Chapter 0.5
Balance/Chaos
No sun... no rain... no wind... just dim lights fill the long corridors of this place… a place that is unknown to the outside world. But nevertheless a place that has significance and importance to us. This place is Eden…
Silence devours Eden, But this day, the sunday of june, a small humming came from one of the aisles, aisle 407 furthest down the hallway behind a black door with a white seal covering most of it... someone was… counting...
"99... 11... 30... 11… 59… 34…"
"Hey! Have I not told you to keep that crazy counting in your head…"
A tall slender being, white from head to toe with holes for eyes stood outside the black door, guarding who... or whatever was inside.
"99… 11… 30… 11… 59… 45…"
"Decades of standing guard, you're keeping track of the time huh?"
"99… 11… 30… 11… 59… 48…"
"At the end of every year you do this… I guess it comes with the curse of living forever... to save us from going insane in this eternity, we try to grasp the meaning of life and the thing that for us should have no meaning… time…"
"99… 11… 30… 11… 59… 55…"
"But my pity for you is over, now shut the hell u..."
"NISSHOKU"
It was like a shockwave, an atomic blast of the brightest light you could imagine. The slender guard flew to the other side of the hallway and the concrete walls cracked alongside it. The guard hit a wall slamming its head but not enough to knock the great white being unconscious. As it slowly tilts its head upwards to locate the door, It saw the seal slowly changing shape and then fading away. A few seconds of silence transpired before you could hear cracks and snaps, and then a big bang from inside the room and the door was sent flying across the hallway like a soda can. From the darkness that was the inside of the room, a shape took its form as it moved out of it and into the dim lights of the hallway. The first thing you could notice was two glowing white eyes and the sound of shackles dragged on the concrete floor. As it continued the lights helped manifest a body. White shining hair to match the eyes, chains and shackles around the neck and wrists of a body that looked human. Ripped black pants with bare feet would be revealed as he now stood before the guard. The man stretched out gaspt and looked at the ceiling.
"A hundred years without any light, food or water, with the only sound to stimulate my ears being from a doll… your way of showing mercy is rather questionable, you should have killed me when you still had the chance brother…"
The guard fought hard to get up on its feet, using the wall as support.
"You're alive? Oh my, Midori-nee san is quite amazing isn't she, come on then doll! Stand up! Give me the honor of some excitement, how I've longed for some excitement"
The guard was not its feet and had regained consciousness. It stretched out its arm that started to vibrate, then got molded into a spear attached to the end of it. The white slender being took its stance toward the white haired man who was around 25 feet from it now.
"That's more like it"
In a split second the prisoner disappeared from the guards sight, and then reappeared right in front of it. The guard sliced its spear with unhumalike speed towards the prisoner, but once again the white haired prisoner vanished.
"To slow" whispered the prisoner
The white haired man had appeared behind the guard and strung together his middle finger behind his thumb, then releasing the middle finger snapping the guard in the side of its head. This small course of action sent the guard flying straight through the concrete wall, and another one, and another one. Then with the same light speed as before the white haired prisoner appeared before the guard again. This time taking a tight grip against the neck of the guard lifting it up.
"I am disappointed Midori-nee san, a hundred years and this is all you could muster up? It's almost as if they have gotten weaker…"
He squeezed its grip around the neck of the slender being and as easy as popping a bubble the head got separated from its body.
"Now, where to… Maybe I should take my long awaited return to the table Eden and pay my brethren a visi…"
A pain like a strike of lightning suddenly struck the prisoner from his stomach. He crouched down as the pain pulsated throughout his body. He vomited out a black substance with a consistency like blood.
"I should have guessed, my body is in no state to stimulate this much power yet… It seems as though my return must await"
Moments later, three identical slender beings as the guard of aisle 407 came rushing toward the sounds of battle. Only to find a head and body of one of their own.
"404, 405 you follow the trail of… of... its seikatsu… but that would mean…"
Two of the guards followed the trail, as the third one ran the opposite way. It only managed to get half the way of its intended location before it got stopped by a voice.
"And where do you think you're going? let me guess… 367, no you look more like 205, eeh you all look the same"
In the sealing on one of the giant shelves sat a man. He had Grey short hair with eyes to match, and a slightly oversized black suit and tie.
"Master Gure! The prisoner of Aisle 407 has escaped, I must inform Lord Kuro at once"
"No need…"
"Bu...But master Gure it is transcripted that all disturbance of balance in Eden must be reported to the head of the black table"
"Didn't Midori also transcribe an overriding rule when a master is present?"
"Sh…she did but master Gure…"
"Nevertheless Shiroi has finally chosen death over his cell and I have been rotting away in this place, do you really think that I will let a chance of excitement like this one slip through my fingers?"
"I have to report this master Gure!"
"Fine scoot along, but your report will be useless since "prisoner of aisle 407" already will be dead before you reach the table…"
A split second after finishing the sentence Gure transformed into a grey shadow like beem that human eyes never could manage to keep track of. The grey shadow sought through the corridors in the labyrinth like place that is Eden. Finally it caught track of the black substance that left a trail for the shadow to follow. To Gures surprise the trail did not lead directly to the passway out of Eden. "Has he forgotten the way out… perfect that gives me more time to catch up" He thought to himself and headed straight to the passway. To his excitement the trail of blood showed itself to the passway to. "So you did pass, but not even you could have gotten too far". Before him was a beam of white light, the passway from Eden to the outside world that we know of. Gure was excited, he hadn't left Eden for atleast 30 to 40 years. He stepped through the light and suddenly felt a breeze of wind on his face.
Gure stood at the top of a skyscraper, he knew where he was, right in the center of Tokio. He lifted his head, closed his eyes and took a long breath. As he blew out the air from his lungs, he opened his eyes which were now pitch black. He leaned forward and with an intense stare he searched the area of 50 kilometers around him. And there it was, east not more than 27 kilometers away a twinkle of light. He took the form of shadow and sought after it. It only took him seconds to get there. And he had him in his grasp, the only problem was that they were both on ground level, and it was early in the day, a lot of humans head for workstations and educational grounds at this time of day. And to collide with one would be very inefficient, they would never be able to see him at this speed, but if he were to crash, it could be possible. Gure learned to read the flow of the humans as he travelled at high speed gaining distance on his target… When suddenly the target took a fast turn into an alley. He was too focused on changing his speed to manage the fast turn, that he didn't notice that one of the humans had stopped without any logical reason. This put Gure of course and he had to further slow down and just barely was able to avoid colliding with the human. A small glance on the humans shoulder was everything he could have felt. "I was still travelling too fast for human eyes to see". He tried to calm himself down with. Now he just had to take the turn and face the target that he was chasing.
A cold shock spread through Gures body before the manifestation of his original being had completed. He looked down on his chest, two hands holding a white handle to a sword of light oozing straight through his body.
"You didn't think I would leave Eden without taking my precious Asa no taiyō, now did you brother?"
"...The trail of your blood…"
"I was lucky it was you who was chasing me, never the smartest sibling were you?"
The same black substance the white haired prisoner had left a trail of, quickly formed a big puddle underneath Gure as he fell to his knees. The white haired prisoner more commonly known to Gure as Shiroi, stared down at Gure with disgust in his face.
"Back then no one listened to a word I had to say, no one saw the truth like me, the actions that had to be taken… I begged for understanding, for reconsideration, from all of you! You listened to him like he was above us all, and we his tidy butlers and maids… I had to take action, to stop chaos and create balance… Back then no one listened… this time I won't give you the choice. Goodbye, brother"
As he pulled out his sword from Gures chest the flow of the black blood like substance increased until Gure fell from his knees now lying down in the puddle of black blood. Shiroi kissed Gures head and now his face had changed into that of nudeniable sadness. Then he just vanished with the blink of an eye. It wasn't far from it now, Gure knew that. Even Though immortality was the curse they were given, nothing is unkillable. He had lived through hundreds and thousands of human lifetimes. He had even been ready to accept death a few times throughout. But it is something completely when it's staring you right in the face… No shadow had ever died before… Finally he would be the first to achieve something the others never had done…
"Pathetic… I'm actually considering dying without leaving something behind… Ki would never forgive me "
He remembered something that his brother once had said "We are the sequential upkeepers of balance and extinguishers of chaos, it is not about us, but the powers that we've been given, the tools to bring order"
"I hope someone can save my legacy and do all the things that I failed to do, and I hope my family will forgive me… Tamashī o kaihō suru"
After saying these words grey flames started manifesting on his body... devouring him… leaving nothing...