Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Jack and this fanfiction is in no way used for profit. Wahhh:(
Warning, this story has:
The Occult (demons, pagan gods, etc.)
Aku and Jack's blasphemous language (mostly directed at each other)
Yaoi (m x m relationships)
Violence (nothing beyond the TV show)
Gore (very tame, no blood, descriptions of wounds, etc.)
Name calling (so immature it will make you FEEL younger!)
Hiya! Sorry I've been so late updating this, stupid school is getting in my way. Who needs learning, bah I say. Bah! Anyway, here's the next chappie. Hope you like. :3
The Fuhai, or the Rot, as many knew it, was the scourge of demons everywhere. In the rare occasion where a demon tasted the bitterness of mortality, as Aku had once put it, death was characterized by a predictable chain of events that varied only slightly on the nature of their manifestation. Creatures tied to the physical world through the animation of corporeal objects like Aku, who had been given life from the ensorcelled forest, death was dominated by a slow regression back to the basic elements of the creature's formation. As the magic slowly departed, so too did the life it granted. For demons, magic was life, and their fate irrevocably tied to it. If this were indeed a case of the Fuhai, Aku would slowly return to the state of a tree, shedding the life-giving magic like a caterpillar sheds its cocoon.
Jack frowned. The enchanted sword had caused a kind of death for his foe, hacking the magic of his being to such a degree he had been petrified into his natural state once more until Gaia's power granted him rebirth. This injury looked severe and it was the only such wound where the Fuhai spread from. It was obvious the blow Aku had received sometime in the past had been an incredibly powerful one. Powerful enough to fracture the aura of magic there to such an extent it began to return to an inert state. Such instances became chain reactions, though the speed depended greatly upon the power and nature of the demon afflicted.
"This is why you wished to ally yourself with me." It was a simple statement, not teasing or malicious, just boldly put forward.
Aku opened his eyes and glared at Jack but without real venom, his gaze saturated with the chill and emptiness characterized by the disease he had sought to hide. "Yes."
"Gaia inflicted this upon you before you stumbled upon me in the woods, did she not?" The old samurai prodded, seeing how the situation had made his nemesis vulnerable. At the wordless nod, he felt everything click into place. That explained much, for a demon was often driven, like any other animal, to wander off alone in order to die. He suspected he startled Aku out of the solemn instinct and provided him the initiative to make a desperate attempt to reverse the process by bidding on Gaia's destruction with Jack's help. A great enough surge of magic might be able to halt the disease, even reverse it, but such a force was proportional to a demon's strength. Ironically, Aku's superior powers acquired over the years became his downfall. He was the most powerful demon on the planet, and he could not attain the resources he needed in time to preserve his life. Only Gaia's magic could do that, and seeing how she could inflict such dire injury in the first place, he doubted Aku would have attempted another confrontation.
Reluctant to bring up the fragile subject, Jack hesitated before asking: "Can it be reversed without Gaia's magic?"
Green lips twisted slightly with characteristic stubbornness before becoming one thin line. When it became apparent that Jack was not going to receive an answer, he sighed heavily before he stood up and brushed off his clothes. Even pondering the possibility of some sort of trap he hadn't expected to discover a disastrous predicament of this magnitude. It was the shape-shifter's listless acceptance of the situation that puzzled Jack the most. In any other instance, the demon would be absolutely livid at that moment, insulted and vengeful. As their first encounter in his lair proved, Aku's normal reaction to a challenge of his authority was swift and ruthless. Possessed of a loquacious nature, the forest should have been filled with the demon's cursing and vows of excruciating pain.
That was not the reality.
Abruptly the scene of the cave and unharmed Chickadees flashed through Jack's mind and he felt a small, unexpected surge of pity. To have a single drive permeate every facet of one's life was something the samurai knew of and it wasn't much of a life in his opinion. He himself was honour-bound in a search for a way back in time that wriggled its way into all the pleasures and miseries he had experienced in the future. It came between the friends he made, the people he saved, and the lands he came to admire. Everything was always tinged with the melancholic certainty that he would never see them again.
Where Jack simply took everything in its pace and merely accepted the ominous shadow of death looming upon the horizon, scheming, manipulative creatures like Aku could never tolerate such peaceful resignation. The samurai didn't doubt the wizard tormented himself night and day with endless possibilities of survival. That would explain his highly erratic behaviour. Jack had known something was amiss, though he had not been able to anticipate the sheer severity of the problem given his lack of experience with his enemy's character. Despite their animosity the warrior couldn't help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for how truly pathetic the paranoia was. The fear of his own death seemed to push Aku closer to making a mistake, and eventually, turning his fear into reality. After all, the concept of death was inevitable to mortals and eventually all merely accepted it as a part of life, but immortals could not. The prospect of dying after living for so long must have been maddening. Jack sighed, this added complexity was beginning to turn their hope of victory against Gaia's power very bleak. He had little doubt the Mother demon had afflicted her offspring on purpose, perhaps simply for amusement or perhaps for some other hidden motivation Jack had not yet uncovered.
"How much time do we have until this becomes extreme?" Jack asked quietly as he sheathed his katana, though he didn't remove his hand from its reassuring curves. Aku, despite his apparent lifelessness, was a spiteful creature and could lash out at him to compensate for his wounded pride.
There was a rude snort and the demon's arrogant personality began to resurface underneath the empty grimness of his former mood. Jack relaxed slightly, Aku's trademark superciliousness was far easier to handle than the unpredictable mood he had just witnessed. The demon's features became more eerie when in a state of despondent torpor. He found the lack of Aku's normal vigour perturbing.
"That depends." The wizard rumbled softly, his voice nearly a purr as he gazed at Jack with a calculating expression laced with something unidentifiable. "More magic would certainly aid in slowing the Fuhai down," he wheedled with a thin grin.
Jack's posture eased visibly. "So, you have not captured our guest yet."
"I was in the process of hunting him down when you stumbled upon me, foolish samurai." Slowly Aku forced himself off the ground from his undignified sprawl and dragged his obviously reluctant body to stand upright. With a smoky growl suspiciously similar to a curse, the wizard touched his flank gently and emitted a hiss of annoyance. Venomously fixing Jack with a searing glare a startling contrast to his faint indifference moments earlier, the demon made up for his previous silence by his scathing chastisements. "Why must you always interfere? My planning would have worked! Just because you do not possess my foresight, must you always disturb my designs by blundering your way through things?"
Jack felt startled at the sudden change in attitude but decided not to question it if it meant an easing in the tension. Aku was proud and the fact his arch nemesis now knew of his weakness would only chafe his pride even more along with the admittance of his defeat at Gaia's hands. To be seen as anything less than infallible was unacceptable and right now, they both knew he was in a very sorry state.
"You know, Aku, you would be surprised at how 'blundering' has helped me foil more than one of your plans to end my life." The samurai gave a lazy smirk for emphasis, but his dark eyes were serious. He felt the invigorating excitement touch him once more as he resumed his role as leader, trying to coax some form of hope from his cynical and reluctant ally. When he had been younger and Aku had tricked him using the guise of Ikra, he had glowed with anticipation facing an uncertain future fraught with danger when he had offered to take her with him. The prospect of carrying out a journey by himself was grim and without pleasure, but sharing it with others gave him an odd strength. Jack never truly felt alive unless he was knee deep in the situation, doing all he could to save as much or as many people as possible. Perhaps that was why the idleness his past offered him was so undesirable. After years of feeling the welcoming glow of the desperate people here, people who really needed him, to travel back and be pampered prince and heir seemed ignoble by comparison.
"Why do you seek this man who follows us? You do not even know who he is, who he is aligned with. For all you know he could be in league with Gaia. " The samurai advised sagely, slightly wizened face drawing into an ironic smile. He was a warrior at heart, how would he ever survive if he managed to find his way back to the past?
Aku released a short cackle of amusement. "When the Mother aligns herself with lowly magic folk, I will practice bushido. They are tools to her, samurai, merely pieces on a board. Nothing more."
"That is how it all began, is it not? No good comes mixing mortals and demons as the Mori no Ou discovered," a faint voice observed within the thickness of the trees around them, sage, wise, but undecided for good or evil. Stillness descended upon the woods in a thick blanket of silence, permeated by the perception and foresight of a very ancient presence. One that predated both man and demon, and it watched them both with an eerie regard from behind the emaciated woe of the forest.
"Forest King?" Jack parroted, bewildered.
"Yes," the word was a sigh among the leafless trees.
The samurai, always wary of strangers in this volatile future, tensed his body in expectation of the very worst. Gaia might toy with them this way, send a minion to confuse and befuddle before she struck while they reeled in disarray. He had seen many people utilize this strategy to divide and conquer, as the famous Napoleon Bonaparte had done so many years before Jack's arrival, and he feared in their subdued state of mind, the both of them were extremely vulnerable. Aku's secret burden had sent him into shock he was so completely caught off guard, he couldn't read his enemy as well as he liked and this new development changed everything. Gaia must know. She would use it to her advantage. Jack turned to Aku, curious towards his reaction only to be shocked yet again.
The demon was visibly rattled.
"That name," his voice was a deadly hiss. "How do you know that name?"
"I know many things," was the cryptic answer.
"No one has known that name since--" Aku clenched his bestial teeth in the effort to regain a semblance of composure, but the interloper had uncovered a deep and ancient rage, one not so easily contained by sheer will. Jack watched, alarmed and intrigued as a myriad of emotions swept over the shape-shifter's normally arrogant expression; from hatred to a distant glint of memory to wariness at this newly uncovered secret. The demon appeared at a loss of what to do, so shocked by this event he had only the ability to shut his expression away and glare with bland distaste towards the voice's general direction, but his eyes burned with something Jack had never seen before. It was primal and dangerous, a side the samurai hadn't battled since he had clashed with the demon for the very first time.
"Since Gaia's first attack upon this world?" The voice finished, unabashed and completely untouched by the strange humour it had worked the normally aloof Aku into.
"Gaia has been here before? This is not the first attempt she made to come here and reclaim her demon forces?" Jack interrupted harshly, dark eyes hard like the heartwood of a great oak. "Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you know of Gaia and this Forest King?"
There was a laugh and the trees sighed in response. "So many questions mortal folk insist upon asking," there was another brief chuckle in the air like the crackle of wood, "I will answer but one of your choosing."
"One?" Jack repeated incredulously, he felt so useless and outwitted when it came to the arcane depths of the world, trained the majority of his life with but one goal in mind: to defeat evil. With a reluctant crease of brow, the samurai realized it was Aku who held the superior knowledge in this arena and he cast the demon a glance of question. His foe, however, was badly shaken by the encounter though stubbornly cloaked it beneath the bland disregard his kind were so infamous for, but Jack could see glints of uneasiness in the demon's gaze. He had been caught in a moment of vulnerability and would try to lie, confuse, and shadow his thoughts rather than share them to hide this weakness. There would be no help from the wizard in his disgruntled state.
"I wish to know of Gaia and the Forest King."
"Wise," the disembodied voice commented with a wry undertone and there was a sudden rustle of fabric somewhere to Jack's right beyond the trees. "Knowledge is the deadliest weapon."
"I seek to destroy Gaia and stench the tide of her evil," Jack announced boldly to the voice beyond, somehow aware only such a statement would elicit a visible reaction from the mysterious presence behind the wooden veil.
"Heed my advice then, mortal, seek out the roots to the Forest King, therein lies the key to Gaia's destruction." There was a cryptic finality to the statement, an end where Jack expected a beginning, and before either he or Aku could voice a complaint, the stillness of the stranger's passing vanished from the clearing. The birds began to sing again, merrily with a silver trill. The crisp pleasantness of the winter air returned with a fell swoop and bit eagerly into any exposed flesh, made all the more sharper by the distinct tang of magic still present.
Jack blinked owlishly, thoroughly put out by magic, demons, Forest Kings, and uninvited visitors. He had felt the impact of his burden to get back into his time and right what had been turned so terribly wrong, but he had settled into idleness. A short-sighted scope from rescue to rescue, bounty hunter to bounty hunter, bitterness and disappointment, wonder and disbelief, all these were from the day to day and the goal--the end--was a distant mirage. Jack realized, abashed, as he had aged and struggled through this future he had forgotten why exactly he had ended up there, a ship whose anchor had been slowly worn away by a vast ocean. The suddenness of this announcement, the application of another task, placed into focus how much he had dallied. He felt ashamed.
"Who was he?" The samurai finally broke the silence when it became clear Aku would not, his lacking another ominous element in an already insidious brew.
"One of the Old Ones," the demon replied curtly and turned away very suddenly to head back towards Dagaz and his hunters. Jack had completely forgotten about them and given their precarious status as not quite guests and not quite hostages, the explanation for their disappearance would be a difficult one. He heaved a weary sigh, he felt very old and brittle in that moment after the Old One's disappearance, though he could not understand why.
"You know of the Forest King, that much you cannot conceal from me, but what it is that makes you so angry?" Jack followed the wizard's course and watched as the sleek silhouette wavered and twisted back into his sinuous human frame.
"That I can conceal," Aku replied and strode without another word into the tangle of the woods.
Well, whaddya think? R+R always welcome. If you see evil typos or inconsistencies give me the heads up. ;)
Ta.