Disclaimer: All Standard Disclaimers Apply.
Kengo sighed. He had continued searching until after the sun went down, but when the moon started to rise he gave up. He couldn't find Akira anywhere, and was becoming increasingly worried. This really wasn't like him, to disappear without a trace...
Well, it had happened more frequent lately, what with these strange unexplained absences occurring more and more often as the school year wore on. But on those days Akira would usually text him, letting him know that he wouldn't be in school on that day and telling him not to worry. Kengo never told anyone, but the fact that Akira only contacted him and not any of the other, more popular kids made his heart feel like it was floating on a warm breeze in his chest.
Still, he had no idea what Akira was doing on those days he was absent, and he couldn't help but feel left out, or even that his friend didn't trust him. He also felt a strange sense of worry, almost like a dark little voice was whispering in his head that Akira might not come back.
That had never happened, of course. Still... Kengo sometimes asked himself why he worried so much when Akira disappeared. Sure, Akira was pretty much his only friend, and losing him would be devastating, but it was more than that.
Sometimes, he felt like if he took his eyes off Akira for too long, the other boy would just disappear, bursting like a firework and then fading into the night until he was nothing more than a memory...and then not even that.
Suddenly, he heard what sounded like a crash, followed by a wordless yell. Startled, he stepped off the sidewalk and into a nearby alley, wondering if somebody needed help. Stepping around knocked-over trash cans and crates, he arrived at the scene of an ongoing fight.
There were two participants, from what he could tell; a boy and a girl, both looking a little roughed up. As he watched, the boy slowly edged towards the girl, and something in his hand glinted. Kengo blinked. Was that a knife?! Holy-
The girl swung a shinai at him and he moved back out of her striking range. But not very far. Kengo watched as he slowly advanced, then swiftly retreated when she lashed out. It was like watching a cat toying with a cornered mouse, backing away every time it threatened to bite while slowly wearing it down.
Kengo had seen enough. That girl may be holding her own now, but that couldn't last forever. She needed help. Clenching his fists, he strode toward them.
"Hey you!" he yelled in their direction, hoping to distract that guy long enough for the girl to escape, or at least catch her breath. As they both turned to look at him, he leveled a glare at the guy with the knife. "Leave her alone!" he added, just in case there was any doubt whose side he was on.
The girl blinked at him, then let out a surprised breath. "Kengo?" she said in disbelief.
Kengo stopped, momentarily surprised. Did he know this girl? On closer inspection, she did look kind of familiar... And then it hit him. "Aya?" he responded in shock. What the heck was she doing here? For a moment he wondered if she'd come looking for him because he skipped school, before he realized that was absurd.
Shaking his head, he focused his attention on the guy who was attacking her. Explanations could wait. Right now, they had some butt to kick.
Meanwhile, the guy whose butt needed kicking had watched the entire conversation without moving, his face hooded in shadow. Seeing Kengo start forward again, however, he smirked. "More cattle, eager for the slaughter?" he mused. "This just keeps getting better and better." He licked his lips. "Okay. If that's what you really want, then who am I to stop you?" He dropped into a half crouch, his knife glinting wickedly. "Come and get it."
Kengo tensed. He'd fought a lot of people before, guys who'd disliked Akira because he'd been more popular or better looking or beaten them at some sport. At first he'd mostly just gotten himself beat up, but after awhile he'd learned how to read his opponents and their moves, and he'd taken the hits better and even learned to punch with some accuracy. But this guy...he was different from all those other guys. Kengo could feel the bloodlust radiating off him.
Suppressing a shiver, he continued walking forward until he had the guy at angles with Aya. Surely, with the two of them together they could handle him. Swallowing down his fear and the dark little voice in his head that told him to run, Kengo prepared to engage.
[Black and White]
Akira ran lightly and quickly across the rooftops, jumping huge distances to get from one building to the next. Shirogane led and Kou followed closely behind, on the alert for any signs of a threat. The two seemed to have reached a grudging truce, as least while there was a crisis happening.
Akira wondered again what was really going on. Yes, they'd informed him that he was the reincarnation of the dead king of light, but he still got the feeling that there was something they weren't telling him...
Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts. He could think about all that later. Right now there might be someone who was in trouble out there, someone who needed their help. He wouldn't allow his own confused thoughts to cost some innocent bystander their life.
Shirogane steered them towards the place where the incursion of darkness was thickest, not bothering to watch out for anyone who might see him. Akira had heard earlier that Shirogane, along with the other shin, could not be seen by the people of the light world because they were beyond their range of detection or something. Akira and Kou were not so lucky. They both had to be careful so that regular people didn't notice them performing impossible physical feats while they ran across the rooftops. This wasted valuable time as they transversed the city, and chafed on Akira's nerves. He just wanted to run straight to the scene, and people's perceptions be damned. But he had promised that he would obey Kou's and/or Shirogane's orders, so he had to go along with it even if he thought it was stupid.
By the time they arrived at the scene, things seemed to have escalated into an all-out fight between the shin and a couple of humans...which was pretty strange, when Akira thought about it. Humans usually couldn't see shin, much less fight on par with them, so to find a couple of humans actively fighting against one was a rare sight indeed. Still, it looked as though the two of them were in trouble. They were gradually being pushed back by the shin's superior strength and speed, and had been forced into a corner. While they were bravely holding their own, it wouldn't be long before they were overrun.
Akira summoned his blades of light and prepared to leap down and help.
"Wait," Kou said suddenly, throwing out an arm to stop him. "I should be the one to handle this. You hang back."
"No," Akira said immediately. "I told you, I'm coming along to help, not wait in the shadows while you make sure its safe for me to breathe."
Kou opened his mouth to retort but before he could, Shirogane unexpectedly spoke up. "I'd like to see what the boy can do," he said softly, while giving Kou a look. "I think he should join us."
Gritting his teeth, Kou turned to Akira. "I said you had to follow my orders, no matter what they were-" he began.
"No," Akira interrupted. "You said I had to follow your orders or Shirogane's." He turned around to look at the silver-haired shin.
After a moment of glancing between Kou and Akira, Shirogane nodded. "Go," he said simply.
Grinning, Akira leaped off the roof. Behind him, he heard Kou yelling "What are you playing at?!" and could have sworn he heard Shirogane reply "Well, maybe you shouldn't have put so much sugar in my coffee."
Descending quickly yet silently, Akira landed facing the rogue shin's back, just far enough away to avoid detection. He would've liked to have been even farther away, but the narrow alley made that impossible.
Hefting his knives, Akira advanced as silently as possible towards the shin, who had pushed the humans into a corner. Concerned, Akira tried to peer over the shin's shoulder to catch a glimpse of them and see if they were all right. Well, at least they still had all their limbs attached-
Wait. Squinting, Akira tried to make out their faces. Something about them seemed awfully familiar...
And then the penny dropped. Oh my god, how did Kengo and Aya...?!
Trying and failing to swallow down his panic, Akira abruptly charged forward even as Shirogane and Kou landed beside him. Kou reached out to grab him, but missed, and the next thing any of them knew Akira was swinging a blade down on the shin's shoulder.
The shin, to his credit, noticed the incoming attack perhaps two heartbeats before it landed. He was able to swerve out of the way, but the knife still caught him, ripping his sleeve and drawing a crooked line down the outside of his arm. He cursed, backing away.
Akira rushed to the side of his friends. "Are the two of you okay?!" he yelled, frantically looking them over for wounds. They both had cuts on their faces and hands, and probably in less noticeable places as well. But they were still standing, with looks of haggard defiance on their faces. They stared at him, wary confusion in their eyes, and Akira realized they didn't know who he was. Well, they may not be able to recognize him in his rei form-
"Akira?" exclaimed Aya. Or not.
"Why are you here too?" she continued, for some reason giving an annoyed look to Kengo. "And what happened to your hair? And your...eyes? Are you cosplaying or something?"
"Later," Akira hissed at her, staring at the shin.
For his part, the shin had watched this whole exchange with a faint scowl on his face, holding his arm. "You cut me," he said to Akira, with a mix of disbelief and accusation in his voice. His one eye blinked repeatedly and then narrowed, while the other remained concealed behind an eye-patch.
Akira suddenly felt an unexpected surge of rage. This guy had been cutting people up for weeks now, and when someone else gave him a scratch, they were in the wrong? Looking back over at his friends as their blood dripped onto the pavement, Akira knew that this guy needed to be taught a lesson.
"I'm so sorry," Akira replied in a sweetly acidic voice. "Would you like me to give you a more serious injury to take your mind off it?"
Kengo and Aya stared at him. Akira was usually easy going, and it was rare for him to lose his temper. But now he had, and there were going to be consequences.
For somebody.
The shin sneered. "You can try," he smirked. "But I don't think that you-" Suddenly, he stopped. "Wait," he frowned. "You're a rei?" he said in disbelief.
"Yes, he is," came a voice off to Akira's left. Kou was striding forward, placing himself between Akira and the shin. "And so am I," he added. "So why don't you pick on someone your own size, for a change?"
The shin sneered. "Right," he said. "Well, I guess you could be fun to play with." He glanced at Shirogane, only to do a double-take. "What?" he said again, blinking. "Are you another shin?"
His repeated surprise would have been comedic if the situation hadn't been so serious. "How can that be?" he continued. "I would have known if any new people were joining."
This comment didn't make a whole lot of sense to Akira, and at the moment he didn't really care. He turned to Shirogane. "Shirogane, can you please take my friends to safety?" he asked. When he looked ready to protest, Akira added, "Please. They're hurt."
Gritting his teeth, Shirogane did as he was asked. He strode over to the two of them, unceremoniously picked them up, then leaped onto the roof of a nearby building, bounding away with one human under each arm.
"Alright," said Akira, hefting his knives. "Now, let's see how much fun you can have with us."
I seriously WANTED to put more action in this chapter…but it was not to be. Sorry about that.
This chapter was originally supposed to be longer, but I started school, so that didn't happen. *sigh* I wanted to get this out there so I could keep my self-imposed deadline, but the result is a slightly truncated chapter...
Still, I kind of knew that I was going to have to split up this fight into two chapters (otherwise the whole thing would have been MASSIVE), and at least now I'm not cutting you off in the middle of the fight, right? (Please excuse the unintentional rhyme.)
And the best part is that now, I can guarantee there'll be action in the next chapter. See? I even italicized it. It's guaranteed. Or your money back! Yes, that's right folks! if there's no action in the next chapter, I will personally refund all of the money you paid me to read this! A full $0.00! XD
But in all seriousness, I'll find the time to get the next chapter out, and there will be much kicking of the butt therein. Look forward to it!
