AN: HEYO! i'm reposting this as I type out a new chapter and drawing an emblem for myself! yes I put chapters one and two together for length, hope y'all don't mind! Anyway since I could not find anywhere else to post with NEARLY enough traffic I have returned here in hopes that someday this stupidity over Reading The Books stories passes over.

Enjoy~

"Step gently, Etrigan, gently."
"Yes momma!", A child's voice answered Rakkid as a little boy went through her maze again. It had been four years since the little boy had been found on the doorstep as a baby, and two since he had started training. Rakkid had sewn the novice armor herself for her little boy and ever since he never wanted to take the thing off until Rakkid started his training as a dancer.

She smiled fondly at Etrigan as his messy black hair tousled about his head like a short thorny crown, dazzling green eyes capturing the souls of his parents and uncle like no emerald ever could. Watching the dance she remembered the shock of her lifetime when the morning after the anniversary, she saw a little bundle of cloth inch through the door like a little babbling worm. She was amused when the tiny boy finally tired of the baby blanket and wriggled out only to fall in her lap where she was waiting to pick him up. No note was left with the baby asking to take care of him but something was very... Odd about him.

He seemed to have very attentive eyes that looked around at everything with curiosity, taking in his surroundings before looking to her. After checking the baby for any sign of who he might be, she found a peculiar marking on his right calf. It was a birthmark unlike any other she had ever seen before, shaped like a crow. It could almost have been a tattoo it was so dark and detailed but when she touched it she found only unscathed, soft skin. Rakkid was confused why the baby was in her arms instead of his mother's, but another part of her mind demanded she hold the boy close and to call him her own.

It was the sight of Rakkid breast-feeding that met Carrigan when he awoke that morning and stomped into the living room, and he froze on the spot at her dazzling and motherly smile.

He looked at her, then the strange baby, back to her, strange baby again, and fainted as best suiting his confusion. Of course Ecklar laughed uproariously at him and took the news of the strange adoption in stride, taking hold of his new baby nephew and not letting him down unless absolutely necessary.

Etrigan made a sudden twisting motion in his dance, his right foot's toe balancing precariously on the rim of a small pot while his left leg arched high into the air at a 180 degree angle, his midsection and arms spun about to the right, wind-milling his legs in a beautiful butterfly-flip that brought him onto another pot, this one a bit larger, allowing him to plant both feet on the rim before continuing the dance.

Rakkid clapped with Ecklar in pride, her son's training in dance was going well enough to call him a gypsy like herself at this point, but he would not tell Etrigan such a thing until he was finished training. No child of hers would turn arrogant and overconfident, no sir.

Carrigan had been the first to teach their son his abilities when Etrigan was only two, both musically inclined parents agreeing that there son would learn to play at least one musical instrument. So it was decided that Etrigan would learn the drums first to give him a basic knowledge of rhythm and tempo.

Once Ecklar had taught him all of the songs he knew from his desert homeland , Etrigan took to the arts like he was born specifically to play. It was the deep sense of knowing that brought Rakkid to teach him to dance as well as learning the music he would move to, saving Ecklar's training for last as it would be the most dangerous.

Rakkid was snapped out of her thoughts and memories when Etrigan did the one thing she would forever remember as the proudest moment of her life. Her son, at only five years old, had done one of her moves to end his dance. The song had stopped with Etrigan reaching the last step and jar, only the size of a shot glass after work his way down again from the biggest of the jars. He was spot-still, balancing the ball of his left foot over the hole at the top of the jar, while his head and chest were thrown back at a 90 degree angle to his waist and legs, arms thrown back as if he were greeting the sun for the day.

It would not be long before Etrigan's training would be complete in the ways of dancing, she was sure of it.

FOUR YEARS LATER

It was a nine year old boy that stepped carefully about the house today, his birthday was today, and unfortunately for him, that meant he would be tested today. Normally Etrigan would not mind the testing his parents and uncle put him through. Today however, he was nervous.

Uncle Ecklar had been training him day in and day out since he was seven in the use of various weapons, poisons, fighting styles, and other sundry thief and trickster skills. Despite his harsh demeanor in training his uncle was his best friend, offering a hug or story whenever Etrigan needed or wanted one, or teaching him a new song he learned when he was back from a quest. This b=came with it's own problem however, as whenever he left, he came back with new ideas on how to train his nephew.

Etrigan was tested on his abilities every year on his birthday about everything he had learned since he was five. It were these tests which had made his parents proud of him, never failing one until his eighth birthday, the year he had spent training with uncle Ecklar.

Etrigan wasn't ever exposed to such dangerous training as his uncle's before. While there was always possibility of injuring himself dancing, he had never had to balance his feet on a katar's point for meditation. While using his mother's old whip was risky and often hard to maneuver, the corded material was never coated with poison that was strong enough to drop a Lord of Death in only a few hits!

So yes, Etrigan was very jumpy today as he lurked quietly as he could through the caves near their home, shifting the shadows around him to remain invisible. A whip was clenched tightly in one hand and in his other a deck of cards.

A quiver of arrows sat at his hip, the heads dipped in a poison of his own making, designed to burn the skin and cause blood to flow like water upon entering a body. A pair of daggers were crisscrossed at his back for quick draws and on his belt were two katars poisoned the same as the arrows.

He wasted no movement as he slunk through the caves, checking the shadows by using his whip to fire arrows into the shady corners before ducking into them. Ecklar watched his nephew from a high ledge of the cave, impressed and proud of his siblings' little boy as he used his skills so well that it was hard for even the assassin cross to find him!

Then a look of forced calm and acceptance came to the assassin's face, today was Etrigan's final test, but it was not against himself. No, his nephew had seen his fighting too many times, he had sparred with his uncle and was familiar with him.

No, what Etrigan faced today was a test that was both difficult and dangerous, for this test was kill or be killed. Carrigan, when he had heard of Ecklar's idea had nearly strangled his brother! It was only Rakkid's calm acceptance of the test that stuck in his mind, she too knew that his must be done, if only so she could help pick up the pieces if Etrigan broke instead of him learning the hard way that the world would not be kind to him away from home.

Etrigan was nearly panting, he was sweaty and his hands were shaking from nerves, it had been four hours since the test had begun yet he had not even heard his uncle yet. He had searched the cave system end to end and found nothing of his favorite assassin cross. So now he hid in wait for the man, hoping to ambush the man once he thought the area all clear.

That was when Etrigan heard it, it was a soft and far away sound, but he knew it well. It was a sound he had learned to fear from his training worse then the whistling of arrows near his head or the sound of his father's aggressive songs. This sound, was the snapping of a Bloody Branch.

Etrigan's head shot up, looking for the source of the sound,wary of whatever came of it. That's when he found his uncle on the ledge of the cave's entrance. He was holding in his hands the two pieces of the magical item and smiling sadly at his nephew as he tossed them below the ledge. He pointed to the now smoking branch then to Etrigan, making a slicing motion with his finger drawing across his neck.

The boy's eyes widened in panic and disbelief, but Ecklar only nodded and tried to keep an impassive faces as he dug in his pocket and showed his nephew five more of the dark magical items. Etrigan let his head drop in despair, he felt as if his fear had consumed him, leaving only the thought of impending death to stay in his mind.

Bloody branches, when whole and undamaged, were truly dangerous things, when used properly they displace certain monsters from their natural habitat and bring them to the location where you throw the broken pieces of the branch. But unlike their cousin items, Dead Branches, Bloody branches were only used to summon the most powerful of monsters, they wasted no magic on bringing the weak to fight, and Etrigan now had to face six of them.

Smoke flowed from the broken branch as it expended it's bloody and unholy magic to displace the monster. The thick plumes gathering, warping, coalescing into a basic and vague frame. Etrigan backed away a few steps, preparing the cards in his left hand while his right held the whip in a stance where he could use it to slingshot the arrows on his hip quickly.

The monster that appeared in the smoke almost made him turn tail and run in fright. This...THING could once have been human, but no longer could he make such a claim. It was tall and broad, his body like that of an ape with a seemingly too small head. It's entire form was covered in bloody and cracked armor that seemed to glow a toxic purple color. It's face shrouded by the metal mask he wore, wickedly pointed horns hanging under it's jawline while the mask wore a constant twisted grin. In it's hands were a positively evil sword and shield set. The tower shield was tall and heavy looking, Shaped in the face of a skeleton with pointed teeth and the eyes had been pierced through by large spikes. The shield itself seemed to be bleeding, adding on to Etrigan's fear before he saw the blade this hellish warrior carried.

The knight held a sharp longsword that looked entirely too large for any human man to hold it! It was thick and shining evilly, and along it's normal edge were several different blades sprouting off of it like a shark's dorsal fins.

Etrigan had learned of this monster from his father, the guardian of Glast Heim dungeon, The Bloody Knight! The demonic warrior roared, it's metal face twisted in anger at it's summons from the branch, and it demanded satisfaction. Etrigan was quick to make the first strike, overcoming his fear of the disgusting being's abilities as he tossed one of his tarot cards into the air after pumping it full of his magical power. When the card began it's decent from the air he cracked his whip then flung it forward, snapping the end of the chord into the card. The tarot flashed with bright light as it was thrown forward into the Bloody Knight, it's sharp corners digging into the thing's breastplate before activating. Etrigan breathed a deep sign of relief and elation, he had gotten the death card!

The Knight fell to his knees in pain, he roared as he suddenly found the card in his chest, the death was the worst of the arcana for anyone to have the misfortune of it cast on them, destroying all but one last vestige of life in the afflicted victim.

A quick swing of the whip from Etrigan and the monstrous knight fell dead, the card flying out of the corpse of the beast and shuffling back into the tarot once more.

The boy almost let out a whoop of excitement but paled as he saw another broken branch fall right at his feet where the Bloody Knight once laid. Etrigan growled in anger, shooting his uncle a glare for the lack of warning but was only met with an impassive stare as the new branch started to spout smoke.

The smoke this time was strange, darker in color from the last branch, it almost seemed to have taken left over smoke from the Bloody Knight's summoning into itself to bring the new monster to the caves.

The boy backed away, deeper in the shadows then he was with the knight as the air began to clear again. The smoke had finally made the rough frame of the creature it would summon, but before Etrigan could get a clear view and shot at the beast a bright blue light illuminated the room. He did not even get a look at the new beast that appeared because as soon as it was in front of him it had warped itself! All that stood in the place of the monster were two broken bloody branches that summoned it.

Ecklar was torn between laughing and sighing in disappointment, leave it to Etrigan's luck to get a monster that didn't even want to attack, now there was some powerful creature roaming around the caves with the ability to teleport! He could hear Carrigan in his mind berating him into killing it off for summoning the thing in the first place.

Etrigan was grinning up at his uncle like the mischievous little trickster he was, watching his uncle's eyebrow twitch and a blue vein in his forehead start to grow more apparent. The assassin wasted no time in pulling out the third branch and aggravatingly snapping it in half before dropping it neatly on the pile with the other two.

The smoke gathered faster this time then with the past two! A fog the shade of dark gray rain clouds spun together in a miniature whirlwind, rising all the way up to the cave's ledge where Ecklar stood. What the man saw made him pale, his little nephew better be ready for the fight of his life with this one! "Little shade! Ice arrows!" Etrigan yelled commandingly and smiled in pride as his nephew immediately obeyed him, tossing his poisoned quiver aside and putting his cards away to reach the frozen arrows at his back.

Etrigan pulled his arrows to his waist readying his whip again but instead of grabbing his cards back up he dropped the straps holding up his katars, gabbing one in one hand and wrapping the end of his whip around the other. He finished preparing just as the smoke parted to reveal his opponent.

Etrigan blinked in shock, eyes wide and jaw on the floor, he couldn't even feel fear he was so astonished by what actually came from the smoke! The being was almost shaped like the mythical Djinn, having no legs and instead a trail of fire in a conical shape that widened at the being's waist.

His skin was nude and colored a bright red, shining with the fire that made up the thing's body. Etrigan would almost consider his muscular build attractive, if not for the head adorning the body. Ifrit's face was a mask of pure rage, flaming maw breathing bright white flames, how dare humans summon his divine presence! He looked upon the feeble insect that had dared to look him in the eye when he had risen from the smoke, and found him lacking. Naturally, he detested the sight of anything human, and so took it upon himself to dispose of the tiny mortal before him.

Etrigan did NOT like the look on Ifrit's face as the fire elemental roared at him and charged. He saved himself with a quick side roll, nearly being hit by a flaming punch sent his way. This dodge had it's setbacks however, like being right in the line of fire for the beast's flaming breath. Etrigan snapped his whip forward, distracting the elemental by swinging the now bladed rope in a fast sweeping motion followed by several jabs with the katar in Etrigan's other hand.

Ifrit grunted in annoyance as he felt the nicks and cuts of a few of the jabs, dodging and countering the rest. It was one more jab glancing his side that finally pissed him off enough to get serious.

Etrigan gasped, trying to keep up the onslaught but the heat just kept intensifying around Ifrit's general surroundings, even Ecklar had removed his plated jacket to cool down. Ifrit was sending the flames of Hell after the boy in wide arcs, forcing him into a corner as he tried to fall back and use his frozen arrows to deal some damage.

"EEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!", A loud cry of pain echoed across the cave, followed by the smell of burning flesh as Etrigan's entire frame was racked with burns. Ifrit had backed him into a narrow part of the cave only to blast it full of fire as a distraction. When Etrigan had tried to jump free the beast pulled him into a full body hold, his fiery body doing the rest of the work for him as it pressed tight to the human. Ecklar watched, shocked as his nephew was burned before him in some kind of sick hug, tears pooling in his eyes. He was too high up to save him, the ledge's shape would not allow him to climb down in time to even recover his baby nephew's body!

Ifrit laughed as he heard the beautiful music of the boy's screams die away to a pitiful whimper, dropping the smoking flesh-ling to the rocky dirt below. The boy let out a cracked sort of whine in pain as Ifrit laughed, human misfortune and pain amusing the metaphorical devil of Rune Midgard.

This laughter was intense and ringing in Etrigan's ears, adding to his pain. Every fiber of his being was screaming in absolute agony. If he were even able to think right now it would only cause more pain for the effort. He could feel his skin cracking and crumbling off of boiling muscle tissue, he had no eyelids anymore, no skin, no hair, all burned away by the flames of the hellish being now approaching again to finish him off.

The boy's open mouth let out a half-whine half-scream as he tried to move away only to renew his hurting by doing so. Ifrit's laughter and approach was like looking into death itself, and Etrigan knew that was exactly what was happening as the thing loomed over him with one hand raised.

The finishing blow would have left Etrigan nothing more then ash if the fire-djinn had not been interrupted. Because, at the last moment of his attack the fiery hand was blocked, by a...banana? Ecklar was rapidly descending the ledge to get to his nephew when he saw the oddest sight he would ever be witness to.

Apparently Ifrit was just as confused as Ecklar by the block and the object which had stopped his flames, until he saw the thrower of the tropical fruit. There, just across from Ifrit now only a few steps away from Etrigan, was a tree.

The foliage was odd enough to see in the caves but what made the banana-palm tree-creature thing even more odd was the fact that it was MOVING. It's slow crawling motion accompanied by more pelting of bananas at Ifrit, charged with enough magic to make them as painful as ebony rocks being chucked at him. Ifrit fought the tree every step back but was quickly losing ground, forcing himself to warp away to regroup and hopefully surprise the evil shrubbery.

It was only after this very weird site that Ecklar resumed climbing down the ledge and slid to a stop at Etrigan's side where the tree had stopped moving.
"Etrigan! Etrigan!", Ecklar yelled in panic, digging out as many healing potions as he could and dumping the vials out one after another onto the boy's flesh. The potions normally would heal very deep cuts and burns but when the entirety of a body was as burnt as Etrigan's a few meager potions were not doing much to treat him.

Ecklar was letting tears flow freely as he poured his very last potion onto the boy's flesh, and saw it do nothing. He had destroyed him, he had caused this to happen all for a stupid test! Now his nephew was-

Ecklar's thoughts were cut off as his jaw hit the floor, for he had now figured out exactly WHAT the tree beside his nephew was, the monster from the second Bloody Branch! He had seen this tree before, he knew that, but he had no idea that SHE would be here.

"Lady Tanee!", Ecklar gasped as she poked her head out from behind the tree, one of the few human-like powerful monsters, had help his nephew! What was even luckier was that this was one of the greatest monster healers alive*.

The Lady Tanee was a pretty little girl, dressed in a white bell- shaped lace dress with long curly red hair. Adorning her hair were two snow white flowers that matched her dress and forever guarding her was a living banana tree that would attack without warning yet aid Tanee's healing magics.

Ecklar bowed,his head on the ground in front of the lady with tears staining his face, "please! My Lady Tanee, please, please, please! Heal my nephew, My little Etrigan." Ecklar pleaded, casting away all pride leaving only hope and fear of his nephew's fate. Tanee made a face as if she was thinking, never speaking a word as the tree bent itself into a crescent as if to better hear it's charge. The little girl then made a decisive nod before hopping down off the tree's roots.

She stood inches away from Etrigan, her large wine red eyes blinking as if confused. This boy on the ground looked wrong to her, he used to be so pretty, that's why she got nervous when she entered the cave and warped away. Now this older boy was on his knees begging her to make him right again? She tilted her head in confusion as she looked at the boy's charred flesh, and, hoping she would not get shy around such a pretty human again, pumped her healing magics into him.

Tanee was nervous for two reasons, the first being that she had only ever healed one human before and he turned on her, and the second being that if she healed the boy he would be pretty again and maybe not want to be her friend, thinking her inferior. Ecklar was once again stunned, the more and more natural state of his experiences when it came to his nephew and impossible situations, because now he was doing the impossibly (well- highly improbable anyway) even an inch from death!

The lady Tanee herself was cocooning Etrigan in light the color of spring grass, new and green as it wound about the burned boy in thick ropes of concentrated magic. Scarred muscle peeling away leaving new and pink tissue behind in it's place, black and flaked skin falling to the dirt as tan and slightly goose-bumped skin seemed to grow in patches about his body. Black, messy hair shone in the light of the glow as it grew anew from a bald scalp, stopping below his ears just like it was before, and verdant green eyes blinked in astonishment. What seemed like a lifetime of recovery was being done in minutes by the shy girl, the white blooms in her hair glowing the same green of channeled magic that was now fading, leaving behind not a trace of the flames of Ifrit's body. Moments passed and finally Etrigan had sat up from the ground, the green lights around him falling as the magic died away, whit blossoms and new grass shooting up in a small patch about him.

Tanee swayed on her feet as the guardian tree bent back to lend her support as she fell back onto it's trunk in exhaustion. Etrigan shook away the last vestiges of pain in his mind and looked up, locking his eyes with the little girl. Ecklar pulled him into a rough hug, muttering apologies and crying into his hair, touching him and holding him just to make sure he was alive and well, but his eyes never left Tanee's. The girl's eyes were drooping, as if she were trying her hardest to stay awake, the tree around her bent like a chair but it's leaves rustling as a warning to keep away.

Etrigan slowly left his uncle's embrace and stepped forward, hands up with palms open to show he meant no harm as he approached the girl who very well saved his life. Tanee's head was spinning as her guardian cautiously allowed the boy she healed to come to her. Etrigan gave the little girl a gracious smile as he held out his hand to her and she took it with a shy smile of her own, a tiny tinge of pink adorning her cheeks.

Their happiness would not last long however as a sudden whooshing sound filled the air followed by a blue light. Ifrit had returned and he was not amused, "Tanee you traitor, you have healed the unworthy and turned against your own!" He roared as he threw large flaming orbs at the two humans and one monster. Ecklar nodded at Etrigan and leaped away, even if Etrigan nearly died he could trust Etrigan not to make the same mistake twice. His nephew would fight and win dammit!

Tanee's tree stepped forward, the little girl safely tucked away in it's roots, to sit beside Etrigan, leaves rustling in anger at the fire-djinn. Etrigan nodded to it in agreement, he would not be alone in this fight, and loaded a large bundle of frozen arrows in his whips coils. The tree distracted the angry beast valiantly, it's flexible trunk moving like a worm as it hopped about, twisting in impossible ways to avoid the fire that Ifrit's body produced. The living foliage firing it's rock-hard projectiles back in retaliation, further distracting Ifrit so much he never even noticed Etrigan preparing to attack.

"ARROW VULCAN!" The boy yelled and threw his arrows point-down into the dirt in front of him then snapped his whip rapidly, knocking them up then shooting them forward. Arrow after arrow pierced through the living fire to stab into the beast's very core. Ecklar heard the ice melting then sizzling as it steamed in the air and watched in pride as Etrigan expended almost all of the frozen arrows he had, never wasting one as he found his mark each time. Ifrit was roaring in pain as the tree-guardian and Ecklar bombarded him from both sides, crippling ice and damaging nature attacks forcing him back as the two closed in. When they had finally forced the djinn into a corner the tree made a nodding motion at Etrigan who was putting his whip away to bring out the oddest of weapons.

In the boy's hands was held an elegantly designed flute, made of a glowing blue ore of some sort that shined like crystal yet clear as glass. The flute was made of Oridecon, a gift to his father from a wandering master smith who had given it to Etrigan on his birthday when finishing his study of the family songs. The same songs he was about to use now, "Sentencing of The Cursed!" He said softly as he placed his lips to the flute, and played a soft mournful note. Tanee awakened and peeked out of her resting place in the tree to watch and listen to the pretty human play a low and dark song that spelled misfortune to his target. Magic was poured into the song, Ifrit screaming yet no one hearing a sound from him as the song moved the magic around him. A dark purple mist started to pool at Etrigan's feet, a circle of clear space around him as the dark fog spread.

The tune he played was his family's most powerful melody, while not a death sentence it was a banishing unlike any other. Chains appeared in the purple mist, clinking heavily as the black metal shook and danced to the tempo of the song. Ifrit was desperately using his strongest fire to burn through the chains, the snake like links binding him and repressing everything he could produce. Etrigan struggled to hold onto the song,knees shaking in exhaustion as he let out a piercing high note and activated the last of the bindings of the song and the chains gave a sudden hard pull.

Ifrit's silence now broke as his roar of pain and anger shook the earth under them, Tanee ducking back into her tree's roots and plugging her ears as the djinn was dragged, clawing and screaming into the disappearing purple fog. As the cloud finally vanished, so too did the elemental with one last guttural cry, demanding satisfaction.