I opened my eyes to see myself at a ceiling of a tent. But that wasn't the startling part. I couldn't move as I was bound by cloth wrappings like a mummy.
I attempted to move to escape these binds. But the more I struggled from these binds the tighter they became. Runes appeared at the cloth bindings and started to glow. They grew even tighter and they restricted my movements even more. My chest was getting tighter and it was getting harder to breathe, only to figure out that the magical binds were choking me at the throat.
It was only when I gave up that the binds started to loosen up. I was grasping for air as my throat was free.
Footsteps can finally be heard. The tent was being unzipped. I then laid still and pretended to be asleep as somebody went to check on me from the opening. Somebody then comes in and checks my pulse. The person then ruffles my hair and says in Japanese, "God... you're going to get a mouthful from me when you wake up."
A few moments later the zipper closes and I can finally open my eyes. Everybody then bundled up to the campfire at the center of the campsite. "He's still knocked out?" Rebecca asked.
"Yeah... he's sleeping like a baby." Sakuya said.
"What happened back there?" Tyrell asked.
"The Etherium must have made him hallucinate and gave him a panic attack." Gram says, "I've seen Etherium storms before but never have I seen one affect someone that strong."
"You did say Etherium storms effected spells. Maybe it might have effected his magus eye." Tyrell suggested.
"It's possible. If the storm was this strong then his ability might have compromised him." Magna assumed.
"Yet what should we do if he wakes up?" Richard asked.
The whole circle then becomes quiet. All i could hear was the tinder kindling from the fire. I could sense the tension from outside and I could tell people were getting uncomfortable.
"I think we might need to take Rin back to the capital." Mr. Williams suggested.
"I wish we could but it's not that simple." Sakuya replied.
"What do you mean?" Rebecca asked.
"If a god ask for a request, it's often pretty serious and if it isn't followed then there will be consequences." Magna said.
"What kind of 'Consequences'?" Tyrell asked.
"If we talk about heroes under gods they're summoned there for a purpose. And if the deed is undone then problems will occur." Magna replied.
"Such as?" Rebecca questioned.
"Let's say if there is a gigantic serpent that has the ability to spread poison wherever it goes, what would most likely happen?" Sakuya asked my friends.
"People would...die...?" Tyrell guessed.
"Close but that's just one of them. In reality the serpent ruptures the balance of the world by poisoning environment around it, killing both fauna and flora, hinder the growth of many ecosystems." Sakuya completed.
"And for us to complete the job we had to eliminate it. But we soon realized that our job wasn't finished since we didn't get rid of the body." Richard added.
"What happened to the body?" Tyrell asked.
"The body of the serpent ended up leaking with poisonous ooze and vapor that ended up killing the wildlife and poisoned the soil in which it laid. So we had to burn it too without getting in contact of the poison." Magna answered.
"Yeah that wasn't a good day...we didn't get any much profit from that job either. Hope the hazmat suits were worth it." Richard commented.
"It was near one of the satelite colonies we were allied with so it was bound to happen sometime." Magna pointed out
"So what are you trying to say?" Tyrell asked.
"This might be under speculation but...maybe the reason why Rin was summoned here was due to the Etherium. We did catch on camera some kind of anomaly at the eye." Sakuya said.
"What makes you sure?" Rebecca questioned.
"You saw all the signs from camera. The storm would be the only thing that would lead to divine intervention." Magna said.
"What makes you so sure? For all we know it's just coincidence." Mr. Williams pointed out.
"Then why didn't we hallucinate like Rin?" Richard argues, "We stayed there as long as him at the forest and yet he was the only person effected my the Etherium. Why is that?"
From that, neither of my friends were able to answer. It was quiet and the scene became even a bit more tense. "It doesn't matter. I don't think Rin would be capable of continuing." Mr. Williams said with a firm voice.
"You can't just leave! Think of the consequences!" Magna told them.
"Yet think of Rin's sanity! He's barely holding on and you're still letting him in?!" Rebecca shouted.
Rebecca then directs her attention to Sakuya. She holds her tight by the arms. "Don't you care about him? Wasn't this guy your friend? Are you going to let them push him?!" She questioned her.
"Yet we have to follow the plan. Not for our sake, but for his." Sakuya told them.
"For him?! Do you know what the hell are you saying?! He could have died!"
"Does it look like I want this?! Whether he likes it or not he has to answer the call!"
I could sense the tension rising and the sound of metal clicking. Things just got serious. I tried to use my magus eye but the binds tightened the moment I used them. But t But then something else happened. I could hear something rustling between these two groups. The ground just happened to crackle. Judging from the shadows of the tent they were large vines. Cricking sounds can be heard from the vines and I think I knew who it was. "Alright everybody! Just calm down!" Gram shouted.
A small pause occurred. It was silent for a brief term. But little by little i could hear the sheathing of weapons and everybody started to sit down. The vine's shadows shrunk as the seeds lowered underground. Everybody took a seat and stayed at their sides. Gram was at the middle, trying to keep his cool. He then clears his throat and and proceeds.
"It seems to me that all of you have a problem about Rin's situation as being a chosen hero." He says, "One side is concerned about...whatever he has and the other is obviously pushing themselves to do something they don't want."
Again there is more silence. All refused to answer. Something was being held back. That's where Gram puts his foot down. "Look...it's obvious none of us are actually prepared for whatever...'this' is!" The lizardman points out all ruffled out, "The kid's tough, that's for sure. But whatever happened in there was definitely something that none of us knew about! I am a hundred percent sure that even if you go all prepared with all the gadgets and spells, none of you guys know shit about the obejective of who we are supposed to protect!"
I then hear a sigh. "He's right, you know." Magna commented.
"In all honesty...Rin's party and you are the only people that knew him. The rest of us are walking in blind." Richard told Sakuya.
"No...Me and Rebecca know the Rin at the present. Only Sakuya and Mr. Williams know Rin at the past. And he never shared about his past to our group back when we were still in L.A." Tyrell corrected.
"Yeah but did we really need to know?" Gram asked.
Everybody then paid attention Gram. The words kinda surprised them. There the lizard man sighs. "It's weird...Rin's current group does not know of his past and those who knew barely know what he is." He points out, "Yet the main problem is that why is he like this? Does anybody at least know why he has these mental issues?"
Nobody answered. It was making everyone confused. There were more holes in this plan than they anticipated. But that was when Gram directed himself towards Sakuya. "You obviously remember Rin in a more intimate level. What do you know about him?" He asked her.
Sakuya's face became red. She looked at the side with a flustered face. "I was reassigned half a year before Rin went back to America so I didn't know."
"Reassigned...for what?" The lizardman questioned.
"I was an omnyouji apprentice in charge of alchemic potions and astrology at the time. After that I went to Hokkaido...barely hearing from him."
"But do you know any details?"
Sakuya looked down. She took a seat at the log and sighed. It looks like it wasn't good. "Rin operated as a Slayer during his time at Japan. He did work with the omnyouji clans but the organization he was in never got along." Sakuya replied.
"What's a Slayer?" Tyrell asked.
"I've heard of this. Back at the time Aria had private militia forces in Terra to contain or eliminate magic entities. They employed local mercenaries to eliminate them in order for magic never to be revealed to the Terran." Gram said.
"They weren't just mercenaries. These were experienced magic users and monster hunters in Terra. If there was something dangerous, they made sure the myth stays a myth." Mr. Williams replied.
"How do you know so much about this, old man?" Richard asked.
"Cause I was the one who trained him with his past lives since he was a kid. And he wanted to become a Slayer like me so I made him into one." Mr. Williams answered.
"Wait... you're a Slayer? You could have updated your status to go at your second rank without any kinks." Gram mentioned.
"And leave that kid all alone? Yeah right." He scoffed.
"How was he that the time?" Richard asked.
"Rin was exceptional for his age. He excelled in martial arts but when he got a hold of a weapon and a few spells...you can't give him a term for it." Mr. Williams described.
"How was he?" Sakuya asked.
"He was like the grim reaper. Cold and just. But deep down...he was my kid." Mr. Williams says, "He did have his bad points but I knew he was a good kid."
"Did he sometimes make lunch whenever you were out?" Sakuya asked.
"Yes. Chicken cream soup and sourdough whenever we were out." He remembered.
"Does he grab herbs along the way and eat them when heads back?" Sakuya asked.
"Yeah. I'd see him get a few mushrooms and cooks them once he gets home." The old man recalled.
"He would sometimes bring mugwort at the alchemy lab and fry the leftover once he's done selling them to me." She giggled.
Both of the two leaders start to laugh. The tension started to fade. Both off them finally started to stand down. "When I surrendered him to my daughter, Lilith...I figured he was ready." He says, "Yet my concerns me is what caused him to be like this."
"Lilith is your daughter?!" Gram reacted.
"From my first marriage...after my divorce, she got into magic and eventually got into the same business as I was." Mr. Williams said.
"Well your daughter is quite the gamemaster." Magna commented.
"Yet she didn't tell me on what was going on with Rin after his thing in Japan. So I wanna know." Mr. Williams said.
That's when Sakuya sighed, only to remember a grim memory. "I was only there a day after his last job at Japan." She says, "It was messy and with dried blood all over. It was at his school."
"What happened...?" Rebecca questioned.
"I don't know but the higher ups were keeping a secret of it...there was a lot of going on there." Sakuya replied.
"Such as?" Gram asked.
"There was blood, guts, curses, and worst of all... corruption." Sakuya hesitantly told them.
"Corruption? Weren't you looking for that in Rin's body?" Tyrell asked.
"Yes and it was everywhere." The guildmaster says, "Every few feet there were stains of corruption that oozed black ectoplasm, small rifts, distorted surfaces and gravity...even spots where you step can curse you an instant death. Heck even the random eye at the wall pops up every once in awhile."
"So that bad?" Mr. Williams questioned.
"Yeah...Rin was amongst the only few around the area when it happened but he was the only survivor." Sakuya told them.
"Survivor? Sakuya... what's that's supposed to mean?" Richard asked her.
"It means whatever Rin saw must have caused him to think like this." Mr. Williams answered.
"So nobody survived?" Tyrell asked.
Sakuya couldn't look at them in the eye. Her hands were folded and dead. "There were so many...we couldn't even identity them. Heck one time we found a jaw and no body." She tells them timidly, "It took us half a year to clean that entire mess up. We even needed assistance from Aria once we ran out of supplies."
"That wouldn't happen to be the Amakusa incident, wouldn't it?" Magna asked.
"It is. And the scale of it was far beyond what my entire clan had to deal with." Sakuya Regrettably replied.
"The news of such an event had to be kept secret until somebody leaked documents to Aria." Mr. Williams tells them, "Thus leading to the resignation of numerous heads in the organization Rin was in."
"If whatever you say is true then it would be hard to imagine the horrors this guy encountered." Richard commented.
"That's the problem. Rin was captured after the incident with the identity of the entity that laid havoc still unknown." Sakuya replied.
"Wait! Why was Rin captured?! Isn't he the victim here?" Rebecca reacted.
"He was a mess. We needed Kenshin's expertise to do a wide spread memory erasing spell." Sakuya told her.
"A wide scale memory erasing spell? Is that even possible for a mortal?" Gram asked.
"Rin was the only person capable of magnifying such a spell in a wide range at the time. Relief wasn't gonna come for a week and Rin was the only one capable in doing a mind erasing spell." Sakuya told them.
"So you just forced Rin to erase the memories of the entire slaughter?! Are you fucking mental?!" Rebecca shouted in shock.
"It had to be done." Sakuya answered firmly.
"What if he ended up eracing his friends? The ones that died in front of him? Have you thought of that?!" Rebecca talked back.
"We didn't have a choice! The horror that was there was almost Lovecrafitan in nature to the point it lead to mass hysteria. Would you wanna risk that?!" Sakuya defended.
But before Rebecca can utter another word, Mr. Williams stopped her with a tug at her arm. "We get it but whatever happened to Rin after that?" The man asked. Again sakuya didn't look at them in the eye. "Rin agreed to a voluntary leave of absence after the whole event. After that he just disappeared." Sakuya said.
"What do you mean he just disappeared? That doesn't make any sense!" Rebecca reacts, "Something must have happened to him...At least tell us what you know!"
She then stands up like a harlequin. I could sense the intense aura surrounding her. "Oh for goodness sake just give me a break! You don't know anything!" She shouted in Japanese. I could hear the sound of sniffling and a faint droplets falling to the ground. "How would you feel if the one person you cared about disappeared only to reappear in front of you and see you in front of you as a stranger!" Sakuya shouts willfully, "You think there wasn't ever a time I didn't wanna be by his side?!."
"Sakuya...calm down..." Richard told her in a repressive manner.
"He even tried to kill himself and I wasn't there to help him! Yet I'm trying to get him to get back on his two feet and I can't even move without feeling hurt and walking on eggshells!" She cried even further.
"Boss! Pull yourself together!" Magna demanded.
"Pull myself together?! How can I?! Sora only gets his memories if he pushes himself to his limit and it's killing me the more I see him get hurt!" Sakuya cries even louder, "It hurts! For once I wish the gods would let me hold him and cry without tears!"
The aura around the area started to become intense. I used my magus eye and saw some of the flora growing wildly and the fauna moaning. Richard and Magna then shake her. "That's enough Sakuya!" Magna shouted.
But something grew intense in my heart. My chest started to tighten as my breathing started to become shallow. What was going on? My body wasn't keeping calm. My mind was on fire.
"Who's Sora?" Tyrell asked.
"That's Rin's real name...Sora Kamiyama." Mr. Williams reluctantly answered.
There I heard so many people call me by that name. 'Sora'.... everybody kept on calling me Sora. I felt needed and wanted. I felt happy when people called me by my name.
But soon that joy turned into dread as I soon heard screams. I hear people calling out my name. Shouting for help. After the screams, the sound of gunpowder came. Bulletstorms can be heard all over. Blood splashed at the wall. But worse of all I can hear bones cracking and flesh ripping. It gave chills travel my spine. Decay can be smelled all over and I was horrified.
There I screamed. Moving back and forth as I was going into insanity. The more I convulsed my binds got tighter. People then rushed towards the tent. Everybody was holding down, some screaming and panicking over the sudden event.
Tyrell was panicking at the corner and Rebecca was paralyzed by the sight of my sorry state. Everybody else tried to hold me down. I can hear Sakuya cry out my original name. Richard was cutting the binds so I can breathe properly as Magna held me down. Mr. Williams then comes in to the tent with some tranquilizers and put it in my system.
There I was slowly passing out to see an unusual sight. It was Sakuya in her middle school uniform and a younger Mr. Williams with less wrinkles and browner hair. There I slowly pass out to see happier memories from the old man teaching me how to shoot to me helping out Sakuya in the medical shop. I let my hand out only to see the both of them holding my hand.
My eyes had shut a few seconds later. I felt calm but scared. Happy but sad. But mostly terrified. I felt as if I was falling...where does this rabbit hole end?