ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ || sᴀᴛᴏsᴜɢᴜ

- ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs -

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    He emerged from the murkiness of the depths,
only to be greeted with a sunless upper region.

Careful not to make a sound as the dirty, clouded water sloshed around him. He kept low, his face half submerged as he waded through the water and onto the riverbank.
His sword clutched tightly in his hand, enough for it to tremble, he maneuvered his way up the hillside amongst the cover of the wilderness.

He caught his breath, pressing against the wound at his chest as he looked about for salvageable armor. He'd hoped to find some and switch with a corpse before opposing forces had a chance to find him.

The plains were vacant.
Devoid of anything pertaining to warfare.
Even the countless bodies that should have lined the perimeter were nowhere to be found.

No bodies? How could that be?
Earlier he'd seen the clan lay waste to hundreds of men on his fathers orders.

He closed his eyes, grunting as a piercing pain surged up towards his shoulder. The man clasped the hilt of his sword as blood poured down his arm.
It seemed he'd also been hurt along the lateral above his elbow. He took his bandana, firmly tying it on his arm to control the blood flow.

Then he was off again.

It was strange.
Everything about it.
The sky which held no sun or clouds.
The lack of people, dead or alive.
The taunting silence that could break any moment.
It was strange.

He had cleared the forest in what appeared to be remarkable time given his exhaustion.
But what laid on the other side wasn't a sight he'd wished to be welcomed to.

It made sense now.
He'd relived this day so many times in his memories, that'd they'd manifested themselves into lucid dreams.
He wasn't back those nine years, alongside his brother at the battle of Kanagoke.
This was another one of his nightmares.
One that he'd subjected himself to as the one to ultimately bare the responsibility of this foul outcome.

He'd stumbled back, somehow landing in a body of water that wasn't behind him before.
This bed was even murkier than the last.
Vile and disgusting.

The air around him grew heavier, becoming something like a fog that encapsulated him.
It sent him into a panic.
He knew all to well what would befall his psyche at the diminishing of this haze.

It's coming again.
That horrid scream is coming, wether he covered his ears or not he would hear it plain as day.
The scream a man lets out when a sword goes through their flesh, and the heavy thud that follows, isn't a memory you can rid yourself of.
Especially that of your brother.

Gojo felt his knees buckling. The haze would soon clear and he'd see the lifelessness in his brothers eyes.
That'd keep him awake for another few days.

But it never came.

He dropped his sword in relief, placing his hand on his knee to keep steady. His hand reached into the loch to retrieve it, when suddenly the sound of something moving through the water met his ears.
He froze, albeit involuntary as the sound came closer.
The muscles in his hands and legs tensed without hesitation in need of a fight or flight decision.

But he still found himself unable to move.

After what seemed like a lifetime, through his anxiousness, a creature came into view.
A unusual beast that seemed to have an air about it.
A dignity that was all but confusing to Gojo.
It rose from the water to stand directly in front of him.
Concealing the view of everything behind it, if he stood, Gojo would probably only reach its legs.
The fog seemed to move along with it, and disappear as his eyes trailed over the enormous brute.

The body of a bear.
With the head of an elephant.
Rhinoceros eyes.
An ox's tail.
And tiger legs.

The Baku.

He'd heard of it only by name, a holy beast that devours dreams. Good and bad.
Revered as a guardian angel by humans.
But something about this entity in particular didn't set right with him.
There was absolutely nothing cherubic about it's chimerical appearance.
It was the stuff of nightmares.
Other than that, only evil spirits and yokai feared them. They supposedly meant humans no ill will.

Why did this beast frighten him so?

It didn't move. Never taking its gaze off him. Doing so drew him on edge, strange to say, as if was provoking him into harming it.
It's eyes darted back and forth as if inspecting him before letting out a low, earth shattering growl.
The waters beneath him began to ripple so, that he began to vibrate alongside the resonance.

The fog had gathered, and gotten even more dense and the creature was soon not visible.
His eyes narrowed, his breath seething through his teeth as a person of sweat exuded his forehead.
It sent shivers up his spine.
Primal instincts overtook him. All throughout the war he'd faced his deadliest and most conniving foe, man. Now, a mythical beast was the winning contender in terms of drawing out this fear.
In an instant he went for the sword at his feet.
He grit his teeth, fingers at the very end of the hilt as he reared back to stab it.

Then the world went black.