"Your whole life, you have been plagued by demons. Chased to the brink of insanity as the first piece in a puzzle ofo 15 which shall encompass matters far beyond your meagre scope of perception. You open the circle. A bloody circle riddled with pain. The Circle of Death."
She stood inside the conservatory of a large palace.
Polished pristine glass doors and windows stretched floor to ceiling, mirroring her pale face from a miriad of different angles.
Sunlight poured into the room and reflected off the glass frosty glass tiles.
A grand, ornately decorated chandelier hung suspended overhead, a large canopy covering the sculpted, gilded ceiling.
So intricately delicately held together, every piece linked together so perfectly. Like a huge, delicate creation which could break at the slightest touch yet remained standing steadily for aeons.
A ballroom. She stood in a large, expensive ballroom belonging to an era of architecture long forgotten and riches long forgone.
The sound of approaching voices turned her to face the large carved mahogany doors.
But when she turned around she came face to face with ghosts...
The tall, pale, long haired woman with arched eyebrows, and gracefully high cheekbones yet dichromatic eyes, and taller still, the dark haired man with aristocratic features and formal attire walked arm in arm, walking gracefully into the ornate ballroom.
Were her eyes deceiving her? What sort of cruel joke would her mind construct to bring them before her?
Her throat suddenly dry, she gulped a few times before whispering, "Mother?...Father?"
For before her were the two live and healthy faces of her dead parents.
Steeling herself she spoke again. "Mother? Father?"
They walked right past her.
And confusion clouded her mind.
It was as though she wasn't even their.
"In your opinion, do you think the lord will actually make an appearance today?"
Her mother's silvery voice sent her involuntarily back to younger days being lulled to sleep beneath the stars by her mother's soft voice, of her mother's laughter when the first flakes of snow would fall- sounds only met with for mere moments, small years in her childhood before they were so brutally torn from her, but which she treasured and preserved with perfect clarity till date.
As she registered her mother's exact words, her confusion only deepened. Her formal speech was confusing as well.
"According to Minato, the lord want's to entrust us with something." Her father said as they both found a seat and sat down.
The doors were pushed open again, and a tanned man with spiky blonde hair entered with a red haired woman next to him.
There was something odd about them. They were all dressed in formal attire- but not attire belonging to their century. Or for several centuries past for that matter. But not crude or primitive either. Merely strange to her untrained eye.
The blonde spoke. "How amusing. I had expected Kushina and myself to be the first to arrive. When did you arrive?"
"A matter of moments ago." was her mother's reply, and she nodded a greeting to the redhead- presumably Kushina.
"Who else is coming?" Her father asked, as the blonde and his wife sat down.
"I do not think the lord is expecting many others; however I presume Fugaku and Mikoto will be here. Possibly Hiashi and Hisashi as well." replied Kushina.
She watched the whole exchange in front of her- nobody even noticed her, standing in the center of the room. She soon backed away to the far wall of the room, as more people arrived.
By the time people stopped trickling inside, there were a total of thirteen people in the room. She hoped to gain a clue as to what was going on as their incessant chatter died down.
Finally, an old man with long, spiky white hair walked in on a walking stick. He was followed by a man with long black hair and amber eyes with narrow pupils, and a buxom woman with long blonde hair.
Those present instantly stood up greeting with him with formalities.
The white haired man smiled, saying, "I thank you all for taking time out of your busy proceedings to pay heed to my invitation and assemble here. I trust you find yourself in hospitably comfortable conditions?"
Everybody nodded.
The white haired man looked around at them lingeringly. His eyes, clouded with unrest and unease, seemed to find something he was searching for as his expression smoothed in peace. He spoke.
"I have grown too old to continue this alone. I must return to the Netherworld."
His words were foreign to her. She understood nothing. But those seated did, and they were startled and surprised by his words.
"I am no longer able to keep hold of the legacy which was never mine to possess in the first place. Each of you present here today inherits it as the rightful owner. I entrust a part of it to each of you."
He took a large case out of his cloak and moved around the room, stopping in front of everyone present- including the two who followed him inside- and handed them each an item covered in a black velvet cloth.
"But Lord Jiraya! You can't possibly expect us to keep these items?" her mother interjected.
"She is right. It would be like entrusting children with explosives." Another with dark ebony hair and similar eyes added.
Jiraya merely smiled, saying, "My time is over. It is your legacy now."
As he said his last words, the sunlight disappeared, cloaking the room in darkness as the sun was hidden by the clouds.
Jiraya turned to look in her direction- not looking past her like the others, but actually seeing her. Suddenly, the air changed, filling with an ominous aura emanating from the white haired man. His lips curled back as he snarled in a low, inhuman voice. The skin on his face ripped off to reveal a toad-like demonic face in its place, a vicious look of bloodlust upon it. Coming closer to her, it hissed, "Give it to me!"
She stepped back, only to remember that she was backed up against a wall. "I-I don't know what you're talking about." she said, fear settling into her bones as her heart lurched.
The demon opened its mouth and a long bulbous tongue emerged, smashing the portion of the wall next to her as it asked, "Where is it?"
Slowly, the rest of the bodies in the room transformed into more demonic figures. Her limbs numbed in fear and confusion as her mother and father morphed into disfigured animalistic demons with razor sharp teeth.
Ducking under the toad's tongue, she ran towards the exit, jumping over the giant snake's tail that blocked her path. The demons followed in pursuit. As she felt a pair of teeth sink into her shoulder, she screamed and slammed her shoulder into the wall as hard as she could, releasing the demon's hold on her shoulder. Blood oozed from the wound. She couldn't stop, for fear of being caught again as she ran through dark corridors, snarls and growls following her along the way. She could almost feel their canine breath against her back again.
Shuddering, she ran into a closed hall filled with doorways. She was trapped. The only way out would be through the doors- assuming they led to more corridors. Running to the first door, she turned the knob to find that it was lost. She could hear the sounds of her pursuers drawing closer. She ran to the next door, which was locked as well. Running down the hall, she tried every door, rattling the handles in a panicked frenzy with the quiet plea for one to be unlocked; when one of them finally opened, and she ran inside.
The door led to an empty classroom. A familiar looking classroom, which she recognised as her middle school classroom; it was the middle of the night. Her blood ran cold with dread as she took in the scene. The classroom walls were stained with blood, and the floor was littered with the dead bodies of dismembered children. In the middle sat a young girl in the standard uniform, with long black hair and pale skin. Her hands and legs were splattered with blood. She was the only one alive. In her arms lay cradled a severed head.
This was a scene she was more than familiar with; she had revisited it so many times in her dreams.
The young girl's lifeless vacant face turned towards her. She stared into the eyes of a younger version of face dripped with blood that was not her own. Blood that belonged to the children who had been killed- the children that she should have been part of, but by some trick of fate was left alive. The very sight of that classroom, so many years later, still made her limbs go numb with fear.
The scene changed; they were still in the classroom, but the bodies were different. She identified them.
The girl sitting among the bodies was not a mirror image of herself. The bodies belonged to her loved ones- her cousin, her role models, the friends who she had become attached to in the past few weeks. She felt her breath quickening as she froze, a panic rising in her chest as she looked at the bodies. She felt as though she were drowning in the bloodshed as the ground beneath her seemed to crumble.
The bloodstained girl stood up and moved closer, her face suddenly contorting into yet another demon, and screeched, "Where is it?"
She took a step back, moving towards the door as the fear overwhelmed her.
"You will be responsible for their deaths!" the demon hissed.
She turned and ran for the exit, only to come face to face with her toad like pursuer from before, a scream tearing through her throat.
The toad mover forward and said, "If you do not tell us, then we will make our move."
All she remembered was extreme pain coursing through her body before she woke up in a cold sweat, a silent scream on her lips. A cat sat on her chest, peering curiously into her eyes.
She sat there staring at the cat for a few moments, panting heavily. She sighed in relief, recognising the cat.
"Vladimir." she whispered in recognition, petting the cat softly on the head. "It was just a dream. A nightmare. I'm still all right."
AU+OC fic. Not a popular theme, huh? But I like this story so I thought I'd keep it up here.
I'll be brutally honest: It was absolute crap to begin with. I'm embarrassed to say I even wrote the pile of crap it was initially. But with hope, this update will make it much better. Much.
That being said, its still an unpopular theme. I hope you grow to love my OC like I do, if you continue to read, but really, I'm just grateful if you keep reading it.
~Raven