Hello one and all.
I have decided to give this genre a try. A few heads up notices, I have only seen a couple episodes of the anime, and haven't had time to read the manga, so if I get anything wrong, please forgive me.
Also, if anyone would be willing to tell me a few things to be aware of, i'd appreciate it. All I have to go by right now is the Kekkaishi wikipedia.
Lastly, since I know so little about the series, this is just going to be an original story, but not on the same storyline as the series.
Well, let's I hope I don't mess this up.
Breaking The Chains
Chapter One: Enter the Forbidden
"Quick, don't let it get away!" yelled Tokine as she rushed after the fleeing ayakashi.
Yoshimori slides to a stop and points at the large mantis as it swung it's bladed arm toward him.
"Ketsu!"
The arm is stopped momentarily by his Kekkai, but it manages to breakthrough rather easily. Yoshimori stumbles backward, narrowly missing the blade as it passes harmlessly in front of him.
Raising it's opposite arm, the mantis prepares for a second attack. Yoshimori swings his arm forward, and readies himself to defend. Seconds before the attack, however, his vision grows hazy and is replaced by a red blur of motion.
Dizzy and drained of his senses, he falls backward and has no way to prepare for the coming impact.
"Not again!" he yells as he swings his staff forward in what little help it would offer.
Luckily for him, the mantis was distracted enough for Tokine to launch a Kekkai, landing directly through the back of it's head and protruding through the front.
The mantis shatters into fragments and disappears. Tokine finds him as he's coming back to his normal self.
With a sigh, Tokine crosses her arms and shakes her head at the cowering Yoshimori.
"Pitiful."
"Shut up," Yoshimori manages while he rises to a swaying stance.
"Aww, little baby fall down?" Hakubi adds with a chuckle.
Yoshimori, now standing straight, swings around for a reply, "Be quiet you flying rat!"
"Flying rat?" yells Hakubi, " I'll have you know, this flying rat has the best sense of smell in all the world!"
"Maybe second best," adds Madarao, "You couldn't even smell a pile of trash with a nose that puny."
Hakubi scoffs and turns toward Tokine, "Honey, could you please tell the neanderthals to act their age, not their IQ?"
"What?" yells Yoshimori and Madarao in unison.
"Everybody calm down. Instead of fighting, we should looking for ayakashi."
With a final huff, Yoshimori turned and stormed toward the rear of the school.
Sighing, Tokine departed toward the front.
"One of these days, i'll show them," Yoshimori growled, fuming with anger.
"Relax kiddo," Madarao replies, "They're just trying to motivate you."
Yoshimori yells in reply, "They don't have to treat me like i'm completely useless! I'd like to see her do some of the things I can."
"That's why you two make such a great team." Madarao says, carefully testing the subject.
"Make yourself useful and go sniff around."
With a sigh, Madarao floats away and begins to search for any unknown presence.
Enjoying the silence of solitude, Yoshimori continues to walk, but not entirely focusing on searching for ayakashi.
'It's not like I don't try,'echoes his thoughts.
"Hmm...," says the unnoticed figure hovering in the top of a nearby tree, "It seems there is a void between these two."
Closing his eyes, the figure silently drops from the tree, revealing himself to be a cloaked fox with blaring red fur. Focusing intently on the boy, the fox finds it easy to see into his life and soon devises a course of action.
"So this is the heir. He's smaller than I imagined, but all the easier to destroy."
With a slight bit of concentration, the fox slides down the hood of his robe, and with a twitch of his whiskers, splits into four separate foxes. Lastly, they grin as they begin to take on the form of the people he saw in his memories.
Yoshimori sighs and sits at the base of a tree. Stretching, he leans back and closes his eyes.
'That's the third time that happened. I wish I knew what it was,' he thought, referring to the incident with the red haze.
'This could become a hassle. Maybe I should have asked gramps about it the first time.'
Opening his eyes, he notices the clearing in which he was resting had suddenly became filled with fog. Snatching his staff, he stands up and prepares to launch a kekkai.
"Where did all this fog come from?"
Out of the mist, the outline of a person appears and slowly approaches. Nervously, he inhales to begin his attack.
Tokine appears, staff in hand, and continues to the center of the clearing before stopping.
Relaxing, Yoshimori lowers his arm and speaks to himself, "Man, that could have gotten bad."
Tokine says nothing but continues staring.
"If you've come to apologize, you can forget it!"
A whoosh passes close to his head, causing him to fall sideways into a nearby tree. Shocked, he raises his left hand to his head and taps the area where he felt the wind pass. When he looked at his hand, he saw that it was faintly smeared with blood.
"What the hell?" he yelled while turning to look at the tree he was sitting against only a short time ago.
Protruding from the bark was a long green kekkai that resembled faintly the kind used by Tokine.
"Typical. Always falling at the first sign of danger," said Tokine.
"What was that for!" yelled Yoshimori as he quickly grabbed his staff and prepared for the next attack.
"You're weak," Tokine gave in reply, "What is it we do we with weaklings?"
A quick blast of another kekkai sent him diving for cover.
"Destroy them. It's what we've been doing all along. It would seem i've missed one though."
"Ketsu!"yells Yoshimori as he points at his attacker.
A large blue kekkai surrounds Tokine, stopping her next attack.
"Calm down! Why are you doing this?"
With a chuckle, Tokine easily destroys the barrier, "I've already told you."
Suddenly, two more figures appear and slowly walk into view.
Yoshimori steps back from shock at who entered the clearing, "Gramps? Masamori? What are you doing here?"
[][][]
"- I mean come on, he could have handled that ayakashi easily, but he choked. He needs to focus more." Tokine comments while continuing watch.
"I'd love to hear all about it," Hakubi warns, "But I think we have bigger problems."
"What is it?"
A few seconds pass, and the wind shifts dramatically, turning from a gentle breeze to a raging tempest. Raising her hand to block the wind, she looks over the building where a swirling red aura begins to spiral into the air.
"What is that!" Tokine asks as a large screech is heard.
"Guys!"
Tokine and Hakubi turn to see Madarao floating towards them.
"It's Yoshimori! He's off his rocker!"
"What happened?" Tokine asks while Hakubi turns to sniff in the direction of the event.
"Last I saw you were attacking him with your kekkai, then Shigemori and Masamori appeared and kept saying something about him being weak."
"Me?" Tokine asks, blinking in disbelief.
Madarao nods, "It looked just like you, straight down to the kekkai it used, except it was more distorted than yours."
"If this is an ayakashi, it's on a totally different level than any of us. Look at the size of that aura!"
Madarao gulps, "The swirling red aura, that's Yoshimori!"
[][][]
Yoshimori opens his eyes to find himself laying face down on a pure white walkway. As his eyes adjust to the surroundings, he notices he is no longer safely inside his kekkai at the school, but inside a world where there is no sky. All that exists around him is a pitch black aura, surrounding the walkway.
He pulls himself to a sitting position and marvels at how much pain he feels. His chest is heaving from the loss of breathe he feels, his legs are numb and begin to tingle, a sure sign that he was running out of adrenaline.
His skull is aching around the area where Tokine had attacked him-
"Tokine!" he yells and struggles to stand, "She's alone that ayakashi! I have to get back!"
Resting all his weight on his staff, he stumbles along the path, hoping he'll find some clue on how to get home.
After continuing for what seemed like an eternity, he collapses at the base of a large stairway leading to a temple of somesort.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
After one final sigh, he begins his journey to the top of the stairs. He actually made good time, until he reached a small landing close to the end. He froze and could not continue. It wasn't lack of strength this time. It was someone in pitch black robes glaring down at him. Upon further inspection he saw he was looking at himself.
The copy of him had spikier hair and appeared to have an angrier face.
"I've been waiting. Tell me, why do you fight?"
With wide eyes, and beating heart, all he could stammer out were unfinished words.
The copy sighed, "Follow me."
despite his severe fatigue, Yoshimori managed to climb the last bit of the stairway and made it all the way to the temple doors before relying completely on his staff. The copy opens the door and walks inside.
The chamber was dimly lit by a massive amount of candles varying in sizes. In front of him his a raised platform upon which an altar stood with a staff standing in the middle. It resembled his own, the only difference being the color and the deep feeling that something was wrong with it.
It's shaft was as white as the path he walked to the temple, wherein the blade was black with the sharpened edge being red.
"Now, we don't have much time. Tell me why you fight."
"I," Yoshimori began, but needed several attempts to finish, "I fight to protect Tokine."
"And what do you get in return?"
Yoshimori answers with silence.
"Answer me!" yells the copy, his voice roaring with power.
"Nothing," Yoshimori manages in a whisper.
"Nothing except a label of pitiful. Who's protecting who?"
Silence.
"She is not meant to be your soul link, the person you fight beside."
"Then who? She's the only other kekkai user I know besides my family."
"Really?" asks the copy, not expecting an answer.
He blinks, "You don't mean-"
The copy shrugs, "The choice is yours. May I remind you we don't have much time. Why aren't you stronger?"
"I can't understand the writing in my family's scrolls."
"So?" said the copy, "If you have time to waste on baking, you have time to make your own kekkai. The ways of the old will be forgotten by the tremendous power of the future!"
Yoshimori takes a deep breathe, "What should I do?"
"Now that's the million dollar question. See the staff in front of you?"
Yoshimori nods.
"With it you will unlock the power of musou. You will have the infinite strength you need to develop your own kekkai. But you must take the oath."
Yoshimori looks nervously at the staff.
"You may not know anything about what is going on, but you must trust me if you want to defeat your enemy. Approach the alter and recite the warrior's oath."
Yoshimori approached the altar but hesitated before gripping the staff, "I don't think I know it."
"Of course you do," replied the copy, hitting himself in his chest, "It's in here. Now hurry, before it's too late."
Yoshimori took a deep breathe and focused intently on the staff. Sure enough he could the words bursting forth from inside him. Gripping the staff, he begins the warrior's oath.
"I hold in my heart the memories of my fallen brothers, whose blood stains the ground upon which I walk. I praise the courage of my enemy, who crossed over bravely, fighting for his beliefs."
The copy grins as the staff begins to tremble, and all at once the candles flicker out. From beneath the staff a violent updraft circles the altar which immediately burst into a circle of flames.
Grabbing the staff with both hands, he continues the chant, "To defeat my enemy, I extinguish his life, and consume him as I consume these flames."
Everything ends as the wind dies down and the fire dissipates. He grips both his hands around the staff, his own being forgotten, and raises the staff into the air.
"I will fight until my blood stains the ground of which I call home. This I swear!"
With a mighty roar, Yoshimori slams the end of the staff into the ground, causing a wave of energy to blast through the temple, shattering the realm and sending him back to his own.
Yeah, I think that's a good place to stop. We'll see the end of the battle in the next chapter. It won't be a conventional kekkaishi battle, but it will be interesting to say the least.
Also, the warrior's oath is a scene from Gangs of new york.
Hate to say it, but if you don't like it don't read it. Last thing I need is someone flaming my story because they don't like the fact the plot is original.
Well, thanks for reading.