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Post by IDEK on Feb 23, 2020 16:21:34 GMT
"...Oh no." Erinye's eyes widened slightly, while Bacchus sighed.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 23, 2020 17:03:03 GMT
"These raiders were from a fallen village torn apart by a malevolent pharaoh, they would pillage anything that was there for the taking that would benefit their survival, putting that as their main priority over anything else, I am certain you know a lot about these men, lady Nephthys." Aku said.
"...I know very well about these people. But what have they done to you?" Nephthys asked.
The scene changed again and now the Royal Guard were inside the tent, with the bandits cornering the mother and the grandfather while Aku and Lily were in the corner, both looking very scared as one of the bandits held a knife at the old man's throat.
"Give us everything you have and we will not take your lives." The bandit demanded.
"Please, this is our livelihood, if you take all the food, you will leave us with nothing!" The mother cried, standing right in front of the children.
"The South has nothing to stand on, woman, we need these supplies than you do so do we as tell you or we will burn this entire tent, take the supplies and those two little ones too, we could use a few more recruits." Another bandit said, looking right at Aku and Lily.
The woman's eyes widened and relented as she stepped aside.
"Alright, you can have the food just...don't harm them." The lady muttered.
"See, it wasn't that hard, was it? Gamal, take everything they have and we'll be out of here." The bandit instructed one of his friends who nodded in response.
"They did not care about the well-being of others unlike the rest of you, they did not care if we would starve to death or worse, people can be very cruel individuals when they look out for themselves." Aku said.
As the bandit walked over to the end of the tent to place the food in his bag, grabbed him by his hand.
"No, these belong to us, they aren't yours! We worked hard to get all of this!" Lily said.
"Lily!" The mother gasped, running towards her.
"Ugh, get off me, you little brat!" The bandit yelled, grabbing her by her head.
Lily, in retaliation, bit the bandit's wrist, causing him to scream before he slapped Lily, knocking her on the floor, causing Aku's eyes to widen as he saw his friend fall.
"NO!" The mother yelled and tried to help her daughter only to be held back by two bandits.
"Big mistake, kid." The bandit said, furious as he pulled out his knife and walked up to Lily.
He grabbed her by her hair and placed the knife against her neck.
"LILY!" The grandfather screamed.
"NO!" Aku yelled back, aiming his hands at the bandit as they started to glow black.
A spike made out of ice materialized in front of Aku's hands and launched it at the bandit who was holding Lily, impaling him in the chest and landed on the floor right on his back with the spike stuck in his chest and he stopped moving, the bandits, the mother and the grandfather looked shocked.
"GAMAL!" The lead bandit said, rushing over to the bandit and crouched down, holding his hand as Lily quickly got up and retreated to her mother but stopped to look at Aku, who was breathing heavily and looked shocked as his hands stopped glowing.
The bandits turned to Aku, some of them looked frightened.
"T-This child killed him, he is a demon!" The bandit gasped.
The lead bandit looked vengeful as he dropped Gamal's hand and started walking towards Aku.
"H-he was about to hurt her, I-I din't mean to-"
The bandit did not want to hear it as he smacked Aku across the cheek, knocking him on the floor and pulled him up by grabbing his robe, holding the knife above his head.
"If he is a demon, then we will slay him in Gamal's name!" The lead bandit said.
"Stop, he is just a child!" The mother said.
"You be silent, woman! Take them out aswell!" The lead bandit said to his gang.
"But Ali told us not to kill anyone, just take their stuff and leave!" One of the bandits said.
"To the flames with Ali's orders, he is too young to understand how the world works and this monster killed Gamal, they deserve to be sent to Duat and Seth will keep them for as long as he desires!" The lead bandit said.
Aku struggled but couldn't get out of his grip as the knife went down and his eyes turned white.
The entire scene then suddenly turned pitch black around the Royal Guard but splashes of blood appeared on the blackness, followed up by screams, causing Dietz to jump backwards.
"G-geez, that scared the shit out of me!" Dietz gasped.
Izanami looked around, looking panicked while Nephthy's face turned white as she held her staff very tightly.
The blackness faded away and the group were now outside of the tent...which was now currently in pieces and burning, the bandit's corpse wasn't there it was likely retrieved by the bandits who escaped with the current Aku standing in front of the burning tent with half closed eyes with no sign of the family or young Aku, the fire crackling behind him.
"The story ended the same way as before. My home was burned to the ground, my family was destroyed and my life..." Aku said.
A gust of wind caused a piece of the tent to fly off, revealing the mother lying on her back with her belly cut open, the grandfather's face was blue with a tightened rope around his neck...Lily was on the ground with her face on the ground, blood covering the sand she was laying on that was coming from her chest and next to her was young Aku, lying on his back with small eyes, blood coming out of his mouth and with a slit throat, staring at the sky paralyzed.
"Expired." Aku finished, bitterly.
Izanami placed her hand on her mouth, Hercule shook his head in disbelief, Dietz looked freaked out while Nephthys looked away from the scene.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 23, 2020 17:35:01 GMT
Bacchus had no visible reaction, while Diana looked between everyone else, gauging theirs.
"...I'm sorry, that this happened to you." Erinye said.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 23, 2020 18:02:54 GMT
Aku said nothing as he lowered his head.
"...When I was lying there, breathless, I was staring at the sky and all I could feel was...cold, everything was turning white and my entire body was frozen, it was like Winter has arrived and I felt like it was snowing, I knew that I was dying but I figured that now, what happened to me will be over soon and I would reunite with my family along with Lily and her family...atleast that is what should of happened." Aku said, his tone sounding more monotone than usual.
His younger self's eyes slowly closed and his heart stopped beating at that moment.
The day once again transitioned to day before going back to night as the bodies of the family suddenly vanished but Aku's remained.
"A day passed since my death and after being trapped in darkness, something unpredictable happened." Aku said.
Young Aku's body got engulfed by a black aura and was slowly regaining consciousness, opening his eyes but his sclera was pitch black, he felt raised his hands and clenched them, he was alive but for some reason he felt weird before he looked around him and looked shocked as he saw the destroyed tent.
"...This place...this isn't Heaven. Why am I still here?...shouldn't I be...dead?" Aku asked.
He slowly got up and placed his hand on his chest, he couldn't feel his heartbeat at all much to his horror.
"...My heart...why can't I feel it...?" Aku asked.
He then noticed that his skin was paler than usual, the aura surrounding his body and the neck wound that resulted in his death was still there as he touched the blood, painting his fingernails with them and looked horrified upon seeing his own blood before looking at a broken piece of mirror and saw his eyes, gasping to himself.
"W-what have I turned into? What happened to me!?" Aku asked loudly.
"...Wait, most of the people who turn into zombies just groan and attack people, how come you weren't like them?" Dietz asked the actual Aku.
"...That is what I wondered myself, I realized that my relation to Death could of played a part in that, due to my unnatural abilities, it is possible I did not succumb to the curse's influence entirely which is why I wasn't like any of the lurkers. When I was still alive, my link with the dead was weak but when I was revived, my link became stronger as a result." Aku said.
Young Aku then turned around and to his shock, Lily was standing up with her back turned to him.
"L-Lily, you're alive! But how?" Aku asked.
Lily did not turn to Aku.
"Why aren't you saying anything? What happened Lily? Where is your mother and grandfather?" Aku asked, as he approached the girl and grabbed her hand.
Lily then turned around, her skin was grey, her sclera was the same as Aku's with red pupils, bleeding out of her chest and screeched at the young Chikara, causing him to back away.
"Lily!? What's wrong!?" Aku asked, clearly not understanding what's going on with Lily.
Lily just stood there, tilting her head as Aku looked to the right to see Lily's mother and grandfather feasting on their camel, frightening him.
She grabbed Aku by his hand and suddenly, Aku was able to connect himself with Lily since she was dead just like him.
"When Lily grabbed me, I was able to establish a link with her, which made me realize that she was dead just like me but she couldn't be able to control herself like me, inside, her soul was trapped, crying and begging to be free, her screams made me hurt even more and then I found out what I actually became. I couldn't let them suffer like this." Aku said.
Young Aku started to tear up as he let's go of his friend and clenched his teeth as he aimed his hand and shot a black beam that struck Lily, her essence left her body and joined up with his while her corpse collapsed on the ground.
"...I'm sorry, Lily. N-Now you won't suffer anymore." Aku sobbed.
He turned to his two parent figures and did the same to them, collecting their essence and joined up with his body.
"What did you do to them?" Hercule asked.
"Another ability that I had was extracting one dead person's essence, adding it into my own being, that's not something I can do people who are alive. At that time, I did not know about the summoners or if there was a chance they would of come to send them to rest." Aku said.
As the mother and the grandfather's corpses collapsed, Aku landed on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably and grabbed his own arms with the aura engulfing him.
"I was alone again, with no family, friends or even a beating heart, I was no longer human...I was a undead abomination who's no longer belonged in this world or anywhere else. That was the beginning of my neverending Hell." Aku said.
Young Aku raised his head to the sky, the moon was pitch black.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
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Post by IDEK on Feb 23, 2020 22:00:52 GMT
Diana and Bacchus continued to stand there, staring. Diana looked reasonably horrified.
Eventually, Bacchus moved forwards, not saying anything, simply looking at the younger Aku and the moon above him.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 23, 2020 22:44:00 GMT
The scene slowly faded away.
It now showed young Aku, still covered in his aura, walking through the desert in the middle of the day, night, day, night, day with a expression on his face that indicated how broken he was outside and inside.
“My body continued to adapt it’s growth while my spirit did not. Days I would spend walking on this desert like it was a eternity, with no regards to the passage of time or the hot weather, no longer needing the sustinance of food and water, with nowhere to head to, I was just a drifting corpse trying to find a way to end this torment.” Aku said.
“...You never came across any of the summoners? They wouldn’t turn you away.” Nephthys pointed out.
“I encountered a few of them and asked them for help...but my scent got the attention of the cursed and followed me, it always ended in the same way.” Aku said.
The scene changed to Aku on his knees, in front of two dead summoners on the ground who were killed by the Necromancy creatures, one summoner was a man who was bandaged from head to toe wearing a torn cloak and with him was a woman wearing a blue dress with bracelets on her forehead, arms and legs.
“No matter where I go, Death was one step behind me all the time.” Aku said.
Nephthys let out a sigh, looking at the dead summoners and young Aku with sadness.
“...This is just...fucked up.” Hercule sighed.
“...What happened next?” Izanami asked, staring at the back of Aku’s head.
“I distanced myself from people to prevent bringing harm to them and I was growing desperate for a solution to my predicament, with no other options, I found a way back to Universe 2, back to the Shrine, in hopes of finding a way to get rid of the curse.” Aku said.
The next memory began playing and they were inside a burned out hallway in front of a open storage room with a scroll landing at their feet.
Izanami took a peek inside and saw Aku, who was grown slightly along with longer messy hair and his red robe was slightly teared up, was searching through a pile of ancient scrolls that somehow din’t get destroyed in the fire and turned around, the skin on his face had holes in it as his body was slowly starting to rot, with a desperate look on his face as he was reading through the scroll.
“My family had many scrolls containing dark enchantements and other secrets, I was hoping I could find a way to reverse the curse somehow but other than revival spells, there was nothing useful on them.” Aku said.
The teenaged Aku, in a act of frustration, threw the scroll against the wall phasing through Erinye’s chest.
“My only option left was to seek help from the deity my family worshipped, a deity from a group of beings who were heard of from old fables, they were considered a Pantheon of Gods who created us and our worlds.” Aku said.
“...You actually talked to a God?” Hercule asked, raising his evebrow.
“...Yes.” Aku said, not turning to face Hercule.
The next scene showed Aku in the main room with lit candles, sitting in front of the Dorcalla statue and placed his hands together.
“Dorcalla, God of all that is dark and master of the night, I am in need of your aid, if you hear my voice, come forth and answer my cry for help!” Aku declared, his voice sounding older.
After a few minutes of silence, the flames on the candles vanished like as if someone blew them off and the entire room was turning darker as the statue was reacting to Aku’s words.
A black glow surrounded the statue, the two main eye’s pupils turned red and the smaller eyes on the forehead turned yellow with smoke coming out of the eyes.
Suddenly, a echoing yawn was heard in the room, coming from the statue which wasn’t moving but a strong presence was felt, even by the Royal Guard even if they were experiencing a memory.
“For what reason have you decided to wake me up from my slumber?” The voice asked from the statue, it was soft with a deep pitch, a reverberating echo and a assertive tone that could be felt from this being.
The beads around Nephthys’s staff were reacting to the deity’s presence, even if it wasn’t in actual person.
“...This being’s energy is nothing I ever felt before, it is beyond my own understanding. It is truly one of the Gods.” Nephthys said, looking shocked.
“Well, atleast we are now seeing a different God other than Gateway for a change.” Dietz shrugged.
Izanami and Hercule just stared at the statue, their expressions did not change even when Dorcalla began speaking.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 24, 2020 0:08:31 GMT
Diana stared at it with a unusual amount of intent for her, whereas Bacchus backed away, cautious in spite of it only being a memory.
Erinye gripped onto her own sleeve, looking to Nephthys.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 24, 2020 8:08:24 GMT
Past Aku looked up at the statue, looking anxious and sweating.
“...M-My lord, my name is Aku Chikara, the last member of-“
“I am aware about who you are, state your reason for summoning me here.”
Aku took a deep breath and looked down.
“...I want you to lift this dreadful curse that has plagued me for years, I will be forever in your debt if you do this for me and I will do anything you ask of me, I beg you!” Aku pleaded.
There was a moment of silence before the voice spoke again.
“I refuse.”
Past Aku’s eyes widened, looking up at the statue, confused while Nephthts looked shocked.
“You...refuse?” Aku asked.
“Yes, I refuse, do not force me to repeat my own words.”
“...But, why!?” Aku asked.
“Do you truly believe you are the first one to come to me asking for my guidance? Many others before you came to me asking for ways to make their lives better and many I turned away. I am Dorcalla, the God of Darkness, the one who gave you the night so the stars can shine and the moon can show it’s splendor, I gave birth to shadows and planted the dark seeds in each being to test them to see for myself if they can overcome their grief and hate, and time and time again they have disappointed me, I do not have involvement in the affairs of Life and Death. Even if I was able to lift your curse, I would not give you peace that easily, young Chikara.”
Aku’s eyes were trembling and his fingernails were slowly freezing into ice.
“Since the beginning of Time, we have showered our creations with extraordinary gifts, fed them with knowledge and kindness and what did we receive for our troubles and gratitude? Selfishness, pettiness and ignorance. Mortals have proven to be very selfish, only caring about their own interests at heart, my eyes can see what’s truly inside them and read their thoughts, their hunger for wealth and status and thirst for more power and your clan is not that far off from these examples. My view on humanity turned sour, the starting point was the first world with those kings abusing our gifts, the Amalgamations, those 12 mortals who claimed to be Gods, including my former Knight of Pride’s treacherous intents, the reason I haven’t pulled the plug on this experiment of our’s because I was convinced that perhaps one day, all of you would change for the better but I have yet to see progress.”
“But my family worshipped you, treating you with respect and admiration!” Aku said.
“And did I ask them to worship me? They viewed me as a source of power, deluding themselves that their powers came from me, nothing more, nothing less, I am a deity who doesn’t take sides. Open your ears and listen, stop relying on the powers of the Gods to gain satisfaction, for this reason I have distanced myself from our creations and advised my 5 counterparts to do the same. Find your own means to justify your end, Aku Chikara.”
“But...but.” Aku said, speechless as he reached out to Dorcalla.
“You’re dismissed.”
The statue’s eyes stopped glowing and the glow around it vanished, the candles lit up again and the room was less darker after Dorcalla left.
Aku remained where he was sitting, shocked with his mouth wide open and eyes filled with tears.
“..by gifts, was that creature talking about the Omnipotent elements?” Izanami asked everyone who was with her.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 24, 2020 15:28:55 GMT
"More than just those." Erinye said, "From their perspective, the very fact that we exist can be interpreted as a gift by itself, let alone everything that comes with it."
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 24, 2020 16:23:18 GMT
"Still, kind of dick-ish to just blow the guy off after begging him to help him." Dietz said, scratching the back of his head.
"...The Gods damned him in the first place." Nephthys said quietly, repeating a quote said by Kur.
Aku stared at his past self who was kneeling in front of the statue, scratching the floor with his sharp icy nails, cutting throug the wood as his Necromancy aura started to engulf him.
The Dorcalla statue slowly got frozen into ice and shattered into pieces.
"Rejected by the God whom I believed to be on my side, one that my family served for so long, I felt hopeless, the hole inside my heart started to deepen, from that point, my emotions were slowly dying, with God himself looking down me, everything began to feel pointless, including Life itself." Aku said.
The scene changed once again, showing Aku back in 6, now as an adult, walking on the desert with his robe in shreds and had skeleton fingers with holes in his chest and cheeks, a blank expression on his face, just wandering around aimlessly with no destination in mind.
"I stopped caring about where I would go and why, I just kept wandering with no purpose, hoping till someone would eventually confront me and put me out of my misery. But the unexpected happened once more." Aku said.
A portal appeared in the desert, causing Aku to stop and turn around as a Neonyte with short cyan hair, wearing glasses and a church robe with blue patterns, looking around and waved at Aku who was hesitant.
"A Neonyte known as Xolotl, he was from a colony of Neonytes that retreated from this galaxy when the dragons defeated the Neonytian army that enslaved them and moved to a beautiful abandoned planet and decided to make a new life for themselves, he was looking for any remaining Neonytes on this planet to have them join his community but I did not have any knowledge about Neonytes or what they were at the time and asked me to join them. I refused due to my fears of bringing death to them but when he told me about a Mistress of Death who was a popular figure on their planet, I decided to give it another shot and maybe this time, she would put an end to my torturous existence. I accepted his offer in the end." Aku said.
Aku turned to the Royal Guard and were suddenly blinded by a bright flash of light and when they opened their eyes...
They found themselves in the middle of a bell tower on top of a gothic cathedral and Aku wasn't in their sight.
"...Where the hell did he transport us to this time?" Hercule asked, getting annoyed by the constant back and forth jumps through memory lane.
Nephthys walked up to the railing and looked ahead.
The Cathedral was on top of a mountain and the mountain's surface was grassy and filled with reeds and from the tower they had a view of the planet.
The sky was blue with the sun in the sky, forests with more beautiful plants growing out of them, a bit away from the mountain was a gothic city presumably built by the Neonytes and a few of them were seen wandering around the place, wearing religious robes, from here they could also see a long metal bridge that lead to a waterfall with a water fountain statue of a woman where the children were having a bath, a grassy field with four stone monuments of four riders sitting on their horses in a circle around a pedestal, this planet looked pretty beautiful.
"The Neonytes of this colony were peaceful and gave me the clothes that I am wearing, allowing me to stay with them, I was offered yet again another home but I kept myself away from them, using my mirage so they wouldn't know I was a dead man, I spent a bit of time here till it was time for me to consult the Goddess of Death. This planet was named after the Heaven titled by the Egyptian Gods, Aaru because of it's beauty and untainted nature." Aku's voice said.
"...It's like a paradise here." Nephthys said, looking in awe.
Izanami glanced around the place, not having anything to say about the planet itself as she turned around...and saw past Aku, who now looked exactly like the current Aku without the holes in his body, standing in front of a statue of a elderly woman with rotten skin and covered in mushrooms sitting on a chair, holding a tombstone and a skull in her hands.
"That statue represents the Goddess of Death, I assume." Izanami said, staring at the statue.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 24, 2020 16:26:07 GMT
"...Clearly, she didn't do what that neonyte said she would." Diana pointed out. "He's here right now."
"She doesn't look like what I thought a goddess of death would look like, I expected something a bit more... beautiful, in a way." Bacchus commented.
"Why would you expect death to be beautiful?" Erinye asked.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 24, 2020 16:32:31 GMT
"She looks kinda creepy, honestly...she does look like the zombies from this Universe, which is kind of fitting with the theme of this Universe." Dietz said.
Nephthys and Hercule both looked at Aku and the statue as he knelt down in front of it and looked up to the Goddess.
"Morsaga, Goddess of Death, I beseech you to come forth, I am need of your guidance." Past Aku said, with little emotion in his voice.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 24, 2020 16:39:52 GMT
...
"..Nothing's happening." Diana pointed out.
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Post by Master Psychic on Feb 24, 2020 16:52:26 GMT
"...Maybe he had to pray to a different statue instead?" Dietz guessed.
"Or maybe she did not come to him after all." Nephthys frowned.
The past Aku looked up at the statue in anticipation, deciding to wait around a bit more till she would hopefully show up.
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Post by IDEK on Feb 24, 2020 17:06:18 GMT
There was no obvious response, but the air turned ominous. For everyone.
Diana began to physically shiver, even though it was just a flashback. Actual mushrooms, small with spotted caps, began to sprout up around Aku, at his feet.
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