--- A week later ---
--- 13th march 2032 —
Against all expectations, the following week was a calm one. A bit overwhelming at first, but Dai was getting used to that life, partially feeling like a brand new one. He had an apartment all for himself, a job as an English teacher, with its not-so-light 45 hours a week, that sometime would magically transform in 60 due to overtime; the students and colleagues were lovely, at least.
‘I should be happy I’m managing to keep the job I guess…’ he thought with a sigh, a cloud of vapour coming out of his mouth. Cold nights like this were one of the few moments where wearing the gloves was needed, outside of covering the marks at school because they were mistaken as tattoos.
Yet, the gloves were bearable compared to a bigger problem, the Saturday dinners with the colleagues; the one he was coming back from. Despite having clear memories of them, they all felt distant and just part of a weird dream he felt detached from his very soul. It made him sick and uncomfortable to be amid those known yet unknown faces to the point of nausea, he even ended running away, under their worried gazes.
He was now walking down Shibuya, reaching its famous crossing, surrounded by high buildings that for only a few floors couldn’t be defined as skyscrapers. Part of their façades were lit up by all kinds of advertisements and, amid the majority of promotional banners and videos dedicated to anime and video games, one caught his attention as he waited for the light to turn green.
“This is Adanna. She lives in in state of Nigeria, recently fallen into an havoc due to a combined form of lymphoma and myeloma...”
It was a short animation blasting at high volume the story of some kid from the East-African Union having to deal with a rare blood disease and it encouraged the viewer to donate to help saving hers and more lives.
No one of the drunkards, walking by the footpaths or people waiting at the intersection like Dai, seemed to care about it; everyone talking and laughing over the voice of the advertisement. As sad as it was, he also was about to turn his attention away, when the screen turned white and an acronym faded in at its centre, “WSZY”.
‘Wus...zi? Wus…’ he attempted and failed to pronounce that in his head while following the flow of people crossing the intersection. Now that he pondered on it, according to his memories no one knew the meaning of those four letters, even though the company was basically leading a worldwide monopoly in multiple fields since its creation in 1984. It was so important that Dai had to learn its story in first grade of middle school; founded the afore mentioned year by a before-unknown Samuel Darielo, who simply appeared out of nowhere with loads of money and an injection for curing the most dreadful forms of cancer.
At the sole thought he yawned.
To tell the truth, the single average person actually didn’t care much about it, apart from fanatics that almost worshipped their work and its faceless creator like God on Earth. But at the same time, few from the opposite side tried to resist that corporation’s expansion; which had become a monopoly in multiple fields outside of medicine. Overall, the general consensus was “If he does good, why stop him?”.
In that starless night, he reached a small apartment building. He went up to the second floor through the flight of outer metal stairs, clanging under his feet in the peaceful night. The multiple neon lights coming from the down street’s restaurants and pubs poured into the open-air corridor and cast the guy’s shadow over the outfacing apartment doors. When stopping in front of one, he rummaged into his jeans’ pocket and produced a single key.
‘I wonder when the landlord will install that electric lock he promised. It’s almost the standard..’ he thought annoyed as he slided the obsolete key into the lock and turned it a few times until a click could be heard. Once inside, he switched on the light of the corridor connecting the genkan to three closed doors and a gloomy room at the end with only a faint light coming from a hidden source.
‘Did I forget to turn off a light...?’
Not bothered too much by it, he lightly pushed the door closed with a soft click and without even the time to take off his shoes, a pleasant smell wafted to his nose.
‘Ramen? This smells way better than the instant one…’
Right when he was becoming alerted, someone spoke from the kitchen.
“Is it you nii-san?(brother)” it was a shrilling young voice. “I made some extra ramen if you want some! I’m sure it can’t beat what ”
Dai sighed, his tense muscles relaxing. “It’s just my sister…” he murmured to himself.
With a finger between the back of the shoe and the heel of his foot he took the shoe off, then realisation struck him like a thunder in the clear sky.
He froze on the spot. “Wait...I don’t have a sister…”
“You still there?” the same voice asked from the kitchen, something inexplicable was different in her tone.
Leaving the shoe on the ground, the guy turned back to the door and quickly grabbed the handle. At the same time a hand touched his shoulder, cold like ice, causing a shiver to run down his spine.
“Where are you going nii-san?” the voice was now right behind him, failing to hide an hint of amusement. “You literally just came back! Relax a bit now.” With an abnormally strong tug, that hand turned him around. He didn’t see much at first apart from the wall, then a hand waved right in front of his face.
“Look down dumbass- erm...” there was a brief clear of throat before she corrected herself with false sweetness “..nii-san.”
He did so and remained confused if to be frightened or not. In front of him stood a short girl, light skin, messy black hair reaching below her shoulder blades, grey eyes and a gentle smile. That wasn’t the devil he met in that nightmare, although reminiscing of it. There was a light in those eyes, even if barely visible it was there and her skin had some resemblance of colour, unlike the paleness of that devil.
‘Now I look like the unhealthy one…’ he thought unironically, the bag under his eyes being proof of an horrible sleep schedule, without mentioning the diet.
The girl tugged on the sleeve of his suit jacket, not even trying to hide the abnormal strength that could have ripped it off.
“Fine fine.” Dai said in the end. “Wait, isn’t something...burning?” he curled his nose at a smell of burned that assaulted him, slowly replacing that goodness from before. He glanced back at the girl’s face who was still smiling while looking away from him, bearing the most guilty and uncaring face he had ever seen.
“Let me guess, you forgot the turn off the gas stove, right?”
She silently nodded and he sighed. She was surely the same girl of that nightmare, there was no other explanation on how she could have ended up there if not for some demonic power of hers. Although something made that air of terror previously surrounding her disappear; it may have been because of her more “alive” features. The guy took off the other shoe and sauntered to the end of the corridor followed by the girl. The dim room was big enough to barely fit a couch, TV and tea table in the middle in the left half. While in the right side there was a small dining table against the wall and the kitchen area from where the light was coming from…
Dai’s mouth fell ajar. “H-how…?”
A tower of pots rose from the sink and reached the ceiling with the last pot pressing against it, keeping the construction steady. Putting aside the simple facts that Dai never had that many pots in the first place or how that happened, it was honestly quite impressive, almost on par with some pieces of modern art.
‘Maybe I could actually make some money from this…’ Dai scratched his shaved chin, seriously contemplating the idea. “Mh?”
He looked at the girl as she walked towards the pot on top of the lit up stove, full of boiling soup and also the source of the smell, and grabbed it by an handle.
“No wait-!” he shouted but it was too late. The girl lifted the big pot effortlessly and slammed it against the piled ones. The whole tower collapsed in a mix of clangours and water dripping out towards Dai, who quickly moved out of the way. All the pots hit the floor with the same ferrous sound, splattering the water all over and mixing with the burned soup.
The puddle of diluted soup expanded under his stare then moved to the girl, who stood on the other end the puddle, bearing that innocent smile.
“Oopsie…” she simply said shamelessly, still with the pot in her hand.
The guy remained speechless, he didn’t know if to be mad or act calm towards her, but the fear that she could turn against him by doing the former took over.
“Don’t worry.” Dai sighed. “Just help me cleaning this.”
He expected a no, at least and was surprised to see the girl nodding. “Sure nii-san.”
The curtains were parted open and windows too, refreshing the air from the girl’s burned disaster. After finishing the clean up, the two had sat at opposite ends of the small dining table to enjoy a salubrious meal of instant noodles with an added cold can of beer for Dai.
He slurped a few noodles then popped the beer open.
“Aah…” he breathed out satisfied after a good sip. “That’s what I needed.” The roller coaster of emotions that night brought him in such a short time was like a punch in the stomach after the almost peaceful week he had. Weirdly enough not a single neighbour had come to lament about the noises.
“Shouldn’t you eat more healthy, nii-san?” the girl asked before eating a few noodles, clearly and unimpressed by the dinner.
Dai blinked twice, confused. “Shouldn’t you stop calling me nii-san? You weren’t convincing before and adding that nickname thousands of times makes you more ridiculous.”
In the tense silence that followed, the only ice breaking sound were dinging notification coming from the phone in his suit stranded on the sofa pocket; probably from his worried colleagues.
“Mh...really?” the girl’s voice shifted to a more cold tone although still not the the same level as in the nightmare. “If I’m that ridiculous then you should be laughing instead of acting all nervous, no?”
The guy glanced over at his hand wrapped around the beer can, the forefinger constantly tapping against it. The devil tilted her head slightly. Even without showing it, she was probably basking joyfully in that nervous silence of his.
Here they were gain. The nightmare risked of repeating itself, which at this point, was just as real as their first meeting and not a product of his “coma”.
‘It’s clear she’s the same demon but why does she feel different…?’
“That’s the most uninteresting question you could have asked.” the girl snorted out of the blue.
The guy startled and looked around as if to check for someone else’s presence. “...I didn’t say anything.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“You thought about it.”
Dai opened his mouth about to say something but then thought for himself ‘She can...read my mind?’
And surprisingly, the girl promptly nodded. “And now you’re thinking of that time you had food poisoning as a kid and vomited in your mother’s purse.”
“H-Hold on! How can you do that??” the guy leaned forward, his hands grasping the edge of the table, desperately trying to divert the conversation.
“You have the answer in hand.” she said slightly annoyed, almost as if talking to a stupid kid. Dai glanced at his palms, the rhomboid marks lighting of that red light and those stylised pupils staring back at him. He looked back up at the girl, still not getting her point.
“Right...you don’t know anything…” she admitted with a defeated air. “Those symbols are proof of our pact, which connected us in more ways than just me giving you my powers. It created a link and now you’re an open book to me.”
“O-ok,” It wasn’t ok, but any other answer could have brought serious consequences. “you never said anything about hearing my thoughts though...”
The girl waved a hand as if to send away his worries. “It doesn’t matter that much…”
Dai was left flabbergasted. Not only she didn’t find it weird, she didn’t seem to care at all.
‘What can I even expect from the devil…’
“Hey, that’s rude.” a grin tugged her cheeks. The slyness protruding from her made him wince. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little bit too comfortable?”
The air in the room had turned bone chilling. Silence had fallen on them once again,occasionally broken by the cars driving near the apartment, only reassurance for Dai whose heartbeat was going through the roof.
“S-sorry.” he murmured more out of fear than sincerity speaking. “This is just...so confusing...I-I don’t know what to make out of all this. It doesn’t even feel like my actual life...”
The girl leaned back in the chair and stared pensively at her half-full ramen cup. “Mh...Sad indeed sad indeed…” the level of disinterest was louder than her breathy answer, almost hurtful, especially spoken in that gentle tone she feigned. “Guess we gotta do this huh...”
“W-what do you mean?”
“It’s not another nightmare, don’t worry.” she glanced up at his worried face, literally caught him in the middle of that thought. “It will be just a normal conversation to clear up a few things about all this and your job. Sounds good?”
‘My job?’ Dai thought at first, then remembered the whole price of having gotten a new, even if confusing, life...and the idea of “cleansing good” still wasn’t something his sane mind could conceive. Staying silent, the devilish girl took the conversation in her hands.
“Well, I’ll start from something you already mentioned.” her tone was suddenly serious, dragging the guy out of his train of thoughts. “As you already imagined, you aren’t Dai. I simply sent your soul inside his body right after his last breath.”
“My soul...after his last breath- Wait, how am I even breathing then? If this body had shut down…It doens’t make sense.”
“I see you’re the rational type.” she gave the pleased glance of someone satisfied of having predicted something before turning back to serious. “don’t you think the soul is enough to keep someone alive?”
“I mean, it doesn’t make any sense…” Dai said before taking the last sip of lukewarm beer.
“It doesn’t make any sense, as much as what you experienced right?”
‘Touché’ he thought and instantly a smirk on the devil’s face grew wide; he was never going to get used to not think. It was pointless into denying what had happened, he had the proofs tattooed in his palms and one sitting right in front of him, unfortunately.
“So how do this soul work?” he asked as a way not to directly admit she was right and she played along.
“You can think of it as your life source. It contains all your memories, your personality, your powers, everything of who you are.”
‘Powers…’ Dai thought for a moment. It was something she had mentioned already if memory served him right. He considered asking about it, but desisted as she would eventually go over it anyway; hopefully.
“Obviously, that’s not all.” she went on, unbothered by his thoughts. “A soul needs a container where it can pour out all that stuff, hence, the body. In the Realm of The End you were just that, a soul in need of a new body. And that’s why you have that one, which would have been a waste to let it wither away.” she clapped her hands together as to wrap up. “All clear now with this?”
“I guess so…” the guy said while passing a hand on the back of his neck. His whole body felt cold, although there wasn’t a single breeze coming from the open windows. And it wasn’t just him, even the food in the plastic cup were cold, with the soup having turned into a more slushy consistency.
“Speak up.” the girl had sensed the doubts welling up in Dai’s mind and her imperative tone scared him into straight in the chair and hid his fidgeting fingers under the table.
“What...what happened to the previous owner of this body…?”
“You mean the real Dai?” she said nonchalantly, which caused the guy’s expression to sorrowfully shift. Albeit he knew he wasn’t the real one but just an unfortunate person with no memories. And yet, hearing someone say that so easily made him feel even more dreadful.
“A part of his soul is still inside you.” the girl said, elbow on the table and chin cupped in the hand, bearing the same exact cold calmness the whole time. “To make it brief and simple, normally a soul would wholly reincarnate in a newly born body when the previous one dies. However, since your soul took over moments before its death, the previous soul had not the time to fully say goodbye- Don’t worry though, it won’t cause any problems.” she hurriedly clarified at his darkening expression, which didn’t change immediately. Moreover, who would believe her knowing what Dai had experienced. (If they didn’t call him crazy in the first place.)
“Now that your questions should be out of the way, I’ll go with the next thing, probably the most important. Your job.”
“W-wait…” Dai interrupted her and was promptly rewarded with a stern glance. He didn’t desist. “About the powers…?”
“...I’ll get to that if you shut up.” she said curtly and stared daggers until he looked down submissively. “As you already know, your job is to kill good people and for that you’ll need to use those powers. Now before you start thinking how this is immoral, we aren’t talking about killing randomly, but other beings with powers, just like you.”
“So you mean other…Nylicts was it?”
“Not quite.” she shook her head, disappointed that she had to repeat herself on what being a nylict means already “First of all, the enemies you’ll have to fight are so called Zonnikies. In an ancient and forgotten language Zon means ‘Son’ and nikies for ‘Gods’, together they become ‘Sons of the Gods’. They called like this because it’s said that the powers came from them first.”
“Zonnikies...Sons of the Gods…” The sound of those words reminisced him of something that he couldn’t quite figure out what though and moved on. “So, even Nylict has some kind of meaning?”
“Ooh, you’re smarter than I thought!” she said, truly impressed and Dai looked at her in the with a scowl as if to say ‘Really?’ at that clear mocking. “ Ny means ‘No’ and lict means ‘Light’. And now that you know what a Zonniki is, I can tell you bluntly that Nylict is just a category of it; a really evil one. The worst of the worst.”
The way she emphasized those words, the same ones she had pronounced in their first meeting, worked like a remainder. A remainder that he wasn’t there thanks to her overwhelming kindness, but because his situation didn’t left him much choice.
“S-so...what is this ancient language you’re talking about?”
The girl shrugged. “You wouldn’t know it either way.”
“...But if you tell-”
“No.”
Dai scratched a cheek, clearly puzzled. “...and about the Gods-”
“Just a legend.”
The girl’s tone kept being stern, again, as if she was talking with a stupid child, too young to know anything about the world. “Uhm...ok, then...do I have to kill them? I mean those Zonnikies…”
“Mh…” she hummed while tapping the forefinger against her chin. “Let me think- Oh right!” she flashed him a cheerful smile, so sudden the guy was startled by it. “It’s that or you would die.”
“What?” he almost shouted, surprised more because of her placid tone than the actual truth. He expected the situation not to be a walk in the park but damn, a little bit of touch was something he was starting to miss, especially after seeing the worried faces of his colleagues; those were real humans.
“Maybe you’re a lost cause…” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Think about it. The worst evil comes back on Earth and you think other Zonnikies are going to watch your ascent? You must be more moron than I imagined if you thought so...” she chuckled, amused to...whatever funny bit there was.
The air around them was still cold and Dai was grasping at his pants in search for some comfort and courage to say anything; even though the situation wasn’t on his side at all. He opened his mouth to ask the umpteenth question.
Thud.
An heavy stomp coming from the other side of the room blocked his words halfway along with his breathing.
‘Foosteps?’ Dai’s blood run cold. The coincidence with how this was happening was unsettling.
Meanwhile the girl remained calm with an hidden hint of annoyance. “Well, looks like our chat ends here.”
Thud.
Thud.
Whoever was coming closer must have been the size of an elephant because the floor shook with each stomp.
“Jeez, if only you had asked less questions…” the girl griped as she got up and the chair drifted back, loudly scraping the floor. “We’ll talk about powers tomorrow, during your training.”
“T-training?” Dai muttered. Every drop of strength had abandoned him and he felt like becoming one with the chair as he sank in it.
“Did you think we were going without one? You don’t know what power I gave and you will need some tuning, otherwise…” she pointed at something behind him. “how could you beat someone like that?”
Thud.
In that exact moment, the footsteps stopped. Warm air brushed against his hair as someone heavily breathed out and a giant shadow had dawned over him, stretching all the way back to the wall.
Dai slowly turned around, shivering wholly.
Behind him stood a man whose bald head brushed against the ceiling and had an abnormally muscular physique, almost cartoon-like proportions. His dark eyes glaring down at him and the rounded and medium long grey beard, gave the impression of being an old viking, enhanced by the presence of multiple scars. One in particular caught his attention, what must have been a deep gash, going from the right shoulder to below the left side of his chest, passing right over his heart.
“A kid?” the old man’s voice was hoarse and grumpy and seemed rather displeased. “Guess, it will be easier than I thought.”
Beside him, spots of colour materialised out of thin air and expanded along an invisible surface until the form of a thick wooden shaft was visible, followed by the apparition of a big blade it was attached to; a double edge axe, stained with dried blood.
Dai was frozen in dazed fear as the man wrapped his giant hand around the standing weapon.
“Don’t take it personal kid.” the man sentenced before swinging the weapon back with both hands, then towards Dai’s neck.
The guy closed his eyes shut, waiting for that new nightmare. He couldn’t even think it was a good life for how short it was. He stared for multiple seconds at the faint redness from the light filtering through his eyelids.
“Oh? The big man is scared?” the girl’s voice sounded so breathy and closer than before. An arm rested around Dai’s neck, startling his eyes open.
The man was still in front of him, but now locked in a staggering expression with his entire body unmoving. His buffed arm shivered, in attempt to take control and push the axe through the girl, who was casually blocking the blade with a the back of a bare hand while comfily leaning against Dai.
“You should really think twice before messing with someone else’s toy.”
Dai’s eyes widened. Her tone was plain and gaze fixed on the man, nothing to be scared about really. It was what surrounded her that took him aback; a black flame the size of the room was coming out of her body. It was slightly transparent and the tongues of flame writhed around the edges enraged, probably the purest form of emotion the girl had displayed so far. It was so strong that it made Dai nauseant and he wasn’t the only one affected.
“Y-you..” the man said trembly, shivers having spread to the entire body. “They didn’t tell me you would be here-”
“Well, surprise then.” the girl said evenly. “Since you didn’t manage to touch him I’ll be merciful enough to give you a quick death.” she raised a finger of the hand hanging from the guy’s shoulder. “Bye.”
She lowered the finger, her guillotine.
After a second of nothing, a trickle of blood fell from his mouth and down his beard. His lips moved as to say something but only a groan came out. Bubbles of blood formed in the middle of his face before half of his body separated from the other in a perfectly straight cut from head to crotch.
A shower of blood drenched an horrified Dai while the blank faced girl had took a few steps back as the two halves fell to the ground with a loud thud.
The eeriness of the nightmare was back to haunt that moment- no, maybe it had never disappeared. Every sound from outside seemed to have vanished. Dai stared blankly at the puddle of blood expanding on the parquet, up to the split body, its insides-
He pressed a hand on the mouth and run, almost slipping due to the blood, to the corridor and into the toilet, where he kneeled in and puked his lousy dinner amid some panicked thoughts and sobbing.
‘I can’t do this! I can’t do this!! Is that what awaits me if I fail at my ‘job’? No, no, I don’t want to!!’
“But you have to.” behind him there was the girl already, talking in a matter of fact way. “We made a pact, you can’t go back.”
“P-please..” he crawled toward her, scraping the blood-dirty cladded knees against the floor and grasped at the hem of her weirdly clean nightgown. “I-I will do anything but not this! I simply can’t do it!” he showed his marked palms. “If you want this back then cut my hands!! I can live without them!!”
But the gaze he was met with was one of indifference. A sigh coloured it.
“You’re tired. Go to sleep.”
That sentence. That unconcerned tone. Her manners. All of that made his blood boil with exhausted rage and spoke with gritted teeth:
“Do you really think going to sleep will solve any-”
The girl’s fore and middle finger touched his forehead. The sound of a drop falling into a body of water filled his mind, bringing an ethereal sense of peace.
“-thing…” Before he knew it, he collapsed onto the ground, asleep.