Chapter 25
Akage was walking down the empty street. It was getting late and he had to get home. As the sun was setting, Akage reached the apartment that he lived in alone. He walked in and felt the emptiness of the apartment. Akage had been an orphan for a long as he could remember. His brother had left about a month ago and Akage hadn't heard from him since. He'd had to drop out of school since then and start working to pay rent and buy food. He shook the thoughts from his mind and walked to the refrigerator to get something to drink. As he began to take a sip from the can of soda he'd grabbed, there came a knock on the door. That was strange. Akage hadn't been expecting anyone. He walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Outside his door stood four kids about his age. A cute girl in jeans and a pink hoodie, a guy in jeans and a t-shirt, and two absolutely gorgeous twins in jeans. One was wearing a purple hoodie, while the other was wearing a blue one. All of them looked familiar, but he didn't know from where.
"Who are you guys?" Akage called through the door. The girl in the pink answered.
"Akage, we know that you don't know us, but we know you and we have to tell you something." She said. Akage could sense the urgency in her voice.
"How do I know that I can trust you guys?" Akage asked, suspicious.
"You don't." The girl admitted, "But you will. Ask me my name."
"What?" Akage asked, "Why would your name make me trust you?" The girl in the purple hoodie answered this time.
"Please Akage." The girl begged, "Just ask her what her name is." Something in the girl's voice struck a cord in Akage's heart. Something in him needed to listen to her. He paused for a moment. Then he spoke.
"Fine. What's your name?"
"My name is Saiai." She said. Akage's head exploded with images. Memories of this girl and the people she was with. Memories of demons and death. Emotions that he'd never felt before. All of these flooded his mind all at once. He dropped to his knees. A few moments passed.
"Akage?" Sai called out, "You alright?"
"Yeah." Akage said slowly, "Yeah, I'm good." He stood up and unlocked the door. Nami burst through and hugged him tightly. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. The rest of the group walked in as Nami broke away from Akage. They greeted each other as if they'd known each other for a long time. Akage led them to the living room of the apartment where he had some places to sit. After everyone had seated themselves, Akage spoke up.
"Ok guys, what the hell is going?" He asked, "I've got two conflicting sources of memories floating around in my head right now. I want to know why."
"So do we." Kaze pointed out, "But we have no idea what we're looking for. All we've got to go on is one memory from Sai. Apparently something pushed her into a well. As far as we can tell, that's her last memory of before and it's what caused her, and maybe us, to be here."
"So something is after us?" Akage asked.
"Yeah." Sai said, "From what we can tell from these memories, it's a demon."
"Dammit!" Akage cursed, punching his chair, "This is insane!"
"It doesn't end there." Nami said.
"What?" Akage asked, incredulously, "How could there be more to this? This is-"
"Akage." Sai interjected, "You and I are half-demons." Akage was stunned into silence. "It's crazy I know, but that's what these memories say. Supposedly I'm half dog demon and you're half phoenix demon."
"What the hell is this?" Akage shouted, "What are we supposed to do with all of this information? We've been flooded with a lifetime of random images and emotions and, somehow, we've gotta piece all of this together and do something about it. How?" No one answered. Nobody knew or even had the slightest idea. Akage sighed, trying to calm down.
"I'm sorry guys." He said, "I know you guys don't know anymore than I do. It's just that this is really frustrating." Everyone nodded.
"We get it." Umi said, "We want to know what's going on too. This is all really confusing."
"All we can do is stick together and wait for something to happen." Sai pointed out.
"What should we do about our parents?" Nami asked, "They'll worry about us. Especially you Sai. You're missing from the hospital."
"Hell if know." Sai admitted, "What I do know is that this seems a little more important."
"True enough." Kaze said, "But we can't just sit and wait, we need to do something."
"Like what Kaze?" Nami asked.
"We've gotta find this well that Sai came through." Kaze said.
"What? How do we even know it still exists?" Akage demanded.
"If that well is the link between the two worlds, then the other end has to exist somewhere." Kaze explained, "So really our only option is to ask around looking for a well with strange properties."
"Kaze that could take forever." Umi pointed out.
"It's better than doing nothing." Kaze said.
"But-" Umi started before Sai cut her off.
"Guys!" She said excitedly, "I think I know a well we could try!"
"That's amazing!" Nami cried, "What's it called?"
"If I remember right, it's called the Bone-Eater's Well." Sai said, "There's some crazy legend about things disappearing through it. I feel like my mom was telling me about it not all that long ago."
"That's as good a place as any to start." Akage said, "Let's go!"
"Hold on." Umi said, "It's getting dark outside. We should at least wait until morning."
"She's right." Nami agreed, "We're not prepared to deal with whatever is there to begin with, let alone at night."
"True." Akage said, "Alright, I guess we're all sleeping here tonight." Everyone nodded. Akage got up and raided his fridge. He got everyone something to eat and then flipped on the massive flat screen tv that he and his brother had stolen a few months ago. No one really seemed to care about that at this point anyway.
A few hours passed. All of them talked. They were trying to figure out who they were and who they were in relation to everyone else. No one really got anywhere. Sai and Kaze tended to gravitate towards each other, though, until eventually she was sitting in his lap with his arms around her. The same thing happened with Akage and Nami, though, they settled just to be next to each other. Umi just sat in front of the tv watching the news. She was the first to fall asleep. Then Sai and Nami followed until it was just Kaze and Akage awake. Kaze started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Akage asked.
"It's just that everything has changed so quickly in our lives." He said, "Before today, my life was normal and boring. Now I find out that I'm in the middle of this whole world switch-up thing. I broke up with my last girlfriend two months ago and never thought I'd fall in love. Now I've got this beautiful girl in my arms that I just met, yet I fell like she's my wife or something."
"I gotcha." Akage said, starting to chuckle along at the absurdity of it all, "My life has been crazy. My brother and I have always had to fend for ourselves, but he left about a month ago. Ever since then, it's just been me. Now all of you are here. I've never had a girl that gave a damn about me and now I've got Nami."
"I really hope that we find something at this well tomorrow." Kaze said hopefully, "Maybe it can explain all of this."
"Yeah, I do too." Akage agreed, "But we should get some sleep. We're probably going to need it." Kaze nodded and the two eventually drifted off to sleep.
Kiretsu and Mageru sat on the roof of Akage's apartment building. The moon was high in the sky and the air was cool.
"Damn." Mageru said in surprise, "Those kids worked all of this out faster than we thought."
"Yes, but the most difficult part of the test is still to come." Kiretsu pointed out.
"Do we really need to put them through that?" Mageru asked, "I mean, I think they've proven themselves enough."
"If they want to defeat Konton, then they'll need to discover their inner abilities and the quickest way to do that is by following our plan."
"Fine, but if they die, it's on you." Mageru said, standing up. Kiretsu followed.
"I know, brother." He said, "But I'm counting on them surviving." And with that, they disappeared into the night.