Kazuo Murders AP (Solo)

Greener pastures, what a funny expression. As if everyone in the world was nothing but livestock. Kazuo pondered this odd choice of words as he sat in his bed at the hotel he was staying at. Well, not a hotel, an inn. He had booked himself a room and got a good meal, a stew and a hot pot, and, hell, why not, some wine. The night had been special, after all. He sat at the table eating the first hot meal he had eaten in a long, long time. He ate well and drank well, enjoying himself fully for the first time in a long time. For once, that night he felt just as sated as Yomi did after absorbing a person’s entire chakra. He should have known the feeling was temporary. Yomi’s influence over him grew ever stronger with each passing moment, especially now that she had a direct line to feed on his chakra. While Kazuo knew that Yomi would never consider killing him, he did know that his substantially high chakra was very enticing for Yomi, who cared for very little other than feeding on the chakra of living things. She did so love to drink deeply of the powerful energy that resided within every living being. That said, humans were special. Humans had more, much more. Their chakra was refined like a fine red wine. Yomi practically purred at the thought of it as these emotions stirred within Kazuo’s mind that night. She was aware, thanks to Kazuo’s own chakra sensory abilities, of several chakra signatures in the building, nothing that could come even close to that of Kazuo, but certainly impressive enough to justify a meal. Nothing but ruffians and mercenaries, nobody would miss them. How could she make Kazuo understand that? Understand that she needed to feed, that she, his Yuumei, his partner, his Yomi, needed to feed?

Kazuo stirred in his sleep. Yomi settled back down. When she became aggravated, she often woke him. He was most easy to control while he slept, but she knew that doing much other then walking would wake Kazuo, and alert him to her meddlings. Normally, she would not care, but… Well, Kazuo had been practicing a particular technique. One that the Shinkou of the House of Triumph had taught to him. She remembered reading it at the same time that he did, across the pages of a House of Triumph tome. The ability Kazuo was attempting to master was known only to those who train with the House of Triumph. It is said that those who train this ability leak and starve their Yuumei on purpose, suppressing it and prevent it from feeding on their own chakra, continuing this for weeks at a time, until Yuumei becomes so aggressive it feeds on any chakra it comes in contact with. Even chakra in a fireball or a blast of water. In other words, Kazuo was trying to force Yomi to bend to his will, forcing Yomi to submit to him and be starved of chakra, to live a half life as many Yuumei belonging to the members of the House of Triumph. They forced their own Yuumei, their lifeblood, their partners, to act as nothing more than common dogs in an arena, starved into bloodthirst. Yomi saw little need for this, as she was already plenty bloodthirsty, being more gluttonous than the vast majority of all Yuumei entities.

Still, it was cause for concern that he was learning the technique. As he slept, Kazuo hardly stirred. Still, Yomi worried.

And in the dark he sits alone, to watch his final hours bleeding…

He was awake now, in the darkness of his room, and he was already focusing. Focusing on what? A technique he hadn’t told Yomi about, and had done his best to keep her from finding out. The Hungering Shadow was an ability practiced by the members of the house of triumph. Normally, it was used as a simple defensive jutsu, the act of starving one’s Yuumei in order to make them more aggressive. While a more aggressive Yomi was hardly what Kazuo needed, the act of starving her might be necessary to keep himself, and by extension, her, in check. Otherwise, he worried that she might consume him, take him over completely and subjugate him to her will. The works, you know. That was lame and Kazuo didn’t want that, so he continued to practice.

Kazuo Kemuri, son of a Samurai and a Shinkou Shinobi, was an unusual man indeed. He walked the narrow path between the honor of the samurai and the treachery of Shinobi. He’d seen the cruelty and the flaws in the blind justice of the samurai, and he’d seen the arrogance and cowardice of the common Shinobi. Despite his hatred of the two, Kazuo was proud of what he was. He was strong. This journey, this pilgrimage, seemed to be unveiling who Kazuo Kemuri truly was. He was a man of honor and power, brave enough to stand against the corrupt, and righteous enough to follow a code of honor.

There was a duality to Kazuo, not in the least bit aided by Yomi’s complete contrast to him. Where he was cold, she was jovial. Where he had honor, she had none. They really were quite a pair.

While unconcerned upon the wall, the clock just ticks away the time…

Kazuo sat there in silence, a meditative stance assumed, as he channeled his Yuumei energy. Since learning to feed Yomi more of his chakra with the Clarity of the Eye of the Void technique, he had been searching for ways to quickly consume this Yuumei, so as to force Yomi to become docile once more. In doing so, he had found another old Shinkou ability, known as Fate’s Midnight, which rapidly consumed Yuumei and actually had a very useful effect. Kazuo made use of the ability as soon as he could. That was why he was here, in the dark of an old room in an inn, studying and practicing, his meditation allowing him the utmost focus.

No need for words, for in the dark, all words have long since lost their meaning…
Still when she whispers in his ear, he tries to read between the lines...

Yomi had been bothering him quite a lot lately. The whispers in his ear from the girl seemed to be driving him mad, the urges and compulsions she gave him were hard to resist. Sometimes they were simple, such as “Go left at the fork in the path,” or “Leave this place and head north.” Other times…?

Kill! Kill everyone here! Take their blood, their chakra, I want to feast, just as you have! Her voice called to him. It was hard to resist. Her power surged through him and threatened to burst. He focused more, trying not to give in to her influence. He could not afford to lose himself to her. He could not afford to stain his hands with the blood of more innocents. One was enough. The only innocent life he would ever allow her to take. With that one innocent life she had set his entire life into motion. That was the reason he was still a criminal. His name would have been cleared by now if not for that one, little, slip.

If not for Yomi’s influence, Kazuo would be a free man.

What I see in the the night, what I feel in your heart...

If not for the meddling of Yomi, and her own homicidal urges, Kazuo would be home safely, with his mother and father.

But you still wouldn’t have Aika, Kazuo. She’d be lost to you, and really, would you even WANT to come back to a home without her? I can see your heart, Kazuo. I know the answer. What I did was to protect you. Yomi whispered, and Kazuo felt her words tearing at his heart, rending his mind and… He believed her. No, this was a trick. Yomi was trying to influence him again. Trying to control him. He wouldn’t let her. Not this time. He focused on the technique he was using.

He had picked the trick up during his brief visit to the House of Silence. While he was a member of the House of Triumph, and his Meigan bore the primary focus of the Shinkirou variant, his meigan was also partial to the Naien variant, the genjutsu-oriented dojutsu of the House of Silence. The House of Silence studies the mind and the body, how they interact, how you can affect one through the other. They are known to favor genjutsu and this is one of their more drastic abilities. There are rumors that the most skilled practitioners use this as a sort of rivalry, plaguing each other with their Yuumei during their meditations and the first one to submit cleans the halls. It was a very interesting place, but Kazuo vastly preferred the House of Triumph, to which he belonged. As he focused, he remembered the quiet, clean shaven man who had taught him the technique. The principle behind it was simple. When a technique was used that directly targeted the body, the user could infuse their own Yuumei into that technique. Rather than outright increasing its power, the technique did something else. It drained chakra form any effected by the technique. Neat, huh? The more Yuumei applied to the technique, the more chakra will be drained from the target. More importantly, this technique gives the user an easy way to dump all of their Yuumei at once, should they so desire. The results of THAT were something that Kazuo sought after. Reducing Yomi’s influence in a moment was very lucrative to the Samurai at the present.

As he focused his Yuumei and his chakra, Kazuo continued to reflect on exactly why he was studying this, why he was trying to learn a technique that would allow him to purge his system of Yuumei so easily. It was Yomi that did this to him. Yomi’s control was too strong, and without keeping her in check, he could not hope to best her. As the Abyss itself had said, she was stronger then him by far. Despite the impressively strong chakra that Kazuo possessed, he couldn’t beat her. Yomi was too much for him. Her power far outranked his, and the only way he could possibly hope to best her was to starve her of chakra. This, it seemed, was the best way to do just that. Force her to fast from chakra by expelling it from your system, and then use Clarity Through the Eye of the Void to feed her as necessary. It was a good plan. One that might save lives. Kazuo could only hope…

Standing from the spot on the bed that he had been sitting upon, he would put his hands to his face as he sighed, the scar on his hand ever present in his vision. The letters A.K. across the back of his right hand, long weathered and partially healed with time, acted like a brand. It was distinctive enough that Kazuo could be recognized by the mark, but he'd never given an opponent enough time to notice it. Since he'd left the village in The Land of Iron, he'd cut down every opponent he'd met.

As he walked, his Meigan active and surveying the area for threats, he thought about the people he'd killed. From his home, he'd murdered countless samurai to avenge his name, people he'd grown up with, people he'd spent his life training with. Kazuo had shown no remorse for them as he slaughtered his former comrades. And then there was the people who'd picked fights with him on the borders. Even Neku, the one who'd killed Aika, had fallen at his feet. Aika had been avenged, truly. Still, why did Kazuo feel empty inside? Like he'd lost his purpose?

All your dreams, all your lies, can you tell them apart?

He shook his head. He needed to focus. As he did so, he lifted his blade, vibrating it and producing a song. He lowered the intensity so that he didn’t accidentally send any nearby patrons into a comatose state, but the condensed effect was still very powerful. This condensed genjutsu of sorts was then infused with Yuumei. Suffice it to say, Yomi noticed.

You rang? The blonde inquired as her demeanor suddenly shifted, as Kazuo poured nearly half of his Yuumei energy into the genjutsu. Upon the wall, a spider, enthralled by the technique, fell to the floor suddenly, dead, drained of all of its energy. W-what was that? Yomi stuttered, taken aback by the sudden usage of Yuumei energy. Kazuo grinned.

Yomi positively purred with satisfaction as Kazuo indulged her with just a little bit of chakra. He knew he could not feed her too much, however, so he stopped as quickly as he began..
There. That’s all you get. Kazuo said to her, returning to his training. From his pouch, he retrieved a book that he had been reading on his walk. Usually, he read from the Bladedancer book, the book that he had obtained from the black market. What was originally intended as nothing more than a training manual, grew into somewhat of a compacted version of autobiography and explanations of the most complex and powerful of Yozora's abilities and sword fighting. Unfortunately the girl sometimes did not know something as restraint and this was one of the cases - the book was written with an experienced and talented blader as a reader in mind and most of her students would simply not understand it. So, in a sense it was a failure. A smaller and simpler version was planned but never finished due to Yozora's unexpected and early death. What the book contained currently detailed a lot about Yozora and her fighting style, the Singing Blade, as well as the Flashblade. It details her encounters with the Demon of the Mist, whom he could assume to be the current Mizukage, though he had little to go on besides the fact that they were described very similarly and said Mizukage went out of his way to rebuild Kirigakure. It also talks about the her encounter with someone known as the Fiery Star of the Sand, as well as the Second Tenkage, before he had risen to power. All in all the book was fascinating, and from it, he had drawn all of the information he needed to piece together the story of Yozora, as well as her fighting style and techniques. The two most powerful techniques that the book contained were the Flashblade, a technique Kazuo had already mastered, and the Storyteller technique, the most powerful variant of her singing blade style.

Today, however, he carried a new book. Two new books, in fact. He now carried a book about space/time ninjutsu, there was another book that he had, one he had acquired within his time in the Village hidden in the Abyss. A book about his Yuumei, and how to control it. He wasn’t the first shinkou to have issues controlling a rogue Yuumei, though he suspected none were quite so… Indulgent, as Yomi was. His time there had given him enough knowledge to study an entirely new field, and the one he had decided to pursue was space and time ninjutsu. Despite this, he knew that he had to learn to master his Meiton, despite his distaste for indulging Yomi and granting her more and more control over his psyche.

While Meiton was a useful element, and he could surely make good use of the Shinkou’s vast library of ninjutsu techniques, he already possessed all of the combat capabilities he desired by infusing his blade with Yuumei. And besides, he really didn’t want to make a habit of using his Yuumei, what with Yomi’s influence over him increasing seemingly with every ounce of Yuumei prowess he gained. The formerly nameless chakra parasite really didn’t need more influence over Kazuo. He’d be better off not needing to resort to indulging her like this. Unfortunately, he knew that she was a useful ally, and if he did not make use of her, she would simply regain control once she manifested her full power. It was better to work on the same terms, to work together, in harmony, rather than against each other. Some people’s Yuumei, he read, had just such relationships. Symbiotic. In Kazuo and Yomi’s case, however, it was more like… Enabling. Yeah. Yomi was like an alcoholic craving a fix. This was Kazuo’s attempt at curing her addiction, of weaning her off of the stuff. Of course, Yomi was a Yuumei entity, and they needed chakra to live, so starving her completely was out of the question. He would occasionally indulge her, but he needed to ration what he gave her. He needed to make sure that she did not have enough to take over his mind, to fill him with the desire to kill so that she could gorge herself on a feast of chakra once again. In order for them to progress, he needed a Hungering Shadow. But he couldn’t tell her he was practicing it, just yet. It was unbelievably hard to hide these things from a being that knew your very heart and mind inside and out, but Kazuo felt that he was doing a good job. He simply waited till she went silent and tried his absolute hardest not to think of her. And for now, that seemed to work. It was a fix, albeit a temporary one.


Now that he’d attempted it with a regular technique, Kazuo changed his pace. He decided it was time he tried this technique with a Yuumei technique he was particularly fond of, the Shibari. A genjutsu that cloaked the user in shadows and paralyzes its victims. It was powerful, very powerful, and with training, Kazuo knew that it could become practically unbeatable, especially with this fantastical ability that the Fate’s Midnight technique granted him. He infused as much Yuumei as he could into the technique as he made the hand seals, and felt himself wreathed in Yuumei chakra as the genjutsu took effect. Though he had no volunteers to test the technique upon, he knew that it was working well. He could feel its very power as he practiced it.


He tried again, wreathing himself in chakra once more and infusing Yuumei as Yomi spoke, yawning slightly.
I swear, you get these urges to train at the weirdest times. She yawned. Kazuo chuckled.
It helps when there isn’t a voice in my head to distract me. He teased.
Hey, you couldn’t do any of this shit if not for me. Show some respect to the source of your power. Yomi snapped. Kazuo shrugged.
Very well, your majesty. He said, returning to working on the genjutsu, infusing it with as much Yuumei as he could, and then, once he released it, using Fate’s Midnight to return his Yuumei slowly, using the time in between as a sort of rest period. It was a good thing too, because he needed time in between to regain all of that Yuumei as well as his own energy. This was exhausting.


The technique is known as Fate’s Midnight. Kazuo answered
Fate’s Midnight? Yomi repeated
Fate’s Midnight. Kazuo repeated.

That’s a House of Silence technique, isn’t it? How on earth did you manage to learn that? Yomi inquired
You aren’t the only one who picked up a technique or two while we were in the Village Hidden in the Abyss. Kazuo explained, suddenly feeding Yomi some of his own chakra Now that I’ve got a way to feed you more chakra, I figured I needed a way to burn up all of your Yuumei. This will be a great help if I can get it mastered. He told her
Seems to me you’ve already got the gist. Yomi replied.
Huh. Seems I have. Kazuo snarked.


(3428)


1500/1500 Hungering Shadow
1500/1500 Fate's Midnight
Fate's Midnight-ing Shibari

Approved, don't forget to exit.

Then Kazuo left

(Exit)

Exit approved