Unbalanced Pendulum

Chapter 1: Release the Ball

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A perfect pendulum sweeps from side to side in perpetual motion. It is so reliable and so powerful as to control our minds and breathe life into our technology. We can grasp how one action flows smoothly into another: action and reaction, cause and effect. Flawless is its awe-inspiring beauty. But an unbalanced pendulum is erratic and controllable by no one. Once released, the world can only watch as the events tumble forth in patterns too complex to predict. It is imperfect, but terrifyingly beautiful in a way that perfection can barely dream of and never understand. Such is human rapture with that which we cannot contain.

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I had been hired. The request was no different from any other before it. My clients never said why, and I never asked. They would hear of me by rumour, find me through trails of blood and money. And my assignment would be given. The payment would be decided - with loopholes of my design. The employers varied, but the mission was always the same. Someone, or something, was desired. I preferred to kill my prey, but sometimes my client's need was otherwise. I never questioned. I simply did…as long as the pay was good. Richer clientele didn't want their hands soiled or their lives unnecessarily endangered. There were those that I could intimidate, send them trembling into dark corners and even darker nightmares. Those kinds always paid well.

When in my profession, it is always important to remember one fact about those who hire my services: they cannot get the job done on their own. They are always either too weak and cowardly to kill, too lazy to try, or too stupid to find their target themselves. And so they come to me. They have no responsibility except to pay me the bounty upon my return. Or their life is forfeit. I make sure that there is no doubt in their heads, whether they have one or seven, of this fact.

I was the best. No one was as reliable as me. One mission might take three years of hard toil, but it would be completed.

Forty-five years, eight months, and twelve days ago, I was contacted by what is commonly called an oreste – a word derived from Greek mythology as I later discovered. Some over-educated bastard probably found the similarities between Agamemnon's son and the demon clan's tradition of maturity amusing. Each year the 30 year-old male oreste "children" travel to the highest mountain peak in their territory (the unnamed giant) with their mothers and the clan's chief. The chief chooses the sickliest boy and the strongest boy present. These two then push their mothers off the edge of the mountain, successfully killing them. It prevents competition between powerful siblings, as a female oreste can only give birth once every thirty years, and the birth of lame children. Both mothers are honored with huge feasts upon the two designated tables of death. The mother of the strong boy is represented by a table of red stone, the other by a table of a pale wood.

This purple mountain mole looked neither impressively fierce nor terribly weak. His chest was broad as is normal, but his eyes were thin and yellow, a sign of living too far away from the high altitudes of the mountains. He tapped timidly upon my shoulder with one of his clawed hands. I recognized the posture of subservience in his hunched back, a lackey.

"Sir Hiei, my master wishes a word." His voice hissed and cracked. He flicked his eyes to the back rooms, followed by a twitching of his head in the same direction. His attempt at stealth was amusing, and I raised an eyebrow to express what I thought.

The bar was a typical Maikai slum. Everything dirty, dark, and illicit could be found to transpire here on any given day. The wooden floors were gritty with use and most of the furniture, if it could be considered such, was filled with notch marks from edged weapons that likely missed their mark. One section of wall was stained red from a massive spill of blood that had seeped into the grain years ago. The back rooms that the lackey was indicating towards were used for any manner of business transactions: torture, prostitution, trading, hiring, interrogation, and so forth. No one would look twice at a couple of people heading into the back rooms, not unless they were specifically watching those people in question that is. None of this mattered, however, as I followed the mole demon to my newest client.

My boots squelched outside the room indicated by the lackey, sticking to the freshly spilt blood. Still liquid I noticed. This might just prove to be interesting. The flimsy door opened with a shudder and a creak. When I stepped into the room I was greeted with a grisly sight. Apparently this client likes his food exotic and very raw. One of the more attractive dancing girls that this bar offered lay gutted on the bed. Her bright plumage had fallen out in death and her intestine (something I would never touch) acted as a bloody line connecting her to my possible employer's mouth. He had his fingers buried deep within the gore, fishing around for a particular item. The search ended as he ripped out one of her kidneys, the next item on the menu. This he plopped down on the standing cart beside the bed where he sat. The mole immediately walked over and began slicing the organ into bite size pieces. The girl's face was pale and yet serene, completely devoid of all blood spatters, so white that it must have been cleansed after the murder. To everyone their own, I was not exactly foreign to the strange fetishes possessed of those who inhabit the three worlds – even the sacred and precious Reikai.

When he completed his slurping of the intestine, he turned his bloody mouth upon me. "You are the infamous Hiei I presume." I nodded. His voice reminded me of silk over velvet, smooth in each syllable and not too deep in sound. I could not help but notice that, under all of his meal's grime, he was an attractive man. "Good. I have a request to ask of you, a delicate assignment that really requires the utmost skill to complete." He paused to pop a bite of kidney into his mouth. "Money is not an issue and I assure you that you will be well accommodated for your efforts," another piece of kidney. "I believe you like insurance, do you not?" I nodded again. "Five-hundred in gold. Is that enough to start?" The price, though high, was not at all unusual…and I have been offered much higher.

"Tell me who you are and what I will be doing first."

"Of course, of course, how rude of me. They call me Karasu and what do I want. I burn for Youko Kurama. You will deliver the legend to me, alive and unarguably perfect in body and mind."

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