2 Chapter 1: Yami, Origin
Who are you to judge those who embrace the darkness, when you have lived your whole life in the light? - Anonymous
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Yami sat on the soft carpet beside his twin brother Hikari, in front of their smiling mother Kaguya.
Even though both of them were twins, they could not be described as more different.
Yami had already asked three times about whether he was adopted or not: first to his mother, then his father, and then he finally dropped the topic once his resident healer told him he was being silly and proceeded to describe the details of his birth. Eugh.
Who could blame him when he was constantly compared to Hikari?
Hikari was tall in stature (or at least a few inches taller than Yami), with short close-cropped blonde hair that seemed to glitter (yes, GLITTER) in the light of day and clear green eyes that seemed to swirl with power.
Yami, on the other hand, was small and frail in stature. He had short dark hair fashioned in a ridiculous bowl cut around his pale languid features and sported two dull onyx eyes, which seemed to lack a soul.
"Yami, Yami, YAMI!"
Yami was shocked out of his brief reverie by the annoying chirping of his twin, he let a scowl mar his facial features as he glared at his irritating twin, inwardly gushing over the cuteness of his twin despite the fact that, 1.) he was 5 and 2.) they were both the same age.
"What ability do you think you'll get from your apple of Eden?"
Yami let out a sigh at his brother's question, they were a bloodline clan so what ELSE would they get save for their bloodlines inherent ability? But he wouldn't hold that against him, Hikari was probably just trying to lighten the mood.
"Probably a gravity ability, what else could I get imbecile?"
The blonde seemed to sweatdrop at the blunt and semi-hostile answer he received and Yami found himself on the receiving end of mothers' patented glare (Yami thought it was more a look of constipation than a glare, but he would voice his thoughts in front of the old hag).
"Yami! You are 5 years old, where do you keep learning these words?"
Yami gulped in fear.
Oops. He had forgotten that normal 5-year-olds were supposed to be naive and stupid with their stupid idealistic views on life and heroism.
Yami however, liked to read and therefore had seen glimpses into the true nature of humanity through historical books detailing certain accounts from the Bloodline Wars which he had stolen from his fathers' library.
To salvage the situation and fix his slip-up, Yami the ever intelligent 5 years old he was, resorted to his fail-safe.
"Let me suck your tits woman, I require sustenance."
Yami smirked at his mother, take that old hag!
Yami had read up in one of his mother's biology books that children enjoyed suckling on their mother's breasts (or 'tits' as his father called them) to obtain sufficient nutrition.
He had assumed that showing his intent on emulating this behavior would reassure his mother of his 'normalcy' and therefore stop her from padlocking his father's bookcase.
Yami looked at his mother in faux innocence, his devious smirk hidden behind pale, chubby hands.
Hikari gaped at him in horror, his tiny brain unable to comprehend the obscenities his brother had let exit his mouth, just what was the little tyke reading?
Suddenly, Yami felt vicious killing intent.
It permeated the air, making it stuffy and hard to breathe as Yami's mother showed the reason why she was the matriarch of the most powerful clan in Ardor, the land of Souls.
Sweat trickled down his spine as he looked at his mother's with narrowed eyes, and if you ever asked Yami if he let out any urinal discharge, he would vehemently deny it and shove three of his fingers into your rectum.
"Yami..."
Yami gulped in fear. Ah. Well, at least he'd be able to experience the violence of human nature first-hand right?
After all, his father had once told him that there was no better teacher than experience.
Turns out that well, sometimes, his father wasn't always right.
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"Say it again."
SMACK!
"I-I am s-sorry o-oh LORD!"
Yami let out a cry of pain as he was bent over his mother's knee, his chubby bottom covered in red welts.
"Say it again. Properly."
His mother's cruel and sadistic voice shook him out of his pain-filled haze as he tried to repeat the words his mother had told him to- properly this time.
"I am sor- AAAAAAAA!"
This time, she had managed to somehow completely miss his bright red cheeks and stick all five of her fingers into his poor, poor rectum.
"AGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"
His cry of pain resonated throughout the house as his mother violently and suddenly removed all five fingers in seeming disgusted at having accidentally violated her 5-year-old son's purity. If she had felt any remorse, however, she certainly didn't show it as she simply wiped her fingers on her pant leg and continued her assault on his ass.
"This-"
SMACK!
"is what you get-"
SMACK!
"for stealing-"
SMACK!
"forbidden books!"
Tears leaked from Yami's eyes as he repeatedly cursed the damn hag in his head, as he felt the pain suddenly turn into pleasure.
His eyes widened in horror at that thought.
Oh no. No. No. NO.
He had read about people like this in certain questionable books that his father thought he had hidden cleverly under his pillow and laughed at the 'dumb perverts' presented in the book.
Humans simply couldn't feel pleasure from pain-
"MMMMMMMMMMMM!"
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Yami fumed in bed that night, stupid old hag!
Was it his fault that he didn't know that it was only babies who sucked on tits (or breasts as his mother corrected him, insisting that he use proper terminology)?
Children were children!
Yami sighed in defeat, he would get over it.
He was currently sitting on his comfortable bed, rifling through a thick leatherbound book titled 'The essentials of energy manipulation'.
Once he consumed one of the apples of Eden, he would gain access to the mystical universal energy found in all things which were required to use his bloodlines powerful techniques; Dharma.
He read aloud the introductory paragraph of the book again.
"Dharma is the combination of both Karma, the spiritual and Energy, the physical. The apple of Eden can properly assimilate these two properties into a singular vessel, those who consume the apple of Eden are therefore exposed to Dharma. Once the Dharma from the apple has assimilated into your cells, it awakens the pathways necessary in the body to wield it, dubbed Dharma canals."
He paused for a moment, thinking that describing something that carried the essence of life as a 'canal' as quite unfitting, before shrugging his shoulders and carrying on.
"Everyone has different canals with different properties, these show heavy similarities and lead to people with similar genetic makeup's only being able to wield the same or very similar techniques, mutations may happen though which can create a completely new bloodline, similar to the parent bloodline. Mutations, however, are extremely rare and those who do have mutations become extremely sought after as soldiers and are encouraged to split off from their main family and settle down to have a clan of their own, creating a new bloodline clan. The last recorded mutation of a bloodline technique is from the current Haze Titan, Perseus of the Mnemosyne clan."
Yami tried not to laugh at the unnecessarily hard to pronounce the name but ended up failing. His own clan, the Ataegina has produced two titans, but the last one was crowned over a century ago, dead before he was born.
His clan, however, still had one of the strongest bloodline techniques, gravity manipulation.
His father told him stories of their ancestors, people who could move mountains with a wave of their hand, and even one tall tale which described the creation of the moon from one, particularly powerful clan member.
The Ataegina clan wasn't particularly strict though, apart from his mother (he questioned every day as to why his father chose to marry her) they were actually very casual and nonchalant about their approach to raising children.
Children were allowed to take up extensive training from a young age and become a Bloodline Guardian but they were also given the choice to pursue a regular civilian career.
Yami secretly wanted to be a Bloodline Guardian, but he decided on the much less dangerous soldier work- he figured that the more talented Hikari would be better suited to being a Bloodline Guardian.
Being a soul soldier wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, it was essentially a super-powered police force that acted as enforcers within the boundaries of Ardor, the empire of Souls.
Yami stopped to consider how he would look as a Bloodline Guardian, fully decked out in his own custom black armor before brushing away that dangerous thought and continued to read aloud the small but messy script.
"Currently there are 368 bloodlines in existence, these are split into 5 distinct categories. Elemental bloodlines, Mirage bloodlines, Divine bloodlines, Demonic bloodlines, and Forbidden bloodlines. Elemental bloodline users control various elements that make up our reality, one prominent clan being Ataegina, who has the power to manipulate gravity. Most if not all elemental bloodline users make up the population of Ardor, the empire of Souls where this book has been published."
Yami paused for a bit, and let a subtle frown cross his face. He had read the book countless times at this point but every time he saw his family name there it filled him with a strange anxiety, anxiety over the burden Hikari would have to carry as the heir to their clan.
Not that he would ever say to anyone he worried about his primate of a brother.
"Mirage bloodline users can manipulate the mind and cast mind-numbing illusions, they invade the Dharma canals making up the structure of the brain through outside stimulus. Most techniques involve the use of touch and sound, very few though rely on sight to cast an illusion. It is almost impossible to break out of an illusion and there are many factors involved such as the Dharma reserves of the caster, the Dharma reserves of the victim, and the willpower of the victim against the willpower of the caster. Mirage bloodline users are especially dangerous once their illusion takes effect, but they can be easily countered by sealing off certain senses and fighting from a distance. Mirage bloodline users gather at Haze, the kingdom of Illusion."
It was to Yami's understanding that currently, Ardor was at war with Haze. He remembered from the history lesson the other day that this stemmed from the discovery of what is now known as 'The Garden of Eden' thirty years ago. The garden was located on the border between the two nations and contained (if his dad was to be trusted) approximately 40,000 apples of Eden, enough to awaken an army of Bloodline Guardians.
At first, the current two Titans at the time, Theseus of Ardor and Perseus of Haze managed to agree to split the bough in half, this agreement went on for 2 years before Perseus launched a pre-emptive strike to take over the entire area.
This failed and lead to the deaths of both Perseus and Theseus in now what has been dubbed as the legendary 'Battle of the Bough'. Yami thought it was a stupid name, but whenever he told his mother he would get harshly scolded, so he refrained from voicing out his opinions whenever the subject came up.
Thinking about history was making Yami drowsy, he could feel his eyes drooping as he struggled to read the rest of the archaic text. He continued to struggle against his eventual departure to the land of dreams but decided against it, closing the leatherbound book and giving his eyes the sweet release of unconsciousness.
