Michael

I groan as I wake with someone on top of me, there is a moment just before I'm fully conscious when everything that happens goes through my mind and my heart rate increases drastically in worry as I blink my eyes to see who exactly it is on top of me. My mouth dries as I try to snuggle my way out from under one of Saya’s sisters.

I’m not exactly sure what sparks these spontaneous orgies but the last time it happened I was with Saya and everything I did while under it’s influence I did with her right beside me. Now though I found myself ‘trapped’ in a room with Nikita del’Ingwe and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop myself from indulging deeply of her body.

A shiver goes through me in remembered pleasure, a second one of unease goes down my spine at the lack of control I felt.

I untangle myself and look around from where I stand, still naked with my clothes in tethers and skewn all over the Niki’s lab. My mind is a whirlwind and I am doing my very best not to look at the naked behind of the woman I have spent at least three hours knowing very intimately before passing out. I’m not looking but the very memory of what we did causes a bulging in my loins that makes it difficult for me to walk as I look around for anything I can use as a garment.

‘’...Yes but judging by how quickly Sachi got out of her I expect that...’’

The voice trails off as the door opens and I am caught with my hands cupping my balls with a naked Nikita still sleeping not far off on the wooden floor by one of Saya’s mothers. Two of Saya’s mothers as the door opens further and I see Kuyoki with Ingwe both looking at me with completely unreadable expressions on their faces.

My previously inflated penis quickly deflates under their gazes and I cup my hands tighter, the muscles on my arms and chest flexing as the tension in my body increases. What the fuck does a guy even say in a situation like this-

Ingwe walks further into the lab and the is a change in the tone of the lighting as she enters the wards, Kuyoki staying at the door with her eyes on me like a hawk. No one says anything out loud but I suspect they are communicating and it isn’t long before Nikita is stretching awake.

‘’Mama...?’’ She asks in a soft confused voice the causes my heart rate to increase again and my loins to warm despite the situation. ‘’Shit!’’ She says next stumbling to her feet and zipping past me through a side door that shuts with a click behind her.

‘’Here,’’ Ingwe says throwing me a robe from thin air which I catch one handedly and bring it to my chest to hid my front. There is awkwardness as they both watch me and I watch them, should I be getting dressed with them watching or getting the heck out of here?

‘’Listen, about what you saw-‘’

‘’Get dressed and got to the baths, then go to the family room and be with everyone else, we will speak to you in a few hours.’’ Kuyoki says in her soft yet assertive voice that cuts through the distance between us as though she were close enough to touch.

I nod and shuffle towards her and out the door as quickly as possible. The robe is over my head a moment later and I'm jogging down the passage and up the stairs two at a time heading for the communal baths not even the ones in the building.

*

Om

I wake sitting upright with my left hand clutching a dagger and the room ice cold as the image of billowing snow from my mind fills the room. I scan my surrounding as the cold wind slowly dissipates leaving the room undisturbed as though the cutting cold was an illusion instead of a physical thing.

I breathe out a breath that mists as it leaves the warmth of my body, my heart rate decreasing again from the dream or whatever it is that just happened between Sachihiro and me. I am in him, I can feel him inside my mind much better than I ever had.

There is a strain on me, a tightening of my spiritual energy somehow that I can’t exactly put my finger on but I know Sachi just did something. I sigh again and stand from my sleeping cot, stretching my shoulders to release the pressure and ease the bruises I accumulated throughout the day. I walk to the vase on the counter and pour water into the basin as I try to think of what might be going on up in the Tundra.

What are you doing Sachi? What's going on with this blood bond we formed way back when? Questions I have no answers to.

I wash my face in the refreshing water from the vase that never empties in this sparse chamber that Master Assad got me on the outskirts of the city of Orion in a continent known as Atrium so far from home that it would take me years to travel there from here. There are a few of us that were training under Master Acamar in Pangaea still under his direction here in this strange land.

Shadow and I being the only two from Sandaria; Shadow, Leaf and I being the only ones from the Conclave. Though to be honest I’m not sure whether or not the fae are really part of the Conclave or just visitors with special privileges as they act as teachers almost as often as they act as students at the place.

I look out my window at the beautiful night depicted by the sparkling of stars above and the sparkling of the city in the distance also reminiscent of stars but I know it to be the very walls of the buildings used to make up most of the city. I have been to many fascinating places but this Atrium by far takes the cake as the most interesting.

I used to think every Barbarian warrior culture without true challenge from what I had seen of the other human tribes and races. Like back home here in Orion everyone is a warrior, from the women to the children. Even those born here and know no other place leave if they choose not to be warriors and there are tributary cities some distance from the capital waiting to accommodate them.

There is no poverty here, no hungry slaves or dying beggars in the streets. There are no city guards to keep the peace except for a few at the main city gates and I’m told at the gate to the inner city. Everyone here is dangerous but apparently there are a few organisations known to be particularly dangerous even here but none as dangerous as the royals themselves.

I look out at the distant stars and a sudden longing for home fills my chest, a longing to be with my mates and children. What am I doing here?

I trust Sachi to care for them, but he is just one man with many responsibilities as is. But he has never really asked me for anything before asking me to be part of him in that blood ritual so denying him would have been difficult even if I had wanted to.

Since then my task has been to become completely unleashed as a warrior without equal, to surpass all that have sought strength before me and be able to stand against the best of them with hammer in hand and be an unmoveable mountain. Sachi will keep the family together and raise the children as best he knows how with the help of everyone.

There are other roles divided in the growing clan Sachihi is building around himself and I do not worry that anyone’s talents will go to waste, not with Divina still keeping an eye on everything. We all have our roles, and already I am far in my mental and physical training. So far in fact that Master Acamar says one of his uncles has noticed me, I’m not sure what that implies yet but I know Acamar himself is 10x more skilled and able than I currently am.

So if an uncle of the strongest person I know notices me, what that means can only be good for me, right? Sleep, we have a big day in a few hours . The words are not words but more a feeling communication coming from my hammer I’m using as a door stopper. I glance at it and it seems like a solid stone block with a pole stuck into it, a beautifully carved pole but a simple pole none the less.

The simple appearance is very deceptive because no soul-weapon is ever simple and this one in particular is growing towards being a weapon of mass destruction all things considered. I walk back to my simple cot in the middle of the room and lie down and consider where my life is right now.

I'm in a foreign land learning ways of fighting I didn’t even know were possible less than ten years back. The unique nature of my Awakening meant I had to get specialised training and assistance in order to master my abilities while developing new skills that only someone with my specific combination of gifts and talents can nurture.

That is what everyone here training with the Celestians is trying to develop, uniqueness. I am working to become a warrior with such a completely unique set of skills and abilities that there is no specific counter for my full combat abilities in any discipline be it magic or otherwise. I am the most versatile warrior in my tier because of my images yet they aren’t my primary strength. My zanpakutō has finally fully recovered from the splitting of our soul all those years ago and though my soul is yet to become whole the soul of my weapon is complete and with that completion came access to a whole other form of combat and destruction.

Every soul-weapon is alive and sentient in its own right with a soul grown from its wielder. It takes a while for souls to heal or grow in substance and strength even for creatures with the rare talent for soul magic. But zanpakutō’s are different.

There are some things no teacher, master or sensei can teach a wielder of a soul weapon. Things that only the living manifestation of your zanpakutō can teach and one these is a Soul Art. There are so many different kinds of magic, power, abilities and they are all effective and awesome in their own ways.

I’ve seen the ground open and swallow the enemies of an elementalist, I’ve witnessed a druid recover from a mortal wound in a matter of moments, I’ve seen a grown man flayed by a breath of miasma and felt aura that stopped a two ton charging bull elephant in its tracks. Magicians, sorcerers, wizards, warriors, spellswords, druids, elementalists, priests, shapeshifters and many other types of powerful beings practicing the varied forms of power garnered from ether manipulation.

Yet from what I have seen and experienced so far in my life as a warrior and a dealer of death I still choose a Soul Art over any other discipline in the ether arts the gods gave us access to. I shut my eyes and envelop myself in what is quickly becoming my favourite image as it brings me peace and comfort and a sense of solitude, the image of darkness fills my mind and true darkness embraces me silently.

Darkness is now the easiest image for me to manifest and maintain physically, the only downside being that it is necessary to leave me blind as well for it to be true pure unfiltered darkness. I am at a point at which I use my images on a daily basis even with mundane tasks, its good practice in control and focus but if images were my main weapon using them for all to see would be giving away my hand.

My hammer five metres away right against the flimsy wooden door, and I know that no one can casually open said door with it acting as a doorstop. At least not without using some ability I have yet to come across. That is my Soul Art, that which anchors all things, weight.