O.S

Azurai had spent the last few minutes soaring through the skies taking his exit from Fukurou Forest, a forest which had just unfortunately been forced into being a battleground. Azurai had just gotten himself into his first proper fight against a man who claimed to be a thousand years old, Oguma Inugami. As Azurai was soaring through the sky all he could picture was the man's hate-filled, black eyes. Azurai never imagined he could have possibly been scared or feel fear but today he had. Azurai decided he needed to find a place to rest after taking a considerable amount of damage and even losing his sacred robes given to him by his family of monks.

Azurai had continued to fly for another 6 minutes before choosing to dip from the air into a nearby cave he had earlier spotted in the distance. Azurai landed in the cave stumbling upon his entrance. He had wasted a lot of Ki flying away from Oguma, and from fighting him of course, and he needed to heal his tired body. Azurai hobbled over to one of the cave's walls but made sure he was sitting closest to the entrance in-case anything residing in the cave decided to attack him. Azurai was in no position to escape or fight so if worse came to worse he'd have to roll out of the cave entrance.

While sitting down and trying his best to rest Azurai continued to see Oguma's demonic presence each time he closed his eyes. Oguma had successfully gotten into Azurai's mind, crushing everything he thought he knew about peace. Azurai knew needed to find a way to heal is fractured mind. Azurai spent the next hour tapping into different meditation techniques that the Monks had taught him but none of them seemed to work. No matter what he tried the feeling of anger still dwelled inside of him. Azurai had only one meditation technique left to use. This technique was the oldest form of meditation that the Monks knew. Used by a wide variety of Monks this technique's origin is unknown and therefore out of respect is nameless. The monks only ever referred to this meditation technique as "The Technique".

The Technique was a dangerous form of meditation that tapped into the users mind upon meditating. Inside the users mind the user would be thrown into a vast and empty white space. Inside this space the user would come across the personification of all the hate, fear and defiance inside of them. This personification was usually identical to the user except for one thing. The personification's eyes would be completely black in color. Once the user found their personification they were to fight it, the way it could be fought differed. Because of The Technique creating a whole other person inside the user's head this technique was extremely dangerous. If the user were to lose against their personification the personification would take over the user's body as the user's mind slipped into nothingness. The Monk's who raised Azurai taught this technique to every child once they hit the age of 12. Each child would have to eventually use this technique to become a Monk to prove that they could conquer the darkness. Azurai had seen many children lost and outcast due to losing their true selves, all because of The Technique. Azurai had defeated his darker self before and knew that he would have to do it again in order to rid of his anger and fear. 

Azurai crossed his legs in the darkly lit cave preparing to face the personification of his anger. He noticed that night was falling which made this the perfect time to be activating The Technique as it would take all night to fight against his other-self. Azurai closed his eyes and began to focus the remaining Ki in his body to his mind. He began to glow a bright blue aura lighting the cave around him drawing all the hidden creatures of the cave towards him. The creatures all watched Azurai in amazement and they wouldn't stop for the rest of the night. Azurai continued to focus for another 10 minutes when before he knew it he awoke in a white, empty space.

Azurai stood in the empty space waiting for his personification, or other-self, to arrive. It had been a long time since he had seen his other self and for some reason this made him feel nervous. Azurai spent the next few moments running, yelling, shooting Ki blasts and doing basically anything he could to get the attention of his other-self. It was known that for some reason various noise-making activities was needed to draw in the personification of the user using The Technique. Azurai continued to do this until his other-self would appear.

"You woke me."

Azurai heard the voice of a man behind him, well his own voice behind him. Azurai turned to see his other-self. Identical in every aspect from the head down. Every aspect except for the dark, empty, soulless eyes. Azurai smiled and awkwardly rubbed his head.

"Heh, I guess it's been a while O.S..."

Azurai's personification looked at him wide-eyed in surprise.

"O...S...?"

Azurai smiled back at his other-self.

"Yeah O.S! You know, Other-Self? Because you're the other me?"

Azurai's other-self, O.S, looked back at him with a smirk.

"Awww, you gave me a nickname. You know that was one of the rules you were given right? Not to nickname the evil creepy monsters they make you grow inside your heads. Oh the irony... "

O.S looked at Azurai with a sarcastic smile. O.S had been locked away for a long time and was beginning to grow an increased desire to tease and insult Azurai and the Monk's rules and beliefs. Azurai simply looked back with an even bigger smile. It looked as if Azurai was excited to see O.S again. As if O.S were a long lost friend of Azurai's. O.S began to sense this and was beginning to grow weary and confused. O.S wasn't there to make friends he was there to fight Azurai and take hold of his body.

"Anyway I know it's been a while but I'm here to fight you, not to catch up. Now let's see, how will we fight today? I know last time we played that game of chess but that game was such a game for 12 year olds don't you think? Hehe. Hmmm, seeing as though you've been getting into fights lately.... Let us fight!!!"

Before Azurai could blink O.S had used Zanzoken to appear before Azurai and launch his fist into Azurai's face. Azurai stumbled backwards with one hand holding his face. O.S smiled at Azurai with a smile that one could only imagine as the smile of a psychopath. Before Azurai could react O.S moved onto his next attack which would be a few swift punches directed towards Azurai's chest and stomach. Azurai, while still in that same stumbling position, took the full force of these punches as he fell to the ground. O.S took a brief pause and positioned himself with his fists up waiting for Azurai to get back on his feet.

"This violence thing is f**king awesome! Hehe, it's a surprise that these Monks think peace can really solve this. Teach a psychopath how to fight and he'll fight for days!!!"

"Heh, glad to see you're enjoying yourself... I guess they were right when they told his you would oppose us in different ways. Here I was thinking we would be having another chess match."

Azurai got off the ground and stood up. Taking the same stance as O.S Azurai used Zanzoken to push forward pitting himself against his other-self. Upon reaching O.S Azurai sent three right punches towards O.S left shoulder following with a left uppercut into his stomach. O.S took the hits accordingly but was not repelled by the uppercut as Azurai had hoped. O.S reacted with a swift kick to Azurai's side and another punch to the face. Azurai took the side hit but was able to avoid the punch. Azurai followed O.S's lead by imitating the side kick, which succesfully connected, allowing Azurai to sent a powerful right punch into O.S's face. O.S was hit extremely hard by Azurai's punch sending him hobbling backwards. O.S smirked at Azurai while falling backwards and saved his balance by quickly pushing off the ground into the air. While being pushed further backwards into the air with the use of Bukujutsu O.S charged two balls of energy in both hands. With a psychotic grin directed at Azurai O.S threw these energy balls in the direction of Azurai generating a new energy ball each time one would hit either Azurai or Azurai's surrounding area.

"Remember Azurai I am not limited to your one simple energy wave that they teach you! I've had a lot of time to think and plan up in this head of yours, it would only be more beneficial if I were to be the one running the show here! Just think of all that I could do!"

Azurai heard O.S's short speech through all of the on-coming energy balls. Using a mix of Bukujutsu and Zanzoken Azurai would duck, dodge and weave through the balls of energy that flew past and exploded around him. Azurai repeated these actions this until there was a slight gap in the amount of energy balls being thrown at him. As soon as Azurai had his chance he desperately flew into the air and began charging the "simple energy wave" known as the Disruptive Wave. Locking eyes with O.S Azurai smiled to himself. Azurai was enjoying himself way too much for his own liking but for some reason he couldn't help it. Fighting made Azurai feel alive. As the beam became fully charged Azurai threw his palm forward shooting a relatively large purple energy wave in the direction of O.S. O.S noticed Azurai's energy wave almost immediately and ceased his own technique while beginning to charge a large amount of energy in both of his feet. Laughing at Azurai while the energy wave came closer O.S launched forward towards the blast with energy blasting from his feet. By combining Bukujutsu and a large amount of Ki O.S had turned himself into what could only be described as a meteor. O.S blasted through Azurai's energy wave dispersing it entirely. As O.S reached Azurai he began to clench his fist, moving the energy from his entire body to his fist O.S thrust his arm forward punching Azurai in the middle of the chest. The punch sent Azurai pummeling to the ground at full force. Azurai was weakened and O.S still had nearly a full amount of energy left. Azurai had lost the battle against his Other Self.

"You really didn't want to lose that one did you Azurai?"

 O.s slowly walked towards Azurai after defeating him. Azurai, struggling to move, had once again begin to feel true fear. Azurai's inner peace had completely ceased and he felt as though all the Monks had taught him about maintaining true peace had vanished. Azurai couldn't do anything except to accept that he had lost and that he would most likely vanish within the next minute. O.S grinned at Azurai as he reached him. Lowering his height by bending at the knees he began to speak to Azurai.

"It is a shame that such potential has been wasted because of your precious Monks. All this talk of peace and not being able to accept that violence will continue to guide Earth and protect it. It makes me sick that my host was... I mean that you were wasted on these teachings. So much you could have... you should have learned. You could have made an excellent warrior, Earth's protector..."

O.S began to confuse Azurai. The tone of O.S's voice was filled with anger and hurt as if the Monks had done something terrible to him. O.S's words also confused Azurai. Azurai could feel that were was a sense of pride hidden in O.S's words. Pride that made Azurai feel as if O.S was mad at the Monks for somehow hurting or corrupting Azurai. Azurai, apart from being badly beaten, felt somewhat happy.

"You know the Monks taught us that our other selves hated us... They were wrong weren't they?"

O.S took a brief pause while he tried to find an answer to Azurai's question. Unable to find an answer that wouldn't make O.S look soft he simply ignored Azurai's question and continued to speak.

"I noticed something while watching you, seeing through your eyes... You were never really at peace, so unsure that your precious Monks could do the things they said they wanted to do... There was always a spark of doubt in you that I noticed, after they made you create me. Fighting that Demon made you more doubtful and fearful.... You threw your own inner peace out of balance, you came to me as an excuse because you wanted clarity, you..."

O.S paused, deciding not to continue with his speech he got up and turned away from Azurai.

"I'm not taking your body. I would only be doing the Monks a favour, helping their disgusting teachings go unnoticed. Me beating you down like a worthless dog has sparked something in you. You won't return to those Monks if I leave you in your current position, not once you see the many things that are coming..."

Before Azurai could speak O.S disappeared. Azurai was speechless. The Monks had convinced Azurai that personifications were evil creatures in disguise wanting to take over their hosts body, an embodiment of all that was evil inside the user of The Technique. O.S was right. Azurai had grown doubtful of his Monk father's and mother's. Azurai didn't know whether or not true peace would work or be able to save his planet. After a few moments Azurai appeared in reality again. Blinking his eyes furiously to make sure this wasn't a trick his aura began to fade away. With the sun coming up the creatures surrounding him turned around and headed inside of the cave ignoring that Azurai existed. Azurai stood up and stared out into the world around him seeing it in a new light.