Against The Gods With An Anime System

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You are probably wondering now: How is it that Ray/Itachi had a mom? Didn't she abandon him at an orphanage?

The answer to that question is, yes. She did abandon him, but during his childhood was adopted a number of times. And in this chapter I will tell you his background and the tragedy that shaped his live forever.

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February 16, 1992, New York City

On this day a 4-year-old Ray Williams was sitting in the foster home. He got into another fight with the older kids and was blamed yet again by them for starting the fight. As punishment, Ray was forced to go to bed early without dinner. Ray Williams, who at this point in his life was named Ray Thompson, was born on March 6th, 1988 in New York City. His birth mother's name was Judy Thompson, as stated on his birth certificate, and his father was unknown. Because at that time his birth mother was a 16-year-old girl who had no way of taking care of the baby, she gave him up for adoption right after his birth.

What Ray didn't know was that at this point a woman named Josephine Williams was in talks with the foster home in order to adopt a child. When she was younger, she suffered from cervical cancer. But luckily for her, the doctors discovered it very early on and had undergone surgery to remove her uterus to cure her of her cancer. She ended up losing the ability to ever pregnant and because she wanted to be a mother very badly she ended wanting to adopt a child that was still very young, and Ray being the youngest was then chosen. She had met Ray a few times over the course of adopting a child and ended up adopting him.

(A.N.: I will be honest with you. I have no idea how the U.S. foster care system and adoption works in details. What this is, is me guessing and writing it down. If any of you know how this system work, I would love to hear from you and I will obviously correct it than.)

After she had adopted Ray, they started living together. The first few months were the hardest. Ray would never listen to a word she said and they ended fighting a lot. But throughout all of it Josephine would remain patient and always try to be a loving mother to Ray. After hearing what Ray had been through in his short life, she knew that what he needed the most was a loving mother to give him the love he desperately needed. After six months Ray started to change, he was no longer always angry and he started to listen to Josephine. After living with Josephine for a year, he started calling her mom and his name was changed to Ray Williams.

Four years later, when Ray was 9 years old, he and Josephine, who he always called mom, were driving home from school. Ray was in the backseat holding a drawing he made of himself and his mother.

"Mom, mom look at this drawing that I made in school during Arts & Crafts." Said Ray excitedly to his mother.

"That's great honey. What was the theme of the drawing?" said his mother.

"We were supposed to draw something that we loved the most. So I made a drawing of you and me holding hands beneath a rainbow." Said Ray as he showed her his drawing.

Looking behind her for a second to look at the drawing Ray made, Josephine failed to notice that she had run a red light. And at that moment a truck hit the car that she and Ray were in from the left side. Josephine was unfortunately killed during the collision but Ray survived with just some bruises because he was sitting at the back right and was wearing his seat belt. Getting out his seat, Ray crawls to the front seat where his mother was sitting motionless and starts to desperately shaking her, hoping she would wake up.

"Mom? MOM!! PLEASE WAKE UP MOM!! PLEASE WAKE UP!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ALONE!! WAKE UP MOM!! WAKE UP!! PLEASE WAKE UP, PLEASE!!" screamed Ray at his now dead mother before he is pulled out of the wreckage by paramedics.

And so his life of misery began. He was back into the foster system again and every family that would adopt him would just as quickly drop him. He would never listen and always get into trouble with either the police or the parents of the children that he would fight with. And if his stepparents at that time wanted to say something about it, he would never listen and just run away. Ever since the day his mother died, school never worked out for him. He would never make homework, always cut class and fight with other students. This continued on until his 18th birthday and by then he had dropped out of his 3rd high school. After the age of 18 he was also forced out of the foster system and forced to make a living of his own. Until the age of 28 Ray Williams, formerly Ray Thompson, lived a life of misery. After being sent out of the foster system, he decided to find his own birth mother. All he had was his birth certificate that had his birth mother's name on it: Judy Thompson.

After 2 years of searching for clues, he found his birth mother. But it wasn't a happy reunion. Apparently his birth mother died on March 8th, 1998. She died on his tenth birthday as he was having a fierce argument with his newly adopted family and ran away from home. According to the hospital she died at, they told him that she died because of a heroin overdose. The only reason they told him was because he was her biological son. According to some friends of his birth mother that he managed to track down, she was a 16-year-old girl that was pregnant with Ray at the time and kicked out of the house by her family. According to them, her family was an ultra-conservative and very religious family, they saw her pregnancy as a humiliation to the family and they kicked her out. His birth mother, a 16-year-old girl, forced to live on the streets with no support from either her family or her ex-boyfriend who i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed her and right after he knew about her pregnancy broke up with her and abandoned her. The only hope she had for her unborn child was to give it up for adoption and hope it would have a better life than her.

(A.N.: I don't know if hospitals will tell you about the circ.u.mstances of their patient's deaths if you are their relatives. But I wrote it to add some drama to my story. Feel free to correct me and I'd love to hear from you in the comments.)

After some searching, Ray managed to track down his grandparents and visited them to tell them about himself and wanted to know why they abandoned her like that. But his grandparents would not acknowledge him as part of their family and denounced their daughter for being, in their words, a filthy whore who would open her legs for every man who'd glance at her. The rage Ray felt when his so called grandparents insulted his birth mother and when he told them that she died 8 years ago their reaction was relief that she would no longer continue to embarrass the family name and wished she was never borne in the first place, before they kicked him out of the house and told that he was never welcome there again. That night after they had gone to sleep, Ray broke into their house and thrashed their house by throwing paint across the entire interior of their house, leaving stinkbombs everywhere in the house and stole their car and torched it.

Ray continued his life until the age of 28 when tragically died in the house fire, but this has also led to him gaining a second chance and this was one chance he would take with both arms.

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Back to the Phoenix Trial

Ray and his mother, Josephine Williams, were still in the hall hugging each other and crying in each other's arms. After a few minutes Ray invited her to come in.

"Please come in mom, I have so much to talk to you about. Don't mind the mess, I didn't have time to clean, I'll get on it soon. Just take a seat, I'll get us something to drink." Said Ray as he led his mother into his apartment.

As Ray walked over to the kitchen, he could suddenly hear the Phoenix Spirit in his head.

"Challenger, if your pursuit for power is true then show it. Take out your mother and show me your resolve. If you don't, you will fail." Said the Phoenix Spirit to Ray as a gun suddenly showed up in his hand.

Looking at the gun in hand, instead of harming his mother in any way, Ray just put the gun down in the kitchen and came back with two bottles of water and gave one to his mother.

"Sorry about this, I didn't have any time to buy some groceries so I got nothing else to drink in the fridge." Said Ray apologetically to his mother as he gave her the bottle of water.

"It's okay honey, just seeing you is more than enough. I have something here that I wanted to give you." Said his mother.

"WAIT!! Before you do anything, just let me say this. Mom, I love you so much and I'm really, really, really sorry about making you look back at me that day in the car. If I could go back in time I would have changed it so that would it never have happened." Said Ray to his mother as he hugged her again.

"All is forgiven honey, all is forgiven. And I love you too...…BANG!!" said his mother during their hug before she suddenly shot him. Instead of reacting to the shot, Ray just held on to her and closed his eyes with a gentle smile on his face before everything went dark and he was back in the trial grounds.

Back in the trial grounds, Itachi was on the ground looking down not moving an inch. When he looked up at the eyes of the Phoenix a few minutes later, he had tears streaming down his face but he didn't say a word.

"Well challenger, you already knew it was only an illusion from the very start, and that you could have ended it quickly if you had used that "gun", as you apparently call it. Would you rather stay in the illusion and even tricked yourself into believing that it was real? Unless, within your heart, the great strength that you can immediately obtain can't even compare to that temporary illusion? What do you have to say for yourself." Said the Phoenix Spirit.

"I couldn't do it. She was my mother, the only person I have ever loved and the only one who didn't treat me like shit. After what I did to her I deserved to be killed by her. If meeting her again and let her kill me means losing out on some power, then I would let her kill me a million times over. If it means I could meet her again even if it was but a temporary illusion, then it was all worth it." Said Itachi with conviction as he looked at the Phoenix Spirit.

Congratulations challenger. Within these countless years, you are the eighth practitioner who has chosen to give up your strength rather than hurt the illusion of your loved one. You have earned the right to inherit the Phoenix's gift."