~ Episode Twenty-Six ~

A Precious Cover:

Walls of Sky-Cutting Emeralds

…Herbions normally dwell in packs within forests or swamps. They prefer damp areas, and receive nutrients from other flora-based resources. Despite their humanoid appearances, I’ve found most Herbions shy away from the company of others, unless provoked. From my own experience and study, Herbions will hide – quite well, actually – among trees and shrubs if they feel afraid or threatened (Incidentally, a natural advantage in combat).

Shinji flicked a page in the Book of Lodoss.

Their fingers can extend into a vine-like state which can be used to cling to branches when travelling long distances or hibernate. In battle, these appendages can be used to lash and restrain foes.

He knew most of the tome by heart now, but reading back through random sections usually did some good if his mind found itself in a hopeless loop of over-analyzed obsession.

And tonight, obsession weighed heavy.

Shinji couldn’t get Eri Seruma out of his head – and not for the obvious reasons. No, his thoughts tonight were filled with the lushness of her ginger hair. The softness of her alabaster skin. The strawberry smell of her body…

The way she made him feel.

“Stop. This isn’t right.” Shinji exhaled frustration. “You’re her friend. Her guardian.”

What would Opa think?

Opa – Crippling shame knocked the Book of Lodoss to the floor as Shinji launched to a stand. He needed a better distraction. Something productive.

Kunst des Fechtens.

“Element Earth--R E L E A S E ! !” Shinji summoned the Earth Sword and fell into a fighting stance in the middle of the living room. On a deep exhale, he let the flow of all exhaustion, all frustration, all unwanted feelings for a girl he used to know to drain from his muscles.

A girl he swore an oath to protect.

Shinji lunged forward. His arms came down in a graceful arc, pretended to catch an invisible enemy’s weapon by the edge of his sword – Zwerchhau. He spun at the heel, lunged again at another invisible enemy, dove to strike the foe by the ear—

Her warm smile. How Eri’s shoulders shook when she giggled. The way her eyes crinkled shut whenever she basked in gleefulness.

—Shinji followed up with absetzen, a form of downward parrying from thrusting attacks—

Her dualistic nature. How Eri could be so timid and shy, yet direct and honest when necessary. The way she was so in-tune with her emotions.

—And then fell into nachreissen, a deflective maneuver that opened enemies for a direct overhead strike—

Her unapologetic tenderness. How Eri so purely loved everything. The way she wore her heart on her sleeve, unafraid to be vulnerable with those most important to her.

“Damn it…” Shinji lowered the Earth Sword and raked fingers through his bangs, eyes squeezed shut. But she was there, waiting for him – smiling. “Why is this happening to me?”

Out in the foyer, the grandfather clock came to life with its usual slow-hollow jingle to mark the hour. Shinji let the sound of it relax him, counted with the clock as it donged its way to nine.

It was nine ‘o clock at night.

He hadn’t heard from Evan all weekend.

Returning his weapon to pendant form, Shinji headed into the kitchen and snatched the phone from its wall-mounted cradle next to the fridge. His thumb pad mashed instinctively into the most frequently-used speed dial button.

On the fourth ring, a familiar voice buzzed in his ear.

“Yo, wassap?” – In the background, his mother yelling over the sound of the TV, “Evan! That’s not how we answer the phone!”

The sound of Evan’s voice made Shinji’s insides tingle. He shuddered through a hopeless sigh of conflicting thoughts and feelings. “Hey, uh – it’s me.”

Silence fell in thick billowing tension over the other end of the line. “Did you tell her?”

Shinji hesitated. “…Uh, no. I tried, but—”

A ragged breath sounded in his ear: “Man, don’t even talk to me right now! I can’t believe you!”

“I can explain—”

“Naw, listen. You made a promise. You told me you were gonna commit. And surprise, surprise, you did no such thing. You know what happens now, right?”

“Evan. You can’t tell her! I—”

“Oh, I can’t, huh? That so, huh? Only the fate of the world depends on it, right? You heard what that Radiance chick said!”

“Please – please, just listen to me. Something happ—”

“I’m sick of this game, man. I’m sick of your scaredy-cat crap. Forget this. Make like Dennis the Menace and scram! I don’t wanna see you, I don’t wanna know you!”

Shinji’s heart shattered. Then in an instant, he sucked up all the pain in his chest and roared into the mouthpiece, “Evan, you’re making a mistake!”

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“Naw. I told you, brother, I’m done playing.”

A click sounded in Shinji’s ear. Then, dial tone.

He punched the redial button.

Someone picked up, only to disconnect the call. When Shinji dialed a final time, all that played on the other end was a busy signal; the phone had been left off the hook.

He sighed, regretfully placed the handset back on the cradle.

The name Seruma Family caught Shinji’s downturned gaze from the speed dial list. Written so elegantly in his mother’s trademark cursive – unlike Evan’s name, written in Shinji’s own brand of fluid handwriting. A brand of handwriting that imitated his father’s signature with flawless precision every time school forms and permission slips came home in his backpack.

Shinji’s gaze lingered on the speed dial button.

…Seruma…

Warmth began to swell in his heart for her.

“Stop it.”

But the warmth didn’t stop. And as the ghost of her fragrance hung in his nostrils, as did her gasps of breaths in his ears, the warmth for Eri began to swell in other places too.

“I said, stop!”

Shinji squeezed his fists into tight balls at his sides, tight enough to pierce the skin of his palms. He shuddered through a hiccup of revulsion at himself. At what was happening to him.

“…Please … stop…”

A shaky hand lifted before his eyes, obscuring the speed dial. He gazed into the deep nail marks that seared the skin there. Fresh tears pattered against the lines in his achy palm. What he’d done after she left.

“You’re the monster,” he convinced himself on quiet words. “You are.”

Shinji sniffled, wandered back into the living room. The oil-painted gazes of his parents loomed with knowing disgust at him.

He stopped to regard the portrait. Jittery fingers dared to spelunk for the strawberry sweet treasure stashed away within his jeans pocket: a red scrunchie Eri had left behind when she fled to Mackenzie Thompson’s house on smoking heels.

Shinji rolled the hair tie around in his fingers. It smelled so much like Eri. It was impossible to not get intoxicated by its fragrance – her fragrance – and everything about her – all over again.

The image of his mother stared him down – her emerald eyes basked in wavering shadows cast by the roar of the fireplace.

Oh, how the image of his mother stared…

Pain flexed around Shinji’s heart like Eri’s scrunchie did around his fingers. Wherever in the world Leene Izuma-Reinhardt was now, there was no doubt in her only child’s mind that she’d felt disgraced and disappointed in him.

“She’s safe,” Shinji murmured to her against the glow of lapping flames. “I want her to know just as much as Evan wants her to. And I tried. You know I tried. But – right now, she’s safer not knowing … Isn’t she?”

The painting didn’t know. Had no answers.

But that was nothing new for Shinji.

For him, the painting was but a looming reminder of all his failures. All his insecurities. All his shame. All his dishonor to the Izuma-Reinhardt name. Of parents who picked up one summery Thursday night in 1997 and never returned.

Parents who no longer loved him, nor needed him.

The painting was a reminder that built walls so high around Shinji’s heart that the mere accidental graze of a girl’s hand in a grocery store had absolutely terrified him.

Her hand, of all hands.

“The only reason you exist is to protect the Child of Destiny.”

And now, he and Evan were at odds.

Shinji rubbed wet eyes against the back of his sleeve and looked up at image of his father. Makoto Izuma regarded his son with smug certainty against the glow of the fireplace.

“I just want to do what’s right,” Shinji tried to rationalize with him.

Makoto’s hard-set oil-painted stare bore into him—But are you?

The phone rang. Shinji jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. He stomped through the portal and snatched up the handset midway through its third ring. “So, you ready to talk, or are you still intent on being an idiot?”

“Excuse me?” The boom of a man’s voice hollowed out his ear. “Do you know who this is? This is Eri Seruma’s father! You stay the hell off my roof, you hear me? Do your parents know that you’ve been sneaking into girls’ bedrooms at night?!”

Shinji froze. “Uh … I…”

“What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”

“I … I’m so sorry … I—” Shinji took a deep breath and said, “I used your trellis for brief visitation only. Please know your daughter is innocent in my actions. Nothing happened between us.”

Ken Seruma roared in his ear, “You better pray nothing happened to my little girl, you pint-sized pervert! Next time I catch you entering my house through a window, so help me, I’ll beat your little ass purple and kick you right back to the curb! You’re lucky I won’t do worse!”

“Mr. Seruma, you don’t need to speak to me that way.”

“I’ll speak to you however I damn well want to! Son, I served this country twenty-five years! Don’t test me! Put your father on the line, I wanna talk to him.”

Shinji wobbled in place. “My – father? He, uh – My parents aren’t here right now.” He quickly added, “They, uh, they’re on a cruise.”

“Well let me talk to your guardian!”

“Guardian?” Shinji blinked.

“Yes! Whoever is staying with you! Let me talk to them!”

“There’s nobody else here right now.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Izuma! Put whoever else is in your house on the line, or I’m going over there to talk to them in the flesh!”

All blood in Shinji’s face drained to his toes. He slammed the phone onto the cradle with both hands—And then, realizing what he’d just done, yanked the handset back to his ear.

“Mister Seruma—”

A dial tone sang to him.

Shinji hung up the phone on shaky muscles. Slowly, he backed up against the fridge with wide-eyed terror.

Ken Seruma enters this house, sees my parents don’t live here, he goes home and calls the police. The police enter this house, see that my parents don’t live here they call CAS. CAS workers enter this house, see that I live alone, then drag me away to protective custody.

Icy realization slumped him to the floor.

I get dragged away to protective custody, leaving Evan and Thompson without a leader. Monsters kill them and take Seruma away to the Void—The Void, where the Black King sacrifices her and sets the world on fire.

“I can’t let Ken Seruma past that front door.”

Shinji darted to the foyer, flicking off all the lights along the way. He twisted the deadbolt, swung into the parlor and dove across the sectional to flick off the lamp used to read earlier with. He scrambled to a stand to extinguish the fireplace, nearly tripping over the Book of Lodoss where it lay neglected on the floor.

The house was draped in darkness now.

For the final time that night, Shinji snatched up the phone. This time, his thumb mashed into the speed dial button directly above Evan’s.

The line connected almost immediately.

“Opa. I – I screwed up, bad,” he said. “Please, it’s urgent. No, she’s safe. But – I need your help.”