Subterraneous (Flashback)

Nee-san Tetsudashi found himself in an underground bunker many miles underneath the city of Kirigakure. The structure was a lost and forgotten base. Supposedly, its existence was not even recorded by Kiri ANBU. The only person who could have known about a place like this was someone who pre-existed the shinobi system by centuries. Nee-san had been a slave to the Society since his death, but even in servitude he learned. It was a principle that he had forced into Menza and one that he was now forced to implement as a glorified housecarl. The former Tsuchikage had come to know who it was pulling the strings behind the organization and while he lacked the ability to do anything about it presently, perhaps he could eventually find a way to break free long enough to make a difference in the coming war. Perhaps.

For now, he needed to set aside idle thoughts on the future and focus on the present. Nee-san wore a dark cloak which obscured his facial features although a discerning eye might be able to make out a pair of black shades. Before him lay a non-binary individual with pink hair and features so innocent you'd think they had fallen from heaven. Nee-san felt sorry for Chigetsu. Pity wasn't an emotion he was used to experiencing. Nee-san was self-aware enough to recognize that the effect was likely due to the fact that Chigetsu reminded him of someone he knew when he was still alive. A beautiful young man by the name of Marx. The two had shared a budding romance briefly, but before it could blossom into something more, Marx was taken away from him by the plague. He hadn't expected to find someone so soon after Hòu Zhuān and when Marx passed, he was certain that his path was one that he was now destined to walk alone.

Little did I know how right I'd be....

Chigetsu was pretty and effeminate just like Marx was. However, unlike Marx, his personality harbored no deviousness. They were about as innocent as you could get. From what Nee-san had gleamed from Menza, Chigetsu had been a host of last resort. The Society had run through two candidates, each disqualified for one reason or another. After consultation with the head honcho, it was determined that the only thing more interesting than putting a Bijuu in a pre-existing demon (Sero) was to put one in a pre-existing angel (Chigetsu). Thus, strings were pulled and files altered. Kirigakure cooperated as they were expected to and the end result was that the pink-haired Champion of the Chuunin Exams would receive the gift of a lifetime. Nee-san knew the boy had the competence to put the entity to good use. He was no slouch given his victory in the exams. Chigetsu's file, however, demonstrated a profound lack of killer instinct. If this aspect of his personality was not excised, he'd be eaten alive by the Six Tails. The kid's chances were less than average and Nee-san knew it. The fact that he was condemning such a good natured teenager to a life of inner turmoil stung more than it should have. He had hid aspects of his life from everyone but Chigetsu appeared to be living free. Mizu no Kuni in 939 A.S. was a different world from Tsuchi no Kuni in the mid 900s. Life was harder for people who were different back then. It was better to keep those feelings under wraps and act as you were expected. Your life could depend on it.

Chigetsu had a privledge Nee-san had never known, but with the curse of being a jinchurikki, he might never be able to truly enjoy it. It was a true tragedy worthy of the plays he was so fond of. Nee-san could not cry in his present state but if he could then he'd likely have shed a tear. Enough. Nee-san killed the feelings boiling inside of him and instead slammed his hands together to form the Tiger Seal.


"Let us begin"

Chigetsu had been laid in the center of a large and spacious room. This part of the base had high ceilings and was totally devoid of anything except space. They had been placed on top of an elaborate fuuinjutsu formula. The most distinct characteristics of this formula were the successive rings that spread out from his body. A gourd was placed 5 meters above his head and it glowed with an ethereal red energy. The sealing group had ensured that he was unconscious. Nee-san's team had knocked Chigetsu out and brought them here without so much as alerting a fly. They didn't want any disturbances. Nee-san channeled his chakra and the formula began to glow. His colleagues formed a tiger seal and began to focus their efforts on the task of sealing the beast into the Hozuki. The circle glowed ominously and without warning the gourd burst open and red energy poured into a seal etched onto Chigetsu's stomach.

The process had begun.


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Against the cold, metal table the sprawled out form of Chigetsu Hozuki took on a different character. Unconscious now, the nervous fidgets and body language that plagued him were absent. He didn’t avoid eye contact, slouch his shoulders, fidget around. There was no stuttering, no asymmetrical stance. The aura of the unconscious boy was completely and  utterly different than awake, a side of the young male that few would ever have the opportunity to see. Here he was at peace, calm in his unconsciousness, ignorant and unknowing of what was about to happen. The team of shinobi that Nee-san had sent managed to knock out Chigetsu without him even being aware of the situation, sent down onto the ground with a swift application of electricity to the spinal column, and dragged out from his room in a half-liquid state. They could have so easily killed him if they had so desired, and nobody in the village would have been any wiser. After his victory in the Chunin Exams he had faded into general obscurity, so would anyone have noticed if they had killed him? Would anyone have missed him? How long would it have taken until his body was discovered? The isolation had been self-imposed, and so by his own willing decision there was nobody now for him to reach out to.

Nee-san’s men had stripped Chigetsu out of his usual outfit and dressed him in a hospital gown in preparation of the sealing procedure. His stomach would be exposed for the process, skin open against the air. The bursting of the malevolent chakra from the gourd would burst out and pour into the seal that had been etched there, pouring in a slow and steady stream of the malevolent red chakra into his body. The process would be slow, steady, and expertly controlled by the fuuinjutsu team.

The boy would shift. Even in his unconsciousness Chigetsu’s body was, to some degree, aware of its surroundings. The pouring of the malevolent chakra into the sealing on his stomach was not something that would go unnoticed, even as he remained deep in his enforced slumber. The previously peaceful, pure expression that had graced his features was erased, curling and crumpling into something clearly troubled. Light little shifts in his body, twitches of his fingers and toes, would proceed. The unpleasantness of the situation at hand was something noticed by his unconscious mind, and was likely being replicated in his psyche as a dream. What exactly he was dreaming about now was impossible to truly discern, but it was easy to see how it was unpleasant. How it would shift as the sealing process continued was yet to be seen.

---

Saiken recalled his siblings frequently.

He tried to remember them fondly most times but sometimes, he recalled the hatred he'd felt for them, and basked in the longing for their company and the hope they'd one day reunite on better terms.

His memories were tarnished throughout time, years spent roaming across lands and waters which they'd been anchored to for so long. They'd lived lives alongside humans, as they evolved and became the warriors known as Shinobi. The people who eventually enslaved them all, turning them into nothing more than pawns in a pointless war. Bijuu were something to be coveted and feared, they were trapped in their own personal hells.

A prison with skin.

Once upon a time, Saiken basked in the peace of a temple, it had been surrounded by the clearest of waters which were hidden by thick rolling mist. He'd spent his days languishing in the errant beams of sunlight which pierced through the horizon. He'd protected the temple, not out of love for the people there but in hopes to preserve the little peace he'd managed to sequester. The humans did visit though and thanked him with gifts, thinking it to be a blessing for his protection. They may have been fascinated but they were wary all the same.

It was the only home which he'd had, one which he thought about often and dreamed of swimming in the cool waters once more. He had been ripped away from all of that. Now he was being sold back to the land he’d once protected, the temple nothing but smoldering ruins.

Nee-san continued to direct the sealing process despite Chigetsu's apparent discomfort. While he had had the opportunity to fight and observe a Bijuu up close, Nee-san never had the privledge of hosting one inside his own body. The man's advanced understanding of demonic mechanics gave him a good idea of what it felt like but he knew his intellectual comprehension of the phenomenon paled in comparison to the actual experience. The pity that he had killed earlier began to grow but a external force snuffed it out. It was a reminder that he had been given his emotions and sensibilities so as to maximize his effectiveness. If they began to compromise his competence then they could be taken away from him just as easily as everything else in his life had been. He thought no more of what Chigetsu might feel and instead increased the intensity of the process. The gourd flashed with red and even more chakra began to stream inside of the Hozuki. The sealers were growing tired but the procedure had only just begun.

The only thing that kept the masked and hooded individuals in place was the fear of what would happen to them if they stopped.

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