Before The War

Before the war, my life was a mistake.

I was born in Sendai, Japan to the Deku Family. A family of Dark Witches.

I was the fourth and youngest son of my father and mother.

For the last seventy years, my family had been ridiculed and punished for being Witches. Ever since WW2, our powers had become weak and not needed in Japan. So we slowly started to become irrelevant, not needed.

I was born around the turning point of that time.

When I turned five, my family was pushed to the edges of our home country, persecuted for siding with devils and Satan. We were beaten, killed, one by one, our numbers slowly dwindled until...

When I turned ten my whole family was murdered and killed for being Dark Witches. And I was the last one alive, the last Dark Witch in the whole world.

When I turned twelve I made up my mind. I made a promise to myself. I told myself that I would leave Japan and make a name for myself. That I would come back, with strength, with power, with a new family. To take control. To show this country, to show the world, to destroy the systems, the prejudice, the hate.

So I hid in the shadows. I used the powers my family had given me to turn invisible. To turn invisible to the world, to the eyes of the system, to the life I had once lived.

When I turned seventeen, my only living relative, my grandmother, told me about a secret organization of Immortal men and women in America. She told me that in three years the sun and the moon would come together to create an eclipse. And during that time our powers will increase, and so will the Immortals, allowing for a sixth True Immortal to take hold on the world.

She told me that she sold the Necronomicon to the Immortal Horses and the Deku Family was no longer alive. She told me so many truths, so many lies, so many faults in our history. How we killed, assassinated leaders, started battles, created wars.

My own war...

She told me to relinquish the past and move forward. She told me to create a new family absent of our sins.

"So that's what I did... I used all the money I had saved from when I was a kid and came to America. And then I did research. I hid in the shadows. Watching. Invisible. Learning... And everyone was so murderous, lost in their own intent. So through this curtain of blood, I jumped out from the crowd. I acted stupid, I acted smart, I acted my part, and it all played perfectly. Except for... Him..."

I looked out at the bloodied altar, the graves in all directions.

I looked at the blood surrounding me. The crushed Immortals, their bodies struggling to regenerate. I looked down at my pool of blood.

But I felt fine.

I was now Immortal. A being new and powerful. Able to create a new family. A family...

---

Bryan looked up. All he saw were flashes. Flashes of Aria, Luna, Damon. Their faces. Their stares. How quick they were to turn on him, to kill him.

"Friends..." He looked at his bloodied palm, "friends or family?"

Miss Eiko's Bugatti pulled up alongside the outskirts of the graveyard. A woman stepped out. Her rose colored-hair, her new rose-colored suit, her shining rose-colored sunglasses. She walked across the graveyard, her rose-colored heels pressing against the soft moist dirt.

She reached the pools of blood.

"Congratulations, you're the new Immortal Horse, Bryan," she smiled as slowly clapped.

Bryan sat up, his bloodied half-naked body contrasted against the red eclipse. He looked with an intense glare.

"Damon, Aria, Luna. Did you know they were traitors Miss Eiko?"

She looked at the five struggling Immortals. The Immortal Necronomicon sitting in a bed of roses.

"You stopped them from taking the Necronomicon, Bryan. Your everything I expected to be. Loyal, serving, an ally I need in this world!"

"You didn't answer my question?"

He stood up. He remembered the time he fought Dimitri the Ice Witch with Damon. He reflected on the time they hunted down the mythical beast in that forest. The short three days they spent together. He reflected on all the times Damon came back unharmed, on all the times he was perfect, powerful, strong, uncaring, unmotivated. He smirked and looked straight at Miss Eiko.

"Did you know that Damon was an Immortal?"

Miss Eiko pretended to be shocked, "Immortal?! There's no way!"

He looked at her, her glasses, her shadowed face in the dim-lit graveyard. He had no idea what she was thinking.

"So you did know, you didn't know...? I guess it doesn't matter."

Bryan picked up the bloody ceremonial dagger.

Slice...

He cut open his wrist.

He watched as the blood poured out. As it flows across the grass and dirt.

"I guess this is an act of war then Eiko? An Immortal not in the organization, two traitors, who killed five Immortals and tried to steal the Necronomicon. Are we going to go after them? Are we going to send people after them?"

Miss Eiko looked at him, she looked at his slouched face, his lost depressed black eyes, under his soggy blood-filled hair.

She knew exactly what was up with him. She knew that he had lost his friends, his best friend. She knew that he was messed up inside, that he was stuck between two sides, pulled on either. The idea of power, or the idea of friendship. So she tugged hard.

"No Bryan. I will not send anyone after them. I had speakers implanted in these immortals here. I listened the whole time. I heard the deal you made with Luna. I will uphold it, but only if you follow me."

Miss Eiko turned around and started walking back out of the graveyard. Bryan followed slowly. He followed the trail of blood leading out of the graveyard. Through the stone steps, through the gazebo. Out onto the streets. He looked off into the night-lit city, Miss Eiko by his side.

"Your trust is not my trust Miss Eiko. I came here to become the next True Immortal and gain power and allies. I've already completed the first half of that mission. And I don't have any reason to trust you."

Miss Eiko smirked, "I took a liking to you Bryan. From the start, I knew there was something special about you. I knew you were determined. Not for the sake of the Immortal Horses or any other family, but for your own. I knew you would become a great ally of mine. So I'm glad to give you this new title. You're new name. Even if you don't want it or not." She looked Bryan right in his black eyes, "you are now the sixth True Immortal of the Immortal Horses. Hippogriff."