Author's Notes:
Warning: This chapter ends with a character having a flashback that will depict rather gory violence and non-consensual sexual acts. I'm not sure if it technically counts as rape, but it might be too sensitive for certain people. If you wish to avoid this part, I advise you to stop reading when a poem appears, the rest should be fine. Let's get started.
And just like that, a dagger flew with extreme precision like a sneaky, deadly viper's attack; successfully hitting it's mark.
Fortunately, however, Tenko's warning came just in time, as Himiko instantly jerked at her forewarning. But the kunai that rained down out of nowhere still managed to stab her palm.
Korekiyo then jolted away from the lush wall of the Ancient Ruins that concealed his frame and sought to finish the job. Even though his slender, tall legs moved ferociously, his expression was nothing but calm and collected.
The harmless mage had no will left in her body. She was stabbed past her breaking point. All she did was sit on her knees and cry from the excruciating pain.
Perhaps this was due to having a rumbling stomach and an arid tongue, but Tenko was starting to get extremely fed up with her companion's uselessness. Himiko would do nothing but complain all the time, and if things started going south, she would just moan and not put any effort whatsoever. Even if her life was in danger, she would simply sit back and wait for Tenko to do something. But of course, Tenko loved her so much that she wouldn't voice her opinion.
Like always, Tenko had to jump in to the rescue. A seasoned martial artist like herself was more than confident in engaging with an armed, and apparently skilled, fierce man like Kiyo.
Voicing her displeasure in her unreliable friend with a groan, she proceeded to push aside Himiko and effortlessly dodge Korekiyo's assault.
"Himiko! Grab the box and run! I'll hold him off!" she ordered as she started the fight.
But the Magician barely reacted... She simply stood there crying as she pressed the painful wound on her hand.
It was more of a chase than a fight. Korekiyo simply avoided her, while she pursued. A smart move: she could overpower most people in the Killing Game without the need of a weapon, due to her experience in Aikido.
After brushing off her blows, he dashed straight for the box. Just when Tenko thought that day couldn't get any worse, the Anthropologist actually managed to swipe it.
Her heart skipped a beat when he turned his attention and dagger to Himiko lightning fast. She threw herself at him, as he pierced one of Himiko's layer of skin cells with the tip of the sharp knife, but thankfully, she managed to use her specialty on him before more damage was done.
Can you guess what she did to him? She punched him... Nah, just kidding, she dropkicked him.
But he got up heaving, more than prepared for a fight this time. His primal, amber eyes peaked her adrenaline. Things weren't looking good for the girls. Tenko was not so confident she would defeat him anymore.
"Atua will punish you!" another girl came from behind, swinging an axe-like weapon at Korekiyo.
Tenko didn't need to see the girl that saved them to know who she was. It was, without a doubt, Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate Artist.
Once again, he nimbly dodged the attack. But he was too tired and hungry to continue the fight. There was really no point. They'd probably die without food and water, so he decided to take his prize and leave.
"Hey, get back here and fight like a man!" Tenko yelled as she gave chase.
"Save your energies, Tenko. Atua tells me you won't be able to catch him." Angie advised as she lightly pulled the brunette.
"Gr... Typical males, they are all cowards!" she cursed after stopping.
"A-Angie! Angie, you saved us!" Himiko gasped with teary eyes.
Um, what?! Is she seriously gonna ignore the fact that I literally just saved her at least twice?!
"Nyahahaha! But of course! I want to make sure that my friends live every day like it's bright, cheery, and fun!...So says Atua. I couldn't just sit idly by and let that lost heretic disrupt harmony." the dark skinned girl babbled as she threw her arms up.
"Oh! Thank you, Angie. Really. Thank you so much!" Tenko spoke as a wave of relief and hope washed over her and walked up to her for a hug.
"Nuh uh! No hugging. You two, give me your backpacks and weapons. Now." she ordered as she aimed her weapon at a halting Tenko.
The weapon she wielded was bundle of wooden rods, with an axe emerging from it. It was called a fasces. Himiko gasped and froze. Tenko raised her hands defensively and her legs started shaking in indecisiveness.
"Gah… Finally…" Korekiyo spoke as he feasted on the provisions in the box he took.
He devoured the food and water ravenously. He felt like he would go mad if he didn't have a meal soon.
"Korekiyo… why didn't you kill those girls? They seemed so nice… Do you want me to be alone?" his sister's voice echoed inside his skull.
"I'm sorry, sister… I was just… so starved… Their chances of survival are next to nonexistent without provisions, in any case. I don't think it was necessary to-"
"My, my, Korekiyo… Are you lying to me? You seem to have plenty of energy right now. Surely, you must have had enough to kill them earlier. Why, are you going soft? Or do you perhaps… not love me anymore?" she questioned in his mind.
"No… No, no, NO! I just… I am sorry, sister! I am so, very sorry! I promise, I will make it up to You. Now that I have finished eating, I will resume my hunt and have them join You!" he yelled nervously, as he pressed his head with both his hands.
"Will you now? Oh, that is so sweet of you. Let us go then. We will win this Killing Game together, and then, no one will disturb us any longer… I love you, Korekiyo." she assured inside his head.
"I love You more, sister. I promise You, before I join You, I will make sure You are accompanied by the best people available. I won't rest until I give at least You 100 friends… We will also have to be cautious of Rantaro Amami… He possessed far too knowledge of this island to use 'guesses' as an excuse… He was also absent during the previous Killing Game… I believe he was the previous winner " he asserted confidently.
With his resolve solidified, he set out to finish what he started. He would win and make his sister proud. He was painfully aware of what would happen if she didn't have her way…
"Sweet Korekiyo... My sweet, sweet Korekiyo... Would you please accompany your sister for a moment? I need your help for... a very important thing." his beloved sibling startled him while he was doing his homework in his room. He hated when she did that.
"Oh! Of course, sister! What is it that you need?" he questioned a little nervous. She wasn't usually in such a good mood. Bad things happened when she was feeling good...
"Just follow me..." she whispered seductively, summoning him with an alluring curling index finger.
"Um... Okay... But, shouldn't you be resting? You are still recovering from your illness, sister..." he muttered meekly.
"No need to worry, my angel. I haven't felt so well in ages. I think my health is returning in full!" she nearly yelled out of elation.
Not only was the calm, tranquil young woman unusually jolly, she was also becoming increasingly euphoric. He had a terrible feeling about her... His heart accelerated and sweat threatened to ascend up his forehead as he tried his hardest not to show how his breathing became uneven.
"Um... very well..."
He got up and approached her curious. She then guided him with a gentle hand on his back towards the attic in their house.
"What are we to do in the attic? Is something in there, sister?" he asked apprehensive. He could swear he could listen a faint, muffled sound down the dark space, but he couldn't make out what it was exactly.
"Come." she ordered not so angelically, completely disregarding his questions with a mischievous grin.
"I-I... I am not certain that is a good idea... What is the point anyway?" he asserted, reluctant to admit that he was scared of the dark, deserted place, despite being in his house.
She knew the attic frightened him, but didn't care. She liked seeing him jumpy, she found it cute.
With a progressively faster heartbeat, he turned the attic's dim light on, and climbed down the stairs, despite the fact that every fibre of his being yelled at him to turn back and run away.
Those dreadful sounds became clearer as he drew near... They sounded like... moans of pain... He got so nervous that he could no longer silence his panicked respiration. The muscles in his face and lips twitched uncontrollably, even the ones in his legs sensed danger and urged to stop moving. Noticing his reluctance, she happily pushed him to the destination.
"S-Sister... Wh-What is going on here...?" he asked genuinely afraid of the person he loved the most for the first time.
He saw... a child in pain; a girl, couldn't be older than eleven, blindfolded, tied up in her hands and feet and a piece of cloth in her mouth preventing her from making herself audible enough.
The poor toddler tensed up and attempted to scream behind the cloth once she sensed their presence. As she further soaked the already drenched blindfold with tears, she desperately tried to break free from the sadistic red ropes, that had dug into her skin and flesh from all that struggling.
Korekiyo released the purest form of dread he had ever felt with a sharp scream and instinctively ran to the brutalized little girl to help her.
"Sweet Korekiyo, calm yourself..." she pleaded sweetly with her usual pure, charming face; after holding him in place with her hands on his younger shoulders.
"Sister, what did you do!?" he shrieked as he expelled stress in the form of sweat.
"Why, I just prepared a ritual that will help my body become healthy faster! I needed a spiritual medium, and my dear, sweet little brother is the only one I trust." she stated nonchalantly.
"No! I refuse! This is insane, sister! We will set free that kid and that's final!" he asserted angrily. As much she frightened him, his conscious spoke louder.
She giggled innocently. "What was that, brother? I could swear you just defied me, but surely, I must have misheard your words..."
"I-I mean it... Y-You must-"
She slapped his smaller body across the room while still maintaining her innocent smirk. She actually did it surprisingly hard, considering she was far from her physical prime.
"Come now, my dear... Let us not do anything we might regret in the future..." she whispered hoarsely with her head tilted, as she delightfully watched her defeated, submissive brother moping on floor completely terrified.
"... I hope you understand that I only act a little more firmly sometimes, because you are still too young to possess the basic skills to think for yourself. You are simply not intelligent enough yet to make proper decisions. But don't be sad, my sweet, I am certain that in a few years, you will be an amazing, enlightened young man more than capable of faring individually like myself. Until then, do try to appreciate the fact that I'm going out of my way to guide you with a firm hand through the path of success. I will be very angry if Hope's Peak Academy doesn't scout you." she lectured completely guilt-free.
"I-I know, sister... I apologize for undermining all you have done for me..." he muttered as he got up.
"And?"
"And... I-I love you, sister... From the bottom of my heart." he confessed with a genuine grin and brows drawn together.
"I am glad we cleared that up... You see, it was extremely hard to abduct a virgin without leaving a shred of evidence. It requires the intelligence you have yet to gain... You should feel honored and privileged that I am entrusting you with the role of spiritual medium, because... if you refuse to aid in the recovery of your beloved sister, I will take that as a direct threat to my life... and you just might be my next virgin sacrifice in a healing ritual..." she whispered menacingly in his ear.
"I-I... understand..." he yielded with his head tilted forward and gulped hard at her heartless threat.
"Excellent. Now, let's shut up this noisy bitch for good. I'm sick of listening to her cry." she patted his short, black hair and gave him a piece of paper with what he was supposed to say and do during the healing rite.
Around the frantic, weeping girl, there was a large and complicated circular drawing with salt. He went to a designated spot marked with salt and awaited further orders.
"I want to get out of here. I want to get out of here. I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" he echoed like mantra inside his horrified head.
It was impossible not to empathise with the poor little girl. She acted exactly like a squeaky, wounded rabbit cornered against a wall by a pack of ravenous wolves, left with no other choice but to claw it's way out of the wall with increasingly bloodier paws. Korekiyo was certain that throughout the entire history of mankind, that girl had far surpassed the record of highest levels of norepinephrine and adrenaline in a human being's organism.
His sister slowly removed the gag and blindfold, savouring every moment of despair from her victim.
"Help! Help! I want my mommy...! Please, let me go, I didn't do anything... I just want to see my mommy..." she cried the second her mouth was released, with extremely red and puffy eyes.
"Kehehe... I hope you enjoyed your time with your mommy, because the next time you reunite with her, it will be in the afterlife!" his sister laughed darkly.
Then, she removed a weird-looking dagger from a drawer. Apparently, it was used in sacrifices and it was made of volcanic glass. The lights were turned off, and she lit the dark room with several candles.
"No!" the girl screamed even sharper at the sight of the menacing weapon. She kicked and screamed desperately like any child would at the face of imminent death.
But it was all for naught: she would not break free. If Korekiyo wasn't so distressed, he would be repulsed by the nauseating scent of urine coming from the frightened girl.
"S-Sister, h-hold on..." he extended a pleading hand as rivers cascaded down his eyes.
"Sing what's on the paper. Now!" she hollered back at him.
He was having a very hard time reading through a thick layer tears and trembling hands. But then again, the human sacrifice was having a far worse time. And he certainly didn't want to end up like her...
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." he wept in his thoughts.
"Oh, Burned Apothecary,
you who hastened to cure
the woman you would marry.
You who were scorched by fools,
caught in the crossfire..." he started singing reluctantly.
As the lit candles and the burned incense started providing much needed heat and fragrance to that god-forsaken room, his evil sibling gleefully swung the sacrificial knife to the pitiful child's body. She started with her legs: for each of the numerous and slow stabs, she pleasured herself by digging the dagger deep inside the tender flesh, tearing even through bone tissue. She even went as far as to twist the blade while it was inside.
The terrorising sound of the dagger colliding with the body, akin to that of chopping meat, would be burned in his mind for eternity. He couldn't avoid blinking hard each time he heard it. Still, he wasn't sure if the sound of the poor victim's piercing screams or the sound of his demonic sister's sadistic giggles were even more traumatising.
"Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! AAAAAAAAGGHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH! YEAHAAAAAAGGHH!" she shrieked louder than humanly possible.
He just prayed to whatever divine entity that existed for the girl to pass out from the pain, or for her to die before her fate turns even more excruciating than it needed to be.
"Scream at the top of your lungs if you so desire! No one will hear you! And the meds I gave you will prevent you from passing out, so do try to enjoy this as much as I am!" the long, raven haired young woman shouted in pure ecstasy. "Stop being a dastard, Korekiyo! Continue!"
He focused his vision and hearing in the paper with all his might, in order to ignore the pure, primal terror that cut through the air like perfect a sine wave.
"Faultless, with your soul unburdened,
the greed of men was your pyre.
By Boshin, your life burned,
by Boshin, her life expired
Now, your eternal soul ignited.
...
This virgin I offer thee.
Take her heart, take her kidney
Take whatever you desire
Take it all to the fire
But in return, heal me!
...
Incinerate this gift,
Offer it to your maiden.
But my blight you must lift:
Finish your past mission.
Thereby your charred spirit,
...
no longer has to laden.
A sacrifice for thee,
to bring me salvation;
A fair trade, rescue me
Oh, Burned Apothecary!"
His sister turned her attention to other parts of the body. Though equally vicious and powerful, she ripped her apart from the inside, whilst avoiding vital points. She undoubtedly studied human anatomy thoroughly in order to brutalize someone so skilfully without halting the horrifying symphony of inhuman screams. In fact, the dedicated might she displayed, energized by sadistic pleasure, made him wonder if the healing ritual was already working. She didn't seem sick at all.
The ritual's poem spoke of a man, an apothecary, who was apparently rushing to save his fiancé from some illness, but had the misfortune of bumping into one more of the casualties of the Boshin civil war, during Meiji Period in Japan; and as a result, died in a fire. How did she learn of that story? How did she learn there was a ritual attached to it. It couldn't be true... right?
The heartless perpetrator dropped various organs inside one of the spots marked with salt, but he didn't even dare look at them. The blood-soaked floor was already too gruesome for him to see.
"I can't take any more of this! I'm losing my mind! Stop it stop it STOP IT! " he thought paralyzed, now that the poem was over.
But the chopping sounds didn't stop.
"Is it still going on?! Come on, just die already!... 'Die already'? Oh, what is wrong with me...? I think... I think I'm losing my mind... You know what, at this point, I don't care anymore, I just want this to end and be in peace!" Korekiyo thought with his eyes squeezed shut.
After well over an hour, the girl finally died. The suffering had ceased, which seemed to have angered his sister, seeing as her demented laughing turned into a silent frown, but that didn't stop her from mutilating the body post-mortem.
Following the rituals rules she feasted on her victim's blood, before setting the corpse and the separated organs on fire.
"With this virgin sacrifice, I ask you, Burned Apothecary, to purge my ailment." she emotionlessly recited, as she stared up with her arms lifted. "You may step off the circle, brother. The ritual is over."
He instantly fell to his knees and starting bawling uncontrollably, rocking himself on the floor as he held his head firmly, as though he was preventing what was left of his sanity to escape his mind.
"I am so very sorry, sweet Korekiyo... Was that too much for you to handle?" she comforted him with a hug. She was acting as angelically as if nothing had happened.
No response. But then again, he couldn't respond, even if he wanted to. The floodgates in his eyes were open, and he was rendered unable to speak until there were no tears left to cry.
"I... I suspected this was too much for you. I am sorry, but I was desperate... I needed to perform this ritual..." she gently whispered as she caressed his shoulders with her bloody hands. The smell of blood nauseated him.
"Ooh... I have an idea... I know just what to do in order to make up to you!" she spoke seductively as her amber eyes gleamed. "After all that pain, you deserve pleasure..." she licked his ear.
Two soft hands slowly travelled down his torso to his pants. They slid beneath the underwear and felt their way to the soft destination. Korekiyo was still thirteen years old, puberty had just started, but she already knew the organ she was smoothly caressing would grow quite big. She'd know, she was experienced in that sort of thing after all.
When her bloody hands came into contact with his masculine structure, his only reaction was wide open his eyes. In just barely two hours, he felt more emotions than a human being is able to feel throughout their entire life. His emotions were extinguished as a coping mechanism. He felt nothing.
The thought of using her dear little brother to satiate her filthy needs whenever she pleased aroused her to no end.
"God, I want to fuck the shit out of this boy!... But I probably should keep this tame for now… He is still scarred…" she thought in her perverted mind.
While he laid there, completely lethargic, she gently caressed his developing male member. After a while, his body felt involuntarily stimulated… It was a weird feeling in his stomach, similar to the one he had when he saw beautiful women… And then, he felt himself get harder.
"Ooh… that's the stuff… You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she giggled provocatively.
Finally, he reacted: by saying no with his head.
"Hmph… You will one day. I assure that when you become tall and hung, you will long for nothing but my warmth."
Soon after, he climaxed. However, it was not pleasurable or meaningful at all for him; his peak resulted purely out of external stimulation and involuntary bodily reactions.
"Hmmmmm… You taste like Heaven, my sweet, sweet Korekiyo." she moaned as she licked the mix of red and white fluid on her fingers.
Author's Notes:
God, this took a loooong time XD though this time I have to admit that the huge delay was mainly due to laziness… This got a lot longer than I thought too, so I split this chapter in two. Okay, so nobody died now, but don't worry, the Killing continues next ;) I can't just kill off characters like that out of the blue, I have to give them some meaning.
Anyway, I was surprisingly invested in writing the poem of the ritual, which is weird, because I thought it would be my least favorite part to write, but I had a lot of fun. Plus, unlike the rest, I thought it up and wrote it very quickly, and it was all improvised (despite the fact that I wrote it VERY past midnight XD). I had a general idea of what the spiritual entity that Korekiyo's sister wanted to summon revolved around, then in the middle, I literally googled a civil war in Japan, came across the Boshin war, and finished it right away. I even went as far as to make sure that each verse had 6 metric syllables (well, most of them XD because again, I'm lazy).
With that out of the way, I'd appreciate if you told me what you thought of this chapters… or else Tenko will dropkick you! :( Nah, just kidding, I won't let her do that ;)