Hello, Vinzelles here. Welcome back to A Path to Freedom.

I said it was going to be a week and it became 10 days. Whoops. I've spent the weekend with my father and for that reason I've been away from the PC. Considering that in the chapter after this one Orochi's ability will be described properly, I feel bad now that I've made you wait. So I might (I repeat, might) load up the next one in the next few days.

I'm currently approaching the end of the arc as far as writing goes, I just need to figure out how I want to handle the final battle. And I'm having trouble because there's a bunch of minor characters I have to write down for it, and even if I know some of them will end up being fodder, I don't really want all of them to be, you know?

Anyway, this chapter and the next are kind of a big deal in the story, and after these I'll finally be able to throw Riser in here! e.e

I got a review! Thank you Mr. Guest, I'm doing my best and I hope you keep enjoying the story!

Anyway, surely you're as excited as I am, right? XD I'll see you at the bottom.

Enjoy.

Arc 2 Chapter 4 - Ajuka Beelzebub

A red magic circle appeared in front of a huge marble door. Five people emerged from it.

"The fuck, I feel dizzy as hell! Is this normal?!" swore Orochi, as he felt his head spinning. He didn't expect such an aftereffect from a transportation method of all things, and he usually became a bit vulgar when he was disoriented. At least he didn't throw up.

"You get used to it quick." Anya snickered. "Unryuu did puke the first few times she tried it herself though..."

"HEY! You didn't have to say that!"

"Welcome, Adramelech-dono." The lady Anya had talked to was sitting behind a desk to the side of the huge door. Orochi noted she looked like a completely normal human, which creeped him out slightly even if he was used to it by now. "Beelzebub-sama is waiting for you all. Please knock before entering." The lady gestured towards the door.

"Thank you very much. We'll be going then-"

"Ah, before that, you over there!" She called Orochi over.

"Me?" "Yes, you. Come here for a second please. I need to do the first scan myself before I let you meet the Satan-sama."

Orochi raised an eyebrow, but walked over to the desk anyway, albeit hesitantly. "Just so you know, last time someone told me to 'come over' that person tried to kill me, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit sceptic about all this." Raynare rolled her eyes at that: she wasn't stupid enough to try that shit again, not after all she saw Orochi do.

"Don't worry, you don't have to do anything." said the woman while lowering her glasses. "Just stay relaxed, it'll take only a few seconds." Her eyes were suddenly glowing blue, and she started gazing at Orochi's entire body. The boy was already uncomfortable; he felt as if the woman was staring into his soul. Which actually wasn't too far from the truth, not that he could tell anyway.

"...There's really nothing in there. How interesting..." he heard her mutter.

"Well?"

"Ah, sorry, you can go now. I'll send what I saw, or rather what I didn't see, to Beelzebub-sama."

Orochi was getting annoyed fast. He had never been a... "procedure" person, and had always hated burocracy. Still, he hoped that the lady didn't see the mark, although it was probably futile.

"Shall we go then, Kamakura-kun?" said Anya, mostly to try and prevent him from lashing out. It would truly be bad if he lost control here of all places.

"..." He silently moved away, heading to the door, and knocked on it as the woman at the counter kept observing him.

Slowly, the marble split into two and moved to the sides. A sophisticated yet powerful voice came from inside.

"Welcome to the Technology Department of the Underworld."

A man was standing in the middle of the room: he wore a green suit with black and yellow stripes. His green hair was slicked back, he had light blue eyes and he was currently keeping his hands joined behind his back.

Several screens and magic circles were planted into the walls, and what was presumably the man's work station was entirely covered by huge stacks of paper. The noise was incredibly loud: it seemed that many different voices were converging into the room, while not necessarily addressing the man. It was pure chaos.

'! This guy... he's strong... ' Orochi couldn't help but think that. His fingers were trembling. Hell, his entire body was shaking from the pressure and the maddening noise. An enormous and crooked smile appeared on his face. His own pressure was leaking; the red aura was appearing again.

Anya and the others became immediately alarmed, and were already feeling unwell, but the pressure emanated from Orochi was shattered in an instant, leaving the boy wide-eyed and stunned into silence.

"Oh, it must be you. You're the one that possesses an undefined ability." said the man, who seemed completely unfazed by the pressure. "Let's get introductions out of the way, so that I can start analyzing your body properly." He put a hand on his heart and bowed slightly. "I am known as Ajuka Beelzebub, one of the Four Satans. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"You, what did you do just now?!" Orochi had felt like this in the past only once, before the orphanage: whatever he was doing himself in that moment, he had no idea, but he was overwhelmed in an instant. So he had gone into a panic. Now that wasn't an old feeling, but it was still something he didn't want to experience again.

"It was simply my ability: Kankara Formula. It allows me to control phenomenons through equations." Ajuka gestured towards the myriad of magic circles. "I prepared these circles in advance just in case. Looks like it was a good idea after all. I immediately noticed what your ability was doing to everyone's magic cores, so I activated the circles and blocked the draining process right away."

'A single wrong move will only get me killed, I need to calm down...' thought Orochi. He took a deep breath. "...Sorry about that, I got a bit too excited. It's been such a long while since I met someone like you after all."

"Oh? Have you dealt with Devils before?"

"I have dealt with monsters before. When I have one in front of me I can tell right away."

It was true. There was something about him that absolutely nobody knew, not even Unryuu.

He did have a family at one point.

His parents were fanatics. They had an insane obsession with power, claiming that there was no limit to what that family could do. Worst of all, they had the strength to back up their claims.

His father was particularly terrifying in that regard: he was an incredibly talented and powerful fighter, and his physical strength was off the charts. Orochi was often coerced into watching his fights, where he had to observe people three times his father's size grovel to the ground and beg for mercy.

They weren't granted any though. Orochi saw death and recognized it as such for the first time at the young age of 3: his father fought to get stronger, and eliminated his opponents once he had acquired their fighting knowledge through his battles, seeing that they were no longer useful. In a sense, his father was a genius, and his techniques were incredibly effective, so once his mother had noticed that the boy's body had a similar structure to that of his father's, they put him on strict training, disregarding the fact that they were attempting to have a very young child gain a power similar to theirs.

Speaking of powers, most of the fanatism and the pressure into becoming strong actually came from his mother. Orochi had said before that he had never been familiar with the supernatural, and he meant it; he didn't count magic as supernatural, because there was a way to create it, a method to utilize, even if he never understood it well, while the supernatural usually could not be explained at all by definition. His mother was a magician, a strong, revered and feared magician, who lead a religious sect called the White Serpent. Its purpose was the worship of the Yamata no Orochi, a legendary Japanese divine beast with eight dragon heads, eight tails and a gigantic body, that had supposedly been slain by the god Susanoo (although his mother often said that the correct term for the creature would be "Evil Dragon", she explicitly told him she'd break out the whip if he ever called it that. He never dared.).

Apparently the marriage between his parents also had a purpose related to this beast: their union was meant to bring about its resurrection within a human vessel, according to his mother. Something about having "similar blood" with his father, although he didn't know the details. He was given the name of the draconic creature for that very purpose. His maternal grandfather himself had even become a voluntary sacrifice for his sake, or so his mother had told him.

Imagine the disappointment and the anger shown towards the small child when they found out he was utterly powerless. Unable to meet his father's demands during training and his mother's expectation when it came to a potential ability that should have emerged, he was often beat up and ridiculed. And a beating coming from a truly strong man like his father hurt like hell. Their little experiment had gone wrong and they constantly lashed out at him as a result.

Until he exploded.

He couldn't remember what happened. The only things he could recall from that day were his parents' mansion destroyed and the bodies of some people from the cult on the ground. He felt the need to run, so he ran. In retrospect, he had run a lot despite not remembering anything about the trip: he had somehow traveled half-way across Japan, arriving at the city he currently lived in. When he snapped out of his trance, he was in front of the orphanage. He took that chance and prepared a small paper with his name written on it. Only his name. He took residence in that building, claiming that he was an orphan and as such didn't remember his surname, when in reality he still did. Using that method, he had been able to escape his parents' clutches, and pretty much disappear from the records until he became old enough to live on his own. He then decided to regain his official identity as a Kamakura at the local registry office, and handled all the paperwork himself behind the orphanage's back.

He was able to do so because his parents, in their insane paranoia, had hidden his existence to the world in the first place, as a "safety measure". For all the office knew, the name Orochi Kamakura was completely arbitrary, since he didn't exist on the official records, and the boy had no relatives. So he was able to carry it all out without his parents realizing he was still alive, and kept hiding in the city until then.

The point was, Orochi knew what a monster was supposed to look like. He had lived with two of those hideous things for the first 7 years of his life. He was probably one himself. And he thought he had left that kind of people behind, but he realized it was wishful thinking. He did have an ability: whether it was related to the Divine Beast was yet to be established, but it was there, inside a human, which was a place that a strong ability shouldn't reside into in the first place. That ability would make him a target for people like Ajuka.

And he would have never been up to the challenge unless he learned how to control it.

The Satan chuckled slightly, then started talking once more.

"What was your name, young man?"

Orochi was dragged out of his thoughts. Startled, he answered. "K-Kamakura Orochi."

The Devils and Raynare were amazed. 'Leave it to a Satan to shake this guy up this much.' they thought, actually feeling pity for the human.

"Orochi... Interesting. And you say you've had experience with monsters. I would have liked to ask a bit more about you; shame that it's not any of my business. My current business is with your unknown ability, so let's get on with the analysis."

A table materialized in front of Ajuka. "Please lay down on this table. I shall use my Kankara Formula to try and identify it. I promise it will be painless."

That last bit actually did a lot to calm Orochi's nerves. He didn't want to be cut open or something similar, after all. "...Right." He laid down on top on the table.

"Here goes then." Ajuka raised his hands. Several of the magic circles implanted on the walls detached themselves and flew over to the Satan, before fluttering right above several spots above Orochi's body. While he did his job, Ajuka decided to strike a somewhat casual conversation. "You know, the Yamata no Orochi truly existed at some point. As a Japanese young man, you surely are familiar with the legend. How peculiar that you happen to have its name."

'Fuck.'

"I wonder if we'll find anything related to it in you. It would be quite the coincidence, huh?" joked Ajuka.

"H-Hahaha, good question..." Orochi forced out a laugh. He had become afraid. Not of the analysis, but of the fact that this Devil claimed that the creature was real. If the Satan found traces of that beast in him, what would he do? If it was actually the Yamata no Orochi who had awoken or something, could it mean that there was a chance that his mother would be able to track him down?

He didn't want to go back under any circumstance. Death first. That's what he always thought when he reflected on that matter in his years of solitude.

"Hmm, superficially I can only identify a protective wind-elemental seal on your body. It seems to have been put on you by someone else. Are you sure that you aren't lying about you not being a magician?"

'As expected, I can't hide it from them. Fortunately it's a minor factor in the grand scheme of things so I might be able to bullshit my way through for now'

"A-Ah, you must be talking about my tattoo since it is probably the only strange thing that can be seen superficially. It's been there since forever, but I don't know who put it on me since I'm an orphan." Orochi had to lie and hoped that Ajuka wouldn't go and dig into his past in the near future. "At any rate I can guarantee you that I've never even tried to cast magic or anything like that, although I'd definitely try my hand at it if I had someone to teach me, hehehe..."

Suddenly the Satan widened his eyes. "...Oh my. I didn't think I would ever get the chance to examine it despite my long life, but here it is, right in front of me..."

"W-What is it then?" Anya had asked that question before Orochi could.

The circles floated away encasing themselves back into the walls of the room. Orochi was already dreading Ajuka's answer.

"I'll assume that you all are already familiar with the concept of Sacred Gears." started Ajuka. "What you probably don't know is that there's a minor system of little-known abilities that goes side by side in power to Sacred Gears themselves, even reaching Longinus-level power sometimes, which by the way is the strongest level of Sacred Gear." He added that last part for the human of the group. "I was able to recognize one of these abilities within Orochi-kun's body thanks to the records me and my original family, the Astaroths, have kept all these years about those abilities. You can get up by the way, young man."

Orochi immediately stood up. He was already uncomfortable, considering that a bunch of magic circles had just scanned his body all over.

"They were originally known and recorded as 'phenomenons'." continued Ajuka. "In the past, they had that name given to them because they were something immaterial that caused drastic changes to the environment, much like natural disasters on Earth. However, their original definition didn't fit them well, as my family quickly found out while we studied them. Natural disasters at the very least make sense. There is a reason why they appear, a purpose that they follow, and they disappear once that purpose is fulfilled or once they are countered by an equal force."

He looked at Orochi. "The 'phenomenons' did not follow that logic. They are unique, like a Longinus. Their existence is perpetual, and their effects sometimes defy reality itself. They don't have a core, so they can't be defined as magic spells. They only have a container. This container is always a human, so in that sense they do share something with Sacred Gears. Due to their logic-defying nature, we started to call them Abnormalities. And you, Orochi-kun, are the container for one of them."

Orochi swallowed thickly. Unryuu didn't think he could get more agitated but by the looks of it she stood corrected.

"T-Then, what exactly is my Abnormality?"

Ajuka closed his eyes and sighed. Then he spoke.

"Heaven's Gate."

Welcome to the bottom.

Oh man, a lot has already been revealed with just this chapter.

First of all, readers, I would like to move your attention to the fact that Orochi has almost gone crazy again. It was minor, but I wanted to highlight the fact that he can lose it very easily even due to external factors, and not only when he's emotionally unstable. This little thing has a reason behind it of course, but it will be a little while before it is explained (as in, it won't be in the next chapter).

Once again I demonstrated how much of an asshole I am, since I've hidden the fact that yes, Orochi does indeed have a family. His parents are ruthless bastards and have a great magnitude of power at their disposal. They are the cause, the reason why Orochi is the way he is, both physically and mentally, and most important fact of all they are geniuses in their personal field. They will be described gradually as the story goes on, since even while they stay in the background they are incredibly important to the story for various reasons. The protective seal will be properly explained next chapter however, so I left its presence in this one fairly vague.

The name for Orochi's ability, or rather "Abnormality", is finally revealed! Its power will be explained in the next chapter, but for now I can tell you that the name is almost completely original. I say almost for a very specific reason: you see, the name "Heaven's Gate" was something that truly came out of my mind as an original idea, and it is only a coincidence that one of the supers in the KOF series is called like that. It is the super of a certain Mature who, once again coincidentally, was the secretary of Rugal Bernstein, Adelheid's father, and both Rugal and Adel have their own version of Heaven's Gate called "God Press".

That's right, Orochi's father had to be inspired from Rugal since Orochi is inspired from Adelheid, and the little tidbit about "acquiring fighting knowledge from an opponent" is exactly what Rugal does in King of Fighters.

Finally, the concept of "Abnormality", or rather its name, is taken from Medaka Box, where people have those little convenient things called Skills, which make them Abnormals or Minuses depending on the skill itself.

Phew, that should be everything for now. Next time, Heaven's Gate's ability will be revealed!

Thank you for reading, see you soon. Ciao!