Kurakai (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dont_follow) wrote2023-09-14 06:43 pm
dont_follow) wrote2023-09-14 06:43 pm
Entry tags:
Full History | TW: severe trauma, murder, severe bullying, childhood abuse and neglect
Once upon a time, a man named Tekaki "bonded" to a woman named Sekira (which is basically what some would refer to as marriage), after many years of working hard to convince her of his undying affection. About fifty years later, this happy couple had a little Fire Clan baby, and named him Kurakai. Two years passed, and then a little girl with white hair and turquoise-colored eyes was born.
At the age of ten, Kurakai was hit by the curse of the Fire Clan. In spite of Kurakai already being dead, his father rushed him to Layamon. A deal was made with the gods. They brought Kurakai back to life, at a price that wasn't specified at the time. Tekaki accepted the terms, without truly thinking things through. He just wanted his son to be alive...
And, so...after that day...Kurakai's fate (as well as that of his closest family) was sealed.
He had a fairly normal childhood, spending most of two years defending his sister from bullies. She was treated as an outsider -- a "fake Fire Clansman" -- due to her hair and eye colors being different from all other of the fire people. Kurakai was seemingly blind to the difference; Selestia was his little sister, and nobody could tell him otherwise (typical "nobody can be mean to my sibling, but me"). Contrary to his desire to protect her, he often said teasing things, to her. It was never anything regarding her appearance, as he'd seen her cry far too many times from that kind of thing.
After the traumatic deaths of their parents, Kurakai and Selestia were sent to stay in a "group home", of sorts. Selestia wasn't talking to Kurakai at this point, and he wasn't doing anything to help that fact. Kurakai wasn't talking to anyone, however. Throughout the span of three years (he was fifteen by this point), rumors began to spread. The other children of the orphanage began calling him a monster -- the word didn't faze him, until it was doubled with his hair being snatched, or him being spit on.
Eventually, he and Selestia were sent to a village of the Storm Clan -- one primarily for "troubled" children. There, he met Dousuke and Shalana, a rare set of twins born into that clan (who appeared unfazed by being seen as "weird"). The four became fast friends due to their similar situations. However, one day, while Dousuke and Kurakai were playing in the water (and trying to learn to swim), a group of the kids that were notorious for bullying Selestia and Shalana (something that Dousuke and Kurakai liked to put a stop to) showed up.
The five boys decided to play a mean trick on the pair, so they put a dotrumus (something that most kids played with; it's a type of plant that gains a super deadly snake-like appearance once it enters water) into the pond. The dotrumus floated near Kurakai and a very young Dousuke wasn't thinking. People of the Storm Clan aren't affected by electrical attacks, so...he used an electrical attack on the false snake. It caused Kurakai's heart to stop, the second it hit him. He blacked out and nearly drowned. Once he came to, he was lying next to the pond...and the culprits were nowhere to be found. Kurakai didn't remember any of it, but Dousuke couldn't bring himself to tell his friend that he'd almost killed him...
Throughout the years, Shalana began forming a crush on Kurakai, who...started to return her feelings. Being around Shalana, his face would typically turn red and he'd feel super awkward. Dousuke started to tease him for it, just a bit. For...some strange reason, however, Kurakai started to get the feeling that his friend was angry about it...just a little. Dousuke would never explain, however.
Twenty years had passed quickly (making him thirty-five by this point); Kurakai, Dousuke, and Shalana became completely inseparable. Selestia and Shalana were just as close as those three. They hung out while the boys went to get into trouble do their own thing. It was towards the end of this time, that Shalana asked Kurakai to date her. After thinking it over, for only a day, he said "no", in spite of a part of him wanting to agree. When Selestia and Dousuke asked, many years later, why he hadn't agreed, he told them that he "had a bad feeling".
Ten years after being rejected, Shalana started acting incredibly strange; another five years later, Shalana started calling herself "Shea".
At the age of fifty-three, Kurakai had returned to the Fire Clan. Dousuke had vanished to do his own thing (start his own life), so they didn't talk as much around this time. Shalana was acting distance from Kurakai. As for Selestia, she rarely wrote Kurakai, but apparently kept in touch with Shalana. He was welcomed with relieved faces, and it felt...strange. He wasn't used to being looked at that way, after all. Immediately, the Fire Counsel began urging him to take up the leadership position, to honor his father's memory. Hearing it worded that way, he refused. No matter how many times they asked, he never stopped refusing.
Regardless of not accepting the title, he still did things for the sake of the clan. One example is him agreeing to bond to the "daughter of the Water Clan" (the daughter of the leader, to be more exact). This was to ensure that the Fire Clan would keep a powerful ally. His wife died the day after the wedding ceremony of an "unknown cause", which earned a negative response by her people. Fortunately, their leader refused to let the blame be placed on Kurakai...
Layamon, determined to find the reason for his only daughter's death, was the one to discover that Kurakai had been "marked" by the gods. According to Layamon's reading of the stars- in exchange for remaining unbound to a family, he would play an active part in something important. The amount of time that would pass before that, however, was left unspecified. Utterly furious at having his fate decided, for him, he began to do even less for the clan. He would no longer be a tool in anything. He was his own person, and his future was for him to decide.
Years later, at fifty-six, he discovered that Shea attempted to kill Selestia, for the sake of getting Kurakai's attention. It worked, rather well. Kurakai went after Shea, without hesitation, which didn't end well for both of them. Just as he was about to land the finishing blow, however...he realized his desire to kill her wasn't as strong as he'd thought. She was still Shalana, to him -- someone he cared about and grew up with.
By this point, Kurakai had become a rather infamous hunter. While he would never admit it, he wasn't handling the not talking to his sister thing very well. He missed her...and killing people with bounties on their heads seemed like the way to deal with it. In a sense, it helped him, quite a bit.
Five years passed, with Shea remaining inactive. Then, out of nowhere, Kurakai received a message, from Shea. She told him that, if he didn't agree to marry her, that she would kill him and everyone he loved. Kurakai readily agreed. Unfortunately, for Kurakai, Shea discovered that he had the curse. She easily put the dots together, realizing that Kurakai had agreed to marry her, just so she would die after they were bonded. Lashing out in sheer anger, she put him in critical condition. It took two weeks for him to recover...and Selestia didn't handle the news of his brush with death, very well.
Kurakai received a letter from Selestia, and it was her asking to meet him. This would be the first time they actually talked, since Tekaki's murder. Selestia explained that she never stopped loving him, as her brother, but had been terrified of him, at that time. She promised that she hadn't been avoiding him, for the sake of avoiding him. She had been using their time apart to thoroughly research the curse of the Fire Clan, as well as Kurakai's curse. She still remembered him saying, as a child, that he wanted what his parents had...
Three years later, they'd become close again.
By the age of one hundred and three, Kurakai had earned a name for himself. If someone's name wound up on the list of those with bounties? He was bound to hunt them down and kill them. There was...practically no getting out of it. His skills had already begun to match with the famed Tekaki. Which...another seventy-five years later, they had come to match them. He spent all that time training to improve his fire-wielding capabilities. He was a force to be reckoned with, and it would take a fool not to see that.
And that was the very reason Kurakai could be called a fool. He didn't recognize his powers as anything spectacular, nor did he find himself to be anyone worthy of any kind of attention. Selestia spent many of these years trying to change his mind. Dousuke, too. Neither of them have ever managed to get through to him on this. At times, it even resulted in a fight between them and Kurakai. Of course, his sister and best friend being as stubborn as they are, they never let Kurakai go long without speaking to them, afterward...
By the age of one hundred ninety-six, the Fire Clan had diminished to a mere two hundred people. It was at this time that Kurakai, Selestia, and Dousuke consulted with Layamon. He told them about the war of the Halflings.
At the age of two hundred sixteen, Kurakai received a letter from a man who claimed to be Selestia's real father...and he wanted to meet his daughter. Kurakai was quick to hide it from his sister, due to there being no way of knowing the man's intentions. Why hadn't he contacted her, directly? What was he hiding? Without telling her anything, Kurakai went to see the man.
As it turned out, the man (named Lekarus) was...anything but suspicious. He had truly loved Sekira. After finding out that she had died, he'd fallen into a depression. He'd been keeping an eye on his daughter, throughout the years. If not for fear of her rejecting him, he would have contacted her, directly. He simply wanted to speak to her brother, first...and get to know him. Lekarus had hoped that Kurakai would be able to tell him some things about her -- Kurakai refused to, however. Telling him to contact her, directly, he left. A month later, Selestia showed up, tears in her eyes and an excited smile on her face. She'd met her real father...and didn't seem to hold any bitter feelings towards him.
...Then, another month later, Lekarus was dead; he'd been sickly.
At the age of ten, Kurakai was hit by the curse of the Fire Clan. In spite of Kurakai already being dead, his father rushed him to Layamon. A deal was made with the gods. They brought Kurakai back to life, at a price that wasn't specified at the time. Tekaki accepted the terms, without truly thinking things through. He just wanted his son to be alive...
And, so...after that day...Kurakai's fate (as well as that of his closest family) was sealed.
He had a fairly normal childhood, spending most of two years defending his sister from bullies. She was treated as an outsider -- a "fake Fire Clansman" -- due to her hair and eye colors being different from all other of the fire people. Kurakai was seemingly blind to the difference; Selestia was his little sister, and nobody could tell him otherwise (typical "nobody can be mean to my sibling, but me"). Contrary to his desire to protect her, he often said teasing things, to her. It was never anything regarding her appearance, as he'd seen her cry far too many times from that kind of thing.
After the traumatic deaths of their parents, Kurakai and Selestia were sent to stay in a "group home", of sorts. Selestia wasn't talking to Kurakai at this point, and he wasn't doing anything to help that fact. Kurakai wasn't talking to anyone, however. Throughout the span of three years (he was fifteen by this point), rumors began to spread. The other children of the orphanage began calling him a monster -- the word didn't faze him, until it was doubled with his hair being snatched, or him being spit on.
Eventually, he and Selestia were sent to a village of the Storm Clan -- one primarily for "troubled" children. There, he met Dousuke and Shalana, a rare set of twins born into that clan (who appeared unfazed by being seen as "weird"). The four became fast friends due to their similar situations. However, one day, while Dousuke and Kurakai were playing in the water (and trying to learn to swim), a group of the kids that were notorious for bullying Selestia and Shalana (something that Dousuke and Kurakai liked to put a stop to) showed up.
The five boys decided to play a mean trick on the pair, so they put a dotrumus (something that most kids played with; it's a type of plant that gains a super deadly snake-like appearance once it enters water) into the pond. The dotrumus floated near Kurakai and a very young Dousuke wasn't thinking. People of the Storm Clan aren't affected by electrical attacks, so...he used an electrical attack on the false snake. It caused Kurakai's heart to stop, the second it hit him. He blacked out and nearly drowned. Once he came to, he was lying next to the pond...and the culprits were nowhere to be found. Kurakai didn't remember any of it, but Dousuke couldn't bring himself to tell his friend that he'd almost killed him...
Throughout the years, Shalana began forming a crush on Kurakai, who...started to return her feelings. Being around Shalana, his face would typically turn red and he'd feel super awkward. Dousuke started to tease him for it, just a bit. For...some strange reason, however, Kurakai started to get the feeling that his friend was angry about it...just a little. Dousuke would never explain, however.
Twenty years had passed quickly (making him thirty-five by this point); Kurakai, Dousuke, and Shalana became completely inseparable. Selestia and Shalana were just as close as those three. They hung out while the boys went to get into trouble do their own thing. It was towards the end of this time, that Shalana asked Kurakai to date her. After thinking it over, for only a day, he said "no", in spite of a part of him wanting to agree. When Selestia and Dousuke asked, many years later, why he hadn't agreed, he told them that he "had a bad feeling".
Ten years after being rejected, Shalana started acting incredibly strange; another five years later, Shalana started calling herself "Shea".
At the age of fifty-three, Kurakai had returned to the Fire Clan. Dousuke had vanished to do his own thing (start his own life), so they didn't talk as much around this time. Shalana was acting distance from Kurakai. As for Selestia, she rarely wrote Kurakai, but apparently kept in touch with Shalana. He was welcomed with relieved faces, and it felt...strange. He wasn't used to being looked at that way, after all. Immediately, the Fire Counsel began urging him to take up the leadership position, to honor his father's memory. Hearing it worded that way, he refused. No matter how many times they asked, he never stopped refusing.
Regardless of not accepting the title, he still did things for the sake of the clan. One example is him agreeing to bond to the "daughter of the Water Clan" (the daughter of the leader, to be more exact). This was to ensure that the Fire Clan would keep a powerful ally. His wife died the day after the wedding ceremony of an "unknown cause", which earned a negative response by her people. Fortunately, their leader refused to let the blame be placed on Kurakai...
Layamon, determined to find the reason for his only daughter's death, was the one to discover that Kurakai had been "marked" by the gods. According to Layamon's reading of the stars- in exchange for remaining unbound to a family, he would play an active part in something important. The amount of time that would pass before that, however, was left unspecified. Utterly furious at having his fate decided, for him, he began to do even less for the clan. He would no longer be a tool in anything. He was his own person, and his future was for him to decide.
Years later, at fifty-six, he discovered that Shea attempted to kill Selestia, for the sake of getting Kurakai's attention. It worked, rather well. Kurakai went after Shea, without hesitation, which didn't end well for both of them. Just as he was about to land the finishing blow, however...he realized his desire to kill her wasn't as strong as he'd thought. She was still Shalana, to him -- someone he cared about and grew up with.
By this point, Kurakai had become a rather infamous hunter. While he would never admit it, he wasn't handling the not talking to his sister thing very well. He missed her...and killing people with bounties on their heads seemed like the way to deal with it. In a sense, it helped him, quite a bit.
Five years passed, with Shea remaining inactive. Then, out of nowhere, Kurakai received a message, from Shea. She told him that, if he didn't agree to marry her, that she would kill him and everyone he loved. Kurakai readily agreed. Unfortunately, for Kurakai, Shea discovered that he had the curse. She easily put the dots together, realizing that Kurakai had agreed to marry her, just so she would die after they were bonded. Lashing out in sheer anger, she put him in critical condition. It took two weeks for him to recover...and Selestia didn't handle the news of his brush with death, very well.
Kurakai received a letter from Selestia, and it was her asking to meet him. This would be the first time they actually talked, since Tekaki's murder. Selestia explained that she never stopped loving him, as her brother, but had been terrified of him, at that time. She promised that she hadn't been avoiding him, for the sake of avoiding him. She had been using their time apart to thoroughly research the curse of the Fire Clan, as well as Kurakai's curse. She still remembered him saying, as a child, that he wanted what his parents had...
Three years later, they'd become close again.
By the age of one hundred and three, Kurakai had earned a name for himself. If someone's name wound up on the list of those with bounties? He was bound to hunt them down and kill them. There was...practically no getting out of it. His skills had already begun to match with the famed Tekaki. Which...another seventy-five years later, they had come to match them. He spent all that time training to improve his fire-wielding capabilities. He was a force to be reckoned with, and it would take a fool not to see that.
And that was the very reason Kurakai could be called a fool. He didn't recognize his powers as anything spectacular, nor did he find himself to be anyone worthy of any kind of attention. Selestia spent many of these years trying to change his mind. Dousuke, too. Neither of them have ever managed to get through to him on this. At times, it even resulted in a fight between them and Kurakai. Of course, his sister and best friend being as stubborn as they are, they never let Kurakai go long without speaking to them, afterward...
By the age of one hundred ninety-six, the Fire Clan had diminished to a mere two hundred people. It was at this time that Kurakai, Selestia, and Dousuke consulted with Layamon. He told them about the war of the Halflings.
At the age of two hundred sixteen, Kurakai received a letter from a man who claimed to be Selestia's real father...and he wanted to meet his daughter. Kurakai was quick to hide it from his sister, due to there being no way of knowing the man's intentions. Why hadn't he contacted her, directly? What was he hiding? Without telling her anything, Kurakai went to see the man.
As it turned out, the man (named Lekarus) was...anything but suspicious. He had truly loved Sekira. After finding out that she had died, he'd fallen into a depression. He'd been keeping an eye on his daughter, throughout the years. If not for fear of her rejecting him, he would have contacted her, directly. He simply wanted to speak to her brother, first...and get to know him. Lekarus had hoped that Kurakai would be able to tell him some things about her -- Kurakai refused to, however. Telling him to contact her, directly, he left. A month later, Selestia showed up, tears in her eyes and an excited smile on her face. She'd met her real father...and didn't seem to hold any bitter feelings towards him.
...Then, another month later, Lekarus was dead; he'd been sickly.