"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Are you going to talk?" asked Keith to the girl sitting on top of a big piece of debris inside the room.
"Why should I?" the girl looked at him from a high position, her face showing a faint trace of a smile. "I have nothing to say, but maybe you do."
"What do you want to know?" asked Keith, open to having a conversation after what he thought was an hour of awkward silence that the girl named Kafka didn't seem to mind.
"Did you really come from beyond the stars?" Keith was able to feel deep curiosity coming from the girl in front of him, even if her face didn't change, the small smile still on her face.
"Do you have someone like me on this planet?" asked back Keith, raising his shoulder to point to his lack of arms.
"Maybe" Kafka replied, her smile unchanging.
"If you are going to talk so little, at least tell the truth" Keith said with a sigh.
"What do you mean?" Kafka asked, her small smile twitching a bit.
She was confident in her poker face, so how did this man notice her lie?
Did he know for a fact that his body was the only one in this world that looked like this?
Or... did he have some sort of special ability just like she did?
"You replied to 2 of my questions" said Keith, glancing at her. "And you lied twice, why don't you ask yourself what does it mean?"
Now Kafka was sure he had some power, as there was nobody in this world who knew her name.
"Don't look at me like that, there is no reason for you to be angry with me" Keith quickly said, sensing the hostility this girl in front of him was emanating. "Do you really think I can do something to you?"
"Yes" Kafka said, no trace of her smile present in her face.
"Well, I didn't expect your first truthful answer to appear here" admitted Keith with a calm expression.
"How are you doing this?" asked Kafka with a cold face, now taking her knife out of her outfit.
The world was too big, and there were people who were simply special.
She could manipulate those who heard her voice, and this man seemed to be able to do some strange things.
How could she know if he couldn't also manipulate her?
"The lie and truth thing?" asked Keith, looking at Kafka without showing any worry.
"And how did you know I was thinking of ripping your head off to see if there was a brain inside?" Kafka stood up, and approached Keith, looking at his eyes.
"Don't know" Keith shrugged, but elaborated further sensing Kafka's increasing hostility. "I was just born this way."
"Were you born?" asked Kafka again, choosing to listen for now, as she was the same way.
"..." now Keith fell into an existential crisis. "Probably...maybe. I don't have memories of the past, but sometimes I miss my human body, more like a feeling, so I think at some point I was not that different from you. With an extra limb of course."
"You had a tail?" asked coldly Kafka, pondering about this man.
"If you want to call it that" Keith shrugged again. "Thanks for the compliment."
"Doesn't it mean you don't have it now?" said Kafka, standing up again.
Had he been able to fight back, he would have probably done so in this past hour.
Of course, she was able to think of countless ways he could use to harm or manipulate her, some of them requiring her to talk or listen, like her own ability.
But she needed to take a risk, because he was her only way to escape from this planet.
"You are ruthless..." now Keith felt depressed, as he indeed missed what he knew he had owned at some point. "What is your name anyway?"
"Doesn't matter anymore" Kafka said, looking through the window at the desolate parage. "There is no one to use it."
"If it helps you" said Keith, sensing her sadness. "My companion chose my name for me, and I've been having a great time with it. I don't know why you chose Kafka as your name, but even if there is no one to remember your previous one your life continues."
"...cringe" was all Kafka said with a straight face.
"And yet, you liked it" Keith smirked.
Now Kafka remembered that this man was able to sense her lies, and to someone as secretive as her, it was a rattling thing.
"Want to come with us?" asked Keith, knowing that it was probably the main reason he was alive, as he had sensed that the girl was going to kill him, at least until he mentioned coming from 'beyond the stars'.
"..." Kafka realised that Keith was quite adept at using his ability, as he was able to use his brain to extract information about her feelings making him know of her desires. "Ye-"
TAP TAp Tap tap
With a little tapping sound, a ball bounced on the ground, stopping at Kafka's feet.
Both Keith and Kafka looked at the source, but Keith could see the culprit as he was behind a pillar that didn't let him see the door.
"Kafka" a discombobulated voice came from the door, and Kafka narrowed her eyes at the cloaked person. "The woman who knows no fear, yet still carries it within her."
Kafka looked with a straight face at the person in front of her, not knowing what to make of such a cryptic sentence.
"I'm Elio" the cloaked person took out a badge where the voice was coming from, letting Kafka realize that her interlocutor wasn't here. "The Slave of Fate."
"What does Elio the Slave of Fate want from me?" she asked with her little smile returning, but she was secretly on guard.
"I want to offer you a future" the voice said.
"Why should my future be granted by you?" inquired Kafka with her soft voice.
"Because I can bring change to you" Elio said, making Kafka wonder about what he meant.
"Can I leave this planet if I go with you?" asked Kafka, trying to open up some doors.
She had 2 options, go with Keith, who she knew nothing about, or Elio, who she knew nothing about.
But Elio seemed to know something about her, something about fear, a concept completely alien to her.
There was no fear to be had on this planet after all.
"Yes" was all Elio said.
"I won't refuse then" Kafka said with her little smile unchanging.
"That's good and all, we probably look equally suspicious" Keith's voice came from his hidden position, making the cloaked person gasp in surprise. "But can you take me to the camp first? I don't think I will last for long, I didn't recharge this body."
"I wonder what should I do" Kafka muttered to herself, thinking that in the end, she didn't get to know the limitations of Keith's ability.
"How?" a mechanic voice came from within the cowl covering the person.
"What are you so surprised about?" inquired Keith, letting himself fall to the floor so he could look at the person talking to him. "You look like you got to know this planet is a sphere."
"You didn't appear in Elio's script" the cloaked person muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
But this caught Kafka's attention, who eyed Keith.
"From what I heard, this Elio is....what was it called...ah!" Keith would have clapped once had his arms been in their place. "Chuuni! That dreadful illness making everyone look stupid. Do you realize how fucking weird being called Slave of Fate is? I don't know who Fate is, but it sounds like the name of someone working in a S&M club."
"Who are you?" came the shocked voice from the device the cloaked person had in his or her hand.
"Keith" Keith answered, as there was nothing this name Himeko gave him could reveal anything compromising. "A being using a puppet to move, trying to repay his friend while looking for a way to get a body made of flesh I can eat, sleep and shit with."
"Is that all?" inquired Kafka with a smile.
"Maybe having a fun night could be added to that list, I can't feel lust but the female body appeals a lot to me" admitted Keith, looking at Kafka with narrowed eyes. "But not you, you look like a kid. And I swear heard God saying 'Don't stick your dick in the crazy', and I'm willing to abide by that commandment."
"I see" Kafka said with her smile unchanging, but Keith smirked at her feeling her brief pang of anger that got translated into something he didn't want to experience.
"You were the one who was going to kill me without a single question" Keith said from his position on the floor. "There is no universe or plane of existence where you are considered sane."
Kafka walked to him, her steps echoing in the floor overwriting the sound of rain, and stepped on Keith's face.
"Stop it crazy woman!" Keith immediately thrashed in the ground, trying to get the dirty shoe out of his face. "I'm not the one who calls himself Slave, and let me tell you that in a relationship I'll be the one on top!"
"Are you sure?" Kafka, for the first time, smirked, even if Keith couldn't see her.
At least he thought she did.
"Why are you amused!?" complained Keith, who had no arms to move Kafka's foot. "Vengeance will be mine!"
"How?" inquired Kafka further, moving her shoe and crouching to look down at Keith's face. "I'm leaving now, while you will stay here."
"He is coming with us" the voice from the device made Kafka, the cloaked person and Keith look at it with astonishment.
"Is he?"
"Are you sure?"
"Am I?"
Kafka, the mysterious person and Keith respectively asked.
"Yes" and with a single answer, the being on the other side of the device answered all 3 of them.
"No, I refuse" Keith said, looking at Kafka's smirk. "I will not go with this sadistic woman. Not to say I still need to help Himeko."
"Himeko? From the Astral Express?" asked the voice, with a tone of incredulity on it.
"...I'm starting to think you are not a chuunibyou" said Keith narrowing his eyes at the cloaked person. "How the hell do you know about her?"
"All the more reason to take you with us" said the voice. "Take him to Elysium."
"Yes" the cloaked person said, walking up to Keith and carrying him like a sack of potatoes.
"Okay okay, I give up" Keith said from his position knowing that he was going to get kidnapped, want it or not. "Can I leave a message for Himeko, at least? She will get worried."
"No" said the voice from the device. "We will take care of that, as a good Script requires preparation."
"Now I think you are a chuuni" sighed Keith. "Can you give her some money in my instead? She has a debt to pay because of me, I don't want to leave her with it."
But the voice didn't reply.
"Looks like you will have your chance to get 'vengeance'" commented Kafka glancing at Keith with an inexpressive expression.
"I wouldn't be so amused in your place" said Keith with a dark face, knowing that Kafka would love to see him try and fail again and again.
"Do you think you can win against me?" asked Kafka with a faint trace of a smile on her face.
"Do you think I need to?" asked back Keith with a winning smile. "You like to act 'mysterious' and all that, maybe if I walk behind you with a loudspeaker shouting to the world how you feel and your deepest secrets I will inevitably learn, you will think twice before crossing me."
Now Kafka lost her smile, and also for the first time looked at Keith with a frown he took as a victory.
She still didn't know about the limits of his ability, and that only made it seem even more dangerous.
"Ah ah, you can't touch me" Keith smirked sensing Kafka's doubts. "Your new boss is interested in me, so you can't hurt me. Damn, that sounded wrong."
"We are leaving" the person carrying Keith said after manipulating a device on his or her wrist, ready to step out.
"What about the message?" asked a worried Keith, seeing that this person completely forgot about it.
"I will take care of that" said Kafka with a calm voice that hid her glee. "What is our side faction called?"
"Stellaron Hunters" replied the cloaked person, leaving the room.
"No, you won- Hey! Stop! Don't let her, she is going to fuck me over!" but Keith's screams fell on deaf ears as the person carrying him left the building.
"Now, what to do..." Kafka pondered, and saw Keith's arm. "I can write on that."
And that she did.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"He should be here" a worried Himeko entered the dilapidated building her scanner indicated to her.
She had come out of the meeting with the IPC, which went swimmingly, only to see that Keith wasn't there.
After shouting her lungs out trying to find him, she saw the traces of the torrent of mud, and expected the worst, knowing that Keith's body wasn't the best and something may have happened.
Thankfully, he didn't need to breathe so in the worst case he would be buried in the mud, traumatized, but alive.
But then she remembered that many bandits were around, and this planet was not as developed as Herta's Space Station, so Keith's body would probably be considered a treasure.
She could only hope Keith was safely buried under a few meters of mud so she could retrieve him.
Using her satellite, she was able to detect Keith's position, but she got 2 results. She ran to the nearest one, only to find an arm under the mud.
Knowing what happened, she quickly traveled to the other point her digital map showed, and it took her to a building in ruins.
She quickly explored the whole building, before arriving at the upper floor.
"Oh oh" she saw the arm in the middle of the room, with some rock around its base so it would stand up.
A macabre scene someone had invested quite a bit of time creating.
But the worst thing was the letters written in the arm, having been carved with some sort of bladed weapon.
'I am going to join the Stellaron Hunters, sorry Himeko. Thank you for everything and for giving me this body, and even a name to accompany it, but there is something I need to do.
Ps; I never knew having a shoe pressing my face against the floor could feel so good.'