Chapter 3: Unexpected Kindness
I couldn't see anything but white noise, alongside the constant jitter an offensive clanging. It was a horrible noise, like the ringing of a church bell through a concert speaker.
As I tried to think, an insidious weariness suddenly gripped me, taking ahold of my core. I realized I was immensely exhausted; a vegetable sitting in front of a static television. The fatigue, so unfairly strong, that I questioned whether I should do something productive, but it's consuming ever fiber of you, a cruel prelude to what was coming.
Death.
I tried to blink and was shocked when I did. The fuzziness from the static faded, in return for the darkness of my kitchen. Somehow, despite everything, I was still alive.
Closing my eyes felt good, and I thought about just leaving them closed. That's when I noticed the black feathers scattered all over the floor, and my sense of reality kicked back in. The pain was like a splash of ice-cold water as I felt my lungs expand with air.
I shivered, drenched from the blood flowing like an open spigot from my stomach.
Severe pain and nausea assaulted me, and I was confident that the force of the blow must've cracked my ribs like a wishbone; with everything held inside squishing and churning from even the slightest bit of movement. I was terrified my guts would come spilling out at any moment.
"Dammit!" I overhead Sakura shriek; her voice was high and unnaturally manic. She gripped the kitchen counter and stood there—trembling with rage and clutching a bright, jagged light that mimicked a spear.
"Yet another failure…" She suddenly sighed and studied the crackling energy of her weapon, which reflected off her brilliant, mauve eyes.
The woman who I'd long crushed on, the brilliant doctor who would always help me sleep during the night, my guardian angel. And to think, only a week ago, that the last time I'd seen her was at the hospital, when she'd wished me a happy farewell on my reintroduction to civilization.
But she wasn't the sweet doctor I once knew. Not anymore.
Starting from her trapezius, a pair of large wings hung low, yet still managing to engulf the entirety of the kitchen space. They were raven-like extensions, darker than obsidian, a night-fueled shadow akin to the deepest labyrinths of the world's ancient, forgotten caverns. She was now an unworldly combination of beauty, terror, and the unknown. A monster.
I took a deep breath, hoping to exhale into the steadiness of a plan of action. My shaking was starting to subside, a sign that my body had already lost too much blood and was giving up trying to keep warm. I managed to survive, but the clock wasn't ticking in my favor. Eventually, my pulse and respiration rates would slow again and my remaining major organs would fail—including my heart.
I needed to escape.
My nails tore into the floorboards as I tried dragging myself away, formulating an escape while I awkwardly navigated the darkness. Nearly two-hundred pounds of dead, uncooperative weight, however, was proving to be a greater burden than I thought, and ignoring the fervent agony proved far too much as a miserable groan suddenly escaped me.
"How amazing. Even after everything, you still cling to life." She didn't move. "Are you in pain?" She asked, knowing I couldn't get away.
My breathing momentarily ceased as I glanced back and saw her looking around the kitchen, studying the damage left over from my fight. "Dohnaseek's idiocy never fails to disappoint," she sighed, finally looking at me. "I heard the fight and thought I would check who won."
"P-pick off the… winner?" I coughed up a glob of blood that awkwardly trickled down my chin. "Like your friends at my school, yeah? That g-girl with the red hair…?"
"What did you just say?" She asked me with a troubled look, almost as if she had reason to be afraid of what I asked. There was a slight moment of hesitation, but Sakura quickly got over it. As she got closer, I tried pushing myself away. My vision warped and grew fuzzy as she stood firmly over me, taking aim with her spear. "Don't worry, Issei. This will all disappear, we will all disappear—you will disappear."
I winced, expecting it to be all over.
The intimidating boom of lightning sounded off in the distance and Sakura suddenly froze. The living room window suddenly cracked into a milk-glaze and sagged in around a sizable hole, as an angry buzzing sound whizzed by.
Something fast and bright struck the doctor's wings, spinning her body and throwing her into the kitchen back with a crescendo of shattered glass before she slid into the floor.
Immediately after, a loud sound assaulted my ears, an awful noise like that of a liquid whip crack. I dropped my head, reflexively, and cupped over my ears, trying to block out the blaring ringing to no avail. "What the fuck?!"
Two more shots came in rapid succession, and I did my best to curl into a ball.
The living room window completely shattered, spraying nuggets of glass everywhere. One of the shots punched through the freezer door, leaving behind a depression roughly the size of a tennis ball. The last projectile struck the kitchen counter with a brilliant flash and blew a sizable exit hole through the sink, spraying a crescendo of water. I held my head down, while one of the cabinet doors fell off its hinges.
Everything went quiet except for the soft dripping of rainfall.
I waited a moment, anticipating more, but nothing happened. I quit impersonating an armadillo and started crawling again, trying to pull myself towards the broken window and escape what seemed like a maddening nightmare when I thought I saw something up ahead.
I lay there on the floor, breathing heavily, and waited. That primordial stem at the back of my brain shot a jolt through me, the same jolt that it'd sent through my ancestors' brains for a couple hundred thousand years, the jolt that told you something was coming, hunting for you and you were too far from the safety of the trees.
"Oh, hell." I swallowed. "You've got to be kidding me."
He knew where I was but was waiting to see if I knew where he was. It was a massive dog, a beast straight from the imaginations of Sr Arthur Doyle and The Hound of the Baskervilles. The hackles rose between his shoulders, and the sound resounded there had nothing to do with civilization. He walked on his paws with the shape of his own savagery: suspicious, hostile, and deadly, with orange eyes as still as a snake's.
He stood out there in the rain and darkness, watching me.
"Easy." He didn't hesitate for an instant, and it was almost as if my speaking to him had weakened my position on the food chain. My voice went out into the distance like a match dropped in the rain. I could easily see the great, gapping jaws now and the saliva dripping from his lips. He lumbered in the wet grass on the first few steps but switched into a graceful gallop.
Without difficulty, he launched straight into the living room, and I had that sickening feeling that there wasn't going to be any way to circumvent this scenario. The dog's mouth was a tunnel full of teeth, and he was fast.
I scrambled a hand across my body, but there was no way I'd make it. He leapt, and I have to admit at that moment I was stunned by the grace of the animal; the way the broad chest and magnificent head looked in the final moment of attack. A shame that I couldn't get a picture. But instead of tearing open my throat like ripping the skin off a Thanksgiving turkey, the great beast used my shoulders as a launching pad, bouncing off me and soaring high into the air.
It was at that moment I realized that I wasn't the target.
I watched in awe as the two of them rolled like a giant, fur-and-feather-covered wheel into the entrance corridor. Sakura screamed and reformed another of her light spears, but the dog lurched forward, slamming her into the wall. She redoubled her efforts, but the animal's wide head rammed her, flipping the black winged doctor sideways and backwards.
Sakura might have been faster, but the dog's muscle mass gave him the advantage in close contact. The dog stood there in the center of the pathway between us, the hackles raised on his swirling dark grey back that surged with a tide of muscle. His muzzle was wider than a wolf's, mastiff-like, with teeth like a saw-blade.
Sakura took in a deep breath and started to move left, intent on getting hold of me, but the dog shifted his weight, and I watched the spittle drip between his splayed legs. There was blood in the strings, but he showed no sign of weakening.
"Damn animal!" She snarled.
I had to give the doctor credit for concentration; even faced with the dog, she was still focused on me as her main objective. I noticed one of her wings seemed broken and a trickle of blood ran down her face. She sprang forward but was struck sideways when she passed as the dog closed his massive muzzle on the injured wing, and I could hear the sickening crunch from a mile away.
The pain was enough to set off Sakura, who shrieked with a bloodcurdling rage and kicked the dog off her torn wing. The dog tried to follow through with another bite, but was caught by a second wild kick that hurled him into the wall. He was quick to recover, however, and got right back.
With a flick of her hand, Sakura reformed another spear, but the dog countered by digging his claws into the floor in a false charge. My psychiatrist stood motionless, suddenly displaying a quiet, keen focus that reminded me of a prowling lioness.
As they faced off, I took in a deep breath and pushed up on my hands and knees. It didn't quite feel like I was standing right, but it was a miracle I'd pulled it off at all. I stayed there for a few moments, cradling my stomach and trying to get my adrenaline level back to approaching human.
I cleared my throat and caught my balance with a hand extended to the nearby couch. My left arm was inoperable; it didn't hurt, but it wouldn't work from the waist down and only flopped when I rotated my arm. "Jeez…"
My balance was still very off, and I put a hand on the coffee table, took a few more breaths, and got my voice back to a squeak. "Hey, you alright?"
He didn't turn to look at me, but his head cocked as if I were calling to him from another world. He raised his bloodied muzzle but kept his eyes on Sakura. "Good boy." I breathed out a great sigh. "Good boy." He was bleeding from his jaw, and his ear looked torn, but he wouldn't turn. I took a few more deep breaths and whispered the only word I could think of saying. "Hey, you're on my side, right?" I swear he glanced up at me with the expression of "What the hell else do you think?" I smiled and stood up to confront Sakura, confident that the dog had my back.
"Well? We doing this, lady?" I coughed, raising my fists like a boxer.
Sakura glared at me, pointing her spear forward like a rapier. "You were always a disappointment for us. Perhaps another 40 years on ice will do the trick this time!"
"Oh, go fuck yourself!" I shouted.
As if heeding my battle cry, the dog suddenly charged, flying at Sakura in the blink of an eye. The combination of his weight and muscle forced her backwards, but she was more than ready for him this time. His mouth slammed shut, but missed her completely as she flipped him over, the momentum forcing his jaws loose as he tried biting at her again with bone-crushing force.
Trying to help the dog out, I charged Sakura like a linebacker, slamming into her with my good shoulder. The doctor let out a gasp of unexpected pain, just as my hand located her shoulder and brought her down onto the floor.
Like a big, clumsy tumbleweed, the three of us flailed into the hallway. I rolled over, desperately trying to regain my footing, but my leg refused to operate. The scuffle had either broken the bone or hit the pressure points enough so that the thing was completely useless.
"Get off me!" I heard Sakura shriek, suddenly, as I was blinded by a great, encompassing light. I held my forehead tightly, struggling to fight off the weight of a concussion, just as the blinding spectacle suddenly flashed by like a laser.
Paralyzing, searing pain coursed through my shoulder as it suddenly exploded into a mist of red—the unexpected damage spraying blood, flesh, and muscle all over the floor and walls. I gasped and slumped backwards, nearly collapsing from the shakiness in my knees. The warmth of fresh blood quickly spread across my frigid chest, as I glanced in shock at the charred flesh and exposed bone.
There, imbedded through my shoulder like a flag pole, was a serrated piece of living energy, another spear of light, the very same weapon that I'd been stabbed with earlier.
"Stay there and quietly pass out, Issei." Sakura snarled as she shoved the dog away for a moment. "I'll deal with you, later."
I latched onto the counter for support, trying not to pass out, as I watched the dog struggle on.
He tried to get his massive jaws around one of Sakura's legs, but he was immediately caught by a brutal strike to the mane. The dog gagged on his own dribble, shortly before Sakura struck the animal again, battering him against the floor like some sort of stuffed rag-doll.
Frustrated and increasingly savage, she grabbed the beast by his thick neck and suddenly propelled him into the ceiling. He bounced and collapsed a few feet away from me, and it was clear that the fight was completely over.
I was next, as Sakura flew into me with the force of a front-end loader. Exhibiting unbelievable strength, she lifted me off my feet, bringing me to her face. "Worthless, impertinent child!"
"W-well, I am an orphan." Her eyes widened as I flashed her a bloodied grin, despite my injuries. I got a lucky punch at her head, but she still threw me sideways, where I slid along the floor and crashed into whatever was left of the refrigerator.
As she rushed at me again, I leveraged a fist loose and brought it forward with all the force my clumsy position would allow, the burning spear lodged in my shoulder making it a particularly more difficult task. There was a bit of a lull, and I took advantage and raised my head, but she was back on me in an instant.
"Maybe," Sakura snarled, "this'll shut you up for once!"
I shouldn't have exposed my throat because she started to choke me. I flailed with both fists, but I might as well have been striking the concrete floor. I kicked, but the weight of the doctor held me solid, and I was just beginning to feel the blood vessels in my head explode and my vision fail.
I could see flashes of light where there were none, and I could see faces in the flashes; women, they were all women. I could see the beautiful girl with crimson hair resting on the railing of a balcony, the full moon shining through the sides of her deep blue eyes. A cute, innocent blonde in Catholic attire, the first time I asked her to dance, and the gentle way her fingers first reached for mine. I saw a heart-throbbing girl with long black hair and violet eyes, lowering her face to me with her bathrobe undone. I saw a cat-like junior, her determined look in the weight room, and could only think, she's going to be just fine, that toughie.
There was splashing, the sound of scraping, and there were other voices above the roaring of a very angry Sakura. I made one last struggle to latch my hands around the arms of the woman trying to kill me, praying that all my years of weight lifting would suddenly pay off.
If I was going to die, something was going with me.
I heard a loud crack and felt a shift in my assailant's weight, just before the women's faces disappeared and my vision began to clear up. Back on his feet, the dog had leapt onto Sakura and savagely closed his muzzle over her shoulder with a bit force easily exceeding a thousand pounds per square inch. Blood spewed onto my arms as she wailed horribly. The grip around my throat lessened, but I held on tight, not willing to give her a chance to escape.
Sakura watched me in terror.
"My turn," I spat, "doc." Suddenly, arches of purple electricity, crackling and bending into a variety of webbed shapes, began to discharge from my skin, encompassing us in a supernatural light show. The sweltering sensation of heat flooded through me like a sea of lava trickling down an active volcano, spreading into each and every corner of my body.
Not risking the chance to get caught up in the destructive awakening, the dog unlocked his jaws and jumped to the side, leaving me to handle the rest.
Violently shaking from the heat, the spear imbedded in my shoulder abruptly shattered, sending sparks of bright energy everywhere. I could feel myself catching on fire, the wisps of unnatural flame puffing and discharging at random like the ignition of gas on a stovetop.
Desperately trying to pull herself away, Sakura screamed: "Let me go!"
"Sure thing." The adrenaline kicked in as I released my grip and launched a foot into her abdomen, kicking her backwards into the living room. I blinked, astonished by my own display of unparalleled strength.
"This is going to have take some getting used to." I shook my head and pushed off the kitchen floor, coming to the conclusion that I could stand again. With each breath, the fiery sensation grew and the strain of my life-threatening injuries disappeared.
Cradling her destroyed shoulder, Sakura struggled to stand up from where she'd landed. Behind her, the dog lowered his stance in a charge, but I raised a flaming hand to stop him.
I looked at Sakura, still feeling the returning intensity of the Dragon's power.
"What are you, doc? And more importantly, just what the hell am I?"
She answered with silence, squeezing together her fist into a ball with such vitriol that I could see blood drip from her tightly clenched, damaged fingers.
I felt my own anger build up, suddenly shouting: "Answer me, goddammit!"
"I'll see to it that I die first, before telling you anything, Issei!" All of a sudden, bright light flashed as another spear formed in her hand.
There was a couch behind me, so I stepped up and pushed off, launching myself into the air. I rolled my right fist like a cudgel and brought it down in a full swing with all my body weight into a blow that came from above, striking my doctor in the side of the head like a falling tree limb.
Considering how durable she was, I didn't figure it would kill her, but it might've come close. She dropped like a poleaxed steer, pausing for only a second at her knees and looking up at me with a face mixed with terror and disbelief, a heavy trail of blood starting from the top of her head and running down her soft, golden cheek.
"I-Issei—"
With all I could muster, I brought a heavy roundhouse kick to the side of her head, which bounced her off the wall. Catching her on the rebound, I felt her grow heavy as we both kneeled to the soft, carpeted floor. Our faces were only a few inches apart.
I watched as her eyes closed, then carefully lowered her into my arms, cradling her fair, beautiful body for a moment. The feint, continual drum of rainfall sounded outside as I sat there with my thoughts; the intensity of the Dragon's flames slowly dying down. The realization of the unknown surrounding my very existence suddenly caught up with me, and I felt sick.
With a deep sense of dread, I held tightly to Sakura, and looked outside at the downpour currently taking place in my backyard.
You think it's something you can just forget, but it isn't that way—it attaches itself to you.
Days spent on a rooftop, relaxed, with a new book in your hands; avoiding the nightly foot-traffic to explore the deciduous maples; the painful stretch in your biceps as you lift the bar possessing inhuman amounts of weight; or playing a game of chess with the women you'd long crushed on.
The very same doctor, now unconscious in your hands.
You then realize that you've never been normal. Never will be. That's when the darkness, held deep inside, encroaches. That's when your thoughts get dangerous.
And this is how things end, not so much with a bang but with a whimper.
Something wet nudged my shoulder, and I turned to get a better look at my savior. The dog sat besides me, his tongue nearly reaching the base of his muscular neck as he panted for air. I looked into his orange eyes and awkwardly nodded. "Thanks."
It was silent there in the destroyed living room—the only noise was his breathing. "So… so, w-what happens now?" I swallowed, trying to shake the lingering uncertainty in my voice.
He quickly stood up, and I watched as he walked outside, making a circle around the yard, then sitting down in the middle. I assessed my situation. I figured the smartest thing was to just stay put; then I heard the little voice that had gotten me in trouble my entire life, telling me that my injuries weren't hurting that bad, that my insides weren't spilling out, that my arm was still attached, that without Sakura… I didn't need to be afraid anymore.
I told the little voice to shut up.
It didn't. I lumbered to a standing position, trying not to look at the mess around me. Figuring I got the memo, the dog disappeared from sight as I stepped into the backyard.
"Great." I groaned. "It's just one thing after another today."
Leaning against the light blue wall and staring at the raindrops forming narrowing pools in my parents garden, I shook my head, took in the icy cold air, and began to make my may around the house.
"Issei, did you like piss off God or something?" I asked myself.
Letting the dog break ground, I followed, squeezing past the side of the terrace walls, dodging between underbrush, and wishing the pain in my side and shoulder would let up. Apparently, the awesome power of the dragon seemed to do a pretty good job at patching up life-threatening injuries, but I still felt like hell.
Despite the rain, I could see through the trees that the sky was attempting to clear and that a sliver of the moon had sliced through, giving out with a little more illumination. "Thank heaven for small favors." The dog took point as I slowly made my way through the house gate and into the street.
Empty. Not a single soul.
You'd think with the racket caused in the span of the last ten or so minutes, that the neighborhood with be flooded with curious and alarmed bystanders. Yet, there was no one in sight.
Pausing for a second, I took another deep breath and looked ahead to the dog, who was watching me from the next streetlight. "I'm okay. Honest."
He waited there until I started off toward him again.
There was still a dull ache from my side and shoulder, but it didn't feel like somebody was poking me with an icepick, so I allowed my mind to wander back to Sakura and the hospital. There was still so much that I didn't know. Maybe a trip to the library was just what I needed to jolt me from my malaise. Then I remembered the more pressing issue that supernatural entities have seemingly integrated into my daily schedule, and I had no idea where this dog was leading me.
Red hair…
"Why the hell are you thinking about her now, dude?" I shook my head. "Hey, don't go too far ahead of me now." I called out to him. Stumbling for a moment, I caught myself and stood there for a few seconds to get my bearings.
Stepping off again, I had caught my breath and had reached the last scramble before making it topside when the spots where I'd been stabbed came back with a vengeance. I'm not sure what was going on in there, but it was like something had blown apart and my tires were trying to run flat.
Swallowing, I lowered my head and trudged on, bending my back a little in an attempt to relieve the pain. With another stab of pain I felt a little woozy. "I'm… I'm okay…" I glanced up the road at a pair of approaching lights and started laughing. I laughed so hard I threw my head back and the next thing I knew I was lying on the wet concrete, looking at the left front tire of a vehicle.
The dog was barking and sniffing my head as I lay there, having difficulty breathing. The rain was running rampant, and I felt completely disorientated, so much so that I reached out and clung to the tire in hopes that I wouldn't be blown away.
The engine of the car was deafening, but I could hear voices and called out even though I was pretty sure they could hear me. I felt something blow against my torn sleeve and released the tire long enough to grab ahold of whatever it was. The noise and wind had died down a bit, so I risked opening one eye. The rain was still pouring, but I could make out that I was holding onto someone.
He was completely covered by a black slicker that trailed from his covered face to the ankles, where his steel-toe boots protruded. He wore a worn, greenish-grey ball cap, but I could make out that he had shirt dark hair. The specter didn't move for a while, and I half expected him to suddenly kick my ass, but instead he turned, nodded at the dog, then gently motioned for me to let him go.
His voice was rough but had an almost comical edge as he spoke: "Orphan; tragic."
I stared at him.
He gave one final glance at the edge of the street, and then turned back, popping the metal clasps on the stand-up collar one by one and pulling the black rubber-infused canvas back to reveal a mean pair of classic spectacles—and eyes hidden behind said glasses.
Motohama.
"Issei, dude." He grinned. "Boy, you sure live dangerously."