Disclaimer: .eno retpahc ni s'tI
I bet you guys thought that I died or something, didn't ya! Well, Jin and Uwaki's pictures are on the page, and I'm in college now, so inspiration will probably come crashing in, along with a tight schedule.
Anyway, it's pretty obvious that this chapter is the climax. Everybody knows what's going to happen, and some might have brought some popcorn to enjoy the show.
Fugeru didn't think that he'd be taking such a risk that night. Really, his going there without any notice in any direction that he wasn't going to be home on time wasn't the safest thing to go through. He did it, of course, for the sake of jolting his mistress with an unannounced appearance, but she was more frightened than pleasantly surprised. Now, he couldn't bear to leave her alone; she was too shaken to not protect in some form. So, he took a few more even larger gambles, calling his wife on his cell phone to tell her that he wouldn't be home that night, then taking it upon himself to answer the door at all times. He could be seen, but right now, it didn't seem to matter.
Uwaki was in her bathroom, now, taking a bath, while he remained in the front room. She was still rather shaken up, and she decided that the only thing that could calm her down is to spend some time relaxing. The gnawing, still air around Fugeru finally got to him and he picked up the remote control. He pressed a button and the TV blinked on, the voice of some announcer gradually coming into existence like the sound of a siren coming closer. Fugeru began shifting through the channels for nothing particular. He just wanted movement and noise of some sort in the room; anything to keep the atmosphere from being so eerily stagnant.
Fugeru didn't take long to feel restless, so he took the phone up and called for room service to bring in some champagne for himself and his mistress. It looked ridiculous in his eyes that, although he was a wealthy man, he seemed bound to not have anything to occupy all of this dead time before him. Some punks were keeping him from doing anything that could jeopardize his lover, as well as his own position. He planned to surprise Uwaki and take her out to the nightclub and call his wife there, saying that he had to go out with a business associate. That situation wouldn't have been risky since everyone at that nightclub knew his little secret and kept it well.
Now, he has to calm her down and watch his shadow, just because of a gang brat.
He flipped through the channels again, then came upon a live report. A black woman, wearing bright red, kept a detached face as she spoke into the microphone.
"The News Channel 15 Van is at the scene of three recent killings. A body was first discovered on a balcony on the 32nd floor of this hotel a little after midnight. The body, identified as one Rushu Shuran, was determined to have had his spine broken in half after suffering many wounds from what appears to be a letter opener. The other two bodies were of two women, probably courtesans of Mr. Rushu, and have yet to have been identified. Their deaths were both by means of stabbing with the letter opener, and there are no suspects as of yet to who might have committed these murders. I have with me Mr. Boujin, the man who first discovered the bodies. Sir, how did you first notice the body?"
"Well, I was walking down the sidewalk, coming back from the store since I had to buy something to eat and I just noticed that my refrigerator was empty. Anyway, I was walking, and right when I was under the balcony, I heard a woman scream and--"
There was a knock on the door. Fugeru nearly grabbed his gun from his vest pocket out of fear.
"Sir?" came a young voice from the other side, "I'm here with the champagne."
Fugeru coughed and stood, straightening his clothes out as if to brush away the anxiety. "Bring it in," he ordered after he opened the door. The boy picked up the bucket on the whicker tripod containing ice and the bottle and placed it in the middle of the room, heaving a sigh before he faced his costumer and passed him the bill.
The billionaire signed it with the tip and was about to send the boy on his way. "Ah, wait. You've forgotten the glasses."
"Oh. Very sorry, sir. I'll get them immediately."
The service left again and Fugeru returned to the macabre story on the television.
Boujin was still talking. "It was so weird. I couldn't tell that what was dripping on me was blood from the body at the time. I saw something large, about the size of a large man, jump out and practically glide to the building across the street. I followed it until it disappeared among the rooftops. Then I looked back, and that was the first time that I had a good look at the body. As soon as I saw it, I froze. Then, I checked my face and started to wipe the blood off of my face out of panic. I was thinking like maybe the police would think that it was me because I was covered with the guys blood and--"
"I'm sorry," the reporter interrupted, "I have to stop you there. I just got word that we are about to go to break. May I ask about that figure you saw. Do you think that it was the killer?"
"I don't know. It could have been. But what could jump such a distance like that? No Human, that's for sure, but this does look like something that a Demon would do."
Commercials came. Some couple talking about life insurance took over the screen. Another knock came at the door. "Room service. I brought your glasses, sir."
"All right," Fugeru answered the door again, opening just in time to see the bellboy get impaled with a hand through his stomach.
Uwaki stepped out of the bathroom into the warm glow of her bedroom, feeling refreshed and much more at ease. She rubbed the towel on her head a little more before pulling it off and allowing her hair to fall down on her robe, then settled on the edge of her bed and grabbed a comb to work out any kinks that she might have gotten. The plastic teeth had just entered the strands when she heard a man screaming something.
"Honey..?" She cracked the door open and peered out into the front room. Her lover, Fugeru, had the look of alarm scratched onto his face towards a tall, long haired man with a familiar goatee.
He looked at the door as he dropped the bellhop's body. "Well, this is the room. 506," he looked back at Fugeru, "but nothing about you sparks any memory or feelings. I felt a gnawing, under-the-surface hate towards that man I killed, but there's nothing towards you," he said in a rather detached, analytic tone.
The upscale man was going through a state of panic. This person was not a gang member, he thought, and he killed a man? Did he kill that man at the hotel? "--but this does look like something a Demon would do." That bystander's quote went through his head.
"...Ma," he muttered at length. His hand finally moved, and he stepped back, his shoulders allowing him to reach into his vest pocket and... find nothing. He rushed his vision back towards the sitting place by the television. The colt had fallen to the floor when he grasped for it earlier.
"What are you looking at?" Piccolo called Fugeru's attention to him again. "I don't feel like hanging around, so I'm going to make this quick..." He stepped forward.
Fugeru retreated a few paces and shot his hand towards the champagne. He took the bottle by its neck and smashed the end off on the nearest hard surface, causing the green glass and its contents to explode upon the thick rug. He held it out in as threatening a manner as he could muster. "Don't think that you can knock me off and get away unscathed! I'll cut you up like a drunk in a bar would a guy that's hitting on his woman!"
Piccolo chuckled. "Oh yeah! I almost forgot what that looked like. It's really funny when all three of them are drunk, as I remember..." Then an unusual feeling washed over him. Where did he see that before? He felt that it might have an odd connection with what he's doing and that dream before...
Fugeru witness the attacker's eyes showing distraction, and took his chance. He lunged forward and forced the jagged material towards the man's chest. It was swapped out of his grasp with relative ease. It rolled over by the ajar bedroom door, leaving a pooling trail of champagne along the way.
Uwaki's brain was in such a scrambled state that she didn't think of calling the police immediately. She rushed to the phone in her chamber and picked up the receiver. All that she could hear is static, and lots of it. She tried dialing the police, but their voices were so incoherent that she was uncertain of what they were saying, and hung up. Since the penthouse was old, some of the wiring was a little shoddy, and her chamber phone was never right. The phone in the front room was the primary phone, but she'd have to get past that man.
The moment that she looked back out to see his current position was the moment that she would witness her lover's death. His skull was bashed in with one hit. His body fell backwards, half of his face a bloody indention, his eyes, wide and dead, looking to Uwaki. She stopped her squeal of fear with her hands and instinctively retreated back to escape the image. She knocked over an end table in the process, causing a lit oil lamp and a photo album to fall forward.
The oil lamp had gone out the door and reached the champagne, immediately catching the rug on fire, but she payed no mind. The album had opened to her days when she worked in her uncle's bar, and the picture of the infiltrating man was staring back at her. The same hair; the same beard; he didn't even gain one line from age on his face.
Being surrounded by flames so suddenly confused Piccolo for a moment. He saw no reason for the place to catch on fire like that until he caught sight of the oil lamp by the door. As he walked to it, he heard a scream break through the crackling of fire. It was a woman's scream. He opened the door to see who he really had to kill.
Uwaki's panicked face broke from the pictures to the man himself. Her involuntary scream had warned him of her presence, and she found that she could not scream again. The demonic man... Dorai Berumotto... was framed by the orange flames that were taking over the front room.
The cold, uncaring look on his face allowed a grin to grow upon it. He cracked his knuckles and leaned down to her. "You're the one that I'm supposed to kill, aren't you?" A guttural laugh came from his throat. "This makes much more since. You're appearance actually makes me want to twist your head off." Another laugh warned that this was his intention.
The few pitiful whimpers that she could make were very staccato and barely audible. She tried to move back, but her sudden stiffness didn't allow much mobility. Dorai's manner was as stoic as it had ever been, but it had an air of madness that she couldn't escape. It didn't really add up. He hadn't changed in all those years. He was even wearing the same uniform. What did it mean? Is he symbolizing something to her for her death? But he didn't even seem to remember who she was. She grasped around frantically for an answer, and, suddenly, what seemed most likely rolled across her tongue before she even thought it.
"Did she die?"
She couldn't say more than that, and she didn't have to. Dorai was struck in such a way that he stopped. His eyes were wide, even dilated. He wasn't even looking at her anymore; he was looking through her. Even now, the flames were licking his heals, and he didn't budge. Uwaki knew that this was her chance to run away, but she only managed to tumble backwards.
Her head flopped back to face the window, which was the only thing that wasn't bathed in the orange light of the fire. Lights; buildings; telephone wires; and stars above them all. She knew that no matter how much she didn't want to die, it would be futile to run. Even if she was able to flee, there would be nothing left. Her life was pathetic, and would become only more so. This was the first time that she realized this, and the first time that she cried over it.
Another scream came from her before she knew why she was screaming. She sat up and saw that her arms had both been twisted and broken. Dorai dug into one of her shoulders and threw her into the front room; into the fire. It enveloped her and spread upon her skin and robe, causing both to darken and smoke before her very eyes. Her hair was curling into disgusting, black stubbles; her blood broke through her skin like water through dry cracks; her fingernails burned in odd colors from the polish as the fire singed them back further and further. However, she would not burn to death. It didn't take long before those large hands clasped upon her skull and threw her into blackness with a harsh, noisy twist.
Taifu woke suddenly to a soft rain pattering the glass pane. Uwaki continued her own soft rain of sweat, blood, and tears that fell upon the carpet below her severed head.
Door open, door close. Damn, that's annoying. I can't word it any other way that would sound right! And why the Hell won't the bloody thing make paragraphs?!
Oh yeah... the reason that Piccolo isn't remembering... Well, past the fact that he's going insane, it was a long time ago... about 16 years, and last time that it crossed his mind was about 10 years ago. Normally, someone with this many hints on it could remember something even that long ago past the subconscious level, however, this requires the ability to hold a train of thought. Like I said: he's going crazy.
