Black turns into white as I found myself in the white room. I was floating in the air for days in this realm of non-existence. My mind felt like mush and my eyes were blank. I didn't have any drive to move on. This realm had zero existence of time and space. It was all blank. Heck, it was hard to even say I was here for days. At moments it felt like hours or months.
I couldn't feel anything, hunger, thirst, pain...I couldn't even blink. My consciousness was fading. But eventually I felt something touch my head. It felt like a hand. I was soon lowered down to the ground. "I can't believe that nutjob made you use that technique." He says, "But then again it's kinda given. That technique...Majinken was something that karma itself would bring us to."
Kenshin then takes out some cigarettes and lights one for himself. He takes a breather then exhales the smoke out of his mouth. "The secret of Kamui dakara techniques are based on relics that are considered national treasures of Japan. Yet you put your best foot forward to get your omnyoudou license. But then again it's really all five of our faults to teach you magic at a young age." He monologues, "You chose to take Majinken technique and many other of my techniques too. And because of that you became hated."
I didn't know what he was talking about. He can just take a look at me and know what was thinking. All the guy could do was sigh. "You decided to take the Majinken technique after the relic katana, Muramasa." He says, "'The more souls taken by the user, the better the technique'...or so the legend goes. But that's how you managed to become not only an Omnyoji but as a Slayer."
"Couldn't you just tell me what happened like this?" I asked him.
But he doesn't say anything. He just instead finishes his smoke and stands up. Kenshin looks up. "I think Furukizu just wants you to realize the situation you are in." He said.
"I'm willing to get stronger, aren't I?" I questioned the guy.
"Really now? With all you see are you willing to accept what you see? Heck you even bleeped your name Do you wanna bleep that out forever?" He talked back.
That line struck a cord. I felt uncomfortable hearing about that. Kenshin then points at my armwarmer. "You need to air that out." He says, "Even if you managed to cover it good. It doesn't mean it will heal if you don't do any effort to get better."
The man then helps me up from the ground. Even if I struggle to get up, he helps me stand. He then pushed me and says, "You might as well get a grip! Get in the game, hero!"
I was brought back up at the scene before with a dead red orc next to me. Everybody was still shaken up. With all the madness going along it was hard to even cope. The dead orc's head still had its eyes wide open. All I could do was look away and closed the eyelids myself. I'm back at Laputa, alright.
We got back to camp but most of us were still mentally exhausted and traumatized. All of us were covered in blood and all we had to show was the bounty that we managed to salvage. There was a bunch of jewelry the red caps were wearing and there was a massive haul of weapons. Most of them being axes and clubs. Tyrell on the other hand was barely sane at all. He could barely pick up a knife and slice any meat.
At the end Mr. Williams had to get in the way so we would have something good to eat. He ended up doing most of the knife stuff but eventually Tyrell managed to get a grip and did the rest of it. The whole camp became silent. But despite that awkward silence, Gram's burp kinda dispelled it. The mood even lightened up a little with Richard passing a few flasks of alcohol around to calm down. "So what happened back at the camp?" The lizardman asked.
The tension was thick. So thick that you can cut it with a knife. However Sakuya decided to start. "We had to deal with a group of red caps today. They surrounded us." She said.
"Strange, I thought your abilities would be able to sense them. Did something happen?" Magna asked his superior.
"Something was interfering with my clairvoyance. By the time I sensed them it was too late." Sakuya replied.
"It looks like you fought something worse than that. Rin looks worse than before." Richard points out.
"Some red orc came around and started to beat the shit out of me with a spiked club. The idiot even managed to even list a hole in my Kevlar vest." I said.
"He was probably hooked on berserker mushrooms." Gram pointed out.
"Berserker Mushrooms?" Mr. Williams questioned.
"They're narcotic mushrooms that turn off the mental limiters of the body. They turn off the pain receptors of the body but at the cost of the user going at some kind of ruthless rage." Gram said.
"They're used in several orcish traditions but they've been banned in many countries in Aria. It doesn't really make them strong but really just make the taker feel strong. Some of the side effects of taking these mushrooms are manic tendencies, extreme aggression, rashes, bloodshot eyes, and skin turning red." Magna added.
"Reminds me of witch and folk doctors giving fake remedies to cure diseases." Mr. Williams compared.
"It gets worse." Magna says, "Get hooked to them for too long and they become an angry, mindless beast. No going back there."
"Now that's some memories right there. A couple of the Terrans in my class tried those shrooms and ended up in the hospital for even trying a bite out of one of those." Gram mentioned.
"Good thing I don't believe in that kind of stuff. That stuff is just one gigantic mess." Magna added.
The tension started to fade. We managed to eat a little from our meals a bit easier. With all the mouths moving, the group was able to relax a little. "So how was the fight with those things anyway?" Richard asked.
"We managed to hold up but Rin did most of the killing." Rebecca answered.
"Don't say it like that. You make it look as if I'm genosidal." I told her.
"You put it that way and yet you're able to hold your ground." Sakuya said.
"Just barely! Look at my vest! That red orc managed to pierce through Kevlar!" I shouted and I pointed at the hole of my bulletproof vest.
"At least you got the healing factor. The rest of us are still squishy." Mr. Williams said.
"Please don't remind me of squishy. That fight was over the top." Tyrell insisted.
"Oh yeah...those redcaps' heads Rin blew up exploded like paintballs." Rebecca remembered repulsively.
"That's...one way to put it." Tyrell mumbled with a tone of sarcasm.
"Didn't your uncle used to own a butcher shop? You used to tell us that you worked parttime there just to get some of the good meats. Isn't that pretty gorey?" Rebecca pointed out.
"Not really. The blood is drained before it's sent to the butcher shop. Plus you don't expect heads to blow up like watermelons." Tyrell said.
"Didn't your father own a watermelon farm when he was a preacher?" Mr. Williams asked.
"Yeah, the...recessions and some other things didn't help with the farm either. But on the bright side my dad managed to become a preacher." Tyrell put out in a depressing tone.
"Oh yeah...I was at the Philippines at the time of those recessions. How was it back then?" Richard asked.
"It was shit. We barely managed pull though and survive with the HAPs were causing chaos all over." Rebecca says, "Electricity, roads, and parts of cities kept on disappearing."
"Yeah there were a lot of riots too with the food shortages at the first year of the HAP. Me and Rin did a few extra jobs with hunting and fishing to get extra money." Mr. Williams pointed out.
"So...you and Rin have been doing oddjobs too?" Sakuya asked the veteran.
"Yeah, back at the time a couple of friends from a couple of cities and neighboring states had a bit of a problem with some, 'extra large guests', if you get what I mean." Mr. Williams put out.
"Oh...you're talking about the extra large animals that were causing chaos pre-dating Laputa's appearance. Those 'megabeast'." Richard remembered.
"A couple of friends of mine were having a pest problem with a wild boar wrecking an entire chicken coop so I dragged Rin along since he's good with a pistol. Next thing you know I was using an entire box of shotgun shells to put it down with Rin barely getting lucky with disemboweling it with a machete. And that was how we met Tyrell." Mr. Williams reminessed.
"Oh yeah...that wasn't a good day. Some animal rights hippies went after us for killing the thing." I added.
"How big was that thing anyway? You guys came in front of my farm." Tyrell asked.
"As big as a mini Cooper...god we were lucky to be alive." I answered, being fatigued just remembering the thought.
"Sooner or later we found more of these jobs similar to the boar we killed at Craigslist and we've been doing that for awhile." Mr. Williams said.
"Yet one giant boar attacked the farm and wrecked my room. It was a good time to go to the city either way." Tyrell said.
"And since that day you became my roommate. Even went to college together too." I added.
"So... you've been monster hunting before Laputa existed? I guess that explains the manticore and your levels." Magna rationalized.
"We didn't even want to do these jobs to begin with. It wasn't worth the stalkers trying to harass us." Mr. Williams groaned.
"On the bright side it did bring food at the table..." I remembered as I tried to point out the bright side out of this.
"Don't tell me you were one of those guys who did selfies with the dead animals." Richard said.
"No...I'm Shintoist. That would be disrespectful towards the animal. After we killed these animals, we just butchered them and then do whatever we could with the remaining materials." I defended myself.
"That explains the tusk goblet and leather apron you gave me for Xmas..." Tyrell pointed out of grief.
"If it helps, we buried the rest of the unused materials in the forest and put a grave stone per kill we did." I put out.
Rebecca looks at me in an odd light. She wonders rather suspiciously and confused at the same time. "This is actually all new to me...but then again I didn't meet you until year two of the start of the HAPs." She summed up.
"Oh yeah...that wasn't a fun time." I recalled with a depressing mood.
"Why? What happened at that time?" Sakuya asked.
"A lot of things...some that we rather not talk about." Tyrell pointed out bluntly.
"You can say that again." Rebecca agreed in a gloomy way.
"Well...you gotta admit. You were a bitch at the time." Tyrell pointed out.
"Why? What happened?" Richard asked.
"I was an overemotional bitch at the time. I'm actually surprised I managed to last so long. Heck it makes me wonder how we became friends." Rebecca said.
"So what made this strange?" Magna questioned.
"At the time there were a lot of politics that didn't pay attention to the HAPs. I was one of them..." Rebecca replied rather in a gloomy way.
"The internet and colleges were getting worse at the time too...political thought was so important to America that it mattered more that the HAP phenomenon. Even when I called it out it got people pissed." I recalled as the memory gave a sour thought.
"What did Rin say to get you guys pissed in the first place?" Mr. Williams asked Rebecca.
"I...forgot...I was too pissed to remember..." She quoted, trying not to remember.
"I think I do... It was more like, 'I don't care for your politics! I got two jobs and a scholarship to keep and another event to set up for! Does it look like I have time to give a damn?!' . Then Rin stormed off." Tyrell recalled.
"Do we have to any further?" Rebecca questioned with a red face.
"No, go on! I wanna hear what happens next." Richard insisted.
"No We don't!" Both me and Rebecca shouted in usinson.
"It's almost uncanny that the both of you act like that." Richard added in a cheeky manner.
"Even if I don't remember those parts, some part of that pisses me off." I tell them, "Anyhow, eventually Rebecca kinda turned the other way around and It reached news but none of us wanted to comment."
"Damn...you could have been famous, Rin." Gram commented.
"I rather not. I was getting into a lot of other problems and had to make sure that I wasn't being followed. Most of my students were minors and I didn't want them to get involved." I replied.
"Yet me and my girlfriend broke up. She even got me evicted out of my apartment just by not agreeing with her politics. And she didn't even live with me." Rebecca says, "Rin then found me at some street gave me a job as a receptionist and a place to stay."
"Yet who would have thought that working as a receptionist at Rin's dojo would land you a job to a big videogame company." Tyrell put out.
"Well Rebecca needed rent and a student of ours was in need of some new assistants so I vouched for her." I said.
"Yet to help somebody who did that to you guys..." Richard pointed out.
"We all make mistakes. And after getting to know each other a bit more, Rebecca learned to be a bit more open minded and Rin thought of becoming a counselor. We all became friends ever since." Mr. Williams summed up.
"And how did you come to think of being a counselor?" Sakuya asked, intrigued.
We then explained a bit further. Rebecca's ex started to stalk her and demand to take her back. Eventually it lead to us calling the cops. The three of us would let her stay in our apartments rotationally with some of the students volunteering to let her stay at their homes once a week. I would be the one to drive her with my car to some of these locations so her ex would give up. We even gave details of Rebecca's ex to her workplace.
"That's actually a good plan. If it were that complicated then she would give up. But why not just do a restraining order?" Sakuya asked.
"Rin taught me that people make mistakes and need redemption. If I did that then it would have been harder for my ex to get a job." Rebecca answered.
"Yeah...then 'that' happened." Tyrell put out.
Eventually Rebecca's ex soon flipped and attacked the dojo. She rammed her mini-van in it. To make it worse she organized it into some kind of riot and spread rumors of me being a molester. Even saying that I was a school shooter. They started to attack the students and patrons. Soon things were about to get worse and an all out brawl began. Some even killing and putting some of the students in critical condition. The more we talked about it the more my breathing started to become heavy. It was getting uncomforable.
"We all hid the kids in the office and Rin got insane. He could barely move. But eventually he took the katana mounted at the wall and opened the door." Tyrell said.
My head started to surge like crazy. Visions of blood came into my head and I tried to keep composure. But I could see the blood flowing at my hands. I started to hallucinating. The feeling of cutting through a body in half started to be felt at my nerve endings. But before Tyrell could say another word, Mr. Williams stopped him by patting him at the back. The old man noticed how scared I was and took care of the talking.
"Anyways Rin managed to fight them off. After that the story was cleared for a week. But even with the damage done, Rin got more students." Mr. Williams told them.
"After what's been happening; we've been friends ever since." Rebecca says, "I guess with all the messed up shit we've been through, we just stuck together."
"Yeah. Kinda weird it's the same thing with this situation. Now we're at Laputa doing the same thing. Messed up stuff but we're still together." Tyrell said.
It was a good footnote to stick with. But soon I stood up. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom first." I said as I walked away.
"Make sure to check where you're doing it." Richard calls out, "You don't wanna be stabbed by a Redcap while your wiener is out."
"You have no sense of delicacy." Magna commented.
"Shut up and pass the alcohol!" Richard kids around as he snatches the flask.
As everybody was enjoying each other and talking. I was on the other hand a few feet away from the campsite, in the tall grass, and puking my guts out. Visions started come. My mind was going insane. Static started to form like a television screen and fizz. Soon it a visual came.
I was at the dojo at L.A. There I was teaching students. It was the promotion test of the students at the dojo. There I was supervising the testing and everybody was there. The odd part was that I didn't recognize this memory. Everybody was there, including my friends. Everybody was laughing and smiling.
But soon the plane became unstable. It started to fizz. Time lapsed to late afternoon with me sitting against the wall with a towel over my head. I raised my head to see a lot of corpses all around and a lot of cops surrounded by me. Guns were all around and I had bloody swords on my hands. For a brief moment the scene fizzed a little to reveal something different. It was the bloody hallway at Japan. The mosaic was still there at all the mutilated bodies. But returned again at the bloody dojo.
Soon the police opened fire at me. However time froze and the bullets were a few centimeters away to piercing me. They soon faded into dust. And with the frozen setting, a couple of hooded figures in blue appeared. One then came close to me and I was too traumatized to react. She then comes up to me and says, "You really can't go away from me even if you tried, can't you?"