When they had reached Namimori Shrine they were surprised at how much of a dump it was. Instead of a beautiful shrine that just looked like some plants had grown over it, which is what one would expect from an abandoned shrine like in the movies, it was trashed and graffiti-ridden. The fences were broken, the shrine's roof had a hole in it, graffiti was sprayed on the open ground in front of the shrine and the walls of the place were sprayed and broken pieces wood were all over the place.
"Wow, this place is a dump," Morita stated the obvious.
"No duh," Hanabi retorted as she kicked a piece of rotten wood out of the way, "What sort of evil lair is this? I expected something more menacing and dark, not some abandoned temple that has graffiti written all over it!"
"Aren't there supposed to be more evil people around too?" Suzuki wondered as he walked around the place, "There were always more evil guys in the movies."
That's strange...Hide thought as he looked around as well, where are all the bad guys? I thought that when we got up here there would be some big fight; gramps only said that we should go to the shrine, but nobody's here...
"You all watch too many movies," said Reborn as he walked towards the shrine, "The true secret is right in front of you."
Reborn kept on walking towards the shrine until he passed two stone pillars that were on either side of the temple, and then he disappeared from everyone's sight but they could all still hear the infant's voice.
"Reborn?" Hide yelped.
"You just have to ignore reality for a while," the voice echoed.
They all looked at each other before silently agreeing to follow Reborn, and one by one they all disappeared.
~8~
"Hm, it's a real nice day out," Adam sighed as he looked up at the drifting clouds in the sky, "It's a shame that I have to do a fight on a day like this."
A clawed hand made a swipe towards his head but Adam moved out of the way before it could happen.
"That was bad," he said, "That could have seriously injured me."
"That's the aim," Nyx spoke, it launched once again towards him with its claws glinting in the sunlight.
Adam ducked down as Nyx came closer and grabbed the Box's legs. Nyx stumbled onto the ground and down the flight of stairs; Adam turned around and sat upright so he could watch the Box crash down the steps. He whistled when the body stopped on a large rock, it laid still and there were no signs of movement.
"That was easier than expected," Adam mused as he stood up, "With something called a God Box, you normally expect it to be super strong and difficult to handle," he turned around and started walking up the steps, "It was only strong and, quite frankly, stupid."
The body of Nyx remained still for a few seconds as Adam walked away; a metallic finger twitched and a purple eye opened, it moved up, down, right, left, the pupils shrunk and dilated, it blinked. An arm shot out and a hand landed onto the rock the body landed on, the hand felt the rock for a few moments before crushing it. Nyx stood up from the wreckage of broken trees and shattered stair steps and looked at its other arm, which was bent backwards; there was a sickening crack as it pushed the arm to a correct angle and twisted the arm so the hand was facing the right side.
Adam turned around when he heard the boulder collapse, he glanced at the crumbled rocks and said, "Wow, so you aren't stupid after all, but you do seem to be troublesome."
Nyx half-turned towards Adam, its purple eyes flashed and gave a heated stare straight at Adam's blue eyes. Adam blinked and smiled.
"I'm guessing you can't feel physical pain, but what about emotional?" he said aloud, "If you didn't have emotions, then you probably wouldn't have attacked me back there when I called you weak and I'm guessing you're pissed that I called you stupid. Or did you not hear that bit?"
Its metallic claws dug into the concrete stairs and pulled a good chunk of rock out.
"Ah, guess you didn't hear me that time..." he gulped and slowly back away, "Look here, can't we just talk this out like regular huma-"
The concrete block whirled past Adam's head.
"Heh, guess you don't like being called human either," he said and started to run away.
Nyx ran at lightening speed towards Adam, it clenched its fingers together to turn its hand into a sharp knife, and then it lunged towards Adam's stomach. The boy did not have time to avoid the attack and the knife-like hand dug into his stomach, Nyx waved its arm and tossed Adam into two trees, both of which broke in half on impact. He groaned and clutched at his gut in pain, blood trickled down from his blond hair to his nose.
"Dammit!" he hissed under his breath, "I didn't think you would be this strong..."
Nyx silently walked towards the blue-eyed boy, it unclenched its blood-stained claws and made a scissor-like noise by moving its red metallic fingers around.
"Or that's what I'd say if I was weak," Adam grinned and threw a knife into Nyx's head.
The Box stumbled back while trying to get the knife out of its forehead, when it finally pulled the knife out two more knives were stabbed into its feet. Nyx tried tugging at its feet but couldn't take one step, it looked up and another two knives dug into its shoulders.
"Now, now," Adam smiled as he handled a knife in his hand with care, "I wonder where I'll put this next one," he sighed, "If only sis was here, then she could give me advice on where to put this knife."
"I still have my hands," Nyx stated and bent down to pull the knives out, the moment it touched the handles it was electrocuted.
"Oh yes, these are sis' modified knives," Adam said in a forgetful tone, "They have a DNA imprint device on them so that if anyone, or thing, touches these 1000 volts of electricity will coarse through them."
Nyx stared at the knives and looked at Adam expectantly.
"You're probably wondering why they work with me then, huh?" he said, "Well since my sister and I have a very distinct blood type and factor in that we're twins, our DNA is almost identical to each others. Basically, unless you are a Grandhart you can't use these knives."
Nyx was silent for a few seconds and looked up to the sky, "...Grandhart...Grandhart..." it mumbled as if trying to remember something.
Adam raised an eye brow, "Yes?"
"Grandhart..." Nyx continued until its eyes widened as if it had just remembered, "Grandhart!" it said in astonishment.
"What?" he asked with a hint of impatience.
"Grandhart..." it said darkly, and gave its violet glare towards Adam.
"What is it!" he asked impatiently.
"Grandhart...Daniel Grandhart..." it said in an even darker tone.
"Eh?" Adam blinked, "Ah, I think you have me confused with-"
Nyx reached down and grabbed the knives; one could visibly see the streaks of electricity crackle on the Box's arms as it pulled the knives out and threw them to the ground. It then tugged at the knives in its shoulders, the electricity crackled on them as well but Nyx was completely unfazed and didn't seem to pay any attention to it at all.
"That's not good," Adam gulped and tried to continue, "As I was saying, I think you have me confused with someone else now."
"You won't weasel your way out of this Grandhart," Nyx glared, "First you're a girl, then you escape as a young boy? Should have expected something like that from a scientist as clever as you."
"Yeah, you definitely have me confused with someone else," he sighed and then remembered something Nyx said, "Wait, did you say girl?"
~8~
Hide breathed out and opened an eye cautiously, then he very carefully opened both eyes and was surprised at the difference of location they had entered. They were in what could have been the inside of the temple, if the temple was half an acre big and had a grand hallway within it. The 'inside' was decorated with traditional Japanese screen doors and wooden floors; the screen doors had beautiful paintings of scarlet flowers and green bonsai trees. It was a drastic difference from the outside of the shrine since this place looked like it was unused, but there was an eerie feel that it was built just for the purpose of looking at.
"Did we just get transported to another dimension or something?" Hanabi was the first to ask.
"Yeah, is this seriously the inside of the shrine?" Hide asked as well.
"No, now this is part of the underground base in Namimori," said Reborn as he began to walk forward.
"There's an underground base in Namimori!"
Reborn was quiet for a few seconds and said thoughtfully, "It was a long time ago, you'll learn as we go on. But you should know, that this place has been completely out of use for more than 30 years."
Hide gulped and looked around nervously as he followed Reborn, he would much rather have Reborn explain the whole thing right now. The 'base', Hide was slightly concerned of what to call this place, was slightly creepy with the perfectly conditioned floor boards that did not look aged one bit, the painted screen doors that looked as if they were brand new, and the fancy antiques that stood on pedestals as they walked past, the whole place looked as if it was polished and waxed just for them. Hide thought of it as strange that the whole place looked brand new, and not over 30 years old.
"Does the whole, uh, 'base' seriously look like this?" asked Suzuki as he stared at the screen doors.
"No, this is only a specific part of the place, we just need to keep walking down this hallway until we find a metal door."
Reborn led the way as they walked onwards, slowly the beautiful screen doors became plain screen doors and then plain walls, the polished floorboards somehow disappeared and became concrete. The change was so gradual that no one noticed it, but then again Hide was too scared and nervous to notice. The hall led them to a large, metallic door that had a flashing green light above it and a keypad attached to the wall besides it.
"Lift me up," Reborn ordered, Suzuki quickly bent down and picked the infant up to the keypad. His tiny hands pressed some of the buttons on the keypad and a large buzzer blared at them, a green flashing light became red, and the door parted in half.
"That was slightly unexpected," said Reborn, "The alarms went off but the door still opened."
"What does that mean?" Hide dared to ask.
"...It means that something wants us to come in."
"Then let's not waste any time!" Hanabi stated as she walked forward, "If it wants us to come in so badly then it's-"
There was a loud booming sound and both Hanabi and the ground underneath her collapsed.
"Gokudera-san!" Hide shrieked and ran to the hole.
"Hanabi-san!" Suzuki ran over to the hole as well and peered down it, nothing but black was down the hole.
"Wha-what just happened...?" Morita stammered and pointed at the crumbled hole.
"A hole," Reborn stated, "This place has been abandoned for more than 30 years. Plus, this place also has multiple levels and Hanabi just fell through the first floor," Reborn walked towards the hole and looked down it; he picked up a piece of crumbled floor and tossed it down the hole. No sound. "The floors here will be weak or they might be beginning to rot away, so you guys should probably be careful."
"What about back there!" Hide questioned as he jerked a thumb to the door way that held the 'perfect traditional Japanese' atmosphere.
"That place didn't have lower floors," the infant replied as he walked around the hole, "This place, however, can go down to twenty levels."
"TWENTY FLOORS!" the boy yelped, "Gokudera-san could have dropped that far!"
"Maybe, but she may have also dropped five floors, or two," Reborn stated dismissively, "Well, we should keep going."
"You mean we're going to walk all twenty floors on this place?" Suzuki asked.
"No, maybe until we find another God Box, hopefully a more talkative one than the last," he said, "Then we'll go find Hanabi."
"You mean we're not going to find Hanabi?"
"Nope."
"But Reborn, she could be hurt!" Hide argued in vain.
"Hanabi is strong enough to find her way back to us," the infant stated while walking ahead; Hide, Morita and Suzuki inched around the large hole in the ground and tried to catch up the unusually fast infant, "She's like a dog in that way."
"What if she's hurt?" Hide asked, Reborn didn't say anything but Suzuki rested a friendly hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sure she'll be alright," he said with an encouraging grin, "Hanabi-san might be tougher than we think."
His friend gulped and nodded, he glanced back at the hole before walking onwards.
~8~
Like a green sea, the grass waved gently with the wind that picked a blade of grass up and blew it through the air every now and then. Hanabi sat looking up at the blue sky as the clouds drifted across the landscape; she stared at the sky with a look of melancholy.
"I think Reborn was wrong, this place has to be filled with different portals to other dimensions," she stated and spread her arms out on the grass, "How could an underground base have an endless field of grass with a sky above it. It's either that or this is all a hologram but they didn't have that sort of technology back then, right?"
Hanabi realized that she was now talking to herself so she quickly got to her feet and looked around.
"No, there's not time for this," she spoke, "I need to find a way out of this place so I can get back with the Twelfth!"
She surveyed the area before randomly picking a direction to walk towards.
"That's the wrong way," she stopped and looked at the person just spoke.
"And who are you?" she asked suspiciously while walking towards the person.
"I don't have a name," the person shrugged and flipped its long, red hair over its shoulder, "But you are in heaven now, why would you want to leave?"
"Heaven?" Hanabi raised an eyebrow and scoffed at the person, "If this was heaven there would be angels and clouds everywhere, not an endless field grass and crap like that."
"There are different ideas of heaven," the person said peacefully and surveyed the place with a content look on its face.
"So what the hell are you? An angel?" she asked.
"Hmm, yes you could say that about me," the person nodded and closed its red eyes while smiling.
Hanabi frowned and stared at the person in silence, she stayed silent as she looked back up to the blue sky. "No," she finally spoke, she turned around on one foot and threw her fist into the so-called 'angel's porcelain face.
~8~
Note from the Author: My second attempt to write a fight scene, hopefully none of you will be confused by the writing. I decided to put this chapter out early, mainly for the hell of it. Sooo come visit the forums! Remember mine? It's called "Just Another Forum". And yes, I will continue to shamelessly publicize it until people actually post stuff other than me.
ased on the sole fact that they are both angry, albeit beautiful, people.