Carmilla
Disclaimer: Naruto and all its characters are Kishimoto's legal property. I'm not making any money off this story; however, all the Original Characters, Original Plot-lines, and Original Themes are my own.
Rating: Written for mature readers due to content that involves violence, sex, and language.
Warning: Morbid content.
Chapter One: The Reapers
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Another streak of blood diluted and sailed away. Carmilla—out in the storm, she saw herself in the mould of a great warrior: one with a great big cloak billowing at the back, trimmed winter furs, and a sturdy hand upon the ornamented pommel of a giant sword, who stood before a great valley whose waters shone in the most effulgent light.
A wind, like a brush of silk, crossed her face, lifted her long hair, and swirled through the tall grass, which was all soggy and sodden after the battle—dappled red with a congealing liquid that smelt awful.
A light rain outlined her girlish form underneath the thin garments: she had wiry muscles, strong but thin arms, and a young face set in the most serious frown. She had meant business when she had set her heart on the rebels to free the lands of the Young Deity that was still but a bud that had yet not blossomed.
It was still dusk, and the transparent mist's tinge had long since darkened to lead by her feet. She stood on low grounds, beneath the dark shadows of the tall, tall peaks that hid another forest behind their smooth façades.
She jumped and landed beyond the yawning waters of this stream, sight set on the High Mountains, The Sacred Twins, that shut out the world beyond. The sacred land, Carmilla (with fruits succulent and airs sweet), beyond was bordered by a stripe of lush verdure and streams shivered along the sides of the lovely edifice, which, as some believers claimed, appeared in a strange hue to the monks' eyes.
There the believers made an obeisance before their benevolent Lord, still ripening deep inside a pearlescent substance. He had alighted upon their mountains, and when he exuded a hue so sweet, every light was inferior in brilliance; and when the light shone in their eyes, they had set their foreheads to the grounds in adoration—cast their souls at the shores of his divinity.
But trouble was always afoot, and deities were made by spilling blood of Men, good men. Naruto was lost, killed by this man to become a Kami! Her sister had been driven to the last verges of her sanity. The world had gone silent and chakra flowed in obedience, like his devout monks, to conjoin at a single spot inside his treacherous body, which still awaited a divine metamorphosis to set it free from its morals coils.
So Konoha Men plotted in silence, lest their hopes for glory would bewilder change. They wanted good men and good women to halt the germinating Lord coveted by his monks, nuns, too. Someone who possessed a keen sight, a steady foot on the brink of precipices, and a heart that burnt with courage—that was all her village needed.
Now she ran, eastbound to reach the border in time. The deity had granted his monks with chakra strong. They were . . . impossible to defeat, to put down; she was all that was left of her platoon of foolhardy men and women. Swords fell, spears went through and they had gone out without a whisper. At least, their deaths had been easy . . .
Beside her, a trail of chakra ran towards the mountains upon the air as though plumes of doves. He had been gathering it all up for the last five years, and during this course of change, she had grown from a young 'un to a budding woman. How time changed—how things changed. Sakura had wept at the foot of Naruto's grave. He died with a faint smile on his face; the young Uchiha had not celebrated his victory.
That was what her father had told her; but he, too, went away and never returned. The monks got him or the Reapers. No one knew. He just . . . never returned. So she said her farewells at the river and lit a paper lantern, with his name, upon the water. It floated away—to somewhere.
An emotion sparked in her eyes, and she crossed the distance with the ferocity of her vision. There, just beneath the bowing trees' refuge, lay the dead men. He had got them here, too! She halted, eyes transfixed to the tall ones. They stood over her, and she felt mocked!
"Uchiha Sasuke . . ." she whispered, and her eyes lit-up like a new fire. It was not a foreign emotion she had experienced. No, it was anger, such a raw, deep anger that went in deep and slow. The aching hurt never went away. She had so many of her men fall in these past few years.
Liberation. Revolution. Absolution. He had said those words and swore by his brother's grave. Sakura had told her in hysterics. She did not know what to believe—who to believe. They were all mad with hopelessness.
Men told tales of him, and his brother, an evil seed who devoured them all like a Reaper. He came to them in the dark, spilt blood, and blest none—such a terrible fate to befall the young, who died upon the blade, some still suckled teat when he got them.
"Hanabi, you're too young—stay and hide with me!" Hinata had whispered.
And may Kami set her father's soul free. He had died with a purpose in heart, and he had died fighting. It was a son's duty to avenge his father; but Hiashi had no son. They said that Hanabi was as good as any, and she was! She was a sparkle of fire in the night sky. She would do what her brother would have done.
And so she had taken up the sword, gird up her loins for the battle; for she would strike at his heart, liberate the chakra, and end him before he rose out of his shell to reign over them all.
She stopped, watching as light went away from the peaks to gather in his breast. Darkness descended, and murmurs of Reapers rose into the air. They had come out in search of prey, and they struck quick and soundless. Wind crossed her face, and she looked back at the advancing darkness one last time before she ran off towards the dipping sun . . .
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Anon, the dark was at Hanabi's heels. The wind that swept round the perpendicular peaks gave a moaning sound; and her ears were glutted with the holy land's music, eyes ravished with night's shades. She had to reach the temple beyond the small hillocks.
Horrific figures came unbidden amid the fog and mist. They assaulted men who did not remain patient at the sight of their miens that excited terror in their breasts; they possessed lineaments most strange: a beautiful edifice, of a man, that contorted to gain a terrible countenance—one which a crow possessed.
The eyeless heads crowned the strange bodies, with contortions stranger—neither man nor beast. Sakura had told her that the Reaper, before it struck the Men down with deadly beak and feasted upon their still-alive bodies, possessed the face of the Lord's brother. She did not understand that a Lord with no heart had love in him (love for a brother).
Hanabi let herself down into the stream and saw the clear water by her feet dirl. The whispers followed in search of the sound she had just made, and if she made too loud a noise, her death would pay the forfeit of her error. The night winds, from mountains tall, blew a mixture of uncertain sounds down into the quiet valley, and her noise was merged in this chaos of sounds.
Fog effaced the trail from the leaves covered ground, and she had little choice but to use her clan's eyes to produce effects in her vision. Crackle crackle crackle she went, crushing the signs of autumn beneath her feet. The whispers of Reapers rose and swelled, saluting her with sounds that made certain her isolation in this place at the foot of the mountains.
The crows had not yet penetrated the last defenses of their stronghold. They went back into the trees when the sun came up, as if to slumber. Men had cut down whole forests in search of the lovely creatures with faces awful, but found no trace of them—just a bit of black sludge got trapped underneath their fingernails, and it had to be picked and scrapped.
But the trees grew tall and they grew young come morning—always. The Men brought them down over and over again in fear, signs of toil glistening upon their brows in the light of sun, but each time they grew with a fierce determination, bearing fruits succulent and flowers lovely that defied autumn, defined nature. It was mad—everything had gone mad!
A moist, sweet air had spread around that forest, and word reached the monks; and such a throng of them appeared at the foot of the mighty mountains with great height that shed such a melancholic gloom upon the waters; and there he lay sepulchered on the pebbled shores—his form extended on the dispersing droplets, hands resting upon his breast, features, which rebirth had engraved, with signs of godhood.
There, they all made an obeisance, chanted hymns as he lay in a deep slumber, with eyeless Reapers watching his countenance with such aggrieved expressions. His brother had come adown and stood by the foot of his sibling's watery grave; he dwelt in his breast still—always!
And they had named that place Carmilla!, taken him up the broken stairs to keep him safe from the evils of this world as he grew in his radiant shell to be birthed on the shores of this world. They would shed tears at his birth—sing songs upon his arrival, for his birth was nigh!
Hanabi slowed down her run when the whispering grew near. They were sniffing her scent in the air. The night's air, cold in her lungs, wafted up leaves; and before she could determine the course of her proceedings, a black mass ascended before her from the obscured ground. It kept rising till it was more than a towering man's height.
She stopped, breath ceasing in her lungs. She watched, with eyes fearful, the thing that stood before her, all imposing in stature. It hath no eyes! None! Empty sockets adorned a face so lovely, which wore such a mournful expression upon its countenance.
Her body trembled at the sight of it (him?), and he could sense her girlish fear. His neck escalated, like a crow, and he sucked in a breath so loud that she felt the disturbance vibrate on her skin. The vapours of her scent crawled up his nostrils, and he drew in sputtering breaths again.
In the dark, his neck was a projecting pillar, face white on the changing body. Feathers grew thicker from his skin, and the arms, which wore the wings like sleeves, extended in her direction—so did his beak!
Sending a lighting fast signal through her limbs, her nerves compelled her body to respond to the threat. She sprung back towards the light that still had some strength left in her, but the shadows behind her had darkened into Reapers.
Hanabi did not have time to look behind her when a break descended with a bone-crushing force to penetrate stones by her feet. She had slinked away just in time to avoid such a blow that would have felled a giant beast. Angry, the crow let out a caw so loud that it shattered the calm of this place; and the air vibrated with answers of so many.
The Reaper cawed, still shewing traces of Lord's brother's face upon the ghastly visage, recoiled its neck to unleash a blow to her breast. She unsheathed her sword and poised for a strike, which she aimed at his heart. It thrummed in his breast—an odd thing made of black sludge; and when the blow came, she parried and ran him through with her sword.
He went still, and his face reverted back to that of a man. His features relegated sorrow, his eyes locked upon the blade lodged in his breast. He bled a vivid shade, and she felt a warmth cascade down her shivering arms. Then little by little, his face and body turned ashen and crumbled and went into the ground—returned from whence it came . . .
"I'm sorry," Hanabi whispered, eyes filling with tears and a new rain, for she had heard such good things of the older one who now remained trapped in the younger one's memories.
For a few moments, she welcomed the sweet shower of rain. It washed away the blood, pearlescent in the last lights of the sun behind the hills. Her fingers, greased with the Reaper's blood, slipped around the hilt. It was done.
Hanabi rose up to her feet and began to sheath her sword—that's when the earth beneath her feet shook like disturbed waters; sludge, which had gone into the earth, bubbled up; and she saw his face in the black, smiling.
"I'm sorry," he mimicked her voice and lunged at her head. She dropped to a crouch as the deadly beak, which would have torn through her neck, swished above her head like a black blur.
She took a long leap towards the light, but he followed. Her sword hand shot out sideways, away from the body, to defect a coming blow aimed at her breast. The beak collided with the sword, sending devastating thrums through her bones. The impact knocked her sideways into the stones.
Chakra pooled into her back to protect her vitals; upon impact, a strong vibration rang in her ears and her ribs cracked, unable to endure the force of the blow; but the beak was relentless as it came down horizontal to split her head in two. She skipped to the left, avoiding it by inches. Grit and stones flew into the air, and amid the dust, rain, and mud, the Reaper grew hungry for her flesh.
Hanabi huffed. It was no use! E'en the chakra she had put around her blade had not dented its beak. Her body would shatter if it took a direct blow from the Reaper. The last light twinkled on the crest of the peak, and darkness began to spread behind her. Reapers whispered in strange tongues, in voice loud. Their wings beat in the darkness and churned the air like turbulent waters.
Hanabi had seconds to save her life before the throng of them overwhelmed her! So she locked her hands to the pommel and aimed the sword downwards, her eyes on the beast. Then she threw the sword at the tree; blind and hungry, the beast went running in the directions vibrations and its beak went into the bark.
The sword swished past the tree and clanked against the big stone, its tip too weak to break it. The beast struggled to pull its beak from the tree, but he had given Hanabi a long enough distraction to run towards the light. With great speed, she ran out of the advancing darkness, grabbing the sword as she went.
Noises still pursued her, but she fled the scene, her body battered with fear and fatigue. At last the sun showed the last of its sign, and dark spread its wings. Reapers sprang out of the ground, like flowers, and surrounded her. Her legs shook with mortal fear; but, at that moment, a woman crushed the boulder, and last lights poured out over the breasts—and silent they went into the ground.
"Sakura-San!" Hanabi spoke in elation. She had survived the assault at the camp!
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