Reincarnating Man Returns To The Demonic Bride by silentanon

Link: https://fiction.live/stories/Reincarnating-Man-Returns-To-The-Demonic-Bride/57eg5bAyyiTLKnApE/home

Synopsis

He made a solemn vow on his deathbed: Life after life, he would return, to be together once more.

A contest: that determines the fate of nations and empires. A boy must piece together the memories of his past lives. Will his graduation from highschool doom him to a life in a gilded cage?

Hebron, Israel. 70 BC.

There was a great wailing, and a gnashing of teeth, as Tsuyu wept in the grave of Sarah. The fox-woman wept for her children, for her children's children. She wept for her husband, trapped in the darkest abode of Gehenna. "Lord of the Hebrews!" she exclaimed. "You have taken everything from me. You have taken a woman's wealth. You have taken my sons and my grandsons. It has pleased you to do so, to take them all!"

"You have taken my husband, my mate, my pillar, my guiding star. You have left me bereft and barren. The love that I had is but ash in my mouth. Does it please you, for me to suffer? To let me live on this earth, wishing to die?" She tears her ragged clothes, pulling at her hair. She cries out in madness and outrage. "You, who claim to be Lord of all things! You, who speaks of creating the world, and covering it with every creature on the Earth-"

She cries out, in outrage and pain: she cries out the very indignation of the world. "Your wrath is upon me. Your destruction has come. Very well! Perhaps I am a sinner! But it falls upon my children, upon my husband. Not I. They who are innocent and blameless, who should dwell in the halls of the righteous. You have taken them, and you have condemned them." She lowers her head. "And to that, I say it is unjust."

Tsuyu cries tears of bitterness. "You have given me evil, God of the Covenant! So I shall give you evil in return."

"I curse you, O Lord of Israel! I curse you and your people. I spurn you. I reject your mercy and love. You think you can replace what you have taken from me? That you may substitute my losses?" The kitsune's tails unfurl, eight in all. But instead of a ninth tail, something horrible and twisted ruptures from her body, that rips out of the muscle of her shoulder. A lonely, battered wing, as black as night, unfurls outwards from her bloodied body, fresh from the torment of hell. "Hear me, messengers of the host! My curse be upon you!"

You have stolen what is mine. My vengeance be upon you.

She laughs as she clutches her face, trembling, her eyes gleaming with monstrosity. The skies darken as the clouds hide the sun's face. With dark irony, Tsuyu speaks the words of her sister, her voice cracking with despair. "As I am seperated from my loved one in this life: you too, will suffer the same fate."

She staggers out of the cave, ranting to herself, delirious from the torment of Gehenna. "There will be not a Jew to be found, in the land of Canaan! To the four corners of the earth, they will be banished! As I am made a widow, Israel shall be in turn. Its menfolk shall overflow their graves, their women sold as slaves to every nation." She giggles with delight. "And their children will turn away from you, and worship alien gods, believing in nothing!"

Tsuyu whispers the names of her husband, coming to a stop, as she rocks back and forth. "And their children... and their children's children... shall suffer this curse. For I was left without my sons, which you have taken without remorse. So I shall take the sons of the Hebrews without remorse." She breathes out. "Forever seeking the land you have promised them, dreaming of a homeland you have given as birthright."

"They will seek it in vain." She says. "For it will be taken from them, again and again. I will see to it, that it happens so! For I am the adversary [Satan] of the God of the Hebrews," she looks up to the sky. "For you have made me such. You have aroused my ire! May I never forget it. May I never forgive you."

"I curse you," she whispers, as she reaches for her dagger: an obsidian blade of supernatural sharpness."And die." Tsuyu slits her throat, falling into her grave. She departs her stifling, human flesh, as her form transfigures into stone, appearing to all to be a statue of a woman in transcendent despair. It is a sessho-seki, a killing stone, that radiates death. It taints the land beneath it: its poisonous hate seeps into the world.

With her mortal form shed, burning with hellish power, the widow prepares for her long war on the Lord.

The earth will stumble around like someone who is drunk; it will shake like a hut in a storm. Its sin is like a heavy weight on its back; it will fall and never rise again.

[Kenji] Okinawa, Japan (AD 2028)

The People's Liberation Army - Navy Marine Corps, Landing Upon Okinawa

Was this the end of the world?

I cannot believe what I am seeing. Not even in my wildest delusions did I imagine anything like this coming to pass. Chinese troops, in Japan! Fighting American soldiers! Was it just a coincidence? Did World War Three kick off, while I was delirious in that cell? Was this just another hallucination? Was I so deluded that I could believe that it was possible, that all of this death and killing was over me?

"Idiot!" Chi-Guk roars in my head. "Move!" Bullets streak past me, as I am shot at by the PLAN marines. "It will be very funny, for you to report to your successor, that you have nothing to give him because your life was so short-"

I begin sprinting. The ancient Korean cultivator had awakened my energy core. The feeling was like a burning warmth in my stomach, as I drew upon it. Embers and brimstone blazed in my path as I ran. Bullets impacted into my chest, flattening into disks. It feels like someone is wailing into my chest with a baseball bat. Panic seeps into me, as I push more energy into a leap, attempting to bound up to the roof of a building for cover.

It is a mistake. As soon as I try for a display of superhuman athleticism, my body immediately pays the price. The muscles in my legs audibly tear as I land, the pain excruciating and immediately. "Idiot!" Chi-Guk berates me again. "You have not conditioned your body! Fool! You are trying to pour the ocean into a teacup!"

Profoundly miserable, I lean my head against the air condition as I clutch my legs. "Fuck you! I'm being shot at, with rifle bullets!" I complain. "I thought I was dead!"

"Why are you so worried? They are not qi-infused. It will only hurt a little." The man hovers over my head, grinning like a maniac. "In any case, it is your fault. Instead of training in your youth, you played videogames and masturbated. The consequences are catching up to you."

Tell me more of this 'Reimu Hakurei' you are so fond of.

I blush, flustered. How does he know? How could he know? "Wait." I say. "How would you know any of those things?"

"Boy," he says. "I am your past life. We share the same soul. You have my memories. Is it so strange, that I would know yours?" He grins. "You have good taste. Shrine maidens? Clearly, you are in continuity with our first predecessor. Alas, your romance with this woman is doomed. You are a married man, after all. No longer will you masturbate to pictures of women that are not your wife." He sweeps up his fan.

"I'm not married." It's not that I don't like women. (I'm not gay, either.) Real women always disappoint. They lie to you, pretending to care. No woman could ever love me. I was only a thing that others pitied. "And I'll jerk off to as many 2D women as I please!"

"Is that so?" Chi-Guk looms over me, before punching me in the stomach. I recoil into the ground. "Pitiful onanist! Lover of self-pleasure. It is patently obvious why you have not cultivated in this life. Virtual hussies are piped into your home via copper wire!" He says. "So I have removed the temptation."

"What… what have you done?" I say, horrified, as I feel something change in me.

"Until you have reached the distinction of the disciple of the third rank, you will not be able to achieve potency. No matter how alluring a sight it may be, your manhood will… heh, fail to arise to the occasion." He giggles. "Consider it incentive to self-strengthen in this life."

"Bastard!" I curse him, but he disappears. "Come back here!"

"Come with me if you want to live."

My little stunt has attracted the attention of the men attacking the military base. Although I have never spoken a lick of Chinese (and to be honest, my Japanese isn't too good either) I understand them. "Half-demon!" They call out. "Switch to the purification ammunition!"

"That's… that's not good." I wince, as I focus on my wounds, attempting to heal my overexertion. It is painful, but I see the flow of demonic qi rush to the affected sights, reknitting my torn tendons. The relief is immediate. "Is that what you meant, Chi-Guk? I should be wary of qi-infused weapons..?" But he is not here. I steady myself, as I hear steps from below. There is shouting. Shooting. I prepare to move, to run, as the door swings open-

An absolute babe emerges from the stairwell. "Anderson Kenji?" The woman speaks, speaking Japanese. "I'm Hattori Tsubame. I'm part of the special detachment of the JSDF. Um. Not an official one, mind you." She looks at me. "Come with me," she says, in English. "If you want to live."

"A movie reference..?" I say, cringing. "Let me guess. You're the descendent of Hanzo, too? Go away, chūnibyō."

"I-I always wanted to say that!" Tsubame is quick to correct herself. "But the rest of it, it is true. I know it's hard to believe, but-"

"Forget it." I say. "I'm hallucinating again. You're an anime character. You're clearly not real." I cross my arms. "The existance of a special detachment would violate the Japanese constitution, anyway."

She strides up behind me, her breasts pushing against my back, as she pulls me down and into cover. Bullets impact into the aluminum vent behind us. "I'm real. Very real. And we need to get out of here," The kunoichi looks about. "Do you want to fall into the hands of the Americans? Of the Chinese?"

"Is the Japanese government any better?" I say, paranoid. "What is going on? I don't know anything! It seems like the end of the world to me!"

"If you come with me," she sighs. "I will explain, as much as I am permitted to tell you." She says. "Downstairs. I've got a motorcycle. Let's go."

I still hate Chi-Guk for what he's done to me, but if he hadn't done what he did then things would be awkward right now. For I am clinging to Tsubame's chest, as I ride behind her on her motorcycle. My hands are firmly bound around her massive breasts as my loins are pressed up firmly on her ass. Damnit! He was telling the truth! He had stolen my ability to have an erection!

She reaches into her jacket for throwing knives, throwing them through the windows of the perimeter gatehouse as she retracts the tire spikes. As soldiers start sprinting over, she draws two semi-automatic machine pistols, pivoting her bike as she sends them scurrying into cover. "Hold this." She says, the spent guns warm to the touch as she touches a storage seal on her bike. Manifesting into her hands is a AT4 recoilless anti-tank weapon, of which she aims. "Just about… now."

"What are you-" The backblast of propellant gases almost knocks me off the bike as she fires at an approaching APC. The armored vehicle is struck through, as the explosive detonates inside of it. "Mother of God!"

She discards the recoilless gun, dropping it onto the ground. "Let's go." She pushes the pedal to the medal, as we rocket out of the military base and onto the highway. "Can you hand me the…"

"Oh? Yeah." Smoke grenades.I pass them to her, and she pulls the pin, throwing them ahead. We disappear into the billowing smoke. "Where are we going?"

"Back to the mainland." She grunts, as she focuses. "The art of non-detection," she whispers, as we are enshrouded by shadow. She slows down the bike, as we go off to the side road. "Alright. I think we're safe, for now." She continues to drive, as we make our way to the city proper. "We'll try and catch a civilian evacuation ferry. If not…"

"Hold on," I say. "You told me that you'd explain what's going on." The tension that has been building up in my chest. "Why is everyone after me? Why are the Chinese invading?"

My rescuer was a incredibly cute motorcycle babe.

"You are a man of great importance," she says. "Not for anything that you have done. But that you share the soul of great men: which have come back again and again to this world. To the Imperial House, you are their great ancestor, the hunter-god Benkei-no-Mikoto." She says. "To the Westerners, you are Caius Palatina, the forefather of many brides who wed into the royal houses of Europe. To the demonic practioners of the East, you are the Heavenly Demon of Paektu Mountain, whose tutelage birthed the Four Schools of Desire. You are many things, to many people."

"Yes, yes, I know." I say, exasperatedly. The memories I had just recalled went into excruciating detail of the particulars. "But why are they after me, then? Here and now, in the modern world?"

"There are powers in the world, that are greater than governments and states. Who scheme against each other, in the shadows." Tsubame says. "They are your descendents, and those allied to your descendents. To capture you, to hold you, is to mark their ascendency in the current era. It is an arrangement agreed upon to limit the extent of the war waged on Earth."

"I… what?" Now that was too much to believe. "You mean to say..!"

"Those who seek alliances with your descendents, who appeal to them for aid: they must secure your person, and return you to them. And whichever nation does this is given such power, while their foes are denied." She says. "And in this era that has just concluded, your predecessor was delivered by the Americans." Tsubame speaks. "And now you are born again, in another turning of the wheel. The competition that decides the hegemon of the current era has begun."

"I cannot be so important as that!" The implications boggle the mind. "You mean to say that I am the sole factor behind all of this, the rise and fall of empire?" I scoff. "You cannot be serious."

"Believe what you will. How can you intuit a thing, by its absence? The factions that had you in their possession had free reign to arrange worldly circumstance, their enemies barred from interference." She says. "That is as much as we can tell, from what the secret records say. It is your testimony." She looks to me. "That we Japanese know anything about it at all."

"What?" I say. "I told you? I mean… who? How?"

"To Oda Nobunaga." She says. "A long time ago."

It sounds like a child's fantasy, a poorly written light novel, with a premise so unbelievable as to be utterly unreadable. But she stares at me, with all earnestness. "And you will hold me," I say, melancholy overcoming me. "For your homeland."

"No! No." She says. "It is against the will of the Emperor!" She is adamant. "It is a mistake that has been made before." Tsubame looks ahead. "It is to our shame, to have given you up to the Germans, to give up our god-ancestor in pursuit of empire. But Japan is not as strong as it once was." She says. "I do not know if we can keep you at liberty."

The immeasurable burden thrusted upon me - to be the inheritor of the legacy of dozens of men - presses down upon me. "The world is at war," I say. "Chinese troops fight Americans, on Japanese soil. Surely, it will all end in nuclear annihilation?"

"Think not of it as one conspiracy, but of many, who have sway in all the governments and institutions of the world. No one will know that this is happening." She looks back, briefly, at the military base. "Do you trust your government? Do you believe it tells you everything that happens in the world? The contest is concealed from mundane eyes. With illusion, with deception, with censorship and misinformation." She begins to slow down, as she approaches the city and its port. "Those who claim otherwise will not be believed."

"Yes, but…" I look back. "This is a naval invasion! How could it possibly be covered up?" Dozen of American troops were dead! Hundreds of Chinese marines, along with who knows how many foreign nationals. "No conspiracy could be that powerful. Someone would know. Someone would find out."

"People can believe in anything." Tsubame says. "For instance," she thinks, as she turns a corner into the city proper. "Do you really believe that two airplanes hit the World Trade Center?"

"That's not-" I stare at her. Is she serious? Is she just playing around with me? If this was a joke, it was in incredibly poor taste. "What?"

"Exactly." She laughs. "Okay, we're getting close to a safehouse. Let's get you a shower, and something to eat."

"I… I don't want to be this." I say, as she stops in front of the apartment building. "I don't want this."

"Well, it's what's going to happen to you. You better get used to it." She says. "Whichever government hosts you, you'll live a life of luxury. You'll have every material comfort imaginable, in whatever bunker you end up with-"

"No. Not that." I say. "I… I want to be a normal person. You don't know how long I've wanted to be." I step off the motorcycle. "I want to go to a Japanese high school. A real one. Not just filling out worksheets from military bases, or transferring every year to greet a bunch of strangers. I want to have friends. I want to meet a girl my age, and tell her I like her, and kiss her when no one is watching." I tear up. "I just needed to find the right combination of drugs that would let me do that. But it's been taken away from me. Again. By this."

"You need medication, right? To deal with the seizures." She notices my hands trembling. "I'll get you some, right now. Did you need olanzapine?"

This was real. This was terrifyingly real. Strangers who walked into my life who knew the exact medications I was taking. How long was I being watched? "No. I need to hear them. The voices." I am perfectly aware of how crazy I sound. I am ashamed to tell her. "I survived only because of the voices. My past lives." I look at her. "They speak to me. They have told me everything."

"How far have you remembered, so far?" she asks. "What time period?"

I clutch my head. "Just… just after the death of Christ." At the end of Chi-Guk's memories, there is a freezing chill, an agony, and then I see him. I see the face of Jesus, carrying me out of hell. It is like I am living it again. Ancient agony renders me insensate, as my body turns cold. I seize up, in the middle of the street, screaming. "God!" I shout. "God, have mercy, oh, God-"

Tsubame catches me. "I-I'll get you a sedative," she says, alarmed. "Don't worry! You're here. You're here. Focus on my voice. Mr. Anderson! Can you hear me..?"

I bear witness.

I am brought into the apartment, trembling and incoherent. Things happen to me, of which my concious mind is only barely aware. The cold numbness of the anesthetic washes into my veins. The voices are angry with me. They want me to be alert and concious. I don't care.

It hurts too much.

"You'll be alright. You'll be alright." Tsubame whispers, as she drags me onto the bed. She takes off my clothes, as she wipes off the sweat on my body. "You'll be okay. You will get through this." The kunoichi holds my hand, as she holds up the IV drip, hanging it up on the wall. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." Does she pity me? For being so weak, unable to control my body?

"It's okay." I say, but it comes out as a gurgle. I steady myself. "You're curious. I wouldn't… believe it either."

"They say," she says, quietly. "That you have seen the heavens for yourself. Is that true?"

"Yeah." Benkei looked upon Takamagahara, during his near-death experience. "What about it?"

"What is it like?" She says, barely above a whisper. "The heaven of our people?"

"Bright light." I attempt to recall. "A gentle place, of serenity. The sun goddess's court was resplendent with grace and joy: It took all that I could to turn my back to it." My voice turns old and otherworldly. "Susanoo, my liege lord, came to my aid in my time of need. Yet more debts." I look up at the ceiling. "Does he wander the world still? Or has he left this world, with all the others?"

It is one thing to be told that there is heavenly reward after death. Another to be told that it is real, and to be believed. Tsubame looks at me in wonder. "You are really him: you are Benkei-no-Mikoto." She says, not knowing the proper way of things: she feels like she should bow. "My lord-"

"He was not a god," I murmur. Although things may have changed, in the long era after the Jomon hunter's death. He very well may be a deity revered by the state. "I was not a god. Just a man. Call me Kenji. Please." I grasped myself, the boy I was in this life. If she called me by other names, it would loosen. I would forget who I am. "I need you to."

"Alright. Okay, that works! I'll do that." She says. "I-I'll get you something to eat, Kenji! From the convenience store."

"She is falling in love with you." The martial arts dick manifests above me, as I lay down on the futon. "You've recovered enough. Best now to be away."

"Fuck off, asshole." The antipsychotics killed your libido and made you fat, but I'd take them to never hear this bastard ever again. "Why do you care? I couldn't stick it into her, even if I wanted to."

The Korean glares at me. "I can see the signs: I know the patterns. You think I have not seen courtship before, between a man and a woman?" He says. "You are vulnerable, you are hurt. You are mysterious and strange. You know things beyond the ken of mortal men. You awaken her womanly heart. Why would she not love you?"

"She pities me." I glare back at him, with equal force. "She does not desire me." I have had girlfriends before, who would treat me thus: who would use me as an ordament to show their empathy. But they did not desire me as a man. They could not see me that way. "I am unlovable."

"And they called me insane." He sighs. "I know that that is not true. There is a woman in this world that loves you more than anything, more than life itself. She but awaits you to find her. How can you say that you are unloved?"

"Then if that is true, why is she not here, then?" I confront him. "If she is so great and powerful, then why has she not come? Why does she let her children war over me? She cannot be in hell: you saw to that! Where is she? Why should I love a woman who has made me this way?" I tear up. "Who has broken me before I was born?"

There is a knock at the door. "Um," I hear Tsubame's voice. "I'm back. Are you… finished, talking to yourself?"

I wince. She heard me. When I talk to my voices, I play the part of my past lives as well. It is an eerie effect. "I'm… I'm alright." I wipe the tears from my eyes. "Come in."

She has brought take-out. We eat.

"What's it like?" She says, as the ramen bowls are half-finished. "Um. If you don't mind me asking."

"What's what like?" I answer, as I eat. I am ravenously hungry. I haven't eaten very well in the past few days. "About what? Being crazy?"

"Knowing your past life, I mean." She says. "You do remember, right? When I was young, I thought it'd be cool, you know?"

Oh. "It's a pain in the ass." I grumble. "You know how when you fail, when you fuck up, there's a little voice in your head, your self-hatred, that tells you that you're a loser and you should never have tried at all."

"…sometimes." She answers. "I get what you mean, though."

I point to my head. "Me's a crowd," I smirk. "Granted. Most of them don't talk much. But when you stuff twenty old men into a guy's head. someone is always talking. I remember…. I remember things." I say. "Things that I have never done. Everything is covered in a nostalgic glow. Like I've been here before. Nothing is new to me. Even if it is. Everything excepti video games and computers. Those are new." It's why I liked them so much. It was a thing, unique to me, that none of my other lives ever experienced.

"I see." She stops eating for a moment, as she opens a cold soda. "I can't imagine what that would be like. To never be alone, even in your thoughts." She pauses. "Say-"

"You want to know what your past life is?" I pick up on her desire. I've been asked this question many times, by many people. "You don't want to. Trust me. It always sucks." I grouse. "It's either boring or painful."

"Still." Tsubame smiles. "I think it's fun, don't you think?"

"Why would it be fun?" I say, curious. "Why do you think that?"

"Well, I've never experienced it before." She smiles. "Come on. Do me. If it's as bad as you say, I won't blame you. Try it."

The technique is Chi-Guk's, and so I can perform it as well. I see through her eyes, as she sees her past life.

She is in a courtroom, and it is all too easy to know where we are. A Nazi flag is draped over the wall, behind the judge. The old man looks upon her, and the man that she is with. Both young, in the prime of their lives, full of terror and quiet hope.

"Your papers are in order, I trust? Ah. You seek a marriage. You have my most sincere congratulations." The old man says, warmly. "Ah, Herr Fuchs. Everything seems to be in order." He writes down, in neat cursive, the man's ancestors. "Yes, yes. You are indeed, a full German-blooded [Deutschblütiger]." He gently puts the birth certificates to the side. "Your grandfather came from Saxony, your grandmother, Bavaria. She converted to Lutheranism, and they were married at the state church, yes, yes. Had a daughter, who married a police officer, yes, yes. All good." He pauses. "Do you need my permission, for something? I see nothing out of the ordinary."

The man nods. All of this is expected. "Ah, sir." He hesitates. "It is… a special case."

"Is that so?" He raises an eyebrow. "Well, show me."

The woman, with trembling hands, holds over her documents. "If it pleases you," the young, pretty blonde says. "Herr Richter."

"Right, right." He takes it, gingerly taking the birth certifical and baptismal records. "Grandfather, born in Bohemia. Moves to Hamburg, marries a fisherwoman. Daughter, born third. Marries, ah." He frowns. "A Jew. Your wife to be - she is mixed race [Mischling ersten Grades]?"

"Yes, Herr Richter." He lowers his head. "My betrothed's father was a soldier in the army, if it would-"

"It does not." The judge puts down his pen. He thinks. "Did, by any chance," he looks at the woman. "Your mother… concieve of you with a man that she was not married to, that was a full-blooded German? Can a man be produced, to testify to such an effect?"

"No!" The woman says, outraged. "Why, of course not! My mother was a loyal and prudent woman-" And immediately, she realizes that she has said something wrong. "I… not to my knowledge, Herr Richter." She closes her eyes. "Please! I will make a good wife for him," she pleads. "I will be a good mother. I will give birth to many children for the fatherland. If you would only give me a chance."

"Adelaide," the man whispers. "That is not-"

"I have to try." She says. "Even if there is no hope."

The man looks at the two of them, at their quiet despair. He pulls up the chart. He makes his decision. "I will allow it," he says. "I will write up you a exemption." He reaches for his stamp, and marks the papers, making a copy of the ehefähigkeitszeugnis and handing it to them. "If you have not already made the arrangements, I can enter you now, as a registrar."

"Oh thank you, thank you!" The woman leaps out from her seat, and embraces the judge. The old man blushes as he adjusts his glasses. "You have made me so happy. Thank you, kind sir."

"There is no need," he says, stiffly. "I am doing my job." He writes both of their names on another sheet of paper. He reaches under his desk, and takes out a book. "A gift, from the state." He slowly stands up. "Heil Hitler!"

"Heil Hitler!" The couple salute back. This is the flavor of Tsubame's past life, the sweetest of tastes. The warmth of the memories is undimmed by the horror of its context.

I draw myself out of it, as Tsubame blinks in confusion. "Did something happen? What did you see?" She says. "I felt so… so happy. Did I have a good life?" She questions. "In the past?"

"…best you don't know." What could I tell her? What could I say? That she was a good Nazi? That she and her husband were doomed by historical circumstance beyond their control? "I was right. It was bad."

"Oh, come on." She pouts. "It's not really that bad… was it? You can tell me. Come on. I can take it."

"No, you can't." I grouch. "Really. You don't want to know."

"Aw." She clicks her tongue. "Fine!"

It is the most unusual circumstance that I find myself in, and it is even stranger. This is the longest that I've spent in the company of a woman that was not my mother.

It is… odd.

She stares at me, curosity overcoming her professionalism. "What do you want?" I say, snapping, feeling irritable.

"If I could get you into a high school," she says. "Would that be something you would want?"

I stare at her. "What do you mean by that?" I say, suspiciously.

"I mean. You're sixteen right? Says so, in your medical records. You're going to turn seventeen soon. You'll be a third-year high school student." She says. "You'd have to actually pass your exams, but there's no reason you can't go."

There's nothing more that I want in life. That sense of normalcy. "…even if I could get a school to overlook my foreign birth and psychiatric records," I grit my teeth. "There's that contest you're talking about. Would the powers that be really postpone it all just so I can attend?"

"Why not? You're their patriarch." She says, crossing her arms. Tsubame opens up a beer, and hands it to me. "You may be just a high school student in this life, but it'll be different for them. All that they possess was originally yours. If they refused you, and caused you misery, who do you think they'd answer to? Who would come to destroy them?"

My wife. Or so Chi-Guk claims. "…where?" The dimmest light of hope begins to shine.

"There are a lot of private institutions, that cater to the elite." The kunoichi says. "With you being who you are… there will be no trouble, securing you a spot. I warn you, though. The expectations at first-rate schools are much higher than what you're used to." She finishes her meal. "If you fail your exams, you'll be expelled. And the contest will begin anew." She pauses. "But if you get good marks, you'll be able to go to university, if you'd like. That will buy you more time."

I drink my beer. "Let me think about it." I say.

"I have found you, O great father of all Turks!"

Before I have time to consider anything, there is a knock at the door. Anticipation fills me. Chi Guk does not speak, but a vibe of I told you so comes off him, thick and smug. "Were you expecting anyone?"

"No." The kunoichi flicks a knife into her hands, the other reaching for a pistol as she creeps up to the door. "There's a back door. Get out of here. I'll meet you in the parking lot-"

A terrifyingly large figure with Amazonian porportions charges through the thin wall of a Japanese apartment, breaking it down as she leaps into a combat roll. The two soldiers exchange gunfire, as I struggle. I shouldn't have accepted the beer, with the anesthetic. I am feeling very woozy. "Fool!" Chi-Guk says. "Reinforce your liver meridians! Purge it from your system - you know how!"

"Trying." I moan softly. It's like having a hangover in fast forward. "Shut up."

"You cannot conceal the Atatürk from me, woman of Japan!" The wolf soldier stalks forward, shouting in English, disdaining cover as she shrugs off shots to the chest. "The Great Father of Ashina, the Husband of Bozkurt!"

"What? How did you find us?" Tsubame curses, as she drops a smoke grenade. The apartment is filled with dusty particulate. "Who told you of this safehouse?"

"You may be able to fool mortal soldiers, ninja, but you cannot fool my nose! I have the scent of his soul!" She laughs. "I am Colonel Yasemin!" She turns around, and blocks the blow that would have carved out her heart as she draws her combat knife. "And this age will be the time of glory for my people, the people of Turkey!"

"Wait, what?" I say, and I am not alone in this. Chi-Guk is surprised, as well. "When did that..?" Did one of my incarnations have a romantic relationship with her? It happened after Chi-Guk's time. I have no knowledge of it. What changed?

It seems that there is still a great deal of my past life that I have yet to learn.

"Ah. You are there, Great Father." I am dragged out from beneath the table. The wolf-woman gives me a look. "Do not be afraid. You are safe now. Swiftly will I take you to the USS Enterprise, which will convey you with all honor and courtesy to Guam-"

The kunoichi staggers to her feet, reaching beneath the television cabinet as she pulls out an automatic shotgun. The SPAS-12 howls in the confines of the apartment, deafening me as the wolf-woman is struck repeatedly with slugs to the chest, staggering as she attempts to aim her pistol, before falling on the ground. Tsubame empties the entire magazine, shooting out the woman's legs and arms. "I did not bring silver," she says, clicking her tongue, chastising herself. "This will not stop her for long. We need to go."

"No." I say. This is only going to happen again. And next time, they might not be so careless. I don't want anyone here to die. I don't want anyone to die over me, over this stupid contest. "Let me talk to her."

"Are you crazy? She just tried to kidnap you!" She hisses. The wounds she took from her battle start to hurt, as she buckles over. "Ah… tch. Damnit. She shot me." Blood begins to drip from beneath her shirt. The colonel's shots did not all miss.

"Here." I step over to her, my dantian still full of demonic qi. It can be used to heal - the damned in hell are restored, so that they may suffer anew - but it is very painful. Tsubame gasps and moans as I lay on hands, sealing her wounds shut, as she falls on the ground. "You'll be okay. Just rest a bit." I move her to the futon.

The werewolf woman, despite having gaping holes in her legs and arms, is in a good mood. "So, you're coming with me, huh?" Already she is regenerating. "Good choice. There's a lot of pretty girls in NATO. I'm sure you'll find one to your taste-"

The notion repulses me. What the hell was going on, and why would she say that, as if it had appeal? "I'm not going to America," I say to her, in Turkish, as I heal her wounds. "I'm staying in Japan."

She is at first, surprised that I speak her mother tongue, before she adjusts. "Of course. I was briefed. Of course you would know." She looks at me. "But the Japanese will give you to the Americans eventually. You are speaking nonsense."

"I want a life." I force more demonic qi into her body. Her tongue lolls out as she begins to moan. "A real life, or the least the start of one. If you're going to put me in the kafes, I want to go to school! For one year." I look into her eyes. "I don't like being part of this stupid game. But if you're going to fight over me, you're not going to do it this way. If there will be a victor, I will decide. And not anyone else."

"Boy," she says. "You cannot give them terms. It does not work that way-"

"I am their forefather, am I not?" I draw upon Benkei's will, Caius's authority, and Chi-Guk's pride. It makes me feel more than a crazy, starved teenager. "And if they do not give me this, then I will destroy myself, my very soul. And then they can go to my wife, and tell them that it is their doing: that I am denied to her."

The two soldiers stare at me, horrified. Even Chi-Guk is stunned. "Damn," he says. "Now I know how Fubuki felt, back then. But… you don't actually know how to do that, do you?" He laughs, chuckling. "But they don't know that. Clever."

"L-let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Colonel Yasemin is afraid, truly afraid. She raises her hands up. "Do not do this, Great Father. If you quit yourself of life…"

"Your masters will crave a death that never comes. Their suffering shall be legendary." I do not know if Tsuyu would actually do this, to her children. But a kitsune's grief, what it can do: I know too well. "So. You will stop attacking each other. Now."

The two women glare at each other, in the ruined apartment. The sound of police sirens echoes in the distance. It is not surprising, as the two soldiers have utterly destroyed the entire apartment block. "So," Tsubame says. "What happens now?"

"We'll catch one of the evacuation ferries to Kyushu," I say. "Can you get me a spot on one of them? And for you and her?"

"I can make a few calls." Tsubame says, looking at Asena warily. "I still don't think this is a good idea-"

"No. We need her." I turn to Yasemin. "I assume you have a way to contact your superiors?" The sudden shift of power is almost intoxicating. But I can't push it too far. "Tell them what I told you."

"They're not going to be happy." She says, grunting. "This is going to make a whole lot of important people upset."

"Do you think I care?" I say. There is a madness in my eyes, that scares her. It comes easily and readily. It is not even acting. "Do it."

She growls, as she draws up a satphone from her pack. "Gimme a sec. I'll be right back." The Turkish special forces woman departs, as she goes to speak to her mysterious masters. I don't know who they are, and for the moment, it is irrevelant. If she can get them to back off, it will have been worth it.

"Why are you bringing her along?" Tsubame slouches forward with a great sigh. "This is going to cause no end of trouble."

"You need someone to watch your back. You can't protect me alone." I grunt, as I stop reinforcing my liver meridians. My grip on conciousness slips. "More will come. Even if the colonel can call off the Americans and their allies… others will come. The Chinese. The Russians. The Indians." I take a breath. "The Koreans. North and South. Who else am I missing?"

"You forgot the Israelis and the Iranians." she hesitates. "Maybe the Arabs, too."

"Everyone and their mother." I set myself down, laying on the floor. "Get me out of here. Get me on the boat." I whisper. "I trust you, Tsubame. Do this for me. Please."

I pass out, before I hear her reply. But I remember her face, her expression. It is a gentle one, full of concern.

She does not pity me.

Nice boat.

"Kenji." I hear Tsubame's voice. "Kenji? I need you to wake up."

"Uh… what?" I blink. I'm lying down, in one of the rooms. The kunoichi girl looks at me intently, like she knows me. Like there's some secret between us that only she knows. Am I only imagining it? As I wake up, it disappears. "We're on the boat." It's very quiet. The only sound is of the vibration of the ship's engines. "What's wrong?"

"We're sitting ducks, that's what it is." Colonel Yasemin grouches, as she hand-loads bullets into a minigun belt. She sits on boxes of boxes of ammunition and other weaponry. "I don't like it."

"Where's everyone?" I ask the ninja girl. She smiles. "I thought-"

"We have the ship to ourselves. It's better this way. No crew, no civilians." The kunoichi has an entire bundle of seals in her arms. She sets them down on the bed. On the desk is a large brush and an inkwell. "The Chinese have had enough. They executed the admiral in charge of the landings for incompetence." She looks at the TV. "The PLA had their shot. Now China's going to send their cultivators."

I don't like that. I slowly get up. "I can help," I say. "I-"

"No. You stay here. They're sending disciples from the Four Schools of Desire." Chi-Guk's legacy to the world: a bunch of martial arts assholes. As if the world needed more! "Of the sixth degree. I cannot fight them and protect you at the same."

"Bastards are impossible to kill." The wolf-girl grouches: she, who took several buckshot rounds to the chest and limbs and kept on going! "If I had time, I'd have brought my chemical warfare duds. Spraying them with VX gas is the only thing that makes sure they don't get back up."

"I don't…" I hesitate. But I do. I just don't want to ask. "Chi-Guk, what does she mean, by sixth degree?"

"They remember three of their past lives." The old master is impressed. "Ah… I suppose you could say that they've undergone just as much pain as you have. Maybe more, maybe less. Hard to say." He looks at me intently. "Are you ready to fight?"

"I am." My eyes flash with demonic qi. "There will be more, after them. Wait down here." I stand up. "I will deal with them personally."

"Hey." Chi-Guk says, as we pass by "What are those?"

"Those? You mean… guns?" I look at Colonel Yasemin's arsenal of weaponry. How she managed to acquire this in Japan - from a American military base, no less - as a foreign national to both I can only chalk up to the influence of the deep state. "They're weapons."

"I know. They were using them on each other, earlier. At first, I thought they were sling bullets. You get the occasional retarded hidden weapons user who fires them from the palm of their hand." He thinks. "But that's not the case, mhm? I didn't detect any qi."

"It's because they use gunpowder as the propellant." I talk to my past life, in front of the Colonel. It greatly discomforts her in a way which I enjoy. "Anyone can use them."

"Really? Sweet! I want one." The Korean martial arts bastard gestures with his fingers in a disgusting come-hither motion. "Ask the Xiongnu girl for one."

I don't see why not. "Give me a gun." I say. "I need it."

"…why should I?" She says. "You don't even know how to use it."

"That's wrong! That's a fucking lie! No way you didn't learn!" Chi-Guk says. "You haven't remembered it yet, but you should have the memories for it!"

"I know how." I say. "Give me a gun, and I'll field-strip it." The wolf girl raises an eyebrow, before tossing me a pistol. I disassemble the M1911. I could do it in my sleep. I disassemble and reassemble it, and as I do, I remember dull, dreary days, in a distant armory. A life that I have not yet recalled. "Satisfied?"

"Why do you want it?" Yasemin asks. "Don't you have martial arts?"

Chi-Guk smirks, before he steals the use of my voice. "I haven't killed a Chinese bastard in two thousand years. Ohoho! This feels good!" The weapon begins to glow. "Gun qi! Something new! Ahahaha!"

The colonel stares at me in horror, as I choke him back down. "Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit!" I swear at him. "I got you one, and you're making everything think I'm crazy, you goddamn Korean bastard."

"You shut up, you shit-for-brains successor! You're my disciple: deal with it!" He gives me the finger, as I walk up the stairs to the top deck. "Why, back in my day-"

Just because he's me and I'm him doesn't mean we get along. I have plenty of self hatred and for once it feels good to feel it, to really hate a part of yourself that is an annoying cringe bastard. "Fuck you, you fuck! You took away my cock!" I shout. The disciples of the Four Schools of Suffering await me. "I'm not going to give you shit for now on!"

"Our penis is for our wife only!" Chi-Guk screams back at me."You will not break our vow to her!"

"Our wife is a crazy bitch!" I say. "You're saying that because you never got to fuck her, you self-martyring bastard! Maybe if you got laid you wouldn't be such a giant pain in the ass!"

"You dare say that about Tsuyu, you piss-drinking latrine attendant?" Chi-Guk is really mad at me. He hijacks my arm as he points the gun I took to my head. "Take it back! Take it back right now!"

Of all the things the Chinese cultivators were expecting of me, a full-on screaming schizophrenic breakdown was not what they expected. All notions of formality and introduction go out of the window as they silently watch me go nuts.

"What's going on? Why are you-" Caius choses this moment to emerge from the sea of my soul. "By the gods. What are you doing?"

"He called our wife a crazy bitch!" Chi-Guk says. "The insolence!"

My past lives are using my voice to speak. I am carrying the conversation by myself, which only discomfits my audience even further. "He turned off my dick!" I complain. "I'll jerk off to whoever I goddamn well please-"

The Roman centurion lets out a long, forlorn sigh. "Have you no dignity? No shame?" He turns to Chi-Guk. "Give it back."

"I don't want him to fall in love with another woman." The martial arts master sulks. "I made a promise."

"You know very well that it is for the successor to choose whether he honors that or not." The man crosses his arms. "He has his own life to live." He turns to me. "And as for you, young Kenji." He says. "We care for her. Deeply. That is why she is our responsibility."

I reach a certain degree of inner calm, as the hallucinations dissipate. "RIght." I say. "Where were we?" I look at the martial artists. "Ah. We were about to fight."

You ever feel like that you're not vibing with the atmosphere around you?

"Revered Founder," one of the men says, as the four of them bow. "First Patriarch Rightful Rule. It would be our honor to return you to the ancestral land."

Chi-Guk's anger with me immediately dissipates as his phantom rushes the man, throwing his fists through the martial artist's head. "The insutl! The cheek! The nerve! He called me Chinese - he courts death!" He looks at me. "Give me your body!"

"No." I glare at him. "Give me back my penis!"

"Fine, fine! Just let me have a crack at them, won't you?" He strides back, striking my body. The martial artists look upon me in confusion and disgust as my pants visibly tent with a erection. "Don't worry. I'll kick their asses for you, just you wait and see."

"Whatever." I am pulled away from my body. I still can feel my pulse, my breath, but it is like I am observing someone else. This would happen, during my childhood. When I was depressed or bored - or I grew exhausted of living - I would blank out, awakening when my predecessors returned my body to me. "Do what you want."

Chi-Guk takes control, as he pulls the gun from our temple. He looks upon the martial artists with a familiar contempt. "Useless disciples," he says. "I gave you this power, didn't I? So that you could seek out your desires of your soul. Why the hell are you out here, doing the bidding of the central government, you dickless bastards?"

A woman speaks up. "We are doing our patriotic duty to the nation and the party-"

"You're training women now? Didn't I forbid that? That was a rule!" Chi-Guk is practically frothing at the mouth. "No women allowed! Who was it? Who started letting them in?" Chi-Guk stalks forward. "You! How many wives do you have?" He gestures at the leader.

"I… um…" the man goes. "I'm not-"

"Of course not, you womanizing fuck! If you had married them, you would have had to have responsibility." The Korean grabs the martial artist by the balls. "None of you are worthy of licking Li Mei's taint! He had more balls than all of you combined, and the Han Emperor cut them off!" He says. "You Chinese bastards that serve the state, what's the point? You gave up your revenge to live in golden palaces. Who the fuck is in charge now?" He roars. "Not this retard here, who let me touch his family jewels. Where is he?"

"That's enough, brother."

"I let them in." A woman speaks up. "Because you were the one who trained me. I don't see why girls should be excluded forever because of what you said so long ago." Princess Gyeong-Hui flies down from the sky, landing on the deck of the ferry. On her shoulder is the emblem of the North Korean flag. "Please let go of his balls. It's not dignified."

"Sister!" Chi-Guk says. "What are you doing here?" He steps away from the man.

"I am protecting Korea, from the influence of foreign nations. As you tasked me to do in your stead. For the past two thousand years, I have done so. A hundred years ago, there was a warlord era, and your disciples grew unruly and monstrous. To protect your legacy, I subdued them." Gyeong-Hui has a slender grip on her ancient jian, which thrums iwth two thousand years of sword qi.

"She's working for the communists," I tell Chi-Guk. "She's on the side of the Chinese."

"Little sister, did you not get it?" The Korean man giggles, laughing hysterically. "I went to all that trouble to create four schools of unrulable men. I did so, so that when the people of the central plains started to fight one another, that they could never be unified again to haunt my homeland's door!" Chi-Guk growls. "That was my legacy: a China that would burn forever divided between the kingdoms of my students!" This notion shocks the martial artists, who gasp. "And what have you done? You made them respectable! Orthodox!" He spits. "They are almost gentlemen!"

"Times have changed, dear brother. It is no longer an era where the jianghu is hidden. The rivers and lakes are exposed, the light of the state reaching to its darkest depths. I did what was necessary, to preserve the art." She looks at Chi-Guk with quiet anger. "Or would you have preferred all cultivators to suffer the fate of the inauspicious creatures?"

"Better that than to be the slaves of the central government!" Chi-Guk hisses. "Tell me, who is Emperor now?"

"There is no Emperor." The woman from before speaks up. "The Qing were overthrown. The party-"

"If I wanted your opinion, woman, I'd ask for it!" Chi-Guk lets out a blast of qi, that sends the disciple flying off the edge of the boat. Tensions ratchet up as the remaining Four-School disciples square up for battle. "Who really rules? Tell me his name, and I'll kill him myself, right now."

"It is a bluff," Princess Gyeong-Hui says, without being intimidated. "His current body is not strong enough to sustain his cultivation."

"Is it now?" Chi-Guk says. "You don't know this guy. He's the son of a Western soldier! He's got a twelve-inch penis and eats iron bars for breakfast."

"That is a lie, you bastard." I snarl at him. "You were just shit-talking me about it!"

"Contain him, and I will bind him." Gyeong-Hui says. "I would rather have you come peacefully, brother. But you have always been an unruly one." Her eyes flicker with mischief. "I'm the Demon King of Mount Liang: I'm going to take you away and have my way with you." She raises her sword up high. "Isn't that what you said?"

She's right. Chi-Guk stops, for a moment, as he remembers. "Little sister," he says. "That was only a joke, so long ago. You don't mean to tell me that you're still mad?"

"I am. But I'll forgive you." She smiles. "Your body in this life is not the body of which is the son of the king of Joseon. In this life," she smiles. "I will make a good wife for you."

The martial arts bastard sweats. "I… I am a married man." He grips the pistol, pointing it at her. "Do not do this, sister. I am faithful to my wife."

She hesitates. "It will comfort you, then." She says, preparing her attack. "To know that no matter how this contest ends, your promise will be fulfilled." She gestures. "Attack."

The elevator arrives: the wolfgirl opens up with her minigun.

"Get to cover!" The Turkish woman shouts, as she emerges from the ferry's elevator. Colonel Yasmin uses her incredible strength to both carry and aim the minigun, which only a soldier of her size could concievably wield. The M134 minigun fires 7.62x51mm NATO, full-sized rifle rounds. Normally mounted on the side of vehicles or in a weapons pod of its own, the shapeshifter carries it with casual ease as she sprays down the deck. "Mr. Anderson, come to the elevator-"

"Shit!" I push Chi-Guk back out of my body, as I hit the deck. The Four Schools disciples are shredded to pieces, falling down on the ferry deck in pools of blood. Qi from their past lives flows into their wounds, staunching their wounds and healing the damage, as they stagger back to life. The minigun's belt jams, which is just enough time for Gyeong-Hui to step in to defend.

"Such a crude thing," the Korean princess says, with distaste, parrying the bullets with razor-sharp blasts of wind, slicing the bullets in two as they impact bethind her in trails of sparks. She leaps in the air as to confuse her tracking, getting closer and closer. "That's how the Mongols were, too. Brute force-"

Tsubame dashes out from her hiding place, bursting out of a steam vent as she lunges in for a slash with two kunai. Taken off guard, Gyeong-Hui can only parry one, but the other sinks into her shoulder. "Iga Ninja Secret Technique!" The kunoichi makes several hand seals, channeling her internal energies as she uses the weapon as a link. "Art of Banishment: Moon Lake Reflection!"

"What?" The Korean immortal's eyes widen. "What did you-" And she vanishes without a trace.

From my position on the ground, I ready my pistol, aiming it at the remaining mooks. "Any of you think you got a shot?" I smile, raggedly. "Well, then, come on!" A martial artist knows the difference of overwhelming strength. One by one, they run away, jumping into the ocean as the ferry sails off.

The minigun barrel radiates with heat as it comes to a halt. "Should have brought the flamethrower. Try parrying that, bitch." Yasemin grumbles. "What did you to do her?"

"I sent her to the moon." Tsubame says, panting with exhaustion. "She'll be able to return, during the Mid-Autumn Festival." She smirks. "If she's strong enough."

"Wow. Huh." The colonel thinks. "Why didn't you do that to me?"

"Because it costs seven years of lifespan." Tsubame says. "And I could beat you in other ways. Her, no. She's too strong." She gets to her feet. "Kenji, are you alright?"

"I'm alright." But seven years of lifespan? "You didn't have to do it for me," I say, as I stand up. I help her to her feet. "That's too much."

"I made a promise, didn't I?" she says. "That you'd have a normal high-school life. I meant it." She looks to Yasmin. "You were an excellent distraction. You made so much noise that she didn't notice me sneaking up on her. I needed to hit her once for the technique to work." She pauses. "It's near impossible to break through xian's guard. The only way you can get by is through strength or surprise."

"Why… er, yeah! Exactly. That was my plan." The Turkish girl laughs nervously, in a way that is vaguely yet endearly familiar. "I totally intended to do that."

Tsubame has lost all of her strength. "Gotta rest," she says. "Even on the mainland, you're still not safe. Russians… may try." The kunoichi looks up at me. "Wake me up, when we get there, alright?"

"I will." I say. She is surprisingly light. I carry her in my arms. "Colonel," I say. "I know we didn't start with the best of introductions, but if you could keep watch, I'd be grateful." Channeling Chi-Guk and his skills was incredibly exhausting.

"Tch." She looks away. "Don't get too cuddly, kid. Just doing my duty to my country." She looks out. "Put her in the humvee. I'm going to drive you to the military base. We'll catch a helicopter to Kyoto until you figure out what you're doing."

"Thank you." I smile, before bowing. "I appreciate it."

these years bleed into one another, like wounds that never heal

"You never change, do you?" she whispers, softly. "Kenji…" she says, without honorfic, in an intimate, disturbing fashion. "I know you… you care. You shouldn't feel bad. It's alright."

My blood runs cold. I've heard those words before. But from where? From when? "Why?" I ask. "What-"

"…nothing. It's nothing." She goes quiet. "I'm sorry," she says. "That it took so long to find you, this time. The entire Iga clan was looking for you. Even the Koga, our rivals, helped." She laughs. "Oda said… you were a kind, gentle man, who possessed a uncommon loyalty. He praised you! He said that if he had men like him and Hanzo, a dozen of them, he could have conquered the whole country without effort."

I see. "I'm not that person." I say. "I'm not any of those people." They're things I've never done. Accomplishments of other men. I feel detached from them. Does anyone feel proud, taking credit for the deeds of others? "For one year of my life, you have given seven. I didn't want that."

"No! No. You are worth it." She says. "And it… it felt right." Her hand traces on my cheek. "I don't know why that is. But it was. That I'd give my life for you. And, if given the choice," she smiles. "I'd do it again. It's the first time in my life that I've felt so certain." She says. "So… happy."

"What the hell?" I say, disconcerted. "What does that mean? Tell me!" But she does not answer me. She has fallen asleep, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot wake her. I set her down in the humvee, wrap her up in blankets and pillows from the ferry.

When she wakes, as we arrive in port, she says she does not remember anything of what she said.

"So." Yasmin says, as she starts up the humvee. The ferry's ramp begins to decend, as searchlights flicker through the cracks. "God is real, huh?"

"I don't know about that." I answer. 'But his angels were around, back then. Jesus was, too." I sit in the passenger's seat. I smashed open the vending machines with a hammer and brought all the food inside. "What?"

"Then Nietzsche was wrong," she grips onto the wheel of the humvee, as she stares ahead. "He isn't dead."

"Woah. Hold on." I feel like it is necessary to correct her. Why do people ask me this sort of question? "Just because God was alive two thousand years ago doesn't mean he's alive now." The sound of the ferry's front prow lowering rises to a deafening pitch. I raise my voice. "Anything could have happened."

"But… but you saw angels. You beheld a messiah!" She looks at me. "You saw the son of Mary. Did you witness the last prophet?"

I don't remember, but her questions are causing my headache to worsen. "You're a Muslim, aren't you?" I grit my teeth. "Do you think that your holy book would mention me? A reincarnating pagan, married to a demonness?"

"No, but-" She hesitates. "There are some very convincing scholarship that theorize that you were reborn amongst the companions of the Prophet. It was God's will that you do so. That you would bear witness."

"Oh, here we go." I stare at her. "I don't remember! It's not like I was there to see every important thing that has happened in human history!" Who amongst my past lives told people that Jesus was real? It's causing me no end of trouble now. "What's so important about this,, anyway?"

"If it is true, you are a Hafiz… a protector of the Quran. One who has completely memorized it, hearing the prophet Muhammad's words." She looks at me. "Inerrant, unaltered, pure! The revelation of God is in your memories, undistorted by earthly struggle. That which was lost by the death of Ali may be restored."

"…I don't even know where to start with that." I clutch my head. I give her a look. "It came… it came as a flood. But then it stopped." I grip tightly onto the door. "Three lives - it's already too much." I look at the colonel. "I don't know if I was really one of these companions, as you say. But it'd take a lifetime to get those memories out." I grit my teeth. "Are you not content to have faith? To believe in your God without certainty?"

"It's important." Yasmin says. "It's important to me. To all the faithful. If you are the الشاهد [witness], then you are the most important person in the world." She means this. "And I will get you out of here, alive. You have my promise." The wolf-girl extends out a hand to me, before patting my back.

"…what's taking so long?" I say, as the prow stops raising, the gate to the port remaining closed. "Were your people supposed to meet you here?"

The wolf girl furrows her brow, before she reaches for her radio. "Wolf-1, reporting in. Need an ETA. Status on evac?" A hiss of static greets her. "Shit-"

The Russians make their move.

"СТОЙ!" The soldiers say, shouting at the top of their lungs. "Stop! Get out of the car-"

Yasmin hammers the gas pedal as the humvee bursts out of the car terminal. Several Russians, setting up spike traps, barely get out of the way in time as she plows right through. Several sharp bangs ring in my ears as the tires pop, but the American military vehicle keeps on going as it smashes through the the fence.

"Christ!" My head rings, as I hastily put on my seatbelt. "They've got RPGs!"

"They will not dare fire!" She hops out of the drivers seat, as we pull onto the street. "I will get on the machine gun! You drive!"

"I don't know-" Wait. I do. "Okay, okay." I look at the dashboard, ignoring all the flashing lights and the noises as I hike the driver's seat forward, enough so that I can reach the pedals. "This thing handles like an elephant-" The humvee soldiers on, despite its popped tires, but it's clear that its top speed is drastically affected. Hot brass spills in from the turret mount as the colonel frantically sweeps in all directions. "There's a barricade!" I shout, as I look ahead. Someone has drove a semi onto the road. Soldiers without uniforms shout as they raise their rifles, bullets impacting the bulletproof grass. "What do I?"

"Drive through!" Yasmin commands, and I step on the gas. The troops keep firing as I let go of the steering wheel, hastily searching for my seatbelt as I brace for impact. I feel my bones lurch as the impact obliterates the semi-trailer. The Humvee's engines make terrible noises as it waddles onto the overpass. "Get on the highway!"

"Where are we going?" I shout, as I turn the damn thing, cursing. "Goddamnit! Move faster, you piece of shit-"

"Sasebo Naval Base! Just follow the signs!" Yasemin has gone through several belts of .50 cal: the floor of the humvee is literally carpeted in casings. She opens a door, brushing it out with her foot, as she continues to fire on our pursuers. "Drive!"

Son of a bitch.

It is the longest five minutes of my life, as we speed down the abandoned highway. Colonel Yasmin is chatting on her radio, furiously shouting orders. "This is Wolf-1. I need immediate evac on Route E3. Got the target, and a… civilian." She says, looking down at Tsubame. "We require immediate medical attention." Garbled noise comes through the radio, as the reply is lost in the wind. "They're coming. We made it!" She's got a smile on her face. "You're safe now."

"…the Russians just gave up?" My paranoia spikes. No way. No way in hell. "Gotta keep moving."

"Hold on. Pull over. We need to get somewhere out in the open, so that the helicopters can land." She looks down. "And even if we're going with the humvee, I gotta fix the tires-" She turns. "Fuck-" A shadow emerges from the darkness of the night, talons three feet long, razor sharp. A horrible zmei - a dragon - with three heads rips Yasmin out of the gunner's seat. I hear the wolf-woman scream defiance as she is pulled away, her sidearm's flash illuminating the horrible creature as it disappears.

"Colonel!" I shout. Damnit! I stop the humvee, the crippled vehicle coming to a halt as the engines overheat. Radiator fluid froths and boils as it leaks from the engine block. Fuck. I grab onto the machine gun, scanning the sky. The highway's lights ruin my night vision, as I struggle to see shapes in the distance. "Yasmin!"

The dragon comes back, the wolf-woman caught in its claws, as the werewolf weakly struggles. It roars, as it comes in for a pass. I turn on the creature and open up with the .50 cal HMG. My ears ring as the deafening report hammers into my eardrums, tracers lighting up the creature's stomach as great chunks of flesh and scale are ripped away. Roaring in agony, it lets go of Yasmin, but not before it tosses the humvee like a toy car.

I am sent flying, falling out of the humvee and impacting onto the concrete with a crunch. I feel bones in my side break as several ribs pop: my right arm, taking the brunt of the fall, is rendered into a bruised, twisted mess. The wolf-girl lies insensate on the ground, her two halves slowly regenerating together as she grimly attempts to pull herself together. The crashed humvee has no sign of movement. Is Tsubame alive?

Is she dead?

Did a woman die for me again?

I spit out blood, as I stagger to my feet. "Alright," I bite back the pain, as I reach for the M1911 in my pocket. "You son of a bitch. I'm here!" I shout, as the zmei lands on the highway. "You want to fight? You'll fucking get one!"

You feel a power burn inside of you, that rises from the sea of your soul. All they ask is that you speak their names.

Your name.

Bury the Light - DMC5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg9KxGNeJY

Choices -Voting closed - 45 voters

VOTESArthurian Knight [502 AD]23/333Varaganian Guard [1095 AD]11/112Masterless Samurai [1559 AD]7/82

why does a man desire strength?

to be the strongest?

no. he does not dream of standing

tall, for standing's sake, but

to protect that woman which waits for him

at journey's end

"What are you doing?" Chi-Guk's voice jars into my mind. "You are… recalling the memories through pain. Doing it the hard way, I see-"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" I growl. "You did it… I did it." My eyes burn with force. "You killed her. I killed her. A woman died for us. I was a murderer before the day I was born!" I hiss. "Do you know how much I hate you? That you surrendered someone who loved you to God without question? You, who are the most proud of us all?" I grit my teeth. "What right do you have to be?"

"You do not know what you do!" The Korean warns me. "It is-"

"What has… what has love given me?" I dissipate him with a hand, returning him to whence he came. "Nothing but suffering and misery. It is clear to me that one cannot live for it alone!" I breathe hard. "Courage is necessary. Courage to endure on despite it. The strength is mine, to live without it!"

"Come to me now! My lives, which have been forsaken by love. Teach me your lessons, give me your strength!" I wrench out that ancient power, that lurks in every man's soul: that silent, stoic chorus that has endured all that the world has to inflict upon. "If pain is what life gives me, I will live for it. I will accept my fate as a man!" My head explodes with pressure as my heart furiously pumps blood. From the oblivion of death, three shades emerge. New voices join the frightful chorus of my mind as the past joins with the present.

The Welsh knight speaks first. He is dressed as an equite, but his clothing is more rough-spun: he wears a Celtic neck torc, and a cloak and pants. He carries a shield and a sword. "So the sorceress did not lie," he says, in a Celtic tongue. "I am denied salvation for my sins. Must I walk this earth, as the Wandering Jew does? Did I strike at Christ with my word and deed? Am I made endless?"

"No, brother." A Norseman speaks, laughing. Heavily armored in chainmail, the man wields a two-handed longaxe. "This is Vahalla! Behold, a dragon!" He says. "I've always wondered what would it be like, to kill one! As a child, I dreamed of equalling the deeds of Sigurd and Beowulf, but they were all gone, in Rurik's day. Long before I was born." He looks to the third figure. "What say you, sister?"

A Japanese woman, holding her naginata, solemnly nods. "He is in pain," she looks upon me, dressed in her kimono. "We have no time to brag, northman. Every moment we are strong in his mind, the more his body erodes and decays." She swoops around in a battle stance. "Let us fell this monster without hesitation or delay."

The three step into my body, and I scream, the pain of three lifetimes wracking my body, all at once-

"Child," the woman speaks into my head, as the dragon lunges for me. "I need a spear. I am no judoka, and I do not know how to use the Portuguese weapons."

The beast is tall, lumbering, and obvious. It surprises me to know that mythological beasts have telegraphed attacks. Video games are educational! I force the demonic qi into my legs as I make a short hop, dodging death by a hair's breadth. "I don't have anything like that. Sorry." I look around at my surroundings. "If it's the right shape, you can use it, right?" Chi-Guk used a chamber pot to beat up his half-brothers. Spears were just metal tubes, at the end of the day. Wasn't that the case?

"…it will have to do." She gestures over to a fallen road sign, the metal pillar twisted out of its mount. "Get it."

I dash, running as quickly as I can as I stay out of the dragon's sight. The Zmei clutches a claw against its stomach, keeping its guts inside, as I grab the weapon. Fire billows out of its triple maws as it lights up the night sky. "There!" I say. "I have it!"

"I have spent all my life fighting against opponents stronger and bigger than I." The onna-bushi whispers. "To prevail, one must redirect the force of your enemy, to use his strength against him." She sheathes the road sign in her naginata-chi as she instructs me. "Hold it firmly before you, pointed towards the enemy. Plant the base firmly in the ground and recieve your enemy's charge."

Stand before a charging, three-headed dragon. Right. "The weak point, right? The wound opened earlier." I feel hesitant to even mention it. Is it too obvious? I feel that my contributions to this combat are worth less than nothing.

"Yes! Of course." She says. "If it is there, exploit it. Have you fought creatures like this before?"

I doubt she'd be impressed with my Dark Souls speedruns. "Not really," I say. I have to roll out of the way. Let the dragon drive the spear into itself, and roll out of its reach. Simple, really. Nothing to it. "No."

Who am I kidding? I can't do this!

But it's not like I have a choice, do I?

The zmei lunges towards me, howling fury, as I sink the road sign into its gut. The beast howls as the end bursts out of its back, but it lashes out with maw and claw. I roll out of the way, just barely, as its flame scorches the clothes off my back. I choke back a scream as I smell my own cooked flesh, the demonic chi in my system reknitting my wounds as painfully as possible.

"Retard." I chastise myself. "You don't have i-frames, in real life! Dodge earlier!" I stagger to my feet, running towards Colonel Yasmin. The zmei twists and roars behind me, its breath causing the bitumen of the road to bubble into tar. It attempts to free itself from its impalement. It buys me time.

The werewolf was alive, incredibly. I could see her insides. I don't know how anyone could stay concious, having their intestines strung out on the highway like silly putty. She had already started to reattach her torso to her chest. "Sorry." She grunts in English, smiling at me. "Trying to grow a spine. How's it going?"

"I think I'm having a stroke." I stumble, as one of my eyes trembles. "I'm trying to… trying to…" I can barely make it out. "Tsubame."

"I think she's alive." The werewolf girl says, gesturing. "She's just being quiet, is all." She curses. "Damn. Couldn't she have saved that moonlight whatsit for this goddamn thing?"

"If she didn't." I shake my head, slouching. "Then I'd be in China by now." The pain in my head was only increasing. I had to finish this fast.

The Norseman roars into my head, letting out a wolf whistle with my mouth. "Hot damn! What a woman!" He takes control of my body as he fondles one of her breasts. "A real shieldmaiden, this one! Say, when this is all over, would you like fuck? I will give you strong sons!"

"What are you-" Yasmin flashes her eyes in anger. "You're not him. What the hell are you?"

I forcibly push him back as I blush crimson. "Stop that." I growl. "Now is not the time. You need a weapon too, right?"

"Yes!" He says. "Although I am not picky, like the woman! I need something with weight, that I can cut with." He looks down at the Turkish woman. "Do you have anything like that?"

She stares at me - through me, to him - with a mixture of disgust and fascination. "Here." She says, reaching to her side, taking out a collapsible shovel. The edge has been sharpened. "This should work."

"Excellent!" I pop the handle out of its casing, as he stands behind me. "Now, grab the handle with both hands, little man! We are going to cut off the dragon's heads!"

"This is insane." I say, as I drop the pistol and grip the entrenching tool like an axe. "You are insane. I am facing a dragon with a shovel."

"I know, I know. But just imagine, if you would." He sidles up to me, like a frat boy thinking up a dare. "The women you will get! When you bring the dragon's heads to your lord's hall, every virgin daughter will spread her legs for you. Men will fight to pay for your drinks! There will be a mighty runestone in your honor, to remember your deeds for all time."

"I think that I'd rather be alive." The zmei has finally freed itself. "I am not strong enough." The Varangian is much taller, much more muscular. He's built like an American action hero. "Not like you."

"Do not doubt yourself. A little man can have a lot of anger in his body." He rests his hands on my shoulder. "Odin," he says. "Give him your blessing. Let him hamask [changeform], let him berserk. Make him tough as a bear, strong as a boar, and ferocious as a wolf." His power flows into me, as every tendon and muscle in my body burns with fury. "Odin, witness him! He kills in your name!"

"Rrrgh… gragh!" Hot hellfire spills from my mouth as anger overtakes me. I charge, heedlessly. Fire licks at my chest and arms. Pain is distant, pain is a stranger. I see my foe and leap, feeling my thigh muscles burst, and I land on the creature's neck. I hack and I hack and I hack away, the dragon's blood coating my scorched skin as I laugh maniaclly. A head comes off, then another. The dragon is afraid of me-

The zmei flips me off its neck, sending me flying into the humvee's windshield. Bones break, arms shatter, as glass rains down on me in pieces. I have dealt my enemy a mortal wound, but he is not yet done. He comes for me now, as I lay beaten and broken. The fresh torment of hell slowly ebbs in my stomach as I feel that surge of power come to an end. I see her. I see Tsubame, sprawled on the roof of the humvee, cut up in many places, hurt-

But alive. She is alive.

If you had the strength to stand, would you?

The knight is there, looking down at me with sorrow. "It is a torment," he says. "To be seperated from those we love. From our children, from our friends. From our parents, from our wife. From the Lord himself." He speaks into my ear. "Are you resigned, then, to lie there? To let evil prevail?"

"What can I do?" I shout, spitting blood. "There's too much to do. Have I not done enough? Have I not lived like this, for time untold? What is expected of me?" I say, as the dragon looms close. "I'm… I'm afraid." I say. "I am afraid. I am afraid of pain and suffering, of fear itself. I am so tired, of failing the ones I love." I close my eyes. All that I am is failure. "I want this to be over."

"It is never over, I am afraid." The knight kneels. "Your despair is my own. But if you would stand with me, on this day, I will be with you, my brother." Through his helmet, there is a warm smile. "You, who share my soul. Who else would I love? Who could I love more, if not you?" His hand passes through mine. "I will make the Lord's strength your strength. You'll not fail now! You will stand tall, you will stand strong. Your courage will redeem the world."

I reach for something cynical, something caustic and bitter. But it is not there. "I am going to die," I say, with the certainty of a man who walks the gallows. "I have no chance."

"All men die." The knight reassures me, as I painfully get up. "But it is the matter of death that is our choice, our will. And when we present ourselves to the Lord, we shall not be found wanting." Tsubame's katana lies atop a haphazard pile of ammunition boxes and casings, the streetlight shining through shattered windows as to illuminate it. "Take up the sword! Fight for Christ! There is still hope yet, for a better world!"

"…well." My eyes are weak, and unfocused. The dragon roars with its last remaining head, coming in for the kill. "Alright. One more time."

The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

"Wolf-1. Wolf 1? Are you there? Come in, Wolf-1!" A small squadron of American helicopters speeds along the side of the highway. "What's your status, over!"

Yasmin's voice comes over the coms, ragged and exhausted. "Where the hell have you guys been?" She roars over the din of the helicopter blades. "What the fuck was that, at the port? Why wasn't it locked down?"

"Apologies." A man's voice. "We've just got permission from the Japanese government. Military operations on the Home Islands is politically-"

"Fuck politics!" The werewolf is pissed. "He thinks we're a bunch of incompetent fuckers, that's what! It's a fucking embarassment! We can't protect a single guy on friendly soil? Don't bullshit me. I'm not in the mood! Then where the hell is the JSDF, then? Don't tell me that they just sent one ninja! The dragon just put me on a radical weight loss diet-"

There is a large hiss of static. The pilot blinks. "Uh, we didn't catch that. Could you repeat that, over?"

"The dragon cut me in half, you American hıyarağası!" She shouts. "There's a fucking dragon! It's breathing fire. What do you need, directions? Turn on your IR cameras, you incompetent fuck!"

"I see it." The general reaches up to the console. "I am sighting the target. We will be in range soon-"

"Danger close! Danger close! The VIP is-" She stops. "Oh, no. He's coming out. What are you-"

"Wolf-1? Wolf 1?" The pilot calls. "Are you there? Wolf-1?"

"Sir. I have a targeting solution." The other helicopters ready their Hellfire missiles. "Should I execute?"

There is a long pause, as the air becomes silent. "Wait." The general says. "Wolf-1," he says. "What happened?"

"Allahu akbar!" Colonel Yasmin screams hysterically. "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! He did it, he did it! He killed the damn thing, with a fucking sword-"

"Calm down." The general says. Back at the base, the radiomen burst out in applause. "Is he alright? Is the VIP alright?"

"He's… he's hurt! He's hurt bad. We need a medevac. I need it right now!" The sound of her crawling on the ground rattles in the speaker. "Get him out, you bastards. He deserves it." She whispers. "He's suffered enough."

Next: [Medraut] Lothian, Britannia (502 AD)