BONUS 1
This place called paradise.
Many years ago, on a distant planet, in an unexplored part of the galaxy...
The wind carried a dry and inhospitable silence, slipping between the stones and sometimes violently knocking down the grass-covered areas.
A thunderstorm was rumbling in the distance, though not the slightest moisture could be felt in the air. It was a storm of sand and rock, lightning and thunder, without a trace of rain to be felt.
Dust.
That could have been the other name of this forgotten planet.
Sometimes, the dunes formed in the great expanses devoid of rocks revealed, at their will, vestiges of another time. Brick walls, metal structures, or what might have been a new possibility in the eyes of some. Yet, if these ruins were still there, those who had inhabited them were long gone.
Desolation.
Such could have been a third name for this planet abandoned by all.
There was not a living soul on the surface. No animals, no humanoid beings. Only the muffled rumbling that ran through the interior of the earth's crust, and sometimes, if one stretched one's ear, some light and ghostly footsteps. No trace disturbed this still scenery where strange creatures had long since replaced the original occupants of this planet, to devour its rubble and drink its rotten water. All that remained, besides an inhospitable world, was calm and appeasement.
Paradise could have been its fourth and final name, if she had been asked to name Kouan according to her feelings.
The inhabitants of this planet had also called it like that, at one time. Before everything ended abruptly, in furor and terror. It was a word that was found in many cultures across the universe, and she had never given it much importance.
Her idea of Paradise, after all, was lonely and gray.
Daylight was always hard to see through the thick cloud of dust that engulfed the atmosphere, so it was always colder than it was hot, despite the desert-like nature of the land. The only time the stars finally broke through this thick layer of debris was either when she was playing with them, or when...
The distant roar of a hyperspace engine brought her out of her thoughts.
Yes, the only other time it happened was when outsiders were wrecked here, the powerful thrust of their engines dispersing the clouds.
She wondered if these people had also come here to die, like all those before them, or if they still hoped to leave.
After all, the guardian of this silent planet had claimed it as his own, rejecting all outside elements.
The ground began to rumble, a sign that they were moving to meet the new arrivals. It would surely be over again quickly, and she found it rather boring and uninteresting.
On this planet that so many of them had tried to take over, the 108 Orochi heads had always had the upper hand, even against the original occupants of this planet, the strongest clan in the universe. So it was no surprise that the noise and shouting was brief and unrepeated.
Kouka preferred this. Quiet and solitude were her paradise, and Orochi her only companion.
A large shockwave rippled through the ground, and an old building in the distance tilted to one side before falling, raising a huge cloud of dust in its fall.
Squinting, she saw one of the heads of the huge dragon snake bent down to the ground.
Had someone hit it hard enough to knock it unconscious?
As if to answer that question, she saw a humanoid figure fly through the air before delivering a powerful punch to the already battered creature. The powerful attack delivered to its target, this person jumped backwards, to land on solid ground with a recognizable weapon in hand.
'Those fools still haven't given up?' she thought as she watched the Yato standing several hundred yards away.
Attempts had become rare in recent years, but there was always some idiot to come here and cause chaos, only to leave empty-handed.
Orochi always crushed them without any scruples, while she watched the scene from afar.
Nevertheless, the sudden agitation of the huge creature forced her to move.
The huge dragon snake was attacking voraciously, but without succeeding in overcoming this newly arrived enemy. The last ruins still standing were destroyed one by one, either by the attacks of the creature or by the retorts of the Yato that was facing it.
However, this enemy didn't seem to be so much a target to knock down, but rather a sudden playmate, and Kouka couldn't suppress a hint of jealousy inside her.
One of Orochi's heads emerged on her left, a few meters away, and as the creature arced in the air as it moved forward, she glanced at it before diving back into the dirt and sand.
'What? Is it that funny?' she thought as she watched the same head re-emerge from the ground several dozen meters away.
It was the first time she had seen Kouan's guardian so agitated, which piqued her curiosity.
Resolute, Kouka began to leap from rock to rock, following closely the new heads that were converging on the place where the intruder was standing.
Then, once she got within range, she made a big jump in the air to hit one of Orochi's heads still standing in front of her.
He wouldn't hold it against her if she used him as a stepping stone, seeing as he had abandoned her to go and play with this stranger.
Faced with her insane strength, the creature didn't resist, and crashed heavily to the ground, revealing that the intruder was a male Yato with a huge mane of black hair.
'Men still haven't learned to brush their hair, I see...'
Slowly, she removed her hood, and watched the man in front of her with her inexpressive gaze.
'Is he that strong, to please Orochi?' She wondered inwardly.
The Yato, of young appearance, did not seem to make the least gesture nor to pronounce the least word.
Did he finally realize how crazy it was, to come back, alone, to the planet of origin of the Yato?
"Y-You..." He said finally after a few seconds of silence. "I never would've dreamt that there could be someone here... On this planet of death."
Ah.
Planet of Death. It was another possible name, but Kouka hated this one.
In an instant, she had lost all interest in this newcomer, and even put aside her jealousy.
Without even giving him another second, she turned her back on him.
"Hey, wait!" He called her.
She stopped for a moment. It had been a long time since she had spoken to someone, so she would take the time to correct him in his words.
"This planet... Is not dead." She said slowly but loud enough for him to hear. "The soil is dried out, the water is rotten, and people can no longer live here. But those ones who eat dried out soil are alive. The ones that drink rotten water are alive."
Then, turning her sharp gaze toward him, she added calmly:
"I am alive."
How else, after all, could she describe this existence that she had not controlled for a long time?
She was not free to die, nor to leave this planet, probably also because she was afraid to die. And leave it for what, exactly?
The people she had known were long gone, and even if there was nothing here anymore, it didn't mean there was really nothing left to protect.
"It is only one species, 'people', among the countless creatures that live on this planet, that have died out. You should not measure a planet based solely on your standards." She said bitterly.
The long black-haired Yato said nothing more, and Kouka felt her message had been passed on.
She then decided to act to regain the special calm of her paradise.
"You should leave. I do not want to erase another life from this world for the sake of an intruder." She said as she leapt towards the new Orochi heads that appeared in front of her. "I'll have to quiet them down."
Surely this man would leave now, if he understood what she had said. Now all she had to do was calm the big dragon snake down so that everything would go back to the way it was.
"H-Hey! Wai-!" She heard screaming behind her, followed by a huge impact sound. "I SAID WAIT, GODDAMMIIIIT!"
No matter how much he yelled, how much he told her to listen, how much he chased her to Orochi's body, she wouldn't answer him; simply because she didn't see any point in it. He would surely give up and leave, like all the others before him.
That was the hard reality of this planet.
"H-Hey M-Miss!" He shouted at her as he finally reached her level. "How about instead of suppressing these Orochi, you suppress the Orochi in my pants?"
It was obviously not only reality that was hard here, and perhaps a little lead would make this idiot think again.
Without even deigning to give him a glance, she pointed the barrel of her umbrella at him and pulled the trigger.
The idiot fell to the ground before attacking again, and Kouka began to curse the particular constitution of the Yato.
However, another thought made its way into the young woman's mind, and she glanced at one of Orochi's heads nearby.
'I think I understand now, why you find this so amusing.'
The paradise she inhabited was lonely and quiet, but sometimes all it took was a little to sow doubt in your mind.
Maybe without realizing it, she had missed some things all these years, and this paradise was incomplete, and therefore imperfect.
Why not... 'People' were imperfect too, after all.
END OF BONUS 1
