Location: Terra Colony Andromeda
North Sector - Draco Outpost - Private ICU
Date: January 31, 2050
Time - Midnight
Situation Critical.. Analysis of System Code Underway.. Attempting Failsafe Shutdown..
Access Denied.. Failsafe In Effect.. All Data Termination In Progress..
Attempting Failsafe Shutdown..
Access Denied.. Failsafe In Effect.. All Data Termination In Progress..
Attempting Failsafe Shutdown..
Access Denied.. Failsafe In Effect.. All Data Termination In Progress..
Attention: Multiple Intrusions Detected.. Failsafe Lockout Activated.. Termination of connection..
00 felt the sudden slam of a door in his face. He would’ve flinched if he had a real face. Instead, the lockout was a push against his code, a shunting of his consciousness from a space that he was once aware of.
Not good.
He attempted to realign the lines of identifying code. He needed to step back into the deeper controls of the Private ICU. There was success in restoring power to the lights. The room filled with restless clamor from the people watching this disaster unfold.
Strange. 00 noted everyone's reactions from his slowed perception of time. They are.. Concerned for the patient.. For Itsuki. Why?
Minutes ago, before User Arielle’s intrusive actions led them down to this unfortunate circumstance, they had all been apprehensive, flippant even, of User Itsuki’s condition. User Sinder, a usually jubilant girl, was pale in the face, her hands covering her mouth in shock, and eyes bleary with welling tears.
00 recognized the emotion of sadness, not just Sinder’s but his own. Why? He’d been asking that question a lot lately. So many unknowns with no answers. Why do I feel this way? I have no records of emotional attachment to humans.. Or.. do I?
00 put the ponderings of his mind away, refocusing his attention to fix the issue at hand. In less than half an hour, User Itsuki would cease all functions. In essence, he would die. 00 didn’t believe that would be so bad. It would be a mercy for this tortured soul, whose record was filled with constant blood, violence, and agonizing trial.
And there would be another to take his place. Itsuki has already planned for this, hasn’t he. He’d set this failsafe for a reason, and it was serving its purpose. Anymore effort on my part is.. Excessive.. Unnecessary.. Too much trouble.. A pain.
00 found it odd that he valued Itsuki’s life so little at this moment. He’d been working to mend him, yet now he was almost fine with watching him wither away. Again, more reflective questions popped up. This constant curiosity was starting to become a problem.
Forcing past the tertiary lines of firewalls, he gained manual control over the medical devices stuck into Itsuki. The issue now was the medical vat he was in. It acted as its own control unit separate from the console, and whatever termination protocols had been initiated were out of reach for 00.
Arielle stood from her seat, a cold sweat on her brow as she stared down at the countdown on the consoles. “Hey! 00, what the hell is going on?”
“Query.. I told you to not intrude into the console's systems. Because of your meddling, a lockout has been imposed on a majority of the controls. That countdown is the time until the lockout completes, and when User Itsuki ceases all function.”
Haruka jerked in her seat, surprised. “Cease function? You don’t mean..”
“Death.” 00 said without pause. “I am attempting to stop that outcome from happening, but there are a few difficulties. The computers in this private ICU were made overly specific and complex.”
“Why’s that?’ Haruka asked. “Can’t you just hack in and do some computery stuff?”
“Query.. It is not that simple. And these rooms were tailored to each of the explorers participating in the previous training exercise. They were made in case any of you were critically injured. Professor Cyno’s attention to detail and redundancy are as keen as ever, though, Itsuki’s modifications to this room’s security systems are.. Somewhat excessive.”
“Why would he do this?” Asked Arielle. “This all seems a little extreme. All I did was poke around in his medical files and the deeper databases. Why are the security lockouts going to kill him over that?”
“Query.. You are mistaken.” Said 00. “Your intrusion went further than you believe. The consoles and the machines you see in this room are not typical. They hook into User Itsuki. Not only through his veins and muscle tissue, but his spinal cord as well, which includes his brain.”
Arielle didn’t seem to understand. “I get that, but why was there a failsafe like this?”
“Query.. This is only my own speculation, as I do not have all the relevant data, but this failsafe was installed and enacted to maintain operational security to a maximum degree, per User Itsuki’s habitual directive. The consoles here have the capability to read User Itsuki’s brain, in essence giving you any information he has in his synapses. Coupled with his Perfect Memory ability, User Itsuki is like a walking digital vault of information and secrets. To protect them, he’s seemingly willing to die with whatever you were trying to find.”
Haruka leveled a blaming look at Arielle. “You just had to be nosey, didn’t you.”
Arielle cringed, scratching her cheek as she looked away from her friend’s pressuring gaze.
Sinder cut in. “Is there anything we can do?”
“No.” Said 00. “But User Arielle can. Quick, I need you to run a bypass on the console controls. I am unable to manipulate hardware in my current digital state.”
Arielle nodded and slid under the consoles. She ripped away the panels, exposing a jungle wiring and circuitry. It all confused her. “Uh? This is a lot more complex than what I’m used to. I’m not much of a mechanic or engineer, so half of what’s down here makes no sense to me. What should I do?”
“Query.. Just let your abilities take over.” 00 snapped, “You have a knack for figuring things out, so get to it.”
Arielle moved a blonde lock of hair away from her brow, wincing. The AI was pretty pissed off. “Jeez, talk about attitude.” She mumbled. “You were so chill earlier, what happened?”
00 wasn’t in the mood for her retort. “Just get to work already. We have 25 minutes left before he dies.”
***
The sound of heartbeats pounded in his ears. Itsuki recognized the accompanying burbling of water and the dulled shouts of panic. His consciousness flickered like a dying flame dwindling on the cusp of becoming embers.
“Haruka! Get over here and give me a hand.” That was Arielle’s voice. “Hurry! 00, how about now?”
“Acceptable, for now.” Said a plain voice. “Switch your focus on maintaining the connections to the medical implants on his lower spine.. I will..” There was a pause before the plain voice continued. “This is troubling, he is waking up.”
“Is that a bad thing?” This voice was laxed, so it had to be Haruka. “If he’s awake, then he’s alive, right?”
“Yes..” Said the plain voice. “He is alive.. And in pain. Quickly User Arielle, give me control of the anesthetic unit.”
“But we’re locked out.”
“Then reroute connection to the backup unit. Quickly. The longer he is awake, the higher the risk is for him to go into cardiac shock. I can only imagine the pain he must be in.”
A new voice joined the conversation. “His heart rate is elevating! Do something!”
Itsuki moved his gaze in the direction of the voice. He did what little he could to find the source and see past the transparent glass of the medical vat. Two fiery red eyes and a pair of wolfish ears greeted him on the other side. A twinge of deep pain in his chest, unlike the physical kind, triggered some long dead emotion in him. It was her face that was the cause.
Sinder.. She’s.. All grown up.. A headache assailed Itsuki. There was an anomalous discrepancy in his perception of events. She should be younger.. What is this?
“Query.. User Arielle, hurry!”
“Yeah! I got it! You’re connected, do it!”
“Query.. Understood.. Administering sedatives.”
A cold sensation ran up Itsuki’s skin. It started from his hands, then spread down to his chest and legs. Every muscle went slack, and when it reached his head, Itsuki found himself falling towards a familiar oblivion.
Vision fading, he watched Sinder’s face fall away into a black and gray haze. I’m.. sorry. He thought, not sure why. I’m.. so.. Sorry.
Memory reset.. Interrupted.. Failsafe Enacted.. Error.. Failsafe Override.. Attempting Rectification.. Stand by.. Additional Mental blocks lifting.. Analysis of Errors In Progress..
Restricted.. Line Memory Z2349-132ENZ-99-DOWNFALL-Z2-06202025.. Beginning Playback.
“Run! Get to the shelters!”
“Evacuate! Evacuate, Now!”
“We’re under attack!”
“Get the children to the safehouse!”
All Itsuki could recall was the resounding toll of the town bell. First there was one ring, then two, then three, and then a pause before it repeated. Every head turned up the clear blue sky, some with worry in their gazes, holding children closer in tight embraces.
Boom!
The shockwave threw everyone back into focus. Whistling sounds cracked and crashed the air, followed by the toppling of buildings and houses as something barreled through buildings by the handful. Men and women cried out in a panic, children screamed and cried, and they all ran, scattering down roads and into houses.
By the time Itsuki knew what he was doing, he was running with Ember, who had Sinder in her arms. They rushed through the townscape, slipping through the mess of abandoned and battered cars. Another wave of whistling sounds tore into their ears. Sinder gritted her teeth from the excruciating noise. She shouldn’t have had to go through this. It wasn’t right. The war was over, there was supposed to be peace.
Itsuki drew his eyes to the sky. Projectiles. He thought, already throwing himself to push Ember down into cover. Sinder.. Too young.. Too weak.. Too soft.. Too vulnerable.. Bits of rubbled bounced off his back. Thankfully, they didn’t cut and the bruising was manageable.
Two blocks behind them, Itsuki caught sight of a fleeing group of families who were making their way down the road. As a mother helped her child up, the houses to their left collapsed as a 3 meter tall and spiny figure tackled through the sets of concrete and rebar. Those people disappeared; they’re cries drowned out by a monster’s screech. It stood on thick, green carapace-covered limbs, and had a long pale green body shaped like that of a centipede. Red jewel-like eyes trained themselves on Itsuki and then on Ember and Sinder.
Itsuki braced, readying himself to throw himself at it to buy Ember some time. Before he could reach for the pistol he thought he had strapped at his hip. Ember shoved Sinder into his arms.
“Go!” She told him loudly. “Get her out of here!”
A second figure barrelled through the adjoining houses. It was Blaze, wielding a flaming metal bat, laying low a number of the insectile monstrosities on his tail. He was thrown back as two of them tackled him into the rubble.
Sinder cried out, reaching out her hands, helpless to do anything. “Papa! Papa, no!”
“Go!” Ember shouted back at Itsuki. She ran at the monsters, hands a lit in flames and her dark red dress flickering with dazzling golden cinders. “Get her out of here, we’ll hold them off.”
It took Itsuki all the strength he had to tear himself away. Running from a fight wasn’t what he’d been trained to do, and separating a child from their parents was even harder. Sinder fought him the entire time, trying to wrestle her way out of his hold. Itsuki held her tighter, weathering the continued destruction around him.
I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.. I’m sorry..
Sinder cried deeply into his chest. Her heavy and wet tears stained her pearly white summer dress. They had been having a picnic, and now everything had been ruined. The town was coming apart and conflict had returned. What they had built these past four years was returning to nothing. And he was running, Itsuki was running away from all of it.
I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.. I’m sorry..
Restricted.. Line Memory Z6339-132ENP-98-RESOLVE-Z6-06202025.. Beginning Playback.
“Is she asleep?” Itsuki asked the caretaker.
The caretaker was a tall and sturdy looking woman, probably strong enough to wrestle a bear, yet she still had her curves. She nodded, brushing down her farming overalls. “Yes, but it’s more like she cried herself to sleep.”
Itsuki bit his lip and sat down at one of the tables. He wanted to clear his head. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t calm her down.”
The caretaker joined him, patting the dust and grit off her gloves. They were on the second floor of one of the town’s designated safehouses. In the event of a disaster, these had been built to be like bomb shelters or mini fortresses. The starfall war had brought about a need to always be prepared, and it was coming in handy. On the first and second floors, the entrances and exits were fortified with barricades, while the basement and lower levels were reinforced and packed with provisions and beds that could last them through the harshest of war time conditions.
“I don’t blame you.” Said the caretaker. “You’re not used to handling kids, and this is.. Well.. times like these aren’t easy.” She looked over to a window. The booming sounds of explosions crept in. It was a painful reminder. “And here I thought things would go back to being normal.”
Itsuki didn’t reply, he only grunted. His mind was on Sinder. She had been begging for her mama and papa, asking him where they were, if they were okay, if she was going to be okay. Itsuki told her they would be fine, but Sinder was a smart girl. She could smell the lies in his words. Even when he had said that her parents were the strongest he knew and that nothing would hurt them, she didn’t believe him.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
And why would she? She knows what is happening. They’re fighting those.. Those creatures. This is like the war all over. And soldier’s don’t always come back, explorers don’t always come back. We can never escape it. We can’t even have peace.
“Bring them back!” Sinder had shouted, tears falling down her cheek and onto the bed sheets. She pulled at his shirt. “I want Mama, I want papa. Bring them back! Uncle! Please! Bring them back!”
For hours she cried and Itsuki did all that he could to calm her. In the end, it was exhaustion that finally got her to settle down. Itsuki got up and went to the lookout on the top floor, her words repeating in his thoughts. He stared towards the western part of town, finding smoke and ash rising from the horizon. Monsters lurked at the edges of his view.
They’re getting closer.. I.. I have to do something.. I can't just sit around. His hand went to his waist, feeling for the pistol that still wasn’t there. In the back of his mind he knew it wasn’t there to begin with.. but.. I have to, right? I have to.
Professor Cyno’s words came back to him. Come with me, and I’ll show you another way.
That was what he said to all of them, the child soldiers who had lost their way. He wanted a new life for them, yet, this disaster Itsuki faced was pushing him back to what he knew of his old life, what he had trained to do. Would he be able to take up a weapon again? More importantly, would he be able to put it down?
Itsuki again thought of Sinder, her tears and her cries for his help. His decision was already made. I’m sorry.. He thought. I’m sorry, Professor.
Giving the caretaker his regards, he rushed out, navigating the lonely and dreary townscape to the home he had made here with Ember, Sinder, and Blaze. It was untouched, a small blessing for what it was worth in the coming misfortune. He rifled through the garage, pulling and sliding out a long sleek black case from under one of the tool cabinets. The latches came undone with a series of clicks and the lid hissed as air escaped from what had been locked away for so long.
Itsuki grimaced at the sight of what was inside. It was his old life coming back to haunt him. He ran his hand across the equipment, the munitions, the blades, the guns.. The tools for nothing but destruction and death.
I’m sorry.
He donned the gear, the pieces snapping into place as if they belonged and were a part of him in the first place. Itsuki hated that idea. He was supposed to have buried all of this, he should’ve burned it all, destroyed it. Now he needed it, and now he didn’t regret doing so. It was a very sour pill to swallow.
Turning his attention to the bikes lined up on one side of the garage, Itsuki smiled at one hotrod in particular. “Sorry, Blaze.” he mumbled to himself. “I’m going to have to borrow this.”
Restricted.. Line.. Error.. Memory Z9399-142ENO-97.. Error.. 2-BLAZE-Z2-06202025.. Beginning.. Error.. Playback..
Itsuki found his perspective shifting. Usually, he’d only see events from himself. They now played out from another person’s part in his life. It was a strange development, a sharing of experiences from those he was close with. Itsuki’s abilities had grown, and could do much more from what was once so little.
I’m sorry. The words kept repeating. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Blaze’s bellowing voice broke through the violence of chaos. He raised his head high, howling to the sky as monsters charged and slithered at him. “Come on! Just try it you little shits!”
A pair of three meter tall centipede-like creatures threw themselves at him, baring imposing pincers dripping red with blood. One attempted to coil Blaze, trying to put him in a bind. Blaze backhanded it with a swift swing of his flaming fist, his black leather glove scraped and melted carapace and flesh away like wax.
Blaze laughed as his spiked metal bat in his other hand ignited in a red glow on every honed point. He jumped and bashed the other towering creature’s head down into the pavement, its brain burning to ash. The cohorts behind it skittered and irritably clicked they’re mandibles. They surged at him like a tide, making a mess of the street, the abandoned cars, and the houses in their way.
Blaze clicked his tongue. “Fucking bugs, We just built that!”
The numbers this time were too great. Blaze found himself on the backfoot, forced to retreat a couple blocks to gain enough room so that the blood and viscera didn’t impede him. The monsters, on the other hand, showed no issue in trampling through the mess of they’re fallen.
A 5 meter wall of flame erupted before Blaze and the creatures flinched back, terrified of the encroaching and instinctual dangers of fire. From one of the rooftops on Blaze’s left, Ember held her hands out with immense attention and focus. She exhaled and pushed. The wall of fire fell on the horde of disgusting creatures.
Ember shivered. “Ugh.. They’re like cockroaches.”
Blaze laughed. “They’re not that bad. Remember when..”
Ember cut him off. “Please, no. I’d rather not.” She sighed. “It’s good to see that you still have a sense of humor in all this though.”
The sound of shifting rubble in the distance brought them both back to how dire the situation was. People were dying. They headed towards the sounds of fighting, finding horde after horde trampling their way through their town. The western part of the town’s outskirts had been breached. They weren’t sure how these creatures had gotten the drop on them, but their best guess was that the western forest had hidden their approach.
In any case, they were short handed. They had no standing military, and help wouldn’t arrive from a neighboring town any time soon. At the moment there were 10 explorers in this town at best, and most of them were retired. By Ember’s guess, they were at half strength.
“Watch out!” Blaze tackled his way into the side of one of the centipede’s flank to stop it from laying a claw on his wife. It squirmed, spitting a wad of venom at Ember that missed by a hair’s breadth. Blaze shoved his hand into the creature’s side, cursing as he ripped into its hardened carapace. “Fuck you, you disgusting shit! Don’t you dare spit at her!”
A larger group of the monsters fell in, running over each other like a river of bodies from the adjoining crossroads. Ember conjured fire from her hands, doing what she could to slow them.
“There’s too many.” She struggled to catch her breath, hands tensing with waning focus and finding her mounting exhaustion taking its toll. “Blaze, get back!”
One of the smaller 1 meter tall centipedes made a dangerous lung and managed to latch onto Blaze’s leg. He cried out in pain, falling over as the creature loomed over him. Raising his metal bat to strike, he found himself locked with the monster’s imposing mandibles. Its breath was damn horrid, he’d smelt toilets that were less god awful.
“Blaze!” Ember called out, willing him to push and shove the monster away. “Blaze! Get up!”
But Blaze was pinned. One after another, the monsters closed in from the left and right. Ember’s heart began to drop until the roar of an engine grabbed the creatures’ attention. They all turned their clicking maw up to the remaining rooftops.
A figure ripped up from one collapsed houses. They needed a second, but Ember and Blaze realized it was Itsuki. The kid wore a set of military gear one size too big, kitted out with ammo belts and pouches that accompanied his flak vest.
“Take cover!” Itsuki shouted, tossing a grenade into the cluster of enormous centipedes surrounding Blaze. “Fire in the hole!”
Blaze tucked his arms over his face and Ember knelt down behind a mess of concrete and rebar. The grenade bloomed into a shower of shrapnel. It didn’t pierce the centipedes’ hide, though, it was enough to get into their eyes.
Itsuki revved the motorbike, tearing up the street at a dangerous speed. He turned the bike one eighty, skidding it to a stop as he jumped from it to come ramming into the enormous centipede looming over Blaze. Itsuki skewered its left eye with a combat knife in his left and pressed the cold barrels of a saw off shotgun into the other.
The shredder rounds liquified the creature’s insides in a heartbeat. Itsuki leapt off the thing as Blaze rolled to the side to avoid getting crushed by its corpse. Blaze brought his flaming metal bat up in time, smashing the remaining enemies to greenish pulp. Itsuki snatched the assault rifle slung on his back, spraying down the roads with support fire as Ember followed up with a rain of explosions to mop them up.
Blaze panted as he finished off the last one. “Thanks for the save.”
Itsuki nodded as he loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle.
“Where’s Sinder?” Ember asked, concerned. “Is she okay?”
Itsuki jerked his head in the direction of the safehouse. “She’s fine,” he said. “I swear, she’s safe.”
Ember breathed a little easier, then said. “You shouldn’t be here Itsuki, you’re too young. You should let the adults handle this.”
“No.” Itsuki said. “I can’t do that.”
“But.. You came here to leave your old life behind, you wanted to stop fighting.”
“I have to do this, Ember. Because..” Itsuki stuttered. “Because.. Because Sinder wanted you both to come back. She wants you to come home, and I have to make sure that happens. I.. I don’t want to see her cry anymore.”
Ember and Blaze exchanged a look, then chuckled. Itsuki didn’t comment. He looked away, hoping to hide his blush.
“You really have a soft spot for her, do you?” Ember said. “It’s sweet. Maybe I should have you marry her when she’s old enough. The age gap between you two is pretty big, but.. Not that big.”
Blaze frowned and glared at Itsuki with all the intent of an overprotective father. His eyes and flaming wolf ears said, Don’t you fucking dare. Or, I’ll rip you a new one.
Itsuki let out a breath. “That’s not funny, Ember. And this is no time for jokes.”
Ember grinned, giving Blaze an elbow into his side. “Who said I was joking.”
Itsuki’s blush grew bigger. He had to shake himself to brush off his exasperation. Regrouping with the rest of the explorers, they fought block by block, clearing the town until they had driven the creatures to the outskirts. By the hour before sunset, the attack was finally repelled.
Itsuki stabbed his rifle’s bayonet into the last one, standing with the others on a pile of monster corpses. They were all soaked, caked in filth and guts. Blaze brought their moods up with a roar of laughter.
They had done it. They had won. They saved the town. Everyone, even Itsuki, joined Blaze with their own victorious shouts and cheering. They could rebuild. It would be tedious, and there was much to do.
Boom!
A heart stopping second stopped them all dead. They looked back towards the town, hoping that their ears had deceived them.
Their eyes didn’t.
A stain of black smoke trailed up to the sky. They didn’t know if it was another attack or if a fire broke out.
Itsuki, on the other hand, knew what was in that direction. The safehouses.. SINDER!
***
Restricted Line Memory Z9999-143ZZZ-92-REGRET-X9-06202025.. Beginning.. Playback..
Itsuki stood in absolute silence. His eyes held the sight of lifeless bodies on the floor. He knelt down to inspect the dead caretaker, resting at the foot of the entrance like an ever loyal and fallen guardian. A gash ran across her neck, as did a number of stab wounds and burns. Her arms had been cut at the elbows and trails of blood led over to a smoldering pile of ash.
This was.. Torture. These were done on purpose.. By.. He hesitated to let the thought form. Except, it came anyway. Humans.. People.. Intruders.. The Enemy. He felt himself slip into a dark place in his heart.
“Where is she!” Blaze yelled, flipping over piles of rubble in a panic. “Sinder! Come out! Sinder! Where are you!”
Beside him, Ember held her tears in, scrambling for answers. They all were. What had been a victory was turning into a nightmare. Reports were coming in that a number of safehouses had been attacked. But by who?
Itsuki followed the trails of blood down to the basement. The growing smell of blood was familiar. He stopped at the last step, not taking his eyes off every mutilation. Even with the room lit dimly, he could tell that the floor was covered in blood. Corpses laid half fallen out of cots, others face first to the floor, and the rest.. The rest were in pieces. They were strung up like crude artistic spectacles.
They were just kids. Itsuki turned over the body of a young girl, relieved that it wasn’t Sinder. Why? Who could do this? He counted the bodies, getting an accurate account until he realized he was off.. By a lot. Wait.. A dark and horrible thought crept in, a possibility that maybe history was repeating itself. No.. no.. no.
Itsuki rushed to Blaze, grabbing him by his shoulder. “They were kidnapped.”
Blaze knitted his brow and was about to shove him away. Ember stopped him, asking him to continue.
Itsuki explained as he glanced at the eastern mountains. “We need to hurry.”
There were three ways in and out of town. Either from the air, from the south through the plains to the European Bloc, or the eastern mountain pass that led to Russia’s old territorial borders. No one had reported any aircraft these last few hours and the southern outskirts were locked down.
Blaze, Ember, and the rest of their group split off to investigate. Itsuki, having hunted and lived out in the wilderness for a time, knew his way around the eastern forest. He made way to one of the many overgrown mountain passes, hoping to find a clue. Sinder and a number of the children weren’t accounted for. There were no bodies, and that meant they were alive.
Please, Please be alive.
Itsuki spotted someone hunched near a tree, it was a kid who was overly still, head hunched to his chest. He was about to approach when he heard voices. Ducking behind a line of trees, he watched as 3 men in shabby attire sauntered out into his line of sight. They had probably been resting in one of the smaller caves. The three of them were dragging something behind them.
One of them snorted. “Jeez, talk about boring.” He had a thick russian accent. “I wish we got more of a fight out of that last one. She was a bear of a woman, and damn was she pretty.”
“Can it.” Said another, wiping his bloodied hands off on his pants. “Just be glad we’re getting paid. And we had fun, didn’t we?”
The first man scoffed in return. “Not much fun killing Beast kids. And kidnapping these toddlers is boring. I get that they’re worth a lot, but not many of them are going to be worth the effort anyway. Look at how many we wasted trying to get.”
“Speak for yourself.” Said the second guy. “I got plenty of use out of these little useless monsters.” He patted his crotch and knowling flexed his brow. “If you know what I mean.”
The third man didn’t comment. He got on with dumping whatever was in the bag next to the tree. A jumble of small limp bodies fell to the ground. Itsuki’s eyes went wide. His pupils dilated in cold rage as he realized what these men had done.
Just as the three men turned to leave, Itsuki sprung from where he hid. His knife flashed twice, slicing two heads away while he held a third man’s neck in his grasp.
“Where are they.” He hissed, stabbing the man’s knee cap as he yelped in pain. “Where are they!”
The memory blurred at this point. His view was a mess of blood, screaming, violence, and a sensation of unbridled hatred swimming in his very gut. Itsuki had turned into a beast, hunting for prey to sate his need for justification, vengeance, and vendetta.
“Kill it!” His victims shouted. “Kill it!”
Itsuki lost feeling in his arms as he was shot, slashed, beaten, bashed, broken, and torn up by blades and energy bolts. It was relentless. The people he fought didn’t see him as a person, they saw him as a thing, just like how they saw the children, like how they saw Sinder.
Nothing had changed, Itsuki hadn’t changed. The world hadn’t changed.
One left.
Itsuki found himself stalking through the tunnels of a dark damp cave. This was where he had once played with the children, now it was his house of slaughter, his hunting ground. The last remaining victim of his butchery ran for his life through the dark maze of passages. Itsuki moved from shadow to shadow, blood dripping off his boots and the only remaining knife he had held in his teeth.
His arms hung at his side limply, mangled and broken. A bloody gash ran across his low abdomen, his gut threatening to spill themselves out onto the floor. He wouldn’t stop even half dead. He needed to finish this, he needed to find them, to find the children, to kill these kidnappers, and to keep Sinder safe.
“Where are they?” He said with a haunted whisper, the words echoing off the stone walls. “Where.. Are they?”
His victim stopped in his tracks, fumbling for something in his pocket. He raised a device to the shadows of the cave, it was a detonator.
Itsuki tread closer. He was behind the fool, the pig, the piece of shit. Just a little closer, and then he could snatch it from the man’s hand and pry the truth from him limb by limb.
“Mama? Papa?” A child’s voice echoed from one of the passageways. “Where are you?”
Itsuki sucked in a breath. Sinder.
The piece of shit heard him. He swung around, but Itsuki tackled past him and was already running down the passageway from where he had heard Sinder’s voice. He turned corner after corner, following her fearful voice until.. he found her. She had her back to him, and was trying to find a way out.
She’s okay. She’s not hurt. Thank godness. Itsuki relished the relief. He stepped closer and she tensed. She must’ve heard him. Slowly, her eyes went to him. Itsuki expected her to recognize who he was, to come running into his arms, to hear her say Uncle.
That didn’t happen.
Sinder’s complexion grew pale. She stepped back, her lips quivering and eyes welling with trembling tears. She was looking at him as if he were his enemy, as if he were.. A monster. She hated what she saw.. No.. She feared what she saw.
Itsuki examined himself. He was nothing but a blood soaked creature, probably not even human looking anymore, an abomination. He should’ve been dead due to all his wounds and disfigurement, yet, here he was. Alive, and stalking her like some.. Evil creature from the dark. He opened his mouth to speak, except only a guttural growling noise came out.
The cave shook. An explosion had gone off. Itsuki realized his mistake, he should’ve taken the detonator from the piece of shit. The ceiling of the cave cracked, it was going to cave in.
No, No! NO!
Itsuki ran forward, limping as he dragged what limp parts of him scraped against the ground. Sinder screamed and tried to run until he grabbed and covered her with his body. She screamed louder, saying.. Get Away! Get Away! MAMA! PAPA! Help me! Monster! Monster! Papa, Help me, Please!”
Debris slammed into the back of Itsuki’s head, cracking his skull and making him taste blood and his own brain matter. He fought against the pain, pulling Sinder closer to his bloodied mess of a chest, trying to shield her as they were buried by a mountain's worth of rock and stone. Heat began to spread in his abdomen, he felt Sinder clawing at his chest, tearing into his belly.
Her powers. She’s using.. her powers. This wasn’t a good time but Itsuki was oddly proud. She’ll be okay. I just need to hold on. He smelt his flesh cooking. I’ll bring her home.. I’ll keep her safe. She has to live.. She deserves to live. The world needs her.. It needs her smile, her laughter, her.. Hope.. She must live. She must.. She.. must.. Live.
His last thoughts were finally spent, they were ashes and he lost all consciousness. All he was sure now was that his corpse would protect her, and that.. The world didn’t need monsters.. It didn’t need him.