Chapter three

Note: Please do NOT I repeat do NOT REVIEW this chapter until I've FINISHED it.

"The Minister is already awaiting you, Lt. Colonel." Kato nods and takes the steps up to where he was supposed to go to. In front of a large hardwood door stands an officer that barricades it and he seems not willing to let him pass.

"Wait a moment, Sir. I need your name and rank or I can not let you see the Minister." The officer presses his arm against the door, but obviously he has a lot of respect of that large black-haired guy in the navy- blue uniform.

"Seiji M. Kato. Sergeant... No, Lieutenant Colonel." Saying his name makes him shiver slightly, in the last year with her he learned to dislike his forename himself.

The officer is apparently remembering that he had heard that name. So he leads Kato into the room to Minister Ishimura. It's a larger office with a dark green canapé beyond a window. On it a care-worn man in uniform with greyish hair, Kato supposes him to be the Minister. But he's not alone. Another man with grey streaks in his hair and some sort of white smock is talking to the Minister.

"Ah you must be Kato!" Ishimura glances along the other man and welcomes his new soldier. Kato nods, salutes and submissive walks over to the men.

"He doesn't look like he will be useful for your project, Minister." Kato stands directly next to the other man and looks down upon him, he doesn't know why, but he has a certain aversion for him.

"Well, Hojo, Special Agent Kato is indeed very useful for us. He has a lot of experience with magic and a good knowledge of technologies. Don't you, Kato?" He nods, yet somehow confused. Of course he was in the first row when Dehuai started the Reverse Demon's Gate Invocation to summon the seraphic radiance. And it was magnificent in its awfulness, but... one couldn't call it a personal practice. And there's something else, too...

"Special Agent...? Minister?" Ishimura looks up to him and slimy smiles.

"Ah yes, Kato. You recently have been promoted. For I want you, Special Agent Kato, to create a team of powerful, intelligent and supernatural human weapons, to help your mother country to defeat the mainland!" There it was. Ishimura's great plan and he, Kato, would become accountable for the death of thousands... But does he even has a choice?

"By the way, this is Doctor Hojo, from the Hojo research lab. You will execute your order by the help of him and the other scientists." Doctor Hojo? Maybe that guy is the important scientist Ueda will have to guard...

"Yes Minister, but I still don't understand how..." He is interrupted by Hojo who points at his watch to express that he's in a hurry.

"Special Agent Kato, Minister Ishimura, would you excuse me? I am needed in the laboratory." The minister gestures him that he may leave, now he's alone with Kato.

"So, now, please give me a sample of your special skill, Kato!" He does not know what Ishimura means. What's going on there?

"I'm sorry Minister, I don't understand." Ishimura laughs he obviously thinks Kato is kidding him.

"Please, Kato do not annoy me! You know perfectly well what I mean!" No he doesn't and slowly he's beginning to feel quite uncomfortable. How shall he explain it?

"No he does not know it, Minister. I can see it in his eyes." Kato turns around his own axis but no one else is in the room, at least he can't see someone.

"Who said that?" He mumbles to himself, this house seemed strange from the outside already.

"I did, infidel." The tall black haired man flinches.

"Whoah! You scared the light out of me!" In front of him a creature appeared, a little man in green garb, with a white face, hovering on a pillow.

"But Garan, I remember it as if it was yesterday! He said the boy had obtained some of his powers!" The thing called Garan, introduces itself as the oracle and then hovers over to the Minister.

"Yes, yes that's right, Minister. I can feel it inside of him, but he does not know how to use these powers. He has never tried... " Garan hovers back to Kato, who keeps an eye upon the oracle. He doesn't trust this strange figure.

"He has forgotten or rather substituted it. But don't worry, Minister. I will make him remember." Kato's eyes still follow the hovering guy, not knowing what the two are talking about. How much he attempts to, he cannot look away from the oracles eyes. And he feels as if this guy would creep into his soul through his eyes...

"Keep on looking at me, Kato. Like that. Yes right." There are black points beginning to flicker in front of Kato's eyes, he's getting more and more dazed. Murky vapour darkens his sight...---

"Father please! I don't want to!" A boy is dragged over a dusty pathway by obviously his father.

"Don't be childish! It is a necessary tradition!" He slaps the boy with the short black hair.

"I don't want to, I'm afraid of it..." The man takes his son at his shoulders and shakes him rapidly.

"It is necessary that the oldest son of our family offers his blood to the God of harvest at his thirteenth birthday! Do you want your siblings to starve!" The boy desperately begins to cry, making his father even more furious.

"No, father, but I..."

Kato groans, his head is slightly aching and he feels a bit sick, too.

"Where... are we? Huh?" He looks around this place seems so familiar to him.

"Can't you remember that? Well then just follow the action." Garan again appeared next to him, letting him startle.

"I told you! Don't be such a weakling! You're going to become a man this evening! He pushes the boy forward. They come across a squad of young men in military uniforms, none of them takes care of the struggling, just one turns his head after them. The man keeps on shoving his son forward until they reach a large plain with a group of people surrounding some sort of stone arrangement, like a huge table. The sun already sets, the sky turns ruby, all the people are awaiting the boy and his father. There are smaller children, too, women with candles and a man in a yellowish green cassock, carrying a ceremonial dagger on a crimson pillow. A small girl hangs a ribbon of flowers around the boys neck, he's laid onto the stone altar now, his hands placed over two carved cavities. The priest passes the dagger to the boy's father, he lays his left hand onto his son's chest.

"Oh great and almighty God of harvest, please accept this willingly offering, and donate us a further year of wealth and flourishing. Take this blood and give us rain for that." He carefully lances the boys wrists, the child wails as the blood begins to stream into the sinks.

"Ouch that must be terrible pain..." Kato rubs his own wrists as if he could feel the hurt.

"How can intelligent people do that to a child!" He shakes his head in disbelief, but Garan does not answer.

"Just some minutes more, son." The man whispers to the boy, his face is slowly turning white. Whether it's from the shock or the anaemia is not clearly to say.

"I'm...feeling so... cold... daddy..." His voice is barely audible, fear and death in his brown eyes, cold sweat on his forehead.

"Some minutes, it's not enough blood, yet!" The man has no mercy with the suffering child, not even as a woman demands him to save it from this ceremony. She lays her hand onto his shoulder and whispers.

"Please he's our son! You're killing him!" But the man wishes her hand away, if he has to sacrifice one of his sons to save the others, he will not hesitate. The boy cries out for his mother and begins to squirm he tries to get away from that stone, but his father presses him onto it with all his strength. The boy is heavy breathing now, tears flow down his wan cheeks, his hands shiver his body trembles. His mother begins to cry too, she falls onto her knees and suddenly it's getting darker around the group. The people turn round and behold a black shadow covering the sunset, it's the shape of a tall winged creature, they call out:

"The God of harvest has granted our prayers!" But when it flies towards them, the people crouch and squat in fear. It lands directly on the stone altar, the boy has problems to lift his head, he catches a glimpse of the figure.

"...God of... death..." His breath fades and he faints...

Slightly bewildered Kato watches the spectacle as the God or whatever it may be takes up the boy, unfolds it wings and flies away with the child. He can't understand how the boy's father and most of the other peoples can stay so calm. The scenery seems to change, everything is black and then he opens his eyes...

No the boy opens his eyes, Kato is watching the action with Garan through the boys eyes now. He stares into the face of the creature, and it blows some sort of black vapour into his mouth, the boy is scared, he faints again... Then he is shaken a frightful voice shouts at the him.

"Don't die on me! You won't die on me! Got that?" The strange thing is that with the last words the voice became almost human. The boy opens his eyes again, now he looks into the face of a young man with short brown hair and eyes that look somehow red? But the man doesn't look at the boy, he looks down onto the boys wrists which he has in his hands. They stopped bleeding, they even already begin to heal...

"You really scared me pal! I thought you would die!" The boy sits up and carefully glances around.

"Where... where's the God of death?" The man seems to be a bit surprised, then he starts laughing.

Note: Please do NOT I repeat do NOT REVIEW this chapter until I've FINISHED it.

I've just allready uploaded it incase of my PC will crash as he likes to do in the last few days, generally deleting stuff that is not older than exactly three month