1 Utter Failure

It was supposed to be... a simple mission. Dangerous, hellish, perhaps suicidal, but Karasu was prepared for that; all of them were, really. Even so, watching the blood gush from the hole bored clear through his chest, seeing it flowing like a river from the stump of his severed leg... the man had to wonder if... this was really worth risking his life for...?

~~~

A foreigner in Japan, the modern world gone wrong, Karasu was raised by his traditional Japanese father, a man who'd married a young, gorgeous Russian woman who was, at the time, nothing more than a tourist. The result was a child with curly blonde hair, more height than most any of his peers, clear blue eyes and almost alarmingly pale skin... though he took more after his mother in appearance, it was the father who'd taught Karasu how he ought to live his life.

When he'd become old enough... Karasu was scouted by an agent recruiting for the Shinobi; nothing like the shadowy warriors of the past, not any longer. At twelve years old, living in a densely populated coastal city, Karasu didn't know all that much, really- he knew that sometimes demons attacked the city walls, and that the gates must always remain closed from sundown to sunup... but beyond that, the child was innocent, clueless.

"Tachibana-kun..." The agent spoke to Karasu, using his family name. "Have you heard of the Shinobi?"

"Yeah." Even here, at the age of twelve... Karasu had seen many of the horrors offered by this world, attending school in a horrible district where awful things weren't cause for so much as a blink of the eyes, perhaps even a glance. Next up, coming home to a house where even worse was thrown into his face. Think of it what you like, but undoubtedly he'd seen the worst of it all, more so than many of the world's veterans and murderers alike. Shoulders rigid and jaw set, the twelve year who had, for a time, clung desperately to innocence, knowing that his childhood was being ripped away and that his grip on happiness- on a life with any semblance of normalcy- was slipping... now, he only stared at this recruiter, dully, flatly. The wind swept gently through the yard, swaying the Pampas and stirring his already-long hair... and this Shinobi... representative? He wasn't at all what one would expect of his type; wearing western-style jeans and a cool, dark green sweater, which offset his features nicely but didn't seem very normal for a government representative, if Karasu was correctly understanding his position.

"My name is Reiki, Tachibana-kun, but I'd like you to simply call me Nakano. May I call you Karasu?"

"I suppose so," the physical child walked forward, following Nakano up to the fence. It was only around two in the afternoon, and in the distance, waves crashed against black sand that shone like a billion many-faceted diamonds when wet. There were no trees, only black sand that rose to grass... that rose to his fence. Together, he and Nakano stared at the water for such a long time that Karasu began to wonder when more words would fill the air, and then until he began to relax, almost sleepily watching the push and pull of the ocean between the mainland, where he stood, and Tsushima.

"Karasu, how much do you know, about what happened in Kyoto, those years ago?" Nakano slowly looked sideways, though Karasu waited a moment longer to meet the adult's eyes. "Tell me like you'd tell somebody who has amnesia and needs to beware, if you'd be so kind."

"I don't know much, really, they try and shelter us from it around here, my parents included... don't think they get-"

"That you're ready?" Nakano nodded, sighing somewhat exaggeratedly. "I will admit, Karasu, that people in my line of work know far, far more than you should every feel comfortable with... but I do know, Karasu." Nakano leaned in as if to share a secret with a friend. "I know all of it. As awful as it sounds, my people are always watching every corner of Japan. So tell me what you know, and since I know you're ready..." Smiling warmly, the kind-looking man leaned back, straightening. "I'll give you the missing pieces."

"Alright." Karasu shrugged, unsurprised and willing. Perhaps... perhaps he'd expected such an answer. "I know it might not mean much coming from some random twelve year old," Karasu spoke truthfully, for no matter his circumstance, he was twelve and didn't know Nakano. "-but I like you, you seem like you understand more than most are willing to, and I don't really care about how, why... but it's a good thing." The blonde slowly looked out to sea again, pausing before starting to answer the question. "Nakano, what do you believe about human nature?"

"I believe that human nature is greed, Karasu- but why do you ask?"

"I believe that human nature... is lust. Not only for sex, or for money... but for power, for material that fuels our egos... we all want to grow, rise to become Gods. I think that's why Kyoto was destroyed; we tried to control demons for our private use and instead we ripped open a rift to hell and let them into our world, right?"

"In a sense, yes," Nakano answered, seeming pleased. "We wanted to combine demon and human into one, create a mindless weapon that we could use to do our dirty work, incapable of speech or even free will... and in the failure of our experiment, as you probably know, millions of lives were lost and everywhere within a sixty kilometers of Kyoto became a cesspool for the demons. Did you know they've even begun building a city around the portal, in the last year? I'm actually not sure if that one is common knowledge yet."

"I didn't, no... and, I assume that those experiments haven't stopped, even now?"

"They aren't publicly or legally practiced anymore, no," Nakano agreed without agreeing, smiling down to Karasu with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "So, we come full circle, to the Shinobi... what do you know about them?"

"Well, only the textbook things. Founded in the year 2004, charged with keeping the peace and killing any demons that run amok... but you're clearly one of them, so I'll say that I don't know much, you guys are pretty secretive outside of acting like some kind of public defense force."

"Well, there isn't much more to it than that, but there's a whisper of a plan in the works, a plan to one day close that portal for once and for all. I imagine you can easily guess what we need to rid the demons of their portal and slaughter the last of them, yes?"

"Of course." Karasu nodded, a dry smile twisting at his lips. "You need me, and others like me. The broken, who are already nothing but clay on the ground, ready to be wet, molded and kilned into something new and useful."

"You say it very poetically Karasu, but yes; we need blades to sharpen, people like you who gave up on morals long ago. So, what do you say?"

For a moment, there was a long pause... and then the waves crashed as Karasu uttered his answer, only just loudly enough for Nakano to hear.

Time went on. It always did; the one law that binds us all as humans, universally, inescapably. Karasu saw his parents often, and when the end of his mother's life suddenly came, he still often spent time with his father. As he grew, there was no laughter, no playing at the beach, no sitting in regular schooling and no slow-burning romances... Karasu's became a life of too much heated, short lived passion and too many near-death encounters by a drastically bigger margin than the last... until he stopped wasting time on pathetic excuses for romance, and until the trials and tribulations of life while away from home ceased to pose a threat. There were many Shinobi, but Karasu was truly a young man devoid of life, ready to be carved into an arrow that would fly true enough to pierce the heart of every demon in hell. Some of his comrades would go so far as to claim that he was the man with no heartbeat, but that one felt far-fetched to him. Days with his father, while not frequent, were spent in relative quiet, journeying through town or watching the ridiculous movies and anime that he used to love as a child... but through every moment of this, a glassy look haunted the blonde Shinobi's eyes, a deadness that perhaps nothing would ever be able to fix. One day he realized smiling for even a few seconds hurt his cheeks, and then eventually even the smiles ceased as well.

From the ashes of the hell that Earth had become, a weapon was forged. Gone were morals and honor; only a will to complete his purpose remained, and once that was done, he wouldn't mind if his life followed his morals.

That was when Karasu was deemed ready, shortly after he turned sixteen, but it was not for another four years that the plan was completed, that the Shinobi were prepared to enter Kyoto undetected and seal the portal with a rite that was proven to work on such rifts... so long as it was cast nearby and without interruption. It would be a hike to enter Kyoto and the growing demon's city no matter how you looked at it, but the magic of the Onmyouji, essentially a magic-based Shinobi, would be enough to get them within a six hour walk- and it did.

Later, Karasu would remember, but at first, there was nothing in his mind after that night. Truly, almost none of what happened within Kyoto that night isn't even important in the grand scheme of it all... but perhaps I should indulge you anyway, no?

The long story short... the powerful humans were, as usual, so bent on getting their way and so drunk on power that they failed to consider a bigger, more intelligent entity than they.

The long story, not so short... Karasu was not the most promising Shinobi there, but he was among them nonetheless. Carrying the standard Shinobi Armament of tanto knife, short katana and heavy crossbow- the thing slow to load but powerful enough to pierce the armored flesh of most demons... and of course, a pouch of bottled elements, essentially bombs containing magically trapped elemental magics for use when cornered.

None of that mattered, though; for years Karasu had listened to the praise directed at his skill, and assurances that they'd not be detected; every one of the assembled one hundred did, truly. They'd begun to believe that this mission would go off without a hitch, and every, last one of them were shaken when the scream of one of their comrades split the night from a[ place none of them could see. One by one, more yelps, screams and cries followed, all of them followed by the wet, grotesque noises of flesh and sinew tearing. Karasu... he knew that without at least forty of them, the rite could never be completed, and as taught, he turned with full intent to run, only to swerve as a massive hooked claw big enough to scythe half of a farm swept toward him.

Too slow.

The claw pierced his chest clear through from front to back, and Karasu stared down for a moment before looking up into the eyes of a beast something like a mutated human man, with hands the size of surfboards and claws double that, skin gray and black, rotting and falling away from his bones.

"You do not yell, human?" The demon smiled with surprisingly straight, white teeth, like a demon auditioning for toothpaste advertising. There was... a kindred glimmer in his soulless, black eyes. "You do not scream and thrash, yet nor do you fall unconscious...?"

"I am ready to die. All of us were," Karasu muttered faintly, blood rising in his throat and starting him coughing. He couldn't breathe, not really, the demon must have pierced a lung... and this creature with his rotting skin, he only laughed.

"I think I'll let you bleed out, rather than torture you as I prefer; an interesting one, you are!" Ripping his claw free suddenly and staggering Karasu as the blood was allowed to flow freely, he suddenly staggered and fell, not registering the pain of the claws running through his thigh for a moment to come... watching the blood gush from the hole bored clear through his chest, seeing it flowing like a river from the stump of his severed leg... the man had to wonder if... this was really worth risking his life for...? It didn't really matter, though, not now... No matter the titanium will of his mind, he was losing too much blood, and in another second, Karasu slowly drifted into the void. As he did, the last thought to cross his mind was that this seemed quite a fitting way for somebody like him to end.

"I'm ready."