Countdown to ReBirth : Ketsubo

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Limbo

A land filled endlessly with nothing.

No plants.

No animals.

No hopes.

No dreams.

A place where people starved for a chance of meaning leave all behind to find new meaning within the crisped wilderness. Its surface burns a deep crimson under the cloudless sky to showcase the blood of those who failed to find that meaning through Trials.

Trials that meant nothing in the eyes of Guisei.

His eyes watched what little he could see from the glass windows obscured by the moist air hot steam that shot into the sky like an uncaring blade to mutilate the flesh of anyone that came in contact with it.

This was the entrance to Hell that so many told him about.

An unimpressive purgatory.

A place that exists at the world's end.

The place students go to die.

But a place where he would all but thrive.

The howl of steam within the airship brought Guisei from his trance-like state of observation. Guisei looked to the other students in the aircraft as they prepared themselves for the unknown that raced towards them faster and faster as time passed. From the clatter of armor to the chime of Reiju, everyone seemed on edge.

A student's eyes shot around the aircraft like razors, marking out targets for the slaughter, unsuspecting the young woman next to him did the same with him as a first choice to die.

"Apparently, they just drop us out of here, no warnings or anything."

"No way! Do you see that steam? There is no way they expect us to land from this high up with those going off every second."

"I don't know what's worse, the heat or the thought Shi could trick us to spend the day here over a petty feud with the sins."

Rumors flooded the craft like the chatter of mice within an empty home, yet when the aircraft shuddered while some held fear others chuckled after at the momentary peace brought by it.

Guisei cracked a smile at the thought when he saw the faces of those who chuckled lack the arrogance of the nobility or the fear that he noticed on the face of the rebels he slaughtered that night before all of this.

That night.

A slithering pain burned through Guisei's left arm. The consequence of thinking back to that day.

A bad habit.

Vice.

Like Greed.

The snake's grasp had a hold like no other.

Guisei grit his teeth as he bore the pain of an arm leaving its socket despite his hand reminding him that it was still there. Fireflies swirled around his arm as he let Reiju materialize bandages around his arm as he thought back to a time before.


"Geez, would it really pain you to not dislocate my arm every time we spar, Wrath?"

Guisei remembered the feeling of the scarlet couch that he sat upon so many times as Nabi meticulously healed wounds he recklessly got, whether during missions or training. He looked past the crimson lily marking of her Reiju, locking eyes with Nabi who neglected the time to give a response.

"You approach too indirectly. It makes it easy to exploit. Almost as easy as it is to say my name, Greed."

"Do others as they do to you as Mammon says," Guisei says with a chuckle.

Like the crack of a rifle, a loud pop filled the room as Guisei's pain heightened and ended all at once. Guisei resisted the urge to yell from the pain that shivered through his body as Nabi tilted her head at the boy her cold gaze shifting to confusion at Guisei's reaction to something so simple.

"There isn't any shame in screaming if it hurt, you know."

"That means that I lost the bet if that's the case."

Nabi shook her head before conceding.

"Also.... It's Nabi."


A fleeting wave of peace rushed over Guisei as his eyes opened to the hot reality, he found himself living in as his eyes were taken by an odd sight.

A mask.

One that actually was there.

A flash of aquamarine caught his gaze as Guisei looked towards a tall girl with bright blond hair and a mask to hide her face from all standing next to a young man with bright violet eyes and skin reminiscent of cream. Unlike the students that wore uniforms or armor, the two were clad in simple combat uniforms and armor. The boy with a cloak of amethyst and the girl with one of bright emerald.

The voices Guisei had heard began to fade into the background as he focused on their presence. A presence similar to his and Nabi's that he couldn't fully piece together, but also a sensation similar to that of Zephyr and the boy that kept the crowd from moving.

"Strange..."

Realization.

The craft shook as a voice erupted over the intercom; robotic in its delivery that echoed through the aircraft.

"The craft has arrived in Limbo. Prepare to be released for your trial, be sure that you—"

"So... how exactly will we be getting down there exactly; there shouldn't be any kind of way for the craft to land exactly so..."

A student spoke out from the crowd with a voice that vibrated through the craft, but the intercom was unresponsive; the voice disappeared. Once the threat of another interruption passed, the voice arose again.

"Your task is to survive this pit. We are only authorized to bring you to your location, nothing more, nothing less," said the voice over the intercom.

"Does that mean that we'll be dropped," another student asks.

The aircraft shuddered, causing the student who made an outburst and the rest of his peers to fall off into the deep gray void of the pit. The student screams as he falls and then begins to speak, his voice sounding angry and distressed only to be interrupted by his body plummeting to the scorched earth below.

"Shows them, interrupting my announcement."

Two lingered.

Wind burst through the open floor as the young man with dark violet eyes speaks, his voice sounding warm and inviting like a light breeze on a summer morning.

"Tara, I guess it's time to make an appearance, it'll be fun to spread my teachings," The young man said with his eyes firmly locked on the sight of someone burning through the air, propelling themselves from an airship other than theirs.

An interesting sight indeed.

The girl smirks behind her mask, watching as more and more students fail to land meeting their immediate death, letting a boyish voice came forth.

"You won't have people to teach if we keep wasting time, Akihiko." 

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