Born Anew

Lucky’s eyes flickered between open and closed. He was sinking in a dark, black water, continuing to bleed from his body. He forced himself to swim until he reached the surface.

‘I can’t die…here,’ he thought over and over. Lucky held his breath and pushed with everything he had until he could see the top of the water. “Shit..I’m at my limit.” He stuck his hand above the water and he was pulled onto the land by a little girl that looked like a demon. She was all black with one eye and a horn on her head, almost like a cyclops. “Oh! Daddy, can we eat him? I caught a big one!”

A very tall man with a similar appearance to the girl appeared, but had black horns sticking out from all over his body. “Wait sweetie. Remember, we need to get to know people before we eat them. They taste better that way…Oh my! Look.”

“What? What happened?”

“You grew another horn on your back. I knew my daughter was a prodigy.”

“Really?! Yay! Yay! Yay!”

“You…Bastards. Kill me now or you’ll…regret it.” Lucky started to cough. “Hahaha! Daddy, he said he’s going to kill us. Come on. The master hasn’t sent us anything to eat in so long and the last human tasted like garbage. Plus, there is nothing in this land except the stupid land fish.”

“Well honey we are at the bottom of the food chain down here, so it’s hard for me to get you good food. Don’t worry we need to be accepting of what we are granted.”

“No! I want more!” Her hands turned into sharp black branch looking blades, almost like a very long and sharp extension of her fingers. “Okami. If you don’t put those away, I will throw him back into the water. We can survive on the land fish alone. Don’t be greedy.”

“Y-you both…are…sick,” Lucky muttered with little breath. A loud noise started to come from an opening in the rocks. “No! They found us. Come on sweetie, we have to get back to the house or we’ll be killed. Don’t worry, I’m sure the master will send us another human someday. We have to let him go for now.”

The noise grew louder. Birds made completely of bones flew away. Fiery spirit blobs bounced away as fast as they could. Flying fish flew back into the water. From the opening came a figure with a black hood and skeletal arms. He carried what looked like a staff with 5 flashing chaplets attached to the top. They stopped flashing and became a dark black orb with a single white light in the middle that now flashed in all of them. Dark green flames surrounded him and he chanted an unknown language out loud. Lucky had no choice. He knew this man was dangerous. He rolled back into the dark waters accepting defeat as the cave lit up in a blue flame.

‘Crap. I wish I could’ve beaten Kastor. I wish I could’ve shown my brothers. They were always stronger than me. I guess I shouldn’t have tried at all. Sister…Did I do enough for you? Dante…Sorry. I hope you carry on without me. I didn’t sacrifice enough to meet my goal. If I’m ever reborn, I’ll throw away everything I have. Everything I’ve become to make you all proud. See you on the other side, sis.’

Lucky sank to the depths of the water until hitting a gravel path at the bottom. 5 shadows of death stood before him. Black trees surfaced in the back as if leading to a whole forest. One shinigami stood in front of him, wrapped in a dark cloak with no face. Chains hung from his body. Tree branches stretched out from the side of his cloak. Lucky, unable to breathe, and on the cusp of death reached out with his hand as the shinigami spoke.

???: “Do you seek power? Do you seek the unknown? Will you abandon yourself? Will you sacrifice it all to reach what matters most to you having been outcast from the ones you loved?”

Lucky began to blackout. He couldn’t think, but he mustered up one word from his mouth that rippled through the water.

“Yes…”

An overwhelming power began to light up the murky waters. Tree branches shot out from behind and wrapped the boy in roots. A shinigami emitting a blue light became present in front of the reaper that talked to Lucky. Then, one by one, the same thing occurred with the reapers in the back emitting the same light.

They all began to chant the same phrase, “May the Devil prosper to unveil the depths of hell. For the middleground is no place and no home. For the heavens have cast us out and we have been forgotten. Soul for soul. Death for death. May God suffer upon our return. The chosen one has been reborn.”

The shinigami now began to walk into Lucky’s corpse and the tree roots pierced his heart. His eyes flickered multiple colors and blue light shot out from his whole body. “Come, brothers! Rejoice! For our day has come.”

The reaper merged himself to form a sword for the boy. A pitch black double sided sword appeared encased in chains and branches with a skull as the handle. A red lining of blood ran down the side. Lucky’s appearance had changed. He wore a cape similar to the shinigami with a skull mask covering all but one eye, however it was covered by a black hood draped over his hair hiding the dark red deadless eye. He was older and taller as if time had fast forwarded many years. His hands had turned into skeletal bones along with wings on his back. Lucky looked into the distance, no longer knowing who he was, but walked into the dark forest as the trees dripped with dark red blood and he ventured into the unknown.