Ark 20 Episode 20: Sometimes it takes monsters to kill monsters

             Like so many times before Yasei floated in a deep, black world, no consciousness to tell him what was going on in the world. Nothing, that’s all that enveloped him, simple nothingness. Jack stood on the outside of the healing tank wondering how to open those damn locks on the side, soon enough though, they popped open with a hiss and Yasei’s naked body fell forward slightly slimy. He didn’t expect the sliminess but had clothes for his son and wiped him off with his shirt, tossing the ruined shirt back into the tank. The floor had a wash of slime from the tank that Jack had to step over and he almost slipped and fell onto the floor. “Shit... Where do they get this stuff?” He pursed his lips and concentrated on not letting the slime get the better of him. Soon enough, Jack cleared the minefield of slime and wiped his brow before sneaking his way back out of the medical wing. The guards that usually stood sentry outside of the door he dealt with on the way in and they were still knocked out, slumped on the floor. He smirked his trademark smirk and waltzed out of the whole facility with Yasei in hand.

A ways from the building, hidden from the usual fair of boats and other water craft sat a small, three person high speed, high performance yacht that Kotone Fujiwara stood on waiting for Jack to return. She waved to him and helped him get Yasei settled in the hold of the yacht and finished cleaning the slime off. “What the hell happened to him?” She asked toweling the kid vigorously since the slime was a bit hardened where it was left.

“Healing tank, they attach stuff to you and put you in this primordial goop that’ll heal you up in the GMAFS.” Jack shrugged and rummaged around the place for another shirt to fit him. He pulled one out of his suitcase and threw it to Kotone who caught it. She shook her head at him and shooed him upstairs to get the yacht started.

It wasn’t long before the boat sped away from the islands and back to land. The yacht taking as much time as she cruise ship did, the cruise ship going slow for the vacation aspect and the yacht not as fast but not dawdling. A black car, an old Impala, waited for them at the dock when they arrived and took them back to Jack’s base of operations; Kotone sat in front while Jack sat in the back driver’s side with Yasei sort of leaning against him. He held his son in such a way to keep him protected from unexpected bumps or sharp turns though to Kotone there seemed to be another meaning behind it; she wasn’t correct. They sped along unused roads and highways that were nearly empty, the car speeding through the blank spaces of the infrastructure so that hardly anyone would see them or know where they were going. Night fell as they drove, the lights slowly blinking on ahead of them in a line, like light racing them to no end and soon they looked like blurs, streamers outside the tinted windows. Soon enough the car braked to a halt inside of a parking garage underneath a large, nondescript warehouse like building with no windows or doors besides that of an elevator in the garage. Kotone got out of the car and helped Jack grab Yasei and situate him on his back like a backpack. They trudged over to the elevator and the car sped back out of the garage. The elevator opened on its own like shopping center doors and closed behind them with the same automation. Kotone reached over and pressed one of the plethora of buttons that lined one wall of the utilitarian steel wall. Within Jack’s compound, it was all sorts of industrial but with its own comforts stitched into its fabric, like crazy colored carpets in one hallway or gruesome paintings dotting a sitting room. “Going up?” Kotone asked to sort of break the gloom that decided to descend on the pair. “Medical wing. I need to get Yasei strapped in before his oni starts to wreak havoc on him.” He leaned over his longtime friend and pressed another shiny silvered button. Soon enough once they were situated, Kotone pressed the start button and the elevator started moving, sideways no less. This elevator installed could move sideways through the large building as well. It had special tracks and tounge & groove type mechanisms in the corners that could take the elevator from going up or down to left or right with ease. The elevator dropped after a while and they lurched a bit from the momentum’s transfer of direction but fixed themselves easily. An uneasy silence fell between the two of them but before it could be rectified, Kotone got off at her floor tersely smiled at him before disappearing through the corridor. Again the elevator lurched to the side and then down a little ways, Yasei was still dead to the world and save for his breathing and sporadic heartbeat he looked it too.

The medical facility Jack had in his compound was large, high tech and nearly all of it custom made with help from Kotone that is. A few people in lab coats scurried around the large floor checking various gauges and charts, fixing settings on devices and doing other sort of lab-rat type work. Once they saw Jack walk through with someone, three of the lab-coats walked over and helped clear out a special area for Jack to do his work. This whole process would be long, arduous and difficult at best but it needed done, Yasei had to do it or he’d spiral into a world Jack never wanted for him, a world of more torment without release. He set Yasei down on a medical bed that he could lift vertical if needed, it had straps to hold his body down made from a special carbon fiber fabric with enhancements capable of withstanding the forces of oni strength straining against the bonds. It looked cruel as the lab-coats stripped Yasei down to a pair of skin-tight stretchy pants and strapped his body to the bed. They strapped him into an EEG machine to monitor his brain activities, electrodes to monitor his heart rate and sensors to check his breathing and other autonomous functions. By the time they had him hooked to their machines, he looked like some strange experiment and when Jack was satisfied that if anything went wrong, he could see what it was and how to fix it, they strapped him tight to the table, his arms slightly spread from his body and the same with his legs. Now the unconscious body of Yasei looked more like a mental patient than Jack’s child. All the lab-coats left the area and Jack stood there, his mind flashing nearly a thousand thoughts a second it seemed, every possibility racing around him until it made his head swim and he shook it to clear himself. He ran a hand through his black hair and smiled down at his kid before ghosting his hand over Yasei’s arm, a mild shock of lightning much like static arced from his palm to the still pale, clammy skin. Yasei jerked against his bonds.

This blackness enveloping Yasei swam around his vision like a liquid fabric coating his eyes in a film of nothingness. He knew where he was, he’d been here before once or twice, and his mind was a strange place as it was but something didn’t feel right this time. Yasei’s right arm felt tingly and a bit like something was stabbing him with a needle or two. ‘That’s what woke me up... Where am I?’ He started walking forward through the all encasing blackness until a light, a pinprick of light, showed up at the edge of his mind world. That light would bring him back to consciousness; Yasei knew that already so he walked forward toward it until his body felt like a searing mess of fire in his bones. Outside, Jack could see Yasei trying to wake up and sent shocks through his body with enough force to keep him unconscious. Yasei fell to the ground and felt the blackness swim around his eyes again.

He woke up in his mind world again a little while later standing in a room with a chair and a single swinging light, the floor looked like concrete and the chair was old and metal, rusty and with bars for a back and no cushion on the seat. The light swung ominously and turned into a noose, still producing that swinging light like the bulb before. A figure with deeply tanned skin ashen in tone, bright glittering gold eyes, pale white hair and a white, clean pressed suit walked forward. He reminded Yasei of that bastard Arcturus and he snarled, trying to run forward. He realized that he was chained to a wall, the metal links clinking against the other. The figure smiled softly and chuckled, clicking his tounge lightly at Yasei.  

''‘Uh uh uh. We can’t have you getting away now can we?’ ''Its voice was soft, soothing almost but most like a snakes, poisoned and deadly. He walked forward with the noose and slipped it taught around Yasei’s neck. ''‘I hope you don’t mind this little decoration, it’ll set the mood. Do you know why you’re here?’'' Yasei shook his head and strained some more against his bonds. ''‘Tsk tsk, you know you can’t escape, why even try. I have a few people who want to talk to you. Just a few, not too many, they want to have a word with you, at what you’ve done to them. Nothing too big, some questions, that’ all my dear Yasei.’ '' The figure faded into the blackness but reappeared next to Yasei, on further inspection, he looked exactly like the polar opposite of Yasei, where everything was black, there was white and vice versa. Yasei strained again against the bonds and felt the noose nearly start to choke him to death so with a bit of a snarl, he eased up. That figure had a smile on his face as someone; a small, lithe girl who looked malnourished stepped forward, sitting on the chair. She had stick like brown hair that looked thin and matted with blood and knots, her bones stuck through her body and she looked like her head had been bruised and broken in a lot of places. The girl looked no older than 12 but sniveled and sniffled like a 4 year old. As she spoke her vibrantly blue eyes threatened to spill over with tears and you could hear the holes in her tone.

‘''Yasei, do you know what you did to me?’ ''

Yasei blinked, that was Jamie, the first orphan he tried to help on the streets. What was she doing here? ‘I-I…’

''‘You left me in that alley way when we were 12, you promised you’d find us a home. You said you’d save me, there was supposed to be food, and a real blanket. There was a future for us, and others like me, you said you found a place, for me, and my sisters. I-I saw it, it was real but you left me in the alley. H-He came for me and you ran, you ran away and he took me, he grabbed my head and smashed it against the wall Yasei and threw me to the ground. I couldn’t move, my head was swimming and-a-and...’ ''

Yasei blinked again, he didn’t leave her, he ran up to the top of as best as he could and was going to jump on the guy from above, he never ran away. That was the last thing on his mind, running away, he was a fighter, someone who ran into battle and was the last to stay, and running isn’t in his vocabulary. ''‘I didn’t run, I... Needed a better vantage point, he was too big to rush...’ ''

''‘You left me down there, by myself and I died Yasei. Remember this face and how poor of judgment you have.’ ''She faded away and at the same time, tightened the noose around his neck slightly.

More and more people showed up at the chair, departing their story, how they died by his hands or because of him. Each time they left, the noose tightened around his neck, making it harder and harder to breathe. He was choking on his own flaws, his own mistakes and soon enough he couldn’t take it, he was unraveling bit by bit into the person he never wanted, raw and flayed at the core, spiraling into a growing depression. The figure that stood by Yasei couldn’t help but smile the whole time at what was happening, it was his goal, as his oni inside, to make Yasei break so he could take control. The second to last person walked up to the chair looking as surprised as he did the moment he died. Naoto nervously twitched a few times and looked at Yasei. Instead of Naoto trying to make Yasei snap, he did something to make Yasei a hair confused. ''‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have any choice, once I saw him. He would have killed me, killed me and found her then killed her. I got stuck and, and I couldn’t find a way out. And you needed to see how cruel the world was, you can’t always try and follow your code, there’s no room for forgiveness or mercy. I learned that quickly, the world doesn’t work that way.’ ''Yasei looked at Naoto with the rage of a thousand demons pent up over months. His gaze glared daggers straight through Naoto’s personage and could melt the flesh off his bones. Naoto stood firm, still nervous but stock still and calm. ''‘I don’t care what reasons you had, or what he did to you, if I ever got the chance to fucking murder you again, I would. I would not hesitate to fucking slaughter you like the animal you were. You fucking selfish pig.’ ''Yasei spat on the ground in front of Naoto, his lungs burning and his throat on fire. Naoto left the room like all the others and before Yasei could do anything else, a whimper sounded from a dark corner. That whimper sounded young, scared and naïve, the sound of someone who wanted to bury their head in someone’s chest just to keep the monsters away. He knew that voice well for he comforted that person more often in dark nightmares like this before. He didn’t want to look and Yasei shut his eyes involuntarily. The figure beside him shook his head and forced Yasei’s eyes open and held his face toward the chair as the scared 8 year old Natsuhi Kururugi sat crying, her feet dangling off the metal surface. Snot covered her face where her nose ran as much as her eyes and she wore the same beautiful blue sweater Naoto got for her. The only thing wrong with this picture was the big gaping hole in the sweater and the giant tear in her flesh where Yasei stabbed her. Natsuhi looked up at him with her big pleading emerald eyes before talking. ''‘Are you mad at me Yasei-senpai?’ ''

For the second time in Yasei’s life, he broke.

‘Why would I be mad at you Natsuh?’ He replied as softly as he could manage. She simply pointed to the wound in her chest and more tears trailed down her face. The 8 year old sniffled loudly and looked down at the concrete. Yasei didn’t know what to say, what to do to make her feel better, he was stuck chained to the wall and with that damned noose around his neck. From outside, Jack saw Yasei struggling to keep himself afloat by the patterns on the EEG machine and jolted him once more. Back in the room, Yasei felt the surge of electricity flowing through his body but welcomed the pain and felt his own inner mind focus on the task at hand, he had to help Natsuh and that bastard next to him wasn’t helping. ‘I’ll get you out of here Natsuh, I promise you the bad men will go away and no one will hurt you.’ He focused each and every muscle in his body to cooperate with his wishes and tapped into his demon like strength, straining against his bonds. First, his left arm broke free from the chains and then his right, his two legs followed and he still strained, the chains on his chest shattering off of his form with a thousand clinking shards of metal. He grabbed the noose his demon and those he did wrong so meticulously tied around his neck and broke the rope, sliding it from his head with a swift movement. Yasei walked forward and picked Natsuh back up in his arms, cradling her form as he did after he killed her. She started sobbing before her image dissolved in his grasp.

<p class="MsoNormal">Seconds passed before Yasei moved again, he knew what he must do now and it started with this man who was so familiar but so terrible and finally he turned to face him. ''‘What other hells do you have for me you bastard?’ ''

<p class="MsoNormal">''‘Just this.’ ''The scene changed and Yasei stood before three doors, chained shut but each with a bullet where the lock would sit. Each door meant one answer, one chance to get what he wanted, provided he knew what he wanted in the end.

<p class="MsoNormal">''“These doors are the tickets to your freedom. One is the easiest path to take letting me consume you so nothing but your oni remains, two is the cowards way out, you let your body fail and you die leaving no end goal but escaping everything, three is the hardest, you rebel and forge your own path through many more sorrows, many more guilts and many more losses. If you don’t choose wisely, you will be broken.’ ''

<p class="MsoNormal">Yasei thought for only two seconds before he walked toward the doors.

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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center">~Meanwhile~

<p class="MsoNormal">Yasei struggled the whole time in the medi-bay and Kotone didn’t want to see any part of it. Suffering for the greater good never quite suited her fancy, especially having to see Jack try and help his son go through it. He was her closest friend besides Beans and the thought pained her more than it did Jack. The practical side of her knew though that Yasei would need a weapon to better suit his new coming abilities and immediately knew the answer to that open question. She would ‘forge’ him a sword. To Kotone, forging a sword meant of course building it from scratch with all the tech she could jam into it without making it too complicated. She set to work designing the entire thing first, sketching the work life sized on drafting paper. The sheath would contain a gun like mechanism that could, with a pull of a trigger, shoot the blade out at high speeds to aid in momentum. The blade itself was one the Hitsugi clan forged for a sword that never got made and had it altered ever so slightly to be able to take in Chi from the user and use it in his attacks. This was achieved through a special crystal rod she inserted into the hilt that was specifically lab made to be a perfect chi storage device, a battery if you will. When Yasei would hold the sword, the crystal would draw chi from his body and store it as well as use it for his attacks. The last bit of tech she built into the sword was the basic ability to harness lightning from his chi that he may or may not have by the time this whole ordeal was over. She looked over her simple design and smiled, walking over to her walk in storage closet to grab her tools and materials. With all the necessary gear in hand the techie got to work building.

<p class="MsoNormal">The whole building process took her about two hours of work to do but the wiring was giving her issues, hence the two hours of building. Once it was done, it looked a bit bulky but despite its size or relative thickness, it was all made from lightweight materials that were both strong, flexible enough to take a lot of damage and not break and highly durable. If anything happened to this sword she would be more surprised than someone winning the lottery. Before placing it on the rack in her work space, she super-heated her maker’s stamp and branded her seal into the bottom of the sheath cap, a bean shape on top of a circuit board. She picked the blade up and spun the whole thing around in her hands a few times to test how balanced it felt and when she was satisfied she wouldn’t have to add a bit more weight to it, she slapped the thing up on her wall for later and walked over to the elevator doors. Kotone wanted to go check on Jack and Yasei, she knew she wouldn’t want to stay long nor let them know she was here, but she wanted to see how things were going.

<p class="MsoNormal">Jack stood by Yasei’s side, his hands resting on Yasei’s arm. A powerful surge of lightning shocked the boy again, this was the best way to keep his mind alert and functioning whenever the EEG spiked in the wrong direction. He noticed Kotone hovering just outside the area he and Yasei were in and smiled slightly at her, wearily though. The process was at a standstill until Yasei consumed what was inside of him, whatever was happening in Yasei’s head, Jack was sure it happened quicker than he thought it probably should take. “This is going faster than Kuroi...” “Hm?” Kotone asked, walking forward a bit more. “Oh nothing, Yasei’s twin. I had to go through the same process with him but he was younger, much younger and well, it almost didn’t work but he managed it. I didn’t know what I was doing with him but I do for Yasei... Kuroi was different from Yasei, a bit more of a classy kid and had his own grand ideas of the world. He left with his own grand ideas following some people and I haven’t seen him since.” Kotone sort of frowned a bit but nodded, Yasei strained hard against his bindings and she looked sidelong at him. Whatever he was going through looked painful.

<p class="MsoNormal">Yasei stood, bent over slightly with heavily bruised ribs and a searing pain dragging up and down his nerves. His breathing was ragged and he looked a sorry sight, his shirt sometime before was torn off and his hair looked even more wild than usual. Blood trickled down a small cut on his forehead down one side of his face, in an instant he shot forward. He twisted around with an arcing kick toward his oni’s head; his oni of course much stronger caught it and twisted Yasei around to the ground all in one swift movement. So far, Yasei was losing, badly. There wasn’t much more of this he could keep up without going crazy, every move he threw at his oni, countered, blocked or taken with little ill effects save a few bruises. Something had to be done to tip the scales but Yasei couldn’t quite figure out how to do it with an opponent who knew him better than he knew himself most of the time. His oni had Yasei pinned and was pulling is arm back and up, nearly dislocating the thing, Yasei screamed in pain and his body tied on the medical bed writhed. Sickeningly Yasei’s arm gave way from the socket and popped out of place, falling useless to the ground as his oni let it go. He gritted his teeth and exhaled a long, sharp breath through the barriers and thought. The only way to he could triumph here was to catch that damned oni off guard somehow but that was going to be damn near impossible. Yasei caught something, a spark of inspiration and found a single thread of an idea that would work; this thread lasted not even a second of time before Yasei sprang into action. He shifted his body and even though his oni kept him pinned, he leaned forward and head-butted him hard. That was enough to buy him a precious second or two that he used to shove his oni off him and use his body weight to pin the bugger in return. Yasei straddled his oni with his knees pressing hard against both the arms under him, it didn’t matter that his legs were still useful; his oni couldn’t do anything with them.

<p class="MsoNormal">‘This ends now.’ Was the last thing Yasei said before snapping his oni’s neck in one hard twist with his one good arm.

<p class="MsoNormal">Instantly things changed, the color in Yasei’s eyes began shifting, gold flowing like ink in water through the silvered irises until they were all nearly the same vibrant gold as his father’s. His oni seemingly started to dissolve into this chalky like smoke below him and with each hitching, ragged breath; Yasei breathed the essence in, absorbing the chi from the now dead being. His senses sharpened, his body felt like it was on fire and he became hyper-aware of everything around him. He didn’t know what happened at first but as he absorbed his oni, it suddenly became clear. His powers grew infinite and spread out in his body like a river of lightning. Pure energy surged through him and he felt as if the cosmos surged through him and back out with each breath. It was nearly too much and soon enough, the sensation stopped and he felt as normal as he could.

<p class="MsoNormal">Jack looked at Kotone and smiled at her, success so far but he wasn’t done yet. She smiled back and decided to leave Jack to his business. He bent over and placed his hands on Yasei’s head, either side, he let a trickle of his chi flow into Yasei. Internally, Yasei latched onto that bit of chi like he did grabbing Arcturus’ neck, the chi manifested into a shadowed form of a lightning seal. His blood and DNA, the part Jack gave to him resonated with the bit of chi from Jack and tried to slip it to itself. Yasei opened his inner mind up and let the chi figure flow into his body, the same way that his Oni dissolved and he absorbed it. Once that was gone, a tingle of electricity surged through his nerves, he felt charged like a battery. He finished it, it was over and now Yasei felt like he needed to wake up but as the adrenaline died down his own energy faded and he blanked out into sleep this time. His body topside went still and his breathing became even and regular again though each time he took a breath it sounded somewhat like a growl. Jack gave a half smile at his son and nodded, deciding to leave the room because Yasei was now a bit unbearably hot and an aura flamed up around him, radiating in a black color with flecks of white mingling in it. His son was now an Oni and there wasn’t anything that could stop him from taking on what he needs to do.