A/N: Definite horror elements here, so if you're squeamish, just a head's up; there are a few graphic descriptions of violent acts as well. Also there's a teenage Duo Lon smoking an opium-laced herbal concoction.

Since it's backstory, this was mentioned in his discussion with Adel in Nocturne. He mentioned two incidents; this was the first. The second happened during Assassin's Hunt, for other reasons, just to avoid confusion if you haven't read Nocturne(you don't have to, to enjoy these oneshots.) The incidents were similar in result, but they were not the same. I had written the other fic before this one; originally I wasn't planning on telling this story, but I had decided to, similar outcomes or no.

"Are you sure he isn't too young?"

"The son of our clan leader, a prince in his own right, is not too young. He has the aptitude of his father."

"The son is not always like the father. Ron is more adept at chi and mystical elements. Duo Lon has mostly had martial training so far, besides the standard poisons."

"If he is capable, he is capable."

"And are you willing to tell our leader if his son goes insane?"

"He has given me permission to train him."

"...Very well. If something happens, though, you're breaking the news."

The discussion had stood out in Duo Lon's head. Fresh from his sixteenth birthday a little more than a month before, and already with numerous assassinations under his belt, including dangerous, high profile targets-he was deadly even now, and his trainer had felt he was ready to start delving into the veil of death more. Other elders had their doubts, as martial prowess, and handling the more delicate matters, were completely different.

He had started the training properly after a difficult job one night, though it was just poking the veil. Smoking the mixture of herbs and the poppy, he viewed into the death realm for longer than he had before. Those who were trained in the spiritual arts-which was borderline necromantic power-were trained to teleport by traveling through the veil of death itself, coming out on the other side.

But he wanted to do more. He told his trainer that he felt fine after the first weeks of viewing; finally, he was given a short distance to teleport. Taken to a gentle field, he was given the substance-which would shield his mind from the worst of the madness of the death veil-and he was told to move through it.

And he did. The world went temporarily gray, and he saw, perhaps, a few spirits, but they were calm. He went and did it two more times; his mentor told him to slow down after that.

Duo Lon remembered asking him why he had to stop.

"Why? They are calm. I can travel longer." The longer one stayed beyond the veil of death, he knew, the more spirits would notice them.

"You will disturb them. You need to learn how to deal with them if you travel through it longer."

"But I've dealt with them."

"Not anywhere close to all of them. You have met calm ones, who had gentle, or natural, deaths. You will find some-many even-very, very different."

And that was that. He left, and they went back to his mentor's hideout, to the buckets of gravel that he was to send his already deadly hands into, strengthening them even further.

But after a few more times of simple teleporting, he wanted to learn to walk through it; to travel further distances, to phase through walls...all the things that his profession would benefit from.

So, in the great wisdom that any sixteen year old thought they had, he decided to train a little on his own. He was confident in himself, and how his elders spoke of him. Peering into the veil himself-eventually, he would leave the herbal smoke aside and do it with his own mind-he practiced on his own. Small teleports...and even peering into the veil without smoking first, since he admitted he did not like what it did to his mental state.

Some of the spirits were frightening...but he felt fine.

His young mind started concocting a plan one night, though...a way to truly beat them, to surprise his trainer. To surpass what they thought he was capable of.

Duo Lon planned on partaking in a little bit of the substance first...and then, rather than go to the field to train on his own, he would go to a graveyard, where the spirits would be thick. Simply peering in, letting his mind grow used to them in a powerful place...and he would be able to handle the field he trained in almost like nothing. After a few moments of getting to 'know' the place, he may even be able to teleport through it some distance. Perhaps, then he would be moved onto more challenging things.

He simply felt the field was too...easy.

Sneaking out of the cottage where he stayed late at night, he took only his pipe, a pouch of the substance, and that was it. The spring night was slightly cool, though quite pleasant; dressed all in black, with mask around his lower face, he did not wear a coat as his sleeveless cotton top provided enough warmth, as he was fairly resistant to cool weather, nor gloves or shoes, to move more silently and to make it easier to run up trees and travel through the branches if necessary. He usually preferred to dress lighter when outdoors in any season that was not winter, anyway.

The graveyard was perhaps only a kilometer and a half away; the tall young assassin reached a tall oak halfway to his destination and he decided to pause in one of its great branches for a moment to listen, using his keen senses to make sure no one had seen him leave, or no one was around. His braid hung heavy from his head; he kept the weights in his hair, even now. Five kilograms, carried day in and out, which to him felt like a feather at this point. He would have more added soon, no doubt. It was hard at first even with a couple of kilograms, but as he grew and strengthened, it grew easier, and more weight was added.

Would be that his mind would remember that working up to things was a normal part of training.

It was quite a gorgeous night, to be sure; it was calm, cool, and the night was clear, though there was no moon. Picking himself up again, he continued on, his long, lithe and densely muscled form continuing through the trees, finally climbing quickly down the last one toward the ground.

He saw the graveyard from where he was. Leaping the gates would be of no issue, but he would partake in the substance here first; just a little bit to provide some extra shielding before he took his trip to the other side of death's veil for his self-training.

It didn't take him long to finish; when he felt it hit him, he knew when he was ready. Storing his pipe in his loose shirt, he dashed to the gate and climbed it easily, launching himself over. He landed softly, the grass damp already with night dew. It was cool to walk on, and not at all unpleasant. The graveyard, to him, was not a frightening place; he had known death far too young, and this was simply where bodies rest. There was nothing terrible, nor strange, about it.

Finding a clearing-there were various tombs and graves around, he started by meditating a few moments as he stood, focusing his mind, before peering in first as they would, connecting himself to the veil.

Duo Lon had heard some terrifying sounds in his time. One of his earlier victims had screamed and begged for his life, wicked coward that he was, but he paid him no mind. He had heard people in terror before, and this wicked man had not granted mercy to his victims.

Nothing could have even remotely prepared him for the wailing screams of the tormented dead, many of them beginning to surround him. What the young man failed to consider were his mentor's words that not all dead were the same. Graveyards were not only home to those who died of natural causes…but also to those murdered, tortured, or otherwise killed violently before their time. More than a few spirits were not kind people in life...carrying their rancor beyond the grave.

And Duo Lon had chosen the largest cemetery in his area.

Shaking his head, he tried to 'turn himself off'...but he lost focus. The spirits were thick; some were calm, but many-so, so many-were restless, and there were others yet that were downright malevolent. He was on their territory, and they shrieked; ghostly visages, skull-like appearances...and the worst were the ones in horrible condition, the condition that they were in when they died violently.

And they started to surround him, reaching out with their grasping hands. He could feel them.

"Stop," he said quietly, backing away, turning to face a man whose throat was slit, before he jumped. "Go away."

"Help...us…" they cried. "Help…"

"What do you want from me?!" he yelled.

"Free...us…" another said, their voices almost begging.

One shrieked; someone that looked like they had a knife in their back. "Get him!" the spirit yelled.

"I didn't do anything," Duo Lon yelled, trying to escape, fully lost in the veil now. He had lost focus and couldn't turn his vision off. He tried to focus enough to teleport out...but he couldn't. Leaving the veil was not so easy as shutting one's eyes...you had to focus to get in...but also out.

"Get...him," the spirit screamed; Duo Lon did not realize he wasn't talking about him...but the spirit's killer.

"What do you want?!" he screamed, running, sometimes tripping over a headstone and standing. He managed to phase through one, only to feel a horrible chill down his spine, almost like he disturbed another one's rest. It wasn't that seeing bodies in states of disarray was something that bothered him in the real world. He had opened more than one jugular to know what happened. And a couple of his kills hadn't been clean; missing a heart strike only to have to tear out a throat, coming down so hard on the base of one's skull with a dive kick that his head opened beneath him.

There was something about spirits in mangled states, however, that was far worse somehow.

"What do you all want from me?!" he screamed, kneeling, no longer the skilled, inexorable son of their clan's leader, but a foolish, confused and frightened teen.

"I can't help you! Let me out! Please, let me out!"

A ways away, the caretakers were gathering up, all of them hearing quite a bit of a commotion-which started to sound rather terrifying, and they decided to go examine it together. With seven of them there, they figured whatever it was could be quelled. They occasionally ran into issues in the cemetery; wayward criminals, people doing things they shouldn't.

They had no idea what could be causing that sort of screaming, though. It was almost like someone was getting attacked.

Keeping together, they eventually came over the hill where they saw what seemed to be a young man running from something, screaming, his hands over his years. He fell to his knees, begging for someone to go away.

Alarmed, one of them pointed. He did not seem armed; a tall youth with a long braid dressed all in black, they didn't know what to make of him.

Carefully approaching-a couple of them had cudgels, which they would carry just in case-they went to see what was wrong, and if they could help.

"Leave me alone!" Duo Lon screamed again, finding his feet after falling once more. Passing through another headstone-a tall one, this time-he felt another chill that permeated him to his bones as he moaned.

Several spirits rushed at him, their tendril-like hands out; some of them still in horrid condition. He was being crowded out by the wronged ones, the desperate ones, screaming for vengeance; knowing the young man was capable of it. They didn't realize they were terrifying him, that he had no idea what they wanted. The spirits only saw him as a possible way out at this point; they were fixated on getting their vengeance, and they could sense he could help.

"Please...get them...help us…" they echoed, sometimes in unison; he began to find it hard to tell the ones apart.

A few more malicious ones had popped up, too, their horrid visages and fangs getting close to his face, their skull-like grins burning into his brain as he started to lash out, only dissolving them, as they were not substantial. They could end up popping up again somewhere else, poking at the young man to torment him. Somehow, while the wronged ones didn't know they were harming him, the malicious ones did.

Moving forward-where he thought may have been out of the graveyard, he saw more spirits coming at him; their hands out. These were darker and more solid; their hollow eyes and strange, almost human-like forms terrifying him even further. He heard voices, though could barely understand them. All that he could hear was the distorted cacophony of shrieks that seemed to penetrate his brain. Covering his ears did nothing; their wails could not be muffled.

Mixed with the skull-like demonic looking spirits, and the terrifying looking, desperate, wronged ones all surrounding him, he finally let out one, last demonic shriek and started lashing out with every limb he had. His sharp, clawed hands, and his powerful kicks, lashing left, right, and center, high and low. He would simply claw his way out, trying to escape the graveyard, to maybe, finally, release himself from this self-made hell. He wanted to smell the night air again, and see color; not this gray, shadowy waste of terrifying, screaming ghosts.

Now the spirits took on a much more substantial feel; he figured he was getting further into the graveyard, rather than away. Figuring that he could tear his way out, he continued; these spirits, however, screamed in a different way...and then gurgled, for some reason.

He didn't stop. Ripping and tearing, kicking the ones on the ground(why were the spirits falling, anyway?), and screaming-his already frightening strength amplified tenfold by adrenaline and fear-he was finally winning. The spirits were dropping; falling apart, even. He kept walking, and kept trying to tear at the spirits rushing at him-he didn't even notice some were trying to move away. He caught one by the head, tearing with his clawed hands until it fell to pieces. Everywhere he seemed to grasp, and everywhere he walked, the spirits felt warm.

He thought he was so far in, at this point, that the veil would never be escaped.

A soft breeze eased the young man awake.

Slowly coming to, he seemed to be in his bed in the cottage. His head felt groggy and heavy; he couldn't remember much of anything at this moment. The last thing he recalled was training in a field, and sitting in an oak tree. The sky outside was cloudy; the window near the bed was open as a cool, steady breeze blew in.

Sitting up, he rubbed his head, seeing some minor wounds on his arms...scratches and cuts, and a few bruises.

He wondered what the hell happened.

"You're up," he heard a voice say coldly.

"Hm?" he looked over at his mentor; the man was looking sternly at him...far more sternly than he ever had. Coldly, even. Coughing, he rubbed his head. "I...feel so...like I've slept for days." A horrid wave of nausea passed over him; he bent over, panting, allowing the breeze to try to cool him. Sweat beaded on his forehead; he tried everything he could to hold back wanting to vomit, managing to do so...barely.

"Two and a half, to be exact. You needed two sleep darts to get put down. You nearly took out one of ours, too, before you fell over. Ran him down and broke several ribs. You'd have crushed his neck if the sedation hadn't hit. You resist normal poison...we had to go for something far beyond that." The cold, dreadful edge never left his voice, and his black eyes never left the teen.

"S...sleep darts?" He felt his neck, and sure enough, there were small dart-wounds there, with painful bruises. "I…" He felt dizzy all over again, but whether it was the potent drugs, or the dread washing over him, he couldn't tell.

"You absolute fool. You messed around in the death realm, didn't you?" His mentor did not bother waiting for him to recover.

"I…" at that moment, Duo Lon's stomach sank even further than it had, as remnants of memory started to form back in his head. "The spirits. They were screaming. I tried to fight them. They went away after a while. How...did you find me?"

"You were there, screaming. We still haven't found the rest of the caretakers."

"C...caretakers?"

"The ones who found you first."

"Did they run?"

His mentor simply stared at him, unmoving, before shaking his head again. "Did you think you were ripping spirits apart, you foolish boy? Spirits don't water the ground with blood."

Now, it hit him. His head started spinning again; he even started to feel faint. Assassination jobs were one thing. But...this…

Staring at his hands-opening and closing them, he was silent. He was trying to find the words, but could not. It's like his mind was not allowing him to process the horror, but it was trying to.

Oddly, his mentor was not yelling. If anything...it was worse right now; the cold, unmoving glare was far worse than if he had just started screaming at him.

Duo Lon finally managed to open his mouth.

"Did...any...escape?" was the only thing his muddled mind could think to ask.

"None who were there. Why do you think we start you out in a field? You realize some areas are thicker with them, do you not? And they're not all friendly. I told you that. I told you people can go utterly mad. And some of them don't come back. We didn't know if we'd have had to kill you or not. "

Not sure what to say to that, he tried a different question, since something confused him. "You said...you were trying to find the rest of them…I thought they may have run."

He glared at the young assassin; he hoped his expression would be enough. Truth be told, there were a lot of things he wanted to say. How he was covered in so much blood and viscera they couldn't tell where he was in the dark. How the pieces of the caretakers were scattered about. But...

...at the same time, he insisted on shouldering some of the blame himself.

Besides his father, the veil of death was typically not taught for a while more. He knew Duo Lon was young; he was skilled, patient, and strong, but he was still young. He thought, perhaps, since Ron had been young when learning-not to mention he had fathered Duo Lon when he was barely older than he was now-that his son would be capable.

And the saddest part, was that he was. He was very much capable of controlling this power; he simply, like many teenagers, made a stupid mistake, thinking they were invincible. A stupid mistake that his mentor should have anticipated, when he saw the eagerness in the young man's eyes when learning something new; an eagerness that his gut told him bordered on carelessness...but he quashed it.

A stupid mistake that cost seven lives, injured one of their own enough that it would take him a few weeks to recover, and made the cemetery look like a slaughterhouse.

But he knew that Duo Lon did not do this maliciously.

Sighing deeply, he stared at him, noticing his words had gotten through to the young man, judging by his horrified expression.

"Duo Lon," he said, sternly and coldly...though not angrily. "We will keep training. But you have to follow me."

"I…"

"There will be restitutions that need to be paid to the families of the dead, the ones that had them, that is."

He gulped at this, his head still spinning. "Yes." He had no idea of how he would even face these people, or what this would entail. Did they know what he did? "My...punishment. I will accept anything."

"Nothing I, nor anyone else, can do will be worse than having to live with what you did that night."

Staring at his deadly hands, he opened and closed them, another wave of nausea passing over him as bits of his memory returned. Closing his eyes a moment, he simply started staring at the wall blankly after opening them. His brain was still unable to process it.

"Yes." He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Recover. And I do not think I have to tell you not to try this foolishness again. And you have to come to terms with this, if you wish to not be driven mad again."

"H...How?"

"That's for you to figure out."

Foolishness, the words echoed. His mentor was not an evil man, but he was cold. But there were so many begging me for help. I could not help them...I just added to them.

His mentor turned and left without another word, leaving the young man to ruminate on everything.

A/N: Well, this sucked. This sucked a lot.

Never, ever, mess around with powers you don't know how to handle like this, kids.

Duo Lon may be the Hero Team's linchpin in some ways-being the mature one that held things together-but he is still young, and he was younger then. He's likely made mistakes growing up. Especially living the sort of life he did-he wasn't given room to be a normal child, probably, ever. He had expectations set on him, and I think sometimes the ages of these characters need to be shown. He was likely not the perfect picture of temperance his entire life. His father ended up lusting for power later in life, it could have been that in his younger years, he jumped at getting more powerful, too. The game never really gave us much on his childhood-just bits and pieces, and nothing about his training.

Perhaps this mistake happening is what helped Duo Lon learn the amount of insane temperance that he shows later on, in fact. (In Nocturne, he speaks of the wronged spirits, screaming for vengeance, is what helped drive him toward a more 'benevolent' assassination...going after people who are making the world a worse place, since in the canon, he's a good man...but he is still a professional, and very accomplished, killer.)

I sort of HC that the way his teleporting works(and Ron's, as well), the way they seem to disappear and their dealings with spirits and the dead, is that there's a 'veil' of life and death where the spirit realm lies, and they travel *through* that medium. It happens quickly, and they can phase through objects...but staying too long ends up getting more spirits, and not all of them are calm. Some are malevolent...and others yet are restless, wronged things.

Anyway, just more of that 'How do the Hizoku train?' backstory stuff I've been messing with.

"How do the opium-herbs work?" I'd guess they just make them blitzed enough that they aren't bothered, heh.

"Fathered Duo Lon when he was barely older than he was"-So Ron is canonically 37, and Duo Lon 21. Yeah, do the math. Ron got started on his nine sons when he was barely a man apparently. (Ron had not betrayed the clan yet; he was, at one point, a strict, but kind man. He betrayed the clan sometime before the 2000 tournament.)

'Five kilos on his hair?' It's actually seven as an adult-legitimately on his character sheet. I imagine he worked up to it.