49: Daemonstrative Progress

Demonic mask on her face, an intense aura of chakra flowed into Kana's palms as she summoned and molded more and more of it from her reserves. Her sleeves fluttered with the waves of energy and the amethyst glow surrounding her hands progressively brightened.

A few hours of poking around in the demonic mask's engraving formula led Kana to make a few inferences about how to proceed. But her primary conclusion was that the sigil engraving on the mask's forehead was indeed a massive maze of pathways, like some kind of circuit built as a key. And... that it would have to be explored in its entirety for her chakra to access this key's abilities.

The method that Kaoru had instructed her to practice, the one she had tried out for hours, was akin to tracing through this maze's pathways with only one tiny needle. Like trying to dig a tunnel through a wall with a toothpick.

So inefficient! Kana could tell within the first few hours that it would take a long time for her to master it fully. Potentially even years! Was it supposed to be an exercise in chakra control? Some kind of tool to cultivate a specific talent, making sure the user could send traces of their chakra through every last minuscule corner of the engraving? A challenge, or trial even?

Whatever it was, Kana had stretched her patience to the limits this week anyway. She wasn't going to wait years! Did Kaoru really give such a useful relic to her with that in mind?

And so Kana had resolved to try more... aggressive approaches. Something probably only she could do as a survivor of that horrific ritual.

Concentrating an absurd amount of chakra between her palms, Kana brought her hands up to her mask, willing this energy of hers to flow into the engraving. Slowly at first making sure it was properly controlled, but then gradually increasing the flow as her chakra rapidly spread out and into the different pathways of the maze-like circuit.

Now this... this was much faster.

She increased the flow until she was practically pouring chakra into the mask, the white porcelain of which was beginning to glow a faint amethyst color too. Soon even that pouring became a flood, a waterfall of chakra flashing through every corridor in the maze, but still controlled enough not to stray from its intended course or damage the mask's structure.

This was a true exercise in chakra control: an excellence in controlling flow and direction despite such high-intensity energy being output. A feat few shinobi could boast of, if any even had that much chakra to spare in the first place.

As her concentration rose to the max, Kana's other senses drowned out from her attention, ensuring her mind was totally on the task at hand.

Oblivious to the sensations of the chamber around her, Kana focused only on mental imagery of the process she was undertaking. Focus that was soon rewarded by the imaginary sensation of a switch activating, her mind vaguely aware of some peripheral change happening in the mask.

It was followed what felt like seconds later by a cascade of similar sensations as her chakra seemed to click something into place. Like a dial being turned or a latch unlocking. It was accompanied by a feeling of success.

But from there, the world seemed to shift.

A pulsing sensation quickly emanated from the forehead of her demonic mask, flowing across her entire body from head to toe.

Opening her eyes revealed a doubled vision.

The physical chamber in which Kana stood remained exactly as it was, but now there was a sense of otherness overlaid above it.

The hairs on Kana's arms and the back of her neck bristled and stood on their ends. Her body tensed and her shoulders shuddered with a sudden coldness. Her spine tingled with the feeling of being watched. An ominous and transparent grey energy coated the walls of this place like a second skin, extending across the floor where she stood as well. Even the flaming braziers were coated with an eerie black shadow in this double-sight vision.

But looking forward, the engraved wall panel of a demon's face had changed too. Now it's eyes glowed with a blackish light, the same light seemingly leaking out from the edges of it's closed maw. Was the feeling of being watched coming from that? Kaoru had said the Uzumaki harnessed the powers of dangerous spirits, but she failed to mention how dark it would feel to use.

The darkness gave off a uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.

The more she looked at that maw, the more dark light seemed to leak out. No, more was leaking out, for the mouth was opening slowly. Kana swore she could hear a faint beastly growling, too.

This couldn't be right, right? Surely Kaoru would have warned her if something like this was supposed to happen. The demon's mouth was just supposed to open enough to pass a scroll through or something?!

Looking up at the stone-carved demon's eyes, Kana peered into a void that seemed to see her. It was a blackness, a void that Kana recognized.

"No~!" Kana breathed out as she took an instinctive step backwards, nearly stumbling over nothing.

She had seen it. She had seen it before. It was within her memories. A horrible, horrible section of her past. Those long periods of darkness, those gaps in her memories - mere shadows left behind by the torture she had endured. Blanked out by whatever the Shinigon's ritual had done to her.

The Shinigon... in his greed he had condemned Kana to untold suffering, all to make her a better vessel for sacrifice.

Sensations of a memory returned to her with force, phantom feelings itching at her skin and plunging into her stomach like a blade. When she had awakening her chakra all those years ago by herself in that cell, she had unknowingly drawn renewed interest from that monstrous man. She could remember it now.

Kana fell to her hands and knees as the darkness of that void flooded her doubled vision, plunging her mind's eye into recreations of a nightmare. A nightmare accompanied by impotent fury.

She knew now, that the cultists who sacrificed her were even more abominable, even more disgusting than the demons they channeled. It made her want to vomit - an impulse she hadn't felt since reawakening at Mt. Shumisen.

Similar demonic spirits - that beast of a man had used them to grasp at her soul, to forcibly tear and mold her chakra, straining her childish soul to its limits. Pulling and twisting and tearing and shredding, all to draw out her chakra and force her body to activate more kekkei genkai chains... all so he could use them once Kana was sacrificed.

Screams of agony escaped Kana's lips as she was forced to relive those lost memories. She almost wished she hadn't ever remembered, and that feeling produced a powerful resonance in her heart.

For Kana was not the same helpless child she was before, when that deplorable filth could torture her as he pleased.

She clenched her fists and her teeth as she stared at the darkness-coated ground before her. Her violet eyes trembled and she spit out blood as her teeth tore into the flesh of her cheeks. As if stimulated by the phantom tortures, five of her chakra chains blasted out from her back, coiling around and coating her body like protective armor. In her rage, a pulsing feeling arose and stirred within Kana, layering over her rapid heartbeat just like the dark energy hanging over the flaming braziers.

And with that pulse, a glowing spiritual energy like that of the sun and stars manifested in her transparent double-vision, resting over her heart and flaring with each heartbeat.

Raising herself onto one knee, Kana could see her whole body cloaked in faint semi-transparent white shroud, which flowed gently like the sun's corona1Visualization of the Sun's corona during a full solar eclipse: during a full solar eclipse and separated her from the surrounding darkness.

This ethereal cloak, its energy felt antithetical to the darkness around it. It brought a caressing feeling of warmth and comfort, banishing the lingering sensations of pain and soothing her writhing body. Even her chakra chains were suffused with these feelings of warmth, perhaps even enhancing the strange warming effect. Like a blanket of pure unconscious benevolence, it isolated her from the darkness all around. It was the peace of basking in the sun's rays after a long time underground.

Kana hazily felt herself stand, her faraway gaze somehow containing a coldness icy enough to extinguish the flaming braziers before her, even as her body overflowed with a warmth like the sun's light.

Kana's jaw relaxed, a whispering echo sounding out along with her real voice as she spoke familiar words she could not recall if she had ever truly heard before.

A mantra more intuition than intention, spoken with a tone more curious than imperious,

"All spirits of the dark yield before absolute light. No light is greater than the sun's, and I have surpassed even the sun's darkest hour. No darkness can again take hold of me: so Submit."

With that, a tremendous burst of light emitted from the sigil on Kana's mask, visible only in the ethereal half of her double-vision. Though Kana could feel the porcelain straining under this energy's pressure.

But this light flooded the chamber, banishing the ominous darkness from the room and coating the demonic engraved wall-panel in a purified white cage. The darkness leaking from those demonic eyes and maw became outlined in walls of white light, no longer able to escape the stone carving.

Kana felt a sense of command and control, the situation being firmly in her grasp. It was a pleasant and reassuring feeling. Her will would be obeyed; the demonic spirit sealed in this relic would be unable to resist her while it persisted.

All resulting from a few words, words spoken from the soul and emphasized by the spiritual energy that sprang up like a fountain within her. A consequence... of the ritual?

Ritual...?

Ritual of Chimeric Ascension. A result of mortal attempts to touch the heavens. Perfect unity of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity.

The phrases formed unbidden from fragments in her mind, but that was all. Another piece of lost information, now somehow regained as a part of Kana.

With a blink, her vision reverted to only view the ordinary physical world, followed promptly by the girl dazedly collapsing onto her back. The amethyst chakra chains still wrapping her body softened the fall so much that it hardly even registered. In fact, their presence alone brought a comforting reassurance as well. They were extensions of her will, and hers alone.

Kana's mask clattered to the side as her senses reoriented. She hugged her arms to her chest and shuddered in the aftermath of the disturbing turn of events, a few trails of blood still leaking from the corners of her mouth.

She felt... tired? Like her sanity had been taxed.

Was that right? Well it was hardly an unfathomable result, all things considered...

All Kana could be sure of was her passionate desire not to think about anything difficult right now. The last half-hour's events still barely felt real, and a sense of exhaustion and confusion hung over her.

Propping herself up with a few swift and dexterous movements of the amethyst chains, she collected her mask and once again regained her footing, then promptly released the chains to conserve energy and focus. Four limbs were easier to control than nine.

What to even do though? Something to take her mind off this unsettling afternoon, for sure.

A bath in the hotsprings... that sounded nice. Or something to eat. Or just lying down on a bed?

Anything, whatever it was, she resolved to figure it out on the way as she staggered out the chamber's doorway.