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Odion couldn't bare to hear the painful cries of young Marik. He wished there was something he could do to take the pain away.
He had tried to talk to their father about letting him take the tomb-keepers initiation ritual, but he'd refused to listen, adamant that it had to be an Ishtar and as far as he was concerned Odion wasn't one.
"I'm sorry Marik." He muttered closing his eyes, a single tear rolling down his cheek. Unable to listen to his young master's cries of pain he headed back to his room.
Once inside he sat down in front of a desk, he propped up a small mirror and lit a few more candles for extra light. Odion then reached over and opened up a book all about the ancient scriptures. He stopped at one page and propped up the book slightly beside the mirror. He then pulled out a small knife from under the table. After heating the blade up over one of the larger candles so the tip was now glowing, hot, Odion took a deep breath and ever so slowly, starting just above his eye began to cut. It took ever ounce of strength he had not to make a sound as he began carving the runes. Sweat dripped down his face as he concentrated making sure to make every line perfect. "Marik, even if I'm not aloud to be part of your family. I will always be loyal to you." He thought, fighting through the incredible pain as he continued to move the blade carefully and with expert precision.
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Almost an hour later Odion lay the bloodied blade down on a piece of cloth. The left side of his face covered in blood as well as his right hand.
"Odion there you are." Ishizu said "Marik has been asking f-" She stopped as she entered his room. A look of horror on her face "Odion what did you do." She asked, taking the cloth the knife had been sitting on and cleaning up Odion's face.
Odion sighed heavily "As you already know I was forbidden from taking the Tomb-keepers initiation, so I decided that, I would do my own initiation using some of the other text from the scriptures. So I could prove my loyalty to your family." He told her.
Ishizu looked at him sympathetically "Oh Odion, whether father agrees or not you will always be part of our family." She told him finishing cleaning up the blood on his face and began to wrap bandages around it. "It must have hurt." She took the blade and cleaned the blood off it
"Not as much as Marik must be hurting." Odion replied standing up before wobbling slightly, putting a hand down on the table for balance.
"You've lost a lot of blood, you should rest now," She told him.
"But master Marik he-." Odion began to speak but she stopped him
"I'll tell Marik that you are resting and will visit him later." She finished. She then walked out of his room carrying the bloody cloths. Ishizu had been right he was exhausted and his face was in excruciating pain, but he knew that it was probably nothing compared to what Marik was going through.