Watashi no Shinobido: My Ninja Way

I was looking for an unrelated project (Einherjar: Of Souls and Swords) when I found this. Originally intended to be a Naruto game, I'm always more interested in taking inspiration from a source and then deviating strongly from it (sort of how Einherjar is obviously inspired by Valkyrie Profile).

I was trying to play up the kids sent to war aspects, and make something interesting. I might come back to this one day.

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Intro

You are a kid. A child, really. It's just before your tenth birthday that you're sent to one of the academies. You thought it would be great, becoming a shinobi, a ninja. Learning the ninja way, and becoming a great hero.
Three years later, you graduate from the grueling courses. You're assigned to a squad, and given your first mission.

By the end of the night, you've chased the target through the cold, dark woods, been punched so hard in the side of the head that you can't see straight, been cut across the jaw to the point where you can't speak, and your leg is broken in at least three places. The kunoichi of your squad is lies motionless as the rain pours around her. You always thought she was pretty, and hoped you'd be in her squad. Now, you get to see her breasts in all their perky glory, except they're torn open, blood and viscera open to the world. You don't even have enough time to grieve, the other living member of your squad shouts for your attention. You turn, just in time to see the traitor, your mentor--his twitching right eye a black marble with a bile-yellow dot, the side of his face covered in occult markings--he brings a bear-sized arm down at you, ready to tear you to shreds like the kunoichi.

The Dice

The game uses two standard six sided dice, except for one difference. One die adds to your result, and the other subtracts from it. In the following examples, I'll be referring the the subtracting die as red, and the adding die as green. You don't have to use these colours, as long as you remember which one is which. If you've only got white dice, then feel free to take a marker and put an X along the sides of one of the die to differentiate them.

Rolling the Bones

There are six attributes that are used in Shinobido. Intellect, Wits, Strength, Agility, Tenacity, and Charisma. Each one represents a different aspect of what a character can accomplish.

Intellect and Wits represent a character's mental capabilities, while Strength and Agility are their physical ability. Tenacity and Charisma show how well a character can interact with others.

Intellect

Hirame stared at the scroll, trying to understand it's secrets. The whorls and loops of the characters were foreign. After a minute, she was about to give up, when finally it snapped. Turning the scroll sideways, she shouted “aha! I've figured out the code. Now it's time to get this information back to the village and stop the spy.”

Intellect is the force of a character's mental powers. It represents a ninja's understanding of the world around her and how she fits into it. A character with high intellect might be well versed in the occult, or lore, or perhaps a brilliant tactician.

Times when a character might make an Intellect roll: Solving a code, remembering a fact, memorizing information

Wit

“Hrm,” thought Kinosuke, “that's pretty good, but how about this one? What can the weakest lark carry that the strongest man might not?” He gave an internal smile as the Oni furrowed his brow and rubbed his chin. This was all too easy.

While Intellect is all about force, Wit relies on avoiding it. Witty characters are clever, and capable of thinking on their feet. Wit measures that ability, and represents not what characters have learned, but what they might know.

Times when a character might make a Wits roll: Avoiding an ambush, sensing someone watching them, searching a room, solving a riddle or puzzle

Strength

The three of them chased after the target. He fled through a threshold, and pressed a button on a console, and a heavy wooden door dropped from the ceiling. Arudio stepped forward, cracking his knuckles and rolling his head along his broad shoulders. He slipped his fingers beneath the door, and with one powerful motion, lifted it up above his head. Grunting, he rested the door on his shoulders, “Go, I've got this.”

Strength is pure muscle. The ability of a character to exert himself physically, from punching someone in the face, to lifting a door or rock. Strong characters are powerful, and more than capable of defending themselves.

Times when a player would roll Strength: Lifting a heavy object, breaking down a door; Strength also determines damage, and health.

Agility

Katsumaru practically soared through the treetops, barely landing on the branches. As he leaped from one to the other, not a single leaf fell. He was one with the wind. From the left of him, something rustled in the foliage. All he had to do was twitch just right and the shurikin needle harmlessly missed him, burying itself halfway into a tree trunk.

Agility is the ability to control the movement of one's body, and characters with high agility can do this with skill and grace. Every move they make is fluid, and their attacks are as artistic as they are deadly.

Times a character might use Agility: Leaping across a cliff, climbing a wall; Agility is also used in combat to determine how well a character can hit with attacks, and avoid the attacks of others.

Tenacity

“I'll never give in!” Luliko shouted, moments before the man put a hand to her chest. A surge of electricity tore it's way through her body, boiling blood and making her legs twitch. Her lungs tightened and refused to let in any air. In a moment, it was all over. “Well?” the man asked. Luliko's chest heaved, and she muttered something. Her torturer leaned in close. She spit in his face, and gathered up her will, “Go to Hell, you bastard!”

Tenacity is, simply put, a character's ability to say “fuck you” to anything that stands in their way. Characters with high Tenacity can withstand torture, resist mind control, and exert themselves on others. It represents the character's willpower and willingness to perservere.

Times when a character would roll Tenacity: Resisting torture, giving an impassioned speech, avoiding mind control. Characters also make Tenacity rolls to use a Valiant Surge, as well as measuring a character's Focus pool.

Charisma

“Could you please help me?” the young girl asked. She was cute, with that look like a childhood sweetheart from youth. The older man smiled, “Of course,” he offered. Maybe he would get lucky tonight, “What is it you need help with?” She fidgeted, “Well, it's embarrassing,” she whimpered, looking around left and right, and motioning for him to follow her. As the man followed her around the corner, he couldn't believe his luck. As he felt the blade push through his chest, he had just enough time to mutter “Fuck...”

Charm and good looks can get you far. A character with Charisma can lead others along like puppets on a string, for good or ill. This is the ability to convince people to do what you want them to, and sometimes even to get them to think they wanted to do it.

Times when a Charisma roll might be called for: Lying, seduction, persuasion, training an animal

The Difference between Success and Failure

Whenever a character attempts an action that might be important to the story, the player rolls the dice.

1. Add up your Attribute (see above for the attributes, and which might be applicable) and any modifiers to the roll. Easy tasks give bonuses, and harder tasks subtract penalties.

2. Once that's done, roll the green and red die.

3. For each pip on the red, subtract 1 from the total

4. For each pip on the green, add 1 to the total.

5. If the final total is greater than 0, then the action succeeds.

• If the action succeeds with more than 0, then it might be a dramatic die. This is especially good in combat, where every 3 points over 0 means that the enemy will lose another health level.

Combat is the same way.

1. Declare your action.

2. Subtract the target's current Defense from your Attribute (usually Agility)

• Defense begins at Agility, and for every attack that a character suffers they lose 1 Defense. A character that has an Agility of 3 starts with 3 Defense, and after one attack, they drop to 2 Defense. A third attack means they have 1 Defense.

• No matter how many attacks a character suffers, they won't ever drop below 0 Defense.

• Once the character's turn comes up again, their Defense resets.

3. Add any modifiers from Specialties or weapons

• Describe your action! This is an important step that many people forget! A good description could even be worth a bonus to your roll! Don't be afraid to rough up the scenery, or add minor details, like chandeliers to swing off of, or tapestries to slide down.

4. Roll the dice, and follow the above steps to determine whether or not you hit your target.

5. If you hit, then it's now time for the defender to roll. He makes an Tenacity roll penalized by your character's damage (generally Strength, though it might be the rank of a special power)

6. If the target's Tenacity roll succeeds, then they take no damage. If it fails, on the other hand, they take a wound. The type of wound depends on what type of attack you used. A punch or other relatively non-lethal attack would be Bruising, while a knife, or a special attack that uses fire breath would be Lethal.

7. For every three that you get over the attack roll, or every three points the target fails their roll by, then they take an additional wound.

The Flow of Ki:

Aisa has 6 Focus, Hirai has 4.
They get into a battle. Aisa launches a powerful technique that costs 3 Focus. Aisa's player pushes three beads into the center of the table. Hirai defends himself with a protective charm, and puts 2 of his Focus into the center.
Aisa uses another move, adding 2 more Focus to the pile. Hirai is hit, and decides to use this turn to charge, drawing 4 Focus from the pile.
Suichiro joins the fight, launching an ambush technique aimed at Aisa, which costs him 2 of his 5 Focus. Suichiro's Focus is placed in a separate pile, and from then on, everyone adds to the second pile, but Aisa and Hirai can also draw from the first.

In a Heroic World

Originally, this was for a Mutants and Masterminds setting, and I had it lying around.

Even in the Old West there had been heroes. Heroes like The Golden Ranger with his native riding buddy Toro; and Raymond Curse, the scarred bounty hunter and honourary Apache warrior. There was the Masked Rider, Calisto Buenaventura, better known as La Cuervo

They were few and far between, but then, at the turn of the century, there came the Masks. They were men like The Shade, a man in a mask and fedora, knowing what evil lurked in the hearts of men; They started out as little more than detectives, vigilantes looking to write the wrongs and protect the innocent. Many of them were rich, and a style was created of a masked man and his valet working together to stop crime. One of the more famous ones, The Blue Wasp, was actually one of the great, great grandchildren of The Golden Ranger.

And then it came in the 1930s that the "Golden Age" began. It started with the "brass boyscout", Captain Miracle. In March of 1933, he made his debut during the attack on the city by a robot created by a mad scientist. He kept a runaway bullet train from derailing, catching it before it could reach a missing section of the track. Soon there came others, like Super Woman, the Amazonian princess Artemis. There were also more of the men who really wore masks. The hero-detectives, like The Mothman, who stopped crime wherever it dwelled, and worked with--and sometimes against--the police to stop the new breed of criminals grew in number. Soon heroes were everywhere.

The Golden Age lasted through the Second World War, with heroes like the United States Ultra Soldier Project creating Sergeant Columbia, who faced off against his German counterpart, The Scarlet Skeleton. Captain Miracle, Super Woman, and The Mothman were the first heroes to band together, creating the Justice Organization of America--Stan Reynolds, the Sergeant, was thought lost in combat.

The Golden Age ended in the mid-50s, with the rise of the House UnAmerican Committees, and accusations of Communism. Mothman especially was hit hard, being blacklisted by MacCarthy.

For a few years, there were no heroes.

Then began what would come to be known as the Silver Age. Captain Miracle had retreated to his Citadel of Solace far beneath Antarctica, and SuperWoman returned to the Amazonian Isle. But fortune would have it that there were others.

The chief among them, and some would say the first of the new breed of heroes, was Eddie East, Mercury, the lightning man, struck by a bolt of electricity in an experiment and gifted with the power to move faster than sound. Soon there would be others. The Fabulous Five--the Rock, Doctor Elastic, Lady Ghost, The Flaming Man, and Hydroman. Gifted--and cursed--with strength and a rocklike carapace, the ability to stretch to amazing lengths and morph skin, become invisible and intangible, to turn into fire, and to become like water.

Less fortunate was grey monster of science, Doctor David Danvers, who exposed himself to radiation in the hopes of curing illnesses, only to become Gamma, a giant mass of muscle fueled by rage.

But together, these new heroes fought against the likes of The Gorilla, Professor Chaos, and Wendigo.

With the likes of Baldr--who may or may not be the son of Odin--and Red Demon, they stood up for the innocent.

They brought back the good name of heroes everywhere. It was the Mothman II that tried once again to create the JOA. And for a while, it worked.

But soon, things changed once again.

The Silver Age died with Tracy Guenevere. That is what the historians agree. The end began with Annie Stands, girlfriend, and soon to be fiancee, of Spectra. Until he came home and found her body stuffed into the refrigerator, superheroes had been seen as untouchable. They had laughed off the bullets of the Nazis, and faced the monsters of the Atom Bomb with fearlessness. That act, on it's own, may have been nothing. But a few weeks later, The Mothman II's ward, Bluebird II, was killed in an explosion by The Jester. Finally, the last straw was had when the Gremlin made Bug-man choose between Tracy and a metro car full of innocent people.

Bad things come in threes.

But soon, a few years later, new heroes emerged. And they became more human. They had problems. Gear, the billionare Antony Rokkos, struggled heavily with alcoholism. Spectrum Lad, son of Silver Age villain Spectrum, was homosexual. Groups of mutants banded together, calling themselves Outcastes and struggling with being different. Public perception of heroes had changed from heroes and villains, to only villains. The Family rose up, taking in the outcastes among the Outcastes, those who were too 'evil' or hideous to fit in among society. They didn't look for acceptance, seeing themselves not as equals with humanity but lords over them.

This was a time of heroes that were tarnished, but still heroic. Their villains were social constructs as much as they were criminals. Congressmen were looking to keep tabs on the so-called 'mutants' and metahumans, and prejudices against superheroes who were anything more than gadgeteers and the well trained. Aliens were often between the two categories.

While the Golden Age ended with resignation and the retirement of the great heroes, and the Silver Age died when they realized they weren't untouchable, the Bronze Age died with a universal catastrophe.

Two omnipotent beings, calling themselves The Black Guardian and The White Guardian, had spent eternity playing a game with reality. There were rules to their 'game', and though the White struggled to work within the rules and get his 'pieces' up to snuff, the Black was still more powerful. Hero and villain alike came together to stop the erasure of reality, and together they managed it, though the year 1985 would be erased from history, becoming "The Year that Never Was".

Many of the heroes involved in it died. And even in dealing with more 'mundane' threats--as mundane as they get for a superhero--heroes were being shown they weren't invincible in ways not seen in the last Age. It began with the then-elderly Mothman II having his back broken by Poison, a scientist born in a prison and powered by a serum of powerful muscle stimulants. It was then that heroes began to believe that they needed to be tougher.

It began with The Avenger, a soldier of the Gulf War who came home to find his family was caught in the crossfire between two gangs. And others followed. There was an unspoken belief among the heroes that heroes that they needed to be tougher. Some heroes became more willing to kill. Others clung to their technical pacifism, but were willing to lead villains into situations in which they would kill themselves, or break bones.

Some say that the Iron Age never ended. Others say that a new Age began when Captain Miracle returned after fifty years of solitude. Once again, the citizens of Centrolopolis were saved from a runaway metro car by the city's favoured son.

Or when Artemis stopped the legions of Tartarus from marching on Washington.

When Sergeant Columbia was unthawed from a block of ice, coming into the new century to see what his country had become.

There was a return to the sensibilities of before. The Iron had become tempered with something more dignified. The grit was brushed away, and Diamonds were found. Together, Superwoman, Captain Miracle, and Mothman II--who wouldn't let something like a broken back stop him for long--recreated the Justice Organization, this time no longer limiting themselves to America.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Columbia, Gear, and the still living David Danvers became the government backed organization known as the Defenders. Teams of heroes began to spring up, banding together to defeat the villains, darker than ever, but now facing a shining legion of justice and hope.

The heroes of the last decade have seen a lot. They've seen dark reflections of the Spectrum Ring bringing the dead back to life. They've seen heroes taking sides against each other over politics. The heroes of this so called Diamond Age have faced their pasts and questioned their futures. Many of them have made hard choices, such as when Sergeant Columbia stood against the government he loves in defense of it's ideals, and Arachnid revealed his identity on national television. Torches have been passed, such as when Columbia was murdered on the steps of the Capitol, and when Mothman II was killed in the line of duty, and Owl--formerly Bluebird III--became the third Mothman as well.

It's a harrowing time, with darkness everywhere, and a few shining beacons.

And it's up to you to decide how it turns out.

Virtue and Vice

I've posted these elsewhere, but I figure it's about time I put them here.

Lesser Envy
The streets are silent, save for your footsteps. And of course the sounds from the fog. You can't be entirely sure that it isn't your imagination playing tricks on you. It's out there, low, nearly imperceptable, but it's there. There's a noise, and it's coming from the fog itself, as soft as it may be. The sound of wind blowing gently, even though the air is still and the smoky mist turns of it's own accord.
At first you don't even notice the sound. Too focused on your footsteps. And your heartbeat. The panting of your breath. It's not until you slow to a standstill that you realize you were running. The awkward weight of the copper piping in your hand is uncomfortable, and you've grasped it so tightly your whitened knuckles ache. That's when you finally notice the sound. You think, hope, that it's just a cat, scrounging for scraps. You've seen glimpses of things in the mists that you wouldn't want to meet this close.

That's when you see it, crawling from the underside of a boxy old car. It crawls across it's belly, a sort of grey, tannish thing covering it. On it's back are two pieces of bone jutting out from the shoulders. Flayed skin and feathers still hanging in tatters from the broken skeletal arms. It struggles to it's feet, awkward and grotesque. That's when you realize what it's wearing.
The... thing... is bound in strips of human flesh, sewn together with wire, arms pressed tightly, and at odd, uncomfortable angles, to the chest. It might have been a woman, at one time. You can see the outline of hips and breasts as it writhes up to a standing position. The horrid monstrosity's eyes are sewn shut, and it's once full lips are tied loosely in the same manner. The eyeless thing looks at you, the light of your pocket torch shinning on the taut flesh of it's bindings. You catch a glimpse of a navel, and nipples and shudder. The metal strings that shut the mouth stretch tightly as the thing opens it's mouth and gives out a deafening shriek that leaves you clutching your temples and falling to your knees.

Gluttony

You hear the sickening slurping noises before you see the cause. You should have turned around. But no, you had to give in. Such a human trait, curiosity and the temptation to give into it. You turn the corner slowly, the sound getting louder, like meat caught in a grinder and being sucked through. That's when you see it. An emaciated man with a swollen, distended belly, eating as if it hadn't ever done so before. He wasn't wearing clothes, and was covered in blood and dirt and grim, his skin looking like something from a garbage can. It's not until the man lifts his head to let the rotted, festering meat he's ravenously tearing into slide down his throat that you notice he's not exactly what you thought he was. His neck is long and sinuous, and ends in a blunt face. There are tiny little beads that might be eyes next to it, and they're almost covered in blood and blinking against the thin light of a streetlamp.
At the end of the fleshy tube that makes up it's head is a razor lined tunnel. Three sharp teeth still chew at the still night air. It goes back to it's fetid meal, large talons tearing chunks off and stuffing them down the throat. It doesn't even care when it's own hand gets too close, and snaps at it before digging it back into the corpse. When it runs out of large chunks of meat, it reaches it's cylindrical head down and starts to clean the flesh from the bone. All this takes place in the span of only a few minutes, and the thing is soon nothing more than a skeleton. It couldn't have weighed more than a small child, and yet it's still as sickly thin as before, it's belly no heavier even after devouring a corpse. It snorts out, digging into any crevice it can for a missed morsel, but finds none and throws back it's head in anguish, still sniffing all the while. The head flops back, twists. The thing falls over and quickly scrabbles to it's feat, long arms dragging across the ground as it hobbles with it's bloated, gassy stomach toward your corner.

The Bandaged Man

The building is quiet. It used to be a school, but... well, now the walls are peeling, and paint is flecked all over the wapred tiles. As if the whole building had just been pulled up from the ocean. Thick, black mold clung tightly in some places, making sickly patterns on the walls. The smell is thick, pungent, earthy, but also diseased, with the air of rotting meat or a dying tree. Childlike crayon drawings decorate the walls. They're ugly and simple, and yet you can already tell what they are. They're large sctions of black and white, with streaks of red and brown and grey and beige. You've seen the things represented before. A reminder of what waits for you. Out there. A bound figure screaming in agony. A pack of horrid dogs chewing at each other. A disgusting tube of flesh and teeth. And a large, red man with his face covered by white. You see more and more of him as you go on. A cartoonish stitching around the man's shoulder. And a downturned mouth and eyebrows made by running several lines of black crayon over one another.
You learn to ignore the drawings, and only focus on the sound of your footsteps. Which is when you start to wonder where that rumbling came from. It's deep, but low. Easy to miss. It's like breathing. Soft, deep, breaths. Curiosity gets the best of you. You go to the source of the sound. It's the principles office. You take a look in, and see it. HIM. The creature from the drawings. He lies on the floor. Sleeping, it would seem. The snoring stops. His arms push out and lift his massive body from the ground. He's almost twice as tall as you are standing up, and still he slouches. His body is muscle, from head to toe. He wears a robe drapped about his waist made up of bandages and chains and half latched belts. His arms look sewn on, a stichting running all the way around his shoulder. As he leans back, stretching, his bones give a sickening crack. His head slowly rolls along his shoulders, twitching, as he cracks his neck.

His body is badly burned, knotted scars covering one side of him, waves and roots and tangles of singed flesh. He's covered in bandages. As if he was patched up and tossed out of the OR. They're bloody, and wrapped about his waist, and another seam goes up from his kidney. They're wrapped around his forearms as well, soiled and bloodied. They're mostly on his face. Long strips of once-white cloth, now dirtied and soiled with blood and other things. With another roll of his head he stops and looks at the window on the office door. One eye is left uncovered, downturned and yellow, with a slit like a cat's. It burns as much as his flesh once did and it pierces through the glass.
You stumble over yourself trying to get away, and can't help but take a look over your shoulder in time to see the door splinter outwards as the thing follows you, dragging a large weapon behind it. The chains and belts around his waist clink together with each step, and he swings his weapon wildly, carving gashes in the walls and cracking the tile. A roaring moan of pain and fury escapes his bound lips and you move your legs as fast as you can, anything to get away from the behemoth you leave behind.

The Bound Abuser

The "California Hotel". You can't speak for what it used to be like, but it's now just a wreck, you think to yourself, as you close the door on one more room that holds no answers. A storm rages outside, and forced you to seek shelter here. It's a surprise that the lights still work, or at least, that the ones that do work still work. There's no point in leaving things unexplored, though. That's something you've learned well. One more room. Then you might as well lock yourself in and try to sleep. Maybe this nightmare will be over when you wake back up. You can dream, at least. The room is empty. They all are, for the most part. A few of them are filled with interesting things, but no answers. This room is a wreck, as well. Not the best place to sleep. The bed is covered with blood, as well as other things. The scent of cum and sweat hangs in the air. Tears. You can feel them welling up in your eyes, and you don't know why. You hold yourself, shaking. What's wrong with you? You turn to leave. To get away from whatever these emotions are.
As you turn for the door, you're taken off guard, and with a flurry of chains and leather you're knocked backwards, onto the bed with a beaten cheek.

Before you stands an old man, skinny and greasy and dirty. His eyes are covered in a leather blindfold, and his chest is in the same black leather so tightly that he weezes with every breath. His crotch is left unbound by the leather, and instead is bound in thin, rusted barbed wire, wrapped around his groin and waist like a freakish metal thong. The wire tears into and runs through the flesh of his genitals, leaving his member scarred and twisted. One testicle threatens to drop out of the torn sack of flesh as he crawls up the bed. His sickly ashen skin is almost transperent. You fight, trying to get away, but he presses you down. The room catches fire around you, and the monster grabs you by the throat and runs a long, sticky tongue along your cheek. He lets out a ragged moan of exstacy. He tears at your blouse and skirt, and youn can feel his flesh and leather against yours, every touch burning.
"I remember this taste." the thing says, flames dancing along it's back. Every word is strained and gravelly, as if it hadn't used it's mouth before. "A little older than I usually like. But then again, I don't often get these with little girls," he says, roughly fondling at your breasts. He smiles, and you shudder. "Let's rekindle an old flame." he chuckles.
As he climbs on top of you, you struggle, but to no avail. He holds your arms down with one hand as he runs that disgusting tongue over your body. With just... a little... more... you get a hand free, and take the lamp on the nighstand and bring it down on the pervert's head. You run to the door, now covered in flames and held fast by chains. You can hear him behind you. He gets up, rubbing his bald head with a wizend hand. Chains reach out to the leather bindings on his wrist and unceremoniously heft him off the now burning bed. There's no way out, and you collapse to your knees. You hit one of them on something metal, and wrap your hands around the copper pipe. Chains and flames block the exit, and there's only one way out.

The Virtues

Temperance - a man who's shut himself off from the world. There's no way to give into temptation if your mouth is sewn shut, your eyes are removed, your ears pierced and bleeding, your genitals cut off and sewn up, your fingers singed until they can't feel anything. A lack of temptation has driven him mad. He seeks to rid himself of any temptations by cutting them off. Cutting away any temptation, big or small.

Charity - You're cold, you're tired. You're sick. You're in pain. A long smile, a warm embrace. Food and comfort. She gives them all to you, blind to anything but giving of herself. She feeds you with her rotting flesh. She quenches your thirst with her blood. She keeps you where she can give you all you want. Everything except your freedom.

Fortitude - Never give up. That's what the thing says. The thing that pushes you. It crawls along you, worming it's way into your skin. You can never give up. You can always continue. Continue forever. Keep pressing forward. The thing inside of you, burrowed into your skin, pulsing on your flesh, it drives you. You don't need sleep or food or anything. You can accomplish anything. You can keep going until you die.

Love - Love is subservience. The way to be who your partner wants you to be. She gives. She wants to be held. To be killed. To be ravaged. To be cuddled. Anything her lover desires, no matter the depravity, for she is love. Unconditional. Little by little, she takes whatever she's given, feeding on scraps of affection, no matter how twisted, her body changing to be what her lover wants it to be.

Faith- The angel knows there is more. It knows there is a plan. And so it makes people into the pawns and queens and rooks because they are part of the plan. The angel is part of the plan as well. He knows it doesn't matter if he's a pawn or a bishop. He follows the plan that comes to him. He follows without sleep or rest. The plan doesn't make sense, but he follows it. Carving himself up when it's his turn to move along the black and white squares of his reality, his body twisted and broken if that's the move he needs to make. Sometimes he helps the other pieces move along.

Hope - Life will be better. The thing was frightening at first. A blue rash. Dead flesh. Itching, burning. Numbness. It spread across your body, but it wasn't scary. No, it was different. It made you feel better. You can do anything now, because it always feels better. You never stop smiling, even when your lips broke. It's always sunny. You know it will all be better. It feels so good to know.

Prudence - Don't touch that, it's dangerous. Don't go there, it's dangerous. It spreads like a virus, but it keeps you from the viruses. It keeps you from the germs. It keeps you from the sharp objects and the trips and the falls and the animals and their teeth. It tells you when to put a knife into something to keep it from hurting you. It always knows when the best time to act is. It knows when not to act. You can't act a lot. But if you did, you know it would be dangerous. Never act unless it tells you. Perfectly still until the moment it tells you.

On Your Feet, Private

On your feet, Private.

With those words, I bolt upright, feeling a sudden rush of life and air surged back into my lungs. I claw at my throat, ripping at the sick, filmy caul, still wet and dripping. Then I feel a memory that never happened to me.

I'm 23, my name is Andrew Franklin. There's another man here, in this convenience store with a gun, holding it at a co-ed. Part of me is heroic, part of me is stupid. A little bit thinks I might get lucky. As he starts to pull the trigger on the crying twenty something, I sneak up behind and tackle him. We struggle, but he gets the gun under me. I hear something in the distance, and I look up and laugh, thinking it's over. He doesn't, though, and isn't trying to run. It feels like a goliath punched me in the chest, and my smile fades as I realize I've been shot. The police sirens are the last thing that I hear, along with the girl and the clerk screaming in Chinese.

Reacting, I put a hand to my chest. It wasn't me in that store, but I feel like I felt it anyway. The shot that killed me was five inches to the left. It's already healed up. The blood is still there, my shirt still torn. I run a finger along it as I catch my breath, then feel one of the other five shots. I managed to stop them from being so bad, but these ones will still leave scars, already looking like they're months old.

That's the first time that's ever happened to me. I didn't expect it to be so intense, somehow more real than my own deaths, living someone else's. Then I see the last girl, and realize I have more important things to do.

She's wearing a miniskirt that's pink and green pleats and loud in every sense of the word, and a little top that clings to her in a way that her mother wouldn't want it to. Her stockings are long and stripped, though dirty now, and ripped. She looks like sex and sweetness and all those things little girls try to be thinking it's 'adult'. Before that bastard came home, she was clinging to me and crying and begging me to stop him from hurting her. Now she's covered in Death, and her body just feels empty, soulless.

I swallow, trying to get a lump out of my throat as I lift up her clothes. He beat her, bruises all over her body. I don't know whether it made her 'taste' better or if he just wanted to torture her first for the hell of it. I come to her skirt, and I can't go any further. I've seen enough.

On your feet, Private, the Unknown Soldier orders again. His voice is a calm, but I know there's always fear and trepidation underneath it all. I cross myself, and say a quick prayer for her, then get to my feet. I come up too fast, too angry, and too soon after coming back, but I need to go after him.

I take a look around, leaning against a support post. I'm in the basement. Everything is sparse, and there's no light. The girl is chained to the wall. There's a parts cabinet, and a workbench, with melting candles as the only source of light. I don't even want to look at it, covered in blood and sigils. It's bad mojo. I've seen enough shit to know blood sigils and soul eating aren't the hallmarks of a priest or a saint. I avert my eyes, and in the flickering light, I see something that makes me smile.

It's the pipe I used to beat that bastard before he shot me. There's a bit of blood on it, but even better, it reminds me there's a tooth somewhere around here. It doesn't take me too long to find it, and slip it into a white handkerchief.
Now it's time to get busy. I run up the rickety wooden stairs fast enough that I'm afraid they'll break, then start busting open doors until I find a desk, then I rummage through it for a marker. I lay the tooth, still covered in dried blood, down in the middle of the handkerchief, then start tracing magic symbols around it, invoking Jesus and Hades and anyone else who's ever been in a death myth. I could say it was something I learned from a legitimate source. A Vatican priest, or a Kabbalah rabbi. I got it from a video game. In the last few years, I've realized it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do something. Just one more thing to finish it off.

I've been chanting throughout, but now I need complete silence. Quietly as I can, not even disturbing the wind, I reach out my left hand. The pipe is there again as soon as I close my fingers, and it feels good to have it. I wave it like a magic wand, and say the words only in my mind. With a gentle tap on the tooth, I feel my blood run cold. It feels like I'm bleeding out again. I involuntarily shiver. I tie my makeshift bag, filled with a tooth, some silly writing, and a bit of dirt, and let it dangle on the string. It gently moves, tugging a bit.
hat means it worked.

I'm halfway out the door before I realize I look like shit, and I'm covered in blood and dirt. I rummage through the rooms of the cabin and find a shirt, putting it on and fixing myself up in the mirror. He's going into town, and I don't want to stand out.

How many times have I died now, I wonder. It's been three. This is the first time I've ever died up here, though. Dying in the land of the dead, that doesn't really 'count', now does it? The first time I was shot in some hellish hospital by one of the nurses, and came to naked up Above in a broom closet. Second time, some wannabe Lawmaker threw me into the River of Scorpions. And now this is three deaths.

Four the Soldier says. Confused, I look into the mirror, and can almost see him there. The Unknown Soldier. Wearing BDU and a red-coat. With warpaint and dogtag eyes. His mouth is a knife wound, and his nose a gunbarrel. Sometimes he carries a Lacadanion sheild, and others European greaves and a samurai sword. He has no expression, but that slit of a mouth repeats You've died four times, Private.

I nearly forgot. The first time I died. I was seventeen. That was a world away, lifetimes. That was someone else who died. Some young kid going out tagging and getting hit by a car, watching as it hauled ass to get away from the dying kid, leaving me to bleed out.

It was then that I met the Soldier. I'd heard him before, or maybe others. I could never make out words, but I'd get the gist of it. They wanted me to do this, and that. The unquiet dead. I lay there bleeding out, and I slipped into that other world, that place of ghosts. I grew colder as my blood filled the curb, and stained the world around me. Everything was pale. Buildings were different. The old ones were solid, but some of the new ones weren't even there. And the Soldier stood over me. He hadn't been there, but then he was. Just fading in, as I faded out.

On your feet, Private. But I couldn't stand. Do you want to die? It was said in that same tone as always. Giving an order, but scared of it. Someone not used to power, but trying to use it properly. Someone about to die, but not letting on to the people now under him.

You have a chance to live. And the pipe dropped down from his hand. I looked up, and saw him. I might have pissed myself if I wasn't dying. I think I pissed myself because I was dying. Take it, and keep fighting.
I don't know why I did it. Why I reached out and grabbed that pipe and pulled myself up. Why I became Bound to this spirit of those lost in battle, dying for nothing and everything. Sometimes, I regret it. I regret it when I see a young girl beaten, crying, begging me to stop him, and not being able to. Other times, I don't. Times like when I beat that bastard to death and tear out his eyes.

"Four deaths," I say to myself in the mirror. They say when you die Below, it just makes you crazy. Nothing a little piece of mind can't get you back. But when you die Above, when we die Above, it shreds our souls, makes is closer to monsters. Someone else dies each time. I cross myself again, and say a prayer for Andrew Franklin. Let's make sure he doesn't give me his life in vain. "Keep fighting."

My pipe is back in my hand, and my knuckles are tight gripping it. I'm going to find that bastard. I head out, and raise up the bag, letting it gently rise in the direction he is. I'm not going to let him take another girl's soul. He killed me once, it's time to return the favor.