Vincent's Story

Zenshin grew up with his father as a mentor, his mother who worked in a different village, and his brother who lived with his mother. His father wanted him to learn everything he could about magic as he himself was a mage before. He asked Zenshin, when he was fourteen, as to what he preferred more, fire, ice, or earth. He replied "ice".  His father was excited when he heard that answer, as he was previously an ice mage before having a child, and led his son across a plain and to a train station that dropped them off in a snow covered area. "This, this will be our new home and training ground" he said pointing to a small little cottage to the south. Zenshin was shivering from the freezing weather, all he was wearing were a pair of jeans and a short sleeved shirt.

"You must build up a resistance to the cold  if you ever wish to use it" he said. Zenshin followed his father over to the wooden cottage, trying to accustom himself to the dramatic change of scene. It was cozier than he imagined with a spacious living room including a kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Looking at the many books on magic and casting on the bookshelf in the main room of the cottage, Zenshin grabbed one labeled "Ice casting basics, Animate and In-animate". "We'll begin training tomorrow, just get some rest" his father said, shutting the door to his bedroom. The door closed as Zenshin entered holding on to the book, planning on reading some of it to prepare him.
       
One day, while training, a giant pack of vicious wolves appeared. Xen Hitsumo, Zenshin and Shaku's father, had run out of power by this time from the intense training that they had just completed not even ten minutes prior, and their were just too many wolves. One of them pounced Xen and Zen felt helpless. He tried pelting them with small little hail pellets, but it only served to make them angrier. Another wold pounced Zenshin, biting one of his legs, almost biting into his nerve. Everything went dark for him at that time, him screaming for help and suddenly going quiet. Zenshin heard something in his mind go off at this time, "Benumb, Dark-Ice" and his entire body was covered in blackish purple tinted ice that ignored any form of illumination around it.

When it wore off, Zenshin found that all the wolves, were dead, quite grizzly as well, as they were just red paste on the snow, did he do that? How did he do it? Whatever the case was, Zenshin knew that it couldn't be good and that he needed to get out of this storm. From this point forward, all of Zenshin's ice became that dark, sinister looking in color. After searching around the are of where they were attacked, Zenshin dragged his father slowly, very slowly, back to the cottage, it was not easy dragging a grown man.

After getting back to the cottage, Zenshin fell, knocking over a small table, luckily with nothing on it, as he held his leg tightly. He hadn't felt it until now, because adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but he did now, oh yes he did, and it was the most painful feeling he had ever felt. His leg burned at the warm air of the heater inside the cottage collided with the cold air of the snow covered wasteland outside, and he just sat there, tears in his eyes, crawling towards the kitchen. Zen knew what he had to do, and it wasn't going to be pleasant, but he would bleed to death if he didn't do it. slowly balancing himself on one leg, he got some paper towels in his mouth and a large metal pipe from under the sink, then, he turned on the oven.

It wasn't as painful as getting his leg bitten all the way to the core, but it was excruciating nonetheless, but at least the bleeding stopped. After this had ended, his father in the living room, he just passed out on the couch in the same room, as he really, really needed. When he woke, everything was blurry, there was a blood streak to the kitchen and his father's dead body in the living room. He couldn't waste time crying about it, so the first thing Zen did was get a shovel from the storage room, dragged his deceased pops out the back door, and dug a grave. It took a few hours in the cold, that didn't really bother him at this point, and pushed his father in. Saying a few words and filling the hole up was all he needed to feel satisfied, but his training didn't stop there.

Zenshin would go on learning how to control this, 'spell', so to say, and learn the ways of silence and elusiveness, as he had to, in order to get by the wolves and wild animals that were in his way to get any sort of food from the tundra's forest a mile out.
   
Eight Years Later...

Zenshin walked out of the cottage eating a bowl of noodles that was left on the kitchen counter. He walked to the area behind the cottage to his father's gravestone who had died six months earlier. In the three years he had not only learned ice magic, he also developed a strong sense of morality and to only use his magic to protect. There was one last thing he had to do before going out on his own. Walking over to the train station in the northern part of the snowfield he wondered what his mother would say when she finally saw him after three years. He finally arrived in Oak town he visited his mothers home, and was invited in.

She had made quite a name for herself as an owner of a big company that specialized in the selling of magic vehicles and told Zenshin that whatever path he took she'd be proud. She apologized for not spending more time with him during his childhood and, that his brother was away training in water magic. He told her that it was fine and he learned many things while training in the barren, ice covered land. He then headed back towards the train station and to Magnolia town. He went on to buy a cottage to exact specifications to the one he had back when he was training with money his mother gave him to "start up" his new life, as a wizard.

One Year Later...

Much time has passed since he first joined Eclipse Soul, what is probably the most controversial guild in all of Fiore. An entire year has passed since he started his journey as a mage. He's made friends, foes, and everything in between, such as guild mates such as Alye, Paresse, and Maerko. Though, this was all after he decided to take on a one hundred year job with the guild master, and also wizard saint of Lamia Scale. It took him forever to actually get to the area in which he needed to start the job with, not only that, but the guy didn't even show up. Zenshin made his way back to the guild only to find it changed, as they thought he was dead.

He couldn't really blame them, though, as he had narrowly avoided death at the hands of one of Savage Skull's most powerful members, the man that Fredrick, now the current guild master of Savage Skull, led them to. That battle left him very drained and very hurt, and so, he needed much time to recover and become stronger, as he wasn't dead. Where he recovered wasn't very far from the Corrupt Tower, as Zen could only get so far from where he was hurt. Using his skills of survival learned while he was 'stranded' in the ice covered wasteland where he learned to use his ice-make, he was able to nurse himself back to health while the battle of Magnolia went on. There were few times where he was this close to death, but back when he was first trying to get to Eclipse Soul at the start of his journey was one of them.                

Alye and his team had been disbanded, she had joined Reiki and Aian, members had either died or just, disappeared from the guild, nothing was the same as it was when he had first left. Feeling pretty solitary at this point, Zen decided to work on his own, "projects", so to speak. That was just a fancy way of saying that he would follow up on particularly interesting leads he got from anyone really, the MOST particular of them being another creation mage like him. Thinking he could befriend said mage, he dug a bit deeper, finding out that not only was he a creation mage, he was the guild master of the legal guild, Saber Tooth. Before that, he hadn't given much thought to the guild, so it was that night when Zenshin sent a letter to Aegis Bright, the master of the guild, asking him to come meet Zenshin in the forest so he could see his magic first hand.

After seeing this particular magic, Zenshin was even more curious about what it was, and after a brief description of what it basically was, he faced himself with a choice, a choice that would change his path for the rest of his life, for better or worse. Deciding to ask master Aegis to teach him the magic of recreation, the master swordsman accepted and and told him to meet him at the Phoenix Mountains for the start of their training. During this span of a single week in between when they met at the Spooky Forest and when they were supposed to meet at the mountain range, he did something drastic. It took him a while, but he made his choice, Zenshin was finally leaving his first family, Eclipse Soul, since it had become something short of a ghost guild. Besides, they thought he was dead, so what good was he to the guild who thought he wasn't even alive in the first place?

Much had happened in that week, as he said goodbye to the one he loved as well as helped defend Era, albeit it unsuccessfully, against the attack of the king of the dragons, Acnologia. Though, he finally made it to that mountain and the ritual, as if it was destined to happen, was performed. Zenshin awoke on the Serene Cliff side, where he was informed that he'd spend an entire half year training with Aegis with staggering chances of dying or worse... He knew the kind of risks he was taking when he asked Aegis to go through with the ritual, so Zenshin happily accepted this 'challenge' as he saw it and the training commenced. Magic-less and beaten, he continued, day by day, eventually the only thought that kept him going was his promise to himself, and to Iana. The day of the final trial came, a trial of faith among everything else, and he passed.

He was now able to control his new found power that Aegis had granted him. Aegis, in reality, only granted him a very slim chance of being able to do what he did, and that small chance was utilized. It was a statistical anomaly that shouldn't have happened, but it did, and Zenshin returned. Zenshin also took over the guild, as his master and friend had left it to him as he disappeared at the end of the training. It was a thought that this training was not just to make him into a much, much stronger individual, but if it was also a test to see if he was strong enough to take over the guild. Unfortunately for Zenshin, this question was going to be unanswered for quite a while as he dedicated much of his free time to trying to find Aegis.

Quickly realizing that there were virtually no leads for him to go on, it seemed hopeless, so he decided to give less and less time to this wild goose chase, and eventually, he stopped searching altogether, as there was someone else who needed his full attention...


Chapter III: The Dark Girl and Demon Fox


Pre-The Next Recreator: It all began with a point trying to be proven to a fellow mage of Zenshin's skills in disguise and ended up with something he never expected. Something that confused him. Zen really liked her and he went as far as taking a job with this dark mage in order to just see her again after showing her his skills in dressing up like a woman. At first, he didn't think much of it. Hell, he though that the guildmaster of Divine Torment was a beautiful woman at the time as well, but he would soon learn that Iana was different from her, and every other woman he ever thought was truly stunning. During the job in which they helped a prideful diplomat's wife keep their husband alive for a brief period of time. The pay was surprisingly poor despite the nature of the job, but the reward was far greater than any compensation of jewels could ever be.  

Over the course of the job, Zen kept prying for information from the fox girl, especially considering the fact that she got caught talking to what appeared to be herself, causing Zenshin to think that he was on a job with a schizophrenic. Of course, he would eventually learn that it wasn't herself she was talking to, but rather a spirit that resided inside of her that was older than most things in the world. As one of the original beings, it hopped from host to host over the years until eventually hopping into the poor, desperate, depressed woman known as Adele Iana Heidis. It was what gave her the magic she used, Blazing Shadow, and what was her only aspect that made her stand out among the regular "humans" who were incapable of using magic. Those kinds of people weren't as common in Fiore as they were in, say, Bosco, but they still existed.

Following the job well done, Zenshin asked her on a date which ended up being in a place that he really shouldn't have been surprised, her favorite bar. It was in her home town of Oak Town, a place with a rich history and ancient monuments, but a bit of a criminal infestation. That was fine though, by this point Zen was a strong enough mage to deal with several hordes of petty criminals and quick thieves. No one attempted to rob him like he expected, and he opened his date with the woman in a compliment, and from there, the day continued. The conversation eventually led up to Zen telling her that he wouldn't leave her despite Iana desperately trying to convince him that she was truly a terrible person. He never believed a person was ever as bad as they made themselves out to be, or else they wouldn't be confessing to whoever they were talking to about all of it.

She tried to sabotage a relationship before it started, and he wasn't having any of it. By the end of their first date, he was positive that he would be seeing a lot more of Iana in the days to come, and he couldn't have been any more right than he was right then. The next time they met, Zen took her to a lake in which he showed her one of his favorite activities, and to this day, he'll never forget it. Although they'd recently begun seeing each other and to most, this would seem rushed, he knew that he loved this girl and was already willing to do a lot more than he would do for most, for her. Iana was new to this activity of ice skating and was a bit piss poor at it, but he didn't expect her to be as good as he was on her first time at it. For a beginner, she was a little above average, but then she had one of the best teachers for it.

By the end of it, he proclaimed his love for the girl with the demon fox within her, and she returned his sentiments. Zenshin couldn't be happier. Though there was one thing he asked of her, and it was to wait until he returned from his training to become the next recreator with Aegis Bright, the current guildmaster of Sabertooth at the time and the man who agreed to teach him, and she accepted.

Post-The Next Recreator: Although Iana slept with another man in the six months that Zenshin was away, training with Aegis, Zen was able to forgive her as she told him that it didn't mean anything, and he truly believed her. They had been living together for a while now, as Iana moved into his home in Era that was given to him by Sparrow as a gift for his actions in the attack of the city. Although she felt guilty, he constantly told her that it was no bother to him that she lived there. Eventually they realized that they had a child on the way as well as the small fact that Meoru was leeching off of their unborn baby's life energy. If they didn't do something post-haste, their child would die before she even got the chance to see the light of day, and Zen wouldn't let that happen no matter the cost.

The cost was a sealing spell which sealed Meoru into their child forcefully, unlike the host hopping that he had been doing up until this point. Zenshin wasn't one to get angry or yell, but when Iana kept putting off the ritual because of the large chance that Meoru could "die", as it were, he felt as though he had to in order to get the severity of the situation across. Eventually, he did convince her to partake in this ritual in which he learned a lot about her as well as her reliance on the old fox demon's spirit, that was, before he came along and replaced him. This ritual forced him to go into her soul to bind Meoru to his daughter, the problem being that in Iana's soul, anything could be a representation of that. Zen ended up finding the flower that did in fact represent his unborn daughter and Meoru was finally sealed up at the top of the Phoenix Mountains and they lied there for some time, keeping warm in each other's embrace before he finally concluded that it was time. After the entire ordeal, Zen looked at Iana and asked her the most important question he's ever asked. "Will you marry me?" And she said yes. She really did.

Chapter IV: The Return of the Fallen King

His wife was gone, his child was gone, and his power was gone. Zenshin awoke with but a single clue and a small fraction of his power remaining. He didn't know where these three things went, but he did gain something. A tome with a purple, ornate cover with a strange, alien texture. Upon tracking down this book in order to add it to his personal library and picking it up from the attic of the abandoned house it called home, he felt his energy leave him. He awoke and stumbled home only to find it empty. With no idea where his family disappeared to and an ominous feeling that this strange tome had something to do with it, Zenshin knew that if he was to uncover what mysteries lie surrounding this book and find his family, he would need to regain his strength. He would need to return to his old guild, Sabertooth.

Rp Sample

The lone man sat there, on the pier with his two legs dangling over the wet wood, feet splashing around in the water below as the sun peeked its head over the horizon. There wasn't much to be said, as he was still thinking about his decision of leaving his previous guild, his family, his home for an entire year. Though, he didn't leave without good reason, as this was his chance to start over. Zenshin from Eclipse Soul, as far as he was concerned, died at the castle when faced against a powerful dark mage with his former guild master and friend, Zeno Sombrass, one of the only people he really trusts. Back at that castle, when the dust settled, Zen had escaped and decided it would be best if he returned to the guild for a day or two before leaving and finding his own path, his own road, different from what his father had wanted for him.

Zenshin still needed to know what kind of mysteries his ancestors left for a future generation to solve, and of course, this is what he really wanted to do, but not as an ice maker. He had met up with his new guild master before even joining the guild, Sabertooth, and his name was Aegis Bright. After hearing rumors and stories of a 'maker mage' like himself that had a very unique magic in itself, dubbed, 'recreation magic'. There weren't make maker mages to begin with, and to say that Aegis had a unique type of creation was very much as an understatement as you could get. This drove Zen to seek out the master swordsman and ask to learn under him, the secrets and ways of using recreation magic, even after learning he would lose the ability to cast any other type of magic, and that there was a chance he wouldn't be able to use it.

He didn't care, Zenshin was an adamant believer in the saying, 'nothing good comes without a sacrifice'. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his right shoulder and he ceased his journey through the memories to see a man behind him, asking if he was alright. "Sorry about that, I was just thinking..." he said, his voice trailing off. "And I apologize too, kiddo, but the dock is opening soon and we need the pier to bring in whatever the boats decide to bring in today" replied the old man, prompting Zen to walk up and travel back along the pier. Hands in his pockets, he decided it would be best if he walked to the Hargeon Town lighthouse, to relax and to just kick back until he felt ready to do something more productive.

Slowly, he walked to the towering structure that overlooked the bay that he was just at, looking around at some people, who wanted to shake his hand for saving them from the trouble makers at the restaurant a while back. Even to this day they remember what I did back then, I'm glad they appreciated it. That was a pretty fun day and I get free food every time I go there, not much more a man can ask for he thought while opening the huge steel door and walking inside. Much to his surprise, the door shut behind him by some mysterious force, but when he turned around to see what it was, he was met to a blade tip to the back of his neck. "This is your only warning, get out of this lighthouse right now or I will be forced to do something you might find, uncomfortable" he said, giving his warning to the thief who had tried to get inside Zen's pockets. Though, it wasn't a thief who was behind him, it was an assassin who wanted to make a few extra jewels.

As soon as he felt the knife tip push down on the back of his neck, he sprung into him primal instinct mode, fight or flight as some called it, but he had no intention of running. Leaning as forward as he could while bending his knees at the same time, he used both his hands to grab the one holding the knife and stepped to the side while twisting it upside down. The cloaked figured wrist was locked and with a flicking of both his wrists simultaneously, had his wrist broken which caused a scream. It wasn't the scream of a man, however, it was the scream of a women, a women whose hood had fallen down in the struggle. Pushing her against the steel wall on the inside of the lighthouse, he asked a single question while holding her neck with his left hand, and the knife she tried to kill him with in his right, the tip pointing right to her eye.

"I gave you fair warning, yet you still tried to kill me. Who sent you?" he said while inching the knife slowly towards her eye socket, mostly for the fear factor of imagining a knife plunged into her eye. "If I talk, they'll kill me. P- Please, if I didn't get this job done, they said they would hurt m- my family" she said, stuttering every so often, she's lying. "If you don't talk, you'll lose an eye" he said seriously, as he had no sympathy for assassins, he actually had a passionate dislike for them, for anyone who would kill for money. Though, she lied to him about her family and being forced to do this, it was clear she wasn't going to talk or come after him again, not after having her wrist broken.

With a sigh, he threw the knife to the ground. He wasn't going to kill her, he had turned over a new leaf. Back when Zenshin was in Eclipse Soul, he probably would've killed her as she tried to kill him, and there weren't many people who got away with that. Hitting her over the head with his hand, he knocked her out. Even though she was threatened to do this by some strange group of people who wanted him dead for some reason, this couldn't be excused. After making his main dynamic creation of travel, the peregrine falcon, he climbed on top and traveled to the headquarters of the Rune Knights, they would know what to do with her. At least... I hope they do