#crowhel

Part 5. Vivisection

A storm was slowly but surely beginning to build in the world. Tsunade was firing off letters to the Kazekage, asking for assistance in the investigation. Naruto was in the hospital undergoing rehabilitation, unwilling to see anyone. Only the fox kept nagging at him. ANBU were combing the surrounding areas in search of clues…

Pain wasn’t sitting idle either. Rather, he delegated responsibility efficiently. After gathering the Akatsuki in Amegakure, he assigned everyone a task — Sasori included. For some reason, Pain decided he would be perfect for the role of a pathologist. Sasori didn’t know what was going through Pain’s mind, but he accepted it. Besides, the work actually suited him. No fuss and no eternally noisy partner…

***

The Second Incident fell on his shoulders. Repeat offender and opposition member Kime Ryoka left Amegakure at night and was found brutally torn apart in a forest strip. The key piece of evidence was her hand: clumps of already-hardened black liquid had accumulated under her fingernails. The analysis conducted by Sasori showed that the substance found in the Kajima family’s bodies and the substance under her nails were identical.

It was someone’s blood. Blood that wasn’t human. Human blood doesn’t look like congealed darkness.

The longer Sasori worked, the worse he felt. His puppet body hadn’t experienced such fatigue in a long time. To make matters worse, his head started aching again, and his Chakra Circulation System malfunctioned from prolonged contact with the substance.

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Azazel: Where the hell are we?!

Sparrow: *Chaotic Skykid noises*

I solved the problem of my dislike for Naruto’s design by simplifying it as much as possible.

Part 2. The Night Visitor

When it comes to work, Tsunade is extremely responsible. After receiving a letter from Jiraiya, she immediately dispatched ANBU to the crime scene. She received their report later that same evening. The puzzle in her head didn’t come together — there were too many oddities in the case. This was especially true for the youngest victims: they looked almost blissful. There were no signs of a struggle. And the procedure performed on them had clearly been done carefully — at least far more carefully than on the adults. What intrigued the Fifth Hokage even more was the composition of the black liquid found in the bodies.

The trouble was only beginning. An unknown intruder broke into the archives and stole the report. Who could bypass security so professionally and avoid being detected by the sensors? Of course — Zetsu.

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And here they are — the two Uchiha (so to speak).

For some reason, ever since the Advisor/Madara, I’ve always imagined the Uchiha as birds. At least Itachi and Sasuke are inseparably linked with birds in my mind.

🐦 Names: Raven Raum (a sort of Itachi iteration within the Crowhel paradigm) — inspired by the demon of the same name from the Goetia. Cobal (an alternative Obito) — a pale owl. When thinking of his name, I drew inspiration from the jester Cobal of the infernal court (because, let’s be honest, Tobi really is a fool — it’s hard to believe Obito ever did all that nonsense).

🐦 To describe them briefly and with some humor — among the other “birds,” they’re like those relatives you’re not supposed to invite to family gatherings… yet they show up anyway, and you can’t make them leave.

🐦 Strangely enough, neither of them can fly. Cobal has been injured since childhood — his wings never heal, even with his heightened regeneration. For beings like them, wings are the most vulnerable part of the body. Raum, meanwhile, is simply too weak. For all his slenderness and lightness, he just doesn’t have the strength to rise into the air.

🐦 A bit more about Cobal:

1.He’s a nocturnal creature — so if someone’s wandering the dark palace at night, it’s probably him.

2. He eats mice. Alive. Everyone finds that disgusting… though oddly, no one condemns his occasional taste for humans. (People, after all, are far more revolting.)

3. Cobal harbors a kind of quiet envy toward Raum — at least Raum has something resembling a friend. Cobal, on the other hand, has only ever been used by those he trusted most.

4. He was born underdeveloped. His own family neglected him for years — until the Advisor finally took notice and fixed the mess.

🐦 Now, about Raum:

1. He has a family, most of whom are unrelated to the duchy.

2. His relationship with his younger brother Cyrus, who serves another branch of power, is strained.

3. It’s because Raum is far too gentle and empathetic for the burden that weighs upon his shoulders — and Cyrus sees him as unworthy because of it.

4. Raum is a workaholic. He genuinely can’t stop sometimes.

5. There are moments when he looks so exhausted that even his enemies start to feel sorry for him.

🐦 There are always quills for writing in the castle… They prefer not to discuss where those come from. (Please, stop plucking their feathers without permission.)

And so, after a long silence, we finally come to the last two members of the King’s Retinue—Tobirama and Izuna, now Treasurer and Rod-bearer of the Scepter. They, much like the Advisor, serve as the King’s “eyes” and “ears.” All three, in turn, extend their patronage to the noble Dukes.

And here comes the alternative Kisame — the underwater giant, the Leviathan.

🌊 His name is Gargantua. Yes, the idea partly came to me from the game Subnautica, but there’s another layer to the name’s origin. Gargantua is also the giant, the hero of François Rabelais’ novel “Gargantua and Pantagruel.”

🌊 There’s a trace of the anglerfish in him — though his species cannot be classified by any biological science known in other worlds. And yes, I am aware of the sexual dimorphism of anglerfish. That’s quite intentional.

🌊 Gargantua rarely appears on the surface. Most of the time, he roams the vast black ocean surrounding Crowhel. But he is always near — so don’t even think about escaping by sea.

🌊 He doesn’t live in the palace with his so-called brothers and sisters. Not just because of his size (though in Crowhel, even that is a mutable concept). His dwelling lies at the very bottom — in condensed darkness. There sprawls the massive skeleton of the one who birthed him, slain by His Majesty when He shaped Chaos into what Crowhel is now.

🌊 When the ruler of the Black Waters, Oseal, fell by the King’s hand, Gargantua was fished out near the surface. He was kept as a trophy for some time — until it became clear that it was sentient. It learned. It repeated words — and understood when to use them. The final proof came from the Treasurer and the newly arrived Melekh, who took charge of its education. Now, Gargantua can negotiate and handle affairs of state on equal footing with others — though not everyone is willing to acknowledge that.

🌊 Gargantua is insatiable. He especially relishes the blood of adulterers, oathbreakers, and treacherous murderers.

🌊 In his base form, Gargantua is officially the largest inhabitant of Crowhel.

🌊 News reaches the bottom slowly.

🌊 He kills silently. He doesn’t like to talk, doesn’t listen to pleas for mercy. He doesn’t think when he kills — he is simply hungry. The greater monster inside him always wants to feed.

Well then, I finally carved out a minute to post something. At last! The first of the Dark Dukes!

Pantaleimon, also known as Pan, the “Dragon King.” One of the Dark Dukes.

He bears many titles and names, though no one could possibly recall them all.

Born of the sinful union between a human and a dragon, the murderer of his own mother at birth, he was left to rot among the bones of his mighty father. But His Majesty’s mercy knows no bounds — He took in the suffering child (a monstrosity even by Crowhel’s standards), granted him the face of one who exists in a thousand worlds, gave him a voice, gave him a mind. And the Great Queen Mother shamed his dark soul with a spark of hope — one that still flickers somewhere deep within.

Despite his rank, he always stands apart from the others, ever ascetic. The past haunts him; he is more beast than man, or anything in between.

Pantaleimon is cruel to humans — especially to those who bestowed faces upon his so-called brothers (the Akatsuki, that is). He is cruel to himself as well. But who needs to know that? Every office has its duties. And so, time and again, he will erase the worlds he deems unworthy, turning the monotony of this task into a grotesque performance that feeds his half-mad mind.

Ah, at times he is utterly unbearable — cowardly, awkward, a wretched boy behaving in the most improper ways imaginable!

— from “The Advisor's Notes”