Chapter 17——PLUVIOPHILES
——————————————————————————
//Ryoji//
——————————————————————————
It was down pouring buckets of rain just minutes after I left my dead friend's body. A coincidence, since it looked like nature was mourning for a nature lover like himself. Oh, how he loved the nature so dearly.
People abhor us because we represent the unpredictable nature of mankind and the damage we can wreck. We are the mistakes of the greedy masters that controlled us, trying to snuff us when they try to save themselves.
Those bastard deserve to die———Rampart; I want him the most to be buried under the cold ground.
Officer Lewandoski, on the other hand, seems to be controlled by his supreme officer.
Maybe he wanted to do good before he was tempted by that pig-hearted incubus. I felt sorrow since Lewandoski was stuck in his predicament, yet he killed for vengeance.
The hatred in his eyes——It was as if he personally experienced something with one of us. Lewandoski
I know that hate.
I have seen his type many times in my past:
I would like to do to Rampart like he did to Batsaikhan.
"You shouldn't be thinking like that, Ryoji!" Igneus said while manifesting into a physical form to interact with me, he was annoying me.
Stubbornness is one of the many vices I have, it can be either good or horrible. It can be an incredible weapon, as I have used it beneficially over the past years.
My bullheadedness has kept me alive and it shows.
"I can and I will. I have the right to free will, free speech and free assembly here in the N.U.S.N." I argued back. I held my head up high because I needed to look for directions.
I've never been to this part before.
As I entered Avignon, it was a different way via by a boat first then I entered to Memorios Beach and then to the city. Must have not been that big deal if I did not remember it....
It seems I made Igneus a bit stumped, as I could tell he was looking for a way to counter my statement. It was nice to not hear him blabbering on how I was being an ass or being rude.
Does it really matter?
Does it?
I feel cold right now, but I shouldn't feel that way. I'm should be used to all the death....Why am I still hung up on his? Why am I experiencing the feelings that our captor took away from us?
How?
Never mind that...I shook my head while Igneus looked at me with his green eyes that are larger than life. I stopped walking because I knew Igneus was going to ask me a question.
He gasped frighteningly, he must have figured something about me. "...I need to ask.....Even though I've been with you the whole time——Have you," He bit his tongue. "been in the Assassin's Guild your whole life?"
"My whole life..." I answered silently. "So was Uncle Zanko, Babel, Castillo, Ebony and thousands of more..."
"Isuse Maria...."
"He's not going to help us not now, or later..."
I'm sorry for that statement, to those who believe in a God. I honestly have no care in one, either.
When I entered Houndspire, I could see why Babel brought an apartment: It was so beautiful.
The N.U.S.N was the reimagining of how the world can be beautiful yet cruel at the same time. The hard work they took and manage to put every detail in every structure here.
Despite him being French, Babel was always enamored the architecture from the Victorian era. Before he was ostracized, he would always talk about how he wanted to visit the N.U.S.N. He was always so curious about the world around him and how they worked, Babel would always once read in the library whether he came back from a mission.
The Magpies did not like this. Babel has the highest I.Q. in the Orpheus unit and while he was also a clone; he did not share the same level of anger his predecessor had.
Jebi ga....
Just when I thought my day was bad enough, it had to become even worse than before that I found out that the only way to get your apartment, Babel, there is one way: Public Transportation.
And it's by a street car. I have unpleasant memories of street cars.
If it was a train, it would be less cluttered and I would be able to move.
I would be able to traverse a bit more in this rain
People weren't drenched in this weather as unnatural weather phenomenons occurred here for some odd reason.
People my age and older were jubilant to play in the rain, prancing and singing as they
Happiness is the absence of pain.
I heard that once from my good friend Babel. He said he got it from some pointless graphic novel. I didn't bother on remembering the name of it: I'm not much of a reader, books never save me life.
It makes sense: My pain will never be absent.
I have too much agony.
Too much anger.
I'm just an angry child, after all. Until I'm eighteen years old, I'm an angry child ex-assassin who will be executed by the police if they found out about me.
On my own, I can't ruin my shot towards my dreams, goals and redemption.
That is if my idiot Heart that I am bonded to, ruins that shot for me.
I stopped in the middle of the street while awaiting for the street car, preparing myself for people looking at me. I know I am quite appealing for the eyes.
I'd appreciate it if you kept quiet. I spoke to Igneus with a harsh tone again, he did not say anything then.... I remembered another thing. And try not to be out in public; Some of these people are scared of Heart-Bonds and never seen one before.....Stay hidden..
"That....I will try to do!!!!" He promised with glee in the end, I felt as if he let out a chuckle I couldn't hear but I knew he did.
Igneus pointed out something, appearing out of my body and pointed out, "Look, Ryoji, It's Sera from school!" He yelled outside my body, and he was right: That is indeed Sera; standing a few meters from me, waiting for a street car just like me.
What are the odds?
Don't be so loud always!! I shouted mentally at him. What happened to "stay hidden"?
"Ohh....Yeah." He sheepishly said while he was disappearing into my body. "I forgot about that and look at that: Sera's coming close to us and probably wanna talk so don't be a douche!!" His mouth
His stupidity got her attention, her hair was fluffier than ever as she managed to get closer to me and Igneus. She wore an attire from a company called 'Versace', yelling out, "Ryoji and his Heart!! What are you guys doing? Are you two waiting for a tram?" This girl didn't know about respecting personal space.
Now is the time to be normal, especially with her. I can tell on what she wants to hear. "Igneus and I are just visiting an old friend I knew from Switzerland. He's on Chaplin Street." And the tram slowed down in front us and a crowd that was enjoying the weather.
We both entered, I entered last since it was chivalrous to let the girl go out of respect.
"Chaplin Street?" Sera said as her eyes gotten bigger, finding a pole to hold on as her and I were close.
"That's in Nottingmouth, the first stop in that city. It's just north of where I need to go—Gartham. My mother has a press conference and has ordered me to be here to be an actress: To be her little 'damsel-in-distress'." She said in a lower pitch, she really thinks of her mother in high regards.
Igneus was out now fully, standing next to me as she looked down on him and smiled.
"You've every right to be scared. I was scared too-"
I stopped talking as I found out she was paying attention to me. Instead: She was caressing Igneus's hair, grooming it as he was enjoying her caressing. His tongue become longer in ecstasy and she wasn't creeped out by his behavior, this whole day has been crazy. "What shampoo do you use?"
"A bunch of mint, honey, ginger and fresh milk all mixed together. Let it soak for thirty minutes and then wash it with bleach."
"Maybe Head & Shoulders will do the trick."
"Eww!!!" He grimaced, he hates body parts to the upmost. "Is it actual 'Head and Shoulders'?"
She quickly dismissed his confusion. "No, it's a shampoo product that smells really good on the hair!"
"I have to give you something." I said to her as sternly as possible, regaining her focus. "Here: Take this." I offered her my whip, handing the one weapon that has helped me so much in my lifetime.
"A whip?" Sera looked at me, puzzled by my reaching hand. "What is it for?"
"Back during the fight with the Reaper," I began to explain to her as gently as possible, "I protected you once even though it was a severe risk. When you're out of Aether—You wouldn't be able to cast Magic spells. When that happens—you need to defend yourself."
She reluctantly grabbed it out of my hands with her silky smooth hands but I noticed a small scar on her exposed on her arm, maybe she's hurting herself or not.....She studied the whip a bit while no one in the tram was paying attention. "So...All I need to do is.....use my wrist to whip it hard?" She analyzed her new gift, looking on how the whip had a crust of blood.
I wasn't a tad bit worried if she started asking about it. "Whoever made you irate to hit them with this; they had it coming." She approved the whip, putting it back into her exquisite backpack. "Thank you for the whip." She's nice for a Bishop..I heard worse things about her mother, Pearline. I thought
"They sure did." Shit. I wasn't supposed to confess to her like that. I slipped. It seemed like Sera lit out a pleasant chuckle. It was brief, pleasant nevertheless.
"Can I tell you something, Ryoji?"
"Sure."
"I miss the rain." Sera also confessed, she looked like she was about to cry. "I miss it how wet the raindrops were when they poked my face. The rain is unnaturally dry here in the N.U.S.N. I thought at first that, the clouds were Virga clouds; but then my mother told me that all of the people's powers affect the weather so much that the ecosystem is different here than the world. Even when there is snow here: It doesn't freeze me like Takeo's cryomancy does...The government and ZiON say we're killing our lands——our planet."
There was a silence between us, not an awkward one.
Just the sweet sound of nothingness.
The tram stopped suddenly and I peered through the small window behind me and Sera: A sign that said 'Nottingmouth'. I need to exit now....
I wanted to go but Sera tugged me by the sleeve, reminding me that this step. "This is your stop: Chaplin Street—that's where you need to see your friend. Head on south and you'll get the apartment complex in no time."
I didn't repeat what she said, Sera was still on the tram, she seemed to be in a better mood now since we were together. "See you at school and tell Joseph I said hi!" She sincerely said her goodbyes, waving as Igneus waved back at her while I smiled a bit.
Right.....I forgot: My friend also works for the mega pharmaceutical company ZiON.
He's an linguist expert for ZiON.
Another reason why I forgot was because I did not inherit the usual eidetic memory that few Ravens had. Walking on these cobblestones were quite the hassle and different.
"She smells nicer now than she did earlier."
You can smell her a few days from now...
"And her nails," He began to obsess with her nails. "They are the perfect shape! They're not too witchy and not too bitchy, either....."
You can eat them if you love them so much
"You like her nails, too, don't lie, Ryoji!!!!" His voice hit a squeaky sound like a squeezing toy would.
I don't have a fetish. You're the one with the weird fetishes....
There's the apartment complex: All baby blue and Victorian style mixed to get an very appealing-to-the-eye building.
It was a rather tall building with probably over sixty floors and he was on the forty five floor.
Babel always had a thing for baby blue. Just any shade of blue really.
His future house if he was following American
Suburbia: The paint of his house would be blue with white windows,
———In Babel's Apartment Complex———
A flight of stairs was nothing to me, meanwhile many visitors were complaining about not taking the elevator. The stairways were elegant and made of sturdy material.
Exercise is good for the human soul, so a flight of stairs is noteworthy of an exercise. Not that I needed it, of course.
Forty-two...Forty-three...Forty-four.....There it is!!!
There's the electronic buzzer...I found it before I hit it gently.
"Come on in!" It said invitingly with a French accent. Yep. That is definitely Babel, but I hear a woman's voice in the background.
These walls are thin...
The door had been unlocked and I walked in cautiously before I had relaxen myself.
I was amazed on how nice his apartment was, all this coming from an ex-assassin. He had a marvelous kitchen filled with pots and he was boiling some Angel hair pastas, and L-shaped couch was covering most of the living.
A bookshelf was erect in the left corner of the living room. This was to be expected by him: Babel always loved books.
This is what you get when you work with the company what is dominating the medical field. I thought as I looked around even more, I am proud of how far he came.
I looked around and there he was: Babel in the flesh.
Or his actual name Joseph Vigouroux.
Today must have been a sick day for him: he was always the posh individual and her long, frizzy hair would be kept in a regal ponytail. One photo showed him shaking hands with Pearline Bishop, wearing a decent suit.
Today he was wearing a white shirt and simple flannel pants. His arms were a bit longer than others, his skin was oily, his hair was unkempt, and his apparent indifference to his appearance as his beard longer than normal. His face gave the impression of "French Daredevil".
"Salut un ami!" He yelled out at 70 decibels on my sensitive ears, hugging me and Igneus with the force to destroy a small boulder.
"I'm sorry I came in if you had any special lady friends around." I apologized quickly, I did it want to intrude his private life. "I thought you had a woman in here. I heard feminine voices."
"No,no,no," He waggled his long finger at me. "That, Ryoji, is ASMR."
"What is that?" Igneus asked kindly, getting out of my body again.
"ASMR-Autonomous, Sensory, Meridian, Response. It is what gives the ordinary man or woman tingles. It feels good, you should give it a try."
"So why aren't you at work?"
"Took a sick day and I'm finishing up my linguistics up."
"Cool."
"It is."
"Sera Bishop said 'Hi'."
"Little reptile: Could you tell Sera that I said hi back to her and the report will be done soon?
"I will when I see her. Nice labtob, by the way."
I declined his kind offer, I was here only for business: Not small talk to hear from Iggy and Babel.
I really hate to be the bad news bear, but he needs to hear this.
"He's dead, Babel." I blurted out, I could feel myself being on edge as he looked at me with a slight surprise. "Batsaikhan. Our friend." He became a bit agitated, pacing backwards. "I've seen the men who did it. They killed him like an animal." I was starting to get mad again.
He sat in his chair and typed more on his Mac computer, I couldn't understand on why he resumed typing on his computer when I told him this. "I told him when I was plotting to escape, 'come with me', I said. Têtu comme in taureau. Batsaikhan should have came with me that night; I might've lost a foot——At least I have freedom now."
"And you submit to a bunch of suits like a slave."
"I don't kill to live another day, Ryoji. I know you're doing the same thing I did: Escaping the past, our past by becoming better."
I didn't listen to his statement. "How's that foot of yours?" That was low to say something about it, his agony when the superiors tore it slowly, making sure we were watching every minute of it.
Now he became angry as well, his brown eyes now a fiery sandstorm.
"You're one to talk, seeing how you s'en fout about everything!!! That attitude will get you killed!"
"Better that than being thrown into the forest like a dog! They did you wrong, extremely wrong! Yet, you did nothing like how Dorj did nothing-
"ENOUGH GUYS!!!!!" Igneus shouted from the bottom of his lungs, we stared at each other long and hard. "Are you serious? You haven't seen each other in two years and you greet each other by going at the throat? Ryoji: You're having a traumatic event and Joseph: You're being apathetic. Not cool."
Igneus was right: This is trauma.
Trauma that people experience.
I know Babel. He's not much of an ass like me and tends to be on the rational side of things. A soft lizard like Igneus would be able to turn Babel around to reality. "This little scuffle should not ruin my day and our day. I'm sorry that he's dead, but he should have gotten my foot chopped off like how I did." His show me his metallic foot he got for free, since he had the resources to get one.
"Yeah. Sorry for coming over like that.. I had no intention to start an argument with you.....But I need a favor from you.....Can you do it?" I apologized as
He nodded "yes" in annoyance, Babel found some of my favors bittersweet. He never told me why but that conversation really became heated.
This favor needed to be done and he was my only hope. "What is it?" He asked impatiently for my favor.
I cleared my throat. "It is of Germanic origin. I know that. Maybe it was Latin.The Thornstalker was speaking in some language, it was communicating with us the entire time. If this belonged to the Shinra Army or Don Sarbello, then they're looking for a Heartz Prism. That Reaper was talking the enire time.
"A chatty fellow, wasn't it?"
"Yeah." I replied quickly as I reminisce about the battle. How we were almost killed by that Reaper
and he was destroyed by a giant, black lizard.
Babel had a vacant face before his mouth grew into a big smile, showing the slight gap between his teeth. "No worries, un ami. If this language is what I'm believing it to be: It'll be fully deciphered in two days: Give it or take."
Babel hugged me again, this time was more gentle. Although he was still mad at me, I knew he wasn't going to hurt me or throw me out of his home. "Come over more often, Ryoji. All of my work friends are simplistic narcissists with a perchance of adultery." He giggled like an idiot.
"I probably will, since I cannot have an intelligent conversation with my peer just yet." I giggled back and we both laughed a little bit.
This was a decent reunion. I thought pleasantly.
"Oh," He perked up and ran across the other side to get some books, about five to be exact. These five books seemed to be quite the hurry to be in his hands, and these books were chosen for me:
Deadly Class Volume 1: Reagan Youth: By Rick Remender
Dune: by Paul Herbert
The Sandman: by Neil Gaiman
A Catcher in the Rye: by J.D. Salinger
Pet Sematary: by Stephen King
Very interesting books. All of them were hardcover and in good condition. That's Babel for you...I analyzed after I struggled to carry those books.
"Right: Backpack!" He remembered something else, running
He also gave me a nice rucksack as a gift, and he talked more about his pieces of literature.
"You'll love Deadly Class: it's about angsty teenagers being enrolled in a school for assassins in the 80's."
"Hence the title: Reagan Youth." I said slyly as I placed all the books in the same space and left out of the apartment. He had still had reports to finish and I was in the way.
"Au revoir um ami!!!!!" Babel said with a smile and
I repeated the same line, only in a lower pitch than normal, leaving his apartment without wasting his time to go to Zanark Town.
I told Akina that I will come and I intend do.
I felt uneasy for a sudden, the feeling when someone is watching a person.
There was someone in the apartment complex: Following me the entire time.
I could feel it.
There you are. I thought, grabbing them by the neck
"!!!!" They were startled from me throwing around like a rag doll, I was ready to punch through their skulls.
Yet.
I need to be better. I needed to intimidate them; a better tactic than viciously murdering people.
"Lemme deepen your voice." Igneus proposed his idea, I gave him the okay.
"I knew you've been stalking me from the moment I left Surwick, and you couldn't find my tracks. Who are you and why are you stalking me-" I asked before pausing, that flowery scent was overbearing from this distance, even from a fifty meter distance it overloaded my senses. I was on the defensive before I realized it was a girl I knew indirectly.
"I know you: You're Su-Jin Nieswurz. You're in the same class as me: Class C-2." I felt remorse, seeing how her lips quivered with fear.
She was fast.
Yeah. Definitely a Nieswurz. Black hair with dark purple tips, extremely fragile and filled with anxiety, yet intelligent in her featureless, yellow eyes. She was about a year older than me yet younger than me in appearance. She wore no makeup, lipstick and wore a simple, grey outfit.
She was overly shy and extremely timid; standing with massive amount of fear of what I'll do to her, I stepped back from her and she did the same.
Think of a way to diffuse the situation.
".....Do you know the way to Zanark Town? I'm still trying to find my way here."
Although her making I wasn't going to kill was her number one, she took a small step forward.
Su-Jin wanted to speak.
"Sure." She said yes in a whisper, I could hear what she said.
Only one word came out of her mouth. A word that I accepted and I made sure we were heading to Zanark Town by anyway possible.
We didn't talk any more in the complex but I felt some reassurance from her having my back.
I just met her properly and I'm expecting her to have my back?
Hopefully I won't get lost this time....Won't be crossing my fingers at any time.....I do feel confident with having a person who knows their way around here....
———Track 17 Ended———
CHARACTER PROFILE:
Ex-RAVEN: JOSEPH "BABEL" VIGOUROUX (27)
THE POLYGLOT EX-ASSASSIN
BIRTHDAY: ??? [1/1] False Birthday
HEIGHT: 5'9
LIKES: Ryoji, Languages, Asmr
DISLIKES: Arguing, Yankee Candles (Hates with a burning passion)
THE INSIDE STORY:
The person that Ryoji know from his life and kept in touch, Joseph knows Ryoji more than Ryoji knows himself.
Lives in Chaplin Street on Gartham in Houndspire
And was ostracized from the Assassin's' Guild when Ryoji was ten years old.
Since Babel is a clone from the fabled Maned Wolf who was prominent during the 1800's, Joseph has no birthdate as well.
Ryoji and a few selected assassins have been born naturally, deeming them "worthy" or "powerful".
CHARACTER PROFILE:
HEART: IGNEUS (???)
THE REPTILIAN HEART OF RYOJI KAZAMA
BIRTHDAY: Has no Birthdate
HEIGHT: 3'08–Almost 3'1"
LIKES: Food, Ryoji, Trying new things
DISLIKES: Ryoji, Fighting, Zombies
THE INSIDE STORY:
About time!
Igneus gets his Character Bio!
He might be at times perverted and naive—he's a good person at heart and knows when to back up a friend.
Has an intense fear of severed body parts and zombies.
Really hates zombies and enjoys a good laugh.