Thread to Heaven

**Thread to Heaven** is a Story Arc of the the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in the Land of Mu and follows the perspective of True Saint Verveine Samsaran.

## Story

### True Saint Appears

In distant times, in the Land of Mu, Kandata, a dying bandit tainted by Miasma, is rescued by young Buddhist priestess Verveine who heals him. Despite this, Kandata apparently succumbs to his wounds, before being revived as the damned Kokujou, avatar of Jigoku. Kokujou's first action upon reviving is to kill Verveine, as he deems her an enemy to his later plans - and seeks to suppress Kandata's lingering attachment.

This, however, instead allows Verveine to awaken as a True Saint, embodying Buddha's consciousness. Returning to the material plane, Verveine, determined to stop Kokujou, starts traveling, alongside a young red robin animal companion later reincarnated as a human, Rouge. As the pair travels, guided by Kuraku Jiang, they find a desolate town where the Soul of the lord's son was stolen.

The town suspects Asura Delphine Asurendra and seeks to arrest her, but Verveine intervenes and rescues her, suspecting Kokujou instead. In fact, Kokujou is trying to manipulate the lord's wife into selling her Soul in exchange for her son's, but upon being confronted by Verveine, admits not to be the one who stole it, instead accusing the wielder of a mysterious Sword

### Confronting Tragedy

Now traveling alongside Delphine as well, Verveine witnesses a village corrupted by a strange Jigoku-born influence. Said influence stems from a small stone she thus picks up. Not far from said village, she also encounters Yew Asurendra, Delphine's arch-rival and older sister. Seeking to overpower Buddha herself, Yew challenges Delphine using a strange, corrupted sword, and wins, despite her sword shattering.

Clearing her mind from thoughts of anger, Verveine keeps advancing to Belten-controlled lands. There, she suspects knight and politician Yseult Belten of manipulating events in order to favor himself - something that is quickly confirmed as well. Upon learning that Yseult stole a holy blade belonging to Delphine's clan, killing her and Yew's parents, and used said blade to steal the young son's soul, Verveine resolves to stop him.

During her time at Belten castle, Verveine encounters Kyokan, a Detachment - a magical Homunculus-like Construct used as a pawn by Kokujou. Kyokan flirts with Verveine and teases her, before revealing that Kokujou, hating his body's desires for Verveine, seeks to free himself from them, thus creating Kyokan himself. Kyokan then leaves Verveine as Yseult fights with Yew and successfully kills her.

### A Matter of Blades

In order to successfully confront Yseult, Verveine speaks to the blacksmith Masamune and forges a powerful God Sword, a weapon meant to channel the power of the Six Realms which she uses. Using her blood and the stone fragment she had, she allows Masamune to forge the blades Niraya and Devaloka. With those, she confronts Yseult and manages to wound them, sacrificing both weapons in exchange for retrieving the stolen Asura blade Sumeru.

Using Sumeru and her own powers, Verveine manages to snatch Yew's soul away from Purgatory, thus saving her. Yew thus starts traveling with the group as well, helping Verveine with her aims of stopping both Kokujou's descent into self-destructive madness and Yseult's ruthless ambition. Verveine's journey thus begins anew.

### Searching for Allies

Verveine is soon contacted by Kokujou, who offers her temporary peace in exchange for Yseult's heart - needed to complete the stone whose fragment Verveine has seized, Niramani, a powerful and dark artifact. Verveine reluctantly accepts, and Kokujou detaches part of his original body to recreate Kandata as a Detachment, sending him alongside Verveine in order to watch over her. The group thus travels, seeking both information about Yseult and the powerful God Swords that would allow him to defeat him.

After being hinted by a quite unpleasant Kabuki, Verveine calls upon the power of the Land's ancestors, discussing with Nialta Ikoma's spirit. Despite being a divine being, Nialta asks to return as a human to serve her land once more, and helps Verveine with finding information about the Land's past. However, during the group's journey, they are attacked by Rakshasa beasts controlled by queen Khara.

Knowing that Khara owns the powerful Animal God Sword Tirchana, Verveine confronts her alone, discovering Khara's obsession with owning and controlling Buddha herself. After a passionate clash, where Verveine and Khara find themselves evenly matched, Khara ultimately succumbs to Verveine's strength of personality and agrees to join her, although still with the intent of taking Verveine for herself.

### Doubt and Revelation

Verveine thus returns alongside Khara and keeps traveling in her ever-growing band, with Nialta believing that Belten Isawa, Yseult's ancestor, could help her. When the group finds Belten in ancient Belten-era ruins, however, the latter instead confronts Verveine, asking her whether she believes her current path - going against Yseult, an embodiment of fate, while having feelings for the corrupted Kokujou - is truly righteous, and whether she is truly worth of being Buddha.

Verveine faces her doubts that night, alongside Kandata, whose somewhat interested comfort confuses her even more. However, in the morning, determined to settle things, the young True Saint travels once more, this time towards a distant town in Cerestia where another Saint was apparently seen. Verveine discusses with said Saint, her supposed rival, the taoist Shutoku, but the two women's compassion and acceptation instead allows them to become friends and allies.

### Facing the Detachments

Upon learning from Shutoku that Yseult is still unable to heal properly from his wounds, Verveine continues traveling. With the help of Yew, she travels to Purgatory and asks of Enma to guide her towards Umbra, where the Preta God Sword Prethaia is hidden. However, Prethaia was already taken by the seemingly empty Detachment Skanda. Verveine comforts Skanda, allowing her to overcome her own doubts, and manages to have the mysterious Spirit-like woman follow her.

Verveine's next steps allow her to encounter Mada, a child-like Detachment who discusses with Verveine. While the Saint's initial plan was to heal Kokujou by allowing his Detachments to fuse with him, Mada shows Verveine that each Detachment has their own personality, desires, and fear of death, convincing Verveine to find another way. Verveine also guides Verveine towards a mysterious village.

In said village, a young Buddhist priestess, Sunako, is victim of obsessive love and desire from her entire village, causing suicides and murders to surround her. Verveine saves her by removing a shard of Niramani that corrupted her, although she cannot understand how said shard managed to successfully bestow such a powerful curse. Verveine then discusses with Tamamo, a powerful Kitsune-like Detachment to whom Verveine feels quite attracted, and who was responsible for placing Niramani - despite not quite understanding what happened either.

### Truth upon the Mountain

Verveine, seeking to gather shards of Niramani to reforge Niraya, hopefully thus destroying Yseult's own, travels towards a holy mountain where a powerful dark presence is sensed. On her travels, while hearing about Delphine's feelings of inadequacy and fear of being weak, Verveine tears apart one of her ribs and allows it to be crafted into a powerful God Sword, giving it to Delphine, and keeps traveling towards the mountain.

There, she fights detachment Kodoku and despite the latter using a powerful technique known as a God Truth, manages to overpower him using her own Truth, Vishnu, derived from the Human Realm. This however causes Verveine to realize how much, as Buddha, she distanced herself from her own human feelings and emotions, deeply shocking her. A weakened Verveine is carried by Yew towards her next destination.

### Endgame Approaches

In said destination, Verveine encounters Nitara Samsaran, a young girl who claims to be her and Kokujou's daughter. The almost omnipotent girl allows Verveine to be somewhat assuaged, as the True Saint sees in Nitara a perfect balance between purity and corruption, which she envisions as her ideal for mankind. After getting rid of a Detachment who sought to capture her, Nitara guides Verveine towards Yseult, who seems to have returned.

Indeed, Yseult has appeared once more and manipulates the Cerestia clan into doing his bidding. Upon being confronted by Yew, Delphine and Verveine, Yseult mocks them, accusing them of being driven by revenge and negative emotions, before summoning a powerful God Truth, **Brahma**, in order to defeat them. Despite this, Verveine's endurance and tactical prowess, Delphine's power and new blade, and Yew's use of her own Asura God Truth, defeat Yseult.

### Pain and Pleasure

As Yseult lies defeated, Detachment Dosan appears and steals away his heart, using it to power himself up in an attempt to overpower Kokujou. The latter instead absorbs Dosan in order to complete his Niramani, using it to entrap Verveine and attempt to kill her. Verveine instead unleashes her full power and uses Vishnu once more to crush a corrupted Kokujou, risking her own life to stop him.

This allows Kokujou to snap out of his own confused madness, and with the arrival of Kandata, to save Verveine in turn, with Kandata and Kokujou merging once more, the resulting being able to fully heal Verveine, calling upon Kandata's lingering humanity. As Kandata, now complete, enjoys a brief pause with Verveine, the world however begins to distort, absorbing both Kandata and Verveine in a spiral of pleasure.

As Verveine begins to doze off, Tamamo rescues her and allows her to confront the spiral's origin : Sunako, now empowered by Niramani, who twisted her desire for love and acceptation into a powerful reality-warping technique that threatens to absorb the entire world into her. Verveine manages to talk Sunako out of being controlled by the gem, allowing the spiral to break, and peace at last to return to the world.

## Characters

* Verveine Samsaran
* Delphine Asurendra
* Yew Asurendra
* Rouge
* Nialta Ikoma
* Khara
* Enma
* Shutoku
* Kokujou
* Kandata
* Skanda
* Tamamo
* Nitara Samsaran
* Yseult Belten
* Sunako
* Kuraku Jiang
* Kabuki
* Belten Isawa
* Other Thread Characters

## Trivia

* This Storyline borrows inspiration from manga Inuyasha, Buddhist mythology, the legend of Sun Wukong, and the previously-established lore of the Land of Mu.
	+ Its name refers to a legend in which a thief would be allowed a spider's thread to climb to heaven, said thief of course being Kandata.