OUT OF LUCK

The tale of Tsutana Kichirou

Chapter 2: Tranquility

I woke up slowly. There were no noises, just the rhythmic beating of my heart and the sound of my breath in my ears. It was so quiet, yet it didn't weigh down on me. This silence was so peaceful. I felt light, like floating.

Am I dead?

Before I opened my eyes, I parted my lips, inhaling deeply through my mouth. The air tasted kind of sweet. Maybe this was… heaven? Or a better place because there really was no heaven, at least not for me… so… Stop! My head hurt. Actually, now that I thought about it… my entire body hurt. Still there was a numbness hovering over me that kept the pain from driving me insane. It was… bearable. I inhaled again, before I opened my eyes.

The room around me was dimly lit. The ceiling had a wooden pattern to it and there was an oil lamp hanging from one corner. As I tried to turn my head to the side, a sudden jolt of pain rushed through my spine. I let out a quiet moan and looked back up at the ceiling, breathing heavily.

Suddenly, I heard a voice, coming from the side of the bed that I was lying on.

"Don't move too much." It sounded friendly, low and a bit husky, yet soft and warm. Who was that?

I moved my eyes around a bit, until a face appeared in my line of sight. Friendly brown eyes looked down at me, halfway covered by shaggy light brown hair. The face's features were lean and soft… it reminded me of that of an angel. A beautiful angel girl… I blinked. Okay, now I finally lost it! There's no such thing as angels! And why am I even thinking like that? I must have hit my head very bad…

A smile crept onto the girl's lips. I blinked again. "Am I dead?" I then asked, my voice nothing but a hoarse whisper. It actually hurt to speak. As if I had used my voice way too much in the past.

"Don't talk," the girl said in her low voice, yet kept smiling at me. She stretched out a hand and gently touched the side of my face. Her palm felt warm and soothing. "Don't strain yourself too much…"

I kept staring at her. She didn't answer my question! Despite the deep throbbing, my head still felt really light. Maybe I was dead. Then again… how did I die? How did I end up like –

The memory hit me with full force.

For a moment I had forgotten about everything. But that moment had passed. And now I was back in the realization of what had happened to me. Why my body was hurting. Why I couldn't talk. A new wave of pain washed over me and the numbness was gone. I cried out when I flinched badly. One of my hands crept up to my chest. It was bandaged. The pain brought another emotion back to life: misery.

I swallowed dryly and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Shh," I then heard the girl's voice and felt her hand gently grabbing mine. "It's alright, you're safe now."

I'm… safe? Does she know what happened? Why does she know it? How? And where am I? And who was she anyways? And… I groaned when my headache hit another level. I was confused and hurting and on the verge of tears. And that in front of a cute girl! And apparently I still had some weird priorities. Trying to breathe evenly to fight the rising hysteria, I slowly opened my eyes again. The girl watched me with a serious expression on her lean features.

"Where am I?" I then asked, whispering so lowly I couldn't even understand myself.

"I'm not allowed to tell you that, yet," the girl replied. Apparently, she had better ears than me. "But you'll find out eventually."

I looked at her in confusion. "And who are you?"

She smiled. "I guess I can tell you at least that. I'm #2 (A/N: read: number two). Or you can call me Ni."

#2? What kind of a name was that? And why couldn't she tell me where I was – yet? But the most prominent question that popped into my head was something entirely else.

How did I survive?

Remembering the torture and pain and the words of my tormentor about killing me… how was it even possible that I was here now, breathing, talking to this girl I had never seen before? What happened?

"What happened?" I then articulated, hoping to get an answer this time. I looked up into the girl's face pleadingly.

She tilted her head and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing me. She had a really slim body, lean and with long, slender limbs, a bit boyish even, and she was wearing what looked like a uniform of some sort. I couldn't really tell. Her hand grabbed mine and while she spoke, she turned it palm up between her fingers and looked at it thoughtfully.

"I'm not allowed to tell you," she replied quietly.

What was all this secrecy about? I stared at her, exhaling loudly. "Please… I just want to know how I got here…"

She faced me. "The Old Man found you," she then whispered, as if she was afraid someone might overhear what she was telling me. I pulled my eyebrows together in confusion. The Old Man? Who was that now? "You were in a horrible condition. It's a miracle that he was able to fix you up so quickly."

So quickly? "How long have I been here?"

The girl tilted her head. Strands of her hair kept falling into her eyes, but she didn't mind. "Two weeks," she replied, watching me closely.

Two weeks? That's not what I considered quickly. "But… why did this… Old Man bring me here… wherever here is?"

As she was still holding my hand, she looked down at it and squeezed it lightly. "Because you have potential," was her reply.

I blinked. Potential? "What?"

Suddenly there was the distant sound of a bell ringing. The girl basically flinched, before she turned her head towards the door of the room. I heard her inhale sharply. When she looked back at me, she was smiling again.

"He'll tell you everything eventually," she said while standing up. "Until then, please rest."

I watched her let go of my hand and walk towards the door. There she hesitated for a moment, before turning back to me.

"I'm glad you woke up, Kichirou," she said with a kind smile, before leaving the room.

I couldn't help but stare after her. She knew my name? And she knew what happened to me. How and why? And what else does she know? So many questions rushed through my groggy brain. Yet confusion was only one of the things that caused me pain.

When I looked back up at the ceiling, I couldn't help but ask myself why I was still alive. Two weeks ago I had begged for it all to end and I had accepted the possibility that my short life might have been over. I had not once hoped to survive. Enduring all that physical pain and psychological trauma definitely had made me forget all about the possibility that I might actually live to tell the tale.

A tale I never wanted to talk about ever again.

Even now, I couldn't think about it. It hurt too much. Not only the violation and wounds, but the thought of having been helpless and at the mercy of someone. Yeah, that probably hurt worse than the cuts and bruises. I had never been one to follow anybody's lead. I had always been on my own, caring only for myself. And somehow I had lived that kind of life for sixteen years and never once got into trouble. Maybe Karma was a bitch and all my behavior until then had to lead up to what had happened to me.

Yes, Karma liked to fuck with people. In the most literal sense there was.

I inhaled sharply at that and closed my eyes. Misery came back. As did the numbness. I decided to follow the girl's advise and try to rest. I sure hoped I wouldn't dream too bad.

Of course luck was not on my side.

I woke up to the sound of my voice echoing shrilly in my ears. My heart was beating so fast, it might have actually been able to jump out of my chest at any second. Yet it couldn't, as I saw when I jerked my eyes open. I was held by two arms. Panting heavily, I tried to figure out where I was.

The same room, the same bed, on which I was sitting upright, the same oil lamp lazily swaying from the ceiling, and… the same hands that had held mine before. I turned my head a bit and noticed the girl sitting on the edge of the bed behind me, holding me firmly in her grip. She was pretty strong, I couldn't move at all. And I was thankful for that. Being held like that certainly calmed me down greatly. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly and after a moment, I was breathing evenly again.

The girl slowly let go of me and gently pushed me back into a lying position. I closed my eyes in embarrassment. And felt a hand grabbing mine.

"It's alright now," I heard her soft, low voice close to me. "It's over, remember? You're safe here."

I swallowed dryly and couldn't move myself to open my eyes to look at her. My pride and dignity were still too scratched. Vulnerability had still not left my body and mind. And I hated it. I hated being in this state. Oh, welcome back misery…

"Kichirou." Another voice made me jerk my eyes open in surprise. It sounded deep and old and strict and it urged me to pull myself together.

I looked up to see an old man. A tall, broad-shouldered old man, who stared down at me with tiny dark eyes. He had a face full of wrinkles, framed by short silver hair. Was this the Old Man the girl had been talking about?

"Ni told me you woke up earlier," he said, nodding towards the girl, who had let go of my hand and was now standing a little timid looking beside the old man, her head bowed a little. "How are you feeling?"

I blinked. Seriously? I felt like shit. "I'm fine," I replied instead.

"Really? No more pain?"

Old man, don't play with me! Do I look as if I didn't have any more pain? "Actually…"

"Well, suck it up!" the Old Man told me very directly, basically making my jaw drop in surprise. "When I picked you up, you were in a worse condition. You had seven deep cuts in your stomach, two broken ribs, a disjointed shoulder, several other bone fractures and multiple bruises, scratches and other wounds all over your body. You had lost an extreme amount of blood. You were a mess, son. But I fixed you up. All the pain you might be feeling is only in your head."

I stared at the other man in confusion. "What?"

"Believe me, Kichirou, pain is an illusion. It's not real unless you expect it to be real." What was this guy talking about? "I know you're probably wondering what I'm talking about…" Oh my God, he could read minds! And… was that a smile on his wrinkly lips? "You will understand all of this soon enough. For now I welcome you to the Herd."

The Herd? What the hell was that now? Who were those people? And why was I here?

"I'll answer all of your questions once you leave the infirmary. Until then I leave you in Ni's care," the Old Man said, nodded again towards the girl, who bowed her head even more. He then gave me one last long look, before turning around and leaving the room again.

Staring after him, I didn't even realize that Ni sat down on the bed.

"So… that was the Old Man, huh?" I said quietly.

The girl only nodded.

"He's… weird."

A clear, soft laugh hit my ears. I turned my head to see the girl grinning at me. "He is," she replied in a low whisper. "But don't tell him I said that!"

I couldn't help it. The corners of my mouth twitched lightly. That made the girl smile even wider. She looked so kind and warm. It took me a while to realize that I was staring at her. Before that I had studied her features very closely. The way her hair, longer in the front and even messier in the back, fell into her eyes and got caught in her lashes. How the light of the oil lamp reflected in her brown pupils. She also had high, delicately chiseled cheekbones that indeed made her look like an angel. I blinked when I noticed the smirk she was throwing me.

Clearing my throat, I looked away quickly. Awkward…

"Can you sit up for me?" I heard her say after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Huh?" I turned my head towards her and noticed that she had placed a bowl of water and some fresh bandages next to the bed.

She motioned me to sit up. "I need to change your bandages," she said in the most neutral tone I had ever heard.

I sat up slowly, but continued looking at her in confusion. Actually, I was a bit embarrassed to be taken care of by a girl I began to develop a liking for. And that was even more embarrassing. How was it even possible for me to feel like that after such a short amount of time? Oh, right, teenage hormones.

"Don't be shy, I have done this for the last two weeks, you know?"

I blinked slowly. She… what? I looked at her a bit perplexed. But she simply smiled at me and began undoing the bandages around my torso. I inhaled deeply and watched her. When she was done removing my bindings, I took a look down my stomach. The sight was horrible. Even though it didn't really hurt that much anymore, it looked just terrible. There were seven two-inch-long pink lines all across my abdomen.

I hated having scars.

They kept reminding me of the things I had done wrong in life. Of my failures. And having been captured by a crazy psycho killer definitely was one of the greatest failures of my life. I sighed and shook my head, before I noticed that the girl was watching me. She was kneeling on a stool beside the bed with a wet sponge in her hand.

"Don't worry, they won't stay like this. Even scars fade a little after time." Her voice was soft, but its warmth couldn't reach the cold inside my heart.

I swallowed and looked down again. I heard how she put the sponge back into the bowl of water. Then there was the rustling of clothes. I hesitated to look up. When I did, I saw that the girl had pushed the sleeve of her sweater over her elbow. She then stretched out her arm and held it palm-up. There was a very long, very thin white line running all the way from her wrist towards the crook of her arm.

"When I was seven, a man wanted to sell my blood on the black market. He slashed me up badly. I have these scars on both arms and legs. I did lose a lot of blood, but as you can see, I survived." She smiled at me while rolling her sleeve down again. "I survived and today, these scars remind me of how I got here."

I watched her closely, unable to say anything about this sudden confession. I didn't even know this girl and she still felt like someone close to me. Someone trustworthy, who would share the horrors of her life with me…

"Maybe someday, those scars of yours…" she said, as she picked up the sponge and gently pressed it against my stomach. "…will not remind you of the things that happened to you, but of the fact that you survived them and that you had the chance to start a whole new life."

While considering what she was telling me, I followed the movements of her slender hands. How she washed my abdomen and chest. I didn't even feel the warm water on my skin. All I could feel were her light touches. The chance to start a whole new life? Really? As of this moment, I couldn't understand those words. Yet there was a tiny voice in the back of my head that agreed to what she had said. This is a chance…

"Say, um, Ni?" I then asked, when she squeezed the sponge over the water bowl.

She looked up. "Yes?"

"What is the Herd?"

While continuing to wash my skin, she replied: "I'm not allowed to tell you."

"Why not? There's no one here! No one can hear you! Why doesn't anybody tell me what's going on here? Please, I…"

"Shh!" she hissed, while pressing the sponge against my back, leaning around my shoulder to look at me. "Don't talk so loud!"

"Why not?!" I countered, turning my head towards her, definitely not changing the volume of my voice. "Why are you being so secretive about everything?"

"Kichirou!" The sudden change of undertone in her voice almost hurt my ears. She sounded so strict. I blinked when she leaned around me and placed a hand against my ribcage. "Please don't be like that. We need your cooperation." She underlined her words by slightly pressing against my ribs.

I hissed in pain and quickly leaned away from her touch. "Who are you people? Why do you need my cooperation? For what? And what if I don't cooperate? What will you do?"

The girl named Ni leaned back on her knees and stared at me out of slitted eyes. Her angelic face looked quite sinister in the swaying light of the oil lamp now. I immediately regretted having raised my voice like that.

"I… I just want to know where I'm at and what I'm doing here," I then tried a softer tone, while looking at her pleadingly. "Please, you have to understand this. I… I woke up in this strange place at the mercy of strange people I have never seen before in my life… Do you really think I wouldn't ask questions? That I wouldn't be confused?"

Ni tilted her head, her features relaxing slowly. She then stood up from her kneeling position, dropped the sponge in the water bowl and walked towards the door.

"Wait, don't leave!" I called after her, but realized in the same moment that she wasn't about to leave. She was just checking the door.

"Listen," she then said, when she turned around to me. "I know you must be confused, I was too when I woke up in here eleven years ago. But compared to you, I didn't fight being here. Believe me, there is no one here who will do you harm. We're on your side."

"But who are you?"

The girl was shaking her head, while walking back towards the bed. "I told you, I'm not…"

"…allowed to tell me, I know!" I finished for her in utter frustration.

"I'm sorry, Kichirou," she replied, leaning against the foot of the bed. "But you will find out everything in time. You'll see."

I watched her for a moment, before I gave in. Fine. She won't tell me anything anyways. Not that I wasn't curious. "So you've been here for eleven years?" I asked, when she walked around the bed to pick up the sponge again.

"Yes, I've been living with the Old Man ever since. He gave me the name #2."

While she was washing my back (at which I winced whenever the sponge hit my skin), I tried to make at least some sense of what she had said to me. Because despite her saying she wasn't allowed to tell me anything, there has already been a lot she had told me so far. "I assume there are more than you and the Old Man, right? If you're #2, there has to be a #3 and #4 as well, right? Am I also a number?"

She dropped the sponge into the water bowl and pinched my arm. "You are nosy, you know that?" I looked around at her and blinked. She smirked at me. "But yes, there are more, and no, you don't have a number yet."

"Yet, I see. So someday I'll be a number as well?" I watched her. "Come on, just tell me. I can be very…"

"…annoying? Yes, you can." She grabbed a towel lying over the edge of the stool and began drying my wet skin. I winced when she touched my ribs. "I'm sorry, your ribs are taking a little longer to heal. Everything else is recovering just fine, I have to say. That's good."

How smoothly she had changed the topic! I exhaled loudly.

The girl paused for a moment and looked at me. "I know that you have many questions. But I'm not the one to answer them. So, please, stop nagging me about that and just relax a little, okay? It's not healthy to question everything, you know?"

"But…"

"No!"

"...Fine."

She threw me a smile and continued drying my chest. After that she proceeded to put new bandages around my torso. I watched her closely all the while. She didn't even once look at me strangely. Maybe she was used to being stared at. What a weird girl… She was just knotting the loose ends of the bandages together, when the door of the room was being opened.

We both looked up at the same time. A tall boy entered the room, holding what looked like clothes in his hands.

"The Old Man told me to bring you these, Ni-san," the boy said and handed the girl the clothes.

"Thanks, Shichi-kun," she replied with a smile. The boy nodded and turned to leave again without once looking at me.

The door fell into its place. "Was that #7?"

"You're clever," Ni replied. "Yes, that was #7."

"But why was he calling you Niisan*?"

"Because that's my name?" She didn't pay me much attention as she was busy unfolding the clothes.

"Yes, but…"

"Kichirou, what did we just talk about?" she then said, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"No more questions," I replied, exhaling while I did so.

"Good boy," she laughed and handed me a sweater. "Here, put this on."

I grabbed it and turned it around in my hands. Then I looked up at her and noticed the same sweater on her. It was black and had a grey symbol on each sleeve. It looked like an H or an X made out of the tips of two arrows pointing at each other. Or two triangles. Or maybe something entirely else. It was nothing I had seen before. But who cares anyway…?

I then tried to slip into the sweater. I wanted to do that very casually, but when I lifted my arms, a sharp pain rushed through my torso. As I breathed against it, I felt Ni's hands on my chest, trying to help me. I felt my cheeks redden and hoped she wouldn't notice. At least she didn't say anything. When I was done, she handed me a pair of simple, black pants.

"Let's see if you can dress yourself this time," she said with a warm smile. That remark could have been a mean one, but due to her soft voice and the smile I forgot all about it. She then took a step away from the bed and turned around. "I won't look."

I was a little confused about her comment, but when I wanted to move my legs, I realized that I was naked, if it wasn't for the blanket covering the bottom half of my body. Grabbing the blanket, I then slowly moved my legs over the edge of the bed. I flinched badly when my feet met the cold wooden floor. A wave of numbness hit me, followed by the feeling of pins and needles running from my feet all the way up to my thighs. I then remembered that I must have been lying on my back for the last two weeks. Not once moving my legs.

Still sitting on the edge of the bed, I tried in a very uncomfortable and unnecessarily difficult fashion to pull the pants up and over my legs. All that time, Ni remained standing with her back to me, patiently waiting. Or she was laughing into herself at how clumsy I was. Either way, when I was done dressing, I fell back onto the bed with a sigh, glad she didn't have to see me struggle this much.

"Are you done?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," I breathed, wriggling my toes to stop the tingling in my re-awoken limbs.

Ni turned around and threw me a smile. "It'll get easier once your wounds have healed completely, don't worry." I rolled my eyes. "On a positive note, you look much livelier than before. That's a good thing."

I exhaled loudly, when she motioned me to stand again. As I couldn't feel my feet very much, I grabbed the bed in support, before she could get the idea to hold me up. I didn't need that! My ego was scratched enough already. I'm a man, damn it! I have to act like one! I straightened myself and blew my hair out of my eyes. As I was standing next to Ni, I noticed how fragile she was looking, even though she was two years older. Yet she wasn't as tiny as I had thought. She was only a few inches smaller than me. And again I was mesmerized by her appearance. I was really starting to wonder what was wrong with me…

"Alright," she interrupted my thoughts. "Looks like you can stand again. Your progress is amazing. Two days ago you weren't even conscious." She smiled up at me. "How about we take a little walk and get you something to eat. Are you hungry?"

Actually, I wasn't. But taking a walk with Ni sounded like a good idea.

A/N:

*
"Niisan" means "Brother", while "Ni-san" is just a polite way of saying Ni's name. Kichirou gets confused because both sound the same. I think you get it, don't you?

Also: Japanese numbers. It's a thing in this story.