The first thing I saw was those bright red eyes of hers. Laying in her mother's arms, she stared up at me in wonder. Reaching out, I held her for the first time. She was so small, and it felt like I could break her just by squeezing her tightly. Returning her to my wife's arms, I was overcome with joy. I was a father, and I had a beautiful daughter. However, I quickly became confused. The doctors had warned me there was a problem, yet both my wife and daughter seemed fine. Sensing my thoughts, my wife gave me a sad smile. In the span of a few seconds, I was overcome with anger. When my daughter was born, the doctors had discovered her red eyes. Upon that, they offered to euthanise her so that my wife did not have to do it herself. Luckily, my wife loved our daughter enough to refuse that. After another few minutes with my family, I was called outside to talk to a doctor. He wanted to know if I wanted them to euthanise my daughter. Looking at him coldly, I told him to never ask me such a thing again. Walking back into the room, I promptly told my wife that we would leave as soon as she was ready. After two hours of waiting, she was finally discharged from the hospital. Once we were back home, we went about deciding on a name. After hours of deliberation, we decided on the name Kohina, after my grandmother. Rocking her in my arms, I smiled at her sleeping form. Kissing her on the forehead, I left her to sleep.
Taking a few steps at a time, and almost falling over once, Kohina managed to cross the room to envelop herself into my waiting arms. While it was not a very large distance, I was still proud of her for doing it. She had attempted this twice before but her previous attempts had ended with her crawling part of the way, instead of walking. Picking her up, I brought her to the table to reward her for her accomplishment. Of course, walking across half the room wasn't good enough to deserve a reward. Watching her joyfully eat her ice cream, I wondered if she noticed that I had slowly walked backwards when she was trying to reach me. My wife had thought that covering half the room would be enough, but I believed Kohina could do the full distance. Knowing that Kohina may give up if she thought that she had to cover the whole room, I had started halfway, and slowly backed up. My wife did not seem to mind this, and she got a good laugh at Kohina's apparent cluelessness about what I did. Watching Kohina stuff her face while my wife kept congratulating her on the accomplishment, I could not help but smile. It warmed my heart to have the caring wife and lovely daughter that I had, and I never wanted it to end.
I was busy preparing dinner while my wife and Kohina were at the park. I wanted make something nice for my wife, to thank her for all the hard work she had done for the last three years raising Kohina. Glancing at the clock, saw that it was almost time for them to get back. Quickly setting the table, I made everything look as nice as I could. Taking the food out of the oven, I set it on the counter to cool while I got cleaned up. Once I was ready, I started putting food on everyone's plates. Taking another glance at the clock, a frown formed on my lips. They were running later than I expected, and I didn't want the food to get cold. Turning on the TV to pass the time, I grabbed my phone and attempted to find out when they would get back. After phoning my wife three times with no response, I started to feel nervous. Before I could phone her again, the TV caught my eye. A news reporter was at the park talking about a lynching that occurred there. My whole world seemed to fall apart when I recognised the park as the one my wife and Kohina were supposed to have visited. I rushed out the door, hastily forcing my feet into my shoes, and ran towards the park. Along the way, I kept repeating to myself that they would be fine and that it couldn't have been them. Arriving at the park, a police officer came towards me to stop me from getting any closer. Forcing my way past him, I felt my heart shatter. Collapsing to the ground, I let out a wail. Lying on the ground was my wife with a pool of blood beneath her.
A week later, I was able to bring Kohina home from the hospital. Finding out that she was alive had been the only thing that kept me from going insane. She had been sent to the hospital with such bad injuries that I had thought she wouldn't make it. However, her injuries had healed at an extraordinary rate, leaving her mostly fine. The hospital had kept her there for a week to make sure she was okay, as well as to run some tests on her. I learned from them that others like her, cursed children, healed themselves very quickly, like gastrea could. It angered me that people would attack a three year old girl just because of the colour of her eyes. Shaking my head in bitterness, I opened the door to be greeted with the mess I had let the house become. Placing Kohina on the couch, I began cleaning up. I subconsciously began adding up how much money I would need to replace all things I had destroyed in my rage. Grimacing, I started to throw away all the things I had broken. Wary of letting Kohina cut herself on some wood or glass, I had her wait in the only room that had survived my rampage. After spending hours cleaning up, I made some instant food for us to eat, not having the energy to make a proper meal. After we ate, I left the dishes in the sink and had us both get ready for bed. Sensing that Kohina was about to start crying over the loss of her mother again, I grabbed her and brought her to my bed. Hugging her close to me, I thought of what happened to my family. If people would do that to a family just for having a cursed child, I found it hard to believe that humanity deserved to live. After hours of tossing and turning, we both drifted off into a restless sleep.
After lots of training and hard work, Kohina and I walked out of the IISO building with smiles on our faces. We had both received our civil officer licences, and were now a pair. Although I was worried about letting Kohina fight, I also knew that I needed to get her the corrosion inhibition shot that initiators received. We both wandered around the city looking for a good place to get some weapons. Finding a place that sold weapons to civil officers, we both entered it. Browsing their gun selection, I could not help but frown at their small selection of pistols. During our training for the licences, I had discovered that I preferred pistols over larger weapons. I picked up a pair of Berettas to get a better look at them. While inspecting them, Kohina ran over to me to look with me. While gazing at them, she suggested that they would look better if I could attack some sort bayonet to them. Finding her idea amusing, I questioned the shop keeper if such an arrangement would be possible. To my surprise, he agreed with her and went about making a few sketches of what they could do for me. When he was done, he showed me his mock-up of a set of Berettas with folding bayonets. Shockingly, I quite liked them, and I ended up ordering them. Walking over to the sword section, I browsed their bladed weapons to find something suitable for Kohina. After twenty minutes of swinging different swords around, she decided on a pair of short swords. After buying them, we went home so that she could get a better feel for them. Together, we spent the rest of the day doing small mock battles against each other. After dinner, I took out the shot for her, and attempted to give it to her. After struggling with her, I finally resorted to bribing her with ice cream for her cooperation. After administering it to her, I gave her the payment for her cooperation. I could only hope that the shots would help with her corrosion rate, as I could not stand the thought of losing her. I watched her eat her ice cream with a sad smile, knowing that even if the shot worked, she would still have a much shorter lifespan than I did.
Having finished off a stage one gastrea, my heart seemed to stop beating as I heard a scream. Turning around, I saw my daughter take a heavy hit from a stage two gastrea. Before I could rescue her, she took another blow but to the head. Watching my daughter drop unconscious sent me into a rage. With both my guns, I opened fire on the gastrea, shooting it as quickly as possible. Once out of ammo, I charged at it while unleashing my Maximum Pain on it. Crushing it against the rock, I quickly reloaded my guns and emptied them into it to make sure it was dead. With it taken care of, I ran over to Kohina's unconscious form laying on the ground. I let out a big sigh of relief once I confirmed she was still breathing. The thought of losing the only remaining member of my family was too much for me to handle. Shakingly holding her in my arms, I promised myself that I would never allow this to happen to her again. Picking her up, I carried my seven year old daughter all the way home. It took two months after that before I allowed her to fight anything above a stage one gastrea.
Not even a year later we fought a stage three gastrea. It was the first time we engaged one by ourselves, so I made sure to keep an eye on her. Emptying my guns into it, I saw Kohina running towards me while screaming for me to move. I didn't understand what the problem was until I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head. Another gastrea had appeared and struck me from behind. Before it could get another attack off, Kohina forced it away from me. With the world spinning from my injury, I could only throw up my shield and hope that Kohina would be okay. Barely staying conscious, I watched as Kohina tore through the gastrea that ambushed me in a blind rage. Noticing the stage three charging at her, I tried to stop it, but I collapsed back onto the ground. She noticed it just in time to avoid the attack, and engaged it in single combat. Watching them fight, I could only pray that she would come out unharmed. After five minutes, Kohina was able to inflict a mortal wound to it. With it stumbling from the attack, I watched as she continued to inflict cut after cut to it. After another minute of a one sided battle, the gastrea was in several pieces, with cuts everywhere on its body. After stabbing it one last time, Kohina ran towards me with tears streaming down her face. Holding her, I slowly started to calm her down. After a few minutes of comforting her, we slowly made our way back home.
Going through the outer districts, we came across a young couple, probably in their early twenties. Eying us with suspicion, their faces showed disgust. Glancing down at Kohina, I guessed that it had to do with her red eyes. Although I wanted to ignore them, they started making their way over to us. Once close to us, the man spat on us. I looked at them in disbelief as they started ranting to me about Kohina, and how children like her should be killed. While they were busy going on about how Kohina was a monster, I turned to her and told her to kill them. Before they could comprehend what I said, Kohina had started cutting down the woman. Taking out one of my pistols, I took off the safety and cocked it. In one quick motion, I emptied the gun into the man, making sure to not kill him instantly. Walking over to him, I unleashed Maximum pain to crush him against the road. Kicking what remained of his body, I walked over to where Kohina was waiting. Hugging Kohina, I could only stare out into the distance as she broke down over the way people treated her. No matter how hard we tried, people seemed to always look down on us. I could not help but wonder just who we were protecting, and why we should help humanity.
Once we were home, I wrapped my head the best I could, knowing that I would have to make a trip to the hospital to get it checked out. Once we were both ready, we went to the hospital in the hope that I could get some strong pain killers. The whole time at the hospital, Kohina refused to leave my side, worrying that I would collapse at any moment. After being given some pain killers and being told to rest for two weeks, we went back home. After laying around for around an hour, I decided to take her to a sushi place as a treat for killing a stage three by herself, and partly because I didn't feel like cooking dinner. During dinner, I tried to ignore the gazes some people threw us, knowing that some of them probably suspected she was a cursed child. After dinner, we visited the park before going home. Kneeling at the place where my wife had died, I thought again about how cruel people could be. If people could be so cruel, then maybe it would be better create a mass extinction of the species. Chuckling at the thought, I took Kohina's hand and we started back on our way home. Once home, we both brushed our teeth and turned in for an early night. With her cuddling up beside me, I thought about how skilled she become as an initiator. Pulling her closer to me, I drifted off to sleep, dreaming about a world without all the cruel people.
For Kohina's tenth birthday, I baked her a small cake. While it wasn't as good as I would have liked, she could not keep the smile off her face at the thought of eating homemade cake. Fending her off from eating the icing, I sent her outside for a bit so that I could finish with it. Smiling while icing the cake, I decided to try out some fancy decorations. After a few minutes, I decided that it was best that I recognised my inability to properly make flowers out of the icing, and I removed my failure of an attempt at decoration. Once the cake was ready, I placed it out of her reach so that she could not take some before dinner. Deciding that Kohina would quickly grow bored of playing outside by herself, I decided to take her to the park with me.
Once at the park, she quickly dragged me into a game of tag. Knowing that I had no hope of catching her, I decided to cheat a little. Tripping over a tree root, I fell to the ground and remained unmoving. After a minute, Kohina came over with a worried look on her face. Once she was close enough, I sprang up and grabbed her. Her laughing brought a smile to her face, and I ended up laughing with her. After several more rounds of tag, and a number of other games, I decided it was time for us to go back. Grabbing on to her hand, I started leading her out of the park. Glancing at the spot I had found my wife lying in a pool of her own blood, I shook my head in disgust. Over the course of the last seven years, I slowly lost my faith in humanity. However, no matter how much I detested humanity, today was not the day for such thoughts. Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I put on a smile and led Kohina out of the park.
Once we got back home, I prepared her favourite dinner for us to eat. While doing this, she went and watched the newest episode of Tenchu Girls. Once the table was set, I called her over and we started eating. She really enjoyed the meal, and because it was her birthday, I decided not to call her out for some of her table manners. Once we finished and cleared the table, I brought some new plates and forks out to the table. Setting the cake in front of her, I sang her a quick birthday song, and waited for her to decide on a wish. After a minute of contemplation, she seemed to decide on a wish, and with a large smile, blew out the candles. After cutting us some cake, she quickly devoured her slice. After I finished my slice, I went and brought her the present I bought. Watching her explode with happiness at the Tenchu Girls DVD's I bought her brought a smile to my face. After being dragged over to our television, I watched some Tenchu Girls with her until it was time to go to bed. After she was ready for bed, I watched one last episode with her before bringing her to bed. With her tucked in and fast asleep, I took the time to reflect upon my life. Without a war, mechanised soldiers like me weren't needed. Combining that with the cruelty humanity could show cursed children, I wanted to restart the gastrea war. With that restarted, I would be needed again, and humanity would be forced to recognise to usefulness of the cursed children. Putting those thoughts aside, I gave Kohina a small kiss on her forehead and left her to have a peaceful sleep.
It was not long before I accepted the job from Kikunojo Tendo. All I had to do was cause trouble for the Tokyo Area so the New Gastrea Law would fail to pass. Knowing this would be my best chance at creating a world for us, I delightfully accepted the job from him. Of course, I planned on unleashing the stage five gastrea no matter what he said. Grabbing Kohina, we went to stock up on ammunition, food, medical supplies, and whatever else we needed for the next few months. As the job would be dangerous, I wanted to have enough supplies to last for the duration of the job, as well as for a few weeks for the aftermath of a stage five. Once we got an amount I thought would last, I took Kohina to go look for a place we could hide after being given the case. For the next week, we scouted outside the monoliths for any abandoned town we could find. After numerous treks, we found one I decided was suitable. After storing some supplies in the church, I took Kohina with me to look for landmarks that would help us recognise the town. After a few hours of wandering around, we went back to the Tokyo Area to wait for the case.
After a few days of waiting, I was informed that the person who was supposed to deliver the Inheritance of the Seven Stars was transformed into a gastrea, and absorbed the case. After receiving information about his last known location, I went to look for him, while sending Kohina to look for anywhere he may have ran off to. After a few hours, I ended up at an apartment that was reported to have had a gastrea attack. Entering the room, I found signs of a gastrea being there, but it had disappeared. Before I had the chance to resign myself to more searching, some police crashed through the window. When they raised their guns, I reflexively unleashed Maximum Pain on them, and crushed them against the wall. A few minutes later, the front door was blasted open, and a young man came running in. He had black hair, and was dressed in a black school uniform. After declaring myself to be the killer of the policemen, he attacked me. Although he was rather skilled, I quickly sent him into the wall. Before I had the chance to continue, my phone started ringing. Picking it up, I quickly talked with Kohina, who had gotten some more information on the gastrea. While talking with her, some more police charged in. With a few shots, I quickly dispatched them, enraging the civil officer. I blocked his attacks, not paying much attention to him, but focusing on what Kohina was telling me. However, he managed to get a good hit in, forcing my neck to twist. After ending the call with Kohina, I could not help but be shocked that someone like him had managed to land a blow on me. Taking an interest in him, I asked for his name, to which he introduced himself as Rentaro Satomi. After letting him know that no one could stop me, I leapt off the balcony to go meet up with Kohina.
A few days later, I got a call from someone working with Kikunojo Tendo. Rentaro's boss had done some snooping around into my backers. Due to this, they ordered me to kill Rentaro before his boss could find out their identities. Taking Kohina with me, we attempted to find him. After an hour of searching, we found a civil officer pair running through the forest we were in. Taking them by surprise, Kohina killed the initiator while I disabled the promoter. After a minute of interrogating him about why he was in such a rush, I found out that the gastrea with the case had been found. Shooting him in the head, I took Kohina and we rushed over to try and cut it off. Along the way, we encountered more civil officers, all of whom quickly died. After another hour of running and fighting our way through the forest, I grabbed Kohina and stopped. Ahead of us, there were sounds of some fight going on. Sneaking over, I peeked out from behind a tree to see what was going on. I saw Rentaro's initiator finish off the gastrea, which saved me the trouble of finding them. After Rentaro finished comforting her, he went and grabbed the case. Deciding that it was a good opportunity, I snuck up on him and grabbed him, throwing him away. At the same time, Kohina had snuck up on Enju and attacked her. To my surprise, he did not die when I crushed him with Maximum Pain. He called out to his initiator to run, which she hesitantly complied with. This caused Kohina to cry to me about wanting to chase her, to which I had to tell her no. Any more civil officers showing up would be a problem, so I wanted to grab the case and get out as soon as possible. Looking like she was ready to throw a temper tantrum, she reluctantly listened to me and attacked Rentaro from behind, severely injuring him. With one final farewell, I shot him and watched as he fell into the river. Grabbing the case, I took Kohina and we started our trek to the village we had found earlier.
It was not long before other civil officers arrived at the town. It was a large group of around twenty, but they did not seem to know my exact location. As I went to get into a good position to shoot them, Kohina circled around the town to get behind them. After counting to a minute to give Kohina time, I opened fire on the group. They quickly scattered into two groups, but I killed eight of them in the ambush. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kohina go after the ones to my right. Leaving them to her, I rushed after the other group of them. I saw one promoter running towards a building, and I filled him with bullets before he could get into cover. Right after killing him, an initiator tried to attack me, but my shield repelled her. Turning around, I shot her twice in the head, killing her instantly. Realising that I was almost out of ammo, I ran back to my original position and called for Kohina. Stopping to reload, a strong looking promoter with a large sword charged at me. Before I had the chance to use my repulsion shield, Kohina ran in and blocked the attack. Glancing at him, I recognised him as the same person who had attacked me at the civil officer meeting with the Seitenshi. Turning my back to him, I left Kohina to deal with him while I took out the rest of the civil officers. After a few minutes, the remaining people were dead. Walking back the pier, I noticed Kohina waiting for me. Checking her for any injuries, she complained that he had gotten way before she could kill him. From what she told me, I figured that he was going to die from his injuries anyways, so it was not worth going after him. Once I was sure she wasn't hurt anywhere, I went over to the pier for some fresh air. Letting the scent of the sea wash over me, I let out a small laugh. We were so close to our goal, and with all the civil officers we killed, we didn't have to worry about any more coming to us any time soon. Ruffling Kohina's hair, I gazed out at the ocean.
While standing on the pier, Rentaro showed up to the town. While it was unexpected, I was not very surprised to learn that he was still alive. I could tell from his voice that he was nervous about fighting me. I watched with interest as Rentaro rolled up his right sleeve and pant leg, wondering what he was hoping to accomplish. Watching his skin peel off, leaving behind black limbs, left me in a state of shock. He introduced himself again, but as a survivor of the New Humanity Creation Project. Spreading my arms wide, I could not help but laugh. To think that we were the same brought a feeling I could not describe. Taking out my Berettas, I unfolded their bayonets and took a stance. Unleashing an attack, Rentaro met my Maximum Pain with a punch of his own, sending us both flying away. Coughing up blood, I stared in wonder at the blood on my sleeve. I felt a surge of adrenaline go through me at the sense of pain. Laughing, I spun around once in pure ecstasy. I was in pain, something I had not felt in a long time. Calming down, I prepared myself for a magnificent fight, which I could not let him win. After all, this was my war for me, by me. This was my chance to give me and Kohina a reason to exist, and I was not going to let anyone get in our way.
Author's Note:
I'd like to thank everyone for reading this story. I put a lot of effort into this, and I hope you got as much enjoyment out of it as I have. It's my first every fanfiction, so I hope it's not too bad. I've done my best to remove any mistakes, including rereading this multiple times, but I apologise if I've let any get through.
Instead of writing chapter 2, I have chosen to rewrite this entire chapter. To put in into perspective, the original chapter had 917 words, while the rewritten one has 4649 words. I would like to give a big thanks to TheGreatWhiteNortherner for this, as I would never have been able to make it as good as I have without his feedback. It is thanks to him that this chapter turned out much better than I had anticipated.
If you want more up to date information on my stories, including plans for future ones, feel free to check my profile. I'll try and keep it updated with information. (For Angelika, feel free to share this on that Russian site)