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Blood-drenched Butterfly Wings
Prologue
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Original Title: Akame Ga Kill
Original Concept by: Takahiro and Tashiro
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Written by: Skullcandyklive
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...Imperial Year 1024, Day 10, 12:00 Midnight...
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The best-laid plans never come to fruition. No matter how much effort you put into planning something; no matter how well you thought your plan through, something will inevitably go wrong and all your careful planning will start unraveling at the seams. Simply because no mere human can take everything into account.
In this particular case, three childhood friends had planned to journey to the Imperial Capital and join the imperial army in order to earn enough money to send back to their village. However, their plans were thrown into chaos and disarray when they were separated by a bandit attack and were forced to make the rest of their journey oblivious to each other's condition.
Another thing they failed to take into account was the truth behind what the capital was truly like; a truth that two of these childhood friends were about to witness firsthand, should their fates remain unchanged.
Under the light of the blood moon, a seemingly innocuous storage house stood in the center of a grassy clearing, which was built on the land of a family of wealthy oil merchants in the imperial capital.
Approaching said storage house was the daughter and youngest member of this wealthy merchant family currently being flanked by four guards armed with various weapons. Contrary to the blank, albeit uneasy expressions plastered on the guard's face, the youngest girl sported a smile on her face that expressed an eager anticipation for the events that were about to unfold.
A few hours ago, this young blond-haired girl had happened upon two young travelers from the country who were trying to reach the imperial capital and had not only offered them a ride to the capital, but a place to stay and warm food as well.
"I think it's time we give our new guests the warm welcome they deserve, don't you think?" The daughter, Aria, said with an eager grin stretching across her face as she walked towards the storage house.
The guards said nothing, only followed their young charge towards the large storage house.
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Sayo did not awake to pleasant circumstances.
A few seconds prior, she had been awaken by a ghastly odor wafting into her nostrils that was revolting enough to make her want to empty the contents of her stomach as her insides twist and turn uncontrollably for several minutes.
After getting over her initial reaction to jerk her head away and wrinkle her nose at the pungent odor, Sayo managed to open her eyes and find the source of the unbearable stench. Not even a full second later, Sayo wished she had just kept her eyes closed.
Surrounding the girl on all four side were numerous mutilated and maimed corpses that were poised in various specific conditions that led up to their death; some bodies were drawn and quartered on a torture table with several limbs forcibly torn off from blood-caked, maggot-infested bodies by ropes that were attached to four wheels on each corner, some bodies were imprisoned in a cage, gripping the bars in desperation, their skin peppered with dark red sores and their gaping faces etched in an eternal, malformed scream, and the rest of the bodies were dangling from the ceiling either by a noose arounded their necks or shackled by their hands and eacg and every last one of them sported gaping lacerations all over their bodies and blood-caked bones sticking out of where their arms or legs used to be, some hanging bodies were even missing the entire lower half of their body, exposing their intestines and inner organs for them to plop down on the blood-coated floor.
Sayo's blood had ran cold when she realized that she was hanging naked on the ceiling by her shackled hands and that she was going to end up just like the bodies that surrounded her in a few short hours, if not mere minutes.
After recovering from the mind-numbing shock, Sayo had instantly struggled against her restraints in an attempt free herself and escape the fate that had befallen the people that now surrounded her. Alas, her efforts were in all vain, since she was still hanging by the ceiling with her facial features etched in despair and tears streaking down her cheeks through her closed eyes
So yes, Sayo did not awake to pleasant circumstances; her circumstances were anything but pleasant at the moment.
As Sayo hung by her shackled hands awaiting her inevitable fate with teary frustration, she couldn't help but think about how unfair this all was; that this wasn't how their journey was supposed to go. They were supposed to arrive at the capital together, join the imperial army, climb up the ranks to become high ranking officials, and earn enough money to send back to their village. That's how it was supposed to go; they weren't supposed to get attacked by bandits, they weren't supposed to get separated, her and Ieyasu weren't supposed to be taken in by that young blond girl, and they were not supposed to end up like this, being tortured to death like all the other poor unfortunate souls that surrounded them whose families and loved ones remain oblivious to their unfortunate fates and left to wonder what had happened to them. Was Tatsumi and the rest of the village gonna end up like friends and families of the dead people that surrounded her? Probably. Sayo knew that it would be hard for her friend, going on with his life left to wonder what had happened to them and never being able to find out the truth because like all the bodies that surrounded her, she too would be joining them soon, left for dead and eventually crumbling to ash in the dark, never to be seen again.
Sayo suddenly gritted her teeth in anger as her eyes flashed in rage. The thought of the young blond girl who had taken the two of them in suddenly made her blood boil. She was the one who did this, she was the one who did all this to people that died around her and she was the one who was going to do all this to them.
With renewed vigor and blind fury clouding her mind and coursing through her veins, Sayo resumed her earlier struggles against her shackles as she thrashed and flailed every which way, the sound of her enraged screams and clanging chains resonating in the empty silence of the storage house.
To a degree, she knew that her efforts to escape were in vain and that she was probably only wasting what little energy she had left, but she couldn't bring herself to care at that moment because she was far too furious at the young girl who had done this to them and far too determined to make that girl pay for this. Still, even in her furious haze, she wondered if the girl even knew the consequences of what she was going to do with them. If they died here and if, heaven forbid, the same thing happened to Tatsumi, then there wouldn't be anyone who could send money back to their village and if that happened then it would only be a matter of time before the village suffered from starvation and hundreds of innocent people would needlessly die. Didn't that girl understand that? Then again, even if she did, its likely that she wouldn't even care one way or the other and that's what made Sayo so furious; that girl had no right to do this to them, she had no right to sentence their village to such an ill fate, and she had no right to leave Tatsumi wondering what had happened to his two childhood friends.
Amidst her own screaming and the sounds her chains clanging, Sayo heard a faint groan coming from one of the prison cages below on the storage house floor. Immediately turning to the source of the sound, her heart sank with dread as she saw Ieyasu trying to stand up as he grabbed the bars of his cage for support.
"Ugh...my head...where am I?" Ieyasu mumbled as he slowly came to awareness.
"Ieyasu!" Sayo called out to get his attention, her heart feeling heavy in her chest with the knowledge that Ieyasu was here as well and that he would endure whatever that little girl had planned for them.
"What? S-Sayo?" Ieyasu mumbled as he lifted his half-lidded gaze towards his childhood friend, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision. When it finally did clear, Ieyasu's eyes practically bugged out of their sockets and blood rushed to his face as he realized one thing.
"Y-You're Naked!"
Any other time, Sayo would have a plethora of reactions to being seen in such a compromising situation by a boy no less, most of which were reasonable reactions for any girl to make when caught in such a situation, like squealing, covering her exposed body, and dishing out an unparalleled rage that only a girl who had been seen naked could unleash. However, given her current position, she could do none of those things. Furthermore, they had far more pressing and more dire things to worry about than something as trivial as indecent and excessive skin exposure.
Something that Ieyasu had just realized, seeing as that all blood had drained from his face, leaving it with an ashen white color, as his eyes finally took in the gruesome sight that laid before him and the gut-wrenching stench of death and decay that accompanied it, which almost made him empty his stomach right then and there.
When he finally recovered from the overwhelming shock, Ieyasu only opened and closed his mouth repeatedly like a gaping fish, before he finally managed to stutter out one question. "Wh-what the hell is this place?"
Hell on Earth was what Sayo wanted to say, but that description scarcely did the place justice.
"Apparently, that girl wasn't as kind as she made herself out to be." Sayo grounded out through gritted teeth, her blood boiling at the mention of Aria.
"Sh-she really did all this?" Ieyasu asked, completely stunned in disbelief as he tried to reconcile the image of the smiling young girl who offered them a place to stay and the horrifying scenery that surrounded them.
Sayo nodded gravely in return as she watched Ieyasu struggle with the revelation. It was definitely a hard pill to swallow, but it was the truth nonetheless.
As if on cue, the doors to the storage house suddenly swung open with loud creak, instantly gaining the attention of the two friends. The sound of shoes clacking against the blood-caked concrete floor resonated through the still silence.
"Oh good, you two are awake, isn't that just convenient." The eager voice Aria floated in the silent storage house as she continued her cadence towards Sayo and Ieyasu.
"That saves us some time then, I would have hated to wait for the two of you to wake up. Afterall..." An almost inhumanly wicked smile stretched across her face and her eyes flashed with malicious intent as their would-be tormentor came into view a black whip in hand. "...it wouldn't be all that fun to torture you farm animals if you're not even awake to scream or beg for mercy, right?"
"YOU!" Such a malicious declaration reignited Sayo's righteous fury as she struggled to get out of her restraints with renewd vigor. "When I get out of these shackles, I'm going to make you pay!"
Aria merely smirked as she glanced at the raven-haired girl. "You're in no position to be making threats here, country bitch."
Aria continued walking into the storage house, as she smiled to herself and hummed a tune under her breath, ignoring the sounds of Sayo shouting, chains clanging, and bars slamming.
She stopped when she was almost directly in front of Sayo. "Rude greetings aside, let me be the first to welcome you two to the real Imperial Capital" Aria said cheerfully with outstretched arms in grandeur.
Sayo and Ieyasu's only response was to shout out in rage as they continued their respective struggles.
"Tut tut, now is that any way to greet the girl who had generously offered you a place to stay and warm food to eat" Aria mock-lectured with a waggle of her whip, only to be answered by a enraged and outraged shouts.
"We didn't do anything to deserve this, you sadistic freak and you have no right to kill other people for your sick and twisted entertainment!"
Apparently, Sayo's statement had struck a nerve with the young sadist as her playful smirk finally slipped off her face and her features contorted into an expression of vicious anger.
"SO WHAT?! YOU TRASH ARE JUST WORTHLESS FILTH! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT LIVESTOCK FOR ME TO USE AS I SEE FIT!" Aria pointed a finger at Sayo as she continued her screeching temper tantrum. "GARBAGE LIKE YOU DOESN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUCH BEAUTIFUL HAIR, WHEN MINE IS GIVING ME SUCH TROUBLE! YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL THAT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE BY SATISFYING MY BLOODLUST, UNFRATEFUL PIG!"
At that, Aria's screeching tirade was punctuated by the sound of her ragged panting from the exertion she had put in her vicious declaration. All the while, Sayo and Ieyasu just kept on shooting hatred-filled glares at the girl. No, monster would've been a more accurate description.
Gradually, Aria's pants turned into sinister giggles that would make shivers run down the spines of the weak-willed. Sayo and Ieyasu were too occupied by their hatred and fury to be afraid.
Aria turned her gleaming wicked eyes to Ieyasu, who simply returned her gaze with one that was filled with unflinching righteous fury, hatred, and resolve.
"Mother has something special planned for you tomorrow night." Aria said with palpable malevolence oozing in her tone, before her shark-like grin widened as she continued. "Do you know what that means?"
Ieyasu's glare was unyielding even as his blood started to run cold in his veins with the realization of what he was about to witness. He only gripped the bars tighter, refusing to answer their tormentor.
A wicked chuckle escaped Aria's lips before her face had somehow became even more malevolent than it already was. She practically oozed malice and bloodlust like a palpable mist around her being as she slowly turned sinister her gaze back to Sayo.
"It means that you'll get to watch as I torture this farm animal to death, like the filthy livestock that she is"
At that, the sounds Ieyasu's violent thrashing and anger-filled shouts increased in the background as the two girl entered a stare down. Periwinkle blue met coal black, one pair of eyes emanating malicious intent and promises of excruciating bodily harm and one pair emanating unparalleled hatred, righteous fury, and firm resolve.
"So, let's get started shall we?" Aria asked rhetorically, her malevolent grin never leaving her face. "If you start begging for mercy, I might just take pity on you and end your misery sooner."
"Go to Hell, Bitch." Was all Sayo said.
Aria threw her whip back to instantly lash out at the raven-haired girl, while Sayo gritted her teeth and closed her eyes to brace herself for what was to come.
Time seemed to freeze in an everlasting moment as a katana with a pitch black hilt suddenly fell right in front of Aria mid-swing, embedding itself in the concrete floor with a resonating clang, scarce inches separating the blade and the girl. The sound of metal impacting concrete resonated through the storage house as Aria gaped in utter shock, her malevolence instantly giving way to fear as her face was suddenly drained of any color and etched its features in a gaping wide-eyed scream, her gaze never leaving the seemingly innocuous katana that was mere inches away from cutting her. For their part, Sayo and Ieyasu were just as shocked as Aria was, if their gaping expressions were anything to go by, but they also felt an undercurrent of relief and bit of satisfaction as well.
The moment passed and time suddenly started moving again. Aria let out a startled scream as she started backing away from the sword. She managed to take three staggering steps backwards, before another silencing clang resonated through the storage house and Aria suddenly felt the chill of cold metal pressing against the length of her back through her clothes.
Fear and anxiety gripping her heart and clouding all of her sense, she looked over her shoulder to find another katana, completely identical to the one that came before it except for the red hilt, embedded on the concrete and pressing against her clothed back.
Letting out another startled scream, Aria turned on her heel in an attempt to back away from the new sword, only to fall flat on her butt as she tripped on her own two feet out of fear.
Another silencing clang resounded in the storage house and Aria suddenly felt the back of her dress being torn. Looking over he shoulder, her eyes widened in fear when she saw another red-hilted katana pressing against the bare skin of her back.
With her heart frantically beating like a humming bird's wings in her chest, her blood coursing through her veins like ice water, her anxious ragged breaths filling the silent atmosphere and her psyche being plagued by overwhelming terror, Aria tried to swallow the mountain that was lodged in her throat to call the guards for help.
Her attempts were instantly silenced when another red-hilted katana embedded itself on the concrete flooring mere inches to her right with a silencing clang. Before she could recover or so much as let out a startled scream, Aria was silenced by another red hilted katana embedding itself on the concrete flooring to her left, which was quickly followed by another and another and another until the storage house was filled with a silencing cacophony of metallic clangs that lasted mere seconds, during which Aria had closed her eyes in fear.
When she reopened them, Aria found herself surrounded by a tight encirclement of red-hilted katanas embedded in the concrete flooring around her, trapping her in a makeshift cage with their razor sharp edges pointed towards her and positioned in such a way that they were scarce inches from drawing blood.
Her entire body felt cold and numbed, her heart beated frantically against her chest, her ears were ringing with the blood pounding in her head and something bubbled from the pit of her stomach.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Finally overwhelmed by the fear that plagued her and the sheer danger she was in, a blood-curdling scream loud enough to be heard across the clearing erupted from her mouth and echoed in the storage house after forcing its way through the mountain lodged in her throat.
Not a second sooner, the storage house doors slammed open, revealing the four guards in their white uniforms with their respective weapons at the ready.
"Lady Aria?!"
Upon seeing the state their young mistress was currently in, the guards all charged into the storage house with nary a second thought. They were only mere feet away from the cage of swords, when a rain of red-hilted katanas suddenly embedded themselves onto the concrete in front of them with a rapid succession of metallic clangs and stopped them dead in their tracks.
Needless to say, the guards weren't faring any better than Aria.
"What the?!"
"What the hell's going on here?!"
"Don't panic, just stay calm!"
Nary a second after those words were uttered, another volley of red-hilted katanas rained down on the guards, embedding themselves in the concrete behind them and between each other with a silencing cacophony of clangs, which trapped the guards in their current crescent-shaped formation with a makeshift cage of blades in front of their young mistress.
Silence ensued as the living occupants of the storage house tried to recover from the shock and process the events that had just unfolded in the span of less than a minute.
It wasn't long before the silence was abruptly shattered by a pair of red-hilted katanas embedding themselves on the concrete floor on either side of the black-hilted katana with resounding clangs.
With all eyes on the trio of blades standing innocously in front of them, a shadow suddenly fell upon the red katana on the left, before a figure descended from the ceiling and landed in a perfect perch on the hilt of the blade.
The slightly short figure standing steadily on the hilt of the blade with the utmost of ease wore a dark crimson cloak with a hood that shrouded most of the wearer's features. Held firmly in the figure's hand was a chain wrapped firmly around a pair of large black boxes, one box was filled to the brim with red hilts and the other was almost empty, having only ten or so katanas. However, these bundles of katanas weren't what the living occupants of the storage house had their eyes focused on.
A pair of blood red eyes that seemed to pierce their very soul stared at them through the red-rimmed eyeholes of the ivory white mask that hid the entirety of the wearer's face. The mask itself had no mouth, but the area between the eyeholes, where the nose and mouth should've been, jutted out and extended past the wearer's hairline like horns to form a "V" shape.
Also, in the area that jutted out between the mask's eyeholes, where the nosepiece should be, the was a peculiar symbol: A red full circle inside the concave of a red horizontal crescent.
For what seemed like an eternity, the occupant's eyes were riveted by the same thing, the figure who stood before them unmovingly as if it hadn't just made an attempt on five of the occupant's lives.
Snapping out of their stupor, the guards picked up their guns and raised them in prepapration to open fire on the figure that stood motionlessly on the hilt of the sword, as if they weren't in any danger whatsoever.
"Ready." the guards shouted as the trained their sights on the figure and placed their fingers on the trigger.
"Aim." The figure remained unmoving.
"Fi-"
The only warning they had was a rapid whirling sound filling the air and before the guards could even react their arms were all lobbed off at the elbow before flopping to the ground listlessly, still gripping their guns. The guards could do little more than gape down at their arms in shock and disbelief, the realization of what had just happened having not sunken in yet. Only when the excruciating pain finally kicked in did the whole truth of what had just happened to them settled into their minds and the four guards let out their own blood-curdling screams which remained unheard by anyone who wasn't near the storage house clearing.
Meanwhile, a shadow fell upon the red-hilted katana on the right before a second figure landed on it in perch a similar to the first figure.
The second figure wordlessly raised her right hand, catching the whirling weapon that had just amputated four pairs of arms in mid-air, revealing the weapon to be an 8-pointed, red and black Fuma shuriken that was almost as big as the figure itself.
Weapon of choice aside, the second figure looked a lot like the first figure, both of them having the same slightly short stature, the same dark red cloak, that is until the second figure raised it head to meet Aria's increasingly frightened gaze.
Unlike the first, the second figure had a different mask hiding their features, although they did share the same piercing red eyes. The second figure's mask was also white and lacked a mouth, but its shape and symmetrical red paint designs made it look like a fox. The same peculiar symbol was also plastered on the mask's forehead.
"Ronin" the second figure greeted in an eerie monotonous tone and even though the voice came out slightly distorted, it sounded like the figure was a young girl.
The first figure, Ronin, nodded to her companion.
"Kitsune." Ronin greeted in a similarly monotonous tone and an analogous distorted voice.
As the guard's agonized screams persisted in the background, a third shadow fell upon the black-hilted katana in the middle, landing in a perch on the black hilt.
"Monarch." The other two figures greeted monotonously with a tilt of their heads in acknowledgement.
The third figure, Monarch, wore a dark red cloak, had the same piercing red eyes and a similar stature, just like the other two, with the only noticeable difference being the mask's design itself. Monarch's mask, like the others, was ivory white in color and made of smooth ceramic. The shape of the mask's upper half was reminiscent of a butterfly's wings spreading out to cover majority of the front, corners, and the sides of the face, except the edges and corners of the wings were sharper. The mask's eyeholes were also rimmed with red markings made to look like eyes and the mask's lower half was a single piece of ivory white ceramic that covered the lower half of the face like a half mask and receded to make the upper half jut out slightly.
The three figures loomed over the would-be tormentor silently from their perch; three pairs of piercing blood red eyes staring down at a single pair of terrified periwinkle blue ones.
Aria felt like death itself was breathing down her neck as she met the unblinking gaze of the trio in front of her. Her guards were all but useless now, seeing as that they weren't just trapped in a cage similar to hers but bleeding to death as well. Aria wanted to beg and plead for them to spare her life; she wanted to open her mouth and start bargaining with these trio of assassins by offering them a place as her guards in exchange for gold or whatever it was they wanted.
However, through the sheer terror that she felt, she could do none of those things. Instead, she opened her mouth to voice the one question that was swirling in everyone's minds in a barely audible whisper.
"Who are you?"
As one the trio answered the girl with an eerie unison in a mingling of their distorted voices that portrayed no emotion whatsoever.
"The Sisters of the Blood Moon"
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-End Prologue-
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Author's Notes: Okay, so I never really expected the last part of this prologue to have so many words. I mean seriously I didn't think Aria getting the living daylights scared out of her would need this many words but anyways tell me what you guys thought about the first chapter to this new story? Was it too wordy? Was I being too redundant in my descriptions? Let me know in the review section.
Also, I'd like to point this out real quick: I am not abandoning any of my previous stories, okay? It's just that all of my Akame Ga Kill stories have very different plots and themes to them:
With "Fool's Errands", the theme will be more along the lines of a robin hood adventure story that explores the different places that surround the Imperial Capital with some hints of romance here and there.
With "Of Gold and Blood Red Eyes", the theme is more along the lines of two assassins who have been deprived of a normal childhood slowly recovering from their blood-drenched pasts and adjusting to their budding feelings of romance.
With "The Three Children of Impertinens", the theme is more along the lines of an RPG-styled adventure story about three friends who meet new people while on their journey to the Imperial capital.
And with "Blood-drenched Butterfly Wings", well the theme will mostly revolve around a drama about Night Raid dealing with another group of assassins and a more indept, behind-the-scenes look at Tatsumi's life as an assassin.
Ergo, the story that I write a new chapter for depends entirely on my current mood, whether I'm feeling daring, romantic, adventurous, or angsty, because I write chapters the best when my mood matches the theme of the story I'm writing.
Also, this story would be the first installment to a Literary Universe I have in mind that will comprise of multiple stories, a sequel or two after this, a spin-off here and there, and maybe even a prequel or two. Anyways, it all depends on how well-received this story is. I don't really want to waste my time writing sequels, prequels, and spin-offs if no one would like to read them.
See you next time.