Unconscious he could feel that he was, but Sakido was anything but awake. Slowly, a world emerged before him. A horizon opened up, a red dirt ridden pathway opened up and sprawled across mangled hills. The wind blew cold, his skin was chilled to the very bone. He stood scared and shaking at this sight. The sky was a dark overcast, the most dreary image man could imagine is what Sakido was viewing in front of him.
He could see a large figure within the distance as he moved towards as fast as he could, but his steps were only at such a steady pace. The presence around him in this landscape was void of life, it was void of all basic humanities. To say that this was a nightmare would do credit to that very concept, for where he stood, he felt a malign energy that could trample and contain even the most evil dictator, conqueror, or tyrant. A dark grey moon set on the horizon, reflecting the sun's beaming light off it itself, creating the illusion of brightness, only to enhance the horror of the scene. To his left and right lay a flowing river. The sight of the river itself would have been to no effect on the boy's mind, but the horrifying fact of the matter was that the formation contained a crimson red flowing blood through it. The area smelled of iron, of flesh, of damp ground, a smell that made Sakido's stomach turn inverse and completely weaken his sense of surrounding. These putrid rivers flowed up and around the hills, leading all into one center mass, that of which was obscured by an overpowering fog. A heavy fog that seemed to have sentience of it's own. The boy feared to move forward, he feared to take yet another step as he looted what awaited him at his destination, wherever that may be.
The icy chill of this void ate at his soul and sped his heart rate, if he had known any better, he would have conceived this place to be hell. The decaying smell made his eyes water and his will waver, but miraculously he was able to push ahead, as nothing ese laid in his path. He knew that this was shown to him for a reason. Whether it was a machination of higher power or just a dream, it was morbid curiosity that forced Sakido to conquer himself and persevere forward. As he walked forward, he felt sharp rocks under his feet bleeding through his footware. This path had become consumed by these rocks and by now the red dust had become a distant memory. He peered downwards and examined these rocks only to find that they were not of any geological makeup. They were human skeletal remains, fractions of every conceivable bone, femurs, tibia, mandibles, fractured skulls, any bone of the human body was on this ground shattered. He had been holding one of these human artifacts within his grasp and dropped it the moment that this loathing fear caught up with him. His heart and stomach both sank and he wretched onto the ground, his vomit splashing and mixing with the vile human pieces scattered on the ground. He heaved and heaved as this disgust was recoiling and exhuming through his body.
Sakido could barely catch up with his heaving breath and he vomited more and more. The mix of factors weighed upon him and his will was collapsing within itself, he felt his own soul rotting away in this environment. He felt the dust of the bones enter his nostrils, inducing him to vomit and cry without any realization of what was coming out of him. After being able to gather his thoughts for a split moment, he peered at his regurgitation, only to see the most horrifying sight of all. What came from his body was a dark red thick sludge that was made of sliced human tongues. He could very clearly tell what organ his emesis was comprised of. He began to hyperventilate and choke on his own residual blood and acid in his throat as he lost more and more breath. He saw his tears fall into the growing puddle of whole and sliced tongues and made another petrifying discovery, his tears were a shade brighter than blood. He put his hands to his face and felt the warm liquid running down his face. This liquid felt sticky and somehow viscous.
As he pulled his hand back, he glanced at the discharge from his eyes and found running down his hand to be bloody semen.
This mortification sent him into a retching display of vomiting, crying, and screaming. He fell to his knees into the bloody gory pile of organ clippings that lay pooling around his knees. Following these events, he heard a squishing and saturated sound from where his legs lay kneeled on the ground.
What mortal could describe the visual atrocity that laid before him, no horror metaphor, no vocabulary, no word in any language could accurately measure his disgust in this moment. The tongues were crawling around him and moving as if they had the life of the unfortunate wielder still within them. They began to slither their way up his appendages, this disgusting display of gore caused him to panic and attempt to cast them off with sharp strokes and swipes of his hand. No effort of his made any use, as they made their way up his body. He ran forward, in a panic, hoping to find something of use to free him of these leeches that craved his very life. The stuck to him with a passion that felt as if he would peel his own skin away trying to remove them. These disgusting little creatures were steadfast and came in legions.
As Sakido glances upwards, the boy beheld that the fog that was once in front of his pathway, obscuring and making all vision opaque, had cleared and showed a complete illuminated picture. But, one could wonder if what Sakido saw in front of him was better or worse that the previous fog. He had now seen the source of these rivers. They flowed down into a basin that collected the blood from the numerous flowing river sources. In the very middle of this basin, stood a great dark tree, greater and steeper than any tree every viewed by any mortal. To say that it was giant would be a laughable understatement of the most extreme value. For this tree was quite easily miles tall, thousands and thousands of feet. The number of branches was simply unfathomable, the branches spanned from all directions and seemed to pierced the black veiled sky. There were patches of flowing and luminescent blood within the tree, seemingly being pulled by a sort of capillary action.
As if guided by a sort of unconscious thought, Sakido ran forward towards this massively encompassing structure that could not be completely observed even with the full tilt of his head. He raced forward towards this tree, for what reason was not known. He perhaps felt the impulse as this realm had shown this sight to him for a reason. As he approached the basin, he had failed to observe an obstructing tree root that knocked his balance away and cast him into the basin of blood that acted as a mote for the monolithic tree. As he landed within this massive puddle of putrid blood, he felt it's warm embrace as his whole body had sunk within it. Upon surfacing, he pulled with all of his might to swim to the edge. The blood was much warmer than he had anticipated and the metallic smell crept up his nostrils, which was both grotesque and strangely intriguing. He felt his eyes sting with the pain of millions of needles lit on fire piercing into his retinas. With his vision being nothing but a slight blur, he still persevered and swam through the somehow sticky and thick coagulated blood. His panic was far beyond visible as he screams seemed to be the only thing that kept his life together.
Upon dragging himself onto the shore of black dust, crawled upwards to escape the current. He was covered and stained with the repulsive liquid, his white hair has streaks of dark red running down each strand as it ran into his blue eyes which had become inflamed and swollen with this foreign liquid. The whites of his eyes had become bloodshot and infected, the pain was breaking him down as he screamed and screamed and screamed and clawed at his body in a sense of futile aggression. He peered at himself and found that the sentient tongues had all disappeared from him, he had only his torn and ragged clothing left on him, dripping with revolting fluid.
As Sakido looked upwards from his knees, he saw someone. Someone was staring directly at him, hauntingly, strangely menacing, strangely inquisitive. This person was female and wore archaic white robes, not unlike a tunic, yet it covered more of her body. She had sorts of belts sealing her outfit to her body, and on her back was a massive sheathed greatsword. Only the hilt was visible to Sakido, but it seemed to have beautiful ornamentation of a most righteous craftsmanship. Her white hair flowed over her right eye, the same eyes that appeared to be made of a glistening steel. Whoever or whatever she was, he was not of this world or this era, she dressed similar to the warriors Sakido had seen from Kurotsuchi, yet still wondrously different from them still.
Sakido wiped the fluid from his lips and gathered his breath. The sight of this woman strangely calmed him and gave him his voice back. "Who...who are you?" He asked.
The woman responded with an air of sophistication. "How is it that I am to answer? To thou, my nomenclature would mean naught."
"Where am I?" Sakido managed to ask.
"If I told thou thine sight was hell, wouldst thine mind doth not crave more inquisition? Fruit is born in time, knowledge is progressive, as is morality. I will not be far, Sakido, perhaps I shall see you again."
With these words, a flurry of bones formed at the base of his person and flew together, creating a tornado of sorts, it rose and concealed her body more continuously until she was fully obscured. Soon, the twister had ceased to exit and the spectre had disappeared. She had gone before Sakido could even know who ro what he was. Yet again, questions and more questions laid heavily upon his consciousness and rang out inside of his soul.
He walked forward to examine the spot where the spectre has stood, perhaps hoping to find a clue of the nature of her existence. Upon reaching the position, he heard a dripping sound, alone with the unmistakable sound of rising bubbles. He whipped himself around to see something that even hell itself could not have shown him in order to shale him as much as this had. He could clearly see Ichika's head rising from the pit of gurgling blood, her body moved towards the edge and she crawled out of the pit slowly onto the surface. Where the rivers deposited created a shallow area of sloping land, and in between these areas it remained deep, she had crawled from an area such as this. As she emerged from this pit, he could see her wearing minimal clothing, the only thing that she had on was a drenched low cut shirt that was now the same color of the blood that it was residing in. The liquid stuck to the grooves and crevices of her naked body, flowing from the ends of her hair down to her legs. The girl stood facing him with her head tilted downwards, causing the now tinted blonde hair to fall forward and obscure her face.
Sakido's eyes were wide with fear, apprehension, intrigue, and mystery. The only thing that he wished for at this moment was to quickly be removed from this realm of thought and to wake up in the world that he believed was real. He dared not wish to even look in the direction of her, he wanted to see not what this fucked realm had done to his love.
He heard her soft voice speak "Oh Sakido, won't you look at me?"
Upon hearing these words. He lifted his head upwards to see her beautiful face, stained with blood, yet nonetheless gorgeous. Her eyes were different as they were usually however. For now instead of an emerald green, they were a deep amethyst purple. This color mesmerized Sakido and drew his feet closer to her instinctively. Her full red lips smiled with a devilish flare, and her white teeth could be seen through the cracks of her smile. He could vaguely make out sharp canine teeth within her mouth which were not there in the corporeal realm. He did not himself want to move towards her, but his body commanded it. As much as he fought it, he was giving in to the demands of his person, he remained infatuated with the sight of her beauty, no matter how marred it was by the filth it was covered in.
His eyes followed her lips as her mouth opened and said "Sakido...my dear... do you want me?" The words were spoken in a tone that echoed unmistakable seduction.
"Yes, I want you." Sakido said, in an almost trance-like state.
His steps kicked up more and more dust as he walked towards the figure that he was admiring. She let out soft breaths as her hands glided down her body, spreading the blood around herself.
He was now a breath away from her, he could smell her alluring sweet scent, he could feel the heat of her body even from where he stood. Something completely arcane was arousing him, seeing her this way excited a part of him that had gone untapped for his whole life. Something came alive in him, something carnal wanted to feast, to devour. But, in an effort to thwart these sexual desires, he embraced her tightly within his arms. She felt silky and wet, yet soft to the touch. Her hair was still so sleek even considering what it was covered in.
Quickly something began to change within his arms. He felt her soft skin turn rough and hard upon his fingertips. Her hair curled and faded, her flesh disappeared, the body that he was holding seemed to be dissipating. He leaned backwards in order to view her appearance after this occurrence and found something so miserable, so mentally permeating, so mortifying before his. He saw her deceased corpse within his arms, reduced to nothing but a skeleton at this point. He was beholding a withered corpse. He witnessed as insects and pests crawled in and out the various holes in the skull.
He screamed shrill screams of horror as his fortitude was anything but built at this point, in a sudden panic, he allowed for her corpse to fall back into the pond of blood, splashing him as it came into contact with the surface. He backed up and screamed so loud that it caused blood to spew from his mouth and run down his lips and chin. He screamed to the bloody night, he looked to the sky and screamed again.
"WHY ME? WHY HER? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!" After these words he continued to scream incoherent words to the sky.
On his knees he knelt, staring at the blood basin in front of him. He panted, attempting to catch his lost breath. He then heard a noise that made his spine run cold and a chill that could freeze over hell times over.
That same bubbling occurred once again, the same bubbling that had conjured his demon once before. As he watched the ebullient blood, he saw her hand break the surface. Following this came her head, then her body, then the rest of her being as she crawled out of the pool yet again.
She stood above him and looked down upon him as he quivered and shook on his knees. "Do you still want me?" She asked with the same seductive tone.
To this question she received no response. She sighed a soft breath and squinted her eyes slightly. She threw her hair back and leaned down to his level. She gently put her index finger under his chin and lifted his face to eye level with her. "I asked you if you still want me."
He gazed into her mystical purple eyes that reflected thousands of potential thoughts and emotions. Upon smelling her floral and honey sweet scent that emanated from her, being enraptured by her arcane eyes, and seduced by the touch of her irresistibly soft skin, he said "Yes, Ichika, I want you."
Upon hearing him accept her proposal, she stood him to her feet and pressed her chest against him, capturing his hormones further. Her blood stained shiny skin drove him to lunacy and compelled ecstasy. She laid her hands upon his cheeks and gave him a soft kiss. Her lips tasted like the sweetest forbidden candy to him, he now was a prisoner of her will.
She laid her hand onto the back of his head and tilted it towards her breast. He gazed upon the covered desires. "Do you want me, Sakido?" She repeated yet again.
He placed his hand onto her left breast and gave it one long stroke, he then responded with "Yes, I want you, Ichika."
With these words, she pulled back the top that concealed her breasts, yet what laid beneath, was not the sight that he expected to behold, for each of her breasts has morphed into the head a serpent. Beady reptilian eyes stared back at him, forked tongues marked the distance between the two. Ichika caressed his body with both of her hands. His arousal and excitement turned into a stone cold fear and excruciating mortification. What he saw was beyond any words, it rendered his face pale and the whites of his eyes far larger than before.
"What's wrong, Sakido?" She said as she caressed his cheeks with her hands.
He heard the hiss of the serpents as they stared back into his eyes, he pulled back in an effort to save himself from the horror, but he was locked in his arms and were pressed against the terrifying creatures.
The two serpent heads parted ways and moved to their outward directions, causing the skin in the middle of her chest to split apart, causing a fleshy opening. Through this opening, he could see her beating heart. He could see the veiny pulsing organ in full effect. After everything he had seen, this was further fire onto the raging inferno of his soul.
"Take it, Sakido, come on, you want it right?" She asked him as he glared at the organ, unsure of what action to take next.
"Come on, Sakido, just take it, it's right here for you." She told him softly.
Sakido began to reach his arm into the chest cavity, but stopped himself just before the entrance. Before he could pull his hand away, she gently caught his hand and raised it back up.
"Oh Sakido, you've won it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it." As she repeated these words, her teeth closed together more and her voice became more and more demonic with each word. Her voice had altered into a shattered demonic sound as she frantically begged him. "Rip it the fuck out, Sakido!" She said, causing Sakido to give in to his desires and grab the beating heart within her chest.
Upon making contact with the organ...everything faded to black.
Characters Introduced In Chapter 8
Name: Unknown
Association: A figure in Sakido's mind