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Naruto Saga » Kaminari no Kuni » Kaminari no Kuni » Act I: Inferno [Flashback/Training/Private]

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Bokuden

Bokuden


D-rank
Act I: Inferno [Flashback/Training/Private] DyEWZ0r


“I’ve been having these strange dreams lately… I should know better, they are just dreams, but it all seems so real. The biting cold, the harsh winds… the darkness. I can’t help but feel there is something more to this… some deeper meaning. Am I finally just losing it? Some say that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious… a reflection of one’s true self and the heart’s deepest desires. So why do these dreams fill me with such distress? Is this really what I am? These shadows that lurk in the back of my mind and beckon to me at all hours… how long can I run from them? The ghosts of my past… my sins… they seem to be closing the gap that I had once thought I had made and now invade even the sanctity of my dreams. It appears now that it is only a matter of time before they consume me. I can run from the darkness no longer, I must face it. One way or another… this will end…” -Bokuden

~The Straight Way to Salvation~

“Where am I?” Bokuden thought to himself as he sprung back into consciousness, “And why am I running?”

With knowledge of neither where he was or by what circumstance he had arrived there he Bokuden fell back onto one of the few things he did know; he was running, and if that was the case there was more than likely a reason. And so he continued in the full sprint he found himself in, one leg jerking out violently in front of the other as he made his way through the dark woods in which he found himself. The loud crunch of debris and brush beneath his feet sounded with each stride he took, accompanied by a symphony of sounds creeping out from the darkness all around him. The howling wind, the rustling in the shrubbery, and the chirping of the crickets in the night joined in the almost sinister melody of the place he found himself in, but with all of the noise going on around him, there was only one that he could bring himself to focus on.

For whatever reason he was unable to pinpoint the source, but it was there without a doubt; another sound, that of someone… or something else in these woods with him. The sound seemed to come from every direction and no matter how far or fast Bokuden ran the sound never seemed to relent. The way that whatever it was matched his pace led Bokuden to believe that it was not a matter of him simply not being alone in these woods, but rather him being pursued. Despite him having no recollection of what he was doing running through these dark woods at night, the idea of something being in pursuit of him certainly provided a logical explanation for this whole situation. Although… that only created more questions in his mind… specifically what it could possibly be that could force him to run.

It was almost surreal. How many times had Bokuden been in a situation like this, but on the opposite side? He had always been the pursuer, not the pursued. The irony of the whole scenario was delicious, but what occupied Bokuden’s thoughts now was curiosity. There were so many questions that needed to be asked and they were seemingly there to be had in the form of his shadowy pursuer… all he had to do was stop running and face it.



Training: 590

Bokuden

Bokuden


D-rank
He should have turned around. He knew this to be so, and yet Bokuden continued to throw one foot in front of the over, continuing at his almost frantic pace. He was neither fearful of what might await him nor unwilling, but his body refused to obey his commands. That, for Bokuden, was a truly terrifying proposition. More so than any monster or enemy that might lurk in the darkness the thought of being unable to control his own body struck fear into Bokuden’s heart. It was as if some unseen force was prohibiting him from breaking free and doing as he pleased. He could not even so much as turn his neck to peer off to the sides past the reaches of his peripheral vision.

He would not need anything more than his peripherals to see that something, presumably what he assumed to be his pursuer, had begun to close in on him. From the corner of his eyes he could just barely make out what appeared to be a set of glowing blue eyes piercing through the darkness. Immediately alarmed by the arrival of the potential threat Bokuden would once again begin to struggle with his own body as his defensive instincts kicked him, but were ultimately suppressed by whatever was keeping him on track. Now on the edge more than ever Bokuden would become fixated with the faint glow that just barely peeked out from the edge of his peripheral vision. And in his peripheral vision it would remain, ever just out of his gaze.

“Damn it,” he lamented to himself, teeth gritting as he was unable to even speak, “Damn it. Damn it! DAMN IT!” His frustration began to boil over as he ran through the woods, glowing eyes following just out of sight, his rage swelling inside with each passing moment of inability. There was no sense of time in the dark wooded area he found himself running through, there was only the shadows and the never ending pursuit. It would not be until after enough time passed for Bokuden to calm down from the initial distress of having no control of his body that he would take notice of the peculiar situation regarding the environment he found himself in.

Previously having been too distracted by the shock of finding himself in this predicament, Bokuden paid little attention to his surroundings. As a result he failed to heed the sneaking suspicion that something was afoot, even more so than he had originally thought. Resigned to the realization that there was nothing he could do at the moment to change his fate Bokuden would begin examining his surroundings more thoroughly in hopes of something; a familiar sight, a sign, any information that might prove useful at the time. His new plan would at first seem as hopeless as the predicament he found himself in before, continually scanning the almost pitch black woods, each snow blanketed tree looking nearly identical to the one that stood next to it.



Training: 1092

Bokuden

Bokuden


D-rank
It would only take a moment for his eyes to widen in surprise as he took note of a particular rock formation on the ground as he ran. The rock formation was familiar to him… too familiar, and it was because he had passed it before. Not only once however, images of himself passing this exact location countless times during the time he had spent tirelessly running through these woods flashed in his mind as he passed them once more. It was now clear that no matter how hard, or fast, or long he ran he would not be making any progress towards anywhere. He was just running around in circles here. No, not even circles. Not once during his stay here had he ever made a turn or ran any direction, but straight. The path wasn’t leading him around in circles through this forest, he was trapped here.

Now lost in thought about the peculiar situation he found himself a prisoner of, it took Bokuden a moment before he realized that he had stopped running. In fact, he had regained complete control over his body. “Peculiar indeed…” he thought to himself as he flexed his right hand to test its responsiveness, “Like nothing ever happened.” Or at least, that is how it appeared at first before the change set in. Before the calm of regaining control of his body could even fully set in, an alarm in Bokuden’s mind was set off once more as long, blue, vein-like lines begun to appear and subsequently cover Bokuden’s right arm.

The luminous markings seemed to pulse with a faint blue light, almost as if they were alive… like a heartbeat. This heartbeat however, was not his own. The pulsing light was mesmerizing, captivating Bokuden’s attention so completely that for a moment he would forget that what he was witnessing wasn’t normal. For a short while he hesitated to touch the markings. They were causing him no harm and they had not noticeable side effects. The power he felt emanating from the markings also lacked any form of malicious intent, but even so, this power was not his own.

He could not himself say how long he spent entranced by the pale blue light that seemed to call out to him with each pulsing glow. He would say that it felt like a significant amount of time, but in a place like this there was no way to measure time reliably. For all Bokuden knew, his perception of time could have been just as easily distorted as his perception of location, as evidenced by the seemingly inescapable loop he had found himself in before.

Upon prying his eyes away from the markings on his arm and once again turning his attention to the area around him, Bokuden would let out a huff of frustration once more. He had gotten what he wanted, just from appearances alone he had somehow been moved from the endless path he was on before. In its place however, he found himself in a large clearing, seemingly in the same woods as before. Surrounding him were three stumps, evenly spaced apart from each other, with him dead in the center of the clearing. The temperature in this place had dropped significantly from the last area, steam gushing forth each time he exhaled as his breath met the frigid air. “Well,” he began, raising his still glowing arm to catch flakes of falling snow in his hand, watching them slowly melt away in the light, “I wonder what surprises are in store for me here.”



Training: 1694

Bokuden

Bokuden


D-rank
“Close your eyes, Bokuden,” a voice spoke softly through the silence of the snow covered field he found himself in. It was a woman’s voice that called out to him, one that seemed infuriatingly familiar to him although he could not match a face to it. He spun around violently, scanning every tree, stone, and shadow for the source of this strangely soothing voice that rang through his ears. At first he resisted, struggling to keep his eyes open in opposition to the melodic beckoning of the woman’s words, but even his will could only hold out for so long and broke before its call. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he succumbed. The voice that called out to him was neither threatening nor malicious, but rather brought a great comfort to Bokuden. For reasons he could not explain the voice made him feel at peace. It brought him back to a place he had not been in a very long time.

As he closed his eyes he saw the shadowy figure of a woman in the distance, whom he could only assume to be the source of the voice that spoke out to him. A bright light shone out of the darkness behind her, illuminating her silhouette, but making her face indiscernible. It was strange; despite the bitter cold wind that he knew to be blowing against his cheek, the woman’s presence seemed to provide unyielding warmth. The voice whispered his name thrice more before the figure began to fade from his mind’s eye. All the while, the image of a face began to cut through the haze of his memory that prevented him from identifying the voice. Before that could happen however, it had already disappeared, leaving him with nothing but silence, and the freezing cold, and darkness

His eyes would open slowly to find himself back in the snowy clearing, but this time he would open his eyes not to solitude, but to shock. As he gazed out in the clearing before him the identity of the voice he could not previously identify became painfully clear. It was his mother, standing on one of the three stumps that had previously stood empty. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was her. The shock of seeing his mother here, before him left him speechless, scrambling in his mind for any words that could appropriately convey his thoughts at the time. Much to his dismay, he found none.

“Well are you just going to stand there with your mouth open or are you going to greet us?” another voice said slyly from the side as Bokuden struggled to regain his composure. Immediately he turned his head to the direction from which the voice came, this time fully cognizant of whom the voice belonged to. Standing on the second of the three stumps was Bokuden’s little sister Naomi. There she stood, just as he remembered. His eyes darted between the two, still speechless, his mind struggling to comprehend with what his eyes were seeing. How long had it been since he had seen them last? Almost an eternity it felt like. Between Bokuden’s poorly disguised exile and his father’s refusal to allow him to see them since his return, Bokuden’s mother and sister had become mere memories to him.



Training Kokujo Tengen Myo-o: 2000/2000

Training: 266

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