blackswarm1: whispers of the swarm [prvt]

[Fushigi Ketsuro]

The fly crawled slowly on the wooden wall, carefully watching the hallway it was stationed on. One of its brothers was inside the nearest room, spying on the master of this compound. Their orders had been simple: observe the Fushigi clan in its entirety, to make sure there was to be no betrayal. But there was rumor in the swarms that betrayal had already occurred, and if it had, action would soon follow.

When a door in the back of the hall slid open silently, the fly quietly buzzed into a corner of the ceiling. A shadow slinked out, cloaked in black with a hood dousing the face in shadow. It approached the door where the fly’s brother was, and a gloved hand reached out to slide it open.

Suddenly the seal on its back began to vibrate as the information it was recording was ripped out. When the shadow opened the door, it was greeted with a cloud of feathers, and then the fly dropped to the ground, left to swim in a maggot-infested ocean of dreams.

[Fushigi Ketsuro]

Ketsuro stepped gingerly over the guards his brother had put up. Their snores were birthed from his genjutsu, and he knew that the two ANBU he had put in charge here could not break the spell in time. When he slid open the door, the smell of incense hit him hard. This was expected. Fushigi Kurai had mastered the Art of Incense, using smells to attack an enemy in every way possible. Ketsuro sniffed the air again and smiled. Kurai had wanted pleasure tonight. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a eunuch, the smell would have thrown him into a lust-born frenzy.

But, alas, a eunuch he was, and a traitor as well. Ketsuro slinked through the halls like a shadow, careful to use his own flies as scouts. They picked out the sleeping bodies of their brothers and the traps laid in Kurai’s manse, and soon Ketsuro was at his door. One last fly was left on the wall, his fly, and it scurried around in a mating frenzy. It was dismissed to do its work in a puff of smoke, and Ketsuro slid the door open.

“Your genjutsu…” Kurai began. He was huddled on the ground shaking, a black robe wrapped tightly around him. “...Why?” At that last word Kurai turned his head, and the pale veiny flesh beneath made Ketsuro smile. Resisting his spell and the aphrodisiac incense had drained him of a lot of energy.

“Don’t you know our clan words, brother?” Ketsuro brought his hands together into an intricate series of seals.

“We infest...and we eat…” Kurai began to shake violently. He knew his end was coming.

“We infest, and we eat, and we spawn. That is the methodology of the Fushigi, and our purpose in life, brother. Or should I say, my brother’s shadow?”

Kurai stopped shaking and coughing. Despite his weak composure and lack of strength, he stood up straight and fixed Ketsuro with a dead gaze. “How did you know this was an illusion?”

“When did you leave our mother’s womb?”

Kurai scowled at that and clasped his hands, sending a rippling tide of air throughout the room. Tall shadows manifested from the incense, each one wielding black weapons of different shapes and sizes.