"A Kaosu warrior must find a proper balance in his/her own inner Chaos and accept it as an undeniable and permanent part of his/her own being… Because, even in this chaotic world, we cannot afford to live without balance… Or else, we could be consumed by our own Chaos."
-From "Kaosu Jutsu" (the Kaosu warrior's Code)
4.
Teirusu
Living beings are complicated… And simple at the same time. Our mind and soul can be easily influenced since our very birth and lead into a certain way… Then again, we can do things… Horrible things… Without a motivation… Just because we feel like.
The Balance of Chaos… Quite an interesting argument, indeed. The cluster of elements and endless possibilities of Life could be seen as a balance, per se… An uncontrollable one, that is. Same thing for our twisted souls… Idealistically speaking, our own feelings, emotions, logical thoughts, dreams and instincts… Could very well be seen as personal reflections of this world's Chaos… Our own inner Chaos.
The one thing that makes us whole… Complete… Our unbalanced Balance.
One of the Kaosu Jutsu's objectives is to teach people to actually control it… At least a part of it, since total control is as paradoxical as the Ouroboros used to be… The mythological snake creature who devoured itself from its own tail... Leading it to its own demise.
A Kaosu is meant to be the perfect fighter… A trained warrior that relies on all of his senses and abilities in order to achieve his own goals… Whatever they would be. A fighter not only in battles… But in Life itself.
That's how a Kaosu is supposed to be… Balanced.
But… Unfortunately, such perfection never occurred… Because, apparently, Chaos had other plans for us.
We cannot achieve control of the element… We are part of it… We are chaotic beings. We crave Logic and Rationality… And yet, we can't free ourselves from the feral animal that lies inside ourselves… Our hidden instincts… Our Id.
The un-mistakable traces of the feral beasts we once were before being gifted with Evolution… And now, we are beasts with a troubled mind.
Therefore… The most dangerous animals
Then again, those are just an essential part of our being… Of that aforementioned cluster that makes us whole... That makes us imperfect mortals who can fight for their own ideals and beliefs… Or, at least, try to.
Beings who can dream… Who can love… Who can hate.
And then… There are people like this young child I just met… People who's been taught to be nothing more than animals since their very birth… Denying their right to be emotionally whole just like anyone was supposed to be…
Denying their right to be evolved sapient beings.
I… Shall correct this wrong… In a way or another. I'm going to teach him about emotions and discipline him as the Kaosu Jutsu suggests… And hopefully, one day, he'll be able to think with his own head and choose a goal of his own.
As for now… I've got a lot of work to do.
Anonymous.
Cocoa Island, 7 years ago.
Slave marketing used to be the main source of profit for this peculiar tropical paradise… Most of the selling "stuff" used to be war victims from all over the world… Kids, men and women alike… Others just happened to be unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time…
And others were just born in this environment… Like a certain two-tailed fox.
There he stood, beaten and bruised, locked inside a small rusty cage… Visibly starving. His little fragile body was covered with scratches, obviously from several whiplashes, some of them still bleeding. His features were dirty, his fur was also partially burnt… Chaos knew how. Ultimately, his eyes… His big blue, emotionless, almost feral, eyes.
The eyes of a caged animal, indeed.
As far as his damaged mind could remember, he's always being there since he was very little… Since his parents sold him to the Slave Market.
His last name was Paua… He was the last in kin of a very feared and ferocious dynasty… A dynasty of demon foxes, as anyone used to call them…
Ironically enough, he looked too much demonic for his own parents due to his extra appendage… That's why he ended up there, where he's been treated like the demon everybody thought he was.
Where he would have been beaten until he would have sunk in his own blood.
Where he would have been tortured and even molested by his own slavers…
Where everybody would have been giving him names… Until he would have believed it, himself.
Until he would have become… The Demon.
Mairusu Paua grew up in this environment for the first 8 years of his life… And he would have probably die in it… If it wasn't for his savior.
He just came to him, one day, and… Bought him. The cursed two-tailed vulpine officially became his property… His pet, if you will.
Only, this individual didn't want to treat him like the animal he's been forced to become… No, he wanted to treat him as the very scared and traumatized child he, deep down, used to be.
In the beginning, he was as ferocious and savage as any imprisoned animal would be, he tried to disembowel his "owner" a few times, before eventually learning his place as an obedient canine would do…
Then… His own growing as a sapient being and Kaosu warrior, could begin… And all thanks to his savior… To his sensei… To his father…
Shado za Hejjihoggu.
Present time.
Mairusu sat in the bathtub, his surprisingly light body partially covered by water and liquid soap. He stood there, still and immobile, his gaze lost over something not visible but present… In his own mind. His head was lowered and his foxy ears were limp like the ones of a battered animal.
He's been inside the tub for while, the water was now cold but he didn't mind it at all… He didn't feel the cold… He didn't feel anything, for that matter, besides his own grief.
He was a brutal killer… A demon who could not overcome his own blood thirst. He truly wished for his former master to be there with him… Instead, he was long gone Chaos knew were. The fox was on his own… And he feared it.
He did fear himself and what he could do under stress… And now, he had one more reason to be so.
That reason was her.
Her eyes… Her sweet, green eyes… Her shocked and frightened eyes when her gaze met his own after the carnage was consumed.
He did that in front of her and now, she was going to be afraid of him… To call him a monster and to scram away as far as possible from him.
It hurt… So bad.
A sound interrupted his train of grief as a very familiar cobalt blue hedgehog made his way into the bathroom right after knocking on the door and entering without waiting for a permission… He had a bucket filled with hot water that he gingerly poured into the kit's tub.
The sudden change of temperature almost made him gasp but he managed to contain himself. He slowly diverted his absent gaze over the un-required guest.
Sonikku sat on a wood chair besides the tub, he had a very concerned expression… Almost sympathetic. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke.
"Emi is fine… All she needed were a couple of sakè bowls." He pretended to smile, then went serious again. "You saved her… You know that?" He asked.
Mairusu, ever so slowly, nodded. Then he gave a good look at his own features…
"It won't go away…" He suddenly said.
"What?" The hedgehog replied.
"The blood… I tried to clean it… But it's still there…" He fixed his now watery eyes over the hedgehog's green ones. "… It won't go away, no matter what I do… It will always be on me." And a few tears descended through his cheeks.
Sonikku felt extremely bad for him… He couldn't even imagine what this kid's life has been since now. He found himself to be at loss of words.
"Mairusu, I…"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!!! I HATE THAT NAME!!!" He yelled.
The hedgehog was a little taken aback by such outburst, but he could understand him quite well… His name was synonymous with Death and Destruction. That's when an idea came into the older Kaosu's mind.
"If you hate it so much… Then you should just change it, in order to put your past behind you and move on with your life." He calmly uttered.
The 15 years old vulpine looked at him with a genuinely childish and surprised expression… Changing his name was something that he hadn't thought about… Yet, it was simple to obtain.
"A-and… How should I be called?" He timidly enquired.
The cobalt one thought about it for a moment, then answered.
"What about… Teirusu?"
The fox gave a good look at his two tails… A name made after a physical detail… How original. Then again, it actually sounded cool in the fox's opinion.
He smiled… His first, true smile in a while.
"I like it."
Sonikku smiled as well and gently ruffled the boy's hair with his hand.
"Very well… Welcome in the party, Teirusu." He added, in an amused tone.
"Thank you… Sonikku-san." He replied with conviction.
He was alone no more.
"Where is he?"
"He's cutting some logs over there…"
"Thank you, dear."
"Anything for you, ma'am."
Ruju za Batto certainly had her way with men… When she needed informations, all she had to do was to blink an eye and someone would have tell her even where to find the Sacred Graal itself. She had a gift, no doubt about it.
The info she required, this time at least, happened to be simpler than that… She was looking for some recruit for her party after that charming blue hedgehog politely asked for her help… He was smart… He knew she would definitively have had better chances to find some willing Kaosu for a suicidal mission without a proper paycheck, than him.
She smiled within herself… He was darn right about it. A lot of Kaosu (or would be Kaosu) proposed themselves for such task but she refused them all… She wanted to find some REAL meat to put on the barbecue.
And she apparently found it… In the form of an improvised woodcutter.
She beamed at him, not worrying to hide her gorgeous curves to the new comer, who, strangely enough, didn't look faze at all.
"Well, well, what we have here? I've never heard about a Kaosu lumberjack Order… Must be new or something." She both sweetly and sarcastically said with her smooth and sexy tone.
Her interlocutor just hmpfed in annoyance and resumed his chores.
"No, seriously… Why are you doing this? You don't seem to be that type of loser." She provocatively enquired.
He stopped for a minute, clearly bothered by her comments.
"Perhaps you should just mind your own business, bat… And let a man do what he has to do to pay a Chaosdamned debt!" He retorted angrily.
"Ooooooh…" The bat mocked. "… Sorry if I offended your pride… I just thought that a guy like you wouldn't need to ask for things… He would just take them, like me!" She proudly replied.
He hmpfed again and tried to ignore her… As mobianly possible.
"Say… Would you like to kill a bunch of robots for absolutely nothing in return?" She casually asked.
The male froze on the spot, then slowly turned over the smirking sexy form of the Amazon-like warrior…
A mischievous smile crossed his lips… He was clearly interested, one could say.
"And what is your name, handsome?" Ruju asked, still smirking… She knew what type of guy he was.
And the black, red striped hedgehog officially presented himself.
"I'm Shado… Shado za Hejjihoggu."
The fifth Kaosu.