There was once a trainee in a certain sect. Showing promise and aptitude towards learning the arts of the Assassin, she devoted herself to God. Her skills grew, and soon the day approached when she could go out and shed blood in the Lord’s name.
Then tragedy struck. She realized one morning that she had lost the ability to feel pain. Soon other symptoms appeared, her skin began to bunch up and flake, and it became obvious that she had contracted leprosy. At the time the disease was considered incurable and those who contracted it were shunned. Unable stay at the mountain, she was cast out to die. Her future had been cut off. She accepted it, even as her heart filled with despair. The girl who could no longer become one of the Hashshashin resolved to spend her remaining months on a pilgrimage around the world. She traveled North, South, East, and finally West, boarding a boat to nowhere.
The girl eventually found herself weakened, sickly, and close to death. She wandered into a forest which had been described in local rumours, pushing forward through the undergrowth even as her mind fragmented. Her wandering took her to a massive valley. Trees formed crystal towers and light sprang from every surface. It was heaven, she thought, and soon enough she would meet God.
She did. The girl made it to the center of the valley and saw God in all of its glory. Then she died.
The girl couldn’t recall how she’d escaped, only that it was a miracle. Her memories stopped when a crystal spear pierced her heart, yet she was unharmed. In fact, she felt better than ever. The ugly flakes falling from her skin had become beautiful crystals that bloomed into flowers. The girl’s heart was filled with love and gratitude. She returned to the mountain with blessing in tow and was welcomed as a hero. More than that, the new Old Man of the Mountain.
The woman that had seen God and the one that had woken up days later were not the same, of course. One had died instantly. The other had been born days later, a simulated replica of the dead. Her core, her latent Reality Marble, had been compatible with the God’s alien logic, and so the simulation believed itself to be the real thing. In many ways she was an exact copy, except that the God in her heart now had no love for humanity. Neither, then, did she.
Her reign was the briefest of all who held her position. It was also the bloodiest. She was maddened, reaching out and killing all who opposed her, searching for something that could not be found. The voice in her head whispered in a language she did not understand, and so she interpreted its words as she was taught: humanity's sins were bottomless, and God would arrive soon to erase it. Her job was to help. She was to spill blood in His name until the time came when her existence would no longer be considered a sin.
In the midst of her efforts to destabilize the region, the girl saw something one evening: a skull mask in the darkness. Thus her new life ended, by the glint of dusk's blade. She knows now, as a Heroic Spirit, that the one who killed her is a threat to her God. When it wakes, his sword of mortality will surely strike at it. Her wish is therefore not to wake up her God, for it will rise in its own time, but to summon forth that mysterious executioner... and destroy him for good, so that her God remains immortal.
Originally Posted by Kamera
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