Kenji chooses to steer the car and stop to a halt, the tires begin to sink into the mud, deeper and deeper. The road ahead was covered in trees, the light from the church on the foot of the mountain shined, yet would disappear had they looked in a certain direction. Max could not think of anything but stare in great fear.
"Why'd we stop?..." looking at the rain, the mud was building up beneath the car.
"We'll hit a tree, you told me to slow down the car, might as well stop here." Kenji knew that traction wouldn't cut it if the car was cruising too slowly.
"What is it... Tell me what it is." the boy pointed his fingers to the light.
".. T-there's the sky?.. I can't see anything there besides the fog." confusion, the mind was hitting a curb, the course was only beginning, windy nights that eat through the bravery of people who wish to fight against it.
"No, it's not, it's on top of the church…" he put his jacket on, getting ready to exit the car again.
'Were you clean when you entered this car?" the man was unsure if Max had taken any substances, suspicion was breeding from his hallucinations.
Kenji grabs his face, he checks his eyes and his nose, trying to see signs of whether the boy had been drugged
"We might be too late… Get out of the car, let's go! LET'S GO!" yet only now does he realize how bleak their hope has become. To find that hallucinating was not the worst thing they would find, yet to see how true their thoughts have become.
Their car door opens, and the rain soaks their clothes, Kenji decides to leave the car where it was. The two begin to run down the hill away from the muddy road, tumbling down the gravel, the land crumbling under their feet, the grass uprooted. Max loses sight of the light, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on his puny little mind.
At the foot of the hill, the group waited, looking to see all the members. Dairue had recruited more than one hundred capable volunteers, townsfolk from Window town, workers from their late shift jobs, children, fathers, the man had gathered all.
"Everybody! Throw the gas canisters back to the wooden church, and prepare the battering rams. WE MUST COLLAPSE THE STONE LAYER OF FOUNDATION!" he ran back and forth, checking the trucks, checking the wheels, reminding the children of what they must fulfill.
The group followed his orders, bulldozers, rams, an unimaginable amount of smuggled gas tanks, and raw flammable materials, Dairue's plan had finally been exposed to Max. A father approaches him as he stands unmoving in front of the wooden town. The father introduces Max to his daughter, an adopted young lady who was involved in their operation.
The father politely asks for Max to entertain his daughter as he prepares his gun, a scoped rifle capable of eliminating individual targets, hired in order to keep everyone from escaping. She tugs at Max's clothes and asks for anything to read, her eyes were on the verge of tears, fear was all she could see beneath her watery pupils.
"What is your name, young lady?" Max held up his hood, revealing his face, tired, his dark maroon hair was covering his eyes. Yet the little girl could still make out the little features he had visible.
"Ooo-ohh! They call me "Daidouji, Sachibana '' but you can, you can call me Sachi…" The little girl was looking at the boy with a frown. She tried to smile, only resulting in a twitching smirk, never committing to it.
"Are you okay? I- I only have my handwritten books, am sorry." his voice was monotone, almost sounding like a smoker, coarse and nasally.
The young lady's face lit up, an enthusiastic smile in a place full of nothing but hopeless actions and cruel intentions. She took the boy's stapled papers, happily admiring the art and words, captivating her small mind. Rain dripped down on the paper, Sachi hid in the back of a roofed house, seeking shelter from the storm.
"Dairue, what the fuck are you doing?! You brought innocent people, Innocent people?! You didn't think this through" pleading for him to rethink everything he had done, pulling him back to the other side of the road.
"These people have been murdered, tortured, and left defenseless by this cult, innocent minds that have been tainted because of these never-ending rituals!" Dairue stood up on the pickup truck, trying to keep everyone in check, asserting his leadership of why he had taken all of them to do his bidding.
"The bulldozers have been set! Let the gas leak! now!" the children were swarming the church, trying to tear pieces of the bricks apart.
"I- No, this isn't safe, This isn't safe!" Max kept shouting, ignored, and left behind. He stood like an idiot among men, they simply ran by and kept their duties, and the hesitation was no longer present in their heads.
"Today we will spill the blood of our own Max, we must prevent the wounds of tomorrow, if it means doing the unthinkable." Dairue went down the vehicle, talking to him in close contact.
"Why are you so philosophical about this profound bullshit you came up with..." Max shook his head repeatedly, in disbelief at what was about to concur.
"Everybody get the fuses ready! We're going to ignite this soon, w-what are you waiting for?! Go!" his madness was consuming his vision, to only see with thoughts and imagination, blinded when reality is on the page.
Powerless, the beaten boy stands, in front of the church. His morals called to him, calling him to stop the violence. His stance widened, and his stomach grew weak, trying not to fall to the floor. Horror, his thoughts were trapped in his mind, unable to think, unable to make what he saw, unable to comprehend what he was about to see.
"Light the fuses! Set the gas on fire!! Hehehe, maybe then you'll stop hunting us down.." Dairue's eyes were tinted orange, the wind had blown the gas far beyond the church, pieces of the branch and bark began to light on fire.
Their ears rang, bulldozers hitting the rocks, the fire crawling from the fuses. Max simply stared, his eyes, orange, the flames glistened, his eyelids unable to close. Stuck in place, his feet were planted to the ground, slowly, the rocks beneath the wood crumbled.
Thunder roared, the church slowly fell apart, putting the entire building on its knees. Rubble flew, bit by bit the gas canisters had begun to spark. Unexpectedly, their flames aimed outwards, the fire was spreading away from the church as the wood slowly burned. Embers of flame rising, smoke filling the sky, blocking the bits of rain.
Ashes began to form, one tower to another fell into itself. People began to burn, their clothes were lit with an unknown substance.
The sharpshooters left their stance, running down the ladder, bringing the innocents that got lost in the chaos.
One loud boom. Another...Multiple loud booms...
The fire demanded the attention of those who lit the flame, the canisters began to explode, one after another. Miscalculations in explosive diameters had led to destruction uncalled for. Soon, people were hit by flying bits of wood, and volunteers were impaled on a cross. As more and more floors of the church collapsed inwards, more casualties occurred.
Grassy dirt, letting the flames crawl into the tree line, vehicles torn apart into crushed metal. Humor, the church could only laugh as it burned down, soon it was only flares of light that could be seen. As the relentless fire crawled away from the church, the towers melted, their sharpshooters, running into the woods.
The ground was painted red and black, the forest had turned into its own personal hell. Max ran and hid behind a car, bringing Sachi with him, carrying the child on his back. Dairue instructed the surviving members of the operation to retreat into their vehicles, the rain had dismantled their path, coordination died with the plan's ultimate failure.
Blood, ash, the corpses were trying to escape, yet those caught were as good as dead.
"This was all your fault, you didn't think, curse you, you and your fucking plan, you got father's killed!!" Max no longer held back his thoughts, he shouted as the rain poured down on his ragged jacket, a perfect disaster was behind him, the flame enlightening his silhouette. Kenji held his arms back, preventing him from throwing a jab at their leader.
"You understand? Their children wait at home, their children wait at home and you let them die! murderer!" Kenji embraces Max, turning him away from the fire.
The flames were no longer crawling, it began to run.
"Save the blame for later, somebody, find Sachibana's father!" Kenji kept his hand on their backs, leading them to the vacant truck he saw.
"Am here, am still here! Get her out! I'll follow, there are still survivors who ran, I must chase them" Sachi's father had volunteered to stay behind, he gave Kenji the key to the truck he was about to drive, taken from the hands of the carcass.
You were true to yourself, in a place of no absolute morals, you stood against what you thought was wrong. Were you really right to tell him the fire was an idea you couldn't stand behind? Psychology, it is you, of the morally gray who sees through. Inside you knew, it was the only way to keep yourself a step farther from death.
Sounds of the choirs within the rubble, the church was chanting beyond the fire. Through hell, the church simply sang.
Ears bleeding, Dairue carried those who were able to move, bringing them into a white beaten van, Kenji whistled to Dairue, gesturing him to go towards the car with him.
"Put them down there and get over here as soon as you can!" shouted into his barely functioning ears.
"I… am going.. lets.. go-...Before the rest of the tanks explode.." he was weakened, limp to his feet, and walking was a chore to his leg.
The man carries the malevolent planner, the one who started it all, Kenji tucked Dairue into the back of the car, and Sachibana sat beside Max. Soon the ignition started, Kenji had little time left to outrun the fire. Shockwaves of explosions kept their car shaking as the windshield was obscured by rainwater. A bleak sense of hope kept them alive, Kenji shoved the keys and pedaled.
"Hm? Your dad will be okay, I am sure he- What was his name?.." Max asked as he kept Sachi close to his shoulder, letting her head lean on him.
"Ra..-i...-den..?" she kept her hands next to her face, anxious about where her father was about to go.
Shockwaves, trees were falling at a rapid rate.
Multiple blasts emanated from ground zero, Max breathed heavily, panicked, his heart dropped, thoughts racing at the speed of sound, outrunning the shockwaves from the falling trees that lit more parts of the forest on fire. The rain, filled with broken pieces, the scrapped metal from the cars, the bucket of the bulldozers which were stolen.
The van filled with survivors quickly wheeled beside them, keeping the top speed of the vehicle, chased by the burning orange mass of trees.
"Ken! I got half the people there on my own, we're gonna have to cover this up tomorrow!" Raiden opened his passenger window, giving Kenji the last good news he'll receive for the next weeks.
"There's no covering up what we did here… No court in this world will justify what we pulled off…" he kept his eyes on the road, knowing his car was full and an accident was the last thing he'd want to happen after all that transpired.
Max suffocated from his thoughts, choking him like a tied noose on a ceiling, he passed out after trying to gasp for oxygen, the malevolent beginner slowly got back to his senses, enough to think about how his plans went.
"I killed people…" The malice-filled man was crooked in guilt, his eyes said it all, pupils constricted to a dot, ears double-taking every sound.
"We did it, we won Dairue, it came with a price but we won… Think about window town, how many casualties we've prevented in the future.." a voice from the seat in front of him, echoing into his sensitive hearing, Kenji was speaking with pride and optimism. Dairue was not ready to let go of his actions for a small victory, the two began to argue.
"We won? What do you mean we "won".."
"This was our objective, our mission was to eliminate them, no?" Kenji asked, yet his passenger kept going, putting his arguments in a chokehold.
"This is only a small insignificant piece of where they are: A speck of dust."
"We did not win, we not only lost our resources, we lost the battle… Burning one fucking church isn't gonna make a difference when they still live unscathed. Pushing them out will only give them more access as we continue to lose people…No, there wasn't anything to celebrate… "
"You haven't told me what we're dealing with here.. " Kenji looked over the rearview mirror, staring him in the eye, yet he was leaning on the window pane, watching the rain splash.
The killer lays silent, one final detonation set off before they escaped. Within a few minutes of driving at top speed, they reached the highway, using the rain as a cloak against the cameras. Soon, law enforcement and multiple airborne vehicles began to head opposite their direction.
Kenji steered the car towards a separate route, one less occupied by cars...