SNI
Before me stood a man dressed in the fashion of latter-day Earth.
Before me stood the most dangerous being in the world.
Before me stood the Samsara Breaker.
IMPERATIVE: DEATH.
The seal on my back flared to life, and without my will, without my consent, I felt myself lunge forward to end him—
—as with an ease that I couldn't replicate, he dodged.
"You know," he said, "All I want at the moment is to have a conversation. And you can't reach me, Akino Kaede. Or do you prefer █▟▚▜▌ ▓▉░▙▁▆?"
Hearing the label[name] that people had once called me by was enough to shock me out of my attempt to end it all and be done with this world, although the seal still burned and my muscles still sang with a wholly foreign power. It pulled on me, tugged me forward, goading me towards patterns that I was sure the Administrator of Death felt likely to end the Breaker.
But it was too soon. Far too soon. My body was only six, and I couldn't hope to match him.
"Ah," he said, "I thought that I might have gotten your attention with that. Tell me, how does it feel to know that your fated enemy knows everything about you, while you know nothing about them?"
"Like a story," I said, deadpan, and slowly drew myself out of the stance that Shinigami's seal had dragged me into. "So you aren't going to kill me."
"Kill you? My, no. So long as you are bound by that marvellous seal, if you die, you will be reborn not in another world, but in this one. Killing you would be like inaugurating the dance of Shiva and Kali: destruction rebirth destruction rebirth; always beautiful and utterly pointless." He smiled, and there was no particular anything in the expression.
"No, I have no desire to kill you. Only to survive long enough to die of my own accord... Which may be very long indeed. Until then, this world can serve as a—what was the term your worldline used? A sandbox? Yes. A sandbox."
I sagged in relief. Someone who regarded a world full of people as a playground was dangerous but—
And then, I was missing an arm.
"You little fool," The Samsara Breaker hissed, holding the missing limb as I held back a scream. "I said I was not going to kill you. Anything else is my prerogative—not yours. You live at my sufferance. Did you think that I would take kindly to one of my inferiors bartering my life away to a god, for a passport? Do you think I am not aware of your full and total intentions? Feh." And then, without a flicker, or a displacement of air, he stood in front of me and roughly shoved my severed arm back into its socket with a muttered "Curaga."
Even through the haze of pain, I recorded the word, and briefly wondered in the worlds of Square Enix were real, too. Briefly, because in the next moment the world spun crazily, and the wind was knocked out of me as I found myself on the ground with a boot to my throat blocking all attempts to take the breath that would refill my lungs.
"So this is what I'm going to do," the Breaker said, as if he was discussing the weather. "I'm going to leave you be for now. I'm going to let you grow. I'm going to let you develop. I'm going to let the baby bird unfurl its wings." I thrashed around, frantically, struggling for air, and I might've been pinned under a pillar of stone for all the good it did me. The Samsara Breaker gave no appearance of noticing, looking not at me, but at the world he was describing. Fantasizing.
"And then—why—I'm going to break them. Crush them to powder, starting at the tips, then tear them out at the roots. And then I'll do worse things. I'll do things that make the Cenobites look like children. What do you think about that, Kaede?"
He looked down at me, clearly expecting an answer, and seemed genuinely surprised and horrified to see my weakening struggles under his boot.
"I'm sorry!" He said reflexively, jumping off of my body and a few feet back, an expression of childlike contrition on his face. "I'm so sorry. I just get a bit excited sometimes when interesting things happen, you know, like people being stupid enough not to be afraid. Are you afraid now?"
I was too busy breathing to reply, so instead, I nodded, the motion jerky as my veins sang with adrenaline.
I was fucking terrified.
"Oh," he said, and the energy and life just seemed to drain out of him. "Well, I'm going to go, then. Maybe if I stay away long enough, you'll forget to fear me again, na?"
And—just like that—he was gone. No transition. No displacement of air.
Gone.
I laid in the clearing for a long time.
Finally, as the sun rose, I stood up, and began the long process of limping back onto the map, and from there, into the orphanage.
I had a session at the academy today.
I didn't care.
I needed to re-evaluate every decision I had made when I was born into this world, starting with the first.
The seal on my shoulderblade, hidden as a birthmark, subtly burned.
S-N-I
Lexicon
Shini Tei'in
The Seal of Death's Body. One of the seals created instinctively by the being known as Shinigami, it is applied to the target's soul, and is echoed on their body. In the presence of a specified individual, phenomenon, or object, it forcibly raises the attributes of the individual it is placed on to C-Rank nin equivalent by removing biological limiters and granting a set of foreign instincts to motion that art, in effect, a taijutsu style. This style has no name, and was seized from the well of all possibilities by Shinigami as the seal was made.
The Shini Tei;in Does not grant any nin, gen, dou, fuin, or onyojutsu.
If Kaede ever increases her abilities to above C-Rank, this seal will become a hindrance rather than a help, although it seems to be manifestly useless in any case.
This seal only activates in the presence of a Samsara Breaker. As I said. Manifestly. Useless.
Designed assuming user was adult: In this chapter, Kaede attained E-Rank skills and superficial damage to her keirakukei. This is yet another reason why Kaede gave the Shini and Rinne kami a lower case g.
This particular instance of the seal also contains an irregular function that alters the perceptions of the individual it is placed on. This has the effect of generating a phenomenon best described as targeted agnosia, and makes any thoughts, feelings, perceptions or ideas about or relating to the Shinobi Rikugou based on information obtained in the individual's previous life nearly if not completely impossible to consciously perceive.
Gee, thanks guys.
Keirakukei
A metaphysical circulatory system through which Chakra circulates.
