Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Tyeko woke up screaming.
The light still burned beyond the layers of his closed eyes, and hte pain instantly flooded into his brain in a single surge.
THe pain. He had prepared himself for physical toture, for misery beyond comprehension as he strained towards a new level of phsical ability...he had never expected...to be brutally beaten.
He was still laying on the dampened Earth of the forest, his arms limply carressing the planet stretched out to either side, as his body lay in a twisted contortion of a soul fighting agony. His lips were immmovable, bulging, purpled from blood and lack there of, as his eyes struggled to retain focus. However, only one eye was currently operating, and it shuddered violently against the dim, faded blood red that was slowly consuming the forest.
Blood-red..the sun...it was setting. Darkness was approaching, and he was trapped within the forest, nearly incapable of movement...somehow, the Austrailian woods did not seem a beneficial place to be in such a position. He struggled to rotate his neck; it was stiffened entirely, screaming with the slightest twitch. His arms convulsed in jerking gasps as he focused his attention towards them. His body was broken...his lungs hitched against his broken ribs as he struggled to inhale...there was nothing he could do. The sky began to slowly purple. The sun was truly sinking downwards...he...he was defenseless, confined by the Earth by bonds composed of nothing more than his body's own ineptness. How could he have imagined hte traiing would be anything but this? Irieshu had warned him...it would destroy him. And he had utterly underestimated...
The sky slowly darkened, in unison with his mind.
With night, came a return to the blissful darkness.
* * *
"You're insane Irieshu...not even the Masters were that severe. Not until a few weeks into the training," Stephens whispered, gazing down into the forest from the silent treetops. Irieshu was following the Master's apparently; Unleashing the child into a wilderness where he would be forced to survive on his own, accompanied with the daily rittual destruction that would arise from the Master...but Irieshu was stretching the boundries, was hurtling the untrained child far beond hte reasonable and expected schedule. Irieshu would be lucky if hte boy lived...
"No. We no longer have time for careful crafting," Irieshu stated emotionlessly, "I will not fail, but I will not take a metticulous length. He is strong enough; If he is not, then he was the not the boy who could assist us. It is that simple; He is, or he is Not. I'm going to take him to the Institute tommorow...he'll meet the other children. We will spend 5 hours there every day for the Early Session of training, from 12 Pm until 5 Pm. The first 11 hours of training will be his survival against my own barrages of attacks and traps, and my own special seminars. This will be 12:00 Am to 11:00 AM. I'll use this time as freely as I wish; The boy must never feel content, must never allow his guard to lower. That is his ultimate weakness; his trust of other human beings. After the Institute, I believe I'll use for more technical instead of physical practice...until 10:00 Pm perhaps."
Stephens flicked his eyes towards Irieshu in one violent motion, "Irieshu, we NEVER underwent anything like that. EVER. AND IT'S UNHEARD OF that...that you would start him on a system like that. UNHEARD OF. Do you understand that? I...I can't let you do that. NO ONE could survive that. You're giving the Kid 2 hours sleep. TWO. He'll be dead of disease let alone your brutal slaughtering. NO ONE can survive that, Irieshu, BE REASONABLE!"
Irieshu continued gazing at the small boy, body bloated and throbbing almost visibly in the darkness, and his eyes slowly hardened, "One person did. THis boy needs to be BETTER than them..."
Stephen's gazed very slowly at Irieshu, "My...my god, Irieshu, what did the bastards put you through?"
"They built the perfect machine, Stephens, just as they wished. However...as I said. He need's to be better."
Irieshu, in one motion, dissappeared into the Tree-top level foilage, nimbly conforming to the branches to dissappear into the far distance of the Night before Stephen's could even react. Stephens gazed quietly down at the boy once more, "Sleep well Boy. Where all of us our pistols, my child, I believe Irieshu intends to turn you into missile. But it's more than that, isn't it...Irieshu knows something that he is not informing us of. He expects something horrible...something that perhaps even he could not be prepared for. We can trust in Irieshu to never fail a challenge. If he was truly incapable of something, as if that really ever happens... but if ever was, trust in him to build a machine to handle the job. I just hope he knows what he is doing; the kid is a rare metal...if he's ruined, that's it."
"But boy...kid, I can't wait to see what happens when we decide to pull your trigger."
Stop...go no further...
The girl stared quietly from behind the fence.
It was a normal fence, the type that lined every property border in his father's empire, thin lines of metal interscecting to form a net that none could cross. The little girl stood on one side, her fingers laced through the metal hoops, her face pressed gently against the life-less metal. Sad, her eyes stared towards him, simply watching, with a horrible, hideous...just sadness. Pressed forwards...
He stood slowly. There was something resting in his hands...he did not understand it, but it was there...there within his, Tyeko's fingers, something throbbing, throbbing with power...
His eyes slowly matched the elevation.
A box. Perfectly normal...made of metal, with a few printed letters on the side. White-colored steel, shadowed against the faded sun that rose above them.The little girl's eyes lowered as well, gazing at the box. A quiet understanding through transation, entered Tyeko's mind. THis...this was the end of the universe.
"What...what is it?" He whispered...
From beyond the fence, the little girl's lips, pale and limp, slowly shifted, as the sound seemed to warp from beyond the barrier as if rippling through water, "It is your hate."
Tyeko's eyes shifted slightly, flickering, vibrating with intensity as he gazed downards, the single strands of color bristling in a strange sort of terror. The box changed. A singe, thin line appeared along the very top of it. Very slowly...it began to open, the two halves once constituting top folding to either side...revealing within...within, what every fiber of Tyeko's body feared and demanded...he leaned forwards to view it's contents...holding his face just above the black emptiness of it's insides...
A brillant pillar of light erupted upwards from the darkness. It consumed Tyeko's face without any concern. His head was ripped from his shoulders as if struck by a vehicle, and instantly dissingrated in the atomic tempertures. THe light, as instanteously the brillant light had exploded upw toard shte very heavens, piercing a cloud so as it bent upon it like a beetle to a pin, the light expanded, shredding everything...
The little girl watched quietly, as the light surrounded her. She reached her hand upwards, through the flames of hte explosion, completely unaffecting her. SHe closed her fingers around the blinding white light. Something caught against her hand.
She slowly lowered it before her sad, pitying eyes. A head...the eyes shocked and burned, the lips torched, the flesh dissolving to white bone like paint being washed from a canvas. She slowly gazed at it, her eyes quietly beging to tear.
Her fingers metticulously uncurled, as if clutching for a few seconds longer, until the head was simply snatched from her small hands. It spiraled off into the distance, along with the shards of the fence, with the entire universe around them, even the sky puckering with blisters. She slowly gazed at her hands, the same horrible, horrible understanding within her eyes.
"It is your hate."
"It is your hate..."
"Weakling."
Tyeko felt the blood cataract out over his lips as his body rippled against the blow; Irieshu drove his fist into his stomach, forcing the very organs to compress in on themselves.
The fist even left his support as curled over upon it, his body fusing with the barrage in an attempt to survive. The fist slid away. He fell limply to his knees, eyes bulging, blood spilling out from the depths of his throat, rnning limply down his chin like a stimuless tongue. He collapsed limply forwards onto his chest.
"Do you know how long we've going so far."
THe voice echoed dimmly beyond the throbbing universe that constituted his mind. Slowly, he forced sound up through the gargling of blood that slowly filled his throat.
"Wrong."
The foot rammed into the side of his face, spraying blood across his cheeks, in a long, child-like slash upon the forest floor, and corrosively into his eyes.
"We've been going 10 minutes now, Tyeko. 10 minutes since you arrived, and failed your first test. I took you from behind. Easily; you did not even see me. If I had not used that wire to simply slash your throat...if I had pulled entirely, and shredded your neck open...you'd be dead now. This," The foot, again, looming like another universe beyond the red hazed one filming over his eyes, smashed into his eye-ball, crumpling it inwards, instantly turning the universe into darkness, "Is just going to be our warm up. Eventually, you'll grow use to it. You'll be able to hold me off for a while; avoid me in the Early hours when you wake up. Once you can offer me a challenge...then we will move on."
"Now...seeing as it's only 11:00...you should probably go find yourself something to eat."
The feet slowly crunched away, the shadowed body disappearing...sparing him another universe to focus upon. There was only one now; the pain, the horrible, echoing pain within his skull...
He had done something before hand...he...he had awoken, happy, there had not been this universe, there had been another, of light and excitement...he had ventured into the forest because...because that was what Irieshu had told him to do...find him in the forest...wandered naively...then a sound...something around his throat, biting, digging, no breath...and then the beating. Such a horrible...the pain was undescribable...
This is your training...
A voice whispered, from the other universe, co-existing within his skull. Yes...yes, that meant something...
He and the universe dissolved quietly into oblivion...
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Irieshu watched quietly on the dimmly-lite T.V., his eyes quiet and cold.
The news hummed dimmly, the useless figure of an announcer's lips shifting in terrified garble. The Imperials were shifting ever closer, apparentl. A battle was at this moment taking place; it would be descive, or so Akira had pronounced. It's success was bound for imminence, however. Akira had prepared a legion of men capable of taking the United States strictly for the outer region. Plus...apparently, they had a secret, that Akira denounced the press for ever mentioning. Even if everything should collapse, and they should not take the Hawaiin fortress with sheer numbers...there was always the ultimatum.
Irieshu nodded quietly. Time's betrayl was imminent. In one motion, he switched the mute television off, and instead collaborated with his thoughts.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
You hold the key.
The little girl sat on the edge of the ledge, a small ledge that ran along one of the smaller bridges in the City. The river beneath it trickled quietly as it would for an eternity; it held no purpose, it offered no resistance, no flooding barrage to the traitorist humans who had confined and poisoned it with buildings on either bank. But somehow...somehow, above this water, this faded blue-green swamp, the litte girl seemed disgusting; disturbing even. Wrong; she was too beautiful, too...perfect, as if something constructed by the God's, and placed against hte backround of this dyeing city...
Tyeko stood at the edge of the bridge. THe little girl's body appeared as natural as any other; her legs bounced lightly against the cement edge of the ledge she was resting upon, as she supported herself on her hands, and her lips had formed a slight perk of smile. But...it was her eyes. Within her eyes, Tyeko grasped a horrific pain, a coldness, and misery unlike anything he had ever percieved. It inhaled his own confidence; it inhaled his own personality, his meaning, to see them...
You hold the key.
Her voice echoed duly as if forced to ripple against the oddly empty world that surrounded them; everything beyond the bridge seemed to be plaster, painted against white walls.
What key?
You will turn it, and then you will spend the rest of your life trying to remove it.
What are you talking about?
The little girl rose her eyes slowly, as her lips quietly parted in a smile that seemed to match her eyes in painful elegance.
There is not much more time; I can not suspend myself between these two times for much longer. But you must...
Who are you?
That is unimportant; that will, I guarantee, be answered all in time. But...I must tell you, We require for you to make a choice...you must choose: The People or yourself. Rember that...
The world flickered; as if the entire universe aged infinitely in a single second. THe little girl's eyes grew more urgent, as her body began to sift, dissolving it seemed into singular colors, singular defintions...
YOU MUST CONSIDER CAREFULLY...The little girls voice was forced, struggling for sound as if being strangled, The people or your own...your own pride...you must not allow hate to blind your reason...you must not allow fear to ever hinder your vision...you will have to make a choice...to unleash IT upon yourself or lose your game of pride, please do not be foolish...you must not allow IT to come into existene. YOU MUST choose the PEOPLE over your pride!
You mean...I will have to choose to sacrifice myself? To destroy my father? To save this world? I guarantee you; My life for theirs...I will not fail. No matter what it takes; I will not fail. I do not know who you are, but...take heed, girl, angel. I was indeed in fear...I have feared htis training, this suffering, this misery...but now, Angel of my Gods, if you have appeared to me in a dream...it must be a sign. I will not fail these people, my Lords. No matter what it takes, no matter what weapons must be required, if it should shred my very body into a million shards piece by piece...I will take that sacrifice. For the people.
He had never seen horror such as he did on the little girl's face then.
Her eyes, so sad, filled with a horrible, hopeless...understanding, was all that he could describe it as. A horrific sadness that far exceeded her original, for now, instead of an underlying confusion, there rest only a miserable knowledge, a reason. Her entire face sagged with fear and sudden disgust and...yet again, understanding. He did not understand it...the world yet again flickered, and he struggled to take a step towards the girl...
The little girl rose her eyes one last time, as the outskirts of his world began to chip and fade into the cold white of the subconscious...and spoke very softly.
My god...it's all my fault.
And with that, the dream ceased to exist.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Stephens gazed quietly up at the Night Sky.
THere wree not many more places one could do this.
It seemed to him that one day, far after his own meaningless life had been extinguished, a Government would come to power, one that would be unstoppable, unrestrictable, undeniable. It would consume every location on the planet; no one would survive it's onsluahg,t and all would become slaves to it. But it would require a man (He could not see a woman managing it; women simply did not have the ardent, fanatic tendencies and focus that men did) who held the same fanatical energy as Akira, but maintained a self-displined mind to manipulate this rage and thought process. Yes...and they would even claim the Southern, Jungle Areas of South America, which he was living within now. Yes...one day, if there remained any human beings on the planet.
He gazed at the Box. It was perfectly ordinary; it was not clearly an explosive, although to anyone trained as Stephen had been, it would have swiftly obvious to the perception. But it was not an explosion; not in the true definition. Oh, it would explode; it would shred everything within a 5 mile Radius into oblivion. But this Nuclear eruption was not it's purpose...the nuclear reaction was nothing more than an incubator, a personal Big Bang. It was meant to create...to spring a desired life into existence through fusion and manipulation. It was based upon technology abolished before anyone in the universe could possibly be aware; abolished when the Masters who delineated it's proposals sacrificed their lives. The Technology of creating life. The ability to program an explosion, a fision eruption, precisely. Program how it would form, the exact shape, every molecule precisely, every shred of pressure that would be applied, all perfectly, all in a unique pattern. To create life. The explosion fused and conjoined atoms and molecules, or shred them apart, and was capable of creating life. IT was the ultimate weapon; the possibilites were horrendous. This small, minor box could be hurled into a surge of enemy soldiers on the field, and detonated. THe resulting explosion would utterly moltify every living creature, every soldier...but, the explosion would be programmed such that, when the explosion quieted, within the dust and burning remains would stand one thousand soldiers of your own design, with their own memories already prescribed, with whatever peronalities or attributes you desire. Taking life and creating it; Playing Both of God's roles simulataneously...
But...but it was not to be used for that.
No, it would never be used for that, because it would never be exposed to the public.
There was only one of them remaining; it was sitting on the roof of Stephen's cabin, 3 feet to his left.
All other evidence of their existence had been expunged. There wree no plans; there were no files. Any research that had even led to their creation had been dissolved. ANd finnally, the only minds that grasped it's concept were nothing more than shreds of dust, most likely already swallowed or inhaled by other creatures. But they had left just one.
It was the ultimate weapon.
It could end the war.
Stephen's gazed quietly up at the stars. The box by his side held powers far beyond the faded, twinkling eyes of ht euniverse. IT could not possibly smile down upon thee motives. No...those eyes did not twinkle with joy. The universe had been sobbing for a long while.
The Box was capable of wiping out THE city of Akira. Akira's Empire's capitol city, dissolved just by the explosion this box would create. The power...oh, it would be far beyond the normal capacities. IT would excede 5 miles, 10, perhaps even 15. He estimated a 20 miles radius, shredded, consumed in a blazing flame, and perhaps a few hundred miles beyond soaked with corrosive radiation. But those would be the lucky ones .FOr the Beast that this power was forged for...
Stephens could not destroy the box. The Master's were highly intelligent; they created the soulless, empty soldiers that would be capable of detonating such a device without the concerns of morals or guilt at the sudden ceasing of perhaps 2 billions of children, women, and men. But...they did not place all of their trust in their elite soldiers. No, they were perfectly aware of the betrayl that might surface, and hence, they made it physically impossible for them to disarm this weapon. THe complexity of it's design; No, the Soldiers, or any human being, was incapable of deciphering a path. THere was no explanation; it was simply defined as unstoppable. The only way to eliminate it was to detonate it. So far...Stephen knew that of the "Perfect Soldiers"...only one of them was still capable of this.
"You always were the best," Stephen whispered, as the night's eyes twinkled with misery, burning tears.
ANd now...now the best had deemed the moment upon them. The convergence of the remaining strands...all fuses leading to the device. They would slowly burn towards one another...towards one another...
And somehow, he knew, that only one fuse would ever last long eough to reach the ends. THe others would intertwine Early on, yet fizzle out, soaked with the constant rain of fear from above. One would persevere...and it would be that fuse that they would all depend upon.
He gazed at the box which was Operation Atmosphere.
He would be making a trip to Japan soon...his own fuse woud slowly begin to spark towards the others. Towards they ultimate failure; for the fuse, there was only death. "Irieshu...your life has only ever been a fuse..." He whispered. And yet again gazed towards the box.
Not for the first time in his life, he concurred with the stars.
Tyeko took his mother's death quietly.
It was not something he had not suspected; no, he had assumed his father's inane stupidity and ignorance would derive an answer such as this: Suicide. Already, his deluisional father was instigating reports of murder and scandal in his court system. Besides decimating hte respect of his court and the stablility of his nation...Tyeko began to believe that his father mght possibly be insane enough to believe it.
But all of that would conclude itself, all would be irrelevant by the end of this year.
The Guards who delivered the news snickered slightly as they left. Tyeko did not bother to kill them...he simply buried the Emotions, preparing himself. Irieshu was to begin his training soon, very soon, but in preparation...in preparation Tyeko was to dissolve his emotions, learn to control any pain or impulse, and begin the metal part of his training that would allow him to begin the physical element.
He no longer cared.
His life was purposeless; he saw it only as worthy that he should murder his father, drag down his country. He would die in the resulting chaos; the citizens would never allow him to come to power. And...well, the American's would sweep in during the moment of temerity, and then...not that it would ever be reported to their people, but the "Noble" American's would deal with him quietly and darkly. But...but that would be when he was truly no longer alive; he would be an empty shell, purposeless, after his Father's death.
He no longer felt fear towards the training, only knowledge that it was neccessary, that this emptyiness he sensed within himself, as he supressed all emotion with a thin cloak of fierce concentration...that this was the reason he would murder his father. Because he was already dead.
Tyeko was no more than a wandering ghost struggling to finish it's unconcluded buisness.
Saturday, January 04, 2003
"You're a fool for reinstigating this, and you know that."
"Roberto, we've known this day would come; it was what we were born for."
"Born for? Perhaps you, but the rest of us would prefer to live."
"The rest of us? THe others are all dead...it's now are sacred mission. You think Tetsuo would surrender?"
"No...no, but he would never do this. Not what your proposing; you risk the obliteration of the entire planet."
"I propose the conclusion to the war."
"No matter the costs, now, eh? I remember when you used to care."
"No you don't. Because you never knew a time when I cared."
"There's a thin line between insanity and heroics, I-"
"And I walk it ever day. Eventually, you learn to keep your balance. Nows the time; this is the exact situation that we have been expecting. We even have the key; I'm molding it, and soon, I believe I will be capable of turning."
"You know...I thought you cared about this kid. But your going to go right along and destroy him. I suppose you won't even mention the actual WEAPON to him. The sort of horrible, horrible creature he would be unleashing if this truly does---"
"I do care about the kid."
"What?"
"I do care. He's probably the only thing I do care about, now. I won't let him die; it's for people like him that I was forged."
"Atmosphere was never meant to be carried out; it was theory. We were soldiers supposedly capable of placing it into operation...but the Masters never intended it...we were supposed to win the war without it."
"We can not let either side win this war, Roberto. Atmosphere is the ultimate equalizer; we strike for Akira, then Atmosphere will allow for the decimation of the American fleets. The world returns to it's inital status, and our missions are complete."
"You know what...I don't think you kept your balance. "
"Then we'll have to depend on the boy. He's the only one of us that will be left to...dispose of Operation Atmosphere's...byproduct. "
"And if he fails? I don't think anyone but one of us could stop Atmopshere's chain reaction."
"He won't fail."
"And why's that?"
"Because, Roberto...through his training...I intend to turn him into me. "
"No, you definetly did not keep your balance."
"None of us did, Roberto; that's why we fight."
"No...I'm sorry, my friend. That is why we die."
Click
Friday, January 03, 2003
Tyeko hated his father.
It was not the type of hate one could apply to something like an enemy, for the enemy, as Irieshu would point out, was constantly an opponent, never to be empathized with. No, he hated his father as the child who was forlorn; begotten from violent rapings and repeated attrocity's, and then allowed to live after his birth not as any act of kindness, but so as he could suffer the reprimandation of his father. His father...Akira. Emperor of the ghost empire, eternally impressed with itself, but doomed to failure. Doomed...if one key motivation could be dissolved. The fear. The empire would not survive without the maniac symbol of Akira. That was it's single, thin, achille's heel...if you coud murder the one who forced the country to persist, then it would no longer. None of the Asian, Russian, or even the European provinces were interested in this battle. THe thrill of defiling the arrogant American's had faded with the first volly of Nuclear Missiles. Akira had crowed, his arms wrapped hideously around his broken wife and empty son, as they viewed on the large monitor that Akira had placed in his "Throne Room", the end of American peace .The American's had never expierenced the Nuclear device...oh, they were pleased to obliviate Japan with it, but to actually suffer it? No American conceived of the horrors. THey did now; the American confidence had been shredded. The nations downfall would most likely follow, if historical events held an prophecy. But none of htat mattered; No, now Irieshu claimed it was time to begin his "Training".
"We need at least 4 of us," Irieshu stated, his voice as always monotone, cold, calculated, as they both sat quietly in the darkened room, located in a small shack near the southern tip of Australia, "We will have to be equally skilled in all areas. The actual events we undertake will be limited, you realize. Making a difference here, assasinating an influential figure if neccessary. But our main purpose is to terminate your father," Irieshu's voice hardened further, yet, as he turned his seemingly heartless eyes towards Tyeko, the boy felt them penetrate into his very soul, searching, "You have the strength, unblievable maturity and strength for a boy your age...but your resolve is weak. A soldier can have no qualms with his target, and we must be superior to soldiers. The perfect machines. IF we can achieve that goal, then the actual conclusion of this war may be within our range."
"My Father has stood in my way too long now," Tyeko whispered, though the sound echoed dully in the empty room. ONly a single monitor, of a small labtop on which Irieshu was quietly typing, his fingers moving swiftly along the keys, yet his eyes never leaving Tyeko's.
"Let's just hope you don't suddenly feel sentimental about that when the shot is fired. Because, if you will join us, then it would be most efficent to instigate you as the one who pulls the trigger."
Tyeko's eye's narrowed, as the 9 year olds lips curled darkly, "What do you mean, sentimental," he growled, his dangerously intellectual eyes, impossible for a 9 year old but for the prodigy that he was, spawned by tests and trials of his father, forced to befcome an adult before he should be able to form relevant thought.
Irieshu gazed at him without the slightest flicker of change, total indifference and focus at the same moment, "I mean that sometimes, if people have lived their lives with something, even a blockade, they are reluctant to let it change."
"Don't insult me," Tyeko's voice edged.
Irieshu smiled darkly, "You don't want me as an enemy, Tyeko. You're far to much a child. I'm not sure whether the training would be too much for you."
"When you were trained, you were only 11! I think that the heir to the Empire will be capable of surviving something like that if you could."
"THat's my point," He stated bluntly, "I didn't. It destroyed my mind, my soul, my emotions." He glanced towrds hte Computer, typing lightly, as images flashed like whispers in the darkness, "I'm nothing more than a machine. In truth, this world of war is my life; I was born into it, and forged by my masters to conclude it. My entire purpose is to end this war. You see? I'm already dead. After this war is concluded..." his voice hardened further, a blade forged by his own fortitude, "The only way I know how to live is in war."
Tyeko's eye's softened slightly, as his fingers curled silently into a fist. He gazed towards the shadowed floor of the shack, "You...this world of war is your life. It's not that you can't...it's that you won't. War is your life. You intend to conclude your life with this war. Your going to kill yourself..."
Irieshu continued to face the monitor, but stated quietly, "There's hope for you yet, kid."
Tyeko shook his head, "But...but then, i ntruth, Irieshu, by trying to end this war, that's tied parrellel to your own life...Irieshu, your entire purpose in life is to commit suicide."
"The perfect soldier." He said emotionlessly, "Now, you need to return to Taiwan...don't think those soldiers you keep there are even remotely loyal to you. Any suspcious action will be instantly reported to your father. There just dogs trailing what they hope will be a fox. Why do you think your father appointed them to you? Not to protect you. And not to keep your secrets."
Tyeko's eyes widened in horrified surprise, to which Irieshu, turning from the glow of the monitor, offered his own form of sympathy, a smile accompanied by eyes composed of sadness.
"The training may kill you, Tyeko...but if your not willing to die, then you could never reach the level of perfection the training permits. You see? The two run hand in hand. We four will sacrifice our lives for the conclusion of this war."
Tyeko's lips parted slightly as his throat urged towards a response...but he quieted. Slowly, his face sharpened in intensity of focus, as his eyes darkened. He strided towards the metal shard that constituted a door in their "Hide-away" hut, slid it open quietly, and then replaced it, leaving Irieshu in the darkness.
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