Toya and I walked side by side, trudging through tall grass and pushing the occasional branch out of our field of view. Hinata was walking a few paces behind the two of us, his enormous wings acting as a shield from branches and bushes as he gingerly stepped over each sporadically placed patch of grass.
It's hard to pinpoint my feelings toward the timid boy. He hasn't really spoken to either of us since I woke up, aside from the argument whilst I was "asleep". I almost feel as if he's hiding something, but then again that could just be me being paranoid, considering I typically have people toss feeble attempts at friendship my way only to, quite literally, stab me in the back later on. Everyone seems to strive for the title of 'thou who managed to rid the world of the disgracefully degenerate hybrid'.
The fact that there could possibly be not just one, but two people this time, attempting to off me made me almost gurgle with a choking unease.
In a feeble attempt at lifting the building intimidating atmosphere that suddenly took to the air around us, I grabbed at the opportunity to quench some of my ever-growing curiosity.
"Um...T-Toya." I started, earning the girl's attention coupled with a simple "Hm?"
"So...how many people? Uh...are-are in this resistance?"
"Over a hundred." She remarked quickly, her voice brimming with pride. "All of us are loyal to the cause, especially Hina here." She remarked, tossing her thumb back and bringing attention to the one startled by the very mention of his name. "Despite his nature, he's the most passionate by far." She giggled with finality and I glanced back to capture a snow-white wing attempting to shadow his face, which had taken the color of a beet and washed his skin with it.
I returned my gaze to the path ahead of us to come to realize that Toya had been talking for quite a while now and I hadn't picked up a single word.
"...and that's how we started the group, I loved my parents so seeing them do something so rancid to that lady today made me wanna slaughter any retard that dares call themselves a specialist." She halted her movement abruptly and my childlike balance sent me crashing into her back. I flung myself off of her in shame and crossed my arms over my body, instead of responding to my unintentional assault, Toya turned to the both of us and said:
"We're here."
I twisted around to come face to face with a small clearing, surrounded by wooded area.
"Uh-" I started but was quickly silenced by a slender finger to my lips.
"If one does as he asks, thou shall never falter twice." Toya spoke, low and confident.
A ripple erupted in the surrounding air until it formed a vortex-like pool that swallowed the three of us whole. We dropped from the vortex onto the rough dirt not a moment later.
Toya landed in a squat, placing her left fingertips on the ground mimicking a cat whom had feathered down from a tree. Hinata opened his wings a tad and allowed his twig-like body to float gently to the ground. My ungraceful ass slammed, back first, into the dirt, tossing up a cloud of dust that swallowed me for a second, only to have it settle on and around my ragged figure. Toya clutched her sides in rumbling laughter that I'm positive could've been heard for miles.
"Damn…." she started all while cutting herself off with her own jagged sense of humor. "I thought my first time was bad but...but damn" she shivered, tickling her own sides.
I stumbled to my feet while heat rose to my dark cheeks, Toya's increasingly humiliating laughter, piercing right through my skinny body. I attempted a whiny chuckle but it was stuffed right back into my stomach as Toya began to roar with a laugh like none I had ever heard.
After what felt like an eternity, the redhead finally managed to compose herself. To accompany her healing, instead of a laugh this time, she simply offered me a cocky smirk.
"Alright, now that we got that out of the way, I guess I should give you a tour, huh?"
I made no noise, I couldn't even nod, I just let my gaze tumble to the ground until her voice jolted me once again.
"Alright, let's go!" Her lack of attention to my uncomfortability made me feel as though she had spit a slimy wad of gum and phlegm right into my frozen face. I shivered as if trapped in the middle of winter without a coat.
Toya began skipping off to the left of where we had landed, I stole a glance behind me to find that Hinata had vanished, frowning, I whipped around completely and took in the scenery I had been too nervous to previously take notice of, I eventually came face to face with this, massive, tower of an oak tree, shading me with an army of branches. Without a single thought, I reached back and took out my knife. I flipped it open and turned to the tree, something almost comforting pushing my body towards the plant. In what could only be taken as a drunken haze, I began to carve something into the tree. My mind went blank as my hand moved on its own. My knife digging into the meat of the tree and creating something my eyes had never gazed upon before. As if on cue a voice stole my gaze. I violently whipped around to the point of almost tripping to see Toya standing quite a few paces away from me, her face contorted into something almost disturbing.
"Ya comin'?" She retorted quizzically
"Um-" I offered another glance back behind me at the markings I had cat scratched into the giant. I had no clue as to what it was, all I really knew was that it was…..unfinished. That struck me as odd, but I pushed the peculiarity to the depths of my mind and turned back to Toya who was watching me impatiently.
"Y-yeah." I raggedly jogged up to the girl who had whipped back around just as soon as I sputtered an answer.
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The magenta-eyed beast exposed it's glowing orbs as if called for. The creature groaned, It had been 17 grueling years since that fateful night and the monster hadn't gotten a decent rest ever since. The behemoth would gracefully sink into a dream soaked in blood and littered with mismatched body parts, only to awake hours later after losing grip on the ability to sleep. It would remain awake until exhaustion began to squeeze its neglected body once more.
Why?
The answer eluded this all-knowing creature of darkness, cooking up a deep-set frustration that was slowly coming to a boil.
This time was much different than what had become routine.
It was as if Zeus himself rained down a shower of his finest lightning, erupting every muscle and fiber in the giant's body into a frantic spasm. The feeling snapped and crackled along the monster's spine jolting it to a sense of awakening it hadn't felt in decades. The beast hurriedly scanned its surroundings for any sign of intrusion, gaze rocketing off the sides of its cave only to find nothing whatsoever.
How peculiar.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Children dashed around me, playing some type of tag that I had never had the opportunity to learn. I scanned around to find Hinata standing in a group of people all wearing armor, he looked almost laughably out of place, seemingly naked next to those covered in metal and meticulously crafted plastic.
Toya bounced from group to group, touring me around the unfamiliar campgrounds, littered with huge tents and sporadically placed fire pits. People laughed and talked and drank, joking loudly and exchanging playful punches.
The armored group pulled my attention away from everything around me.
I pointed a slender finger in the direction of the odd group, they stuck out like a technologically advanced, sore thumb.
The reason being that throughout the entire campground tour, I hadn't seen a single cell phone, tablet, or any communicative device whatsoever, no weapons either. But here these people were, waving around generation X cell phones and riffles.
They may just be wielder weapons. I thought, however, that theory was quickly debunked as I came to realize that wielders have the ability to store their weapon in these magically manufactured places so they're not carrying them around all the time.
"H-hey, Toya" I cursed myself for stammering, however, it must've gone unnoticed as Toya regarded me with the same speech as usual.
"Yes?" She grinned, curious as to what I finally had to say.
"Um...w-what's that, uh, what's that group over there?" I indicated the people waving around weapons and Toya's smile remained plastered on her face.
"Oh, don't worry about them." She shooed my question away as quickly as it was brought up. "Let's go over here." She commanded, grabbing my wrist and tugging me behind her. I glanced back at the technology tent which was getting smaller and smaller as Toya led me further away.
Toya talked as if it was going out of style, keeping us moving and devouring all the time that would've been used for questions in certain places. I eventually gave up on attempting to sputter anything in response and allowed her to talk my ear off.
Before long the sun began its slow descent in the sky and the temperature dropped along with it.
"Okay!" Toya finally spoke.
She then told me that she was taking me to the most important place in the camp. The finality of her tone made me think about the technology tent. I allowed the thought to simmer in the back of my mind as the two of us walked through what had previously been a flurry of people going about their business. Now only a few older people were sitting out, smoking and exchanging a few dry chuckles here and there. The camp itself was pretty if I really thought about it. Long, bright green grass carpeted the ground below us, the area as a whole was surrounded by a thick forest with trees that accented to the heavens, Toya referred to them as "redwoods", each sporadically placed campfire was circled in pale gray stones taken from god-knows-where and seven or eight wooden chairs that were pretty sturdy considering how worn they looked.
Toya and I weaved through varied campfire areas and pushed past a place consisting solely of tents and the people inhabiting them, this was the place where Toya had previously shown me where I would be sleeping, we then suddenly found ourselves at a single, ostracized tent.
I glanced behind it to find nothing but a perfectly green, open field laid out like a backyard, looking to the sides there wasn't a single tent or firepit settled near this one.
"Alright, we're here." Toya spoke matter of factly and, as per usual, before I could choke out a response she thundered in without a second thought. I suddenly became wildly timid towards the thought of barging into the unfamiliar housing, even when the slender redhead poked her face out of the curtains.
"Come on." She just about cooed. My hands shivered as I pulled back the curtain and allowed myself to be swallowed into the abyss that was the unknown.
What the hell is this? I whispered in my mind, all while glancing around the dark tent, a pale orange glow thrown off by a simple lamp in the corner somehow managed to blanket the entirety of the quarters, broken up by a slender marble table nestled in the corner of the space giving way to the two overflowing bookcases littered with worn books protecting pages more weather-beaten than the chairs outside. A set of five white, unlit candles took refuge in five different settings in the space. Strategically placed in the center of the area was a sizable, solid wooden table supporting the weight of only a few papers and a loose book.
I stapled my feet to the very front of the room while Toya gracefully wandered about, lightly brushing whatever caught her eye in the moment. I could only watch her waltz from one end of the room to the other, the pale glow and jagged smell almost hypnotizing me. She completed her dance in front of the large wooden table, then suddenly came to face me. She hoisted herself up until her feet were swaying with a wind she cooked up in her mind.
"Well, are you just going to stand there like a creep?" I was bulldozed out of my trance and maneuvered into a crippling embarrassment.
"S-sorry." My voice and tone were pretty pathetic and I awkwardly hobbled over to the table and attempted to hoist myself up.
My first two tries were unsuccessful and my attempted mirroring of the gazelle-like way Toya moved was disgraceful. I yanked myself up a third time, and this time I felt my body shift as the table itself lost its grip on the ground. My hands slipped off the smooth wood and I toppled over onto my ass. I glanced up only to have my eyes shoved back to the ground by Toya's, she had somehow managed to rebalance the table and was just about glaring down on me. I shivered under the stare, humiliation acting as glue would and adhering me to the earth.
Her icily smooth voice jolted a shiver from me. "This place is off-limits." She began, "I brought you here so you could see exactly what's inside so no useless curiosity would lead you to break any rules, understand?"
For the second time today, I couldn't manage to muster a nod, causing me to fix my gaze to the ground and let the silence crush me like a boulder. I just barely stopped myself from asking about the tent I inquired about earlier, but I feel like that question would stick me in territory that I shouldn't have been venturing in the first place.
"Since you decided not to look around or anything and waste my time, get out." The sudden command dipped my senses in an ice bath. As if on cue, I rocketed out of my sitting position and tumbled out of the curtains, tangling myself up in the process. With my eyes down, I dashed forward just to crash into something solid and just about bash my head open on the trip back down to my ass. My eyes traveled up my aggressor and a glimpse of stark white told me exactly who this was.
Hinata's face went red to the point of looking like something was seriously wrong and a quickly manufactured gust of wind sent him into the air, and me closer to that cursed tent, on my back this time. I quickly scrambled up and hurriedly glanced back. Toya's shadow danced closer and closer to the entrance of the place. Panicked, I wobbled to my feet and dashed to the sleeping tent Toya had named mine earlier. I whipped myself inside and tied the curtains and tight as they would go. Then I launched myself backward, nestling in the thin space between the bed and a short, tan nightstand.
I pulled my worn knees up to my chest and bored holes through the tops of my thighs. I starred so hard that I actually began to produce tears. I was sobbing before I knew it and a sudden realization only made my eyes water more.
I may have made a mistake.