"In the hive, not all bees serve the queen"
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He opened his dark eyes. In front of him the sea which flooded his soul had conjured up mirages of an underground cavern. The ground was smooth and black while there was a stone round table centered at the ground.
Chained to the walls which surrounded the round stone table were all kids from the Kuronami clan, which had been abducted from their homes. Kai was among them, they all had their clothes stripped from their frail bodies and had blood stains and bandages patched on their bodies.
"Big brother!"
As he continued to sink into the dark sea inside of his soul space, Kai heard the voice of a little girl who called out to him.
"lluvia?"
Struggling to turn his body due to the heavy waters and his long robes making it harder to move, his eyes desperately darted around until he saw a girl no older than ten staring right at him.
Her hair was short, dark and messy and her face was dirty. She wore a long tattered robe which had sleeves that were too big for her arms and resembled Kai's own long robes.
Her skin was pale, and her eyes were dark as she stared at Kai. She rested her chin on her crossed arms while idly kicking her legs up and down.
Kai Scowled, feeling his heart skip at least two beats. He was staring at his little sister who was brutally butchered two years ago during the massacre of the Kuronami clan.
From her idly kicking legs and her cheeks, he could still see the scars and red blood. If it wasn't for the rising black ocean which was devouring him in the moment, it wouldn't be hard to notice the tears which welled up in his eyes.
Before he knew it, he brought his hand up to his neck and choked on the black water which surrounded him. While he also felt his eyes start to burn from the tears that desperately wanted to race down his cheeks.
In a soft and confused voice, the girl spoke. "Big brother… why didn't you come with me, mama, papa and kiran?"
Feeling a sharp ping in his chest, he not only remembered the brutal deaths of his family. But remembered the moment he brought a sharp blade to his neck, but failing to…
***
Kai's chest rose and fell swiftly. He felt his heavy lungs grow hotter as the black ocean in his soul space conjured up more mirages.
"Look big brother… it's kiran". The girl pointed toward the next mirage which displayed a young boy, whose hair cascaded halfway down his face.
He was missing one of his eyes, and was chained down to the circular stone table which was at the center of the underground cavern.
The boy's breathing was quick, sweat raced down his face as he whimpered. A man in a mask slowly approached the young boy, carrying a jar which contained a centipede inside of it.
Witnessing the scene, Kai's breaths came out ragged as he felt his chest growing tighter.
The masked man went on to open the jar. The boy's eyes shook as he watched the centipede move quickly and crawled onto his own face.
The boy began to hyperventilate and scream as the centipede crawled into his empty eye socket. He struggled against the chains that bound his wrists and feet, as he let out piercing screams of agony.
As he witnessed this memory, Kai felt a burning sensation in his heart and clutched his chest.
The young girl who watched with him, continued to kick her legs with an indifferent expression.
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Meanwhile on the outside of his soul space, the phantom within Kai's soul was moving the invisible threats around Kai's limbs.
The sounds of sizzled sparks sounded from Ikari's chest, right where the wrath insignia was etched onto him. It flared a dark red color.
"Bring it on kid"
Ikari's voice made him sound more tepid than usual. Kai in his new monstrous form stood on all fours, his shadows enveloped his fingers and formed claws which dug into the ground.
And after a short few moments, the shadows which oozed out from Kai's long robe had leaked out like black liquid onto Hell's ground. This had also began to cause a ripple effect in the space around Ikari and Kai which caught Ikari's attention.
Kai's shadows ran up the rippling space around both him and kari, and formed a dark dome which encased the both of them. And in an instant, Kai's soul space was manifested.
There was no sound or light. Though Kai himself could see clearly through the shadows since they were his own after all.
In the perception of Kai's eyes, Ikari took a few cautious steps forward.
Looking around the dark spacious hive, he swatted through the air trying to find Kai, but obviously hit nothing.
After he took a moment to recollect himself, Ikari's footsteps faintly echoed as he kept walking. His feet dragged through the ink-like shadows that flooded the ground.
Suddenly, he felt a single drop of black liquid fall from above which then splashed onto his shoulder which immediately made a suppressed sizzled sound as it evaporated due to his body's temperature.
He slowly tilted his head up and saw dozens of black silhouettes in the hive's surrounding pitch black air. Each one of the silhouettes were sitting with their knees brought to their chests, their faces looked almost as if they were sketched, with their dreadful eyes gazing down at Ikari.
"The hell?"
The hive's still silence was interrupted by the sudden sound of crackling bones which came from below Ikari. A long black skeletal hand emerged from beneath Ikari's feet and held him in place.
Tiny black particles from kai's shadows began to form giant black butterfly wings which sprouted from kai's back.
His wings flapped once, and shedded particles toward Ikari which went on to burst into mini explosive spores.
The force of the explosion was enough to make Ikari stagger back. He fell down to one knee, and stared indifferently at Kai as the black smokey butterfly wings on his back continued to flap and hold his position in the air.
Kai began to speak out in a raspy voice as he glared down toward Ikari who looked as a small fly in his sights.
"Spider"
Ikari immediately felt a tingling sensation around his body. Looking down at himself, he noticed small black residual particles from Kai's shadows on his body.
From the residual shadow particles, thin and sticky black threads manifested from all directions around Ikari's body.
Ikari scowled once he felt his muscle fibers being torn apart. Once he felt this unpleasant sensation, it was enough for the wrath insignia on his chest to flare crimson.
His body began to heat up and effortlessly burned away at the hold of Kai's threads.
"Big brother… why are you being so mean?"
From the inside of Kai's own soul, he heard the voice of his younger sister call out to him once more.
He found himself back inside of the risen black waters of his soul space. The tall dark and dead trees had blossomed around his drowned body and held him in place, as he silently looked up at his younger sister who sat on one of the tree's thick branches while she kicked her legs back and fourth and looked down at him with empty eyes.
"When I was killed and woke up alone in the afterlife, it was dark and scary…"
As he heard those words, he felt his skin tighten particularly around his chest area. The little girl continued:
"But I didn't cry because mama, papa, and Kiran were both with me… but you didn't come with us. Why didn't you?"
The innocent question made Kai remember the moment he brought the sharp end of a blade he found on the ground to his neck, and he remembered the feeling of the warm and thick drop of blood race down his body and the fear he felt when he almost went through with his attempt at rejoining his family.
"I… I…"
The girl scowled down at her older brother. But then the black ocean began to show another mirage of when his parents were being tortured by the cult.
His breathing picked up as he saw the ruthless abuse of his two parents, and he felt his chest burn from the black waters filling his lungs.
"Right now, I see a lost soul… drifting out into the vast sea, unsure of its true essence…"
The girl slowly swam down toward kai and looked deeply into his Shaken eyes.
"The soul has been adrift for a long while now in the vast ocean… but now, the ocean has begun to devour him slowly, because the soul would rather hide behind the embrace of fear instead of taking the guiding hands to help it find its way back to shore"
Hearing the girl's words. Kai's mind traveled back to when he heard similar word from Arai just a little over three months ago, when she told him about how he was just a lost soul which drifted into the sea, unsure of his purpose.
His eyes opened up a little more, he was aware that his little sister right here was just a figment of his soul's disrupted memory, but why was it making his little sister repeat the words he once heard from Arai?
It was just as he began to question this, that the risen black ocean had begun to recede. The water had rapidly begun to recede and the image of his younger sister slowly began to fade away.
"W-wait!"
Kai reached his hand out toward his fading younger sister's transparent form. The younger girl looked down at him with a warm smile on her face that didn't meet her eyes.
"I'm sorry big brother… but you can't come with us yet"
Her form rapidly began to go up in air bubbles from the receding ocean, and before he awoke, kai let out one more pleading shout.
"Wait! Please… don't leave me again!"
His voice shook, before his eyes closed. And in the next moment he found himself back in the physical world.
The transformation his body had took on from earlier had begun to revert back to his original form. And in an instant, the pitch black hive around them was gone.
Kai fell unconscious on hell's jagged ground, while Ikari stood there. Disgust and a sense of frustration formed on his disgruntled expression.
"Are you frigging kidding me?!… that was it?!"
He stomped on the ground and punched a nearby boulder, smashing it into pieces.
He then suddenly saw in the distance, a round crimson ball which resembled human flesh. It was held in place in the middle of two extended mounds of black rock.
The crimson ball was pulsating and flared crimson, Ikari slowly regained his composure when he saw his older brother Tengu walk up to him.
The demon who bore the insignia which read 'Pride' on his forehead had looked around and saw the scattered bodies of kai, Jason, the white haired Sachiko, Athena and Asura and sighed. "Worthless lot, all of you I say"
Tengu had walked over to Kai's unconscious body and picked it up. "Collect our father's vessel and Asura, then bring them back to the prison. It's about time for mother's seal in Hell's heart to come undone"
Ikari snarled before he complied and carried the unconscious bodies of Jason and Asura, and flew alongside Tengu toward the pods of Hell's prison.
"Hey tengu. What's with the heart pulsating?"
Tengu glanced over to Ikari, then toward Hell's pulsating heart. His memory traveled back thirty eight years ago, just a little while after the blood war ended.
The pathetic memory of him alongside their brothers and sisters fallen by a mere human, and the embarrassing sight of himself kneeling before the human had made the corners of his lips curl downward.
"Do you remember Aaliyah's father, Kahal?…"
The mention of the man who once effortlessly bested all of them had made Ikari grin. The one time where he could genuinely enjoy a "true battle" was one of his best memories.
"For the past thirty eight years since his daughter's birth, he's been sealed inside the outer plate of hell's heart"
"His mind tormented for thirty eight years straight… though it's clear why he's been bidding his time in hell's heart without uttering even a single word"
He paused for a moment, and continued.
"Once we begin breaking the seal of Hell's heart which binds our mother to its inner core… there will be a split second interval of time of which the entire heart will be cracked open"
"And during that time… he will attempt to free himself in mother's place. And once he does that…"
"A living malediction will be released into hell's grounds"
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Continued in chapter 95: Spirit way…
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