Meeting... Something

Shin looked down at the sword in his hand with a grin on his face, he turned to the last one, a child, of no more than 6, he took a few steps forward, letting the corpse of her mother slide off his blade. He took a few more steps forward towards the girl, his feet splashing in pools of blood as he approached, He watched her cry and try to sputter out some words, but He just stuck out his blade through her throat and blood started flowing down the blade as he lifted her with his sword as she tried to beg for her life, crying and in agony. He whipped his blade out the side of her throat and swung it back beheading her, the head falling off and bouncing a few times in blood. He glanced around at the carnage encircling him, at least 30 people were lying around him dead, men, women, children. It didn't matter who, He merely laughed and went in search of his next victim, blood dripping down the walls.

Shin suddenly sap up awake in his bed and let out a few gasps of air, he was drenched in a cold sweat. He hopped out of bed and went over to his water basin, filled with cold water and dunked his head inside a few times. It had been a long time since he had had a nightmare as bad as that one, it seemed so real.... Shin shook his head trying to forget it and dunked his head again, trying to erase the imagery from his mind, but it didn't really work, so he tried to focus on what he intended to do today, train. He looked outside, it was really early, the sun had yet to rise, but he could tell it was probably going to within the next hour or so, so he decided to pack up his things and head out to his normal forest training spot to train, he packed up his weapons, targets, and some food for lunch and headed out. It took a bit longer to get to where he normally trained because of the darkness, but he managed to get there just as the sun started to rise off in the distance.

He set down his things and took a short break, it had taken him almost an hour to jog here so he was a little bit winded, he had done his stretches when he left home, and he was already warmed up from the job so he didn't want to rest too long and cool down completely so he got up after a short time and threw himself into his exercises, he started with knife throwing. He was now able to regularly hit the target he had made point first, and he was extremely proud of his progress and so he tried different styles of throwing, diving and throwing and trying to throw knives at odd angles and from bad positions, even trying to throw knives at targets he was sprinting past. Eventually his wrists started to hurt from flicking knives around so he decided to take a break and practice running and dodging, so he ran into the forest at top speed, dodging bushes and trees and trying to weave his way through the forest and back again, trying to make sharp turns without losing momentum, which had always been a problem for him in the past, but he had gotten quite good at a lot of techniques now involving running, but it still took it out of him so he switched to practicing martial art forms, first he practiced hand to hand combat, then swordsmanship then free form and combination chains, and before he knew it, it was lunchtime. It was just a basic meal, just some dried meat and rice with some water, but it was satisfying and filling, and after eating it shin started to feel really tired, he decided that it was probably because of the lack of normal sleep coupled with his exercise. Since he hadn't gotten a good night of sleep because of that Nightmare he decided to take a short nap, so he went over to a tree and sat down next to it, leaning against it and closing his eyes, immediately falling asleep.

Shin opened his eyes, standing in a field with armored skeletons scattered about, most were partially buried in the dirt but there were a few hanging from poles nearby, it looked to be the remains of an ancient battlefield, and before him lay a large castle with it's drawbridge down, and it was dark, not quite as if it was night, but as if it was dusk. He felt odd, normally this many skeletons would creep him out, and he would be scared, but for some odd reason, he wasn't. In fact he had a compulsion to enter the castle, he had no clue why, but he knew he had to enter. So he approached the castle weaving his way through the field of corpses while staring at the castle, and approached the gate, it was slightly twisted and damaged, and he reached out his hand to touch it, when it suddenly started to rise, He jerked back his hand, but he gashed his hand on a twisted piece of metal. He put a bit of pressure on his hand and pulled out one of his bandages and wrapped his hand with it, then continued onward. For some reason each and every door in the castle swung open at the slightest touch, there were old lanterns on the walls, casting flickering shadows in the dark walls, sometimes seemingly moving on their own. There were many sets of armor and paintings as well as an odd statue or two, but other that that, it was pretty baren. Eventually he made his way to the Throne room, and opened the door.

There was a large shadow hovering around the throne, which condensed into a Humanoid Form as he approached. It Stared at him for a moment before saying, "So you are the one..." Shin just looked at him, Confused. The man continued, "I am known as Akumu, and you are?" Shin just looked at him and said, "Shin, Shin Kinsen." the man continued on, "Shin Kinsen... I suppose you have come for my power, the power to trick your foes, the power to maim, the power to kill, the power to cause chaos and pain." He spat out the words as if they caused him pain to say. "Why should I lend you my power?" He said disgustedly. Shin just stared at him blankly and said, "I... I don't want your power." The man looked slighly surprised then suspicious, it was hard to tell with the glowing white eyes. "Then why are you here?" Shin stared at him slightly confused and slightly intimidated, "I decided to take a nap, and ended up here..." He stared at shin and said, "Why did you enter my castle." Shin answered honestly, "I'm not sure, i just had this impulse to enter, so i did." The man stared at him and said, "And you do not wish for more power?" Shin thought about this for a moment before speaking, "It is true that I want to become stronger, but not with the kind of power you have described." The man said, "Ah, I see, The power does not have to be that way if you do not want it to be." Shin stared at the shadow entity and said, "Um, no thanks I'd rather not chance it, um... how do i leave?" Shin looked around nervously. The man merely stared at him then waved his shadow hand in front of him, and suddenly Shin woke up. He pondered over the weird dream for a moment before pain called him back to reality, his hand was bleeding, from the place where he had gashed his hand on the metal in the dream. He was greatly troubled by this fact, that somehow a dream had hurt him, so he ended his training for the day and went home, pondering what the dream had really meant, had he really been offered power? What was going on?...