7 The Cults
The Cults
~~~~
If you felt like the last chapter was 'rushed', it's because it was. I wanted to do that chapter as like an introduction of the Yozakura family and more of a slice-of-life chapter than anything.
(Also I didn't read over it and I'm starting to regret it.)
Another reason as to why this chapter was delayed was because my writing turned… weird? My writing style had completely changed and it was a bit strange to say the least. (This is most likely because I did some tasks that made me tired so I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind)
Some Notes while writing this:
A/N:
Fun Fact of the day: The location of the harbor is actually the same harbor from Chapter 41: Sosuke's License Renewal.
Ngl I think I nailed Rei's personality, what do you guys think?
Also think of the last chapter like an Omake chapter, it was canon, yes. But that was more of a chapter for fun rather than anything really meaningful to the plot.
Ahem, serious note, I'm pretty sure that this entire chapter is in a completely different tone than the other chapters. The others I would say… were mediocre in terms of tone.
Anyways, hope yall like the chapter.
~~~~
Incomprehensible muttering filled the room.
Candle lights flickered, swaying along with the chant.
Blood was flowing in the crevices of the floor, all leading to a stone altar with a young boy strapped onto it.
Blindfolded, gagged and trapped, the young boy cried.
Ignoring the plea of the small child, the muttering grew louder and louder.
At the peak, the robed men and women stood from their bowing and the discoordinated mantra turned into a dreary symphony.
BOOM!
The iron door exploded.
"Why are there so many cults springing up these days?"
The perpetrator asked himself.
All heads turned to the intruder. The ritual shut to an end and the fanatical voices abruptly stopped.
An awkward silence between the cult members and the intruder was created.
As if a switch was flicked on, the cult members each took out a weapon from under their cloaks and rushed at the man.
While they were called 'weapons' most of them were just ritualistic tools used to help complete the ritual.
Swish!
Five of the cult members swung their weapons at the advanced black suit simultaneously.
Taking a step back to avoid the strikes, the child swiftly dispatched the five by hitting their solar plexus.
Writhing in pain, the five members soundlessly twitched on the ground.
"Come on, who's next?" He said provoking the robot-like people.
After saying that all the previous stationary members ran at him.
Slowly but surely, each and every cult member collapsed to the ground.
'It's the same clothes…'
An observation made from the clothing the cult members wore.
Over the past couple of months, One had been getting back into the flow of the Spy world.
(A/N: Previously his code number was 17 but now it's 1. This is because there aren't 25 kids anymore but only 10. The others have changed as well but from the speech patterns and behavior it should be easy to see who is who. Sorry for the confusion.)
Because of his fast development, he had been given more 'freedom' compared to the others but for him it just made it all the more easier to plot against them.
He had been constructing several layers of protection from mental manipulation due to the threat of Trick or Neuro using their expertise against him, it was going well but the longer this facade
His mission was a bit peculiar, it was specializing in finding the ring leader of this rapidly growing cult.
Rather than a singular 'cult' several similar sounding cults across the world had been popping out, seemingly out of the blue.
His mission was to find who did this and for what reason they did so.
'This is the seventh one… this is only in Japan too…'
Several possibilities had been considered but without a proper lead they would end as dead trails.
Hypnosis, a long step plan of mental suggestions, full brain washing, the possibilities were endless.
Not only were there several techniques that could be used, most were widely known and common knowledge amongst spies.
Bang!
One looked behind himself.
One of the cultists had gotten up and tried to sneak attack him.
'Should I just incapacitate them…'
He mused the thought before snapping out of the dangerous way of thinking.
"...I'm getting influenced by them too much…" He said to himself and sighed.
One of the downsides of having such an adaptable body was that the more he interacted with… 'intense' people, the more his mental state and way of thinking shifted to them.
It also didn't help that all nine of the 'leaders' of the facility were all high ego in one way or another. Even the scientists were accomplished people with high standing positions with remarkable research.
This was yet another reason why his focus had shifted to building mental shields and defenses before interacting much with the people of the facility.
If he keeps on talking to them he would eventually mentally explode with the amount of personalities and conflicting emotions boiling and stirring inside of himself.
He first found this change a few days after the 'Final Selection'. Ever since then, living at the facility had been like hell and the mental corruption since then had been exponentially growing. In order to counter this he made an unhealthy balance between interaction and solitude.
It was a tiring cycle at first, but thanks to his beloved Sinclair she made everything seem like a bad dream.
But even spending time with Sinclair was slowly having less of an effect.
It was like planting a seed. Once it was planted, it was only a matter of time before it sprouted.
Taking out his combat knife, One cut the ropes tying the little boy on the altar along with taking off the blindfold and mouth gag.
Disengaging his helmet One asked, "Are you okay?" He tried to ask in the most comforting way possible. Conversing with normal people had been getting harder and harder for him.
The boy didn't say anything and only had a terrified expression.
"...I see…" He said to himself.
The more 'corrupt' he got, the more his miniscule behavioral patterns changed. His eye posture, the way he carries himself, speech patterns, they were all changing.
Putting his helmet back on, One asked one final question.
"Do you know where your parents are?"
He tilted his head, trying to appear more harmless and less intimidating.
Shakily, the boy pointed not at the hole One came from, but towards the cultists.
One looked at the dirty and periodic twitching of the cultists.
Pressing a button on his belt, One took out a thin wire, it was hard and strong enough to act as a temporary hand cuff.
He got this idea of having wires handy after facing Kyoichiro Yozakura. While it didn't have the tensile strength or durability of the Steel Spider, his wire, after countless days of research, could be used in quite a lot of situations.
After tying up the cultists One started unmasking them each one by one.
In total there were exactly thirty cultists in this isolated basement, half being male and the other half being female.
"O-Okaa-san! Otou-San!"
The boy leapt from the altar running to hug his mom and dad.
'I should use him as bait, this is the first time I've seen the cultists start a ritual…'
Not realizing his eyes were slowly starting to move in a spiral movement, One stood and watched the child run at the brain-washed cultists.
"Sniff… Uwaaa!!!"
The child cried whilst holding his mother.
'I want to test something…'
In all the other cults that One had gone to, he was too early and stopped the cult from getting far in their agenda. He helped the people get back to their normal lives but this was by far the most brain-washed ones.
Picking up one of the masks on the floor that used to be white, now with dirty water on it, he chose a random person away from the crying child and put the mask back onto the target.
All of sudden the man started flinching sporadically.
'I knew it…'
Like a zombie, the cultist rose from the ground then kneeled down starting the ritual back from the start.
'Are they programmed to be like that? Their 'connection' or 'code' is lost when I hit them hard enough, does that mean the hats are a type of 'receiver' or some type of signal to start the 'code'?'
One's head buzzed with ideas.
The swirling of his eyes grew deeper and deeper as his thoughts went more in-depth.
'...what if I take their hats off before I forcibly shut down their 'program'?'
Taking the mask off, the man began screaming like a maniac.
"AHHHHHH!!!"
Clawing at his face and moving in uncomfortable positions, the man eventually died with a horrified expression on his face with his hands frozen still clawing at his own face.
'Interesting…' One thought while having his right index finger and thumb holding his chin.
He chuckled at this new discovery.
Just a moment later One frowned.
"Argh!"
Clutching his head, One quickly went into his mental world letting his subconscious take over.
*
*
*
I woke up to a snow filled sky.
The lively forest was no more.
All the animal sounds, the tweets occasionally in the air, even the trees themselves felt stiff.
I got up and patted myself down letting all the snow on my body fall to the ground.
Before, I had no time to study this place but I rapidly came to realize it was a mindscape.
Countless novels had talked about places like this so it wasn't hard to figure out.
This was a bit before I found my 'mental corruption'. But even back then some things were strange, animals were sick and wolves were malnourished, desperate for food. The trees felt like life had drained out of them, some of the green pines were yellow and rarely even brown.
It hid well.
Because it was just another part of me I didn't recognize it as a 'foreign substance' so it used that against me.
Once I came back here after my realization, a majority of the forest was fine. I would say that at the start it was even less than a percent.
But when I willed myself to be near the 'corruption' I saw the amalgamation of personalities and emotions all clumped up like a disease.
At the start it took only one tree.
That was when I started on my 'mental defenses' project.
Thanks to the fact I could see the visible barrier I knew I was making progress.
But now…?
I came face to face with the eldritch creature, now tens of times bigger than when I first saw it. All the animals were consumed by it leaving my side desolate.
Now… more than half of my mental world was gone.
My strategy of interaction and solitude worked in slowing the ever growing corruption.
Sinclair even helped, she helped me a lot…
As I fortified the barrier reciting mantras and thinking of happy memories, I smiled thinking about the times with her.
Positivity helped in getting rid of 'it' but when you kill for a living, it's pretty hard to be positive.
I opened my eyes to see a meter successfully pushed back.
I have done this countless times now but it's just a temporary measure.
Taking a deep breath I quietly said to myself, "This is all I can do for now…"
The fantasy-esque world collapsed like folding paper and the strong pulling force brought me back into my body.
The small moment of darkness flooded back into a HUD full of different modifications and default settings in my helmet.
I looked at the nearly invisible clock in the bottom right corner.
Thirty minutes…
While it was short then other times I couldn't just leave myself helpless like this when an enemy is attacking…
I got out of my thoughts once I saw the petrified body of the man I used as a sacrifice.
I'm sorry, I hope you can rest in peace.
While I was the one who killed him, with his sacrifice I would be able to speed up my progress on finding this person. I suppose it was all for the greater good, I'll atone after I destroy the facility and everyone inside it.
I thought back to my previous life, where I was a daycare teacher.
The little children running around were troublesome but it was simple and fulfilling.
The me now and the me from back then are two completely different people…
After finding out about the so-called 'Mental Corruption' I wondered if rejecting it was even the right choice. After all it was just a side effect of my talented body so technically it was just another part of me.
My body ran on auto pilot as I carried the cultists back to their homes.
Going through the databases of the Japanese government was quite a simple task. Finding this small town along with the residents' identification was done in a flash.
Eventually only one family remained.
The kid had passed out from exhaustion whilst hugging his mother.
Like all the others, I put a mental suggestion on the kid in hopes that this cult would be gone for good.
"[You have forgotten all the events that took place tonight. If you do remember anything you will think of this experience as a bad dream… nothing more.]"
Soon enough everybody was gone and I stretched, this move took quite a lot out of me.
"Phew… I guess this is the final stretch of this part…"
This was one of the only times I could practice without the surveillance of the Nine.
I had already taken off my suit in exchange for more comfortable clothes.
"..."
I breathed heavily and I concentrated on my blood flow.
I went into [Flow]. Growing more into deep focus I called out the name of my move.
"[Obliteration]"
I swiped my two knives into the air.
The old house suddenly had countless fine lines all over.
BOOM!
"Huu…"
"That makes my muscles go quite sore…"
I could pull this move quite a few times but it strained my body quite heavily.
I had two different martial arts I was working on.
The second one was put on hold, but [Obliteration] was part of the first group.
I just simply called it the [Combat Series]. A series of moves solely for the purpose of death and fighting.
[Obliteration] is coming along fine…
I walked back towards my suitcase.
Onto my information broker's location.
*
*
*
"Do you have the information that I want?"
A distorted voice asked.
Smiling, the older gentleman replied, "I'm not usually in this line of work."
"You specialize in information gathering, if that's not in your line of work then I don't know what is."
With his fingers intertwined he looked at the opaque black mask to see any discrepancies in emotion.
"Kurogao, we both have signed for this mission, this is a large-scale mission consisting of quite a few people. If the Spy world collapses you won't have any mission to take anymore."
Kurogao wasn't fazed in the slightest.
"...Here is the folder of everything I could find, I hope that you and your team can handle this… One."
One left the spot and headed to another location.
"Hey! One! Over here!"
Three called out while frantically waving his hands like One would miss his location.
"What's the information, One." Two asked while stirring some tea.
"The actual identity of the person doing this is unknown, but we have some accomplices."
One tossed the papers onto the table.
"F-Five people? Isn't too much…?" Four asked nervously.
Her trembling hands reached for her gun at her waist.
"Four… please… don't…"
Five had already grabbed his spear, backing away from the almost trigger happy girl.
"F-Five… U…Uwaaa!!!"
Everyone except One, Two and Three fought against the uncontrollable gun maniac.
Ting!
"..."
Two put down his tea cup.
He took off his black silk glove that was drenched in oolong tea.
"I'm going to get another cup."
Before he even took another step out of his chair, a bullet whizzed right by his face.
Wrr!
Even after Two left the hazard just became more and more uncontainable.
Tik!
Tik!
Four's crying ceased as she became more shocked about the amount of bullets she had left.
"N-None…?"
Her normal trembling stopped as she became white as a sheet of paper.
Bang!
"Is she down?" Seven peaked his head out.
On the floor with some rubble was Four, ghastly white almost like her soul was sucked from her body.
"Who's taking her to the medical sector?"
"I'll do it."
One got up from his chair leaving his eyes from the papers and headed towards the unconscious Four.
One grabbed Four's hoodie and dragged her across the floor.
Everybody watched in silence as their leader walked past the automatic door leading out.
As One headed towards the medical sector located quite some bit from their usual meeting room, One used one of his most top secrets that not even Sinclair knew about.
Using his limited yet still extensive knowledge of technology, psychology and mental manipulation he created a prototype glove that sent out electrical signals that allowed him to more easily hypnotize his targets.
Every now and then he felt small shocks that stiffened his hand.
He made it as inconspicuous as possible, not only was it the standard gloves that could be replaced at any time, he was around 99% sure that not even the Nine knew what he was up to.
'This damn collar…'
Everything would have been fine if only the collar made all of his movements almost completely restricted didn't exist.
Wrr!
"...One and Four."
One turned his head over to Doctor.
"Hello Doctor, Four passed out again."
Doctor's bone chilling eyes looked at Four.
She twitched like she had been hit with something.
"...I see… She can stay here for now."
'He saw.'
There was a slight moment where his eyes wandered towards the glove that held Four's head.
'I'll have to get rid of this.'
"...I'll see you later Doctor…"
One walked out the medical bay and looked back at the last second only to catch the Doctor staring at him.
Wordlessly, One took a detour and fiddled with a metal lighter behind his back.
He eventually reached a spot where he knew that had no cameras surveilling and as he walked he took off his gloves and burned them.
From his back pockets he took out an already worn out and used gloves that looked almost identical to the ones he wore before and put them on.
He had already done this multiple times, most of the time burning even small paper towels or anything he could burn.
Wrr!
"..."
One deadpanned at the scene of Two (who had joined late) hogging all of the chips with several of the other Termites being bankrupt in their game of poker.
"Oh? One your back, would you like to play some poker?"
He could almost see the kleptomaniac inside of Two waiting for him to join just so he could hog all the chips.
"...Alright."
One entered another battlefield.
*
*
*
"M-Miss Rin!"
Rin walked past all the thugs and headed straight for the papers waiting on the wooden crate just a few paces away from her.
'The Spy Association…'
This was the piece of information she had been waiting for. But something in the pile of papers caught her eye.
'Cults…?'
"Hey, you guys aren't pulling my leg are ya?"
Rin looked behind herself with a menacing grin.
Over these past couple of months, thanks to her strength, she was able to gather quite a lot of thugs after beating them up.
Using their connections she scoured through the surface level of information in the underworld to find something that would help her.
The men and women shivered in fear.
"N-No, of course not miss Rin, the reason we even have this information is because one of us went missing…"
"Ah? One of you guys went missing?"
Rin looked around the small crowd of people looking confused.
She amassed so many people that she didn't even bother trying to remember their faces.
"Ah… Yes, one of us went missing… When we tried to find him we found him and a couple of others inside a small apartment conducting an experiment."
"...That's it?"
"Right after we found him and took him back we looked into it and we found lots of these 'cults' springing around Japan. We even think that the entire world is affected… but there's no way right? Ahahaha…"
The man laughed dryly about the absurdity of his claim.
Rin turned back and picked up the papers.
'...Countless cults all over Japan have been coming out of nowhere. So far we have counted over twenty in Tokyo alone… Hmm… This is interesting.'
Like the meaning of her name she decided to push forward and investigate this interesting phenomenon.
"I've decided! Let's investigate this!"
"W-What? You can't be serious right?"
"Of course I am, trust me and follow me!"
He had a devastating expression. After all, even if she was their so-called 'boss' she was just a tiny kid.
"What? Do you guys want to get beat up again?"
Rin slammed her fist against her palm.
"No… We'll follow you…"
Ignoring the gloomy mood Rin smiled at the outcome.
*
*
*
"How is his mental state?"
Technician had his fingers intertwined with his head resting on them.
"He's getting worse~!"
"It's so fun making his life such a mess~!" Trick exclaimed as if he was high off of euphoria.
"His mental state is degrading. Though I must say as a neuro-science major, you are more evil then both me and Trick combined."
Neuro said with a smile. Afterward he sipped into his coffee mug emptying the thing in a matter of seconds.
"Does anyone here have coffee? I've been up for five days straight and I need more to function. Haha…"
Technician's swirling eyes went into a crescent with joy.
"I'm sure he knows that a camera is in the collar, he's been sneaky but in the end the cat wins the game."
'He truly lives up to his epithet…'
Neuro thought while pouring more coffee from the batch he just made.
"Haha, those 'seeds' you planted were splendid… I can't believe that being talented came with such a cost~"
Trick and Technician were almost on the same wavelength.
They were both chaotic, more bad than good but one underlying difference makes them apart.
Technician was a schemer, one that would get close to you like an old friend just to stab you in your back laughing at your pitiful face when you made a shocked expression at the action that just took place.
Neuro watched as Technician and Trick laughed while they heard and saw everything from the collar.
As One was having issues to keep his sanity repeating phrases to keep any semblance of a healthy mind, Trick and Technician watched like addicts, their eyes glued onto the screen.
"...Well I see you guys are enjoying yourselves, I'll be leaving."
Neuro took both his coffee mug and glass jug and left the room.
He heard the occasional snickers or full blown laughter as the creepy giggles echoed throughout the pitch black hallways.
~~~~
A/N:
A short chapter.
My head is a mess right now but I want to get back into the groove of writing 10k+ chapters a week or even 2 a week.
But my sleep schedule is once again f'ed.
I'm gonna need to think about the plot.
Mmm… well that's about it.
Ah. Right, school sucks. It drains me a little and tests and quizzes and stuff makes me have less time to write, read and think about how the plot is gonna go.
It really sucks.
