A week has passed since that day, Kyoko also didn't attend the school, I haven't even told Rei about it yet.
"Hey, today is your day off, so how about we go somewhere?" Rei says. She was lying on the bed watching TV the whole time.
"Maybe some other day, I have some work today."
I reply although I don't have anything to do in particular. I just need some time alone. I left the house and now am walking alone in the streets of Tokyo.
I notice a bakery nearby and can't resist buying a cake for her. Maybe it will cheer her up, wait it definitely will. I get back home and find the door open. She really is careless to leave the door all open.
I enter the room, finding it empty. Maybe she left the house in frustration.
"Whatever, She will come soon though."
I open the TV and sit on the chair when I notice a piece of paper on the shelf. I go and pick it up, it has something written on it, I read it…
"Do you know what the most painful feeling in the world is?" It says.
"What is this?"
Is Kyoko involved in all this but how and why?
There's more written on the letter.
"If you want to save her come at the park behind the school at midnight"
"She kidnapped Rei?"
I think, but it's not possible she is not that weak and can even knock down trained individuals with ease, but I can't just ignore this message.
It's midnight and I'm standing just behind the school, the park is a little further from here. It's midnight so there will be no one in there except that one who wrote that letter.
I enter the park, Kyoko is standing in the middle but I can't see Rei anywhere nearby but I could definitely sense two people around.
"Where is Rei?" I ask.
"You really like her more than your life otherwise you wouldn't be standing here, but I believe it would be the same even after you understand who you really are." She says.
I don't understand what the hell she is talking about.
"Tell me where Rei is?" I ask again but with a high voice.
She turns back…
"How dare you…" I shout.
I can see Rei tied to a chair, her head down, hairs all messed up and marks everywhere as if she was tortured. I run forward but feel someone grabbing me from behind. I turn back and a boy nearly my age is standing behind me. I immediately backed off a little.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Seems like you really don't know anything about you and your clan's deeds." He says and starts moving towards me.
"What do you mean?" I ask, I don't understand what he wants from me and what is a clan.
I can see him coming forward but my legs won't move. He grabbed me with my neck and threw me to the corner of the park.
"That is really an inhumane strength for a child." I think.
At this moment I know that there is no chance for me to win but if I can somehow free Rei and engage the two then I could save her at least.
"Hey.. Hey.. Don't tell me you are thinking of running away leaving your girlfriend alone" He says.
I try to stand up but it's no use, most of my bones are broken and I can't even lure him. My eyes are closing.
"Looks like he gave up…..kill the girl," he says.
At this moment I can't even see clearly, she is removing the cloth that was on Rei's mouth the whole time. Rei is saying something but I can't hear.
She stabbed her in the chest. At this moment I can see a smile on her face saying…
"You need to live."
"No…please" I scream seeing her eyes being closed slowly.
"Wh..why…She was innocent." I cried
_________
Where am I,
"What's this?"
It's the same dream that I see most of the time but it's different…..it's more clear. I can see the same man standing killing an old man but I don't recognize any of them. There is blood and dead bodies scattered everywhere.
"Wait…"
I can see a child hiding behind the house crying, and that old man is telling him to run.
"Is it me?"
The child runs away behind, but someone is coming near him. I can't tell who but it's probably a woman. She grabs the child and runs away.
"what does this mean?"
"Am I dead?.... No, I need to live, I need to save Rei."
I open my eyes,
"I'm alive?"
I was in the exact position, as if the time had completely stopped. I can feel something flowing inside my body. It is amazing, my bones don't hurt and I can feel powerful.
"So, you are alive and it seems like you got a bit powerful." He says while throwing me away but I gain my balance and land on the ground.
"Maybe it's time to get serious." He says and suddenly a sword appears from nowhere.
He screams and runs towards me with a sword in his hand but surprisingly he is too slow when he gets close to me. I easily dodged the attack and he got a bit uneasy.
"You are quite fast to doge my attack." He says but I can't understand. That was really too slow.
He comes again and again but I can clearly see his every move and dodge it just before it hits me. He is again coming to attack but this time I will not just dodge..
I grabbed his arm, twisted it and broke it.
He is lying on the ground all injured.
"Leave him or I will kill her" I hear from the other side.
There is a girl tied to the chair and is really in a bad condition but I don't know her.
"Who is she and why would I care?" I say
"So you really forgot her, and I thought maybe you really liked her?" She says opening the other girl's hand cuffs.
"You are also my enemy and so is she." I will kill you all and become the strongest.
"I….won't allow that." The boy says while he is trying to stand up again.
I again pushed him down with my feet.
"Maybe I will kill you two first." I say and for some reason I can't control my laughter.
I move towards them, the other girl backs off a little while the other one is still unconscious on the chair.
"Run Kyoko… He is not under control." The boy says and again falls unconscious.
What does he mean? I am completely under control, maybe more powerful.
"Well, I will just kill them and then leave."
I move towards them, I am standing just in front of the girl on the chair.
I want to kill her, but my hands won't move.
"Wait, she is moving."
She lifts her head up and I can see a smile on her face. She tries to stand up and finally is standing in front of me looking in my eyes.
Her face doesn't show any fear but an expression of guilt.
"What?"
She jumps on me. We fall on the ground and she is saying something.
"I'm sorry… I couldn't protect you." She says and is crying loudly. She is badly hurt but is still not afraid of me.
"Who are you?" As I say this something flashes before my eyes.
I can see me and that girl but it looks like we are familiar.
"Never lose your humanity"
"Ahhhhhh….. Rei."
"Where am I?, where is Rei?"
Why is Rei on me and crying?
"You are alive?" I say while all crying.
"Welcome back?" She says.
I don't know what is going on but I am really glad she is alive.
"Looks like you are under control again." I hear a voice, I turn back. It was that boy, he was lying on the ground badly injured and Kyoko was beside her.
"It's rare that we are wrong but there are always
exception." He says.
"Arata, take me to them, I can heal them." Rei says and tries to stand up grabbing me. I also help her but how can she heal them, is it possible.
"Please, lie him down." Rei says
We put him down and then Rei moved her hand over his body and suddenly all of his wounds were healed.
"What, if you healed brother this means.." Kyoko says as if she understood something.
But wait, she called him brother, this means they are siblings but there were more questions in my mind.
As that boy was completely healed Rei fell on my lap. She was exhausted.
"Why don't you heal yourself.." I say in panic.
"I can't heal myself." Saying this she closed her eyes.
I quickly lifted her up in a hurry and began to move home since it's not possible to take her to a hospital.
"I don't know what's going on but if anything happens to her I will kill you." I say and take her to the apartment building. They both also followed me but I ignored them.
I put Rei on the bed, she is still unconscious. I quickly
brings the first aid kit and some hot water.
"You will do the dressing of a girl." Kyoko said, but I ignored her.
"Leave the room, I won't say that again." I say while doing her dressing.
The two left the room without saying anything and I was still thinking about everything those two said.
"I wonder if she will be fine." After all, all I did was stop the bleeding. I cover her with a blanket and leave the room, as I come out I find Kyoko and the other one standing outside the room.
I can't control myself now, so I grabbed Kyoko's neck and lifted her all up.
"Do you think I will just let you go?" I say, her brother tries to free her but I want an answer.
"Leave her, I will explain everything." He says.
"Come here back tomorrow when Rei will be back." I say and enter the room, Rei is already asleep so I also go to my bed.
I open my eyes,
"It's morning already?"
I see Rei awake and she is seeing me.
"You are fine?" I ask and soon I find myself crying. I can't control myself anymore. I jump onto her, grabbing her in my arms.
"Sorry for worrying you, now stop crying, you really look weird." She says, I would normally be irritated by those words but currently I was happy to hear them.
Suddenly I hear the sound of the door opening. I open the door. It is Kyoko and the other one.
"Is she fine?" He asks.
"Yeah.. Come." I say, and they come inside the room and sit on the chair.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Rei Ken." She says, sometimes I wonder how she can be that polite to someone who actually stabbed her.
"I'm Toda Tachibana, and she is my sister Kyoko and we are sorry for our behavior, but Akita can be a problem if he loses control so it was necessary to kill him. However, it seems that with you around he really can remain fine" He says.
"Well, Akita till now doesn't know anything about his powers and all, so I'm also responsible for not telling him." She says, but at this moment I don't know what's going on.
"Hey…why are you apologizing and can you also explain it to me?" I ask.
"Well where should we start…
About a thousand years ago there were various groups called clans.
The descendants of these clans have special energy inside them called soul energy and some special powers. All the descendants of the same clan have the same power.
I and Kyoko are the descendants of the dragon clan and you are the descendant of the demon clan, while Rei is descendant of the spirit clan." Toda says.
"But that doesn't explain why you wanted to kill me." I ask.
"Well… from the past the demon clan and dragon clan are not on good terms, this conflict also resulted in the great demonic war. So, from childhood we are taught that the descendants of the demon clan are generally inhumane and our goal is to exterminate them." He says.
"By the way, it's rare to see descendants of spirit and the demon clan together. Since, the spirit clan came into existence just to exterminate the demon clan." Kyoko says.
"Well, I knew this since my master that is Akita's father told me this and asked me to protect him at any cost. However, he said that I shouldn't tell him this so that he could live a normal life.
He wanted that one day we all could live together in peace." Rei says.
"Okay I understood, but this doesn't explain about my dreams." I ask Rei, expecting an answer.
"But I don't know anything about that, the master didn't tell me, but maybe he knows the truth." She says.
Although Kyoko and Toda were all unaware about my dreams and my father.
"Hey…what are you two talking about?" He asks, of course he is curious.
I tell him everything about my dreams and all, he really looks shocked after listening to them.
"Well, why don't you simply ask your father about it." He says, but it would be so simple if I could do that. I know he won't tell me anything but maybe in our current situation it is the only thing that we could do.
"Fine then, I will go home as soon as Rei is completely recovered and ask him myself."
"Can we also accompany you? He must be a good person if he thinks about making everyone live in peace." Toda says. I am not sure so I look at Rei, her face shows that she doesn't mind so I also agreed to it.
The two left and it was decided that Rei will recover in two weeks and then we will leave for home, now we are all alone.
"Arata… do you hate me because I didn't tell you the truth?"
"Of course not." I answer immediately.
"Thanks then.." She says.
"You should sleep now, it's late." Saying this I put a blanket on her and I also go to sleep.
We are walking straight in a dense forest making our way to my home.
"Well, you live quite far away from the main city area." Kyoko says, although till now we covered only half way.
"How about we take a break and have lunch? I have made lunch for all of us." Rei says and we stop under a giant tree.
"By the way, What's your father's name?" Toda asks with his mouth filled with a rice ball.
Well, I'm really not sure how to answer that because I really don't know his name.
"I don't know, he never told me his name." I say with a straight face.
"Huh… You mean you don't even know your father's name." Toda says. He sure was very surprised, well anyone would be surprised listening to this.
We finish our lunch and start packing our stuff.
"So, let's get moving." Rei says and we continue our journey and finally after two hours we reach our destination.
"So, this is it?" Kyoko asks while looking at the house in front of me. It sure was a large one, something similar to some old style house.
"Yeah…let's go" Saying this I open the sliding door and we enter inside. It really was dark inside and it seemed as no one could even live in a place like that
Suddenly, I see someone coming towards us from the dark. It was my father, his face does not resemble any surprise or happiness, it seems as if he knew this would happen.
"So you came." He says.
"I want you to tell me everything, you know." I say while seeing him in his eyes as if telling him that he can't ignore me anymore.
"Come inside" He says and moves inside the house and we also follow him. We are in a small room with only book shelves around, father sits down on the floor and asks to join him.
"Please, tell me everything…father." I say with my eyes directly on him so that he could see my resolve for knowing the truth.
"Well, maybe you need to know my name first, since you already know a lot….. I'm Shinso and from now on you can call me that." He says, I am a bit surprised that he suddenly told me his name but this is not what I want to know.
"Currently, you know most of the things about the existence of the clans and how they possess some extraordinary powers but you need to completely understand this." He says and then stands up, goes near a shelf and picks up a book and hands it over to me.
"This contains everything that you need to know." He says and again takes his place, I open the book.
"DEMON CLAN-
POWER - RESISTANCE FROM PHYSICAL WEAPONS
SOUL ENERGY LEVEL - 100
LIFE SPAN - 80 YEARS (AS OF HUMAN)
SPIRIT CLAN-
POWER - REGENERATION OR HEALING
SOUL ENERGY LEVEL - 50
LIFE SPAN - 150 YEARS
DRAGON CLAN-
POWER - HIGH PHYSICAL STRENGTH
SOUL ENERGY LEVEL - 60
LIFE SPAN - 100 YEARS"
I read out aloud so that everyone can listen.
"Well, I understand about the power and life span, but what is this soul energy level?" Rei asks while Shinso is still in the same position on the floor.
"Soul energy level tells about the amount of soul energy in your body, the demon clan used to have the highest soul energy. This simply means that they can't easily die from any physical damage." He explains.
"Hey…doesn't this mean they just can't die." Toda asks.
"No…although they can't die from any physical damage but they will still die if you cut them into hundreds of pieces." He says.
"Well, I understand all this but the reason I came here is not this….. I want to know why I was abandoned." I ask while looking at Shinso.
"Yeah….Maybe I need to tell you now since you are our last hope." He says. I can see a disturbed look on his face.
"Well, I told you that your responsibility was given to me by someone right?
It was your mother.
"Huh….What"
I don't know what to say to that. I mean why would she leave me to some unknown.
"Your mother's name is Kuromi, she is my childhood friend, however due to some problem she left you in my care to keep you safe."
"What do you mean?
Who would want to hurt me?" I ask
"Your father, Kanade."
"What…but why would his father want to kill him." Rei asks, for some reason she is more surprised than me, maybe because this is something that she didn't know from before. Since, she was just told to protect me.
"Well, I also don't know much since she only told me this much but maybe you can ask her directly." He says.
"What…..Is she alive?
Where is she now?" I ask immediately.
"I don't know but she said that when the time comes Arata will find her himself." He says but I can't remember anything that would help me find her."
"Hey…isn't there something you see in your dreams that will help us find your mother?" Rei says.
"I don't know….. I never saw anything like th….. Wait..wait….I don't know if this will help but maybe it's important." I say.
"What?" Everyone says together.
"Well, once in my dream was the incident of when my mother was running away taking me with her from a man who was probably my father.
During that time I asked her why we were leaving our home and she replied…
Don't worry, I will definitely meet you again here when the right time comes."
"Yes.. That's it…..she is probably back to the village" Shinso shouts.
"But won't that be really dangerous to return to the place you ran away from." Kyoko asks.
"Well, that's what someone would think but if you think carefully about it it's the safest place." He explains.
"Of course, he is right….. Your father won't come back to a place he has already destroyed and left in search of someone." Toda says while looking at me and I kind of get what he was trying to say.
"So this means we need to go to Arata's village." Rei says, "but do you know where it is?"
"Yes….we should head out as soon as possible." Shinso says and we leave the house and head towards my home. It is pretty far away from this place and deeper within the forest. We are walking for almost one hour but there is no sign of any village. After another hour of walking we are standing outside the village.
It is a devastating view, blood stains can still be seen everywhere. Most of the houses are burnt completely and it's really hard to imagine that someone could even live here.
"Well, let's go inside." Shinso says and heads inside the village walking deep inside, we also follow him. Finally he stops outside a house that isn't completely burnt.
"This is it, it's your house Arata." He says. I can't think of anything else except my mother.
I open the gate of the house and we head inside. It is something that I can't even imagine. A completely empty room with a bed and a Lady of almost forty years lying on it. She turns her head in my direction and gives a gentle smile.
"You found me…ARATA"
I want to speak but words won't come out of my mouth, so I move towards the bed and sit next to her. She isn't saying anything but I can feel every bit of her emotions.
At this moment, I remember everything that happened back then clearly, my memories are not hazy anymore.
I completely remember that violence, the sound of screams, bloodshed and the ground filled with blood. That day, my father killed everyone in the village, however somehow my mother saved us.
He deliberately allowed us to escape and those words….
"..... I will exterminate you all.."
I remember everything.
"Arata ....seems like you really made some good friends and even someone who can show you who you really are." She says looking at Toda and Kyoko and Rei but I know what those rest words are for.
"Yeah…" I say, although there is so much I want to talk about but this isn't the time. After remembering all of this I still can't understand why my father would do something like this.
"But why did father do all this?" I finally ask.
"It's because he wants to become the strongest and destroy the world." She says.
"Huh… What does that mean?" I ask her.
How would killing people make him powerful and what does he need for me and why did he allow me to live.
"Let me explain from the beginning…..
I married Kanade when I was twenty. Back then I thought he was really a good person and I loved him very much. After two years of our marriage you were born and everything seemed normal like any family, but when you were four I discovered the truth.
The reason he married me was because I was the descendant of the Spirit clan and so that he could create you." She says while looking outside the window as if controlling her emotions to turn into tears.
"What do you mean by.. Create" I ask, she turns her head towards me.
"Do you know what happens when two people belonging to different clans have a child?" She says.
"Yeah…the child has a mixer ability or something like that." Kyoko says immediately while interrupting our conversation.
"Yeah… you are right but this doesn't happen all the time. Mostly the ability of one parent is found in the child and for the child to get equal power from both parents, it's pretty rare….. It's a once in a thousand year phenomenon.
This is what your father wanted and for this he married more than a thousand women." She says, I'm not sure what to say to that but that really is inhumane.
"Yes you are half spirit and half demon." She continues.
"I get that, but why does he need a child with such ability?"
"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE, THIS IS AGAINST NATURE" Toda suddenly shouts as if he understood what is going on.
"Yeah… you are right" Mother says but I still don't get what is going on.
"Let me explain," Toda says.
"You are half spirit and half demon so you have the ability of both of them. With the spirit energy you can use regeneration and with the demonic energy you increase that ability to an extent that one can't even imagine.
This means that..."
"YOU ARE IMMORTAL"
mother says.
"Wh.. What?" How is that even possible, I mean back when Toda attacked me I was badly injured and could have died." I say immediately, how can I believe something like that.
"That must be when you didn't know about your ability and power and believed that you would die" Mother says.
"Yeah… that is right but if that's the case why didn't he capture me the moment I was born and how can he take my immorality." I say. I can't even tell how many questions are flooding my mind currently.
"He can steal people's energy and thus their power….. At that point you didn't know any of your power and if he captured you to grow in a prison then you would believe that he would kill you at any moment and then you would not be immortal.
In other words you are immortal only when you believe you are. For this to happen the best way was to grow big in a free environment however, before you could realize your powers I found out his plan.
That's why he killed everyone in the village so that no one could stand against him. He let me run with you because he knew that one day you would discover your power and he would meet you again." She says.
"But how can he steal someone's power and where is he right now?"
"That's not his power, he just used human drugs in himself that allows him to do so, but for that he needs to drink the blood of the one he needs to steal power.
As for where he is right now, I don't know but I'm sure till now he must have exterminated all the clans completely."
"How is that even possible?" Rei asks.
"Well, in the current world the soul energy is highly reduced so mostly the children of two parents who possess soul energy are generally a normal child.
This is why there are only a few hundred people left who still have soul energy. So, in these sixteen years he must have killed most of them and must be a monster by now with hundreds of powers."
"But how can he find such people so easily? " Toda asks.
"He must be using some clan soul energy to locate other people who have such power."
"But why didn't he find Kyoko and me and why didn't he come to steal Arata's soul energy."
"Well, that's really hard to explain… since there is no reason for him to leave Toda and Kyoko." She says.
"Well, whatever it is but how do we stop him when we don't even know where he is now?" Toda says.
When I think about it again, why are Toda and Kyoko even helping me?
They don't need to do that. Is this what we call FRIENDS?
"There is nothing we can do to find him but wait and prepare ourselves for his attack at any time." Rei says.
"Yeah….. Sorry but this is all I can do to help you all since I'm not in the condition to fight or move.
Good luck to you all..
THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD IS IN YOUR HANDS"
We are standing at the door of the house with Shinso next to us.
"What do you plan to do from now, maybe you all should live with me."
"No… That is more dangerous. If he sees us living there he will understand our intention and be more guarded. I bet he currently thinks that he is the most powerful and can win easily but we will show him that we are not weak."
"That really was a good motivational speech, well then let's go home now." Rei says and we all make our way back to the city.
Rei and I finally reach home, I am sitting at the crouch while Rei is cooking something in the kitchen. It's the first time that she is making something. When we reached home she suddenly said that she needed to make something for me. For a second it started to bother me a bit since we always eat outside food.
Well, whatever, maybe I will leave her alone.
"hey....Arata, if anything happens to me what will you do?" She says while cooking so I can't see her face but I am sure that she is really worried about me.
"what?"
"hey...you don't have to take it seriously, I am just joking." She says that with a slight laughter, making it sound like it was just for fun but I can definitely feel her feelings.
"You don't have to worry about that, I will not die since I am immortal...Did you forget?" I also say that with a sense of fun.
"Yeah, I know," She says and brings the curry that she made for dinner to the table. I am sitting on the chair with Rei right in front of me. I pick up a spoon and take the first sip of it, it really is delicious.
"Do you remember how we first met? At that time you were four and I was eight. You were crying really hard in master Shinso's lap and at that time I brought you the same curry." She says while looking at me while eating and that really makes me feel uneasy.
"Well, yeah I remember that" I say while taking another sip of the curry.
"At that time I thought that you were really annoying and a cry baby." She says and I can see a slight smile on her face.
"Well, won't you eat, it's really good." I say passing a bowl towards her.
"Yeah, I am eating," She says and takes her first sip.
We finish the dinner and Rei is going towards her bed, at this moment I really want to sit next to her and tell her everything that I feel. However, it's not the right time.
I swear once this is over I will tell her everything.
She closes the light and goes to sleep, I also move towards my room.
Lying on the bed I can't stop thinking about my father. I don't even know when he will attack us but this time no matter what I will not lose anyone.
I need to find a way so that I can locate him. Whatever, I will think about it tomorrow.