Chapter 20: The selling of a soul.
Where am I?
No scents reached my nose. No sounds came to my ears. No light shone into my eyes. All around me it felt like an infinite distance to anything else, yet it felt like there wasn't enough room for me to move. It did not feel like time could actually pass here, even if it could I wouldn't be able to notice. Such surroundings should have felt lonely, with no signs, but still there was a feeling of comfort I had never felt before.
I cannot even smell my own scent. I cannot even hear my own heat beat. Is this what it's like to be dead?
I tried to gaze downwards at where my front paws should be. For a moment there was nothing. Then it happened. A sound like a pin hitting the ground echoed though my hearing, and faint ripples of pale blue light originated from two places in my vision interfering with each other, as well as being interfered by ripples that must have originated from beyond my sight. From the origin of the ripples, my paws and legs faded into sight with my pure white fur covering them. A slow dull beating rhythm started. Slower and quieter than my heart beat normally was, but still it was there. Still nothing else changed.
Perhaps I am still alive…"You came closer to death than any being has ever done without dying. But, yes, you are still alive thanks to your new friends. You actually had to wake up into your dreamscape, thus the dreamscape has to slowly form around you… I'm surprised it happened so fast you didn't even have time for your life to flash before your eyes."
The voice was male, but sounded completely unfamiliar. It sounded like the voice was a result of rocks grinding together; nothing else struck my mind that could create a sound so harsh. Still the accent in the way it spoke pokemon language meant it could be nothing but a sableye.
"Who are you? Show yourself!" I snarled, knowing in this place no other has the right to exist… Then it dawned on me. It seemed just like certain stories I had been told. "You are N'med's brother, N'nim, aren't you?"
"Very clever of you Kitsune." Two red gems, with many facets, that were N'nim's compound eyes glowed in the darkness, illuminating the rest of the black goblin-like body. "I would have thought you'd have dismissed me as a figment of my sister's twisted mind, just like you did with almost everything else she told you… Such disbelief in her and yet you'd still kill anything she pointed you to without question. Such loyalty is rare to have considering she gave you so little."
The sableye waved one of its claws and below us the ripples increased quickly, before leaping upwards. As it quickly changed to many different colours, mainly shades of green, it became a landscape.
"I remember this place."
"Yes, this is one of your memories, so you should remember it."
Surrounding us there was a forest, while both N'nim and I stood in a small clearing. It was what was at the centre of the clearing that was most important. Another white ninetales looking perfectly like me, and a gentle breeze brought my own scent from the ninetales as well as the scent of fresh blood. There the memory of me sat, slowly breathing fire on her blood soaked fur so as to burn the blood off.
I can no longer breath fire. Pain struck me, remembering what I had only recently lost and almost forgotten about. I no longer clean my own fur as much, even if I can use will-o-wisp… Maybe I don't need to as much anymore either. Still it is hard to believe I am watching myself.
A black figure moved upon the ninetales from behind, slowly and carefully, preparing to pounce. Still I fought hard to stop myself from growling; I hated being surprised and this was a memory of it happening. The black figure leaped, landing on the ninetales' neck, putting its claws to the neck.
"I see you made a mess of the person I sent you to deal with," the black figure of the sableye, N'med, spoke as she laughed, being forced to dig the claws in because of the struggling, "or perhaps you actually got hurt this time."
"Please, that human wasn't that much of a bleeder, nor can any human or their pokemon slaves ever touch me," the ninetales growled, it was shocking that I was still the same ninetales. It was just back then, even though it was less than two weeks ago, I hadn't seen a better way for me. This was all just a tough act while waiting for my real chance to make a big difference, while making a minor one on the side. "It's just a small human logging village wasn't too far out of the way, so, since the target was so much of a disappointment, I decided I had some aggression to spare. Don't you dare tell me it was over kill; it saves time to kill them before they end up on your list of threats. It's not like they can think, otherwise they wouldn't be destroying so much."
Lilac is able to think, she's outsmarted me more than once, never to actually hurt me, and deserves respect for it. If more humans were like her I would never have killed so many.
"It's a good thing you aren't your own master, the whole world would be in trouble if you weren't constantly kept on a short leash." N'med laughed, releasing the ninetales' throat, and dropping to the ground through the ninetales as only a ghost could. "Don't worry, I'm not going to trap you in some isolated valley this time, as I have foreseen a new power awakening that'll join our enemy. This time it is big and too important to let anyone but the best deal with it, as if it joins the enemy, we'll be wiped out within hours. You've got to make sure this human is beyond our enemies reach, it may be only a young female this time, but it is more important than it seems. You'll find her—"
The whole area collapsed back into darkness mid-sentence.
"I can call upon your every memory just like I did that," N'nim spoke with an evil sounding chuckle. "That happened so closely to how my master predicted it, yet your entire personality had to have changed for you to have done what you d—"
Everyone underestimates the depth of a ninetales' personality. I never killed humans out of a hatred for them, but only to stop those I killed from doing more harm. A ninetales always accepts a better way when it is offered.
"—So, N'nim, are you going to tell me you are actually a servant for the nameless enemy N'med always was on about?" I stared back at him as I interrupted, glaring right into his eyes. I couldn't hurt a ghost, but if I showed no fear I may be able to make him think I can. "I thought she was mad, as she never went into details and there was never any evidence. The fact she claimed to have a brother captured and brain washed by the enemy sounded a little off too, as how can a ghost have relatives?"
"Yes, my master is very real, and its name has long been forgotten, as the names of some of its older servants." N'nim merely grinned while meeting my stare. "You've already met one of those old ones, ones great enough to earn eternal youth. Yet you drove her to give up all her obligations to my master and hunt you instead… Deep down she must have had some free will left, and felt jealous at meeting what would have been her replacement. Then you took Katar in as a friend, making it a third expensive piece in my master's set you've caused to be misplaced, including the human girl Lilac. Who do you serve?"
"Wha..?" I was taken back by the sudden question as much as I was by the fact he closed his claws and my heartbeat became erratic as if it was going to stop.
"No creature can possibly do so much damage without a great power giving them orders. I know it is not N'med, as she lacks the mental capacities to think through such things and declared you a traitor when you betrayed her by running off with Lilac. Tell me or I will stop your heart so that even the efforts of the unown you have saved won't revive you. Tell me of your master and your masters goals."
"I serve no one but my self. My goals are my own. I will leave my mark on the world so that even once my thousand years of life come to a close I will forever be remembered, not for the deaths I have caused, but for what I have accomplished."
"Wrong answer"
The claws closed tighter, the pain increased and my heartbeat almost vanished completely. I risked a glance at my paws, and they were fading fast. Death was imminent. I had no technique to harm a ghost like N'nim. Death was a certainty.
N'nim screeched with pain, and released his hold.
"She can only tell you what she knows," a human voice spoke, it sounded female but also sounded too young for me to be sure. Younger than Lilac. "I never told her that she belonged to me, I never told her it was my goals she was to complete."
I turned towards the voice, and there stood a young human, dressed in white clothing that was much like what Lilac would wear. Her hair was identical to Lilac's, though her eyes were completely black, seeming like a void of nothingness like my surroundings.
"Kawaii!" She screamed out; the meaning of the word was beyond my knowledge. She leapt towards me, throwing her arms around me, squeezing me so tight that I could feel it making it harder for me to breath. She rubbed her head into my fur as she continued speaking, "when Twilight said you were cute when I was trading with her for your ownership, it was certainly an understatement. I'm certainly not regretting now owning both your body and soul."
"Twilight?" Both N'nim and I spoke in unison, the difference being that I only spoke in a whisper, shocked by all that I had just heard, while N'inm was clearly shocked by how incomplete the information was. I wanted to rip out the girl's throat, yet somewhere inside me something got in the way. I so wanted her dead for suggesting she owned me.
"Oh… I guess you don't know about that either. Twilight is sort of the alpha female of all the espeons in the All-Weather family's valley, or as any human who knows about it refers to it as estate. I wanted two white ninetales to replace the two I lost, and Twilight wanted a little favour in return. Being an immortal I had to create a human incarnation of myself, risky because human incarnations are in fact mortal, to actually seem like part of the all-Weather family, as that was part of Twilight's plan, more specifically Lilac's little sister."
She lost two ninetales and thinks she's bought me as one of the replacements?
With a quick jerk my fangs were at her throat, and I did my best to rip her throat out to silence her. It felt too much like she did own me and wasn't speaking lies, and that was a feeling I hated… Instead of flesh in my mouth, I felt small grains, not of rock but of some sort of plant material, and before me the girl instantly changed into a lot of small white grains which quickly lost their shape as they collapsed to the… ground, for a lack of a better word, and caused ripples as they sank through it.
"Bad ninetales" She giggled from behind me, as if my attempt to kill her was merely showing disloyalty to her but not any intent to cause her any discomfort.
"Who are you?" I growled, noticing N'nim was trying to make himself unseen and forgotten even though he had nothing to hide behind, trying to spy on us. "Why do you think you deserve replacement ninetales after you lost the ones you had? Immortal or not, next time I attack you I'll be sure to make it hurt."
"My name is Inari, with the family name of All-Weather I have merely adopted for the time being. There have always been ninetales loyal to me, though many of them were only loyal for short periods at a time. They served me and represented me, but none were finer than the first two who served me. Both were white ninetales, and their loyalty was always absolute from the start, the other ninetales in fact were more loyal to them than me… then…" Inari began to weep, falling to her knees in sorrow, "I never got used to how human civilization developed… I never thought about it being possible to happen till it did… the three of us were crossing a road… there was this truck…" her sobbing completely took over, ending her story.
"Looks like we have a sensitive lesser immortal, for a moment I was worried we might have had an actual deity to deal with." N'nim laughed, quickly changing his mind about hiding, and charged toward the girl. His claws gleamed even without a source of light in the dreamscape, jumping on her and putting claws round her neck, preparing to slit her throat—
—For a moment it looked to me that replacing her was an identical copy of me, with N'nim really having his claws about to cut a tail. A jolt of pain from one of my tails made me yelp. "May you be stone for a thousand years." Shouting out a curse was never really necessary; just it sometimes made it feel better. I spun around flicking my tail. A stone statue of N'nim flew through the air, fading away to nothing as it did.
"I am not a lesser immortal," Inari actually sounded aggravated, and she had her arms crossed as she stood by my side, "even in a dream a ninetales curse works, N'nim, of course he will shatter on real ground as he is tossed out of your mind and body, into the physical plane. Now that he's gone we can finish up and you can return to your friends."
She walked around to stand right in front of me, and then stared her challenge right into my eyes. I would have lunged, but I had said that my next attack would actually hurt her and I hadn't figured out how to do so in this dreamscape, so I held back. I growled quietly as I refused to back down.
"Twilight let Lilac go with you so she'd befriend and catch you. She actually included in her plan of making Lilac pull one of your tails so you could curse her with understanding of the pokemon language easier, but you miraculously managed that part on your own. You will stay with Lilac till she no longer wants you, which judging by your aggression won't be long, then you'll be handed to me… The nicer and more loyal you are to my 'sister' the longer it'll be before you'll serve me."
"I will not serve you as Twilight had no right to sell me to you and Lilac also has no right to give me to you either."
"A pokeball is recognised even by most pokemon as rights of ownership, and you've been caught in a pokeball. You've drawn bad luck to yourself by not being true to your inner feelings of despair due to the fact you know you are no longer free. One wrong move and you'll be inside that ball for all but a few hours a day… I usually despise such methods of gaining loyalty, but it's the cost I have to pay to get two new white ninetales. Still, you've always had a master all your life, and I promise you I'll do what must be best to be your favourite out of them. I also have some other good news for you, which was the main reason I came."
"What good news can you possibly have?" I fought to maintain eye contact. I couldn't let myself accept she was right, I had to remain free. My tails drooped, my ears flattened, and my gaze slowly slipped… I had lost. "I'm a slave to the will of others, I've been reminded I betrayed my best friend by travelling with Lilac, and I've got more enemies than is healthy. Nothing can make those things seem minor."
"Well, you've been too young to have a lover for quite sometime, right?" Inari giggled, "You'll stop being too young in a few hours. I hope Lilac lets you have fun in the next week, as it's you'll actually be able to find true love… Well, if Lilac tries to separate you from certain other male pokemon, or puts you for certain surgery, it'll mean you won't have some kits this year, or in the case of surgery, not at all. Now wake up and have fun, just remember when you finally meet me in person I'll not remember certain things and be unable to understand you, as I'll have to be more human than I am when I touch dreams like this."
I blinked and there was no more darkness, merely the light of day.
"Kitsune, we were all so worried about you," Lilac's voice was pleasant, but it didn't change the facts. There was a slight hint of fear in her voice. "The unown said there was something messing around in your head that they couldn't remove. I'm sorry if I seem a little frightened, but you seem to of pushed that sableye out of your mind and turned it to stone. It's creepy that ninetales curses are actually real. Oh, also it seems there is a little something with this next week for you that needs sorting out or it'll be a problem…"
