Seeing that the pepper spray had made Daichi convulse in his throes, she threw her shoulder backwards and chuckled.
"Geh geh geh!"
His eyes opened and revealed unburnt whites. He raised his knee such that it made a 90-degree angle to the ground. With the soles of his feet flat on the floor, he rose, without the use of his arms.
Eriko jumped back startled. The way Daichi came on his feet was unnatural. It was like an unseen force lifted him up in the air. He simply stared and that made her extremely frightened. She could see something profoundly disturbing in his eyes, but she couldn't understand what it was that made it so unsettling. The depths of his eyes showed an endless void, free of emotion.
"Wha. What! What the hell are you doing!" She yelled out of fear.
He stepped towards her. She aimed the pepper spray right at his face out of instinct. His arm shot up at frightening speed. Before she could fire, his hand had clutched over the nozzle and her fingers.
Snap
The cannister burst and its contents splattered in her eyes. She fell on her knees bellowing but unable to fall as she was still being held by the hand.
Hit in the eye by the spray, he squinted uncomfortably. His eyes poured out streams of viscous fluid and after a few seconds, he was remarkably unaffected.
She collapsed when he let go of her hand. Immediately she started crawling and grabbed a pestle where she had dropped it.
"Hyeh!" She shrieked. She had grabbed the pestle with a broken and purple-coloured hand. Some of the fingers were bent backwards. It must have been the hand holding the pepper spray. Grabbing it again with her other hand, she swung at his kneecap. He stepped on her wrist mid-swing and put his weight on it until she relinquished the pestle.
He picked it up and then dragged her to the kitchen bench by her unbroken arm.
"Who are you! What have you done with my son!"
Daichi fixed her hand on the table. He looked into her eyes from above with an amused smile.
"Remember this, mother?"
***
Daichi remembered the day when she found out he had dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon, when she spoke to his teachers at parent-teacher day. Doom spelt out when he got home. She had tied his arm with a belt.
Years of sitting at home and eating junk food had fattened her up. Yet she doesn't eat much and so her weight has remained static. She is a genetically skinny and bony woman. The fat holed up in her belly rather than distribute evenly across her body. So, she started with a beer belly and bony arms. Until her weight reached an equilibrium where her thighs became tree trunks and her arms flabby, yet her wrists were still bony. Her peculiar appearance is concealed under her clothes.
In terms of strength, her unhealthy diet has given her strength. However, the real power is the fear she instilled into Daichi when he was still a little boy. Victims of years of domestic violence lack the strength to escape their predicament.
"A neurosurgeon! You want to become trash?" Eriko yelled as she lifted a hammer in the air.
"Mum! Please no! I'll never be a surgeon! I promise I'll be good! Please!"
I told you! You are going to be a writer just like your father!" She shouted as she brought down the hammer. His third and fourth knuckle was busted. Feeling insecure, she gave a hard blow to his thumb twice like a nail.
"Aghh! Ahh God!"
"You're never going to be anything else! A keyboard is all you ever going to need… A neurosurgeon!"
***
He pulverized a knuckle with the rounded edge of the pestle. Tears involuntarily came out the corners of her eyes. Her screams were too loud. He thrusted his fingertips into her throat and ripped out her vocal cords. She was no longer able to scream but instead made gargle noises.
Daichi proceeded to crush each of her knuckles consecutively.
"Glrch, glurh, glurh." She babbled as blood spat from her throat.
His eyes filled with rage as memories come crashing. He began pounding her hand at full tilt as if he were grinding garlic. He didn't know why he was doing this. There was no reason to. He was not Daichi but a parasite inhabiting his body. His body moved by itself. Were the traumatic memories influencing him?
'A human? Controlling me?' He scoffed.
He stopped. He noticed she didn't make any pained sounds anymore since her hand has been demolished. There were no nerve endings left.
He calmed down. It was time to examine his capabilities. He pulled out a knife from the drawer and placed it in front of her. She looked at the knife and then at him. He stood in the centre of the living room. She picked up the knife with her teeth and got up to face him. He was satisfied that she still exuded blood lust. Her eyes were full of rage.
She came at him with a frontal assault. He nimbly avoided her attacks at the last second, his skin nearly touching the blade. She ran faster to increase the speed of her strikes, yet he evaded her with impeccable footwork. This was no longer her son. She knew that. She could never read her prized novel again.
Enraged, she positioned the knife handle in her mouth so that it pointed forward rather than sideways. She sprinted ahead. He stood there and let the knife impaled his hand and then he directed it away to the side. She stood there in disbelief. There was no more fight in her left. He took the knife out of his hand and thrust it upwards through her chin to the brain. She gargled before falling backwards like a statue.
He gauged the extent of damage to his hand. He let her cut it so he could measure his body's regenerative abilities. Then he felt the wave controller tune into his frequency. A message resounded in his mind.
"Yes."
"Am I the only officer here? Then…"
"Send a message. I want everybody that can come to the school meeting room."
"Are you the only wave controller?"
"Then report to me every hour… Goodnight."
***
Hikaru opened his eyes when he felt a signal locked onto him. After a moment, a female voice came through.
"This is the wave controller. I have a message. The officer of Midori-ku ward has ordered that everyone come to the Kirigaoka Junior High School meeting room. If your identities are inappropriate, remain close by for a subsequent meeting."
…
…
Interesting.