"A Kaosu warrior has to be loyal only to himself and in what he/she chooses to believe… Because the only known way to survive in this world, is to find a personal Sense over the Chaos of our existence."
-From "Kaosu Jutsu" (the Kaosu warrior's Code)
1.
Sonikku za Hejjihoggu
The way of the Kaosu has many paths… And no path at all.
The goal of a warrior taught into this creed, is not to achieve control over the Chaos… But to be part of it… To be part of the endless possibilities of Life… To ultimately unify himself with such cluster in a more profound way… In order to find the Truth.
And what is the Truth?
The one the individual chooses to believe in. That's the only truth really needed in this life. What may or may not come in the Afterlife, it is not our concern…
The only thing certain in existence… Is that we all are destined to die. We are not bound to know when or where that would happen nor we should care about it… Our only concern should be to live our lives the way we want to…
And we need to be strong in order to achieve this otherwise privileged status.
Sometimes… We also need to be firm… And cruel. That is way the Kaosu Order has been created.
An Order (oh, what a sweet paradox) of Chaotic assassins… Chosen individuals without a patria, unbound from the common people's problems and their common lives… Warriors who's only purpose is to live for themselves… And for the paths they would choose…
Due to this misunderstood philosophy, most of them inevitably became mercenaries… Ronin… Who would sell themselves to the best offer.
And some other were even blinded by someone else's creed, deluding themselves into believe they chose to follow such creed, in the first place… And dyeing in fruitless wars for the wrong causes… Not their owns.
In the end, no one seemed to understand the true meaning of being a Kaosu…
Of being powerful enough to be free... Or at least, this is what I believe.
Or better, this is what I choose to believe… And, hopefully, this is what I'll be able to teach to my apprentice… And again, hopefully, this is what he will may or may not choose to believe as his own creed.
May Chaos be with me in this chosen path.
Signed: Kaosu Master, Fangu za Sunaipa.
The Green Hill Zone… 10 years ago.
Hidden in the untainted beauty of the woods, lay a peculiar building… A dojo…
A Kaosu Order's dojo, for the sake of clarity.
On its entrance, a lone figure stood still in silence and concentration… A unique individual, by the looks of it. He was a male Mobian with purple fur, white on the chest, long wolf ears pressed under a fancy canvas hat. He wore a golden kimono, the type of vest only the wisest and strongest Kaosu Masters could wear… His legs were crossed and his eyes closed, he was meditating.
He stood like a statue, completely unfazed by his own surroundings… As if he was in another world, a world of his own, alienated from the harshness of reality… As far as it could have been considered such, since the Ultimate Truth of existence wasn't bound to be known by mortals.
The shade produced by the oriental-like roof of his secluded home, partially covered his form, gifting him with an almost sacral stature.
All was silent and peaceful… Until a small, insignificant, noise managed to get caught by the being's trained ears.
He smirked while quickly moving his body to his left, barely avoiding a sudden attack from above the dojo's very roof.
The seemingly younger attacker rose from the ground and darted towards the not at all surprised veteran, who avoided and countered all of his weak offenses with ease. He then had enough of it and grounded his "adversary" with an S.T.O.
Without the shade of his house over him, a few other details about his aspect could be seen… He had a long broken weasel-like tail, a pointed muzzle and a huge fang leaned out from the left side of his mouth… And deep, pitch black eyes.
He grinned, revealing the rest of his lesser sharp teeth.
"I see you have improved." He said.
"Not enough, apparently… Sensei Fangu." The other sorely replied.
The sensei helped his young apprentice to recover his standing position…
He was a 15 years old, cobalt blue hedgehog by the name of Sonikku.
He wore white gloves and modern white/red sneakers on his feet. He had a distaste over dresses, that's why he refused to wear other things besides these ones and his own fur… This kid had an attitude and his own ideas, that is why Fangu chose to take him under his wing and teach him about the way of the Kaosu…
Which has many paths… And no path at all.
It's been a couple of years now, since this teenager came to his dojo and practically begged him to be his apprentice… Or his padawan, as the hog jokingly put it… A joke that wasn't understood, by the way.
Fangu saw the sheer talent this kid possessed… As his name suggested, he had speed and reflexes way beyond normality. The boy told him that he wanted to utilize his abilities for the benefit of his people…
So young…
So full of ideals and hopes…
So determined to fulfill his own goals…
Fangu couldn't possibly refuse him.
Two years went away from that time and the boy had improved, as Fangu could say, although he still had a long path to overcome before being able to actually be a challenge for his sensei… And both of them knew it.
"Let's have a break, shall we?" Fangu za Sunaipa suggested.
"Definitely…" Confirmed the younger Mobian.
They both sat across the marvelous garden the older sensei possessed… Specifically, on its small lake's borders.
"Sensei?"
"What is it, Sonikku?"
"Is there a Truth out there or it is all random Chaos? I mean, does Life have a purpose?"
Fangu looked his student in the eyes… He saw his emerald green eyes shining in admiration and eager anticipation for his eventual answer… It was not an exaggeration to state that this kid worshipped his teacher… Or Jedi Master, as he would often refer to him… Again, another un-understood joke.
Fangu sighed, then answered.
"What you think is truthful, is the Truth and whatever…" His own kind of answer.
Sonikku tilted his head on one side, clearly confused and baffled by such simple answer… He's always seen his sensei as the keeper of all this world's truths, the wisest person on the planet…
The older Kaosu noticed the uneasiness of his honorary student and so, he add a fundamental line after his previous answer…
"Sometimes, the best answers are the simplest… Ponder over this, young one, and you may find your own path... Or one of many, for that matter." He ultimately remarked before regaining his meditation pose…
Sonikku was still baffled about the way his master dismissed him but he eventually convinced himself into being patient… Therefore he didn't ask him about this topic, again.
Night overtook.
Lay on his bed, a certain young blue hedgehog couldn't sleep… His mind was tormented by too many questions and too many doubts.
He questioned the Way of the Kaosu… Simply because it wasn't a straight one.
He doubted he could ever become one… No, he feared he was not good or determined enough to even aspire at such honor…
It has always been his dream, to become a Kaosu warrior and live his life as free as the wind blew… To run away, from city to city, fighting the bad guys and protecting the weak. It has been his ambition since his now long lost parents told him about the mythical Kaosu Wars…
In which, as the legends went, an army of only 300 powerful Kaosu has been able to counter and defeat 1.000.000 Persians… Or something like that. He didn't have a very good memory about bedtime stories…
But he do had hopes. To become a Kaosu wasn't just a childish caprice… For him, it was his life mission and nothing less…
That's why he feared the possibility of not being adequate for such important role.
He sighed and shook his head. He wasn't going to let this negative thoughts to get the better of him… He didn't believe in Destiny, but he do believed in his own potentials… And apparently, Fangu too.
A crash could be heard from the Kaosu's room.
Sonikku's eyes widened in surprise and sudden fright. Within a blink of an eye he was on his feet and with his trademark speed, darted towards Fangu's room.
When he entered the room, a few peculiar things caught his attention…
The mess…
The broken glass…
The blood…
The corpse…
And the assassin.
The moonlight was quite luminous on that cold night… Therefore he could see everything with daylight precision… There he stood, lifeless on the ground, covered in his own blood, still spreading from the deadly wound… His master's cadaver, freshly killed.
His murderer was still there, immobile and still like a demonic statue of a devil, admiring his work… Breathing and enjoying his own creation… Or destruction, I should say.
Sonikku's mind was blank, to say the very least, incapable of understanding the current situation or maybe, already denying its happening. He felt numbness all over his body and mind, tragically alienated from his material appearances… Almost as if he was watching the entire scene from another planet… Far, far away from that gruesome, scarring scene.
Slowly… The killer's head turned and his cold blooded gaze fixed itself over the shocked rodent.
As soon as he felt the stranger's look over him, the numbness abruptly ceased… Fear took over and he couldn't help but shake in terror as his own eyes posed themselves onto the cold, vindictive and full of hatred glare of Fangu's executioner…
And he could clearly see his face… His form… Everything of him… Every single physical detail that would have remained impressed in his mind and soul as long as he would have lived… And perhaps, even beyond…
For the assassin, was none other than his older brother…
Shado za Hejjihoggu.
He was almost a carbon copy of the blue hedgehog, except for his fur color… Void black with red stripes over his quills, which were not fully downward like Sonikku's own but pointed at their extremities… He had a white muzzle of fur on the chest and, like his younger sibling, he only wore snickers and gloves.
Other two things were quite noticeable about the black hedgehog's appearance… His rage red eyes… And the crimson liquid on his aforementioned quills.
The two siblings looked at each other for quite a time, before the older eventually diverted his eyes from him, almost in shame, one could say…
Then, before the mentally scarred blue hedgehog could do or say anything… Shado disappeared into nothingness, leaving him with the only company of an unjustified freshly killed corpse… His master's body…
His surrogate father's body.
On that night… After all the cries and tears, that were inevitably shed, subsided, Sonikku za Hejjihoggu became a Kaosu warrior… In the very same moment that he chose his own path… In very same moment that he found his own personal truth… A new personal life mission…
Vengeance.
And he would have been loyal to such creed until death… His own or his brother's.
Present time.
"How did you manage to find me?"
Maiti was taken aback, his words suddenly froze in his throat because of impending shyness. Biggu… Well, he was just himself. The only one who managed to find the necessary strength to actually answer such harshly pronounced question was, ironically enough, the former damsel in distress in person… Emi Rozu.
"A very fast, cobalt blue hedgehog isn't something that passes unobserved… We just asked around and everybody told us we would have certainly found you here." She said with a matter-of-factly expression and vocal tone.
Sonikku couldn't help but smirk… She was right all along. He's been around this city for about a month, often coming into this rotten pub for a good old warm bowl of sakè… To eventually drown his sorrows in.
He took another sip of his sakè, as if they weren't even there.
Suddenly, Maiti was reminded of his role as leader of this small party and that the future of his own village lay on his shoulders… Therefore, he finally found the courage to speak.
He dropped on his knees in the classical begging position.
"Please, oh please, noble Kaosu… Our village is in peril and we desperately need the help of your amazing abilities… The same abilities that saved this foolish girl's life."
Emi wasn't pleased by that last sentence… Even Biggu could notice.
Sonikku just raised an eyebrow after witnessing such pathetic performance… He could not blame him, though. He used to be a more perceptive person than he looked.
"Who's threatening you?" He asked, almost absent mindedly.
"Dokuta Egguman." Biggu answered before any of the others could stop him.
A dead silence fell in the pub, as anyone inside fixed their own baffled gazes over the three villagers… Who were immediately frozen on their spot, fearing for the worst… Except Biggu, of course.
Then… The silence was broken by an improvise laughter. All the pub's costumers (including Maiti and the others) turned their collective gazes over the source of such hilarity.
The noisy Rapp Scallion was a red echidna with long dreadlock-like quills, menacingly huge spiky fists, a pointed muzzle and cerulean eyes… He had a half moon tattoo on his chest and he was obviously drunk like an ape.
"Oh oh oh oh… You're soooooo fucked!" He started yelling. "So definitely, atrociously, uber fucked!!! No jutsu…" He continued. "There's no way in hell you're going to survive this… And you deserve no less, you motherfucking farmers!"
His attitude was really starting to piss the "what-he-said" farmers in the pub… Even the usually placid Biggu wasn't pleased by this cursing-like machine of reddish drunken torment.
"You can bet your ass on it… 'Cause no one is going to save yours!" The echidna retorted.
"I'll do it."
And once again, in less than 5 minutes, silence overtook as the collective gazes (even the red one's own) diverted over the ever so calm and relaxed form of the blue Kaosu-hog.
"What in the holy shitting burning hell did you just say?" The knuckle-head asked, apparently not enough drunk to not being bewildered.
"I said, I'll do it… Because I choose to." Sonikku calmly replied, letting his words getting sank inside the minds of the three shocked villagers.
"Are you retarded or what?" The echidna insisted. "This is freaking madness!!!"
"Madness? THIS. IS. KAOSUUUUU!!!!" Sonikku yelled in his unwanted interlocutor's face.
The dreadlocked thug just frowned and scowled… Then he exited the building for going Chaos knew were.
Both Maiti and Emi couldn't possibly be more happy and started worshipping him as he was some kind of a messiah… Which made him feel awkward and almost regretful of his decision.
Biggu… was just Biggu.
Why did Sonikku accepted such foolish and suicidal offer, you may ask? And, as usual, I shall respond you in a disfiguring, riddling way… There is not a straight answer for this question. Perhaps he did it because he once wanted to become a Kaosu in order to protect the weak from the bad ones (even though, he was THAT naïve no more), or maybe he did it because Dokuta Egguman was the responsible for his family's death and he wanted to avenge them…
Who knew? Not me, for certain.
The only thing clear was… That it has been his own choice… His own will.
And that was all that mattered.
Deep down, Sonikku felt that his master, wherever he may be right now, was proud of him… Or so he thought.
One man alone could not win a war… That was sadly obvious.
After burying his sensei and leaving the dojo, Sonikku dedicated his life to the research of his murderous brother… His will of revenge inevitably brought him in the middle of numerous conflicts and wars… Wars that he would lose every time… Conflicts in which he would witness the laceration and violent death of living , breathing beings like him… Sonikku had come to know the real harshness of this world. A world that had no room for the weak. That's why the weak needed protection…
His fighting years taught him a lot of interesting things about battle strategy and troop recruiting… Two things that would have surely come in handy, especially the latter one, since, as it has been said before, he could not hope to battle against an unspecified robotic army all by himself… Other warriors were needed and quickly.
But how could anyone, in his rightful mind, accept to do such crazy thing for such poor paycheck… That's the exact same question that Sonikku asked this particular young individual who, one day, decided to approach him in the very same pub he was first found… Which had become his "recruiting post", by the way.
"Why should I do it, you ask? I'm a freshly named Kaosu who just wants to prove himself on the battle field… I'm pleading you to accept my services, Sonikku-san."
"Sonikku-san" didn't like this situation… Not at all. In front of his sitting position, lay this young lad, probably on his early teenage years… Therefore a very young one. A child with still all of his life forward him, who was asking to be part of a potentially suicidal mission like this one… And the thing that deeply worried the hedgehog, was that he actually meant every single word he muttered.
This boy was serious as hell and his big blue eyes showed an uncommon determination for people of his age… Those were the eyes of a veteran…
Just who was this boy? Where did he come from?
The boy in question was kneeling in front of the elder in a very respectful way… He was a vulpine, a golden-orange fox with azure eyes and three long bangs on his forehead. He wore a blue kimono, the kind of vest that belonged to aristocratic families, and it covered all of his little body, including the tail…
There was something about him that truly disturbed the older Kaosu. And it bothered him the fact that he couldn't quite determine what that thing would be.
"What is your name, again?" He asked.
"Mairusu Paua of the Paua dynasty. I'm the last of its bloodline… And the only one left… Alive." He replied, trying to hint a sudden sense of inadequacy.
The Paua dynasty… A legendary bloodline of fox warriors who made its name notorious in almost every part of the land… There were stories about them… And most of them happened to be quite gruesome.
They were known for their unjustified cruelty and sadism over their multiple enemies… An attitude that almost brought them to their ultimate demise when their adversaries' descendants almost caused their extinction some years ago.
Their feared actions over the ages made them known as the mythical Demon foxes of ancient folklore…
Everybody knew them as… The Kitsunes.
To tell the truth, all Sonikku could see right now, was an under aged child who didn't deserve anymore sufferance than he'd already endured… The hedgehog's answer did not admit replies…
"No."
The kit seemed slightly taken aback by his decision and disappointment didn't late to make itself known in the fox's body language.
"Please… Let me stay and prove myself… Let me redeem my family's name!" He practically begged.
So, that was it. He felt he needed to do it… Because of his family's past. The blue warrior couldn't help but feel sympathetic over the boy's troubles… Then, something rather unexpected happened… Something that managed to change Sonikku's mind... Or part of it.
"Ehi, you heard Sonikku-san, you're too young!" Said Maiti who was in there along side the hedgehog while Biggu and Emi were out, looking for some other Kaosu…
Maiti committed the huge error of putting his hand on one of the kit's shoulder… Mairusu's eyes widened for a short instant and his breath became heavier… Within a blink of an eye, he took Maiti's hand and, with a judo-like maneuver, threw him over the opposite wall of the pub…
When Mairusu recovered his senses and noticed what he's just done, he immediately rushed over the side of the comically turned upside down armadillo and asked for his forgiveness… 25 consecutive times.
To say that the blue hedgehog was baffled at such view, would have been a major understatement… Now he knew for certain, there was definitely more of this child that met the eye.
Eventually, he decided to take the little guy under his wing and train him… Although he still was firm on his earlier decision.
Mairusu wasn't going to fight this battle… But he could help them in finding some other recruit.
In the vulpine's head, that was a half victory as he realized he still had a chance to impress his would be sensei and convince him to let him join the party.
Later on, he was introduced to Biggu and Emi… As soon as his gaze pose itself over the young girl who happened to be of his own age, his heart skipped a couple of beats.
She's so… Wow! He thought… Or better, some inner part of him thought.
The day after, a rather interesting development occurred… A very good looking one, for that matter… In the form of a white female bat with a slender physic and a provocative half metallic, half tight suit vest that made her seem like an Amazon queen.
Needless to say, all the male in the pub (including Biggu) were absolutely entranced over her, let's say, charming qualities… Emi just grunted, she already didn't like her.
Maiti was on the verge of a saliva waterfall…
Biggu was about to bleed from his nose…
Mairusu was just blushing madly…
Sonikku tried very hard (no pun intended) to overcome his initial shock as he, very knight-likely, presented himself and the rest of the group to her.
She just giggled in response… And Maiti had to fight the urge of fainting. Emi grunted even more… No one noticed.
After all the presentations were done, she finally introduced herself.
"My name is Ruju za Batto… And I would like to join your little sweet cause, if you don't mind."
Nobody minded… Except Emi, of course.
And so… The second Kaosu has appeared.