Article 1 - Chapter 1 - Casualties of Circumstance
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガ ├┬┴┬┴
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Disclaimer: I do not own World Trigger or Tales of Demons and Gods which heavily inspired this story. Those intellectual properties are owned by Daisuke Ashihara and Mad Snail respectively.
Warning: This story is VERY A.U. The world, history, combat mechanics, characters, and much more diverge heavily from the main and secondary source material. To be honest, this story is more of a cross-over / original work that borrows characters and concepts. If A.U. isn't your cup of tea, this story isn't for you.
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガ ├┬┴┬┴
(* Helpful Info to those coming from WT/ToDG fandoms *)
(skip to chapter start if you don't care)
TL:DR Background Info - The cultivation ranks have been adjusted by me to add another and rename one I personally loath. Not sure why Black Gold is the only rank that's two words in ToDG's earthly realm. The ranks are as follows…
Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Legend (Demigod is an unofficial rank meaning 5-star Legend rank.)
Each rank is further subdivided into 5 stars. As the number of stars gets higher, the more Qi they possess and the closer they are to ranking up. These ranks apply to both your personal cultivation level and any spirit beast used wether its a contracted spirit beast locked inside a person's dantian or a spirit beast installed in a trigger.
A spiritualist cultivator's strength is roughly = (their personal rank + spirit's rank / 1.5)
(Example: Personal - 4-star silver, Spirit - 1-star diamond = Platinum 1 star relative strength)
Also, IK Tales of Demons and God's doesn't really have a vast difference in people's starting points, but in this story, it's possible to innately have different cultivation ranks to begin with.
(Example: below Bronze 1 star, Silver 2 star, Gold 4 star, ect… This means that the strong won't exclusively be the elderly who've had a lifetime to cultivate, but can be achieved by young blessed talents as well.)
I took the idea of the Neighborhood from World trigger and created humongous domed cities called 'Mega-domiciles.' Each city is like its own country built to shield it from outside attacks from spirits and spiritualists.
The trigger system is relatively the same except for 2 main changes. Instead of Trion, the life energy used is Qi/Soul force. Also, each Trigger can be equipped with a spirit trapped in an imprisonment crystal or can remain empty to only use your own Qi, or if there is a contracted spirit inside of you, you can draw upon that for Qi.
Apart from the 2 active tracks with 4 trigger slots each to pick from, people's spirits will also allow for a special ability that can be used in conjunction with the active trigger from each track. This means that a total of 8 triggers and a spirit can be installed in a trigger, and 2 triggers (one from each track) and the spirit ability can be used simultaneously.
┬┴┬┴┤ Prologue ├┬┴┬┴
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガ ├┬┴┬┴
The noose tightened around Zenith's neck. He knew his fate was as good as sealed despite his frantic attempt to slip his pursuers.
His feet slapped against the pavement in rapid succession ducking and weaving through the evening crowd before making a turn off route.
Babylon's most elite unit loyal only to the royal family codenamed the black death was the country's greatest and most accomplished operative group. They specialized in the assassination of traitors to the crown.
The elder had a thin fragile build, a bleached stringy beard, and a pair of tired azure eyes that were pulled together into a cold razor-sharp focus.
The frame job against him was damning. So convincing that there wasn't likely to be an interrogation.
If I can't escape only a swift execution awaits me.
"Dammit! I'm a humble scholar and educator, not a traitor!"
Zenith could not be considered an effective combatant by any stretch of the imagination unless compared to civilians. His personal cultivation still hadn't broken into Platinum despite his 90 years of life, a wide nearly inexhaustible array of alchemic supplements, and access to many of the most powerful cultivation techniques available in the great city of Babylon.
Given the resources, knowledge, and the time invested into personal progression were the same that he was blessed with, most people could have stepped up into the Diamond cultivation rank or perhaps even the pinnacle level of cultivators, the illustrious rank of Legend.
His lack of success didn't stem from a faulty work ethic but inferior genetics. His meridian network was deformed leading to numerous complications.
"If I could do it all over, I'd never have taken that wolf in sheep's clothing as my apprentice."
The walls closed in on him at the moment he finished passing on the extent of his knowledge to the real traitor Kuro.
Kuro was recently named Zenith's successor to the position of chief director, the second-highest seat of authority in the Alchemy Association only below the president.
After that, the trap was sprung in no time in order to claim the position before Zenith formerly stepped down which likely would have taken years.
A heavy cloak fluttered behind the man escaping for his life down side-streets in the twilight hours of the Borsippa district. The setting sun cast cryptic shadows cascading across the city.
"If I survive... I'll make sure someone murders that backstabbing bitch." The fleeing man mumbled in a rasping pant.
The distinct flap of wings sounded overhead forcing Zenith to duck under an awning hoping to bypass the aerial scout.
Woosh, woosh, WOOSH, WOOSH, woosh, woosh…
The gigantic draconic spiritualist whizzed overhead and past continuing his search.
Zenith let out a winded sigh, his old heart thrashing in his chest with ferocious intensity. He was lucky there was cover he could hide beneath so closeby or certainly he'd have been discovered.
Running out from beneath the cover, he hugged the wall following it until arriving at a cross-street. Peeking his head out to get a glance at the surroundings, he confirmed that the street was clear of visible pursuers.
"Eeerghh."
The alarm blared inside the mind of the elder. His hand shot to his chest wrapping around a black spike protruding from it. The spike retracted out of his chest cavity all the while blood poured out of the gaping wound.
"Rats sure are adept at scurrying aren't they?" A new distinct feminine voice called out.
With each pump of his heart, a new warm spurt of crimson bubbled out oozing down the inside of his shirt pooling at his waistband.
A black shifting wraith with yellow slits for eyes measured two feet tall from its point of materialization to its head. Its arms were sharpened shapeshifting blades that at the moment resembled two wheat scythes half sticking out of the closest building's shadow.
The elder called forth his contracted spirit, the possession causing him to undergo a metamorphosis. Skin hardened and cracked along his entire body turning a combination of dark brown and ash white. Several branches sprouted out twisting and curling into four appendages taking on the appearance of arms and legs.
"Senior Grandmaster, I've always found your Heavenly Dryad spirit to be one of incredible beauty. It's a shame such a rare and powerful spirit contracted with a powerless traitor. Know that It pains me to have to do this. It really does..."
NO! My only hope is to kill her quickly while her form is still material before backup arrives.
The elder's vision fuzzed over with a static-like distortion. His heavy loss of blood had started taking its toll on him.
Roots whipped from the ground lashing and wrapping around the humanoid shadow. A hairy caramel root constricted around the woman's throat strangling her before she could react.
Or not. With a burst of Qi, the roots were blasted off her like she was a detonating explosive ripping them off the dryad and launching the thickened rhizomes into the two surrounding mortar walls. Cracks tore up and down the length of the walls branching out for several meters.
"Laughable to think a Gold ranked cultivator believes they could challenge someone like myself who stands at the peak of all spiritualists. Have you gone senile after all? Let me show you what a Legend is capable of."
It's truly hopeless… This is how it ends? After all the struggling to fight past my limits. All the time researching and experimenting. All the advancements I made for my country and they send their dogs to hunt me down without hesitation.
The elder could never live the life he wanted, so he lived vicariously through the people around him. He always dreamed of becoming the hero of the battlefield, but all he could manage was earnestly giving himself to discovering new procedures to strengthen the next generation that came after him. To give them all a paved path those of his country could walk with greater certainty.
But what hurts the worst is they'll probably scrub me from the history books and give my accomplishments to my fucking apprentice.
The Dryad's legs gave out beneath him, gravity forcing him to his hands and knees. The stumpy head of the spiritualist angled to the sky as if asking the heavens a single question.
Why?
A flash of black tore across the air, an elongated shadow rending the stumpy head clean off the neck of the dryad.
The spiritual possession dissolved leaving the man slumped in a crumpled heap still hemorrhaging blood from his chest.
His final breath expelled from his lungs. His physical body that had returned after the destruction of his spiritualist form convulsed and shivered. The shadow in a flash slashed out painting a thin crimson line on the cracked mortar wall behind him. Zenith's head slid down the slope of the severed neck lubricated by a fountain of goopy red.
The wraith untransformed adopting the appearance of a petite woman in her mid-twenties. The mouth of the woman curved into freakish and savage ecstasy while her eyes twinkled. Her black glistening locks were straightened out with the flick of her neck.
She grabbed the severed head by the hair tossing it into a burlap sack popping into existence from an inter-spatial storage ring.
"Another day, another successful mission."
┬┴┬┴┤ Chapter 1 ├┬┴┬┴
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガ ├┬┴┬┴
(400+ Years Later)
A fair-skinned, black-headed teen tapped his foot of impatience while keeping an eye on his timepiece.
His hair was a bowl of shag draped around his head. The bangs parted into three segments running down the sides of each of his eyes, and the last tuft of hair falling between his eyes to his nose. The boy's pair of focused euphoric red pupils heatedly locked on the entrance of the spiritual rift.
A spiritual rift is a space between our world and the spirit world. The entrance to these anomalies of nature could be summarized as a portal-like gateway. These portals bridge our material world with space that has been shattered and detached from the spirit realm.
Yugo Kuga, this boy's father, is a spiritual hunter battalion commander who craved to uncover the truths of the world. On several occasions, he was known to explain in great detail his hypotheses to his men who too thirsted for knowledge.
One of these hypotheses was that the gateways to these disconnected and segmented spaces that appear in our world of Miden are caused by spirits who contained an abundance of Qi determined to fight their way out of exile.
"Father thinks this rift holds too many strong spirit beasts for me to be safe? He's just an old worrywart. Besides, by now they would have cleared a path for me and I could maybe still catch up for some of the action…" he said in contemplation.
Yuma Kuga found the risk of disobeying orders to be minimal. And besides, a frontline fighter was forced to be exposed to some risk.
Don't think your parents are always right. The quote from his father's mouth replaying in his head helped to cement his resolve.
With that, the doubt in his mind vanished replaced with the sentiment of heroism burning in his soul.
He clenched a black gripped metallic device with a fastening screw in its center in his dominant hand.
What if they are in trouble right now? If I join, I might prevent a few deaths or at least some spiritual dissolutions. I could be a hero.
Yuma's eyes were still transfixed on the gateway separating himself from his father and his comrades in arms. He nodded his head in acceptance of his decision before announcing with a stern conviction unbecoming of his age:
"Trigger on!"
The boy's body burst into shimmering light, his physical body being replaced by one made entirely of soul force (also known as Qi).
Yuma's clothing morphed into his father's spiritual hunter battalion uniform.
Taking a leap of faith he plunged into the gate, his form swallowed by the gelatinous doorway to the unnatural.
Yuma was ejected in a new area on the other side of the gate.
The place was dimly lit. His feet splashed in little puddles on the slick ground. High humidity was in the air alongside the musky scent of mold.
Rocky cavernous walls domed the whole place closing it off into a wide tunnel.
Drip...drip...drip
Yuma admired the state of the corpses from the fallen spiritual beasts his father's unit no doubt had slain.
The dead spirit beasts were most likely lower quality creatures that wouldn't be worth trapping in an imprisonment crystal.
Round pieces of glass with the resemblance of marbles littered the floor. Some of them were cracked and broken, others held spiritual beasts captured and imprisoned inside. These objects were none other than imprisonment crystals.
The boy continued down the tunnel in haste. He split his attention between the radar screen displaying the location of his unit and swiveling his head around to keep strong awareness of his surroundings.
A chill ran down his spine. The hair on his neck stiffened and stood up.
Yuma kicked backward from the ground into a backflip off pure instinct.
This sharpened instinct combatant's sometimes referred to as the sixth-sense or a gut feeling.
A monstrous heft shook the ground, dust blown in a wave out from in front of him.
Slender lightweight pale yellow-tinted Qi blades materialized in each hand of the youth glowing like a neon light. Someone versed in trigger configurations would know this weapon's name as Scorpion.
His feet touched down with confidence despite the wet and slick surface.
Shuffling to the side, he stuck a foot behind a rock, reared his other leg back, and unleashed a solid kick to the rock. The top of the foot carried the stone into the air sailing forward before it bounced off something invisible rickashaying back.
Protect yourself by yourself.
Having identified and confirmed the location of the invisible enemy, Yuma took a small hop forward swinging a sword through the air.
The sword in his off-hand disappeared while the one mid-swing shapeshifted extending out lashing like a whip. The blade stretched to its durability limit of 15 meters slicing through the air, the tip of the weapon accelerating much faster than the hilt in Yuma's hand.
"Chuuuukkkkk!"
A line of flesh opened up, the cut sprayed blue shimmering fluid against the rocky surface of the ground and wall. The spirit's vital fluids hissing against the cool temperature of each surface like newly cracked eggs in a searing hot frying pan.
Floating eyes appeared mid-air.
The invisible creature must have given up on its pure stealth to instead make a stand with force.
The wound continued spilling blue fluid out pooling underneath those huge black dilated pupils.
A stream of steaming gunk shot out from the eye of the beast like a speeding bullet, the body of the spirit appearing faintly yet still held transparency.
The blood converted to vapor from the temperature and exposure to air, blue-tinted Qi filling the room like smog.
Yuma deactivated his scorpion pushing out two shields in front of him to block the surprisingly thick torrent of fluid.
Yuma fought against the stream pushing back with both shields holding it at bay, but the torrent continued and continued ceaselessly.
The fluids ate through the shield leaving corrosive holes for it to splash onto his body.
"En!"
Pain might have been dulled by the trigger down to 15% of its maximum capacity, but having your skin cook, even if that skin was part of an artificial body, was unpleasant.
Yuma retreated with juking movements, The stream finally trickled to a stop allowing him a moment of reprieve.
The fluid wasn't just hot, it also devoured Qi disintegrating it evident by the breakdown of his body were the fluid made contact.
Qi began flowing out of him like a dam that had a hole. The cream-colored light began filling the air around him, scorpion filling in the gaps in an attempt to plug the holes reducing Qi loss.
This spirit's abilities are overwhelming. It must be at least Platinum leveled!
Scorpion acting like a band-aid should allow Yuma the opportunity to finish up the fight before his combat body dissolved and left him defenseless. The keyword here being 'should'.
The scorpion patchwork was devoured by the gluttonous sludge unleashing another wave of his soul force to escape.
The boy's darkest fears were realized. His spiritual possession dissolved leaving him alone and defenseless.
Now back in his flesh and blood, he made a B-line with all of his strength out the way he entered. He needed to retreat until the group could come back to slay the beast. He understood it's combat power far surpassed his own better now than anyone.
He sent out a silent prayer to the heavens that he would make it out of this, but before the thought could be finished a heft crashed into his back launching him side-ways.
His body impacted the wall with a monstrous force. His head whipped whacking into the wall with a CRACK.
The boy writhed on the ground in torment. Clenching his teeth, he struggled upright pushing himself up with his jittering hands.
It's not… the end yet.
With heavy disjointedness, Yuma found himself again on his feet. He trudged forward, each step was a true merit of accomplishment.
The world quaked underfoot leaving his footing unsteady.
His balance was all off, forcing him to over adjust to the left or right constantly in an attempt to stay upright like a hopeless drunkard.
Black and white splotches appeared in his vision.
A loud shrill screeching ring assaulted his ears, and instinctively his hands flew to them trying to shut out the noise.
The noise continued just as loud, nothing helping to dial it down.
A miscalculated footstep left him stumbling to a knee.
His head felt like it would split open from the pain. If his artificial skin cooking before was 15%, this was 150%.
A throbbing pulsating sensation repeated in a loop where the left side of the head made contact with the wall. When Yuma pulled his hands back from his ears in a scramble for survival, in his wholehearted wish of retreat, they were warm and stained red.
Terrified he patted the left side of his head discovering a leaking hole no less than 3 fingers wide.
Energy sapped from his body, he collapsed to the ground like a puppet with their strings cut.
There's more than one answer. Things can be resolved in many ways. But on the contrary, there's no answer in some cases…
"There's nothing… S-sorry dad."
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガ ├┬┴┬┴
A/N: This project is a little experiment I thought about doing with taking elements of the two source stories I love and combining them with my own original idea for a story with some creative and quality of life tweaks. I'm curious how this will even land as World Trigger's community is pretty small and I somehow doubt theirs much of a demand for a story like this. I'd really appreciate some feedback from anyone who reads this deep to give me some opinions on what you think so-far. I'll be attaching a comments section to the next chapter to answer anyone's questions which will be a good resource since I bet several of you will be wondering the same things.
PS: Currently undecided whether or not to add TODG characters to the mix (lemme know what you guys think), but SEVERAL World Trigger characters will show up even if I only tagged Yuma as a character upon publishing. I'll tag more as they are added.
Reviewer Question: - How did you find this story and which fandom did you come from?
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