Chapter Four: Suicide Labyrinth

Unknown Time & Day

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Current Location: Unknown

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Where is Now and Then?

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Fire.

It's creeping up all over my body swallowing my flesh into the inferno, I'm gasping- no, screaming my lungs into pieces and nothing's happening to stop the fire overwhelming me.

I know I want it to stop, but nothing help me as I'm screaming into the blackness.

It keeps consuming me; it's hell fiery hot, acid upon a flaming pit of alcohol shoved down a throat cut open to bleed out.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire.

Wait.

There's a plane, flying- no, shaking and breaking from the skies...

A metal bird I never had the chance to go upon till now, with the earth falling away and hell coming into view for me.

It was crashing; I was there, falling with the metal machine and bashed about it till it's just not there anymore.

Dark.

Dark, it's not going away, why!

Dark.

Darkness with voices bursting out everywhere for no reason or sense, no sense, this makes no sense.

Then it's red, blurry bits dripping on my head and I twitch away with each to fall down. It blooms a neon red searing my eyes till I shut my eyes and the red turns shades crumbling to black goo dripping all over me.

I wretch away as the red turns warm and comes down in a massive spray, I drown in it and it pours into my mouth, I scream into the goo but only bubbles come out as I fade with the red.

Again the red comes back but now back to dripping above me and I smell the iron, it's blood above.

I'm not drowning in it now but a new found sensation of gagging comes up for a moment as the darkness feels like it's spinning around me and I can scream out.

My voice isn't the only coming out of my mouth; it's a pack of voices all deranged and shouting bitter things as more screams of mercy come out from my mouth and the darkness flickering with red now.

Punching, stomping, gurgling, and the sounds of breaking bones comes out in the darkness every second the red flashes out and I feel every pain the noise causes to the voices, but this isn't from the plane, that relives me and it fades out to a dull buzzing in far off corners of the blackness.

It's from my memories, and I smile at that before I drop away with the sounds dying on my ears.

A 'memory me' flashed out in front of my body, blood dripping from the memory's hand and a smile plastered on the past me before it vanished and the white came over me.

A shocking gritty white flash bashes into me through the darkness and I feel my arms shoot up before they crumble to my sides but the white keeps coming, harder & faster than before with a crushing force I can't even describe as I black out with the first touch of its torture upon my chest.

Pain. It explodes out, rips my body in half before I can let the scream free and I go slack and falling into more shadows.

Dark.

Fire. Hot flames come licking out of the dark at my feet and I screech at the burn it leaves on me. I fall over gripping the burning leg but the flame doesn't stop and reaches over my hands to get to my face burning it as well, this time I don't get to scream but I convulse about as my flesh melts off.

Dark. Again it steals me away from the gashing cuts and the flames incinerated my body but now it's quiet and breathing beside me leaves a sticky sweat upon my neck before I'm impaled in with something between my shoulder blades and it starts to pull out trying to take with it my ribs as well.

Fire.

Pain. The fire blazes out as the thing stabbed into me succeed in break into my chest cavity and I'm vomiting out thick bits of something cold and heavy off my tongue.

Dark. It's not leaving; it's growing around me building up like a fortress.

Fire. The fire spins about illumining the darkness to only more shadows and goes straight at my eyes, I scream and I fall over as the blood gushing from my back keeps on till I can't think but one word.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

.

.

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Flashback

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Unknown Location

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Satomi-Chan, Sweet Little Girl

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I hear my voice immediately, the darkness shifts, bristling around my skin, and the blood dripping out my back and eyes dissipates. I touch my eyelids shocked to feel the hard metal of my goggles instead, so was I blind now, maybe.

This was me but not the one standing besides me, this was a past memory and what I remembered that day.

"Satomi-chan, you like to play with fire don't you?"

"Yes, Iannaccone! I love fire it makes such a pretty color with paper."

There I see myself, not in front of me but I hear my voice with the grainy memory of that day and 11 year old, Satomi-chan.

Satomi's sitting on the cement floor, coloring away at some paper book she got from Bo-chan. The room's a little warm for it being fall time, but having no fan to cool off with I take to a bag of half melted ice and eat the chips piece by piece while I chat with Satomi.

Her face's shadowed away, but titling my head I could see a bit of her broken face beaming with a silly expression of childish focus on the coloring. Her pink tongue stuck out sideways from her spilt lips crusted with days old blood she dared not clean it till I checked up on her today.

Her black hair braided up behind her now lay missing and hacked to a short bowl cut, just above her left ear bandaged up with dry blood staining it as well.

Her eyes hung lower than normal, not because she was deficient in her daily supplements but there was an abnormal ring of damaged blood vessels covering her right eyes from the cornea to her cheekbone.

Big enough to be a man's fist if I took an impress of it, big enough to be her grandfather's hand in fact with the faint indention of his ring design on her skin as well, but it is best that I don't pry on that.

It's and will never be my place or problem to question my elder's authority. They all know what is best and if Satomi is a bad girl who deserves a few rounds of punishment then so be it, then she'll grow up as perfect as her mother, Elaine was before she got ripped to sheds by the gang war with Zaki-69, last year up in the Tochigi Prefecture.

"Satomi-chan, you know why you are in here, with me?"

Satomi looks up at me giggling lightly before shaking her head and goes back to her drawing; her eyes seem bigger than before, greener than before, but less bruised in fact.

Still she has broken yet another rule even after her scolding with her grandfather.

Never look away from an elder before given permission to do so. Never continue your own actions till helping another asking upon you services.

What is the appropriate way of dealing with this disobedience, I'm hardly in a position to deal out judgment, so I must call another and hope someone will come here soon before she continues to rebel.

"Don' ya move, I'ma going to call out some one, so hush your voice."

Satomi clamps her mouth together, biting to hard on it and the blood comes out because she is acting impulsive for her age and jumping to conclusions on my words, but she sits staring ahead to me with a frighten look on herself with no noise.

I grab the palm sized box painted red and glowing as I push at the buttons to make numbers appear on the glow screen; I never knew this was a phone till I ran to Guam, wired up to make my voice project over miles and miles of land and it starts it's monotone tune before my voice can reach out to the other side as another Slithers has taking to hear me over the box.

"Speaking, Sakka Iannaccone. What is the request?"

Muffed by the saw blades grinding on the other side I press my ear to the box more and speak louder hoping to get more job done sooner than later if the Slithers could advise me now.

"I'm here at Ward-56, presently with Satomi Kunnio, Toshi-sama's grand heir and she requires an another punishment for breakage of rule 34 of elder's decreed. What shall I conduct or shall I send her out to Toshi-sama?"

I speak into the box and the saw grinds up so I'm wincing at the sound but listening for a response, I get one that is fairy different than the standard yes or no, one that changes my thought far into the future.

"Toshi-sama will not be able to deliver out a punishment for Satomi anymore, you'll be in charge of the following action for her, standby for your equipment, this is a test to pass you into Slithers ranks."

I paused at that, but gave a response to the other before they left and a ping came out of the box's screen.

I had been selected for a rank change to Slithers, but why?

My job currently is care taking the elder's heirs, feeding, clothing, and preparing them for the mandated rules they would structure themselves by, how was I now qualified for medical procedures.

I'm good with the bountiful set of tools we construct our repairs with it, some with spinning metal bits, saw cutting and hammering nails in. I'm not a scholar of sickness and treatments, so why?

I pull back the box catching the instructions appearing upon the screen and see it clearly what it is I need to do.

Step 1:

Sakka Iannaccone, you are to take Satomi into Ward-13, 6 rows, and 18 columns away from Ward-56. If she begins to struggle, disable her and go on to the ward.

Step 2:

In the first door to your left, there will be a reclining chair, secure Satomi to this and make sure she is awake by the time you have strapped her in. Gag her if she continues to struggle with the restraints.

Step 3:

Upon checking Satomi's place in the chair without too much discomfort you'll keep watch over her but don't make any contact with her at all till you receive word of her punishment ending. If she tries engaging you, disable her again if you feel yourself giving into her pleas.

Step 4:

Remember this is a test evaluation and an opportunity to fix Satomi's constant misbehavior, do not let her have any pleasure with this, only pain and silence.

Good luck to you, Sakka Iannaccone.

I put the box back on the supply rack, and Satomi-chan's clutching my legs with her own before trying to crawl up to my torso, so I hit her.

She goes down with ease but I check anyways if I actually brought her any harm to her neck, she's still breathing so I continue on with the requested punishment.

Satomi mumbles as I pick her up to my back, something about Toshi-sama and fire butterflies I'm not sure if the last thing was a single word or her slurring in the half conscious state.

I walk out the ward locking it back up with this weird rectangle the size of my hand; it had my face printed on it and some code words on it as well. Again I never knew this was a normal thing in the world out side The Blessing, it's called a I.D card, odd as it is to me, I like having my face printed on this thing, do I even have it still?

The Wards are these rusted beat up warehouses The Blessing got during the gang war with HengSodie in Aichi Prefecture.

I'm really unsure of what cities it went down in, only that it got new coverage for a whole week before the elders and a few others like me got snuck out to another base.

I don't even know what city I'm stationed at now, Kana-san is the one with all the maps but the elders have warned me twice before to not ask those questions ever again, seeing as they publicly beat Kana-san' s beautiful face up just because Kana reported to them about my questions.

Kana-san never talked about that again, but the bruises stayed for a long time and I was the one who had to patch her up while she worked without speaking to me for a long time, I never got to apologize for that, I wonder if Kana-san forgives me?

Down to the last 3 rows and 5 columns I was walking through a sudden downpour of rain. Satomi-chan awakes to the rain pelting down and starts screams while she bashes about my back with her little fist. So again I'm forced to deal with her but I can't hit her this time.

Her eyes are wide open and her pupils dilated, quivering with the fear of unknowing where she was and the rain seeping onto her skin.

I once felt like that, but not for a moment or for a bad morning one day, but for five years I felt like that, till The Blessing came down upon me with, what I though before as, grace-filled hands and pulled me out of that fear.

I haven't had any fear since then, but now with Satomi-chan struggling against me in this bitter rain I find my mind opening that small wilted emotion, so old and foreign to me, into my thoughts.

I can't say I recognize the alarms going off in my head before flashes of a gruesome memory strike me hard at the moment and I let Satomi drop to the muddy ground.

She cries, gripping her arms together while I falter about shocked by the sudden thoughts going in my head but more so confused at why I dropped Satomi-chan.

I'm not even sure now why I did, is that what people do in pure shock?

Satomi-chan didn't get up so I had to step down to the mud and pick her up, only she wasn't looking for me to help her rather she wanted to punch me in the teeth and bolt onwards into the labyrinth of Wards.

I spit out blood, and hell I was surprised by her strength but the fear of failing my test took precedents and sprinted after the little beaten up girl.

I took to the Wards on my right, darting between each of them but nothing of the girl was at any of them, so I started opening a few, still nothing.

"Satomi-chan, please come here, we need to go. Satomi-chan."

I whispered out trying to beckon her back to me but she didn't answer.

"Satomi-chan, please."

Still she wasn't answering me, so I keep going down the rows, now by the number 20 she had to be close unless she was a faster running than I was informed of in her files.

She would be perfect for spy work if she behaved like a proper human as Toshi-sama acted as every day, it must of been bad gene mixture with the father Elaine only courted with to be done with sex all together. She never found it appealing as the rest of the birthing women did, but then those women had the names of 'Slut' & 'Skank' attached to them everywhere they go, those words must be horrible since they break out into fights anytime somebody said it to them, even pull out knifes against the word user.

I shake the thought off; Satomi-chan horrible genes wouldn't help me bring her back for her punishment only delay my report to the Slither and a bad grade on my test as well.

I keep on running.

Flashback

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Past Location: The Wards

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Wrong Turn to Burning

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There passing a Ward labeled as number 11 I heard the faint rustling up head of me, I dropped to a crawl and find Satomi-chan little feet pacing back and forth on the other side of the Ward-10.

I pad across the mud with my hands sinking into the mud and my knees shivering at cold slop touching them with each crawl I made towards the unsuspecting girl.

Satomi-chan stopped pacing and I halted my crawl, she didn't look beyond the spot she was hiding behind but rocked back and forth a moment before her feet out right vanish into the building she stood by, she let a half wail out before she dropped it into silence, what was that for?

I kept still thinking maybe this was a game or she is just freaking out over a bug of some kind but her feet don't return but another sound comes up.

Footsteps echoed, heavier than Satomi's and then the sound ceased. What were the footsteps, did she meet with an off-duty Watchmen?

Oh shit she'll be punished even worse by them, so I crawled on faster to the place she was before.

If it were a Watchmen then I'll be out of luck by their rectangle things will have maximum clearance than the one I have on me, they all lock these Wards, but Watchmen have access to denying entrance after they enter a Ward and trapping people into them as well.

At the other side I'm wincing at the pain in my knee caps but still I'm dragging my half upwards body to see how Satomi-chan got in there.

It's more than unlocked the door is, it's off its hinges and blue paint splatters it as well.

That's a Zaki-69 sign of war!

I jump into the build gripping onto the wall as the pain comes up in my knees but I must run Satomi-chan is in danger!

It's dark but the string bulb lights still flickering send out a path for me and there past every wall is splattered with the neon blue streaking all the way up to the ceilings and floor, it is still fresh.

I'm lead to a door halfway open with a white light flicker madly beyond and the small voice of Satomi-chan whimpering.

"Satomi-chan!"

I bolt in, incredibly stupid as I know this is a war sight for how ever long since Zaki-69 got here into the Wards, and I get slammed down by a force of a heavy weight fighter trying to break my back in one blow. Luckily for me, it could have been worse for me, but it only paralyzed me into a choking fit as I was left to squirm about the floor trying to gain the air back into my lungs.

Yeah lucky me, the luckiest of all them soldiers.

"Look at what the bitch brought along with her, another Blessing solider and what the hell! A girl in fact."

I tearing at the floor gasping out as the raspy voice hangs overhead me but I couldn't do much but gasp and tear at the ground, I'm useless at the moment and have no clue where Satomi-chan is now.

I keep wheezing, and then a hit comes to my back and I choke on my salvia at the shock, eyes rolling back and the place goes dark a moment before I shoved over with my front exposed to the enemy.

"Hey solider, shut the fuck up with that shit, don't want your little brat getting the beat down, do ya!"

I fumble about the floor, the blurry room coming into view again and I clutch my mouth letting only muffed breathes out as I find a fixed point till the whirling left again.

I can't stop the choking trying to weasel out, so I fidget side to side, for that I get kicked to my ribs. I let my mouth to wheeze out but it jumps my lungs into working and a dribble of spit leaks out before I let my body lay still.

"Heh soldiers always got to please the abuser, don't they!"

Sprawled across the floor I get a sense of who I was in the presences of, a hit man, well a front for a real hit man but none the less a threat to The Blessing, I shut my eyes a second thinking not of what to do next but if I should make a threat back but hold it back fearing this isn't something the elders want at the moment.

"Is there a-a need to d- inflict-ing such damage on a-a enemy solider?"

I grit the words coming trying to say them with a reputation of a strong solider but then with the air still low in my head it comes out slurred and jittery like a infant learning to spell 'cat' for the first time.

"Like the shit you say but not so much your bosses, so yeah I'll be damaging you up real good, honey."

I roll my body away from the voice and see what was beyond the normal barn room this voice was talking around in, many more feet stand around me and a black thing standing higher than rest, like maybe a chair or box thing.

"Oh see you found the brat now, don't worry I might be in to damaging ya, I'll have more effect with this twerp."

My eyes see Satomi-chan, with that realization catches my body up to speed, and I'm pushing off the ground to a crouch and dead set eyes on her and the person standing besides her.

The room shouldn't be different than Ward-56 but the odd black chair rimmed with sliver and arm rests on leave it to be for an entirely different purpose than the last room I was in.

I sway with my stance and the feet surrounding me draw closer before long blades come forth to point at me, so it is a fight they are looking for.

"Hey careful now girl, you look a little winded, lay back down for now, we'll be with this brat for now."

I take my eyes away from the feet reluctantly but there my eyes go up to find hooded men carrying the weapons at me. I glance side to side and find Satomi-chan sitting in the chair, bounded by the armrest as she wiggles about it with the person standing right by still and like a decaying skeleton.

Greasy black dreads drape off the pale faced man, purplish stains hang under his sunglasses pressed to close to his face and a mouth full of shine splits open with a sickening smirk.

I spit at his feet and a hooded man presses a machete to my neck, but just for a moment before the sunglasses man calls him off, I wipe the warmth trickling on my neck before he speaks again.

"Like I said, you'll have to wait, she's more important at the moment."

His boney hand pats Satomi-chan's frizzed hair, she whimpers clenching her hands as he continues to do that.

"Stop doing that, putrid swine!"

I throw myself forward but get met with blades against my heart and arms before he turns to look at me but he keeps patting her.

"She's important. Like I said, you'll have to wait, so why fight me, little solider, why?"

He drops the smirk to an expressionless line, making the shine in his teeth hide behind his flaking lips and his hand stops on Satomi's head but then grabs a tuff of Satomi-chan's hair, she began to wail with such a dramatic sound to her hoarse voice started to squeak on and off.

I don't stand again, don't reach out to her or even look to her as she screams, but I think of what else he might use on her to threaten my obedience with as this might be just a beginning to what other things they have planned now.

"She's won't be of any use."

I talk, and her wails end from then but a gruff growl slips into the air before the sunglasses man speaks with an echoing affect to it, trying to appear strong and the dominating figure in this situation.

"And, what tells you that solider? She is a daughter of your shitty elders; she'll spill easier than you would on a metal table and a box of nails."

He's a touch off of yelling with fury but he stays with a voice of exhaustion but victory still, a cocky bastard with no fears of losing to another.

"Information doesn't stick with her well or detailed as you would like it to be, it's a lost cause sadly for both of us. She'll refuse or make up lies about The Blessing. It is believed to be a mental issue with her or more, perhaps a lack of oxygen at birth or just plain retardation in some aspect. She's an elder's daughter but an out casted daughter to be exact."

I try arranging myself to kneel as I speak to the man, he starts to curl his mouth and a twitch comes close to his eyes but he drags out a frown to hide the shock.

Satomi whimpers a little once I've finished, I take my eyes away from the man to her's and a faint shade of red spreads across her complexion the pain must be back or she is becoming restless in the seat, wanting me to hurry this up for her.

The man steps in front of Satomi and I reach his gaze with a scowl at the action, but his own expression buckles a part of my determination.

Sunglasses sit right above his wide, sweaty forehead and his eyes a dirty brown hold the eyes bulging out and blood-shot. Anger fills them and makes his pupils dilate like he is on drugs, which is highly likely with the pale white skin, severe sweating and the bulging occurring with his eyes.

If I'm lucky he may have taken experimental drugs or an overdose this one day and will keel over before leaving the Wards.

"The shit you say solider, just for a little brat now, what will you Blessings not do for your selfish desires?"

He spits at me, the glob lands on my head and oozes down my goggles to slow to ignore as the words hiss out his shakily lips.

"This isn't a lie and The Blessing don't do good things for selfish purposes, the girl is important well vital for reputation ranks since reproduction of her DNA is a forbidden and disgusted action when she becomes of age if she is just the same or worse."

I sway a moment feeling a numb tingling come over my lungs but it passes and my breath return again, I'm still unable to move against this thugs but soon with more of this petty distraction Satomi-chan has given me I can take them all on and go on my mission finally, though I'll have to report this event and Satomi will have a greater punishment to deal with later, maybe today or a week from now, even a month if I covered her rebelling action but that serves me no safety if I'm found out so she'll have to take her punishment without a lesser charge to it now.

"Solider, shut up now, 'cause you've gotten on my last nerve. Little brat here is gonna pay for what you Blessings do to everybody else in Japan!"

I bring my eyes back to the man, again his glasses are down and shading away that drug filled look of his. He starts to bring up his other hand, covered with a double row bass knuckle engraved with something in black, in his hand is a small palm sized sliver thing, and I figure it out after a moment of squinting at it.

A lighter.

A hooded man steps to him and presents a green bottle sloshing with a thick brown liquid, the smells wafts over my senses. I vomit at the stench right there upon the hooded man's black shoes.

He stops moving but I curl over hurling at the smell swirling about my nose. The glasses man starts to speak, snickers interrupt him as he plays with the lighter, flicking on and off the fire in it.

"Solider of The Blessing and look at you now, a vomit filled meat bag curled up in front of us, how pitiful you all are, you're not the greatest or the toughest. Just deceitful shits, you band together as one huge lie. You're born of a whore and with only little tricks to win your ways!"

I growl but the smells still swirls around and the vomits comes squeezing out my stomach, I hack and cough trying to rid the chunks catching in my throat. I spill out more of the acid and let one more sentence come out before I go back down to dry heave the sick feeling in me.

"The Blessing is strong, and you'll pay for this shit you try to bring. What another war, my god you'll all die this round!"

I moan out scraping my nails against the floor and the pulsating pain in my back starts to thud against my stomach clenching and unclenching in hope of spewing out my intestines, if that could ever be possible.

"The Blessing's gonna burn right under your fucking feet now, you dumb-ass solider!"

Voices come out from all around the hooded men and the glasses man as my insides purge and cripple me to a sick meat bag. I hear Satomi muffle out a yell and the banging of her feet against the chair while the men around laugh loud as they shout at me.

"What the fuck did ya think would happen after it all!"

"Yo stole all our shit, all the money, the women, the booze too!"

"You stupid whore, what the fuck do you even know about us, huh!"

A puncture, a rip down my spine blooms and I choke back the vomit coming out as the shocked hacking gasp come out of me, the crackling laughs reaches a higher pitch then and I fall to the floor covered with my fluids spread all around the circle of feet.

The glasses man with the lighter clicks it shut with a tight snap and the laughs come to an end, but I continue to gasp out, twitch about the warm goo beneath me trying to reach the pain not subsiding in my back.

"Solider, solider. Pity you had to as useless as this girl is, but let this be a, parting gift. Just for you, not your elder, alright."

I put my hands into the mess, slipping around while I pressed myself upwards out of it and cough but nothing comes out this time as my throat stings now.

The slushy bottle makes a sound and i look to the glasses man taking it into his own hands shaking it up and open it.

He throws the cap behind him and throws a swig of the liquid onto the floor in front of me; he smirks as I look up at him with a raised eyebrow. He turns away with that smirk brimming now as he walked back to Satomi-chan and dumped the rest onto her.

Right as he turned the bottle onto her head Satomi-chan shrieked, kicking her legs as much as her bruised battered limbs could now as it came down.

Pouring down as a showerhead the brown slush drenched through her clothes, dribbling down her arms, pooling in the seat between her legs, and streaming down her legs tainting the white tights she wore. Her mouth and nose bubbled as the sprays of liquid caught in them and leaked out as the liquid came to all gone fro the bottle.

I should of been screaming, begging for her life, throwing myself at them and pulling her out of there into the pooling puddles to clean her of the oil, should of been doing all of that, but what with what my mind was then it can't be changed, it can't be forgotten and yet there is a part of my mind now still nodding in what I did, nodding in what I did for the Blessing and for what I didn't do for Satomi-chan.

"Doing this, fo-for-forget war, you'll be to-torn from the gro-ground up."

I rose up; the blur motions of the room slow down in my eyes and filter out in a black shade.

Feet locked my stance as my hands wipe the cold slime off and the hooded men took their weapons back onto me. Eye level, to eye level we would be matched but I wasn't going to be on the floor again.

I was about kill them, piece by piece.

"Heh, you solider, of The Blessing, talk of war! This is revenge for your actions, you deserve this!"

The glasses man strikes out a finger to me, and his shiny mouth splits open a nasty snarling as he pushed aside his men and made his way into the circle, closer to his death in 5 more seconds.

His breath was the one thing that slipped past my thoughts as he approached, stale and reeking of cigars it hammered down but had I have any more to purge out I would of then before him.

"Look here and now I-"

I grabbed his face, the slap of my palmed flesh to him zapped right to his dumbfounded expression, and I twisted it away curling my hands till I felt pain of over extension and till a bone snapped out from his neck.

There the crimson red spewed out and the life in him fell right out of him that second after he spoke.

A dumb ass he will be in death as well.

The hooded men stopped the wild cheers and were left in a eerie silence before a single shout hollered out and a step of feet rushed me.

I grabbed the man, he ran into my hands, and I started to claw into the hood, ripping through the fine flesh of his face and shove him off before he could retaliate to the shock. I sent my leg up high and dropped in hard onto this sternum, the cracking of bone called out from his chest and a half whimper-half yell came out before he dropped his failing arms abruptly. He was dead as well, must have been a fragmented bone lodged into his heart or served the artery; I don't care how he went.

The rest came after that, knifes coming to hack me down and fist ready to clobber my skull in, but they went down, every last one of them.

Not all at once, not all dead on the first hit but broken hips, broken limbs, friendly fire stabbing and ripped out pieces of flesh to falter their attempts on me came down on them all as they charged me after the first man went down.

All were dead at some point, all in the end lay still in the Ward, and I went on to Satomi.

I should of left her there, I should of called to report this, should, should, shouldn't of gone to her.

She was half away out of her left bounds, her skin peeling off and blood oozed from the small cuts, she wouldn't die from it, but she would bruise more.

"Hey Satomi-chan. You okay now? Don't go running away next time, okay. Bad men will come again and kill you if you're alone."

I took her bounds, breaking the plastic cuffs keeping her thighs in place. Another set of flesh wounds lay under these as well, it could infect soon without treatments, and she might have her punishment as getting sick.

"Iannaccone, why, why, why did the men have to go nap time? They look in pain now. Please help them."

Satomi's hands clutched my shirt as I broke the last of the bounds, I pulled her off and set her to the floor on her own two feet rather than lug her own as I needed to do clean up here.

"Satomi-chan, you need to stay right there for a few minutes, these men must be pulled into a pile now."

I picked up a body before she spoke up and I ignored the whining voice she made as she stood there spinning around to watch me as I pulled the body further to the back entrance across the room and continued to go about this process till she stomped her feet.

"Iannaccone, please can I move, I'm worried about these men! Where are they going?"

She turned a flushed red and ran over to me taking a hold of the body's arms I was carrying at the moment, I put a hand to her head and she let go looking up at me as I smiled to her.

"Why they are going to be delivered back to the rest of their gang, we might even add a bomb to the corpses once they arrive on the base, sound good for you."

I flop about her hair sticky with the oil and go back to pulling the body to the back, Satomi just stood by with an odd expression, her mouth open and o-shaped.

I went back fro another body near Satomi and she blocked my way with that odd expression still there on her, I laughed thinking it was a joke or game her mind came up with at the moment but she didn't move when the laugh ended, but she did yell at me.

"What, how is that sane, Iannaccone? What are you doing, you, you, you Killed those men just now!"

Satomi, this tiny girl screeching and stomping her feet, babbling on with such a look of fear, shame and-and disappointment at me, through me, more like it now playing it back from the memory.

She's angry with me, but why?

I had just taken out her attackers, she was about to be burned and left as a war sign, she should be happy-glad at least that I did that for her, why is she so furious with me?

"Iannaccone, why are you in this ba-bad place too? I thought you wanted to leave here?"

She shoves me pushing my torso away from her and the body, so I take a step back and hold out my hands. I didn't know what I was dealing with so I just let her do her thing. I backed up put my hands into my pockets and watched her as she glared back into my expression.

She crouched down to the body placing her hands high above the ripped flesh flapped open from the neck; she didn't flinch or hold her stomach at the sight of the messy body.

"Iannaccone, you just murdered people. Why aren't you terrified?"

I thought of shrugging it off but she wouldn't notice it so I decided to go over to the body and sit down for that conversation.

"Satomi, I am terrified. Toshi-sama would have lost; you Satomi, his first, and still living granddaughter toady if I hadn't stopped these men. You do get that right? It is law to kill when a threat is occurring."

I leaned my hands on the body's chest as I spoke quietly and Satomi leaned away with that odd look. Still at the moment talking like this seemed to be the only way I knew how to get her to listen, but that was when I thought she was the one with the mental problems.

"Iannaccone, you're talking crazy."

She got up from the body with a new look, fear, and worry stricken her so fast after I spoke of the logic of this killing spree. I wasn't buying it that I was wrong, the elders taught me everything, they had given me life and I had chosen this, so why would it be wrong, no life is forever and no evil should be allowed to flourish, so why did she think I was crazy?

If only I was what I have become now, then that the thing I was; was molded by The Blessing. I was, and still am a monster of their creation and of my own choice.

Satomi, sit back down. You're a child and one with differences that make society look oddly upon you, make you take pills to fit the structure of normality just so you don't cause such problems or lies like you are now."

I take my hands off the body and stand while Satomi keeps backing away with that look; her lips wiggling and eyes growing wet as I make my way over.

"Iannaccone, you are crazy."

Again she's speaking, lying to my face with avoiding her own mental health and poking at my own, but I wasn't haven't it anymore, she would understand her place and go along it, whether she liked it or not.

Toshi-sama had made it clear in the last step to do this, but I can't remember what it said, just that it was step 5 on the glowing screen and the words blanks after that.

"Take a choice Satomi, here and now. Accept this, The Blessing and all or.."

I let my hands come up, swirl little circles with my fingers and it caught her eyes as she reached the center of the fighting and the glasses man's body still laying there with the lighter under his dead hands.

"Or?"

Satomi whispered, her face composing to a blank stare while her fingers fidgeted at her sides before I stopped my fingers and continued the rest of the step.

I'm remembering what it wrote down; I'm remembering what she says and what happens next.

"Or let yourself be taken to-"

I paused, thinking back to the screen and puzzling over why Toshi would give such an odd threat to her, she wasn't bright or worthy of traveling but this place I suppose was bad or with another base she could be sent out.

"Or let yourself be taken to Airin-chiku starting tomorrow."

Satomi went rigid, chomping onto her lip, the red starts to drip off and her feet drop away as she lay flat on the floor, gasping out with a squealing cry.

I didn't move to her, I stood alarmed by the sound but she was given her choice, she should just pick The Blessing and be done with this, done with it all.

I sit down as her voice cracked and the rain comes down louder, drowning her voice for a little while my eyes shut and the red thudding light came over me.

.

.

"Satomi you have to give me an answer."

I blink, groaning out the words. I wasn't sure of what had occured, if I passed out or just blanked the minute away, but I get up to my feet seeing Satomi knelt over the sunglasses man and her hands rocking together.

"Satomi!"

I rolled my neck, crack the kinks in it and she responds but only with a slow rise of her head to me.

Crying eyes stared out from her face but the tears dripping off her lips drew my attention, sad open eyes looking with at me, filled with things to say and things that'll never be said.

"I'll-I wi-will Die."

Satomi's voice hissed out and she stood up straight gripping her fists so tight she was shaking.

There she raised her arms, raising one high above her head and the other close to her chin reveling in it the gleaming sliver between her fingers, the light clicked.

Fire came over Satomi, fire busted through and around her. A column, a barrier, between her and I swooped in with an orange light.

Fire, fire, fire burning at her flesh and I caught her voice, screaming out and her falling over the bodies around.

I stared, watched, shook about my head in denial and then I went to her pulling her out of there. It burned to touch her, it sliced at me but I wasn't moving with logical, I was just moving now.

Pulling her to the rain outside but as it was, I was too late.

There was none.

The rain was gone, all the clouds colored that dark gray but only the ground held the rain and formed the mud beneath our feet. I shove her, roll her about the mud as the fire's scorching my legs and she's screaming and hitting me with her fiery fists. Gravel, mud, and water get tossed about; get flung in the air and into my eyes.

She stops screams, stops hitting and her arms fall away from me, but I feel the touch of the burn coursing still. Eyes that is what I could see first, her green irises, they didn't gleam or blink. They remained open and staring upwards into the grey clouds.

"Satomi, get up."

I rubbed her cheeks, put a little slap into padding her flabby skin; she was playing around again I knew it then, but she didn't stir just kept staring on.

"Satomi, get up now."

I took her hand but let it go, it wasn't even a hand still. There was a strip dangling of flesh half black and tearing off her phalanges showing beneath. Charcoal remains of a hand and in grabbing it I made her hand crumble some like shredded meat in a package.

"Satomi, get up now, you hear me!"

I look away from the hand, glancing down to her legs. Big blotchy spots of red seeped out, her shorts a blood smeared cloth burned to bits and gravel lay all around her and rammed into her skin. I looked back at her eyes, but her face was the worse of it, I wished I didn't look.

"Satomi?"

I shouldn't have done this!

Right between her eyes a sharp rock was jammed in and the blood spurted out for one time as I touched its edge. She was dead, not of life but in ever moving forward in life. Her body would remain warm and her lungs moved still.

Comatose.

Satomi Kunnio, 11 years old, granddaughter to Toshi-sama; a grand leader for over 6 decades and the trigger hand in having Satomi commit her own death, suicide.

Airin-chiku, that place I didn't realize its importance, its meaning for Satomi and I leaned of this much later, after I buried her in the Wards.

It's a slum where her mother, Elaine, lived in for a bit of time while Satomi grew up after complications with her birth, it is a lawless place, filed with crime drugs and immoral people with no where else. Toshi-sama told Elaine she had to live there and she did that but he kept pushing the day of her leave every year till she begged him, still he wouldn't let her come home till he gave her the choice of wedding an elder or becoming a front liner in the war coming up. She chosen death than marriage, leaving Satomi alone in the near future and coming to live with Toshi-sama once Zaki-69 was taken down.

While in Airin-chikuSatomi was raped there, 5 years old it started and multiple times in fact, till she murdered the man doing that to her for 3 years and the man's brothers came for her after that, but they raped Elaine instead and that is when Toshi-sama gave her the choice.

He wanted more babies from Elaine, babies of reputation, but she refused everyone but that father of Satomi. He was killed on the streets just a day after Elaine gave birth and she never was informed of this. Toshi-sama devised that because the father was a homeless artist working as a bartender in a rival gang.

Satomi had no family, had no one who care for her, she was labeled different and a threat if let out. She wasn't sick, her compilations at birth were of her mother bleeding out for a bit, and there wasn't anything wrong with her.

I only knew at that moment looking into her dead eyes of an eavesdropping conversation Toshi-sama had with an advisor a month ago. I hadn't meant to stand by the door or cup my hand, I was listening to my gut a knotted feeling that couldn't leave till I heard it for myself.

Toshi-sama made it all up, a lie to trap this little girl and use her for more children. He had plans to court her into a marriage when she would become 16.

Now comatose, he could do that without struggle or questions. Only to lock her away, and wait for a child to be born from her.

I couldn't let that happen.

I wasn't allowing that vile man to slain her anymore.

I went off with her wreckage of a body cradling her damaged knees and petting her falling hairs and I drove her out, far, far away. I took her into a black van shot through windows and a bad braking to it, but I wasn't losing her now. The engine squealed, burning rubber as it started up but no one was around to stop my plan, no law, or no rule. I'm not stopping.

Into the night, dark clouds hovering our escape and I kept talking to Satomi, anything to know I wasn't alone. I didn't want to be alone.

I didn't want to be alone.

"Iannaccone, wh-where ar-are-"

The voice of Satomi croaked out but to that second the 'memory me' looked back at that little girl the memory zapped me out as I reached back for it.

.

.

.

Unknown Time & Day

. .

Current Location: Unknown

. .

Save Me from Perdition

. .

I gasp, throat constricting, coiling around my breath coming out in a rasp but I can't reach it with my hands so I fall back struggling against the clenching.

The dream-like place, that memory, it shattered at that moment I drove off, and slipped away throwing me out of it.

I remember what I forget.

A plane, shedding metal grating on my ears while screaming people pleaded for life.

A crash, explosions ripping through my eyes and blasting me into a dark sky, filled with bright stars.

Then there was the fire, howling winds picked up the flame and my body burnt up, just like with Satomi.

Just like those dead green eyes.

It's real.

My hell is real, my mission is real, and the darkness is far away now.

I find my breath, my hands stretch out and I see it.

The sun and the blue skies, they're still there.

End of Chapter Four: Suicide Labyrinth