A/N: This fic contains some pretty graphic violence, so a head's up. Also, as I noted in The Wailing Underworld, two incidents were mentioned in Nocturne, when Duo Lon was speaking to Adel, about him losing control, with similar outcomes. This is the second of those incidents, but it was separate.
He's entered the veil.
The youth-well, at almost seventeen, he was closer to being a grown man-dashed through the woods, trying to sense the enemy.
The traitor he was chasing was almost twice his age, though no firstborn son of Ron cared about such things. He had a job; to exterminate the traitor. He would carry it out, like he did several other jobs already at his age...his first one having been at just fourteen.
Climbing a tree quickly-his hardening nails offering purchase, and his strong limbs pulling him up easily-he decided to take the higher road through the branches.
The traitor would have to come out eventually. He would be waiting to dive on him like a raptor.
The chase had transpired quickly. His father had summoned him.
Traitor. Hunt him down. This is your job.
Duo Lon was surprised; he was half the man's age, but the young man was already stronger and more skilled than many in the clan. Despite a few mistakes made in training-the graveyard incident was not spoken of in his hearing, as much as he regretted that-he was Ron's eldest, and this was a test.
Quickly sensing the opponent, he dodged back down to the ground, rolling; the man-a lanky, long-nailed man about the height of Duo Lon himself-came at him with clawing attacks, one set tearing the young man's top, though he managed to roll with it before coming up with a kick, hitting the traitor in the side of the head with a satisfying thwack with his boot, though he did not have enough leverage to do more than to daze him a moment, and the opponent had anticipated and had managed to avoid a full-strength attack.
The traitor-he had been given his name, but Duo Lon did not much care to remember it, as he felt that traitors to the Hizoku need not be remembered by name-backflipped away, using the trees as cover as the young man pressed.
Despite being experienced for his age-already with several professional kills to his name, and an impressive amount of battle victories-he could still get careless, as everyone still in training could.
The traitor surprised him by going incredibly low to the ground; Hizoku were known to be rather flexible from their training, and he was no different. He came up-spinning with his clawed hand out, tearing Duo Lon up the front, leaving half-inch deep wounds up his chest at an angle, causing the young man to fall back, gritting his teeth and snarling in pain.
He looked down, seeing his robes torn, and some black mixed with his own blood...poison, he knew. Leaping to his feet to dodge another swipe, he knew he would have to end this, fast. While he was being trained to withstand the poison-and he could-he was not to that level yet of pure immunity. It would likely start to slow him, and that could mean his death.
The two clashed again; the other man relying heavily on his poisoned hand-strikes and an occasional shot with the blade in the end of his tail. Duo Lon opted to utilize his slashing hands and very long-range kicks, as his limbs were very long-and he had at least six inches of reach on his opponent-and that was if he didn't start opting to do the stranger things. His braid was long, though was still growing-it could be utilized, but not quite as well yet.
Duo Lon made another mistake; he anticipated wrong and rolled past, causing another slash to appear across his back; red, angry wounds almost as deep as the first nasty hit he took. He missed another, and came up with a massive kick to the side of his face; he felt his heel sink into his cheek and heard a crack.
But before he could recover enough, the man had leapt back, leaving the young man confused. He looked down, tearing the tatters of his bloodied robe and shirt off, leaving them behind.
Looking around, his opponent disappeared. He knew the traitor could teleport, and he likely did; and he may have been up high enough that he did not see him. Stopping for a moment-trying to fight the feel of the poison burning into his veins and ignore the now eight half-inch deep, ten inch long wounds on his chest and back, he concentrated, to try to find out where his opponent had gone.
Checking the forest floor, he could see some blood from the man's nose and mouth that had dripped out. Still unable to pinpoint him...
...He then peered into the veil after bracing himself. Not staying long-the wailing dead soon began to scratch at his mind in his state, as he still had not mastered this-Duo Lon then knew where the man was.
Bracing himself, he launched toward the area where he was and sure enough, met his arm in a satisfying, meaty swipe with his own hand. He felt his nails-and then his fingers, strengthened by striking stone, as practitioners did due to their stance-tear into the meat of his arm, and then he pulled down, ripping through muscle and tendon and sending the man tumbling. A gout of blood shot from his shredded bicep, the young man having to flick his hand clean afterward.
Not wasting time, he leapt at him, trying to land on his neck with his boot heel in a devastating dive kick; the traitor rolled out of the way, however, and instead Duo Lon splintered the stump of a tree that had been there.
Pausing to catch his breath from the poison, he then snarled loudly as the man raked him across the back, again with his still-good arm; the other one had its bicep torn completely open by the young man's now-bloodied hand. He stumbled forward, going into a roll...and then, in order to try to save himself from the next downward swipe, he went full on into the death realm, past the veil, and went to move forward; time seemed to stop around him as he traveled.
While there, the real world seemed a gray shadow. One could see shapes, but not really discern anything-trees were grayish, translucent forms, and people looked like spirits themselves, though without faces. There were many calm; those who passed on naturally, and often didn't even make themselves known.
As he passed through a tree, other dead started screaming; he knew the ones-the tormented, wronged ones begging for help. The dead, now, could be seen-and their spirits resembled as they did in death. Some were featureless-others, who died violently, were horrifying. Tendrils of black and gray surrounded everything as he traveled. Usually, one would teleport very quickly; a split second, but when traveling here, it was different...and far riskier.
I'm trying, he thought, trying to keep his mind straight. I will end this traitor. I know he killed many. He betrayed the clan.
He didn't know who he was speaking to, but it was someone. The dead started to surround him, though; and he knew the feeling in his mind...the madness starting to set in. He knew what happened to people who stayed too long on the other side...he was one of them, and there were roughly seven cemetery caretakers who no longer drew breath because of it. Granted, he had decided to rush his training entering the veil near a cemetery, but...
I wonder if they're haunting me, he thought, the poison affecting him more and more, burning in his veins as his body tried to win out over it.
Finally popping out again, he recognized this part of the woods, at least; a village was somewhat close. He knew he would have to end the traitor soon...lest something terrible happen. Sniffing the air, he could sense rain soon-he could also tell from the heavy feeling in the air. It was dusk, and the sky was clouded over-blocking out any semblance of the moon or stars.
Seeing the man tear toward him-his dead arm at his side, but his other hand at the ready-he quickly fired off a small, distracting soul blast-concentrating necromantic power into his hands-enough for him to back off long enough for Duo Lon to brace himself for the final stand.
The two clashed, mostly with arms and legs; he managed to trip Duo Lon with his braid, granting him one, last nasty slash across his chest, completing the set of scars, so to speak.
Roaring in anger, now, he could feel the poison setting in fully and his still-training body trying to fight it off; his chest and arms were practically coated with a shirt of his own blood, and his wounds oozed the black from the traitor's poison itself. The usually calm young man-albeit far more hot-blooded now than he turned out to be later in life-was now on his last shred of patience.
But...no more. Risking it, he disappeared into the veil again-this time, his mind unable to guard itself as well to the maddening screams and clawing of the dead and the realm. But he was only doing a fast teleport; he went high, coming down with a set of kicks, battering his head around three times, smashing in his nose, and further breaking the side of his face that he had already managed to damage, causing more blood to fly.
Landing, he caught the traitor's good arm in his right hand, and with an adrenaline-fueled and feverish strength that had now taken him over, he snapped his arm in an iron grip, digging in his nails. As he held him there, he brought back his left arm, making sure he looked the traitor in the eye; the latter took one last desperate attempt-by swinging his head around to attempt to use the blade in the end of his hair-but Duo Lon simply thrust his free hand into the man's neck with his razor-sharp claws. His fingers tore through skin, flesh, and finally his jugular as he closed his hand and pulled, his throat-and a terrific gout of blood-coming with it.
He dropped the man-with his head half torn from his body-onto the ground as he flung aside everything else, collapsing back against a tree, panting.
Duo Lon's heart was pounding in his ears. His blood was pumping, and the poison burned. He needed to rest-but he knew he had to move soon. He had to make it to the village, a safe haven. He shivered; the claw wounds were sheer agony, his excellent pain tolerance or no. As sharp as their claws could be, they ripped and tore still properly applied, and the air blowing them turned them almost unbearable.
The young man finally grit his teeth and started walking, the dead traitor-ripped to shreds-left for whatever wanted him, and he began to move. He was successful-but he also wanted to survive. He was careless, and the man had been twice his age, but he was still successful.
Duo Lon was still the eldest of the clan leader, Ron, and he did not fail in his duty.
He moved as fast as he could, blood dripping from his wounds. He could fight more if need be; he knew he could. But...he wanted to rest. He was tired.
Thinking for a moment, he took stock of his mental state. He...wondered if he could risk passing the veil again.
Just once.
One...more...time.
I...think I can go through one more time.
He made his decision quickly. He was at a crossroads; the poison was not making him think straight. He couldn't even remember the village he was trying to get to, at this point. He was usually not around this area.
He concentrated, phasing out and back into the realm so he could teleport-he took his attempt to reach the village more quickly so he could collapse.
The dead surrounded him, screaming. He saw an apparition of the traitor he had just killed; his throat torn out, his head nearly ripped from his body. Others he had killed appeared, as well. He ignored them the best he could; they were simply marks of his.
Some of the more terrifying ones were the ones screaming at him for help, the more violent apparitions flying through them to attack him. The worst...he imagined belonged to the caretakers of the cemetery that one fateful night...but he did not know, as they were completely unrecognizable. Given that it had taken people a week to find all of the remains, this was not surprising. But that was different; he was a foolish child. This was almost a year later. He hadn't had incidents since.
But the poison distracted him. The traitor had been rather adept at them, and on top of it, his wounds were bleeding profusely.
"Stop," he said, trying to move forward, as the anguished spirits surrounded him. He knew he had to be close to the village. He should have been there by now, he thought...
They came closer, their hands out; they seemed to want to grasp at his very soul to drive him mad.
"Stop!" he screamed, his body wracked with pain as he began to tear at the ghosts in front of him.
No...wait...is this...?
It had started to rain.
And it was warm…
A/N: Short and brutal. Despite it not being as much his fault this time-had the poison not distracted him-along with the fact he was probably shedding blood all over the forest, he would have likely been alright-it nonetheless still hit him.
This happened when Duo Lon was almost seventeen; so maybe five years ago. The game doesn't go into Hizoku training very much(I think because they WANT to leave it a mystery), so I had to fill in a few blanks on things.
I imagined his nails being hardened through a sort of clan secret. Exacts stay vague as he tells no one, even his closest companions. But they can cut glass cleanly by the time Duo Lon is an adult if he exerts pressure, so at this point they aren't AS hard but as one can see, are pretty nasty.
Some of them I imagine start training with all manner of poisons and venoms while young, I figured, and build up immunities. That said, the elder member was probably better with them and had stronger ones, and Duo Lon hadn't *totally* built his resistance yet. Anyone else would have died easily, but he sort of had to 'burn it out.' It probably caused some hallucinations, and a fair amount of distraction. As we learned in The Wailing Underworld, getting distracted in the spirit realm could lead to bad places.
The Veil: So necromantic teleporting-going by his dialogue mentioning wailing dead and all sorts of things, it sort of sounds like he *passes through the veil of death* and it kinda sounded cool. But that sort of thing also tends to come with drawbacks(see going into the Warp in Warhammer with no protection.) I imagine that going there during training is horrifying(and I'm sure some clan members never recover.) Going through it I can imagine resulting in dealing with wailing, tormented dead(he does allude to little things like this in dialogue.) And going through too much, well...
Part of dealing with hearing the wronged dead screaming is what helped drive him toward his job of sort of 'anti-hero assassin', avenging those who were wronged, while getting recompense. I had him use a couple of his actual moves from the game; his teleport in general, his teleport stomps(the kick flurry), and his Snake-like kung fu hand strikes.
Ron's betrayal has no hard date. It simply happened sometime before the 2000 tournament. Since this 'verse bumps up years as '1 per arc', I decided to put Ron's betrayal as maybe a couple of years ago. It's not something I mind changing, but Hizoku knowledge is thin; canon really does keep them mysterious besides some titles and things.