Chapter 24 - Miharu KozukiHollow Night“Bullshit.”

  I sighed softly, having expected that reply. I’d quickly learnt that Jeremy was the type who had trouble believing in anything his senses couldn’t affirm.

  “But wouldn’t it be so cool?” Rin offered, unfettered in her fascination. “For all we know, you could’ve been a knight, travelling the nd, valiantly protecting the weak!”

  He scoffed, before his eyes began to wander.

  “Think I’d rather have been a dinosaur. Nobody fucks with dinosaurs.”

  Rin spped him pyfully on the shoulder, her pout steady despite her target almost having dropped his tray, “Hey, nguage!”

  I left the two of them to their usual sibling-like bickering (though the two of them weren’t fooling anybody at this point), and, only for a moment, entertained the possibility of us actually having lived past lives.

  Everybody has experienced an encounter known as déjà vu; the phenomenon of feeling as though one has lived through their present situation before. Perhaps it was a conversation you could swear you’ve already had. Maybe even being with a specific person in a specific setting can have you performing mental double takes.

  But to think that these glitches in our cognition could be indicative of a rger force at py – the more I thought about it, the more I began to understand my friend’s sceptic reaction.

  Though, if I’m indeed walking around with hundreds of years’ worth of experiences in my soul, my spiritual ancestors, having lived through various circumstances, are surely disappointed. With days as cyclic and meaningless as mine, why wouldn’t they be?

  Sometimes, when I’m in the midst of said cycle, something strange happens.

  It’s a sensation that makes me think my time has all but stopped, and the world has left me behind.

  Then, I begin to feel as though I’m floating. Or more like I’m being pulled away by something, lifted higher and higher and higher and higher until –

  “Earth to Mimi-chan?”

  Until the world drags me back.

  “Daydreaming again?” Rin pat me lovingly on my head, like a pet. At some point we’d found a table and sat down, though in the time between going up and coming back down, it feels as though someone else takes over my body for me while I’m gone.

  “If you keep your head up in the clouds like that, you’ll become one! And then how will you eat?”

  Jeremy chuckled.

  “Eating’s the least of her worries. Mr. Inoue’ll literally be praying for your downfall so you can sit that algebra midterm.”

  This time, all three of us chuckled – and as it always does, the flow of conversation meandered elsewhere.

  Even now, I look to the clouds when I feel lost, or worried, or anxious. I allow the world to pass me by, to leave me behind as I gaze up at the sky.

  Eventually, somebody - perhaps the previous inheritors of my soul - will reach down from heaven to take me away. Maybe one of these days, there’ll be nobody left to hold me back down.

  “Toward your left!” I cried.

  It was cruel that the ‘gift’ I’d been given in this tenebrous realm required me to contain myself in the present moment at all times. Ironic, that I had to cut off my ties to heaven in order to thrive in hell.

  Still, it was a talent I intended to leverage best I could. My allies were depending on me, and I – Red – would guide them to victory, no matter the cost.

  Upon hearing my warning, Resolution parried the swift swing of the samurai’s bde with her mallet’s handle, albeit with difficulty, the impact of the blow still sending her stumbling backwards. On cue, our unearthly friend materialized behind her assaint, spotting a new opening to exploit, and released a torrent of blows with its thick arms.

  “DIE DIE DIE DIE!” The Tainted bellowed. Though when I heard not the impact of fist meeting flesh, but rather the sound of multiple objects cnging against metal at high-speed, my heart sank.

  Even at a speed that my eyes could barely follow, the ronin was keeping up, blocking each rapid set of blows with speedy, precise blocks using its katana. Still, our ally’s assault did not stop, and in hindsight, it was likely that The Twisted was anticipating what had happened next.

  My vision was temporarily blinded by the ensuing fsh of light, and when my eyes had recovered, I had caught Resolution crashing her bludgeon into the samurai’s side, the tter having previously been occupied with the Tainted’s onsught.

  With a spine-tingling thud, the shadow flew into an abandoned apartment complex to our right, crashing through wall. Shards of gss and debris rained down from the impact site, followed by a cloud of thick dust that obscured our vision.

  “Pn! Now!” Resolution shouted between pants, her body drooping with fatigue. “I’m…running low on juice.”

  “Same!” The Twisted admitted from a distance, now running to regroup with us from the shadows after having been knocked away in a previous skirmish. “Not sure how many more of those Tainted can throw out.”

  I couldn’t bme the two. Ever since our failed negotiation, we’d been fighting an uphill battle. The Noise’s power, speed, and reflex were unlike anything we’d seen before. If this turned into a battle of attrition, even with Soce in our corner, our chances of victory were slim.

  “Here, lemme help!” The tter called out from behind me. Before I could reach an arm out to hold him back, he had swept past me, and was dashing into the fray.

  “Wait, no! Stay back, Robes!”

  “No, you look injured. I’ll quickly –“

  Of course, this wasn’t the first time I had seen the stage directions. If anything, I’d grown quite fond of their appearances. Granted, the predictions were often maddeningly unspecific for the sake of brevity, and sometimes took a second or two to read fully, not always leaving enough time to react, but I couldn’t count the amount of times they had saved either myself, or my comrades, from certain death.

  Yesterday, for example – I had used it to warn my new comrade, Soce, about the dark threat that had been looming behind him, prompting Resolution to come to his aid.

  Tonight, however, I find that this same red text that had once saved a life, was now condemning it.

  The Samurai Noise tosses his bde like a javelin at the general location of the Pyers below. Soce, having come to the aid of his allies, is impaled by the sword, and dies instantly.

  And, as always, I opened my mouth to give verbal warning to my allies. Curiously, even though I was certain of the words I would use to communicate the threat, the desperate scream that came out sounded nothing akin to what I had mentally prepared.

  In the corner of my eye, a sharp glint of silver began to sail down from within the heavy clouds of smoke and destruction.

  By the time I’d heard the sound of flesh succumbing to steel, and the horrified shrieks that ensued, my eyes had been cast back to the sky. The moon gred back down at me silently. The shaking wouldn’t stop.

  If Heaven was watching, I hoped they would take in my fallen comrade’s soul with open arms. The rest of us would be following soon enough.

  I had returned to my body. In the time I’d been gone, my lungs had been operating on standby, and so I was forced to take in huge, heaving breaths in order to replenish my vessel’s dwindling oxygen supply.

  How long had I been gone? Had I been killed already? Considering the sheer poignancy of the ache in my muscles, the tiredness in my bones, and the emptiness in chest, my time had not come quite yet.

  I pried my eyes away from the starless night sky above. Either due to the hurried intakes of oxygen, or fear, I could hear my heart pounding almost combatively against my chest. Like it was warning me not to look.

  But I had to.

  I pushed my head in their direction, and, once more, time froze.

  Tainted was still, gripping the katana that had been stabbed through him with steady hands. Soce, who stood behind it, walked wordlessly backwards until he hit a wall, causing him to slide down it, his face still spyed in shock.

  “First…of all…” The ethereal fighter struggled. “You’re welcome.”

  Our eyes were all centred on it, though nobody spoke. As rumblings behind the smoke from whence the bde had been shot began to erupt, Tainted turned to its master.

  “Listen-“ It began. At some point, I had started running, so its voice became louder and clearer as it continued. “I’ll be okay. Just going…back inside you to rest for a while, that’s all. But I’m…afraid…this’ll be the st of your EXS. I can’t…track anymore for you either. That’s okay too.”

  Tainted’s body was now dissipating into thin strings of smoke, the same way all our adversaries up until now had done. With the st of its strength, it raised a pointed finger to The Twisted.

  “You’ve realized it too… haven’t you? They tricked us. You won’t need me…anymore…”

  Those were the st words it spoke, before being completely reduced to dust, blown away by the wind. The bde that had brought our ally to its abrupt end fell to the ground with a cnk.

  For what felt like an eternity, we stood there in silence. Looking back on it now, perhaps that was the first time the we’d seen someone we considered a friend perish before our very eyes, to save another one of our own, no less.

  Our quiet vigil was interrupted by the sound of something nding near us, a gust of wind speeding past our circle. None of us moved.

  “I’m sorry…” A meek voice squeaked. “I’m so, so sorry…”

  Then, a sound I didn’t expect to hear – a noise that was completely at odds with the atmosphere – rang throughout the space.

  It was The Twisted. He was ughing.

  Well, perhaps ughing was an understatement, for multiple hairs were now standing on end. Over and over, he cackled uproariously. Two days ago, I would have taken this to be a symbol of joy and good humour. But I knew better than that.

  Wordlessly, he knelt down, inspected the rge sword that had brought an end to his companion, and worked his fingers around its handle.

  He stood up and looked intently at me. The look in his eyes – that of pure, unbridled hatred – was an expression I, up to this very day, never forgot.

  “Stay here.” He said, devoid of inflection or emotion. “Keep that idiot out of trouble. If he runs out again, I’ll skewer him myself.”

  I fought the urge to tremble to my knees and nodded.

  Suddenly, his arms up to his shoulders erupted with a raging bck fme, even enveloping the Noise’s sword he had pilfered.

  The scoundrel in question was staring us down from the other side of the street. Likely having assessed the situation, it unsheathed a pair of spiked, silver brass knuckles, slowly slotting its bck finger-like appendages through the slots.

  “Jack of all trades, are you?” The Twisted taunted. “Doesn’t matter. You made a deal with the devil the second you became our enemy.”

  His grip tightened, and as if reading each other’s minds, the two of them lowered their stances.

  “…and the house always wins. Let’s see if your blood is any redder than mine.”