Once the flashing lights ceased, Akira fell onto what seemed to be a wooden floor. He quickly got back up, and realized that he had teleported. He questioned if this was that girls ability, but then he noticed he was in a familiar place.
It was dimly lit, and the closed blinds only made it feel more comfortable too. There was a bar, and behind it was someone surprising.
"Shinomiya??
He quickly ran outside of the familiar door, and looked at the building he was in from the outside. It was Café Fortuna. The girl who teleported him in came outside for him.
"Hey! You better not be running off!? I still have you those photos."
A short while later, he had returned back to the inside of the café. He sat at the bar while Shinomiya was cleaning some ceramic coffee cups and plates. Akira asked for a cup of coffee to calm his nerves, but she bluntly replied,
"We're closed."
Akira sighed heavily as he nervously sat back down.
"Right, I haven't introduced myself to you yet? My name is... just call me Soyuz. I've been gathering a team of skilled people to help me these past few days. You wouldn't have happened to heard rumours about a city called Gehenna?"
Gehenna? He recalled hearing it from the people he... killed earlier. But other then that, he didn't know much about it. The girl pulled out a whiteboard and pen from seemingly out of nowhere, and began to draw a crude map of Babel city.
"Although Babel city is advanced, we still suffer from some issues any other large city would encounter, but I guess it would be more accurate to call us a country? Anyhow, most people here and especially the outside world, are spoon fed propaganda that Babel city is the ultimate society. Do you agree with this??"
Thinking about it patiently, Akira answered.
"Well.. no? We still suffer from obvious issues like crime and some health hazards... but I think we're still amongst the best in the world."
"Well I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but Babel city is in worse condition than you could possibly imagine. Homelessness, poverty, health hazards, inequality, babel city has all of these things, hidden away neatly in a dark underworld."
If not for the massacre he had just committed earlier, Akira would've laughed at just hearing all of these things.
"Okay? So you brought me here to listen to your conspiracy theory?"
A red vein popped out of her forehead as she grew slightly irritated, but she kept up her calm demeanour
"Anyhow, on the southern outskirts of babel city, there is a sub city called Gehenna. It's a place where the homeless are picked up and dumped without a chance to escape. The people who are maintaining, and blocking public knowledge about this city, is-"
Suddenly Shinomiya blocked sprung onto her as she covered her mouth. Soyuz was obviously upset, but Shinomiya seemed pissed off.
"Hey- What's that for!??"
"Are you stupid? Your inviting this coward of a human to join us, when we're not even sure if we can trust him? If he finds out about our enemy, he could become an issue."
Soyuz then smirked, releasing some of the pictures she took of Akira going berserk. Both at the train station, and in that Alleyway. Shinomiya picked them up, and released her restrain on Soyuz.
After inspecting them for a moment, she looked at Akira with a slight hint of horror.
"What are you?"
Even though they didn't talk that much. Even though he didn't consider her a friend directly, Akira felt hurt by the way she looked at him. He didn't want to do what he did, nor did he know why. But seeing the way she viewed him, it just hurt.
Akira just ran out the Café immediately, unsure of how to explain himself.
"Now look what you've done! You scared him off!", Soyuz bickered.
Next to the bar, a door opened as man walked out from it. He had shoulder length dishevelled hair, and mundane looking clothing. He scratched the back of his head as he yawned.
"What's going on? I felt something nasty so I woke up."
Soyuz angrily replied, "It was nothing. MY guest just left because SOMEONE COULDN'T KEEP THEIR COOL."
He just slowly walked up to Soyuz and put his hand on her head. He rubbed it gently as he jokingly said,
"Is little Soyuz upset?"
"GET YOUR HAND OFF ME ASSHOLE, IM 24!"
A couple hours later, Akira ended up walking back home. Even after walking for so long, his legs felt no exhaustion. His hunger had also disappeared, but that brought no joy to him at all.
He entered his apartment and thought about what to do next.
"My life.. what is it even worth? I live just to stay in a routine. If I pursue freedom, people die. Every time I deviate from it, something terrible just happens. Why am I the one burdened with such terrible luck? why did it have to be me?"
He ran over to the counter and opened a cupboard where he had stored some spare rope he used for a project. He pulled it out and tied it into a hangman's knot. Standing on top of a stool, he attached its end to the ceiling, while putting his head through the knot.
'I didn't just kill.. I ate people. Even if those people don't report me, I can't live knowing that. I'm not strong enough to carry that weight on my consciousness.'
He kicked the stool, causing him to lose his footing. The rope quickly tightened around his neck, making him suffocate slowly. His consciousness was fading. Death was coming. But today, wasn't his time.
"What the hell are you doing?"
That voice which kept telling him he was hungry, he heard it yet again. Some of the black and red shadows emerged out of his back, before quickly cutting the rope to free him.
As he fell, he curled up into a fetal position on the floor, and started to cry. Now he couldn't even die.
"Are you ignoring me?? I know you can hear me!"
Life was pointless, death was out of reach. What was left for him? Surrender himself to the Returner's?
"STOP IGNORING ME!"
Something hard hit him on the head. It made him jeep and get up. Once he saw what it was, he was rightfully frightened too. It was a small mass of the black and red shadows. However this one only had one eye at it's centre, and it could speak despite having no mouth.
Akira grabbed a the TV remote nearby, and threw it at the thing. But it phased through it completely. The ghost like entity headbutted Akira yet again.
"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU, THAT HURTS DAMNIT!"
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING!?? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME? I LIVE IN THERE TOO YA KNOW??"
He lived in there too? Thinking about it now, the voice he had, was the exact same one that was telling him he was hungry. It couldn't be...
"You, YOUR THE ONE WHO MADE ME EAT THOSE PEOPLE!"
Akira lashed out at the thing, but his body completely went through it and he ended up crashing into the floor again. He quickly got back up, but the ghost like entity just watched him pathetically.
"I was hungry. When your hungry you eat right? I just did the same. Me and you, we are connected. If I die, then you die. If I'm hungry, then your hungry. When I want to eat, you'll want to eat too."
"Your not answering my question! What the hell are you, and where did you even come from??"
The entity began to float away from Kai, and towards the balcony. A small arm emerged from the thing, and it opened the blinds. Allowing the moonlights glow to shine into the apartment.
'What the fuck?'
"My name is Syn. I'm a being of a higher existence, trapped in this world by its powerful natives. I was locked far away from here, in a place where you people would perform these things called 'tests' on me. I wasn't aware myself, but through those tests I discovered I had the power to latch onto the natives of this world and control them. Once I did, I could release power I never knew I had, but all the bodies I was given were too restricting, too weak. Even the bodies of those who could wield Essence, the thing you people called Aether in this world, couldn't withstand my power and eventually they bursted. One day I was being moved elsewhere, and that's when I sensed it, a compatible host who could endure my power. I tired to reach you, but I was too weak by myself to come to you. Then for some reason, that metal box I was being transported in flipped over, and one of you natives freed me. I then possessed many bodies, until I finally reached you."
Metal box? Akira then remembered that day he got bitten. In the morning, his professor was late because a transportation Vehicle got into an accident. Out of all the people who lived in Babel city, possibly the world, he was the only one who could sustain him.
"There is an emptiness inside of you. There was so much freedom in your body, that when I tried to expand myself, there was still even more room left over. That space in you, it's boundless. I cannot take it all up, and in consequence, I cannot control you. It's only when my hunger begins to affect you, that your body becomes mine."
With that knowledge, Akira began to despair. If he stayed with Syn, he would inevitably eat another human. But if it moved onto other people, even more would die. He could see why it was locked up till now.
"That's right! I'll just tell the police my situation! If I do that, I'll be free of you!"
Akira quickly got up, and was about to head out the door. But then that entity said,
"Are you stupid? I thought university student's were meant to be smart. News about you will spread like wild fire, and the people who caught me will come after you too. Since your the only compatible host I've found so far you'll be experimented on too. Don't you get it? We're stuck together now."
Akira slid onto his knee's. He was trapped. If he acted, he would suffer. If he didn't move others would suffer. He kept a routine to make sure others wouldn't suffer because of him. And now the consequences of breaking the routine has led to this.
"Do you understand, Akira? This will be the start of our beautiful friendship that will last a lifetime... an eternity even!"
'I don't want any of it!'