Title: Scythe, Kite and Moon

Rating: PG-13

Characters:

Warnings/Tags: Soulmarks, Blessing Universe, Clones, Experimentation, Artificial Humans, Dubious Morals, Implied Abuse, Dysphoria, Body Horror, Little Bit Beastly, Animal Traits, Instincts, Torture, General Angst, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Autism/Aspergers Syndrome, Alternate Universe, Companion Animals, Therapy Animals, Sensory Issues, Identity Issues, NaNoWriMo

Summary: Everyone is born with a blessing mark, it's a fact of life. So maybe people don't always know what they mean, it just means that they're important in some way to the world. Three cloned children cling to that message with their blessings inked on their skin. In some way they're important, and it's that which drives them to hold out that one day they'll make it out of this dark place.

Disclaimer: I only own my three clone characters...

Notes: Blessings. No but seriously, I don't have that much more to say that this...


No one quite knows where they come from. No one knows exactly what they really mean either. The scrawled words that stain everyone's skin from the very moment that they take their first breath of life.

The words that seem random. Everything from grass to glass, from ash to volcano, from the sun, the moon and the Earth. Nobody has anyway to tell what these words truly mean or where they come from, they're merely a fact of life for everybody. From the Civilians who titter and chat, gossiping about their words and the words of others, to the shinobi who all seek and search, trying to find every scrap of information related to their word.

Trying to find any sort of meaning in the single word that stains their skin. Marking them forever.

They're called blessings. Blessing marks.

Because nobody has any other idea of what to call them. It works, it fits and people move on with their lives. The marks are just a part of life and there's nothing special about them except that they're different. It's up to each person how they will interpret their particular blessing and how they think that it impacts their life.

Of course... there are some people who aren't satisfied with just knowing what they are and what they could mean.

They have to know.

Deep underground, where the sun can't pierce is a laboratory. Home to a madman wanted by many, feared by many. A madman pursuing the goal of figuring out the marks that everyone is born with. A man driven right into the darkest side of science to try and puzzle out the question that has always been there with the marks. Why? Why do they exist, and in the dim lighting of his underground bunker he's sure that he'll figure it out.

A flash of teeth, a mad grin and midnight eyes that dart over papers covered with theories half realized. Papers scattered all over a desk and... a single flickering screen with streams of data and code scrolling up and up. He laughs and spins around before crossing his arms.

"Finally..." he mutters his grin tapering off into something just a little bit more sane as a beeping fills the small bunker. "Finally I have finished step one!" He crosses the room in a couple of steps and grasps the cloth there, only hesitating for a single moment before yanking it back and revealing three tubes in the wall, each glow a different colour.

Orange. Purple. Blue.

And in each tube his pride. His greatest achievements. Oh they're not entirely perfect, not quite right but he finally succeeded. They're alive. With small twitches of their small curled limbs, the beating of their hearts, and that's what he's been trying to achieve. Even if they are different in other ways that will stand out in a crowd.

"They're perfect!" he breaths in awe of his creations. He finds himself gently placing a hand over the purple tube, feeling the energy and warmth of the small curled form within. "I finally did it, step one... now..." he narrows his eyes and steps back grabbing the cloth from the floor and once more covering the tubes. "Now to make sure that they survive the next few months so that they can be 'born'. And then..." he laughs darkly eyes glinting in the darkness of the bunker. "And then the true tests can begin... and I'll get to the bottom of the eons old mystery."

He gives one last quick glance back to the hidden tubes before shaking his head and leaving the room. Leaving to come back at some future point. And in the tubes three infants, just beginning to dream and feel things sleep on.

Unaware of anything that's going on outside of their safe and small worlds.

Unaware that to their creator they're barely anything more than an investment for the future. A key to unlocking the story behind the most mysterious part of the world.

Unaware all three sleep on.