bragging. He would have been a wonderful student, hell he could have even been the next Raikage if only things had turned out just a little differently.
And so Ryuko went to the place where everything had begun. She Went to the boy’s grave. It was ironic really that she hadn’t come sooner. She’d been reluctant too, as a doctor herself it was always difficult for her to stare death in the face so directly like this. As a priestess she loved preforming marriages and hated having to do funerals the most.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe if she’d come here sooner without protective gear on she would have been one of the first to fall. Now that she was their she could tell that there was something about the grave, something about the air and soil that seemed off. Something that she recognized but didn’t want to.
“Oh. Oh no. No no.” She gasped and whimpered at what she discovered as the counter she had brought with her began to loudly hiss and spat. This was no normal plague or pandemic. No this was something far more sinister, something a layman would never figure out. A science they where only just beginning to grasp. It was only because she was highly educated that she had even thought to think of checking for it.
With a growl of fury she realized the only possible way this could have happened. It had to be something to do with the new form of caner treatment his uncle had developed. How the heck else could he have come into contact with such a concentrated dose of something so dangerous?
Calling for a special team to deal with the body she ran to the doctors lab she found it abandoned. It hadn’t been used for weeks. Her next stop had been his home also abandoned but more recently. Clothes and other objects where strewn about as if whoever had last been their had left in a hurry.
At first a thought search produced no leads that was until she went to Kenji’s room and discovered a poster lying beside his bed of a nearby mountain. A poster that could only have been left by his uncle who’d been in a rush to take a memento with him on the way out.
It was a tenuous connection but it was all Ryuko had to go on. Grabbing the boy’s katana she swore she would get to the bottom of this for him before heading out. His Uncle better have a damn good explanation for himself or he was going to find she didn’t have a whole lot of mercy in her.
***
Later that night she found herself deep in the mountains or rather the mountain from the poster at least. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Perhaps he had a wooden hut here, a vacation home of sorts. It wouldn’t be surprising considering how some of the clans in the village like the Chinoike lived.
After a few hours of searching she hadn’t found much. A bush here, a goat their but nothing like what she was looking for. That was until she spotted a the mouth of a cave off the the side. It was well off the beaten path, not something a normal person would find unless they where specifically looking for it.
Entering the cave without hesitation Ryuko could hear a voice muttering the words. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Over and over again. “Doctor Kikuchi I presume?” she asked never having met the man who was standing with his back to her. “You never should have come here” he replied as he turned causing Ryuko to gasp in horror at what she saw.
She’d been expecting a man but here she was being confronted by a monster. “I’m sorry but I can’t let anyone find me.” He said as he lunched at her only to be met by a swift kick to the chest knocking him to the ground with a loud thud.
“Please… Tell me you aren’t her…. Tell me you aren’t that blond twin tailed monster.” muttered the man groaning in pain from being hit so hard. With her protective gear on it was hard to tell who was underneath it all. Ryuko blinked wondering who he was referring to. The only person who came to mind was her friend Shimiko but that couldn't possibly be it becasue she was no monster.
“No but if you cross me and lie you’re going to wish I was. Start by telling me what happened to you… How did you end up like this?” Asked Ryuko as she took the Katana and held it to the man’s throat forcing him to talk.
***
He’d been afraid of death. It was strange really he’d never really thought about it much. At least he hadn’t until after his brother and sister had passed away in a carraiage accident that he began to wonder what had happened to them. About where they could be. As a man of science he didn't believe in things like god and simply didn't couldn't come up with a resonable answer.
Then he’d thought about what death really was. An absence of self, a cessation of thought. Everything that made you who you are would simply be gone as if it never existed. It was like staring into an abyss. How could he allow himself to fall into it. Worse how could he allow his nephew? Kenji the boy he loved as if he was his own son was just so perfect, destined to do great things. Was he on the edge of the abyss as well doomed to follow in the footsteps of his parents?
And so the doctor had thrown himself into his work looking for some way, any way to stop death, or at least stall it. He’d managed to make some small improvements to conventional cancer treatment but the real work, the thing that gave him the most hope he kept to himself. Along the way he’d discovered one religion in particular that was sometimes said to grant the gift of immortality a gift he aimed to replicate with science. Artificial Jashinism he dubbed it.
Loading up a needle with a cocktail of drugs and traces of uranium in it he decided to begin human trails and since he was lacking for test subjects he’d gone for the quickest route and injected it into himself. The results had been better then he could have ever dreamed, only a couple months after the initial shot he felt like he was a decade younger. He’d even gained a slight healing factor and was showing no signs of side effects.
“So then you gave some to your son.” said Ryuko with a statement of certainty and not a question. How couldn’t have he argued the doctor. He was about to graduate and become a professional ninja. All the potential injures he could get going out on missions…. He had to do something to protect him. He couldn’t wait until after receiving a card in the mail that his son had died in service to his country, by then he’d already be too late.
But everything had gone horribly wrong. Kenji had begun bleeding from every orifice of his face. His eyes, nose and mouth. The Doctor had wanted to help him but it was too late, he was dead in seconds. He had killed his own adopted son and yet nobody suspected him of foul play. When it was written off as a random freak accident he hadn’t had the courage to confess to his crimes. He had had dumped the serum and burned his notes destroying all the evidence.
He couldn’t talk to anyone about what he’d done, he’d simply locked himself away. Trying to contemplate what he’d done. Eventually when his body started to change he was the only one to notice because he’d been copped up all alone for weeks.
“And then afraid of the changes you fled, hiding yourself in the middle of nowhere. All this time you’ve probably been sitting to yourself wondering why? Why did you survive while Kenji passed away. Maybe tis was a quirk of fate. Maybe you’d simply built up a tolerance from all your radiology work. In the end tis doesn’t really matter, you still put him in a grave and then took several of his friends with him” spat Ryuko in absolute disgust.
“Oh god. What have I done?” said the Doctor as he clutched his head. It was only now that he was being confronted that he had finally fully realized the magnitude of his sins. His dead nephew was contaminated now just like him and six feet of soil simply wasn’t enough to contain it.
“Ironic eh. You where so afraid of your own demise that you went and became death yourself. Now tis time to pay for what you've done.” said Ryuko as she brandished his sons blade, preparing to cut him down with it. What else was she going to do put him in prison? He was simply too dangerous to leep around. Anyone that went near him without protective gear would quickly die, and even with it on they could only be near him for so long.
“Ah please don’t. I… I made mistakes sure but I was only trying to help but I don’t want to die.” He pleaded as Ryuko stepped towards him to which she simply gave him a fierce grin. “Is that so Doctor Kikuchi?” she asked him sarcastically. “Well too bad because I can tell you right now that nobody really wants to die. You’ve made your bed so now tis time to lie in it. In the name of Hakkin I will punish you” she proclaimed as she stuck him with the butt of the sword on the head knocking him out cold.
***
After a time sight and awareness came back to the Doctor who was surprised to find himself able to think and see again. Hadn’t the priestess said she was going to kill him. How could this be? Could this possibly be the afterlife that he’d never believed in? But if so what was that vague pain he felt in his arms and legs and why was his flesh still glowing faintly?
Trying to sit himself up he realized that his arm wasn’t moving the way he wanted to. With a frown he looked down at the offending limb only to gasp in shock at what he saw, it was gone chopped off at the elbow. The same for his other arm and even both of his legs, they where all gone. In the end Ryuko had allowed him to live but she had chopped off his limbs leaving him as a quadriplegic before dumping him into bottom of a long pit deep into the cave and then collapsing the entrance behind her just to be extra sure nobody would find him.
With his healing factor he didn’t need food and he didn’t age but he couldn’t grow back limbs either. He was stuck like this, doomed to an eternity of boredom unable to extract himself from the endless darkness of the cave. It seemed that in her mercy by sparing him the Priestess had condemned him to a fate worse then what he had sought to avoid in the first place.
“Oh god. Please not like this. Please anything but this, even the abyss the nothingness would have been better. Death would have been better. Please just kill me.” He shrieked praying for perhaps the first time in his life but to no avail.
He could almost hear the cruel laughter coming from the woman now as she bore down upon him and then nothing as the consciousness slowly faded from his body. This was it then, the void was going to claim him, his vision fading to black.
***
Ryuko sighed as she made her way towards the village cemetery. For the last several months she’d been looking for a student or students to take under her wing. She was a Jounin now for Hakkin’s sake so it was about darn time she started teaching somebody of her own. She’d been coming by the academy regularly now looking for potential prospects among the classes that where set to graduate soon.
For a time she thought she’d found the perfect candidate. A young boy named Kenji that was the just about the perfect match for her. Twelve years old and with grades near the top of his class Kenji was as talented as he was popular especially when it came to the sword. Seeing him swing a katana was like watching art, So smooth and graceful. To top things off he was rich and his only living family, an uncle a doctor who had invented a new form of caner treatment. All big pluses in Ryuko’s book.
Everything had been going well until one day, he’d simply keeled over and died. The Doctors overlooking the case had ruled it a random but tragic occurrence and that would have been the end of it if more dead bodies hadn’t started mysteriously piling up three in total the only link between them a connection to the dead boy. Ryuko had been dispatched to investigate. Someone had to solve the problem now before they had another victim on their hands.
The pattern soon became clear. All of them had visited Kenji’s grave and taken ill soon afterwards. The fact so many people can come to pay their respects wasn’t a surprise. Kenji had been something of a hero to his class. Everybody loved him yet he never let it go to his head, always working hard but never bragging. He would have been a wonderful student, hell he could have even been the next Raikage if only things had turned out just a little differently.
And so Ryuko went to the place where everything had begun. She Went to the boy’s grave. It was ironic really that she hadn’t come sooner. She’d been reluctant too, as a doctor herself it was always difficult for her to stare death in the face so directly like this. As a priestess she loved preforming marriages and hated having to do funerals the most.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe if she’d come here sooner without protective gear on she would have been one of the first to fall. Now that she was their she could tell that there was something about the grave, something about the air and soil that seemed off. Something that she recognized but didn’t want to.
“Oh. Oh no. No no.” She gasped and whimpered at what she discovered as the counter she had brought with her began to loudly hiss and spat. This was no normal plague or pandemic. No this was something far more sinister, something a layman would never figure out. A science they where only just beginning to grasp. It was only because she was highly educated that she had even thought to think of checking for it.
With a growl of fury she realized the only possible way this could have happened. It had to be something to do with the new form of caner treatment his uncle had developed. How the heck else could he have come into contact with such a concentrated dose of something so dangerous?
Calling for a special team to deal with the body she ran to the doctors lab she found it abandoned. It hadn’t been used for weeks. Her next stop had been his home also abandoned but more recently. Clothes and other objects where strewn about as if whoever had last been their had left in a hurry.
At first a thought search produced no leads that was until she went to Kenji’s room and discovered a poster lying beside his bed of a nearby mountain. A poster that could only have been left by his uncle who’d been in a rush to take a memento with him on the way out.
It was a tenuous connection but it was all Ryuko had to go on. Grabbing the boy’s katana she swore she would get to the bottom of this for him before heading out. His Uncle better have a damn good explanation for himself or he was going to find she didn’t have a whole lot of mercy in her.
***
Later that night she found herself deep in the mountains or rather the mountain from the poster at least. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Perhaps he had a wooden hut here, a vacation home of sorts. It wouldn’t be surprising considering how some of the clans in the village like the Chinoike lived.
After a few hours of searching she hadn’t found much. A bush here, a goat their but nothing like what she was looking for. That was until she spotted a the mouth of a cave off the the side. It was well off the beaten path, not something a normal person would find unless they where specifically looking for it.
Entering the cave without hesitation Ryuko could hear a voice muttering the words. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Over and over again. “Doctor Kikuchi I presume?” she asked never having met the man who was standing with his back to her. “You never should have come here” he replied as he turned causing Ryuko to gasp in horror at what she saw.
- Spoiler:
She’d been expecting a man but here she was being confronted by a monster. “I’m sorry but I can’t let anyone find me.” He said as he lunched at her only to be met by a swift kick to the chest knocking him to the ground with a loud thud.
“Please… Tell me you aren’t her…. Tell me you aren’t that blond twin tailed monster.” muttered the man groaning in pain from being hit so hard. With her protective gear on it was hard to tell who was underneath it all. Ryuko blinked wondering who he was referring to. The only person who came to mind was her friend Shimiko but that couldn't possibly be it becasue she was no monster.
“No but if you cross me and lie you’re going to wish I was. Start by telling me what happened to you… How did you end up like this?” Asked Ryuko as she took the Katana and held it to the man’s throat forcing him to talk.
***
He’d been afraid of death. It was strange really he’d never really thought about it much. At least he hadn’t until after his brother and sister had passed away in a carraiage accident that he began to wonder what had happened to them. About where they could be. As a man of science he didn't believe in things like god and simply didn't couldn't come up with a resonable answer.
Then he’d thought about what death really was. An absence of self, a cessation of thought. Everything that made you who you are would simply be gone as if it never existed. It was like staring into an abyss. How could he allow himself to fall into it. Worse how could he allow his nephew? Kenji the boy he loved as if he was his own son was just so perfect, destined to do great things. Was he on the edge of the abyss as well doomed to follow in the footsteps of his parents?
And so the doctor had thrown himself into his work looking for some way, any way to stop death, or at least stall it. He’d managed to make some small improvements to conventional cancer treatment but the real work, the thing that gave him the most hope he kept to himself. Along the way he’d discovered one religion in particular that was sometimes said to grant the gift of immortality a gift he aimed to replicate with science. Artificial Jashinism he dubbed it.
Loading up a needle with a cocktail of drugs and traces of uranium in it he decided to begin human trails and since he was lacking for test subjects he’d gone for the quickest route and injected it into himself. The results had been better then he could have ever dreamed, only a couple months after the initial shot he felt like he was a decade younger. He’d even gained a slight healing factor and was showing no signs of side effects.
“So then you gave some to your son.” said Ryuko with a statement of certainty and not a question. How couldn’t have he argued the doctor. He was about to graduate and become a professional ninja. All the potential injures he could get going out on missions…. He had to do something to protect him. He couldn’t wait until after receiving a card in the mail that his son had died in service to his country, by then he’d already be too late.
But everything had gone horribly wrong. Kenji had begun bleeding from every orifice of his face. His eyes, nose and mouth. The Doctor had wanted to help him but it was too late, he was dead in seconds. He had killed his own adopted son and yet nobody suspected him of foul play. When it was written off as a random freak accident he hadn’t had the courage to confess to his crimes. He had had dumped the serum and burned his notes destroying all the evidence.
He couldn’t talk to anyone about what he’d done, he’d simply locked himself away. Trying to contemplate what he’d done. Eventually when his body started to change he was the only one to notice because he’d been copped up all alone for weeks.
“And then afraid of the changes you fled, hiding yourself in the middle of nowhere. All this time you’ve probably been sitting to yourself wondering why? Why did you survive while Kenji passed away. Maybe tis was a quirk of fate. Maybe you’d simply built up a tolerance from all your radiology work. In the end tis doesn’t really matter, you still put him in a grave and then took several of his friends with him” spat Ryuko in absolute disgust.
“Oh god. What have I done?” said the Doctor as he clutched his head. It was only now that he was being confronted that he had finally fully realized the magnitude of his sins. His dead nephew was contaminated now just like him and six feet of soil simply wasn’t enough to contain it.
“Ironic eh. You where so afraid of your own demise that you went and became death yourself. Now tis time to pay for what you've done.” said Ryuko as she brandished his sons blade, preparing to cut him down with it. What else was she going to do put him in prison? He was simply too dangerous to leep around. Anyone that went near him without protective gear would quickly die, and even with it on they could only be near him for so long.
“Ah please don’t. I… I made mistakes sure but I was only trying to help but I don’t want to die.” He pleaded as Ryuko stepped towards him to which she simply gave him a fierce grin. “Is that so Doctor Kikuchi?” she asked him sarcastically. “Well too bad because I can tell you right now that nobody really wants to die. You’ve made your bed so now tis time to lie in it. In the name of Hakkin I will punish you” she proclaimed as she stuck him with the butt of the sword on the head knocking him out cold.
***
After a time sight and awareness came back to the Doctor who was surprised to find himself able to think and see again. Hadn’t the priestess said she was going to kill him. How could this be? Could this possibly be the afterlife that he’d never believed in? But if so what was that vague pain he felt in his arms and legs and why was his flesh still glowing faintly?
Trying to sit himself up he realized that his arm wasn’t moving the way he wanted to. With a frown he looked down at the offending limb only to gasp in shock at what he saw, it was gone chopped off at the elbow. The same for his other arm and even both of his legs, they where all gone. In the end Ryuko had allowed him to live but she had chopped off his limbs leaving him as a quadriplegic before dumping him into bottom of a long pit deep into the cave and then collapsing the entrance behind her just to be extra sure nobody would find him.
With his healing factor he didn’t need food and he didn’t age but he couldn’t grow back limbs either. He was stuck like this, doomed to an eternity of boredom unable to extract himself from the endless darkness of the cave. It seemed that in her mercy by sparing him the Priestess had condemned him to a fate worse then what he had sought to avoid in the first place.
“Oh god. Please not like this. Please anything but this, even the abyss the nothingness would have been better. Death would have been better. Please just kill me.” He shrieked praying for perhaps the first time in his life but to no avail.
