Before I was born, there was a war for the perfect Yang and Yin beings to be born. People of pure Light, Pure Goodness. And the opposite, Pure Evil, Pure malice.
It never works. We always have a dot of goodness or a dot of sin. At least. If not ponds and oceans of either.
My birth was to be one of pure sin, trained by season upon season of pure warrior training. Why? To counter Yang with Yin. It was the way of the universe. Darkness always tries to beat Light, and the light moves forward. While the darkness steals their way ahead. Or blots away the obstacles of other light, so their mediocre talent can take center stage.
In reality, it was just a terrible plan to create the perfect soldier. That could take the world over by 14 years old. They hated me for several reasons. One, too good at being a warrior. It made everyone except proud warriors terrified of me. Two, if they were offended by my skills, they'd try to kill me. By 18, there was a long line of dead people behind me because of this. And three, sometimes I did it on accident.
I was blessed with too much malice. It comes out of my body with every swing. Every being in this universe can eventually learn to channel their natural chi into their attacks. Mine are on at birth. And it can always kill you. To the point it's annoying.
If I even get annoyed, the room begins to be filled with poison. Unless I like you, surprisingly. Then you're immune. Welcome to magic land, my powers are bullshit. I am the Ultimate Poison build already due to how much Yin is seeped into my body due to the sheer debauchery that created me.
Let's rip the band-aid off for how horrible a demon child I am. I was born from rape. My mother was raped into having me. And she abandoned me on the streets afterwards cause she didn't want to raise my crazy father's kid. And that was fine, he wanted that! His scheme for me was to live roughly while vaguely underneath his iron fist.
Cause he rules the criminal underworld in this part of the world. A whole country's worth of crime under his command. It's bullshit, he even has government officials in his pocket.
But I am very powerful due to the horrible Yin birth alone, let alone everything else that happened. Cause I was forced into a dojo to train in brutal martial arts when I was 9. Cause why not? My deadbeat father just ripped me off the streets and literally threw me into his dojo. Then left without explaining anything. I didn't even find out he was my father for a whole year! I thought he was a cop and he hated me cause I was an orphan.
Martial Arts was simple until they introduced Partial Training. Partial Training is when you're improved by force. It's utter bullshit. At that point on, it was mandatory to take a beating once a week to improve the durability of your skin, muscles, and bones. While fighting back. Then I was "nursed" back to health.
Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it was poison! Which I barely lived through half the time. Until it got too easy. Literally, one day the maid freaked out to my Dojo Master.
"I used everything in the shelf and she's still alive! She's better than her father at resisting poison! And her Chi became different again! Her poison is more potent!" Maid rants with fearful rage.
The Dojo Master just banned me. He fought me one last time, and I lost. Barely. Honestly it was only in a physical contest I lost. I was 12 at the time. And he's like, a buff 40 year old. Obviously he destroys me with just a backhand slap followed by a kick to the stomach, and beating me to the ground with his fists.
But then my malefic Chi surges out of me. And he becomes intensely poisoned. As does the whole room. And everyone dies. Within seconds. While I cry at first. Cause now I'm a psychopath like them, I know it's my Chi! I wasn't dumb! I used it on purpose, it just wasn't supposed to fill the room like that.
It had never been that good before. It was due to that crazy Maid treating me like a lab rat with those poisons. My Chi and Blood now holds all those poisons casually inside me. It's a disturbing fact of life now.
At 12, I set out on the world. I was tense, but only about survival really. With how poisonous my Chi was, I literally didn't even have much worries. My worst rivals were those martial artists, and my poisonous Chi even killed my master. So I'm a God of Poison at 12 years old cause of those psychopaths. I'm more worried about killing the planet accidentally at this point than I am about anything else.
I had been wandering for a few days. Just eating berries and mushrooms. I poisoned a bunny to eat it, but couldn't bring myself to strip it of its flesh and eat it as a child. I got sick at the thought of it. So I ate bugs instead.
I almost died on the fifth day of starvation. But life finds a way. Because of Oracles. And Gamblers.
Do you know how they say love can happen at first sight? It's not always true. But when it is, it's weird. Because as I sat against a tree, crying over food. A rich kid in fine white and gold silk approached me. And our energies linked. His Yang, my Yin. And together, we were Oracles for our own relationship.
It was a blur of images for both of us. When it showed him, he was always ordering people around. Deciding how things should be done. Even me. He orders me a lot. Because we get along well at first.
But we are polar opposites. When he looks at me, he sees the Anarchy of my life. It's filled with violence, lust for men like him and others, women too. Drugs, especially a green plant I don't even see happening until the buildings are tall and covered with lights. While still managing to be ugly rectangles. And a lot of laziness.
While for him, he's always working. He invents a Sleep Chamber made of pure Yang energy so he can sleep less because he's so infused with Yang energy. He only needs to sleep a few minutes, and he's wide awake again.
Then for me, I live in a way that's too human and delectable to me. I impulsively chase the world around for knowledge, friendship, and love. All while looking good and beating ass on occasion.
And we both live soooo long. Because of some stupid Mask that loves us both. It's something that's born in this moment, building between our energies finally meeting.
It's obvious as the beautiful family and powerful guards approach us as we still stare at each other. Our energies coalescing together into the Mask that binds us together. And makes the world obsessed with us. Because I already know it from just this meeting.
The Mask gives Immortality to those who wear it in perfect balance. It's a battery between the perfect couple. One must be Perfect Yang, the other Perfect Yin. And together, they can charge the Mask with their Chi. In turn, the Mask if worn long enough, will imbibe enough Energy that the User will live longer.
His name is Edward Abaddon, of the family of light. A family of fallen angels in the world of Christianity.
My name has not been chosen yet. But the Oracle in me spoke up during the vision.
"Your name is Kobra Withers. Cause you're a Kobra that makes people wither to death." Adult me says in the mirror happily.
That image is so strange though. The calender says the year is 2025. The current year I'm alive in is 1027. In China. While that was in English, in America. Which I know doesn't exist yet somehow.
The Mask is completed now, and the vision ends. Edward stands up, and stares at me. A knife is already in his hand.
"You're being a cute sociopath already, Edward." My Adult Self speaks up, flirting maliciously.
"We could change how everything works right now. We don't need you around. I'll get another wife. I don't need the chaos of Yin in my life, Kobra." Edward's Adult Self says with malefic cold.
Edward eventually devolves into this man. And fresh off the visions, it seems our future selves are seeing each other in full immediately. And we're both still in love. We're just mad about the patterns we see happening with each other.
"You're gonna be a loser once this martial era ends! When there's peace, you're just a lazy secretary or a factory worker." Edward says angrily.
"And you make the world a dystopia that takes away the point of being a badass warrior. You're worse than me to some people." I complain bitterly.
"Go away! We aren't dealing with true loves yet, you're both 12!" Edward's Father, Abraham yells angrily.
He does a cross with his right hand, and I am magically banished to the nearest orphanage. Where a nice woman welcomes me in. Eventually. At first, the doors don't even open when I knock. My future self told me it's worth a shot to live here, so I work with it.
But then I see that Mask we made fly through the sky like a purple shooting star, and break through a window of the house. I step back, and watch a strange transformation happen on the street. An older woman is forced to wear the mask, screaming with horror. But her skin is healing of age. Her wrinkles are disappearing. And when she rips it off, she rushes to a mirror. And purrs happily at how beautiful she is. And puts the mask back on cause the old woman is now 40 years old.
Then the Mask literally talks like what my future self says is a Jamaican.
"My Master is outside and needs a home. Let her in. In turn, you may wear me and keep growing younger until I run out of energies for this century." Mask of Immortality says seriously.
She literally runs downstairs with the mask on, rushes me inside, and takes care of me like I'm royalty. It was amazing. I had the best orphanage life ever. Literally. A whole year of just being spoiled while living at an orphanage. It was so weird to myself based on all the dumb rumors my future self heard about orphanages. Meanwhile, here is 12 to 13 year old her living it up. I had silk clothes, lots of candies and snacks, I got fat for a month.
Then future me made me workout hard so I'd stay in shape. It was so compulsive, it was weird! I was avoiding martial arts, but my future self just made me push through it as a exercise program. She just kept showing some weird image of the human body without skin and said "Working out with Martial Arts is a full body workout."
When the year was over though, the Mask was about out of energies. It had a final request before it went to recover energies. It asked for me to be adopted.
So the Owner of the Orphanage adopted me. She and I had already gotten along too well at this point. Especially since now we had to move because she was 23, and everyone thought she killed her older self. When really she just became 23 again. She changed her name from her old lady name I never learned to Seraphina Withers.
So now we moved from that town to a tumultuous place. The Mask explained to us both what must be done to recharge it. I accepted it immediately, my adoptive mother hated it. I did too to an extent.
"To recharge me, you must find someone with Yang energie equal in quality to Kobra's or yours, Seraphina." Mask of Immortality says seriously. "Due to being charged by me using top quality beings, albeit teenagers, you're as powerful a being as both of them when they're adults. You are a candidate for charging me. You must charge me with a polar opposite. And neither of you count for each other. Because you guys mix well."
It's annoying, cause Sera and I like each other, the Mask can't be charged. It admits it's a bad scenario.
"I am meant to be charged by Malice and a fight between Good and Evil." Mask of Immortality says with dark amusement.
It's a stupid gimmick. That my future self admits changes all the times. Immediately.
"Shut up, that isn't even true. The first time was just potential love between me and Edward! You're a moody mask!" Adult Me yells angrily through my mouth.
"Shut up Kobra, the energies for the next cycle of immortality demand a fight." Mask of Immortality snaps angrily.