"Explain yourself, Freya" she looked like an ant compared to the woman in front of her. "There's nothing to explain, however, I will say this," she shrunk herself down to Y/n's height, "You, little Rengoku, are now apart of the Minokuchi Hebihara clan"
The lady draped her clothing to just slightly below her collarbone, revealing the snake mark on the right side of her neck to her shoulder, she could see the tail of the snake on Freya's hand. "Minokuchi? You guys died millennials ago"
"See now I'm not that old and I'm offended."
"Can't help it can I?"
The older woman just clicked her tongue in annoyance, continuing "That boy, Vazrith, he's my younger brother. An outcast of the clan, the only one without the acknowledgement from the snake god, Orobashi."
She added another explanation to that, saying "You two 'merged' together apparently, it was only your souls but you had somehow taken in some of his DNA as well, so that's something I'll need to research on"
Taking in what she said was not a problem to Y/n, it's bizarre alright but she's used to this by now. "How about you witness history itself darling?" Freya moved from her spot, revealing what seemed to be a large broken piece of glass.
"It's a piece of memory, Vazrith's memory" Y/n only nodded at her statement, walking in without a second thought.
It felt like something sucked her soul into the memory. She braced herself for the impact that never happened. She hesitantly opened her eyes, just to see herself in a younger boy's body.
In the real world ¯\(°_o)/¯
Reo had his head resting on his hand, watching the peaceful Y/n sleeping, making sure she's still breathing. 'That seal on her chest changed.. does she know about it?' he kept his mind busy, moving a strand of hair away from her face.
"You alright Reo?" Chigiri asked, leaning forward to see the said guy's face. "Yeah, just a bit worried.." he shrugged, he couldn't help but have a bad feeling about all this, about Y/n's future in general.
As if reading his mind, Chigiri reassured him by saying, "I'm sure she'll pull through, she's strong after all" and patted Reo's shoulder. "Yeah" 'That's not what I'm worried about. Comparing her to us of course she's strong but she's currently the second or third weakest among the hashiras.' The boy could only sigh and hope for the best.
Kurona noticed something wrong with Y/n, at the very same time as Nagi, who immediately sat up. "Guys.. she's not breathing" an easy sentence to grab everyone's attention. Reo was the first to react, feeling if her heartbeat was still going.
He sighed when he felt that it is. Although, not long after she opened her eyes, shocking all four of them. "So this is the girl's body, not bad kid" Reo and Kurona were the first to notice the change of aura and 'Her eye color..' both thought.
"Where's Y/n."
"Calm down boy, she's witnessing true history as we speak. I'm just here to tell you to not wake her up whether she's breathing or not"
"But-"
"No buts, if she's pulled out from the dreamscape by force she will die."
They were silenced, and with a sigh Reo agreed to the condition. With that, she closed her eyes and went back to where she originally was. Y/n's unconscious body slumped down, almost falling off the bed when she was caught by Nagi.
He looked to Reo, "So what do we do?" he asked carefully laying Y/n back down on the bed. "Watch. There's nothing we can do other than hope she'll wake up soon" Just then Ego came inside the room with Anri next to him.
"Alright, there's people here. You four will take turns watching over the kid you hear?"
Within the dreamscape (∪.∪ )...zzz
A little boy could be seen walking around what looked like an estate, looking all happy and giggly. He slid open a door with a huge smile, "Good morning mama!" he'd run towards an older woman, tackling her into a hug.
'This is.. Vazrith's younger body? And his mom?' she stared into the woman's eyes through his eyes. "Are you excited my sweet? Today's the day you get the lord, Orobashi's blessings" she smiled so lovingly, but something seems off.
"Yeah!! I can't wait to get my blood demon art" his voice sounding oh so cheerful, looking forward to the blessing he was about to get. Little did he know..
The scenario in front of her changed to when he was kneeling in front of a small shrine in a traditional room. His eyes shined at the unfamiliar sight, his mother was accompanying him, walking side by side.
One thing to note, is that her face isn't one of positive emotions. She was frowning. The woman squat down to Vazrith's level, looked at him and said, "Don't let the outcome change you Vazrith, alright dear?"
Albeit confused, the young boy still agreed, heavily nodding his head as a yes. Minutes passed and the ritual finally started; he was sat in the middle of the room, multiple snakes were released towards him.
Most children would be scared or, terrified of snakes in the beginning of the ritual, but Vazrith held a different expression. His eyes shone curiosity, innocence and pure. The snakes paused in front of him, then one with a peculiar gradient color of magenta and green, slithered onto him.
It slithered to his leg, then his torso, to his shoulder and finally, his eyes. It covered his eyes with his body, moments later the boy plopped down to the floor, little snores escaping his mouth.
The scene displayed was sped up, slowing down when he woke up. The snake was long gone when he awoke, from what Y/n saw during the sped up was something so gruesome one vowed to never bring it up.
There was blood on the floor surrounding his now conscious body, the first thing he noticed wasn't the blood, but the whereabouts of the snakes. His mother had called out to him, "Vazrith, dear, do you have something to show us?"
She stepped closer to him and crouched down, checking everywhere on his body, as if looking for a lost jewelry. 'It's not here..' she thought. A girl not older than 12, noticed the hesitance in the older woman's actions.
Immediately understanding what it meant, she leapt to Vazrith, carrying him in her arms and running out of the estate. The mother sat down hopelessly, 'There was no imprint of a snake or scales' she chuckled to herself, with a maddening look.
Changing the scene again, the little girl escaped the area and wandered into a forest. "F-Freya??"
"You can't go back, Vaz. I know it's sudden but the ritual was a failure" she held him close to her. Just then the surrounding became distorted, so did Freya's voice. Multiple scenes came in play, overlapping one after another.
But she noticed, those scenes displayed seems to be a few years after their escape. Vazrith looks to be 14 and Freya looks about 18.
"--YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND"
"FREYA HELP ME-!!"
"We fo#nd h!m! Get him ba-k"
"-'s an outca--t"
"HE KNOWS WHAT A SHITTY SISTER I AM,"
"He !s to be execut/d!"
"He'll br-ng cala#ity t0 us all"
"If the Kibu###ji cl@n hears about this.."
"FREYA"
"YET HE STILL SMILES AT ME EVERYDAY"
"I DON'T WANNA DIE"
"GIVE MY BROTHER BACK!!"
The ongoing scenes bestowed to her were accompanied by an ear piercing yet distorted scream, which voice sounded like Vazrith's.
The next thing she knew, she was dragged out of the dreamscape by Freya. "That was close! Looks like the memo wasn't stable enough to handle our past!" she cheerfully smiled, resulting with a Y/n looking at her like she's crazy.
"I've got not words for what the hell I just saw." Freya only nodded with a smile, and clapped her hands together. 'She acts like Shinobu..' "Well then, lets see what you got, yeah?" Y/n tilted her head in confusion. "What did I get?"
The older woman pointed to Y/n's chest, where the seal was supposed to be. Obeyed, she took off her bandages. Her eyes widened in shock, "It's the snake from the memo.." Yes, the snake that had crawled onto younger Vazrith.
Freya nodded again, "Beautiful isn't it? Turns out he was blessed by Orobashi, but the blessing was different than what the rest of us had gotten" With a sigh, she turned around, "It's time for you to go back, the longer you stay the more likely your heart will stop"
"Wait I still haven't-"
Opening her eyes again, she sat up to a burning feeling on her chest. Physically and mentally. She was panting like she had ran for hours at top speed. Grabbing what was closest to her, she threw it at the wall, breaking the object. "DAMN IT"
Her yelling and the noise of the object breaking was enough to wake someone up, someone that was previously sleeping peacefully. "N/n?!" he sat up, looking all panic.
She glared at the owner of the voice, then calming down as soon as she saw him. "Oh, sorry Ranze," At the same time she also noticed another figure next to her. "And this is..?" 'I've seen him before.. Kiyora Jin was it?'
"That's Kiyora, he was there during your punishment" the boy hearing his name, groggily opened an eye to see what was going on. "..I've been called?" he mumbled, it was quiet but loud enough for both of them to hear.
Removing his arms from Y/n's arm, he sat up looking at the two in front of him. "Wait, how long was I out for?" the girl looked at Kurona for an answer, looking panicky. "About 1 and a half days?" she let out a relieved sigh at the answer and plopped back down on the bed.
"Oh yeah, you have a match coming up miss Rengoku" said Kiyora, Y/n thanked him for the information, "Y/n is fine, Jin"
"Roger"
Just then, the door opened, they looked to see...
"Finally you're awake Missy, we've got a match tomorrow so get your ass up" someone monde other than the Itoshi Rin himself.
"Not even a hi, hello how are ya? How cruel"
(1752 words)
(Published: 26th of April, 2024)