A/N: Recently I found my old Flying Dragon game and I've been playing it. It's amazing how a classic like that never gets old. Anyway, I was on the 'net and I couldn't find any Flying Dragon fan fiction. So I decided to write one. I came up with this idea while playing the game, pretty much. I have an over active imagination that likes to make up reasons as to why these people on my television screen before me are beating the crap out of each other. And this is what I came up with. Maybe now when you play it too, this is what you'll think about. And also, I'm sorry if I ruin Flying Dragon for you forever.

On a last note, I like to say something about the time frame I chose. In the game, you can win computers and at least four of the characters (Wiler, Kate, Powers, and Robonohana) have a modern times feel, seeing as they are from the CIA/Army, from the LAPD, are world wrestling champions of the NCW, and are robots (respectively). So I chose to omit them for my purposes, and set the story in around the mid 1800s. Also, I somewhat omitted Raima's history of becoming part cyborg. Because that just didn't fit either! So instead he's just mauled and mangled! And also, I made him evil. Because there are just too many good guys and not enough bad guys in this game. It doesn't matter much, I think. I'm just doing this for kicks.

Disclaimers: I own a copy of the game, but I don't own the rights to Flying Dragon, or any of it's characters (Gengai, Raima, Shin Ryumaou, or Suzaku/Red Falcon). I'm just doing this because I'm just a little bit obsessed and have just a little too much time on my hands.

It's rated M for future chapters.

Anyway! On with the story (finally).

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Dark Gifts

By FinParis

Prologue

Raima sat before his crude fire at odd angles. Although his burns and wounds had been treated so long ago, the most skilled hands on earth could not heal the damage that had been done inside of him. His bones had been crushed, and muscles torn. His right arm hung limp at his side at all times, and he limped when he walked, though a better word might have been 'hobbled.' Running was completely out of the question, though sometimes he managed a slight jog, if the occasion truly called for it. He had a map of scars on his face and body, and a patchy head of black, stringy hair. Only his brown eyes showed the keenness that his body no longer could. Once, he had been a ninja, and he had been the finest of the breed. Sleek, powerful, and without remorse, he could slip into the shadows at will to completely disappear and kill ten men before anyone even knew where he went. Now clinging to the darkness of shadow was all he could do to hide his abhorrent face. Rich men would hire him to assassinate politicians, so they might move up in rank. Other men would hire him to murder husbands, so they might take their wives. He had been one of the most feared killers in Japan, and when he had moved his terror into China, he had been feared there too. But not by Gengai. A monk and a teacher of Kung Fu at Syorin-Ji Temple, Gengai was a man of incredible virtue and strength. He believed that the strong must protect the weak, not prey on them for money and other such bribes. He also believed that the police, though capable of handling more ordinary situations of lawbreaking, could not in their dreams hope to destroy evil like Raima, who were killers trained in martial arts.

And so, taking it upon himself as a man like Gengai usually does, he created a secret organization of Syorin-Ji Temple's best fighters, who were skilled in hand to hand combat and had the same sense of honor and virtue as he did. There were only a handful of them, six all together, but they were powerful. They sought out Raima, and when they found him they gave him no mercy just as he had given none to his victims. Raima had fought back, and killed one man, but there was nothing he could do when surrounded by the six others. They did not kill him, but left him to die, bleeding and broken in the foothills of a mountain near his hideout. But as fate had it, he did not die. A man with a wagon who was bringing rice to the next town happened upon the broken ninja, and tended to him. The man's heart was big, and he took the ninja into his care for weeks until one night he simply disappeared, and the man never saw him again.

Raima returned to and traveled through Japan in his disfigured body, raging and insane, and furious that he could do nothing to ease it. He had no money, food, or even a way of life since Gengai ripped it from him. He had trained in the ninja arts for his entire life since he was a boy. He had lived it, breathed it, his mind had revolved around it, and now there was nothing but an empty wisp of memory. He felt helpless in a body that could no longer shed blood. At first, being simply a wanderer suited his needs, it gave him a sense of purpose until he realized that it was just that. Wandering. He moved towards no goal, and achieved nothing in the months that he did it. And when he looked back on it, he realized he hated those two years of wandering more than he ever knew. At last returned to China and his old hideout, a small cave furnished with a straw bed, and began to plan his revenge.

And there he sat before his crude fire, bent and mangled, his mind reeling with thoughts of blood. He knew he could never make his enemies suffer now, in his body of misfortunes, and he had no money to bribe someone else to do it for him. He sat for hours, staring into the fire until finally he knew what he would do. Retrieving his blade, he let it bite into his palm and held his fist over the fire, letting the crimson droplets roll from his hand and burn in the flames. He murmured to the Devil King, Shin Ryumaou, that he would willingly give to him his obedience and eternal loyalty if in return Shin Ryumaou would lend him a servant; a killer who could give Raima his revenge by killing every member of the organization that destroyed him. As he murmured, his voice grew louder and stronger until he wasn't murmuring at all, but yelling as his blood ran into the fire.

"Shin Ryumaou! King of Devils! Ruler of the Underworld!" He yelled. "Send me a servant to kill all the members of Gengai's secret group, the group that took it upon themselves to end me, and I will be yours! Send me the Red Falcon, and I will give myself to you, King!" Red Falcon. It was the first name he thought of in his raging madness. The man who so long ago was sent to hell by a warrior of dragons. He had read of the Red Falcon in scrolls, and had never truly believed in such a man, but as he now sat, pledging himself to Shin Ryumaou in his insanity, he felt he could believe in anything. "King, give me the Red Falcon, and you shall have me!" As he threw his head back to yell the last words at the top of his voice, his body twisted and writhed, feeling as if the very fires of Hell were burning inside of him, ready to explode and engulf him completely. He screamed and fell to the floor of his cave completely, his body twisting and jerking, as if he were attached to strings and some puppeteer were making him perform this grotesque dance. Suddenly, there was a loud sound, such as the sound of something incredibly heavy falling, or the sound of one of those cannons from the western world firing, which was followed by complete silence. He could hear nothing, not even the sounds of birds, or the wind through the hills. Raima's eyes were closed, and he found that when he opened them there was no change. As he lay there, listening and seeing nothing, he became very aware of the cold hard ground beneath him, as if he had only just realized it was there. His body felt as though it was being weighted down, and yet his mind was reeling. Slowly, the curse that seemed to hang over his body and senses began to lift, his limbs coming back to life, minus he right arm which he had grown used to, and his hearing and vision slowly coming back into focus. As he finally found he could pull himself into a sitting position again and look around, a smooth, deep voice greeted his reawakened senses.

"Ah, Master Raima. So good of you to finally return," it said with an accent that Raima had never heard before. His head snapped around to see where the voice had come from. A man stood to his left, tall and pale, with dark hair and piercing eyes. He had a long thin scar running across his nose from cheekbone to cheekbone, and he wore clothes of black, gold, and scarlet red. The old ninja could tell that beneath the clothes he wore, the man was thin, sleek and muscular. He climbed to his feet slowly, still unsure of his body since the moments where his senses were ripped from him, and he took a long look at the strange man before him. It seemed that Shin Ryumaou had accepted his terms, though he was a little surprised. He thought that since he was already destined for Hell anyway due to his murderous and sinful life, his impure soul wasn't much of a bargaining piece. However, he didn't know that the Devil King enjoyed the rare occasion of receiving a willing soul, as he would no doubt find out when he finally crossed over into the Underworld.

"You are the Red Falcon." It didn't sound like a question, but the man nodded anyway. His name was Suzaku, although for the last years of his life he had been known as the Red Falcon. He had been one of the most powerful men in the eastern world, particularly skilled in Kung Fu and some magic. Together with his skills, and his four Dark Gifts: the Dark Dragon Claw, the Armor of Devil, the Diamond of Darkness, and the Suzaku Feather, he brought his own sort of Hell to the earth, fighting and killing anyone who presented a challenge. Through his life, he had loved and nurtured those Gifts with his evil heart, until they became a part of his life force; they each contained a small fraction of his tainted soul. He thought no one could overpower him, but eventually a Dragon Warrior, blessed with Gifts from a dragon god of heaven, fought him and he was defeated. In the end the Dragon Warrior also died, from sheer exhaustion, but not before casting Suzaku's soul into Hell. Suzaku, too, managed to whisper last words with his dying breath, cursing the Dragon Warrior's Gifts, and sealing them away with the last of his power, giving each of them a demon guardian so that none could ever be used against him again. Though Suzaku died there, his Dark Gifts remained on earth and were scattered by the power and intensity of his death, weakening their power with distance.

And so, there Suzaku, the Red Falcon stood. Neither dead, nor alive, three shards of his soul lost somewhere on earth, the rest of it residing in the deformed man before him until his deed was complete and his promise fulfilled. Until the day that Raima's bidding was done, Suzaku was his, soul bound. The hideous ninja smirked as he realized what stood before him: an evil demon, at his command. A powerful warrior who would not stop until his duties were done.

"My revenge," said Raima, "will soon begin. You're going to kill every single member of Gengai's secret organization one by one, and then you will fight Gengai himself until he is weak. Then you will stand aside and let me cast the final blow to end his putrid life." His blood pumped harder at the thought of killing the man who destroyed him. He turned his back on Suzaku, his smirk growing into a grin as he unleashed the bark-like laugh that had been welling up inside of him, his plans reeled in his mind as recklessly as storming winds.

Suzaku said nothing, but his mind filled with plans just as evil as Raima's. He would finish the old ninja's revenge to regain the pieces of his soul that the twisted man now held. Then he would search the world to repossess his Dark Gifts and complete his soul once more, once again becoming the strongest man in the world, this time with no Dragon Warrior to stop him. He regarded the hideous ninja's back with a dark look as he laughed, lost in his thoughts and completely unaware of Suzaku's own evil plans. The deformed man who held part of his soul would live to see his revenge on this 'Gengai'. But not a minute longer.