Story Sheo Writes

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Sanade Nishijima, World: Concordia, Date: 25/7


The wind whipped at the sails. Nishijima’s eyes went from the waters that now rocked the ship back and forth where it previously was but lapping against the wooden construct. From the looks of the sailors around her, these signs did not bode well for the progress of the ship. Nishijima turned away from the stern of the ship, her sword grasped in her left hand as she gave the orders to the soldiers that accompanied her to make sure the cargo stays in the ship. She caught the captain of the ship as he ran past with his own crew, rushing to secure the rigging and furl up the sails.


“This rush. Tell me, what is all this about?”


“A storm, Master Nishijima.” The captain broke free of the lady’s grasp. “A rough one at that.”


Sanade Nishijima could not help but laugh inwardly. So, the Shogun would leave her to deal with pirates after the news of the attacks on the trade route, but left her with no devices to cleave a way through a potentially lethal storms. Truly, her abyssal luck was beginning to show itself once more. It was more than obvious that whatever fortune she had before, it wasn’t with her now – dark clouds loomed overhead, their presence ominous as they flashed white and grey when lightning streaked across them. The thunder competed with the roaring sea as nature decided to play with the ship in its hands. Nishijima gripped the side of the ship, and steeled herself as the first drops of rain began to fall.


“We have to turn back, Master Nishijima!” the captain called over the storm, his voice barely a whisper over the tumult that deafened the ears of those who were not used to war or the chaos of nature.


“None of that talk, captain! We set sail for our destination, come storm or-“


Nishijima was cut off when the first wave came, striking the boat with the force of a hammer tending to a sword in the forge. Nishijima was knocked off her feet and sent crashing into the opposite side of the ship. She could barely hear the scream of one of the soldiers as he was thrown overboard as her ears rang from the confusion that reigned the scene. She picked herself up and dragged the captain beside her to his feet. She grasped his jerkin and shook him. “Get yourself together, man. We will get through this storm. Yamato’s relations depend on it!”


“Are you mad? We’ll be killed! The cargo won’t even survive this trip, much less our damned relationships!” The captain retorted.


As the duo’s voices rose to compete against each other and the storm, they failed to note the shadow that further darkened the deck of the ship. The soldiers and the crew, however, did. They did the most reasonable thing that any would have done on that exact moment: abandoning the ship. The soldiers threw off their armour and weapons, as the crew went first in leaping off the ship. The soldiers followed soon after. It was only then that Nishijima and the captain looked up at the tidal wave that now loomed above the ship, and tilted the boat ever so as it approached its breaking point. Vertigo had just taken hold of them before the wave crashed downwards. Nishijima found herself instantly submerged in liquid darkness. The initial impact of the wave sent the samurai into a daze, unable to move her body from the trauma. The remnants of the ship drifted down beside her, and the last she saw was the chest that stored whatever the Shogun had ordered to be delivered, before black shut off her vision.

 

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Darkness. That was what she saw when her eyes opened. Nishijima sat up on her tatami and rubbed her eyes blearily. It was morning, but the dark still settled on the land of Yamato. Quite possibly the first hours of a new day. The eighth since she left Concordia. The second since her return to Yamato. True, she was home, where her life had begun, where her story started, but something nagged at her. She couldn’t truly forget Concordia; it was a piece of immovable diamond inset upon her memories now, all the people she had met, all the allies she had made, and all the relationships forged through the war that raged the continent. Nishijima threw off her sheets and stood up from her sleeping place. As a captain, or a former one as it stood now, she had been given the opportunity to have a private quarters all to herself. She pulled her haori over her kimono and pushed open the doors to her quarters. The moon lit the ground of the courtyard, an open place with paths branching out leading to the other quarters of the soldiers, and standing right in front was the castle of Shogun Noboru himself, the imposing establishment towering over all of Yamato. Nishijima slipped on her slippers. She paused at the doorway, her left hand clenching and unclenching on empty air, reaching for something absent. She had spent so many days, almost a year, side by side with her sword. Just one night, and already she felt naked without its blade beside her.


Nishijima’s slippers clapped on the stones of the courtyard as she tightened the obi sash around her waist, tightening it to keep her sheathed sword by her side. Out of habit, her left hand clutched onto the scabbard, even if she knew she wasn’t about to be attacked. She was at home, unlike at Concordia, a foreign land where unknown dangers lurked around corners. Even the roofs were no comfort. Nishijima shuddered at the memory of Spite, a shadow of the wolfman named Todd. Now, she walked the path of her fellow kind, but yet…she felt threatened. Why? Why so? The ex-captain paced around the courtyard, the two other soldiers standing on guard by the doorway to the castle trying hard to ignore her mulling.


“Captain?”


Nishijima paused in her pacing. Her eyes lifted from the ground and met the eyes of a taller soldier. Clean shaven, strong jaw, with a noble face that told you that he would not lie to you even at the worst of circumstances, Kyoraku Masafune stood in front of Nishijima, his concerned eyes studying her. Nishijima coughed, cleared her throat and straightened up.


“Masafune.” She addressed him informally, without any honorifics. They had known each other since their childhood, both were the same age and had suffered the same fate as each other of being given to the military at birth. It wasn’t the whole truth however, to say that they grew up together. “I’m no longer your captain.”


“…I understand, Nishijima-san.” Masafune, however, was not one to pass up on being polite. He had always been the gentleman of the barracks, going out of his way to help everyone and humble himself to such a position that everyone else was ‘-san’ to him. “Some monkey took the job.” It seemed he shared the same distaste for the new captain as well.


“Hah. A joke from you. How rare. ‘Twas funny, however.” Nishijima smiled at the quip.


“And a smile from you. You’ve changed, Nishijima-san.”


“….so I have.”

 

[Ineffectivd]

Another Story BecauseIgotboredanditypedthisoutwhileonabsintheandprobablycocainebuti'mnotsurebecausei'mstillrestlessasshitandIthoughttoputthisherebecauseitcoooooolll.


Colonel Liandra’s Logbook -Day 9-


We had a sordid encounter with the monsters that roam this cavern. They were human-like, spoke with our tongue, yet…they were dead. Rags of clothing, rusted armor, sometimes completely bare, these monsters roamed the cavern with reckless abandon. Were they made to defend this place? Who were they in their past lives? Had there been a civilization here? Alcainians who lost their way? And then who was it that placed this curse on them? To make them rise from their eternal slumber so, to come back to a world where their only instinct is to serve this dark master of theirs? Nevertheless, our party, now short of two good men, pushed on deeper into this cavern that most likely led to hell. May Kiltner and Gerne’s souls be given a place in the Dragon’s Roost. There was a certain miasma that got thicker as we progressed. Some of our soldiers began experiencing hallucinations, mostly of their dead loved ones, had they any, and voices of the live speaking to them from the walls. Ilia lost her mind at about two hours in, and had to be escorted out by Astoth. I, however, do not see nor hear anything. Was it because I had no dead loved ones, and that I disdained my family? Perhaps. Bronn and Harkon weren’t suffering from the ailments as well, which said a lot about them. Our numbers thinning slowly as more and more soldiers left the cavern in fear of their minds, it was only down to five of us by the time we found an iron door, its rusted grates no match for Bronn’s muscular build. We came upon an odd contraption, made of pulleys and ropes and some sort of mechanical build comprised of gears. Whoever made this place must have a lot of time on their hands. And a lot of people as well. I shudder now to think about the creatures we felled in the entrance of this cavern. A platform took us further down into the earth on the pull of a lever. The thickening miasma was now almost as damned as a fog, obscuring our path ahead. Leandra and Hunter had to retreat back to the surface once we found out that their ailments had gotten worse. They were trying their best to speak and respond to our cues, but we, I, Bronn and Harkon, could see within their eyes and the way they shiver every few minutes that this place was haunting their every five senses. They were strong, I give them that, but I feared for their safety. On their departure, the remaining three of us continued forth. A band of twenty now reduced to merely three. What an affair it would be if we were attacked now.


My fears did not come true. We braved the passage with no problem, finally coming across a locked iron door. A paper was tacked onto the door, its writing faded and indecipherable. Whatever the paper said, however, was made clear by the words “DO NOT OPEN” scrawled in dried blood upon the wall beside it. A skeleton, still with pieces of flesh upon it and in the dilapidated rags of a sorceror’s habit, lay slumped under the words, it’s skull upon the floor and its jaw open in a cry that seemed to echo the same words that was writ upon the wall. There was nothing to it, then. The Emperor’s orders were absolute. We can’t afford to stop here. Unsheathing our swords, and Bronn bearing his tower shield, Harkon’s boot knocked the door off the hinges, sending it flying a bit away, clanging dully upon the ground. We awaited for an attack, maybe a fearsome beast to come from within.


There was nothing. Harkon figured, with a shrug, that whatever probably guarded this place, died of starvation anyway, seeing the condition of the skeleton outside. I offered a prayer to the Dragons for the poor soul that tried to warn us, before entering the room. Alchemy had kept a light in the dark room, shining onto a pedestal with something red sitting upon it. Was this….was this the philosopher’s stone? With nothing else of interest in the room, we retreated back to the surface, a tedious climb, that was true.


I now sit here, looking upon the red rock that lies upon my desk. I swear upon the heart of Arachmaninon, something squirmed from within the gem. Something…dark. It might have been the miasma finally getting into my system, but I’m not exactly sure. I’ll keep an eye on this ‘stone’, for ‘morrow, we set off back to the capital, a good three days trek from here. Hopefully, the General will be pleased.


-End of Day 9-

 

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Darkness. Then a light. No, a silhouette. Nishijima blinked, and took a wary step back. There was no point in doing so. The figure slowly neared her, even as she tried to step away, away from the truth that hovered in front of her. The white silhouette stopped right in front of her, its back turned to her. The same height as her, the same build as her. Even before it turned around, Nishijima already knew how it would look like, and even then, she couldn’t stop her fear from showing on her facial expression. The silhouette, without turning, raised one hand and pointed a slim figure towards the distance. Nishijima turned to follow the direction of the finger. Try as she might to avoid doing so, her head turned nonetheless, until her eyes fell upon the body that lie in the distance.


“Nishijima. Do you know who that is?” She recognized her own voice, yet it seemed so foreign to her. She knew the answer to the question, yet it was so hard to cough it out. It seemed as if gravel was stuck in her throat, the answer refusing to escape her lips. The truth bit at her lips and her voice as she tried so hard to answer, the suffocating silence after the question choked at her. The silhouette’s head turned ever so slightly, then, as if it hadn’t moved at all, the figure’s face and body were facing her in an instant. She was dressed exactly like her, built exactly like her, but her face. Nishijima was wrong about how she looked. The creature that stood in front of her looked NOTHING like the samurai. “Let me…answer that question for you, Nishijima.” The lips did not move. The thin, dried lips did not move as it said that, yet the voice was clear as day. The hollow eyes showed no mirth, and the expression betrayed no emotion.


“N…no. Please. Just…shut up…” Nishijima took another step backwards, but the silhouette drifted ever closer, until its plastic face- no, Nishijima’s own plastic face was but an inch from touching hers.


“That. Is the man you loved. Once loved.”


“Sh-shut up. I know. I kn-”


“You were a burden right to the very end.” The silhouette drifted around Nishijima as she, in her panicked state spun around, trying to keep up with the shadow that was her. “Who are you to him anyway? What are you to him? You’re just a lowly soldier. Just a normal lady who doesn’t have anything to her name. No land, no money, nothing. You’re not even normal. You’re nothing.”


“I…”


“Nishijima. Look around you. Men and women that overshadow you in strength and ability. Half-men, men blessed by gods, monsters, even. What are you?”


“I’m Sanade Nishiji-” Nishijima made a brave attempt to counter the menace. She was swiftly shut down.


“You are a WEAKLING, Nishijima.” The shadow roared at her, crushing her feeble attempt at argument. “Look at these people, Nishijima.” The shadow waved its hand behind it. At first, the darkness housed nothing. Specks of white began to rise from the invisible ground and twisted into small whirlwinds, blown by an invisible wind. Slowly, the white dust began to contort and form features, features that she began to recognize. “Do you see, Nishijima? These people are all gifted, chosen by the gods to do their bidding. They are with your oh-so-beloved. And this!” The shadow threw its hand forth and the whirlwinds of white began to reform themselves into different features. Nishijima did not fail to recognize them either. “There is his friend, the giant brute that can tear you in half. And there is the lady who his heart is also smitten with! And there is the-”


“SHUT UP!” Nishijima’s sword sliced the air, cutting nothing but air. “Shut…shut up…” Nishijima’s hand trembled, then began to shake violently. The sword clattered on the ground as she fell to her knees, collapsing into a picture of grief. “I’m…not…”


“That’s right, Nishijima. You’re nothing. You’re not worth even the grain of sand on the ground.” The shadow materialized in front of her, tapping its chin with one thoughtful finger.


“Gaaaaaahh!” Nishijima gave an anguished cry and clutched at her ears as the tear ducts began leasing their load, the salty rivulets of water running down the side of her cheek. She gave another shriek of pain and sorrow that echoed all around the empty darkness, the world seeming to reverberate with her cries. “I’m NOT WEAK. I’M WORTH SOMETHING. I’M WORTH…something. I’m…worth…” She started off shouting, her voice cracked and loud, before the voice began to die off, becoming softer and softer, until it was but a mumble amongst the sobs that made her huddled physique convulse.


“I’ll…I’ll show you.” Her eyes bloodshot and her voice trembling with both anger and pain, Nishijima slammed a fist onto the ground. A stray tear drop fell and splashed onto the surface. “I’ll show you what I can be capable of. I’m Sanade Nishijima! I will become the curse of wickedness that eradicates this land of darkness. I will be the hellfire that incinerates the evil! I’ll turn it all white, even if it means I’ll be the last black speck on this world!”


The shadow placed a thoughtful finger on its chin and reclined on an invisible hammock. “Now, now, Nishijima. Make sure you don’t make false promises.”


“Raaargh!” Nishijima leapt at the shadow and in an instance, sliced it in half in conjunction with a twisted war cry. “SHUT UP. SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! Anyone who gets in my way WILL DIE! ”

 

[Ineffectivd]

My name is Janice Carter.


I can’t fly. I can’t run at super-speeds. Hell, I don’t even have above average strength. I’m just…pretty smart. That’s all I am. But what is intelligence, I ask you, in the land of Utopia, a world full of superheroes who bend gravity until it snaps and shrug off nine millimetres like mosquito stings? That’s right, the norm here is to have powers that yell ‘physics be damned’. Honestly, I have no idea how I even got into Utopia University, the ‘one and only’, the giant establishment that educates men and women of tomorrow. Namely, the guys and gals with the fancy superpowers. How did Janice Carter end up here? I have no idea, really. Though, it might have been something about me being pretty smart. I somehow snagged the bare minimum to get thrown in here. Mainly because they think I might be some brainiac or some upcoming all-seeing, omnipotent god or something.


I’m not. I actually cheated my way through that test without being seen. Quite the achievement, since the invigilators nowadays are usually hired for their ability to see things from a distance away. I guess that still means I’m pretty smart. Bet you didn’t know why the evening sky is red. I don’t either. I guess that makes us both even, huh? Yeah. Maybe I’m not that smart as I think.


Right now, you might be wondering where Ms. Average is. Well, I’m standing right outside the ‘one and only’ Utopia U. Contemplating my life, ignoring the people that breeze past me, talking about the applications of whatever they have learned in this darn university and really superhero-y stuff. I’m just here, standing around, wondering what an odd life I lead. Any other day, Janice Carter would have trudged up those stairs, one handed tucked in her pocket and the other tugging at the strap of her bag. Today, however, didn’t feel like any other day to me. It felt like a day where I should simply flip everything the bird and run off. And run, I did. Hoisted my bag, turned around and ran. I simply ran, passing through the gaps between people, ducking under the interlinked arms of couples and, out of spite, shoving them completely out of my way. The bell of the school tolled behind me, and the surge of guilt that passed through me for escaping turned into exhilaration. There was nothing that kept me from staying cooped up with the freaks. Though, in this context, it would seem that I am the freak. One of the only normal ones among the gifted. So many are granted these powers that the rare ones were now the ungifted. But I was unchained, I was free of the norms that would otherwise lock me in place. I was below the radar, undetectable, even as I ran through the streets, my feet pounding on the side walk. My destination unclear, my back wet with perspiration and I, filled with adrenaline and breathless joy, I ran. I ran and ran and ran, until the school was but a speck in the distance, and I was breathing hard and panting for my breath. This was what it felt like to be against everything else. Already, I was born a defect to the society. Why not go the whole shot, I wondered. I straighten up, brush my second-hand jeans down and rub the back of my neck, feeling the sweat on my palm as I did.


This is Utopia. The world that is filled to the brim with superheroes and their villainous counterparts.


My name is Janice Carter. One of the normal in this world of special. My time, however, as a criminal in this world of monsters of men, has only just begun.