Chapter 1
Alone
(in a Dark World)
A dark, menacing, cloudy sky was the first thing Daisuke saw when he opened his eyes. "Hm? The sky is so… dark, menacing, and cloudy." he thought to himself accordingly. He didn't know where he was. The place appeared to be the ruin of some old building, and he was lying on the floor. "Is it a dream?" But he felt physically pretty uncomfortable for a dream, so he finally stood up, and cleaned off the debris and dust from himself. Looking around he noticed how the devastated the place was. "Where am I?" Far away he could barely recognize the landscape of Azumano. But… if this is really his hometown, then what happened here? And where was he when it happened? And how did he get here? He couldn't really recall what he was doing before he passed out, or where was he doing it. Now the time seemed to be evening, but it could have been daytime as well, since the dark clouds covered the sky almost perfectly, as far as Daisuke could see.
Suddenly, he noticed something. "Dark, you are awfully silent. Dark…? Dark, are you awake? Dark, do you remember what happened? Dark…?" There was no reply. And not only that, but he could feel the absence of the Master Thief in his mind and soul alike. Dark was not inside him anymore. He was alone in a dark post-apocalyptic ruin of his hometown. Daisuke had to comprehend the situation he was in. No more inner voice, no more help for thieving, no more useful knowledge about old artworks, no more Dark… Then, when he finally finished thinking…
"Yes! That's it!" Daisuke fist pumped into the air, and started jumping around jovially. Finally, he was alone. No more annoying inner voice, no more sharing the same body, no more embarrassment, no more Dark! Sure, the city around him looked as empty and destroyed as one can, but Daisuke still felt that it was the best day in his life. Now, with Dark being out of the picture, he can finally act as his normal self with other people. Speaking of which, he realized that he did not see any sing of human life in the area. A few rabbits wandered through the ruins from time to time, but people, walking on the streets or traveling by cars couldn't be seen anywhere. "What just happened here?" Daisuke started to wonder, if he was the only man left in Azumano…
"Over there!" shouted someone, instantly proving Daisuke's theory to be wrong. It wasn't a bad idea though, Daisuke told himself. A few seconds later, he was surrounded by a small group of girls. They had angry, suspicious look on their faces, all had a baseball bat, iron pipe, or some sort of primitive weapon in hand, and wear only white clothes. More strangely, they had some kind of clip in their hairs, taking the form of white wings. They looked somehow familiar to Daisuke; ha vaguely remembered them from school. Back then they weren't part of any street gang or crazy cult, though, as far as he could recall it.
"Hey you! Yes, you!" shouted one of them. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Huh?" Daisuke could have asked the same things.
"He doesn't seem to be a Black Chick. He doesn't even wear black!" added another girl.
"Huh?" A Black What?
"Yeah, well… it could be a disguise. We better punch him put."
"Huh?" Huh?
"Wait! Wait for me! I want to take a picture of your unfair fight!" a boy appeared next to the girls. He had a stupid smiling expression on his face, and a camera in his hands. Daisuke could recognize this person anytime.
"Saehara? Takeshi Saehara?"
"What? Daisuke? Daisuke, is that really you?" Takeshi jumped next to his old friend… old buddy… well, next to Daisuke, and put his arm on his shoulder. "Daisuke, pal, where the hell have you been? We were searching for you a lot. And what the hell are you doing right here?"
"I… I just woke up."
"What? You wanna tell me you've been sleeping for half a year?"
"Half a year?!"
"Yeah, you disappeared when the Great Explosion happened!" Takeshi moved closer and whispered into Daisuke's ear: "I gave it that name. It wasn't that great of an explosion actually, only this building got destroyed, but it sounds better in the news this way."
"What is this place, anyway?" Daisuke looked around one more time, but the immense amount of debris and the few half-standing pillars didn't give him much help.
"You pass out for six months and you don't even know where you do it?" laughed Takesi, loudly again. "Not that I did it on purpose", thought Daisuke. "Anyway, this is the Arts Museum. Or, it was once."
"Arts Museum?" What could have I been doing here? Did we try to steal something?
Takeshi turned on his new digital camera, and started to show pictures to Daisuke.
"Hey, buddy, check it out! This is me and the Arts Museum, on the night of the explosion. This is me and the policemen guarding the building, on the night of the explosion. Oh, and this is me and the building being exploded in the moment of the explosion." Takeshi seemed to be extremely proud of his work.
"You… took only selfies?" Daisuke was pretty surprised. Everything important was in the background.
"This is the new craze, duh. But no, I have a few old-fashioned ones too. And they are the most important. Look, this is Phantom Thief Dark entering the building on his wings. And a minute later… another winged gigolo, a white one follows him inside. A few more minutes later… the Great Explosion." Takeshi stopped for a dramatic silence. It was, however, broken at once by the girls standing behind him.
"He is not a gigolo, you dumbass." Yeah, you would like to have the looks he has." "And he is our savior too, who tried to stop the Phantom Thief from destroying Azumano." "You dumbass!"
The girls continued complaining to Takeshi, while Daisuke was busy thinking about what he has just heard. Krad was there too? And as the savior of the city? That certainly couldn't be the case, but what happened then? What were they doing in the Arts Museum? And the explosion… could it be that they are responsible for this? Sure, there were times when a mission didn't go as planned, but it never resulted in a Great Explosion and left behind such a terrible aftermath before.
"Ah, you can't help it, I guess. Crazy fan-girls." Takeshi turned back to Daisuke, giving up on his argument with the girls.
"Huh?"
"They are followers and fans of the white-winged gigolo. I don't worship that angel-guy as they do, but I wanna tag along to take pictures of the war, and the victory over the Black Chicks!"
"Huh?"
"It is obvious that Dark was the one who tried to annihilate the town. Still, he has his own fan-girls, who defend him, and blame the white-winged dude. But they don't stand a chance in this war, as we found far more feathers than they did. Haha!"
"Huh?" You can see now why Daisuke was unable to impress any girl, with verbal skills and a vocabulary like his. However, it's true that this much new information about fan-girl cultists, war, and some kind of feathers would shock anyone for a few days.
"Have no fear, Daisuke-buddy!" Takeshi put his hand on Daisuke's shoulder, looking confident "The White Chicks will defeat the Black Chicks, and win the war."
This was the moment when a huge group of girls wearing black ninja-like costumes appeared from behind the pillars and half-destroyed walls. They easily outnumbered the small company of Takeshi.
"T-the Black Chicks? Run for your lives! Daisuke! Run for your life!" shouted Takeshi, while running away as fast as he could. The Krad followers followed him. Dark followers followed them as well, chasing for who knows how long. Goes without saying, Daisuke was the first (and only) victim of the battle, being captured as soon as the enemy appeared, so he couldn't run for his life. Two girls attacked him with lassos at once, and tied him up so tightly, he could barely breathe. Soon enough Takeshi and his comrades were far away, and the ninja girls now all focused on Daisuke, standing around him and looking at him suspiciously.
"Leader! We captured on of them. He is, however… a boy."
Oh, why couldn't I sleep for another 6 months? Crazy fan-girls, war over Dark and Krad, and Azumano being changed forever… I always just wanted a normal life. But right now, I would even happily accept my not-so normal life I had before this great explosion. I just want to be with my parents, friends, and Risa again…
"Daisuke?" the leader of the Dark follower fan-girls looked down at Daisuke surprised. "Daisuke Niwa?"
"Risa Harada?"
End of Chapter 1
In the next chapter:
More information about the mysterious Great Explosion. Very important!
Daisuke can continue his unrequited love with Risa. Very funny!
Surface of deep feelings are scratched. Very emotional!
Crazy Fan-girls crawl everywhere. Very scary!
Another main character makes an appearance. Very surprising!
Author's note:
So that's how we start. As I promised in the summary, all main character from the anime will play a role in the story. The genre could be Adventure/Humor/Romance/Parody, and it's rated T just to be safe. I'll try to write chapters with the same length, but I expect myself to fail with this, so there will be probably short, and shorter chapters. Yeah, I actually prefer short chapters over long ones. Around 1000-1500 words for each would be ideal, I guess.
Also, my native language isn't English, so please don't hate me for my grammatical and/or punctuation errors.
But, most importantly, please give some feedback! I will probably finish the story anyway, but it would be certainly nice to know what you think about it. Stay tuned!