Chapter 40: Eternal Wisdom.
"What? That's insane! How can they arrest you without any evidence?" The girl began to get angry on Haru's behalf. "It's okay everything should be resolved soon. What is your name by the way?" Haru asked as the door to the store chimed open. "Reina I'm back." A man with long black hair walked in with two grocery bags. "Yuki! Welcome back." They both spoke in Japanese.
"You're Japanese?" Haru asked switching languages quickly. "Yeah! And so are you? I assumed you were Chinese. There aren't many Japanese people here."
"Oh, I see you made a new friend? I will go stock up the refrigerator. You can carry on." Yuki said as he walked into the kitchen. "So where are you from in Japan?" Haru asked Reina. "Oh, I'm not actually from Japan. My grandparents moved here when they were young. Our family just passed the language down. It's fun talking about customers when they have no idea what you are saying." She laughed mischievously.
"What about you? Are you from Japan? I heard it was nearly in ruins after the war." She said with a hint of empathy. "Yeah, I lived in a town near Tokyo. It was bombarded pretty hard but bounced back to normal after only a few years. I just moved here a few weeks ago. My grandparents used to live here but my mom moved to Japan and joined the army where she met my dad."
"Woah. They fell in love during the midst of warfare? That is so romantic. But that's funny. Your grandparents are from China whilst mine are from Japan. We are total opposites." Reina laughed. "By the way. You didn't tell me your name yet." She said bluntly as she stirred some milk into her own drink.
"My name is Haru Kitagawa. But Haru is just fine." They both laughed. Haru took a bite out of the sandwich. Cheese and pickle!? What is with this combination.
Reina laughed at his facial expressions as he realised what was on the sandwich. "I thought you were a cheese and pickle type of guy. I guess I need to work on reading customers... My brother makes it look so easy."
"Reina! I need your help with the stock." Her brother shouted from the kitchen. "Ugh, I was enjoying talking to you. Coming!" She said as she ran off to help her brother. Haru sat there and finished his drink. He was just about to get up and pay as the door to the store swung open once again.
"Haru Kitigawa? Come with us. Don't make a scene or someone might get hurt." A man wearing a black ski mask came into the store and then pulled out a gun. He held it at his waist but made sure Haru could see it.
Haru sat there for a moment and debated crushing the man's skull for threatening him. But on the other hand, he had a gun and there were two innocent civilians inside the store. He didn't know Reina for long but he didn't want her to get hurt for being reckless.
Haru silently stood up and followed the man outside to a white van that was parked on the street. He walked up to the back of it. "Get in!" The man hit him in the back of the head with the gun. But it didn't even make Haru flinch. Haru turned and looked at the man in the eyes with frustration. "I'm coming with you peacefully. There is really no need to make this violent." He stepped up into the back of the van and sat down.
The man in the mask was frozen with fear. "Close the door!" Another man shouted from the driver's seat. It seemed to bring him out of his trance and he slammed the doors closed. He got back into the van and it sped off into the distance.
Crap I forgot to pay for my food. Haru remembered as the van began to turn around corners sharply. There were no seat belts in the back of the van. The driver looked in the rear view mirror as he sped around the streets trying to make Haru slide across the back of the van. Haru sat there and began to cultivate unfazed by the sharp turns. "Hey, Lao. Can you sing again? I felt like I was getting stronger by listening to you."
Haru had become much more comfortable with Lao's appearance. He appeared in front of Haru. "Sure. But I want to see if you can withstand something else. It's a song called eternal wisdom. It was actually created by a human cultivator many thousands of years ago. We used to sing this to our young back home to boost their knowledge and memory retention. I haven't tried this on a human yet."
"Okay, That will be useful anyway. I have to learn a bunch of stuff for my exams soon." Haru sat down on the floor and crossed his legs.
"Exams? What are Exams?" Lao asked confused.
"Oh, It's a human thing. We learn a bunch of things and then we are tested on our knowledge about what we learned."
"I shouldn't have asked." He began to sing the song in the same course rough voice. But this time it had a certain charm to it. Haru began to cultivate whilst still concentrating on the outside world. The words were in the same language that Haru couldn't comprehend but the notes were nice on the ears. It almost felt as if he could understand the words as more time went on. His attention suddenly switched as he began to understand the words he was hearing.
"The wind surrounded the sky in an embrace of eternal wisdom." He said aloud repeating what Lao had just sung. Lao stopped dead in his tracks. "You just spoke our language! How do you know the dragon language!?" He boomed out as loud as he could.
Haru's ear rung as the sound of his voice shook his head. "I don't know it just happened. I could understand the words." Haru said clutching his ears as his vision returned to him.
Lao began to talk to himself. "It did boost the comprehension of our young but it was never something on this level...I know it was created by a human but was the song created for humans as well? But the power of the words and the melody was also strong enough to boost the comprehension of other species too? There is so much even I don't know..."
The door to the van opened up now revealing four men all wearing ski masks and armed with heavy firepower than before. One had a shotgun and the rest had rifles strapped to their chests. "Come on now! The boss is waiting!" Haru walked with the men out of the back of the van into what appeared to be a loading bay from some sort of warehouse.
They walked him down a corridor and into a huge storage facility with hundreds of cargo containers inside. They walked down in between a stack of them before it opened up into an empty room. There was a man sat down on a chair with a rope tied around him. Haru couldn't see his face as he had a bag over his head.
Next to the man was another chair. But this one was empty. They grabbed Haru by both of his arms and began to walk toward the chair. He was tempted to resist and try to escape but he didn't know if he could dodge a bullet yet. And he didn't know what they would do to the person who was tied to the chair. Haru sat down in the chair as they tied ropes around his arms and legs.
He sat back in the chair. "Couldn't you have gotten something comfier for me to sit on? This thing is solid wood. I might get blisters if I'm here for too long." He complained. One of the men laughed. "You think you are going to be here for long? Well maybe if you count your soul. Your body will be buried far away from this place don't worry."
"You're going to kill me?" Haru asked adrenaline now kicking in. He was getting excited. If they were going to try to kill him he wasn't going to go out without a fight. He sat there with a smile on his face.
"Oh, You think we are joking? Just wait until the boss comes. You will be begging for death by the time she finished with you." The man kicked the top of the chair pushing Haru over onto his back. "
What are you doing? The boss is going to be mad if we injure him before she gets here!" One of the men shouted. "Don't worry so much. She didn't say we weren't allowed to hurt him. Why would she be mad?"
"Correct. I didn't say you couldn't hurt him. But I also didn't say that you could." A gunshot echoed out around the room as the man dropped to his knees clutching his shoulder. He was about to scream but quickly hid his pain. "I understand. My deepest apologies boss!"
"Haru Kitigawa... We need to have a talk."