Chapter 1: Chapter One

Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies. 

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

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BEAUTIFUL BEAST

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Listen, from this point on, all this shit you’re about to bear witness to is as real as it gets.

I wasn’t some guy locked up over morals and whatnot. I wasn’t your average Joe who took it up the ass. Well, okay, maybe I was. Was, being the emphasis here. That all changed when I got here. 

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“Acquire wealth, bed wenches and perish in battle.” Blond Asgardian who wields hammers. 

A variety of people have a variety of reactions to this exact conundrum. Some scream and cry about how hellish it is, some balk with madness raging to get sent back to their worlds, some spew arrogant trash about how they’re going to be heroes and rule the world or such—when they couldn’t even clean their own rooms, some suddenly turn from being antisocial weebs and rejects and think they’ve got platinum dicks that the world can’t wait to jump on, poor bastards.

Me? I took it with a smile. I saw it for what it was—a challenge, in simple layman terms, to play GTA but not behind the confines of a screen. I saw it as a way to live, to truly live with the fear of knowing that your efforts would either damn you to a life of painful mediocrity or propel you to tangible glory. 

I understood that death was very likely, choosing to play how I want to, I was well aware of the risks and supremely cognizant of them. After all, how could you enjoy the game if you didn’t have shit to lose? 

What is this ‘conundrum’ I speak of then? It’s the one nerdy fanboys, girls, and everyone on whatever gender spectrum they identify with, have wet dreams over. The sought after Isekai, the transmigration into a different world that makes all the panties drip, the reincarnation genre that turns slimes into gods, naïve children into undefeatable warriors and school kids into reality bending wizards and mages, through the hand, or grill, of the universal isekai machine, Truck-Kun. 

Ah, yes indeed, I can sense a thousand hearts going aflutter already and I was just beginning to sing the praises of abandoning all you have, all you’ve acquired and accomplished at the chance of re-living life in a different location.

I wasn’t mad, I’m not insane, I know that’s exactly what an insane person would say, but I was in full control of my mental faculties. I’m beating around the bush to stall, to build up the suspense for the reveal. After all, theatrics do matter, as Steve Jobs once said, if you can’t make it work good, make it look good, or something along those lines. 

“Let the ritual commence.” Ogun said, his voice was weathered and harsh as though he spoke through sandpaper. Four ninja initiates stepped into the circle formation and knelt, their heads bowed to the old, frail bodied man who approached them with a glinting silver blade. 

He slashed down on their necks; it was a cut so swift and immaculate that the initiates died without even becoming aware of it. Their eyes were eerily serene as their heads rolled away.

Their bodies remained oddly still as warm blood poured out from the fatal gash in their severed necks and rushed into the intricate circuitry etched into the circle formation. It was near hypnotic, the sight of red rushing to fill the gray spaces all around me. 

Ogun walked into the circle and sat next to me, his sharp eyes were pointed at mine, steely and unmoving. The crimson took a glow, a deep sinister one that lit the insides of the dark chamber a demonic red. I saw the old man’s face twist and shift into the bizarre visage of an ugly, grotesque demon, as though the hell-fiend rested beneath the thin veneer of his flesh. Canines poked through his lips and curved over his cheeks, his eyes widened and elongated into obsidian golf balls with dots of white and red roaming its murky depth. 

As I stared into those abyssal eyes, I felt the malicious link my mind to Ogun’s, an intangible thread of red bore into our foreheads, binding us to one another. The ritual for him to assume and steal my body was now fully underway. 

I was to be his new and never dying container. His perfect vessel. Over the years I’d spent being turned into the perfect weapon, not once have I opened my mouth in intelligent speech. I was relegated to a killing machine, trained from the moment I was old enough to pulled away from my mother’s teat in the art of—killing, murder, combat, subterfuge—death. 

I was not the only vessel, I was simply the only vessel strong to have survived the terrors we were put through, the only vessel deemed worthy enough to hold his powerful soul. 

Ogun first transferred his knowledge, combat experiences and skills, centuries of it, I expected myself to be overwhelmed by every single thing he had learned, taught and acquired. It wasn’t so, like sugar in boiling water, all he deposited in me was dissolved and seamlessly assimilated. 

My training and conditioning meant that he’d be able to instantaneously utilize the vast skills with practiced ease and expert eloquence. That my already acquired skills would be subsequently complemented and upgraded to a matching standard. 

Even I admired the sheer level of his skill. It did not require a trained eye to see that it was absolutely excellent. Unlike anything I’d ever seen, I presume spending centuries single-mindedly dedicated to refining skills would have such an effect. 

I saw scenes, and relived experiences he placed much weight onto. I stood on his side as he tussled with the beastly warrior he’d trained. Their death match in a field of snow. His bitter defeat at its hand, for it could be wounded but not felled. I was there in his arduous combat against a terrifying demon Oni, his elation upon decapitating it, his satisfaction at the power gained by drinking its blood and wearing its face. I was there when he gave his first kiss to a lover with soft eyes and skin like silk. I was there with him in laughter and joy as he lifted his first child up to the heavens in celebration.

Once he’d sent everything of value, his soul vacated the confines of his body, the ethereal spirit hovered over the once abled husk, looking down at it for a moment of sentimentality before it shoved itself into my body. Nonconsensual, might I add.  

Two souls could not inhabit one body, not mine. We were both brought to a place beyond places, the realm of spirits, the Astral plane. Here we came to settle the debate of who would inherit the body. “Your sacrifice will be remembered.” He said, no longer frail or sickly, his soul was a towering behemoth that dwarfed the body it once occupied. 

He approached me where I knelt. I looked up at the grotesque, demon faced man as he raised his sword above my soul and brought it down blindingly fast, aiming to cleave me in two. 

—CLANG! Only for his blade to bounce off my soul with a resounding clang.

“Surprises can be a bitch, can’t they.” I laughed, standing to my feet, making a show of stretching and dusting my shoulders. I believe this was the first he had heard me speak. 

“You speak?”

“And more.”

“What madness is this, how did you deflect my blade?” He demanded answers.

I wasn’t going to tell him that I possessed an unbreakable soul, neither was I going to tell him of the mechanics of how I acquired it. 

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Tell me master, am I weak or strong?” 

“Let us find out dog!” His blinding movements weren’t blinding anymore. His speed, technique and skill could no longer trump mine. I saw them coming miles away, I knew them like a lover knew the shape of her partner. I knew them and more. 

I stepped away from a side slash and leaned in, faster than he could draw back. My shoulder crashed against his chest and sent him to the ground, he rolled with the momentum back to his feet. 

He lashed his blade across my neck, I allowed the strike to land, it clanked and sparked out yet couldn’t even leave a scratch. I allowed him the freedom to indiscriminately land every attack he took. I  maintained my standing pose, his fervor and barrage could barely move me a centimeter. 

His force could not sway my immutable soul, his effort could not prod me. I was a mountain rooted to the very depths of the earth, and he was a child with a twig trying to push me. It was a laughable and pathetic sight. I enjoyed the fear and distress that marred the now cracking mask of his, past the fractures on the demonic face were eyes growing increasingly terrified with each passing moment. 

He thrusted his weapon at my eye. I wrapped my fingers over the blade’s edge and tugged while it was still in stabbing motion, pulling the semi-immortal towards me as well. I drove my fist forward, sending the limb protruding through his abdomen and holding him suspended by it. 

“Do you know the emotion you’re feeling right now? It is called terror.” I spoke as he kicked and clawed, his groan of agony was music to my ears. Who said revenge wasn’t worth it? Those who said this shit wasn’t enjoyable and unfulfilling clearly didn’t do it right. 

“How are you withstanding my attacks!?”

“Am I weak or strong, master?”

“You dog!” He roared in fury. 

My next actions made Ogun howl in horror and pain. I began eating him, starting from his hands, I took bites of fingers, then palms, then wrists, then arms and shoulders and, well you get the picture. Blood, or its symbolic equivalent, in this astral plane stained my mouth and hands as I devoured his legs. Ogun lay helplessly, limbless and begging for mercy. 

I’d fuck his skull raw if I could in this place. “Son of a bitch talking to me bout mercy.” I squatted down next to his soul, or what remained of it. 

Slowly, I bored into his mass with my teeth and gnawed through his soul, I ate, and ate and ate till I was engorged, till there was nothing left to eat of. Stopping when there was nothing more of him left for me to consume. It was satisfying to say the least; the nutritious effects were visible, my soul glowed brighter, strengthened and blessed with more vitality that one soul should possess. I assimilated his spirit essence to further bolster and strengthen mine.

I felt the tug of reality. I’d won my body and it was time for me to leave this place of spirits since I wasn’t of the dead. 

When I opened my eyes, I was met with the sight of the now darkened chamber. The subtle metallic scent of dried blood suffused the entire room. Ogun’s lifeless husk lay at my feet. I wrested the silver katana from its dead hold, the weapon was warm to the touch. 

It was time to go out and conquer the world. I wanted to see what it had to offer, mainly in women, wealth, power and adventure. After all it was an unarguable fact that Marvel had the baddest bitches. Wait, Black Canary was pretty nasty herself, the baddest bitch debate would have to wait for another day.

Denounce me for my crass nature and foul mouth. I’d rather be honest and real than pompous and plastic. 

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I heard them before they walked through the entrance to the ritual chamber. 

“Master Ogun, it seems the ritual was a success.” Said Lord Hiroshi of the Hand—Marvel’s premier Ninja assassin clan. His scent was stable, his heartbeat was measured, at the barest hint of a threat he would act. 

I could pretend to be Ogun, I could pretend and then snake my way out the clan compound but that was no way to go about making a name for myself if I wanted to become the best assassin/mercenary/killer. I told you, I’m playing GTA with my life on the line, the higher the stakes, the better the game. 

“Master Ogun is gone, I ate him.” I smiled, waving the blade in my hand, left and right, familiarizing myself with the fancy weapon.

“You can talk?” Lady Bullseye, assassin extraordinaire and Hiroshi’s right-hand woman, asked from behind. I caught her pheromones in the air, peach, excitement and bloodlust. “All this time you could speak?” Yeah, she’d done very illegal things to me, things she thought would be kept between us since I supposedly could not speak. 

“Just never felt the need to, until now that is.” I threw the katana to my right hand and ball up my left, slowly my claws extend out; two pierce out from the spaces between my first and last knuckles and another one from under my wrist. The gently ridged, naturally needle tipped blades are astoundingly sturdier than they appear. In contrast to my brown skin tone the claws are outstandingly ebony, beautiful things.

“Daken, it matters little how you were able to defeat master Ogun, but you dare unsheathe your claws before me?” Says Hiroshi in rage. See he says that but the micro twitches and pheromones wafting off his sweat glands tell me he wants little to do with fighting me. “You have forgotten your place boy!”

“Genin, take this dog down! Show him his place!” He roars, letting the army of red ninjas hound me. I treat them like the red shirts they are. My blade cleaves through limbs, faces, and torsos. I soaked the ground with the blood of my enemies and planted upon it their guts, severed limbs and unmoving bodies. 

I deflect the shurikens hurled accurately at my vital organs by Lady Bullseye—the female version of the similarly named psychotic assassin. She possessed similar pinpoint accuracy and combat prowess as Bullseye himself and was fully loyal to the Hand. 

My blade goes through the throat of the first ninja who capitalized on the momentary lax to attack. I kicked him back as he gurgled on the metal. My claws drill through the second one’s eyes and nose bridge. I throw him aside as blood and ambiguous raw matter spurt from the three clean holes in his head.

In blood I am alive. I care not for the morality of my actions. I give little regard to their lives, it's either me or them, and it’s always going to be me on top and because of that I will put my head to a pillow in a sea of corpses and I will sleep like a well-fed baby. 

I cleave, I stab, I tear and slice and dice till there are more bodies than ground to step on. That’s when she jumps for me, I hear the wild pound of her excited heart, it drums like an engine in her chest. She attacks from what she perceives is a blind spot of mine, I allow it. 

She spins past a telegraphed cleave, closes the distance between us and jams and punctures through both sides of my neck with her senbon needles, she pushes it deeper, accurately cutting through my jugular to reach my windpipe, my blood stains her hands. The pain is but a backdrop to the deadly sensuality. 

She is close enough to feel the warmth of my breath, I feel hers the same, she tickles my lips with her tongue, I feel the shadows of dizziness come upon me, her needles limit the blood flow to my brain. The madness in her brown eyes is palpable. Her pale skin, a deathly, corpse white against my healthy mahogany. Milk and chocolate, ah we could’ve been such a power couple you badass, psycho bitch. 

I jab at her chest faster than she can release her weapons, faster than she can even see, past her breastbone my claws find purchase into her beating heart. I feel its erratic vibrations along the length of my lethal, bony appendages. I give her a kiss and a smile. For a teenager, I was still ever the heartbreaker, perhaps literally now. My flesh spits out her needles as it heals shut. 

She tumbles lifelessly, joining the multitude of corpses. I step over her cooling body and walk out the door of the chambers. Hiroshi is nowhere to be found, the bastard. 

Along the passage that leads to the compound, ninjas assail me. They are no match for my skill, power and speed but duty and honor and years of indoctrination drives them to throw their lives away. Who am I to say no?

I would’ve been just like them had I been weaker, had my soul been breakable and my mind palpable to years of brainwashing. 

I catch the arrows whizzing for me in the relative darkness and toss them back at the heartbeats I hear hiding in the ceiling. Four Ninjas fall, thudding to the floor from the ceiling, three are dead, I finish the last with a stab through the skull. My progress is virtually unimpeded as I breach the doors, heading into the compound. 

I am surrounded by ninjas and generals. I place the sword down, for this, claws would be more fitting. The veritable sea of humans arrayed in red crashes against me from all angles and sides. Top, bottom, left, right, side, and center. I am being drowned by the bodies of expert killers, murderers and assassins. I follow the flow into a brutal rhythm, I stab and kick and claw my way through the wave. It ebbs and flows harder. 

Heads roll, arms and legs go flying, blood soaks the grass red and soaks the ground muddy. Blades, daggers, arrows, spears, needles and stars bite into me. Some are left stuck in my body, my blood spills. A lucky finger digs into my eye and ruptures it. My claw digs through their chin and out their skull. My vision is limited, eyes are delicate and complex things, they take a bit longer to heal. My smell, hearing and touch more than make up for the lapse in sight. 

I kick through gonads, I knee ribs into lungs, I elbow windpipes so hard they shatter, I punch through jaws and leave faces halved, with tongues and jaws dribbling to the floor. I put my skill against theirs, I take the lessons they offer, I listen to the message their blades carve into my flesh, I listen, I adapt, I implement.

My skill grows, my potential bursts into kinetic, I hear the blades sing, I see the strikes before they come, the blades can’t touch me anymore, I weave and dance. Their fists break against mine, they defenses shatter, I don’t just strike for the sake of striking, I apply the deadliest techniques and target their weak points. They crumble away. 

“Hahahahaa!” A laugh bursts out of my mouth. This is life! This is fucking living! Where else can you truly appreciate life but in the midst of death? This isn’t for the fainthearted and weak, the naïve would be swallowed alive. The arrogant would be chewed on and spat out. The sanctimonious would be shredded. This is for the bold and heartless. This is for blood starved and excited. This is the shit that makes the blood boil and sets the soul aflame. 

This is what it should be when you’re in a comic book world, when gods, monsters, and legends walk amongst you. This is what reality is when you have super powers. This is who you are without the fear, the programming, the agendas, the politics and the masks. This is man in his purest; primal, brutal, fear inspiring, warrior to the very ends.

This is it. I punch, and stab, and cleave, and hack, and kick, and stomp, and crush.

THIS IS IT! THIS IS IT! FUCK! 

I stab both arms into the belly of a pouncing ninja and lift his ass up, ripping diagonally through his midsection in a swift, brutal motion. He falls in two, one half crawls in slow agony, the other kicks unconsciously, his blood rains on me while his gastric acid, intestines and organs are gifted to the soil beneath my feet. 

“Fuck! I’m AWESOME!” I roar, half laughing, half starving for extra bloodshed. Hills of corpses littered the ground, you couldn’t take a step in any direction without sticking your foot into a blood puddle or tangling your toes in organs and guts. I take deep breaths as a smile tears across my face. 

The tide of ninjas ebbed into thin air. I am the immovable object upon which they are broken and shattered. Trained killers meant to never cease or stop, actually stopped. They simply ran out of people to fight me with. I’d most likely cleared the compound of the hundreds of Hand ninjas within. 

“You may run, but you will never escape the Hand.” Says Hiroshi from a tower looking down. Even from that far I could still make out his face and hear his whisper of ‘cursed bastard’ tossed at me. You had to leave some enemies alive so they’d return with more exp for you. 

“I’ll be expectantly waiting. Oh, and make sure to spread what happened here today, I’ll need the rep.” I wave at him as I walk over mutilated and dismembered corpses, stopping only to corpse the uncorpsed ones that stubbornly held to life. The Hand resurrected their most valued or elite, I had to dead these ones properly to make sure that wouldn’t be an option. 

My photographic memory meant that despite all the bodies and the altered battleground, I knew exactly where I’d left the silver sword. I retrieved it from beneath a heap of corpses and approached the large wooden gate, the demon lion statues on either side remained frozen to my progress, I half expected them to spring to life. 

I need to leave a name behind. It would contribute to my rep and fate, after all I had a goal of becoming the most dangerous human being in the whole wide universe. Yes, that’s right, universe. This was a fictional world made flesh, a comic-verse, words have power, names and titles even more so.

“Gaze upon the handiwork of Daken the Hunter, Dreadwolf of Metsudo, Fang, (formerly) of the Hand.” I carved with a smile into the hard wood of the gates. Leaving my current alias etched into the gates there for all to see, marring the honor of the clan with that act alone. I stepped beyond the gates, staring at the sun sinking beneath a bed of orange dyed clouds in the horizon. I inhaled a breath of fresh air and bolted past the beaten path and into the woods, the trees blurred past at my incredible speed and agility. I had a specific location in mind and planned to reach it before sunset. 

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Myengirishisperfecto that's French for Damn this hits the spot!

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