Edict of the Demon, Ch 2

Wed Feb 26, 2014 3:35 am

There's something amazing about war. It's hard to describe to someone who hasn't felt thrills in the shape of fear and excitement in the form of terror. To hide behind a window and hear the glass shatter is to play Russian roulette with 5 bullets and a trigger finger. Or at least, that's how these things felt to Sora whenever he sat down and thought about it. But that's the thing about stopping to think about things -- it never makes sense when what you're stopping to think about is something that doesn't stop for anyone. The war that rages around him was defined by the way that it moved from quiet to uproar and from water to blood. It was nothing if not the chaotic stir of strategy, mistakes, and hope all bundled into one melting pot and left to burn and fume up the house.

When the metallic cling of Shuriken rang through the small corridor that he was in, Sora was almost dragged into that place of reflection. He was here for some wealthy piece of shit gambler that had gotten into some trouble with a few loan sharks. And here's the fuckin' kisser -- he could pay back all the money that he owed, but he wanted to teach the sharks a lesson. The fucker takes out a ridiculous loan, wins an even crazier amount of money, and decides he isn't going to pay up his due. Sure the loan sharks may be the lowest of scum but somehow Sora's client had managed to become dirtier. It was supposed to be an easy job, go in, take out the sharks and leave the gambler's tacky little note on the counter-top so that the people knew who not to mess with. Unfortunately, word had leaked. The fuckin' gambler had told no more than three people, including Sora, and the word had still leaked. Some shitty circle of friends.

So now the loan sharks hired much better figures to their defense. The Tal'hab were now in the building, having pin-pointed his location. He wasn't hard to find, now that they had fought him before. It was their method of tracking that had been flawed the first time. That and the fact that Tsuki, Sora's partner, was with him, was every bit of the advantage that they needed to make a clean exit. This one would not do so well. They had a way of detecting Chakra signatures, and tracing the slight trails of energy left behind from when someone was in a certain location. For their method to work properly, they needed a reliable sample of their target's Chakra. Then they would start collecting Chakra residue from different areas within growing radii until they found another match. In this same way they would trace their way outwards. Their sheer magnitude in numbers allowed them to conduct the testing faster, and cleaner. It was hard to get a good estimate of how fast they were until it was too late, and for Sora, it was too late -- they had found him.

The original intent to their form of tracking was to make sure that someone that they were interrogating never had the luxury of freedom for too long. Anyone that they tied down and tortured would also have his Chakra signature archived. It was due to this practice that one did not escape the Tal'hab, ever. Their name was a condemnation and whoever had the distinct displeasure of being in any way relevant to that group of interrogators was not gifted with a worthy death. Instead they would be found curled up in the corner of a damp brick-prison, death having negligently trampled over them, without grace nor honor.

Tsuki's solution had been simple -- use Transformation to combine with one another such that the Chakra signature was not recognizable. It would be the combination of their chakra, and the shape that it took would be random, depending on the specific parameters of the way the Jutsu was cast, which was not easy to understand or decrypt. From the chakra signature of a combined person, one could not reliably guess at the signatures of those that formed the combination. And with this, infiltration had suddenly become easier. You can't outrun the Tal'hab. They had the numbers, the camps, and the equipment to keep on the road for much longer than the average traveler. They could cross a desert without stop, one batch taking a rest while the other did the traveling by caravan, then rotating indefinitely. Their pace was uniform and stern, efficient in the one job that they knew how to do -- hunt and conquer. That's what everyone tried to do at one point or the other. They saw the Tal'hab's size and thought immediately that one person should be able to outpace such a large group of people. But few have seen them in action. Sora had.

It was years ago when Tsuki's plan had worked, and they were out in the deserts disguised as campers. There were many other campers in the vicinity and the majority of them seemed to be on some sort of pilgrimage. The chanting and humming of their pious texts set a beat to the events that followed, a rhythm for the narration of actions. Shooting at the speed of a sprinter, almost a thousand men shot past the field of sands. They moved in an arc, so it was obvious that they were only part of a larger circle, and the circle expanded at this very speed. It was akin to a tidal wave that spread over the desert and nothing could possibly match the speed of something so monstrously large. It didn't even seem like many people, just one large organism, expanding and returning to its original, humongous size, in one big burst. It was not long before the portion of the wave headed towards Sora and Tsuki passed by them.

Their hearts had stopped then. If they detected the chakra signatures, then it was game over. No way that two of them could take on hundreds of the Tal'hab. But they were not detected, specifically because these people were not looking for the right signature. But if they were, it would've been over without much of a fight. That was the power of the Tal'hab, the power of numbers, and the power of coordination.

Those conditions no longer remained, and now, they had noted Sora's signature. They had picked up his residual somewhere along the way, when he was unaware and careless. It was only a few moments before now that he was awakened by their incoming stampede. The sound of their approach up the spiraling staircase of the hotel he stayed in was deafening. It rattled his bones and the walls in the same frequency, shimmer shammer, until he could take it no more and ran for it. But it was no surprise that they had quarantined the place off, and ridden of the bystanders. Bodies lay everywhere and the stench of wet iron was thick. He was now two buildings away from his hotel, in a small shabby multi-floored mall. The signs on the walls were all of a faded gray tone, having once had their own variety. The Katakana used was out of style, a bubbly tradition of a decade ago. What a shitty place to die, he thought as he checked his inventory.

He had three Kunai. And on each of them were the small inscriptions of explosive tags. He had enough chakra to light all of them, but not enough to light them to max. It would be a good diversion, at best, but not enough to thwart even the crew running up the stairs. What a cocky bunch they were, aware of their numbers, aware of their advantage. To go far as to give up the topographic advantage to Sora, knowing full well that no matter what he did to the arriving crew, they had another and another and another in wait. It was a nightmare, he reflected. Afterall, it had all the pieces that a nightmare had. The premise was absurd, like all nightmares. One man against an army. They wanted him alive, so that they could change him to being dead on their own terms, after having altered every cell of his being to their will.

They were six floors beneath him and his breath had gotten quieter than silence. The complete lack of noise only amplified each rubber boot that trod one step closer to him with their intentions of murder. He looked down, seeing the dirty tops of their helmets. They must have traveled forever to have found him all this way. But it was hard to think of them as individual people. Having operated so long as one large organism, it didn't come naturally to think of them as each individual cell, working its job and providing its micro-functionality for the larger effort. But it was true, they were all people.

The back of his head pressed up against the iron bars that he was leaning against. The bars vibrated in unison with his hunters so it felt like a kind of betrayal -- as if even the bars were not on his side. They were spectators to what was going to happen, unwilling to offer a helping hand. The whole building was the same, quivering with anticipation as around a hundred men approached him, now only five flights below. He checked his inventory, his mind suffering from a deep and relentless blankness. Was this the feeling of hopelessness that he had felt when pinned against the wall in front of Oyashira, by Genbu the Chess Master? He couldn't tell the difference between being without hope and without a plan.

In his hand he held three explosive notes.

They were simple creations that were too complicated for him to comprehend. The ancient Kanji and equations on them were the paths that methane and hydrogen needed to take in order to be ignited properly. But in the earlier models, all that was required was for the fire to be lit and it would explode within a few seconds. This caused quite a few problems for Fire Users who would ignite the exploding tags in their utility belts by mistake, killing themselves in the process. To make the weapons more viable, an activation seal was installed. That was what differentiated today's model from the older ones. It did not explode if it was not activated, and without being turned on, lighting it on fire did nothing but burn paper.

Staring at these notes, he heard them arrive four floors below him. Each flight of stairs was a tick on the clock and when it tolled, it would be his capture and imminent demise. The beads of sweat that trickled down his face were a nervous and cold sort. How had Tsuki done it all those times? He saw things that other people didn't, not out of some power but out of his intellect. Pressing his back against the steel bars, Sora thought of the friend he had lost, about the prodigy that he was and how these sorts of brick walls were more like road-bumps for someone the likes of him. And in that moment Sora felt like a grunt, a ground soldier that needed orders to accomplish the task at hand. There wasn't anything he could do on his own, not the thought, not the planning, not the diplomacy.

But that's when it hit him. If Sora was a soldier, if the Demon was nothing more than a pair of hands to hold a pair of weapons, then that meant the Tal'hab were the same. They were hired work, trained and nurtured into the mentality required to be part of their group, but in the end they were not the thinkers. You can't have a group of a thousand thinkers. You can have a thousand soldiers and one thinker. That was it. 'All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power will corrupt absolutely. Humans are no different than animals when it comes to the laws of nature ,' he thought, a cold chill running up his spine. That's it. He was a soldier and so were they. While they were paid and trained to go out and die in the fields -- death was not their intent. They wanted to be paid, do the work, and leave. The Tal'hab were no different. They were here on orders, commanded to do so by some mastermind in a soft chair seated upon his golden throne. The rich could afford the romantic mindsets, the passionate rallies and all, while it was the poor that actually died.

And when it was the poor that died, it meant it was the poor that feared.

He understood the feeling. There was a certain thrill that came with warfare, knowing that someone else's wits was put directly against yours. But what happens when the contest is over? Surely there is a point where you understand that the enemy is ahead of you in some sort. Maybe they have greater numbers, greater preparation, or just greater raw power and now you're lying in the mercy of fate. Does it remain a thrill? Is it still the same enticing excitement that captures you when you realize that some fat man with too much money on his hands is the reason you're going to die? Not even a proper funeral pyre for your mangled corpse. That can't be what all of the events in your life was meant to culminate to, right?

And that's when the cowardice kicks in. No soldier is immune to that instant of dreadful regret for having ever tangled with this sort of thing. It will always be, suddenly, more appealing to flea and recover and hide away from all of this warfare until it passed over like a sandstorm.

He was reminded of the feeling he had while pinned to Oyashira's wall, the feeling of dread that he should give up his life for something he didn't even believe in. Did everyone in the Tal'hab believe that Sora should be caught? Were they as eager as their leader about extracting the knowledge Sora held? Or were they pawns caught between the grip of death and the hold of their master? 'Humans are no different than animals when it comes to the laws of nature,' he repeated in his mind as he looked at his explosive notes. If he blew them at the stairwell, he could take out maybe a dozen of the Tal'hab. But the explosion would signal the ones waiting outside to jump in, and Sora would be cornered. But what if there was no explosion?

What if he could stop the upwards movement of the crew beneath him while not having to kill them, and thus not triggering the Tal'hab outside into action? He would need to use the only thing worse than death -- the fear of death. ' They will grovel and growl at the sight of danger, and they will reign and roar at the taste of dominance.' Now they roared because they had him trapped and set to death. But what if that understanding, that assumption was taken away from them, and in its place they were met with the cold presence of fear once again? What happens when they have to make the active decision to walk to their deaths? Would they do it? Did they believe that Sora was as wanted as their mastermind had wanted them to believe? Or were these foot soldiers like Sora, doing what it took for money, but not ready to put the mission ahead of their lives? There was only one way to tell, and if the gamble didn't pay off, he was out of ideas.

''They can not help the inner dirty ape that makes them who they are. Wearing clothes and writing books does not change the filthy soul that was granted to us by God.'

The faint chink of metal embedding itself into stone resounded through the hall. The notes landed on the fourth floor, pinned there by the Kunai attached to them. He leaned over the railing to watch, to dare to hope. He could see them turning the corner onto the fourth floor, the brown dune-walker garbs they wore seemed to mes together and amplify the feeling that these people were one in the same creature. The small marking of the Tal'hab clan could not be missed, as it was a bright gold embroidered onto the ark leathery brown of their over-scarf. While all of their faces were covered, making them all look somewhat like different permutations of the same person, their eyes could be seen, and it was these eyes that he watched intently as they tuned perpendicular to his angle of sight. The next flight of stairs was the one with the explosive kunai on them, and the requiem between the kunai was deafening.

Then they saw it.

'We live our lives predictably, fighting wars and killing innocent women and children because the head of the pack had told us to.' And they stopped dead in their paths. He first five or so at the very front signaled the ones behind them to come to a complete halt, and in the pregnant absence of sound that ensued, they stared at the explosive note. The small fire he had lit at the bottom of each one worked its way upwards, but the paper was turned the other way such that they would not be able to see if it was activated or not. More importantly -- they would not realize that it was not. And the glorious stillness that conquered the scene was just the opportunity Sora needed.

Whirling around he pulled at the closest door until it came off of its hinges. Then he laid the door against the window sill, giving himself a long ramp to run on. Then, before taking the leap, he yanked off one of the bars on the railing. The many that stood below him looked upwards now at their target, realizing that they were giving Sora enough time to make his escape without alerting the ones outside. And when they did realize what was going on, more than a few of them reached to their headsets to broadcast the signal. But it was, of course, too late. 'We shit and eat and shit and eat like rats in a maze because our masters say so. This is the fate of all despicable animals, and it is the fate of ours.' They had allowed fear to grasp them and hold them still for too long. Flinging the iron bar towards the opposite window and shattering it, Sora sent out a large beacon to distract anyone outside. Those that waited along the roof-tops would look to see what had made its quick exit from that window and for that split second they would not notice Sora.

Turning away from the window he had just smashed with the bar, Sora launched himself out of the window close to him, and suddenly the clustered interior of the building gave way to the aggressive open air of freedom. The basking sun felt like a boon upon his skin as the wind congratulated him upon every hair along his skin. Those that saw him in time made what noise o signal they could, but it was not the reaction time they would have needed to catch someone of his caliber.

Swiftly, he landed on the nearest rooftop.

He could not hide the smile that stretched his face into a wide grin. There were four Tal'hab waiting for him on that roof. Much too few. He drew his swords with a scintillating pleasure, and ran at all four of them. They were not quick enough and two of them had already been cut wide open before the other two could react. They formed hand-seals as fast as they could but one of them found his hands cleanly cut off. The other, having finished some sort of Fireball Jutsu, found that he could not fire it fast enough, because the Demon was before him, and then he was dead. The blood flew like carnival fireworks and Sora let out a guttural and base groan, the sort that one hears in the deepest pit of the netherworld. 'Never forget this, Sora, because when it comes time that you are faced with an enemy so large you can not see the top of his greatness, you might forget that he is human.' Just human. Despicable humans. The same humans that had been, time and time again, conquered by those smarter and stronger than them. The same humans that searched the world like beggars and slaves for the answer to immortality and life. His grin widened.

He knew of that dirty underbelly of the world. There was no avoiding the fact that the people were not willing puppets. They were tools, for sure, but their ideals did not change. He remembered how things worked when he was ordered to give his life on the line for the mission. The appropriators for the mission thought that this made perfect sense. They had a goal and they were paying top dollar for some of these hired workers. But the thing is, these hired workers were not getting paid top enough dollar. Not enough for their lives. But don't tell that to the guy giving the speeches, because he will be convinced that the goal is always ahead of the verdict. When it came time for the mission, it was almost a hidden understanding that there would be no lives lost on the line. If shit hit the fan, they would retreat and they would flea, because their lives weren't worth the pay check they got. But they couldn't say that to the guy paying them. It was certain that there were people out there that would be crazy enough to die for this useless crap. So if Asura walked out, someone else would step in, and that would mean Asura would just be that much poorer.

Instead these people nodded their heads and accepted that this was the right path to go. You agree that you will die for the mission, you agree that the mission is much more important than your life. Then when the time comes, you turn your head. The consequences afterwards was, by definition, always better than dying a useless death. This was the way with mercenaries. You don't get the kind of dedication that you would expect from loyal soldiers, because they are loyal for only a fleeting instant of time. In this window of loyalty they build no ties that might cloud their survive instinct. In this window of loyalty they just learn how to hide their disloyalty, cash their cheque, and move on.

Tsuki would have been proud. He would have seen what Sora did and he would have laughed the same way Sora laughed now as he vaulted from one building's top to the next. And while Tsuki's face might not have contorted into the terrible shape that the Demon's had, he would still be pleased, and perhaps even impressed. He had done it. He had finally done it on his own. The Tal'hab was not an impenetrable idea in his mind - it was not an absolute that he could not fathom overcoming. They were breakable. Like any army they suffered from the fact that any sort of command, regardless of how powerfully planned, would in the end trickle down to the hands of men and women.

By the time the Tal'hab had regrouped, Sora was long gone. And when they regained formation and sent out their waves and waves of trackers, they would not find him, because he did not underestimate them. He ran in a straight line until he was certain that their radius of operation had been surpassed and they had been left behind.

---
WC: 4000
+20 SP, +40 JP

Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:26 pm

accepted

Edict of the Demon, Ch 2

Edict of the Demon, Ch 2

Re: Edict of the Demon, Ch 2