Heretic Blood

Perhaps drawing the survivors attention was not the best idea; I was stuck in clothes that were a couple sizes too small, had only my scythe and whatever this body was carrying, and was out numbered eighteen to one after all. However, I had little choice; even with as rattled as they were by my explosive “death" there were still enough of them with enough eyes in their head and blood in their veins to notice that the supposed corpse was standing in their midst.

With a maniacal grin I dashed through the rain of near-liquid cultist, dashing towards the ragged survivors with my scythe held out behind me like a battle flag. They recovered quickly from their shock, just not quick enough to stop me from decapitating the closest man to me. Before his head could hit the ground I delivered a swift kick at just the right angle to send the decollated head straight into a (now one armed) soldier’s face (huh, Gaze Of The Destroyer (what I’m calling my Jashin granted knowledge of how to destroy anything I saw) is really handy).

While the man had instincts good enough to raise his blade before the severed head could hit him, the blood and brain matter that splashed out when he cut through the head still resulted in him being blinded. His blindness may have lasted only a moment, but a moment was more than enough time to dart forward and drive my hand through his chest. I grinned into his stunned eyes as I wrapped my fingers one by one around his still beating heart, slowly tightening my grip for a moment before a kunai to the back of the head reminded me of where I was.

With a quick squeeze I crushed the man’s heart; using my grasp on his innards to whirl him into a hail of throwing knives and shuriken. The meatbag did an adequate job of blocking the steel rain, allowing me to charge unhindered into the now collected group of soldiers.

I threw the blade ridden corpse into the small crowd, leaping into the air to slam down on it when it plowed into the front row. My weight alone may not have been enough to kill or incapacitate the fanatics (even augmented with what had to be a couple hundred pounds of meat and weapons); however, the swift kick I delivered on impact did quite a bit more (though that may have been the chakra blast I sent into it). The corpse exploded into even more red rain while the weapons were sent forth like bullets from a many barreled gun; many of the implements of sharp and pointy death managed to pierce straight through the first cultist they hit and go on to embed themselves in someone else.

My grin widened as my near-glowing purple eyes danced around; searching for targets and threats. None of the enemy soldiers were unscathed (many possessing wounds that would likely kill them in a matter of moments… save for one. My amaranthine eyes locked with the icy blue of the commander; manic malevolence meeting cold determination.

My smile grew so wide I could feel the muscles in my face straining not to tear in the face of his unflinching resolve; I relished in the thought of breaking him, of hearing him scream and cry and beg for mercy, beg for a quick death I will never grant.

I rushed him, slicing through his demoralized subordinates like a hot knife through melted butter (killing at least four of the ten remaining combatants (though, of those remaining, only five could still stand, and only three of them had both arms)) before I reached him.

I slashed my blade, aiming to take his head off and crush the morale of the remaining forces. I laughed as he leaned backwards, allowing my blade to pass harmlessly over his head. His expression never changed, remaining hard and blank as the deadly blades nearly scraped his nose.

He moved so fast I barely even saw it; one moment his hands were by his side, his sword sheathed, the next my head was rolling off my shoulders, my manic grin still stretched across it. As my perspective spun end over end I got a glimpse of what had happened; he had drawn and swung his blade with such speed I hadn’t even seen it.

My smile twisted into a scowl as I abandoned my head, jumping into my body (apparently, just like the original Hidan, my soul would stay with my head rather than my body when the two were seperated; wonder if there’s any way to change that) as it sank to its knees. The commander flicked my blood from his blade, moving to sheath it.

The commander’s blade was almost wholly sheathed when my body jerked, suddenly jumping up with my blade held upside down (top facing the ground). Evidently the commander was unsurprised, leaping away in time to avoid the blow entirely; the breeze of my passing ruffling his jacket ever so slightly as my massive blades once more passed him by with millimeters to spare.

Without actually having eyes, my vision defaulted to my spiritual vision; my phantasmal gaze could see the captains soul burning brightly. A bright grin formed on my metaphysical face, the smile slowly forming on my real flesh as my head slowly reformed. My laughter turned from an echoey, half-real thing to something more solid and true as my throat formed enough to actually produce the sound.

A brave (stupid) cultist rushed me from the left, blade raised over his head with shaking arms and a warcry on his lips, My hand shot out, grabbing him by his face and cutting off his scream. My laughter only grew (sounding like a drunken hyena) as I squeezed his skull enough to crack but not shatter it (causing extreme agony, but not death) before flinging the man at the commander… who didn’t even blink, cutting his subordinate in half with enough force that the two halves didn’t hit him; not even a drop of blood soiled his ever immaculate uniform.

I didn’t wait for the body to hit the ground, using the obfuscating cloud of blood to rush my foe just as I had his subordinate before him. I was unsurprised when a blade of wind shot through the raining blood, aiming to cleave me in two. I leapt forth, vaulting over the sweeping wind blade; as soon as my hands touched the earth I sent my chakra into it, causing it to erupt with an explosion. I used the explosion to assist in backflipping forward, laughing maniacally as I held my scythe over my head.

Just as I had hoped the unexpected explosion had disturbed his footing, sending him stumbling back. My gleeful eyes locked with his, seeing just a hint of delicious panic in his ever cold orbs as I brought my scythe down to split him in two. Even falling on his ass the commander showed his competence, still managing to raise his blade to block my own in a solid guard (or, as solid as one can be while currently falling over backwards anyway); however, he had clearly never fought anyone with a blade like mine (not surprising, very few people ever wielded a scythe in combat, fewer still one quite like mine). His blade clanged against my middle blade, sliding down its length to meet the haft.

Had his arms been fully extended he still wouldn’t have escaped unscathed; being a little under six foot, his arms were also a little under three feet long. The longest blade of my scythe is just over three feet; long enough to still hit him even if stopped at arm's length. As it was, the top most blade sunk into his forehead, sending a spurt of blood into the air.

To my shock, rather than simply die from the six inches (and counting!) of scythe embedded in his brain, the commander managed to push out my blade by extending his arms and allowing himself to fall on his back. For what should be a dead man, he had quite a bit of strength; enough to fling me away from him.

Reflected fire danced in my eyes as I watched the commander somersault backwards to his feet, only a slight wobble in his landing giving away the traumatic brain damage he’s surely dying from. Blood flowed down his face like a crimson river, finally despoiling his outfit.

Of course, said blood was also on my scythe, making the distance he had bought himself utterly irrelevant. My decapitation and self destruction had left me with more than enough blood for me to not bother cutting myself to create the ritual circle (though, dodging only slightly more clumsy wind blades did not make the ritual any easier).

Laughing joyously, I brought my blade to my lips, tongue extended to lick the blood from it. As soon as my blade touched my tongue the commander’s boot crashed into the back of my scythe; slamming it through the back of my jaw and flinging me from my symbol.

I blinked up at the sky, my reformed eyes whirling around in their sockets. My rapidly moving eyes eventually settled on what I could see of my body; even having been thrown several feet from the symbol of Jashin my ritual required, my skin was still blackening, bone like markings standing out in starkly contrasting white.

As I reached up to pull my scythe from my head (The utter indignity! That rat fuck commander will suffer for this!) Jashin spoke up, sounding somewhat confused. “Did you not notice? Twice in this battle you sacrificed enough souls to fuel your advancement; we are close enough to not need that symbol for such a basic ritual.”

My eyes widened dramatically, “Crut? Ky Cron’t dreed kra kritukal kircle?” I scowled around the massive blade in my mouth, noting the difficulties inherent in trying to speak around more metal than can reasonably be expected to fit in one’s mouth. “What? I don’t need the ritual circle?” That changed things; with the simple reduction of one of its major weaknesses, the voodoo technique just became extraordinarily lethal (not that it wasn’t before).

“You still must drink your target’s blood, but after that there is nothing stopping you from activating the curse at anytime, on any or all who’s blood you’ve drank.” I smiled, the act widening the massive wound from my own scythe; I could work around that. Things would be a touch too easy if I didn't need something for such a powerful technique; even the Tsukiyomi requires eye contact after all.

I flipped myself up into a standing position, wrenching my scythe out of my jaw with one hand. I grinned, noting idly that I was healing much, much quicker than I used to; my head was already fully formed and it hadn't even been two minutes since I was decapitated.

“One of the many benefits you shall receive as things progress; normal healing is far too slow for my champion.” My smile grew, glee fueled both from Jashin’s words and the sight of the commander spitting up blood. My sharp eyes could easily make out the wounds inside his mouth and on his cheeks; apparently while the ritual doesn't transfer wounds from before it's completion, it does transfer additions to pre-existing injuries. Presumably, if I were shot in the head and completed the ritual with the bullet halfway through, only the exit wound would transfer to the victim.

My eyes glowed with malevolent glee as the commander rushed me, apparently having decided that flinging wind blades wasn't working quick enough for his tastes. For a moment I considered letting him deal a fatal blow (delighting in the ironic beauty of someone killing themselves in a futile attempt to kill their foe); but I wanted him to suffer for his impudence, for daring to think he could kill me.

I grinned, dropping to one knee and slicing open my Achilles tendon with my scythe. My grin caught the moonlight, each tooth seeming to shine as the commander landed on his now useless leg.

My eyes widened above a gaping mouth as the commander turned a fall into a smooth roll, balancing himself on his one good leg. As he rose I could see the intense scrutiny in his cold eyes.

Apparently he had understood exactly what happened near instantly, for as one of his living minions rushed to help him he slashed open their throat with no hesitation. Allied blood still dripping from his blade he lunged at me, his single leg providing a shocking amount of power to let him cross the distance.

Normally I would have assumed he simply didn't understand what was going on, normally I would have laughed; instead I gurgled. The commander shoved his blade into my mouth, making sure some of his sacrificed underling’s blood was smeared across my tongue before forcing my head back and jamming his katana all the way into my intestines.

With a sharp twist and a pull he tore his blade out the front of my body, using his free hand to rip out my innards and scatter them across the burning field around us. I stared up at him, shocked to see my wound not appearing on him. My eyes drifted over to the minion he murdered to see my wound replicated on him.

Jashin growled in my head, “Hmph, that shouldn't have worked. Only your inexperience with the technique allowed him to abuse it's mechanics; your connection to him is not severed, simply focus and reapply it. Once you have consumed their blood, they can never escape your grasp. Eventually you will be able to maintain several sympathetic bonds at once.”

I smiled as the commander, still holding my guts in one hand (presumably in an attempt to keep me from healing) drew his blade back, arm across his chest so his blade was pointing behind him.

The blade swung hard and fast, whipping through the air to carve my head from its shoulders… or it should have. Impossibly, the blade stopped dead just as it met my throat, barely drawing any blood before my regeneration healed me.

A bead of blood rolled down the commander’s neck as he locked eyes with me. He grunted, swinging me by my intestines and tossing me away from him (though, by the way his free hand moved to cradle his gut, he rather regretted that). My smirk didn't fade as I slammed into the last mook standing, sending us both rolling across the burning town square.

I sprang from my back to my hands and feet, reaching out to grab the groaning mook by the chin. My fingers curled over his jaw, digging into his skin and grabbing his jaw bone. With a sharp tug I tore free his lower jaw, ripping it from his screaming skull. The commander obviously didn't give the slightest of fucks, simply watching me like a wounded hawk as I drove the cultist’s jaw through his eyes and into his brain.

I stood up (making sure the movement was awkward and unnatural looking), my massive smile like a crescent moon beneath my spotlight eyes. Laughter rolled off me like a malignant fog, leaching hope and life from the few survivors (though the commander seemed unshaken, other than the massive blood loss) as I stepped forward (crushing the jawless mook’s chest). A quick slash cut my other achilles tendon, finally driving the commander to his knees as I stood tall, my unnatural fortitude preventing such injuries from truly hindering me even for the brief moment they were present.

Even forced to his knees, the commander’s eyes showed not a hint of submission or fear; he was just as cold in the face of an unwinnable fight as he was when he had the upper hand. I could see resignation hidden within the cold resolve that shown like fire through ice in his eyes; he was determined to die fighting.

Something about his resolve gave me pause; rather than simply take his head or set him on fire, I stopped a few paces from his kneeling form. It took me a moment to place what I was feeling; respect. I respected his grit, his determination, his iron will.

My smile turned from psychotic to merely wry, “How ‘bout we play a little game, you and I; a challenge.” I waved my hand, gesturing theatrically at a relatively intact burning building. “I’m going to offer you a chance to get out of this alive.” I could feel Jashin’s confusion and displeasure at that.

“What? Why would you not kill him?”

My wry grin held a wicked edge, “Partially, out of respect but mostly for amusement. I did say I would give him a chance to get out alive, not that I would spare him. Besides, suffering, misery and despair are all the sweeter when garnished with a dash of futile hope.” She still seemed confused, but her anger (more mild annoyance really) had faded.

I bent forward at the waist in an awkward faux-bow, pointing towards a burning building. “I’m going to skin you alive and toss you into that building.” I held up a finger, cutting off the retort I could see in his face, “But, I’m not going to deal any fatal blows.” I leaned back into a fully upright position, my arms raised at my sides. “If you manage to crawl out you might just make it out alive! Probably not, but it is possible; which is better odds than you have if you fight back.” I shrugged, “Like I said; a challenge.”

His face remained unchanging, not a hint of any of his thoughts (other than the naked contempt blazing coolly from his eyes) evident in his features. I approached him, smirking all the while. I was unsurprised to find a sword plunging into my chest when I got within range.

Of course, I couldn’t allow him to take the easy way out. My reaction speed was nowhere near fast enough to actually stop him from stabbing me, but it was good enough to jerk his blade down. Rather than spear me through the heart as he obviously intended, I diverted the blow into one of my ribs beneath the heart; his speed and power was more than enough to slice right through the bone, but the diversion was enough to send the blade into one of my lungs rather than my heart.

I smirked as a red stain spread across his chest; my enhanced hearing was easily able to make out his struggle to breath, though the blood dripping from his lips certainly helped. “Hmhmhmhm, so you would reject my challenge?” I waved my finger before his eyes, “Tsk, tsk. Did I somehow give you the impression it was optional?” My condescendingly waving hand moved to my chest, “If so, I do apologize.” My eyes flashed and my smile grew, my hand shooting forward to stab a finger into the deep wound in his forehead. “I wouldn’t want to mislead you, after all. Heh heh heh heh heh.”

Disappointingly, he didn’t scream (even when I began fingering his brain), but I could see the buried pain in his eyes. I briefly considered literally skull fucking him before deciding against it; I wanted to skin him after all, it wouldn’t be good if I obliterated his brain before hand, now would it?

I slammed my scythe into the ground next to me (not so great for delicate things like filleting a man alive, that) and slid my other hand down the blade in my chest, wrapping my fingers around his and slowly peeling them away from the hilt.

Or at least, I tried. As soon as he realised what I was trying to do his fingers snapped back into place alongside his other hand. A look of steely determination crossed his face as he gave the blade a sharp twist and began sawing it across my chest. I attempted to stop him, but his blade cut through the fingers I put in its path; easily continuing on to slice through my spine and completely eviscerate my lungs.

I scowled around the blood flowing like a waterfall through my teeth as I saw the amount of blood pouring from his chest and mouth explosively increase as his back gave out. A growl burst from my bloodstained lips; how dare this plebeian deny me the pleasure of torturing him! I shot my hand forward, gripping his skull and squeezing hard enough to crack it before grabbing the deep gouge in his forehead with the other hand. With an inarticulate roar of rage I began tearing strips of flesh from his head, mutilating what part of him could still feel; no way am I gonna let him die by his own hand so peacefully!

I plunged my thumbs into his eyes ‘till they punctured his skull; my rage at his successful escape from my plans driving me to tear his head in half (though, it would be more accurate to say it was messily torn to pieces than truly ripped in half). I panted for a few seconds, letting my rage fade along with the signs of my ritual before tossing the pieces of the commander’s head away in disgust. I scowled down at his body, spitting on it and kicking it into a fire with a “hmph” of disdain.

I turned to the obvious command center, dismissing the wasted opportunity for amusement as it slowly turned to ash. I sheepishly scratched the back of my head, “Huh, maybe, just maybe, setting the compound on fire wasn’t the best idea.” The building was burning merrily, pieces occasionally falling off like flaming, short lived meteors. Part of me wanted to just write the whole thing off and walk away, just say the fire killed everyone inside and destroyed anything of value; but my greed simply wouldn’t let me, nor would I ever be satisfied that I got everyone until I made sure (cult leaders have a nasty tendency of being slippery bastards). So, with a sigh of one who knows he’s about to suffer for a likely pointless cause, I ran into the burning building.

As I moved further through the building, dashing about as quickly as I could to try and salvage anything of value, I felt more and more like I needn’t have bothered. Most everything was too badly burned to be of much use (or have any value) and what files weren’t charred too badly to read were mostly useless and uninformative reports about things I don’t care about. Only when I reached what was clearly the leader’s office and noticed a very clear lack of charbroiled leader did I start thinking maybe checking the place out wasn’t a painful (running through fire fucking hurts, damn it! No matter how fucked up my nervous system is, fire still burns!) waste of time.

I scowled as a flaming I-beam dropped on top of the desk, reminding me that this building was far from stable (and setting whatever documents were on the desk on fire). I leapt forward, quickly rifling through the desk in search of valuables; finding mostly junk and financial statements (along with the occasional half-baked plan for world domination) until I accidentally tore one of the drawers straight out of the desk, revealing a hidden compartment behind it.

I eagerly reached into the compartment, groping around to try and find something (and ignoring the flaming debris burning through my ill fitting clothes and pale skin). I had to crack the desk to get my arm all the way into the hidden space (the shattered wood digging into my flesh irritatingly) but it was worth it when my long fingers brushed something that felt distinctly laminated.

Pulling the object into the flickering, threatening light revealed it to be a thin, black binder. A grin spread across my face; considering Brion felt the need to hide this away, I can only assume it contains something he didn’t want people knowing about. Letting the binder fall open in my palm, my gleeful eyes hungrily tore into the first page on display… only to widen in shock at what I saw.

I began rapidly flipping through the pages, scanning each one in astonishment; each and every page was a detailed dossier on people throughout the Elemental Nations, so detailed they looked pulled straight from the wiki. Every character not only had their known information (alongside speculation) but also detailed plans to kill or incapacitate them. The files contained information he couldn’t possibly have gathered, including the full details of the Eye Of The Moon plan and its actual result.

My smile twisted into something sinister as laughter began to bubble out from betwixt my teeth, “It seems I’m not the only one who comes from another world, eh? Heh heh heh heh hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” I bent over backwards from the force of my laughter, cackles pouring down the burning halls of the cult leader’s mansion… until a conflagrant ceiling tile fell into mouth and down my throat, turning my laughter into a choking cough. Burning buildings are not the best place to have a good old fashioned evil laughing session.

Puking up the offending tile, I wiped my mouth and tucked the file into my jacket (fucking explosions, burning all my storage seals (lucky I wasn’t stupid enough to bring all my valuables with me in an attack with no intel or I’d be fucking furious)) before looking around the room. “Now… if I were a frightened fake cult leader from another world who sees a demented mass murderer coming for me, where would I be?” It wasn’t an all together difficult question; anywhere but here being the answer. The difficulty came from figuring out how he would go about being anywhere but here.

“The wall behind you is not perfectly aligned with those around it.” I blinked, turning away from the door and facing the wall behind the desk. A smirk crossed my face; directly behind the burning wreckage that was once a desk, a small portion of the wall appeared to be at a slight inward angle. “Heh, looks like someone forgot to close the door behind him.”

Humming softly, I pushed the hidden door open with the end of my scythe and peered into the blackness revealed within. I stared into the darkness for a moment, idly noticing that I could see clear through it like the room was bathed by the sun; another gift from Jashin, I presume.

The downward sloping walls were made of smooth stone, looking like it was formed from a jutsu rather than any conventional boring tool. Instinctively i closed my left eye to as I tried to see further down the hall, a now irrelevant habit from my past my superior body no longer needs. With a shake of my head I flicked open the binder, flipping through it until I found my dossier. I ran over my information with a finger until I found the plans to eliminate me, “Death in combat: impossible; can only be captured or incapacitated. Preliminary plan: bury alive, possibly via explosives. Triggered cave in?” I looked back down the probable escape tunnel. “Uh huh. Well fuck that.”

“It is a little too perfect to so easily find a escape tunnel; it very well could be a trap.” I mulled Jashin’s words over for a moment; it matched up with my thoughts exactly… except for one thing.

I tapped the binder, “For a guy who took such meticulous notes, it seems rather odd that he would leave this behind, even if he was in a rush…” I trailed off for a moment, “Perhaps a double bluff? While it's possible he simply expected this little binder,” I once more tapped said binder, “to burn up before I reached here; it's not impossible that he left this here on purpose knowing I would read it and thusly not follow him into a scenario described almost exactly in said binder, thereby allowing him to escape… or perhaps it’s a triple bluff- No, I’m giving this guy too much credit here.”

I could feel Jashin’s amusement at my aborted paranoid rant (It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you!) as I contemplated my choices, glancing about the room just incase I missed something. “Well, even if he brings the whole tunnel down on me, I can just ditch my body so it’s not that big a deal…” My gaze fell on my scythe, “Except I would have to waste hours and hours, possibly days, digging up my scythe.” I tapped the back of the blade on the toe of my horrible bloody sandals (Jashin damn it! Why does everyone in this god forsaken world wear this despicably useless footwear!) for a moment. “I suppose I’ll have to leave it behind just in case.”

I sighed deeply, parting from my primary weapon was not something I was eager to do, but spending innumerable hours digging the irreplaceable masterwork out of the earth should the blighter actually blow the tunnel was simply untenable. Glancing out a melting window, I pulled the coil from my back and held my scythe like a javelin. Taking careful aim, I fired the blade through the opening, watching with one hand on my forehead as if to shield from the sun as the massive blades flew through the air. I grinned cruelly and fist pumped as all three blades embedded themselves in a crawling cultist’s back, the spool coming down to crack open his skull and wrap the rest of the wire around the haft.

My brief amusement at killing a would be survivor faded quickly as I turned towards the yawning abyss of the supposed escape tunnel. With a long suffering sigh I started into the pit, fingering the hilt of a blade strapped to my stolen clothes waistband (my gait speeding up as the roof groaned ominously). “This is gonna suck, isn’t it?”

My eyes gleamed as I answered my own question, “For him anyway.”