BOOM!!
A huge bustling noise that represented an explosion came from the train's direction. Horu opened his eyes. He was no longer in the same position as before.
He was standing.
He stood there, in the rain. He couldn't believe it at first. A few minutes ago, he was bound to train tracks, set to die. His thoughts darted all over. No. His thoughts had left his mind. They weren't there anymore.
'What the hell just happened?'
To be more precise about the situation, Horu opened his eyes to himself standing up in the most unusual position. It looked like he just smashed a moving train. A moving, passenger train.
'Oh god... what have I done?'
"..."
'Was this even me? Did I—'
"..."
Horu checked to see if anything was wrong with his body, especially the fist that 'caused' this. But after discovering the fact that he hadn't been injured, he took a deep breath of relief. His body was probably not what's important right now.
I should check up on the train. As he walked on the side of the rails to inspect the carts, a very disturbing sight overwhelmed him severely.
The train carts were all smashed from above. Yes. From above. As if someone took a few cardboard boxes, and then jumped on them like a madman. But what shocked Horu the most was the flood of blood that poured from the carts.
"B-blood?"
From humans.
Humans like him.
Humans were made from flesh and blood. The same blood that was now leaking from a smashed train.
There were at least a few hundred passengers on the train.
The reason why the unknown impact didn't cause the train to explode, was because of the direction it came from. Causing all the passengers inside to be crushed like mincemeat.
BLEGH! HLLT!
Horu vomited all over his shoes and sweatpants. The smell of blood and compressed metal took his senses over, so much to the point that it pushed all his gastric juices out of him.
"I... just... killed... these people."
Horu couldn't believe his eyes. They were wide open and his jaws slacked. He lost all sanity by the sight of death.
"I..."
"..."
He ran.
Still with some puke in his mouth, but he hadn't a care for the world, so he ran as fast as he could. He had to get as far away as possible.
He closed his eyes.
'Have to get... away!'
'As far...'
'...As possible.'
'Have to get away!'
'I can't take this!'
'Wake up Horu!'
'Wake up!'
'This has to be a bad dream!'
'No!'
'A nightmare!'
'Have to get...'
"Huh?"
Nearly instantly, the weeping teenager reached his preferred destination.
"...Home?"
He was sure to be on foot. He stood there, in front of his doorstep, thinking. He got kidnapped; got drugged and thrown into some van; woke up tied to some rails, and got pointed at with a gun.
Then he pulverized a moving train. And now this? He hadn't the slightest clue of what was going on with him. This was in all ways...
"Impossible!"
He unlocked the front door of his house and stormed inside. It would usually take him about half an hour to reach his home from the train station.
'If I'm not dreaming, then there's something wrong with my body. Wait. Now that I think about it...'
Horu's mind was completely absorbed by the odd situation.
"Who were those people? Not even a maniac would capture someone, tie them to train rails, and leave them to die. Never mind, that sounds exactly like something that a maniac would pull off."
He grabbed his VRDiver and logged in. But tonight, his head was already filled, so he took it off and went to bed. But unfortunately, he couldn't sleep.
His thoughts were overloaded with...
'Wait!'
He jumped out of his bed and dashed downstairs, towards the television. He dramatically hopped on the couch and grabbed the remote. There it was. After a few beeps, he saw the whole scene live on television.
'Damn, that was fast.'
He raised the volume a few notches and heard a journalist doing her job...
"It occurs that a major accident has taken place on a railway a few kilometers outside of Villéa. It seems that a passenger train has 'crashed' on its way to Villéa. The cause of the train crash is unknown, as the local police are investigating the crime scene, as we speak...."
'Oh my god. So it's real? This actually happened? I killed people. I...'
"The number of victims involved in this case is still unknown...."
'Gosh, that wasn't me. That couldn't hav—'
Horu's thoughts were interrupted by a familiar female voice. Her cold, dark presence emerged out of nowhere and ran a chill down his spine.
"—Been you?"
Horu shot forward and got into a fighting stance by impulse.
'I should probably stop playing Street Fighter.'
He thought after realizing how stupid he looked.
"How did y—"
"—Know what you were thinking?"
"..."
"How did I get in? Make up your mind, kiddo."
'Is she reading my mind right now? So...'
"Yeah. I am. So what?"
"Answer my question."
"Which one?"
She looked at Horu with a confused look; her head slightly tilted to the side whilst purposely blinking her eyes.
The irony of the situation was, that she wondered which of the questions in his head he first wanted to be answered. What he didn't realize, was that he got surrounded by surging darkness.
'What the fuck is going on here? She followed me home?! This is insane!'
"My name is Nyx. I would love to answer some questions for you, but my task here is to retrieve you now that you've succeeded in the test. It seems that you've awakened him."
Horu thought about the incident that happened about an hour ago. At one point, he decided to call the police.
However, nobody would listen to a kid that claims to have destroyed a moving train with his bare fist.
"This has nothing to do with me! I-i'm just some ordinary ki—"
The woman named Nyx was starting to lose her patience.
"Sadly, it does. Now if you'd please come with—"
"It's like you didn't listen to a word I said!"
"Wha—"
A strange feeling erupted from Horu's fingertips. His body was acting up again. Suddenly, Nyx dropped face-first to the floor. Huge cracks came from the floor around her as she did.
"I'm not coming with you..."
Horu was slowly losing himself from... himself.
"You made me kill all those people...and now you want to retrieve me? Why? For what? To go to where? TELL ME! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ME!"
It was hard to even bear witness to such a huge accident. But unconsciously causing it came hand in hand with a whole other level of pressure.
"A... power..."
She lifted her body as if it was an air balloon. Somewhere deep inside of Horu was a version of him that would burst out into tears of laughter.
"Inside of you resides something extremely powerful."
The woman continued.
"I don't understand."
"Uuugh! Now I've gotta deal with this as well."
"Huh?"
"I'll explain what I can since I don't have a lot of time on my hands. You...shit, explaining this is harder than I thought it would be. You own a divine power that is essential to be in good hands. I didn't want to explain this to you right now..."
He squeezed his hands tighter and there she went. This time, she landed feet- and arms-wide against the wall. Luckily for Horu, the wall didn't crack as much as the floor did.
"I can see that this is some divine shit alright! But... why me?"
A look of sorrow and utter confusion painted his face.
"You're confused and I get it. It's hard to take this on... But since you've already awakened him, it seems that I'll have to beat him out."
Her voice was nothing like before. Her gaze turned deadly and her intent was nothing but murderous.
"Wha—"
All he did was blink and everything went dark. As Horu could recall, the lights were on. Did they shatter?
The boy questioned himself until he heard whispers. Every second, they became louder until he could finally understand what they were saying.
"You... Horu Sakaki... hold incredibly powerful magic inside you. And I'm here to help you embrace that magic. This might all seem pretty sudden, but I can assure you that your life will change for the better. Reality is bound to the concept of magic, though you've been living all of your life in one where it never existed."
"Stop."
Horu's mind felt as if it were penetrated.
"I can fix that for you..."
"I don't want that."
"There's no need to stop here, kid. You've already shown the city what you're capable of. Destroying that train with your bare hands wasn't even possible in the first place. This world had been rid of the concept of magic. So how did you do it? Tell me..."
Those words made Horu think about the blood that he'd found after the train incident. A large amount of distress waved over his mind...
"Your story so far has been devoid of magic. Devoid of action. Boring. Nonsense. Don't you want that to end? Don't you?"
The voices no longer held the tone of the woman known as Nyx. It sounded as if multiple people were whispering in his ears. People that he knew.
"You've awakened the spirit inside of you. I believe that you can achieve great feats. You could take the power that was originally yours. It's inside you. It always has been."
Horu received a bombshell of information from a stranger he didn't know.
"Magic doesn't even exist! What are you on about?!"
"So that's how it is...I see...let me show you reality. The world which was taken from you. The world that you were supposed to rule..."
"This is madness! This has to be some kind of prank! This ain't funny you know... drugging me to make me think that I did all these things. XTC? That's not funny, you know?!"
Horu had never experienced such insanity before; smashing a train with his fist; moving almost instantly between two places; getting kidnapped.
All of those actions seemed like a nightmare to the commoner known as Horu, who spent his time playing Fantasy games and working part-time jobs.
"Long ago, when you were still a newborn, you were sealed in an alternate reality for unknown reasons. However, I hold the power to erase this world and set you free. I can grant you your utmost desires, kid. Oh, and if you obey properly... you'll get to see your parents again."
The last sentence made Horu crack. He lived on his own for a long time and had never even seen the face of his parents. The Amazugawa family didn't truly count.
'If this is true, then what do I got to lose anyway?'
Those words hit Horu solid. He had no choice but to submit to this strange woman. A world with magic. It sounded completely insane but at the same time, it sounded like fun to him.
"Then it's settled. Come here. Embrace me...."
Horu didn't know where the voices came from, but he did what he was told.
He suddenly felt a calm, heartwarming sensation of the likes he'd never felt before.
His entire body felt flushed and relaxed. He was embraced. Enshrouded in darkness, Horu felt as if he were in a paradise. A dark, but warm paradise.
"Come back to me, brother."
"..."
"W-who? Did you say something?" He opened his eyes yet again. He had returned to his home. The lights were back on.
"W-was that a dream?"
Horu answered confused.
"Nope. That was as real as you are now."
"I don't know what just happened. There was this darkness around me. And voices that sounded like—Wait! How long had I been standing still? And what were you doing?"
Not acknowledging her effort was something that not many people would dare to do. Thus it pissed her off that she didn't get any praise.
"I was busy erasing an entire dimension, no thanks. But, your response is reasonable for such a lowly human. Now, if you would—"
BANG!
Suddenly, a door shot open so Horu couldn't hear what Nyx was saying in the last part.
"Tch! Them again. As soon as I return to bloody Earth, these pests show up. Like, have some respect for your fucking elders!"
The darkness from before had yet again engulfed the entire house. It was pitch black.
A voice rang out from Horu's right-hand side as soon as the light from the other side of the door intruded. The front door opened and a silhouette appeared in its midst. The silhouette had the shape of an armor-plated soldier.
The entire house looked like a cube of darkness from the inside with not a single set of furniture in sight. It was as if everything got sucked in by a black hole, leaving a dark, space in its wake.
"Team Alpha. Search on the first floor! Team Bravo. You guys come with me."
The voice of a dominant woman echoed its way to Horu's eardrums. As soon as she gave her orders, a bunch of footsteps started making their way through the house.
"We've found him!"
A man with a modern armor-plated suit approached Horu with a flashlight attached to the muzzle of his rifle.
"No! Don't come nea—"
Splash!
The man's head disappeared within a flash and morphed into a fountain of blood. Everyone in the living room got their equipment or clothing dyed red with blood. Horu won the head prize. His entire body was soaked in an instant.
"Fuck!"
"AAAGH!!"
"Subject has turned hostile! Reques—AAARGH!"
One by one, the unknown soldiers were getting slaughtered. Their heads exploding into fountains of blood. Some just disappeared into the darkness which concealed the entire house. The only sources of light were the flashlights that the soldiers were carrying.
"This was starting to finally go my way! But now you guys just storm in here and think you can ruin my plan! HUH!? I'LL KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU PESTS!"
Nyx was confirmed to be the one slaughtering the soldiers.
'What the fuck.'
'What the fuck?! What the actual fuck!'
'This can't be!! Their heads are fucking flying off, for fuck's sake! Wait. Who's that?'
A woman in black military clothing stood at the entrance of the living room.
She just stood there in silence, watching the men she brought getting slaughtered.
After the last of her soldiers got sucked into the darkness, she opened her mouth and dropped her smirk.
"So we meet again."
Horu attempted to escape from this madness but his body wouldn't move an inch. It was locked in place by some invisible force.
"Himeko Itami. It's good to see you again."