Nightmare Scape [solo, nk]

Kanae woke up, screaming. She had the nightmare again, the one that always reset her developing cheerfulness. Ever since she had met Kiranomo and Maku (Daiyuki too), the nightmare hadn't made her any less happy for long periods of time, but it still distressed her, and gave her many a sleepless night. But this time, there had been something new in the nightmare, something even more scary. She shook her head, wiping away the tears. Excersize, training. That always made her feel much better. Maybe she would work out some, maybe she would just beat something up, the night-shift training ground was there for her pleasure.

Stepping out into the cold night air wearing a thin, white dressing gown, Kanae didn't notice the cold. She was too busy trying to deal with the trauma of the dream she had just experienced. As always, it had started out happy, but then had gone down the drain... she breathed deeply, then exhaled. Finally, she began to walk toward towards the training grounds, not noticing that she had forgotten her shoes. Barefoot, but somehow not shivering, she made it to the training grounds, and wiped her cold feet of the snow that lined her soles.

The dream... it was always like this. Always so happy at first, but then it grew darker around the edges, and by the time you noticed it, it was far too late to do anything about it. Kanae always found herself sitting on a sofa with her mother, while her father took a picture of them. Little Kanae always smiled widely, her father was a good man, and her mother took good care of them both, strong woman that she was. They sat down to eat dinner, and her father went in to change to his more casual outfit, while her mother sat there, reading the newspaper. 


Sighing, Kanae walked up to a punching bag. It was one for lower level genin, not very heavy. Hmph! Well, she could definitely try to take this on, despite her weak strength. Huh! Hmph! Her punches rained on the sides of the bag, making it move slightly, but not by much. "Come on, move, stupid thing!" She concentrated her strength, dealing blow after blow to the same parts of the bag over and over again. The balance of the bag went off, and it jiggled around unecessarily. Ugh... she kept going, and exhausted herself quickly. It was like beating someone up who didn't want to be beaten up...

No.... what was this? As soon as she thought she was safe from the nightmare, this always happened. Suddenly, her mother seemed more worn, and bottles of quality beer appeared randomly around the house. Oh no.... she always hated this part. Instead of her father coming out of the hallway, her stepfather appeared, giving off a handsome, refined air. From her mother's perspective, he was a fine man, someone who could support her and her mourning, slightly depressed daughter. Well, sorry to disappoint you, Oka-san, but that man has more to him than meets the eye. He didn't marry you because of you. He married you to get his mitts on me...
 
She knew what she had to do now, she had to adjust the timing of her strikes for maximum effect on the punching bag. Yes, of course, she couldn't just swing wildly. She took an initial punch at the bag, causing it to swing forward, then back. The moment it reached the apex, where it swung back at her, she moved the fist that she punched with back, and her other one forward. It worked, the force of the punch propelling the bag forward, to a greater extent than it had before. All she had to do, in order to defeat someone, then was timing? No, that wasn't all. 

As soon as her mother kissed her father (what a faker than man was. How could he have given vows to this woman.... to be "faithful" to her until death??! It was as if solemn promises meant absolutely nothing to him. She watched as her mother went out the door, and then sat down limply. Kanae's father walked over to her, standing there, casting his shadow upon her. He smiled. "Now, be a good girl, and go to my room. If you tell your mother about anything that's about to happen, I'll get rid of her, got it?" Kanae remembered when this had actually happened for the first time... she had felt confused. What was her stepfather going to do? She found out soon enough.


No, that was definitely not all that was needed. Kanae had to be persistent as well, the punching bag swung back at her, just like an enemy reeling from an attack only to come back with an attack of his own. Kanae met bag with fist again, this being the fist she had first attacked with. Pow! It hurt a little, but it was worth it, seeing the bag swing back to the other side again. However, it seemed that persistence wasn't enough, because the bag would come back again and again. Kanae had to keep going, but do what? What else was needed?

Kanae walked into her stepfather's room, and he followed her, closing and locking the door behind him. He shut off the lights, and turned on a small desk lamp. "We've got to set the right environment, huh, bitch?" He said. It was at this point that Kanae knew that something was about to go terribly wrong. Why the sudden bad language? Why the locking of the door? No.... it was off. 


"Take it all off. Now." 


She shook her head. That was something her mother had taught her never to do. Was her stepfather about to hurt her? Yes, he was. He slapped her, and beat her for about a minute, until she begged him to stop. "Oto-san.... please... stop hurting me!" 


"Then you'll do as I say, huh?" Kanae stood shakily to her feet, and slowly let her nightgown tumble to the floor. Her stepfather spun her around, and seized her shoulders...


Now, speed. Letting the bag swing the other way, Kanae moved, using her favorite circle step to move around the bag as it headed toward the other side. As she was midway to the opposite position from where she was standing, Kanae noticed that the bag had already started swinging back toward where she had just been standing. Ah, she wouldn't make it in time! As she circle stepped, she pushed off the ground and toward her destination, completing her movement in time to see the bag coming back. "Gotcha!" She slammed her left fist again into the bag, making sure to have precise timing, sending it back to the other side. Now, what final thing was needed to beat an enemy... what could she use to stop the bag?


As her stepfather sat back on his bed, breathing heavily and eyes closed with euphoria, Kanae collapsed on the ground, wracked with pain. As if the beating hadn't hurt bad enough... She cried silently. During this, she had learned very quickly not to scream or to cry openly, as that came with a load of physical punishment. Somewhere, there through the blur of tears and the excruciating pain, she could smell a little something... blood? Her tears dripped onto the carpet, making the dark bruise on her left cheek wet. She closed her eyes... and wished that this would all be over. But it had only just begun.



The bag swung out, then descended upon her once more like a vengeful angel from the depths (oh, Kiranomo), and Kanae was ready, leaping forward, she would disrupt the punching bag's timing as it reached its lowest point in altitude, and slam her forearms in an X shape against it, one behind the other. "Kata sequence #b6... Juumonji". The bag stopped dead in its tracks, and Kanae stood, stretching her tired muscles. Wow, that had actually been a pretty good sequence of training right there. Kanae's body told her to get back in her room and sleep, but she didn't want to. The punching bag was only the beginning.

Every time the nightmare came upon her (usually on Wednesdays, when her mother was out all night for charity business), Kanae had to experience every single one of her "little quality times" (as he called it) with her stepfather. Every time, she would appear in his room, and the same routine would happen again. She would just stand there, until prompted to "take it off". At first, she resisted a little, but soon, gave up trying and just complied. After a while, the pain also stopped. The only reason she wept was for the loss of her own innocence... for her own uselessness... for the happy life she could have had... and for sheer hatred of the man who now lived with her.


Kanae took a short breather to look around the room for more things to train with. Well, other than the heavier, more hefty-looking punching bags, there were always the training dummies. But these weren't your average straw men, or the stuffed linen ones carrying fake kunai. These weren't even the sohpisticated target dummies, or the ones with spikes that tested your speed and agility. No, these dummies were ones for more precise fighters, like she wanted to become. These had outlines of the nervous, cardiovascular, and lymphatic systems on them. It even had the locations of a few of the tenketsu, but her taijutsu wasn't up to par to use those effectively, except maybe to cause pain.

Yes... she hated her stepfather. He had taken everything away from her. No, this wasn't the preteen's stupid complaint of "my dad doesn't let me go out" or "my dad took away my freedom; I can't go out with boys". This was a completely different thing. He had not only taken her innocence and childhood, but also her freedom of speech (she was not able to tell anyone of this, and was most certainly not allowed to show any signs of depression). Any indication of this was met with an extra five minutes or so or beating and tossing around the room. So, she always tried to look cheerful around her mother. Perhaps this was more than a secret-keeping thing... perhaps her step-father wanted to feel that she was enjoying it. The very thought of this made her hate him even more. She wanted to kill him so badly, but what would her Oka-san do? She shouldn't have to bear the deaths of two husbands on her hands... no, Kanae wasn't an insane murderer, completely unconscious of other people's feelings. She understood for her mother, trying so hard to support them while coping with her first husband's death, as well as dealing with a girl who had snake eyes.


 
Kanae bowed to the dummy, as she would a normal opponent. "Thank you for this fight. I am Kanae Iku, and today, I will be your opponent." She looked up at the dummy's face, marked with cranial nerves. "I think it best you watch your frontal nerve, it may be your downfall today." She didn't say this with a smile, as some overconfident ninja might have, but with a solemn, serious expression, that some would say was "sad, broken" but others might say was "filled with the killing intent of a Viper". She picked up a needle from the training tools bucket (what was a needle doing there?) and turned once more to face the dummy. Leaping at it, she struck the needle into the dummy's axial lymph node. This was a wound that caused no blood, and thus would attract no wolf boys (well... Daiyuki was a nice wolf boy), and would only cause intense pain. This was a perfect hunting and torture technique. She used the thick needle as a sort of fulcrum, and in the next second, she was on top of the dummy's left shoulder. She took the needle out, and with it, severed the dummy's vagus nerve, and jumped away. If anyone actually sustained that kind of hit, they would be dead within five to seven seconds. 

Kanae always hated this part of the dream the most. It was even more traumatic for her than the initial rape, because this was the part where she witnessed human murder for the first time in her life. It was what had made her the timid, quiet girl she had been, and the sheer site of it had wiped all the anger out of her body, and made her empty inside. Yes, this was the day on which her mother and stepfather.... had died. She was sitting on the couch, staring into empty space while her mother was fixing a chair and her father was making dinner. In her memory, the gang members had come through the door, but in her dream, they came (somehow) through the walls, laughing eerily as things began to move in slow motion. They grabbed her stepfather, and slammed his face into the gas burner, then cut the burnt pieces of flesh from his face. He may have got what he deserved... but it still traumatized Kanae. His screams still echoes in her head every time she stepped into a kitchen. But what happened next was oh, so much worse. It was here that Kanae's life made its true downward turn. 


Kanae sighed and pushed the dummy onto the floor. A real person should have fallen by now, his pupils dark red from cranial hemorrhaging. Time to move onto the next one. This time, Kanae selected a slightly more deadly weapon: a kunai. She tested it, feeling its weight and balance. Not the best of gear, but it would fulfill her purpose well enough. She stood in front of a second dummy. This one (comically enough) had an antique Kirigakure headband around it. She cocked her head at it, then remembered that when fighting someone from the now destroyed village of Kirigakure, a ninja must always keep his head cool and eyes closed to protect from genjutsu and simulate a misty environment in which the enemy could not be seen. Kanae closed her eyes, and breathed. She counted down silently under her breath "three.... two.... one."  Lunging forward, she had one hand slightly forward. The moment it touched the dummy, she crouched down and did what seemed like a useless leg sweep to the outside, coming around the dummy. However, it gained her the angular momentum to swing around behind the dummy, and with one swipe, sever both the dummy's Achilles tendons. This would render an opponent unable to walk properly. Then, she brought the kunai up and over, plunging it into the side of the dummy's neck. Oh, sweet jugular blood would spill from that wound, signalling the end for an enemy. 

Yes, it was the end. The gang member grabbed her mother.... and did a multi-person, more violent version of what the stepfather had done to Kanae. In the dream, Kanae closed her eyes and sat there, accepting what was happening. But in her memory, one of the gang members had forced her to watch, as she tried to deny what was going on. It couldn't have been happening... but it had. The dream skipped most of the dragging and beating up that happened next, but it didn't skip what happened once the gang had brought her to its "hideout", or so they called it. It was really just the gang leader's house, the living room specifically. "Let's have some fun with her too", one of the thugs said, so the quickly got their hands on her, and so the pain began again. It started anew; these were strangers, people who Kanae could not possibly forgive, and as she suffered in the hot, smelly room, surrounded by the grunts of men, she wished the depths of hell upon them. And as for herself.... she had almost completely given up hope. It wasn't just this abuse that she had to endure, but also the constant exposure to things that small children should never hear, and work that small children should never have to do. Dangerous work, work that could have exposed her to sickness and death. But it wasn't over yet...


This dummy, to, Kanae would push over, and it teetered slightly before falling onto its back. A real opponent would panic, realizing that he would have mere seconds until he died. Kanae didn't like the fact that she may have to give someone that feeling in the future. It made her feel unnecessarily cruel... like some of the people in her past. She glared at the dummy, for making her feel this way. Hmph, well, her training with these things was over, she felt a little too strongly about this sort of thing to continue. Now, what to do next? She could just do straight up dryland excersizes, but that was a bit banal and boring. So, why not do something else instead? ..... there was always the treadmill in the wind tunnel, but Kanae wasn't fast or strong enough for that yet. She should try something else... maybe the weights? No, again, too boring. She decided to stick to performing kata excersizes with her eyes closed. This would help her to meditate and concentrate on her form, and make it fluid, yet solid and instinctual at once. 


 
The day before she was rescued, she received something small, a sign of hope. She was wearing her rotten old brown gardener's shift, which was the only thing between the harsh environment of Yukigakure, and her soft, tender skin. They had sent her out to the market in her dream, but in reality, it had been a drug selling circle beneath the floor of the Rakubai bar in Yukigakure. As she exited the house and walked toward the hidden entrance behind the bar, she saw something underneath the porch, where the deep fryer was almost always running. A white snake. In her dream, this was always a big thing, with yellow, flickering eyes. In reality, it had been puny, and about to die. "Humanity has rejected us both." The snake would always say to her. "But do not give up hope. Even though it strikes at our head, we shall arise, and bite him in the heel. We shall poison humanity, so that it may regret that it hurt us." Kanae nodded, and went into the bar basement. When she came out... the snake had gone. Where it had gone, no one knew. Kanae knew that hope was coming. It was always like that, when an animal spoke to you. It meant that either a miracle was about to happen, or you were going to die very, very soon. Either way.... sweet escape, escape from the pain and suffering that she was undergoing. All that evil inside of her would then diffuse away, and disappear, and no one else would have to share the burden with her. That was what Kanae really wanted in the world.


She started to move, sitting down in a cross legged position. She then shifted to one knee, then stood up. Opening her eyes, she stared out into the space in front of her, seeing only what she wanted to see, feeling only what she wanted to feel. Now.... let the kata begin. HIRA. This was where she changed her stance by shifting her left foot out, bending her knees slightly (this was to achieve a more concentrated center of mass), and spread her arms out. This was a technique to use against wild attacks such as haymakers, and opened up the opponent for a attack to his head or midsection. HOKO. Shift the right foot back. DOKO. Right arm goes back now, getting ready to block any incoming side attacks. ICHIMONJI. Arm comes back down to chest level, as does the left arm, the latter being extended a small ways in front of the right. JUMONJI. This had been executed earlier in the day, and the right arm went directly behind the left arm in an X shape. Usually, this was meant to bloke a forearm attack, but Kanae had used it in an unconventional way, to stop the movement of an object by attacking it with this position. ICHO. Left leg comes up, right arm over the head. Optimal position for leg sweeps, but cannot be maintianed for long, as it reveals too many weaknesses. This must always resolve into KOCHAI. At this point, the user both attacks the groin, and blocks the inevitable overhead hammerfist or elbow slam.

The dream was supposed to end there, with the white snake, and the feeling of satisfaction that she would be rescued soon. However, tonight held more terrors for her. She stood in a darkness, but was somehow able to see her own body. The next thing she knew, a brilliant flame stood before her... no, it was a small boy. He faced away from her, and it seemed like he was floating a few feet off the ground. 


"Removing this one from the battlefield will decrease my chances of being defeated."


What..? But Kanae was small, insignificant, why would he... then the boy, turned around, and she saw that his eyes burned red with energy and ambition. She took a step back, but the boy shot a line of katon at her, and in the next instant, he was there, pressing his burning hand against her face. She screamed in panic as the pain seemed to fill her bloodstream, evaporating her very bones, melting her nerves. 


"BURN."  



Now that she was finished with her kata, she was extremely bored. There wasn't much to do now except... wait. Well, there was always THAT, but she didn't feel up to it. Oh well, it would have to do for right now. She walked over to a very deep pool of warm water. It wasn't very wide or long, and didn't have any ledges to sit on, so it wasn't meant as a pool or hot tub. Of course, this was meant for practicing the surface walking technique. She sighed, and concentrated her chakra in her feet. Whenever she used this, or any kind of jutsu, she always thought about mixing paints. Yes, swirls of color that could never be separated. She moved her foot forward, and took her first step onto the water. 

The dream changed again. This time, she was standing on a pillar of rock, high above the black void, with a man. His entire posture radiated hesitation, and underconfidence. Was he just a genin, like she was? Suddenly, his whole face hardened. His new expression was one of newfound determination, one of strength. It was also one of anger, of retribution. What.... what was this? Why was he so angry at her? He seemed to be staring right into her soul.


"Girl... I don't want to kill you. But I can't forgive anyone who hurts my friends."


Hurt his friends.... what??? Before she could speak up, the boy fired chains from his own body, wrapping around her and restraining her, while at the same time piercing her flesh and preventing her from struggling. He then slammed his hand against her torso. 


"It looks like you aren't strong enough. This will be 'light's out' for you. And I'm not dragging you to the hospital afterwards."


Kanae curled her bare toes against the water's coldness. She took about two steps more, and then stood there, concentrating her chakra on the soles of her feet in order to stay up. She spread her arms, and enjoyed the quiet solitude of standing there on top of the water, in absolute silence. When her reverie was finished, she brushed the orange hair back from her forehead and stepped forward to the solid ground on the other side. She was starting to get a little tired, but it wasn't time to be finished yet. Now, she felt more comfortable to actually begin drylands, which she probably should have done in the first place. Well, better late than never, right?

The next thing she knew, she fell into darkness, then out into the light. What... a grassy plain? Where was she? It was wide and flat, and didn't have any trees. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge orange fox roared, and just like that, was gone. In its place was a wild man, wearing goggles. Kanae's chakra sensory wasn't refined yet, but she knew a powerful man when she saw one. As if to prove her point, a powerful blast of wind ripped through the air, causing her to shriek and cover her head. 


"Yo, this is MacDaddy Cool! Don't disrespect my ninja, you sick fuck!" 


No, this was impossible. All these people were accusing her of things that she hadn't done! Who was this guy anyways? Why couldn't she do anything... she kept dying over and over again. "STOP!" she screamed, trying to get her voice over the roar of wind. "PLEASE!"


"This'll teach you a lesson! FUUJIN NO TENKEI!"


Yes, it was time to get down and dirty. Kanae got down, and started doing situps, putting her feet under the gap in a sofa to keep herself stable and anchored. She never like it when she rolled around in situps, so this was a little trick she had made to prevent that from happening. Hyup! Kanae lifted her chest and head upwards, then gently put them back down. Over and over again, conditioning her muscles until they hurt. Agh.... she had to stop and catch her breath for a bit. She then decided to keep going. Onwards to about fifty of them, which was all her slender frame could handle. She sat up on the sofa to take a break, wiping the sweat from her brow.

That's where the dream got really weird. From the wind, she fell through what appeared to be a field of stars, down to a planet. She closed her eyes as she flew threw the sky... then opened them. She was in a house, outside of a man's bedroom. It was a weird place, and the sky seemed overcast and foggy. Nothing around her seemed familiar. She cautiously opened the door, and saw the man there. He was sitting on a chair, looking at some kind of monitor, and was inputting code. He turned around and saw her, then appeared to become disturbed.


"Eh, oi there! I didn't want any bird in me house! What's my housemate gonna say? Besides, I'm trying to get compensation from my boss here, what! Get outta 'ere, before I have the bailiff on you!" 


Uh.... what? Kanae didn't even know how to respond to this. Even his accent seemed strange. "Excuse.... me.... sir?"


"Oi, now you got my cheeks all coloured red. Just leave, birdie." Well, that was that. What a strange encounter indeed. She wondered who the man could possibly. Could he be God? No, a god didn't sit at a monitor all day....


Kanae got up, and stretched. Break time was over, and it was time to get back to work. She went over to the wind tunnel with the treadmill. It looks like she would have to attempt this before she left. Now, all she had to do was turn it on. She turned both on to low settings, and it felt like taking a quick jog through a gentle breeze. She knew that the higher settings were meant for use with higher level ninja, who had to protect themselves from explosives and fuuton jutsu. Of course, Kanae wasn't up to this kind of task yet, so she initially put it on lower setting. 

The moment she walked out of the weird man's door, she was transported to what looked like the shattered remains of a village. A man was there, one who wore a cloak with a hood. 


"Hmmm..... what glorious destruction."


She felt pure power radiate from him, even though she had no idea what was going on. Had he caused all this destruction? Kanae was inclined to think so, as this guy hadn't a scratch on him, and was probably good enough to do this. He suddenly turned around, and Kanae found herself face to face with a mask. Oh my god... what was wrong with his eyes? They were a sickly purple, and seemed to gaze into her soul. 


"A survivor... A PRESENT???"


Oh... he was insane. Those were Kanae's thoughts as the shadows themselves rose up from the ground and punctured her body in about forty different ways. 


Kanae was done with working out for the day. She shut off the treadmill, and righted the dummies, patting them slightly. Bowing to them again, she said, "I thank you for making me stronger, dummy-san and dummy-kun. I hope to work with you again in the future." She started to stretch and cool down, tired after the long night. The sun was just rising, and she needed to get a lot of rest to reset her sleep cycle, otherwise she would feel messed up for days. Kanae yawned slightly, and noticed that she didn't have shoes on. Whoops, oh well, that was too bad.

Now, she was at the bottom of an enormous pit, in some deep water. Kanae struggled to get up, and climbed onto an island of... ice? It had appeared from nowhere, it seemed. With that, someone grabbed her hand and lifted her out of the water. Huh... this guy seemed younger than the men she had just seen. He seemed about 16, but the lines on his face made him look a bit older. 


"You have no ambition, no drive. Therefore, you are not human."


No... that was the worst possible thing he could have said. Kanae was human! Moreso than some of the monsters who had just defeated her. 


"Why don't you just..... DIE." 


Suddenly, without warning, Kanae found herself completely bisected, because the boy had sliced her in half with a katana made from.... ice? How could ice be that sharp? And with that, her dream burst into a thousand ice crystals, and she awoke, screaming.


[5043 words, requesting
- 25 stats
- 50 JP]

approved, Nice jobby job