Bloody Knuckles FF

A/N: ... I am a horrible at being a good Author. Completely screwed up the last chapters so I hope this pleases. It's all a mess right no so please forgive me, I'll clean it up a bit later.

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Chapter 1- Life in the Underworld

(Leiko's POV)

The Underworld.

It's a place not well known of, even to the people who live in the city above, known simply as Sunakagure. This place, this spider web of criminal activity, rarely sleeps, almost 24 hours, everyday of the week, fighting matches dominate the days & nights. Many people from Upper City only come down here for the main events, usually beginning after dark. The size of the Upper City crowd is the only way to tell about what time it is, with nights more crowded than the day. Yet no matter what time of day it is, there is always a crowd of men, hollering at those in the ring. Men who have money to gamble away, men who have fallen victim to the irresistible poison of the Underworld's lure. Only the rich men from Sunakagure, those still able to leave this place and not look back, can enter the Underworld and return to the surface. The men who have fallen from Suna soon realise, along with everyone else who has become entrapped in the spider's web, that they are in a deep pit of despair, of pain and suffering, where a single glance can cost them their lives, and that there is now no hope of escaping this Hell. Without work, it is almost certain they will die, and in the Underworld, brawn is all. You can scavenge in the Dump all you want, but you won't get far. To survive in the Underworld you need muscle to become a brute, a henchman for the 'Boss', the King of the Underworld, or you can become a fighter. If you choose to become a fighter, you've almost signed your own death. Fighters go through hell and back, many breaking bones, black eyes, and some form of head injury inevitable. Fighters don't normally last long, with the constant beating, bloodshed and deaths in the Ring, most either quit or die.

Many that leave the Ring aren't the same as when they first began, the things they see and do in the adrenaline rush to survive haunt them, many can only wish they'd never set foot in the trap of the Underworld. Those men whom have become trapped don't seem to realise that they are still the lucky ones, the ones who were once able to see the sky over their heads and walk in the sun. When this is the place you were born and raised, the sun is almost a myth, with the desperation to survive a very real truth. The Underworld to me is the only world I know, with Suna sounding more like a child's dream each day. The Underworld is directly beneath Suna, where the walls are made of hard, brown rock & the floor is a compressed, dry mud. These haven't changed since I was born, still the same surroundings like I've always known them. When I was young, I thought it strange that people find it entertaining to watch men beat each other up in a large caged fighting ring, hands coated in each other's blood as each landed a blow on the other. Yet now I too join the fighters, entertaining the crowd as I fight to survive. Over the years I'd grown used to the stench here, the whole place reeks of sweat & blood, & the constant roars of the crowd keep me awake the nights I can't sleep, laying awake in the darkness. When I can't sleep, I find myself thinking of my past... wishing Kuro' had just let me die as an infant. Kuromaru was my father's best mate, one time he told me that my father and him were like brothers. My father was a fighter, and Kuro' was his Fallback, a person to stop the fighter beating the crap out of their opponent when they're unable to fight back. Kuromaru is now my Fallback, and before my father was killed, he promised my father he would take care of my mother & me.

He lied.

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( Later that night...)

My eyes scanned the black sand desert standing still underneath the starless night, scanning the horizon for something, someone, just to know I wasn't alone in this wasteland. There was nothing to tell me where I was, just dunes of coal black sand as far as I could see, not a single star in the sky, just a blood red orb bearing down on me, a small white figure amongst a sea of black. I looked over my shoulder, the sand untouched, nothing to indicate the miles I must have walked by now, it's almost like I never moved at all. I looked back at the crimson moon, never moving, never sinking below the horizon, just like the sun never rose.

'What are you looking for?' questioned the voice in my head, its voice so calm yet sinister.

My legs, weak from the miles I must have walked by now buckled underneath me, collapsing onto the harsh sand," Something, anything..."

' To what? Prove you're not alone?' It sounded amused. I was fairly sure, after having to listen to this voice mock me for years, that it was a male voice. At first it was hard to tell, because there wasn't really a voice, more like a feeling... a feeling that has yet to be named. It was like confusion, anger, loneliness and bloodlust had suddenly waged a war in my head. Yet as time went on these feelings had grown a voice, merely a whisper to begin with, festering into a shrill wailing like the last scream of a murder victim, before transforming into the blood chillingly smooth, cold voice it is now. ' And here I'd thought you'd realised by now. There's no one else here, you're all alone. Left with spooky old me...' He began to laugh quietly to himself.

"... Be quiet..." I whispered, my hands slowly closing around the rough sand, noticing how it wasn't quite jet black, but a very dark grey. The sand before me began to shift, slowly at first, becoming more violent as it began to form into a black desert fox, its coat had darker lines of jet black sand, creating words of a language I hadn't seen in years, and eyes glowing like red embers straight from the depths of Hell. I tried to keep my face blank, but I could feel my eyes widen just a little bit as this was the first time he had taken a visible form.

' We are of course, the same person. I am you, you are me. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak. I'll admit it amuses me how you think of yourself as the better half, & me as the darker side you'd rather forget...but don't you think it's time you stopped dreaming? Since we are the same, so doesn't that make you just as bad as me?'

" I thought I told you to quit the emo poetry, Erebus." I told him, fighting to contain the anger inside me. A glint in Erebus' ruby red eyes told me he saw right through my calm composure, that he could see the bitter rage I held towards him. " If we really are the same person as you say we are," I sat up, speaking as calmly as I could, " Then don't talk down to me."

He seemed to huff, pausing for a moment as he slunk back and forth before me, like he was pacing,' ... You know if you'd taken my advice years ago it would have solved so many problems by now, you could have had your greatest desire by now...' he sighed.

Any sand in my fist at that moment was crushed into nothing, my hands clenching so rapidly that a cut on the back of my hand had re-opened and my crimson blood was now dripping onto the coal black sand. That's it. I'm done.

"Shut up..." my voice was quiet at first, barley a mutter,"... Shut up... Shut Up, SHUT UP!" I screamed, scrambling to my feet & yelling at the face, allowing my rage be expelled from my body, " I am not like you! I'm different! And don't even think for a second that I'm going to even listen to, let alone take your 'advise' anymore. You know as well as I that I would sooner kneel over dead myself than do that." The anger that burned within me hurt like a blade on an open wound, I didn't want to see Erebus' face anymore, I never wanted to hear him suggest ANYTHING like that ever again. The thought of what he'd said made me sick to the point of throwing up. In a fit of anger and fear, I kicked the tattooed fox, scattering the black grains far, but almost instantly, just milliseconds after my bare foot made contact with the side of its grainy black face, did it feel like a block of something solid and grainy hit me in the jaw. I was knocked to the side , crashing into rough sand on my shoulder. I was stunned. Never before had Erebus taken a form, but what just happened? Erebus' voice was the only thing that was clear in my mind, a slow laugh that seemed to echo, surrounding and almost seeming to drown me.

' I told you so, we are the same, that proves it. You wish so much for it to be a lie, yet when you tried to rid yourself of me, you cannot. This is your own mind, there is no escaping it. Remember, you're the one who created it.' and with that, he fell silent.

I lay there unmoving, my fingers slowly grasping the sand beneath them. What he said did make some form of twisted sense, yet I refused to believe it. I never created this...

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(The Next Morning)

Paganini Caprice.

A strange piece of music to awaken to, the faint sound, slightly muffled passing through the material of my tent. I'd overheard the owner, an old man with grey hair and sunken eyes, call it a 'record player'. It was made out of metal and wood, even though it was scratched, dented and slightly rusted in places, it was in fairly good shape compared to most things salvaged from the Dump. Even though I was fairly far away from the old man's tent, the music found a way to awaken me each morning without fail.

There was this feeling of something soft holding my hand, a smaller hand, probably belonging to that of a child. There was something wrapping itself around my palm & knuckles, a familiar feeling on most occasions I awake, on the rare times I rest my mind. Of the only two people that dared to enter my tent, only one of them would actually physically touch me. I opened my tired eyes lazily, seeing a bloodied rag & a bowl of stained red water on the floor near me. My blood, bright red, I saw it all too often. Flicking my eyes upwards, recognising the smile of the small boy. His gold-hazel eyes & slightly long light brown hair were suited to his kind, childish smile.

He was young, too young to be in the Underworld, yet no one else cared, he was part of the medical team, the ones that healed the fighters. He was a mute, taken off the streets a few years ago with his older sister. She was somewhere around five, he was barely one year old, wrapped in a dirty white cloth. I recall the day they were brought in clearly, I was brooding in my darkened tent, when through the small gap in the canvas, in he crawled. He was quite small, smudges of dirt all over him, a small bruise clear in his arm, yet his laugh was bubbly, just like it should've been for a normal child. He crawled right up to me, grabbing the hem of my baggy pants with his little hands, before deciding it was his chew toy, drooling and giggling, even reaching up for me at one point to hold him. This little boy confused me at the time, why did he not fear me like the others, whom cowered in fear if I glanced at them?

I closed my eyes, gripping my thin mattress to aid me in sitting up. I gazed down at my bandaged hand, rotating it, seeing the bandages already bloodstained. My eyes glazed over, recalling the voice,' There's no one else here, you're all alone... if you'd taken my advice-' I clenched my fist tightly, fear and anger colliding within me. No way. He was not getting to me. Not with Kid here. A small touch, that's all it took to snap me back to reality, staring into golden hazel eyes. He held my now loosely fisted hand gently, the look he was giving me was comforting yet also slightly questioning, and it was his soft smile that assured me everything was ok. Something arose in me, an emotion I'd never felt in all my life, it was although a ray of light, bottled deep within me had been opened, spreading it's warmth through me." Kid..." I breathed, merely a whisper, wrapping my arms around him in a hug, holding him although he might slip away from me like sand in the wind, but light enough to not harm him.

'There's no one else here, you're all alone...'

Shut up Erebus... You're wrong. I'm not alone, not completely...

'How long will that last? How much longer will you keep your insanity, before you slaughter them all?'

I SAID SHUT UP!

-SNAP!-

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A/N: