Post by Red Moon on Oct 3, 2009 14:10:28 GMT -8
It was evening when Daitaro was finally able to sit and relax after the day's affairs. Packs were busy all around, either on patrol or doing other such work as he and the counsel had given them. It was a slow process, but it seemed everything was beginning to take shape. Sitting in the small room he had elected for himself in the Cairn, The Grand-elder sat cross-legged on a futon he'd laid out for meditation. What great events led him to this position? As he assumed the proper pose taught to him by both his mentor and Mercy-Killer, he consulted his memory, attempting to unravel his latest quandary.
Daitaro was born in the Tibetan regions north of the Himalayas to his mother, Abashiri Yoko, a Japanese woman of common status, whom his father, Sang Gorobei had met while on a business trip in Sapporo. He was so taken with her, that he offered her family a large sum of money for her. They instead, upon request, inherited a small division of his company based in Hokkaidō, and geared toward light industry. Soon Abashiri brewery made astounding profits from the exchanged, and Yoko, who was 16, was taken to Gorobei 's private estate in Qinghai Province, Tibet, in East Asia.
Yoko, however was never intended as a child-bearing servant, and so, when a son was born-- who she named, “Great first-born son”-- Gorobei Was displeased. Fearing the knowledge of an illegitimately born son would disgrace his company's name, he allowed Yoko and her son to live in an annexed building of his estate, provided she never reveal him as the father of her child. In the eight years following, Yoko raised her son, Daitaro in the customs of her own country, and instilled in him, the morals and codes of her own family.
In the harsh Tibetan winter in 1993, Yoko fell victim to a strange sickness of unknown origins. Some symptoms of this sickness were relatively mild, while others were harsh, painful, and often supernatural in nature. To her son, Yoko died of a common cold. (He would never know that her mother, stricken with homesickness and a resentment toward his father for hiding his shame and sealing hers, had succumbed to a vengeful bane, and had transformed into a demon, attacking her shameful lover.) As fate took from him his mother, so had it also brought him another curse.
Shortly after the passing of his mother, Daitaro learned of the history of his family which Yoko had kept hidden from him. His mother, and her family were Kin to a tribe called Masters of Shadows, which he later found actually meant “Shadow Lords” in English. He also learned that the fearful Gorobei was his father, and a member of another tribe, called Philosophers of the Sky, or “Stargazers” and that he had a newborn sister, who Gorobei and his wife had named Sangmu.
It was his mother's last request to Gorobei, seeing what she had become in the end, that Daitaro be sent to learn what she had kept from him all his life before she died, blissfully, upon his Adam Hsu Quandao, a Chinese Pole-arm. Yoko was a member of a family of kinfolk in Japan who had not born a Garou for several generations. She also was not kin to the Hakken, who were the native Garou not directly associated with the “nation.” Her family was supposedly removed from kinship with the Shadowlords because of how little actual Garou they spawned, but this had been kept as a family secret ever since. And so, to assess the young cub, the tribe hired a local Hakken, who afterward decided to train Daitaro along-side his own son, named Taka.
Takashi Taka was a year younger than Daitaro, but had been raised those years being trained with full knowledge of what he was. Though it was Hirotoro who trained him, it was Taka who taught Daitaro, who naturally struggled with his training otherwise. Soon they knew each other as brothers, though Daitaro always considered Taka a mentor. He called him “Aniki” Which in his mother's tongue meant “respected older brother” even though Daitaro was a year younger in terms of actual age, and together they came of age, and remained close, even after Taka experienced his first shift before him. Until he was fifteen, Taka continued to teach him what Hirotoro insisted he was not yet able to learn until his first shift.
Stirring in his seat, Daitaro suddenly felt the urge to tense every muscle in his body, as he began to recall the scene which had forever changed his life. Keeping still and calm, his body released its tension and the rage faded into a slight discomfort as he closed his eyes, resuming his meditation.
Hirotoro was right to conceal the training from him, which Taka soon learned, and promised to honor. Wracked with feelings of betrayal and of being “left behind” by his brother and mentor, a violent dispute came over them, and hurt, Daitaro ran away from the home he had known unchanged for half his life. At a loss for what to do and where to go, he returned several hours later to the most horrific scene of his life.
His home and others lay in ruin the neighborhood he knew and loved, destroyed in a manner of hours. Hopeless dread came over him as he inspected the wreckage for friends and family. He found dead everywhere. Even the body of his teacher lay limp and lifeless among the thatched roof of his fallen home. While searching, he never found his brother and friend until he heard the signs of fighting from the rice paddy beyond the courtyard. There, fighting six monsters he had only read about in his studies until now, stood Taka, who he had left just earlier that day. The War form of his Aniki was hard to recognize from the glimpses he'd chanced since his first change, but For Daitaro, there was no doubt that his best friend was fighting the fetid, mutilated former humans, known as “Bakemono.”
Though, he fought with all his training, Taka was outnumbered, and eventually fell, allowing the remaining four Fomori to escape. Daitaro watched in horror, as his brother's face sunk into the mud, his body writhing in agony. Before checking to see if it was safe to approach, Daitaro ran to his body, pulling his face from the mud and holding him upright. Taka had returned to being human, and with bulging eyes, and gasping breaths coughed up what remaining life remained in him. Struggling to hear his garbled dialect, Daitaro made out the last words of his beloved Aniki: “Bakemono... kill... Onichan I... kill...”
A fire surged through Daitaro's veins, burning white-hot with rage and grief, Tears welled up and stung his cheek like an onsen, and a great pain struck his back and limbs while his face grew numb. His senses contorted, and he was only partially aware that slowly, painfully, his rage was transforming him. Taka's lifeless body, too light to hold onto, fell between two massive arms, covered in off-white fur singed with red, and matted with gore and mud. The one thing he took, before completely succumbing to his smoldering hatred, was the Daisho, the sword and wakizashi clutched to Taka's breast. For what seemed like an eternity bathed in fire after that, he was only aware of three things. That he had caught up with the four Bakemono, That he possessed a strength and speed he never dreamed of, and that his brother was dead, never to return.
Upon waking from his stupor, he became aware of two other things. First, that he had killed all four of his foes, and last, that this did not satisfy his hunger for revenge, and he was now supping on their rancid flesh. This moment of clarity brought on the most utterly sickening bout in his entire memory, and he turned away from the corpse and wretched, horribly. He continued to exhale until all but the taste of bile and his bitter sorrow remained.
Daitaro lay sprawled out in the crops of mud with his arms folded outward at odd angles beneath the mud and stared with half-lidded eyes into nothing. The water lapped at his flesh with tongues of ice, yet the earth was strangely warm. A deadly lull separated each beat of his heart and the throb of his muscles, which he barely noticed were bare and slender, began to slow and became a tingle of fatigue. The light faded from his vision and his heart made little more sound than a faint flutter, as he became no more capable of coherent thought than the rice paddy in which he lay, bare as Gaia had borne him, and soon drifted off into blissful unconsciousness.
Daitaro was brought back into the present with a start as his phone rang. Standing, he picked up the phone from a side table across the room, and furrowed his brow as he saw the number.
"Jack..."
Flipping the phone open, he smothed out the edge in his voice. "Yes, Jack. What is it?"
"Woah! What's with the attitude man? Haruko just asked me to call ya. She needs you to try on your new dress, so she can finish it. You're too short for me to model for ya."
Suppressing a groan that Jack had so easily seen through his subterfuge, he replied with relent. "I will come, but you know I can only make a short visit. I'll be returning before sunrise tomorrow."
"Yeah, good. Great. Hey, bring me my notepad on my workbench while you're at it. I forgot it. Seeya in a bit. --Oh, hey! Lemme take care of that. My--"
The phone cut off, as Daitaro folded it shut again. His body, rigid with frustration at Jack's nonchalance suddenly softened, and his shoulders shook with a slight chuckle. Somehow, Jack knew just how to pierce his emotional barricades. "Just as well," he thought, grabbing his coat and shoes. "I was beginning to get hungry."
To be continued~
Daitaro was born in the Tibetan regions north of the Himalayas to his mother, Abashiri Yoko, a Japanese woman of common status, whom his father, Sang Gorobei had met while on a business trip in Sapporo. He was so taken with her, that he offered her family a large sum of money for her. They instead, upon request, inherited a small division of his company based in Hokkaidō, and geared toward light industry. Soon Abashiri brewery made astounding profits from the exchanged, and Yoko, who was 16, was taken to Gorobei 's private estate in Qinghai Province, Tibet, in East Asia.
Yoko, however was never intended as a child-bearing servant, and so, when a son was born-- who she named, “Great first-born son”-- Gorobei Was displeased. Fearing the knowledge of an illegitimately born son would disgrace his company's name, he allowed Yoko and her son to live in an annexed building of his estate, provided she never reveal him as the father of her child. In the eight years following, Yoko raised her son, Daitaro in the customs of her own country, and instilled in him, the morals and codes of her own family.
In the harsh Tibetan winter in 1993, Yoko fell victim to a strange sickness of unknown origins. Some symptoms of this sickness were relatively mild, while others were harsh, painful, and often supernatural in nature. To her son, Yoko died of a common cold. (He would never know that her mother, stricken with homesickness and a resentment toward his father for hiding his shame and sealing hers, had succumbed to a vengeful bane, and had transformed into a demon, attacking her shameful lover.) As fate took from him his mother, so had it also brought him another curse.
Shortly after the passing of his mother, Daitaro learned of the history of his family which Yoko had kept hidden from him. His mother, and her family were Kin to a tribe called Masters of Shadows, which he later found actually meant “Shadow Lords” in English. He also learned that the fearful Gorobei was his father, and a member of another tribe, called Philosophers of the Sky, or “Stargazers” and that he had a newborn sister, who Gorobei and his wife had named Sangmu.
It was his mother's last request to Gorobei, seeing what she had become in the end, that Daitaro be sent to learn what she had kept from him all his life before she died, blissfully, upon his Adam Hsu Quandao, a Chinese Pole-arm. Yoko was a member of a family of kinfolk in Japan who had not born a Garou for several generations. She also was not kin to the Hakken, who were the native Garou not directly associated with the “nation.” Her family was supposedly removed from kinship with the Shadowlords because of how little actual Garou they spawned, but this had been kept as a family secret ever since. And so, to assess the young cub, the tribe hired a local Hakken, who afterward decided to train Daitaro along-side his own son, named Taka.
Takashi Taka was a year younger than Daitaro, but had been raised those years being trained with full knowledge of what he was. Though it was Hirotoro who trained him, it was Taka who taught Daitaro, who naturally struggled with his training otherwise. Soon they knew each other as brothers, though Daitaro always considered Taka a mentor. He called him “Aniki” Which in his mother's tongue meant “respected older brother” even though Daitaro was a year younger in terms of actual age, and together they came of age, and remained close, even after Taka experienced his first shift before him. Until he was fifteen, Taka continued to teach him what Hirotoro insisted he was not yet able to learn until his first shift.
Stirring in his seat, Daitaro suddenly felt the urge to tense every muscle in his body, as he began to recall the scene which had forever changed his life. Keeping still and calm, his body released its tension and the rage faded into a slight discomfort as he closed his eyes, resuming his meditation.
Hirotoro was right to conceal the training from him, which Taka soon learned, and promised to honor. Wracked with feelings of betrayal and of being “left behind” by his brother and mentor, a violent dispute came over them, and hurt, Daitaro ran away from the home he had known unchanged for half his life. At a loss for what to do and where to go, he returned several hours later to the most horrific scene of his life.
His home and others lay in ruin the neighborhood he knew and loved, destroyed in a manner of hours. Hopeless dread came over him as he inspected the wreckage for friends and family. He found dead everywhere. Even the body of his teacher lay limp and lifeless among the thatched roof of his fallen home. While searching, he never found his brother and friend until he heard the signs of fighting from the rice paddy beyond the courtyard. There, fighting six monsters he had only read about in his studies until now, stood Taka, who he had left just earlier that day. The War form of his Aniki was hard to recognize from the glimpses he'd chanced since his first change, but For Daitaro, there was no doubt that his best friend was fighting the fetid, mutilated former humans, known as “Bakemono.”
Though, he fought with all his training, Taka was outnumbered, and eventually fell, allowing the remaining four Fomori to escape. Daitaro watched in horror, as his brother's face sunk into the mud, his body writhing in agony. Before checking to see if it was safe to approach, Daitaro ran to his body, pulling his face from the mud and holding him upright. Taka had returned to being human, and with bulging eyes, and gasping breaths coughed up what remaining life remained in him. Struggling to hear his garbled dialect, Daitaro made out the last words of his beloved Aniki: “Bakemono... kill... Onichan I... kill...”
A fire surged through Daitaro's veins, burning white-hot with rage and grief, Tears welled up and stung his cheek like an onsen, and a great pain struck his back and limbs while his face grew numb. His senses contorted, and he was only partially aware that slowly, painfully, his rage was transforming him. Taka's lifeless body, too light to hold onto, fell between two massive arms, covered in off-white fur singed with red, and matted with gore and mud. The one thing he took, before completely succumbing to his smoldering hatred, was the Daisho, the sword and wakizashi clutched to Taka's breast. For what seemed like an eternity bathed in fire after that, he was only aware of three things. That he had caught up with the four Bakemono, That he possessed a strength and speed he never dreamed of, and that his brother was dead, never to return.
Upon waking from his stupor, he became aware of two other things. First, that he had killed all four of his foes, and last, that this did not satisfy his hunger for revenge, and he was now supping on their rancid flesh. This moment of clarity brought on the most utterly sickening bout in his entire memory, and he turned away from the corpse and wretched, horribly. He continued to exhale until all but the taste of bile and his bitter sorrow remained.
Daitaro lay sprawled out in the crops of mud with his arms folded outward at odd angles beneath the mud and stared with half-lidded eyes into nothing. The water lapped at his flesh with tongues of ice, yet the earth was strangely warm. A deadly lull separated each beat of his heart and the throb of his muscles, which he barely noticed were bare and slender, began to slow and became a tingle of fatigue. The light faded from his vision and his heart made little more sound than a faint flutter, as he became no more capable of coherent thought than the rice paddy in which he lay, bare as Gaia had borne him, and soon drifted off into blissful unconsciousness.
Daitaro was brought back into the present with a start as his phone rang. Standing, he picked up the phone from a side table across the room, and furrowed his brow as he saw the number.
"Jack..."
Flipping the phone open, he smothed out the edge in his voice. "Yes, Jack. What is it?"
"Woah! What's with the attitude man? Haruko just asked me to call ya. She needs you to try on your new dress, so she can finish it. You're too short for me to model for ya."
Suppressing a groan that Jack had so easily seen through his subterfuge, he replied with relent. "I will come, but you know I can only make a short visit. I'll be returning before sunrise tomorrow."
"Yeah, good. Great. Hey, bring me my notepad on my workbench while you're at it. I forgot it. Seeya in a bit. --Oh, hey! Lemme take care of that. My--"
The phone cut off, as Daitaro folded it shut again. His body, rigid with frustration at Jack's nonchalance suddenly softened, and his shoulders shook with a slight chuckle. Somehow, Jack knew just how to pierce his emotional barricades. "Just as well," he thought, grabbing his coat and shoes. "I was beginning to get hungry."
To be continued~
