Beelzebub adventures chapter 6
Nasu, Takamiya, Ringo, Akahoshi, and Ichikawa stood turned into stone before Oga. Hilda and Alaindelon were nowhere to be found. Despite feeling his warmth on his nape, Oga could'nt feel Beel grasping at him.
"You're not the same…you're not the same…'' Kunieda's last while the life was drained out of her body pierced his eardrums and chest. "Please, you're never… to let…Beel cry.''
Kunieda's stone corpse lied in his arms, increasingly colder as the seconds passed and Fuji, along Satan, walked towards him with a condescending expression on their faces. Lifting Kunieda, Oga shielded her with his body before Fuji could deliver the final blow.
The sound of the explosion still resonated in Oga's ears after he seated on the side of his bed. The feel of Kunieda's colder stone body was still fresh on his arms and chest while he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He stood up and walked to the window. The clock tower of the town featured 4:30 am. Leaning his hands on the base of the window, he tried to put his thoughts in order. Being the cold type, he managed it, yet a slight pang of anguish still ached deep inside of him. The nightmare would not loose his grasp on him despite Kunieda's releasing his hand the last moment before being turned into a statue, knowing he wouldn't be able to free it if she didn't.
"I'm nervous. I'm worried about them. About her. They're in danger. That's all. It's not some prophetic crap. They'll be fine. Just relax….'' Oga thinks to himself.
Looking back at the rest of the small hotel room they had rented, he envied the peace and rest his friends enjoyed. After two days of travel, they had finally arrived to a large mining town in the southern region of the Demon World. Yet fate was cruel enough to ruin his first night in a proper bed in several days. Kanzaki slept on the farthest bed to the right, Furuichi slept right near him, his bed was on the center right of Himekawa's. A warm breeze blew at his back from the window carrying to him the sounds of the miners and tent owners who were already waking up for work. Laying on his bed again, Oga proceeded his usual routine of staring at the ceiling fan as the following hours for dawn passed, waiting hopelessly for Morpheus to finally put him to sleep soon. The lights of dawn was already sending it's golden rays into the dark blue atmosphere of the room when Oga's eyes finally got closed without him noticing.
….
"Maybe you should start taking some sleep pills, dude. You're looking worst every day. Just look at those bags under your eyes.'' Furuichi suggests.
"Cut the crap. I'm don't need that garbage. I'm perfectly fine." Oga says.
"Man, first that dress, then this 'make up' around your eyes? Dude, chicks fall for you left and right. You have a wife and two wannabee lovers yet you do this shit? At this pace, you'll smooch Furuichi before you realize.'' Kanzaki said, smirking.
"Hey!" Furuichi cried.
Oga threw his coffee cup at Kanzaki's face before he could even laugh once. Himekawa and Furuichi had to use every ounce of their strength to restrain the two testosterone fueled men before they made a scene that would get them kicked out of the Coffeehouse where they decided to take breakfast in order not to stay too much time in the same place.
"We'll have get enough fights in the following days, morons. Right now, we have to know why the hell you got kidnapped, how, and where our friends might be. Yeah, it might have to do with Oga…but that alone will not help much.'' Himekawa says, letting go of Kanzaki.
"I didn't have that earphone translator you gave yesterday, so obviously I couldn't understand shit about what those cops were saying.'' Kanzaki says before mouthing another spoonful of yoghurt.
"I could only understand what they said after Oga pulled that mind trick on me with that toy. I can't help much either.'' Himekawa instinctively took his finger up to his forehead to adjust the glasses that were supposed to be there.
Himekawa accommodated his hair bangs instead, getting irritated by the absence of his Pompadour haircut due to Furuichi convincing them on using against the demonic shape-shifting rattle they had brought with them. He knew it was the best option for the situation, since drawing unwanted attention from the organization that had kidnapped them was the last thing they wanted. They had taken the appearances 4 of Goldo's soldiers.
"Ok, I get it, let's put it this way, did you at least see some kind of sign, jewel or seal in their hands, necks or whatever visible body parts?'' Furuichi asks.
"Not a single one.'' Kanzaki replies.
"The closest to that I could get would be the tattoos those mercenaries had on them, but metal face says he didn't see jack. So I would assume it was just the mark of that mercenary company. And I doubt they were smart enough to organize this mess, nor why they wanted to do it.'' Himekawa says.
"Well, those guys sure are smart enough not to give away cliché clues to the protagonists of the shonen. Ok, we at least can assume the safest option by the moment, this has to do with Oga and Beel. This guy wanted Oga to come here for some reason. They got it. Maybe they're remnants of the Solomon company or a rogue group like the one Athrun worked for. They might as well work for Satan's kingdom.'' Kanzaki says.
"So, why did they want me here?'' Oga wonders while picking his nose.
"Why didn't the just kidnap Beel and Oga directly? I get that they maybe knew they could be detected by Beel, but they could have just forced him to go with them by threatening his sister or parents. And how where they so skilled when abducting us so swiftly but then sucked hard at keeping us captive. Why did they spread us? Why not keeping us in the same place, let's say a fortress or something like that. Then have Oga go directly there? They're wasting manpower and time every day it passes. Every wasted day is another day they give away to us to plan a counter attack. Hell, if we even ask help to the Demon Lord himself, they'll be screwed in less than a week. It's way too cliché, even for a damn shonen.'' Himekawa added
"Whatever they have in mind, it might very well be worse than we imagine. I'm starting to doubt Oga's nightmares are happening just by chance. Every day he wakes up more tired. We must keep going before this gets out of hand.'' Furuichi suggests.
An uncomfortable silence suddenly fell among the group, a moment they used to finish their breakfast, after which they resumed their deliberations.
Himekawa opens a map that he bought from he streets.
"Well, let's summarize this, Beel's tracking indicates that two or three of our friends are trapped in the surroundings of this city, specifically in the area where the marble mines are located. Well, as much as I love Indiana Jones movies, it's not a very good location to hide people from someone with Beel's abilities since a single candle will always be easier to find in a dark room rather than in a room full of a thousand other candles.'' Himekawa says, looking at the map.
"Well said. When there's a lot of different energy signals around, Beel finds it way more difficult to concentrate on the signal we look for, so he has to spend more energy and time. Hiding our friends in a desolated area where the signal will be isolated only makes it way easier for us. I don't know, but it reeks like a trap here.'' Furuichi added.
"Well, if we can't enter the party from the front door, then let's climb the backyard wall and sneak in.'' Kanzaki suggests, while picking his ears.
After a few moments of thought, a satisfaction smile appeared on the faces of everyone on the table.
…
"Ok, man, I can only take you this far. Our man is on the first tunnel at the left. Be careful, you can still find dangerous critters in those waters. You know where to find me next time if you want more Specter Breath. Take care.'' The young ginger man who led Himekawa inside the sewer tunnels looked at him with a cunning smirk and left him to his luck.
Having taken a different appearance after leaving the Café Store, the gang headed into a bar, where they greased the palm of the barman with a tip so massive it could only come from a member of the nobility who wanted to go the bad part of town. Delighted, the man told them where to find the seller who could sell them the newest and most fashionable drug in town: Spectre Breath, a powder that, after lit on fire inside a pipe, emitted a blue phosphorescent steam that produced a unique state of euphoria and allowed the user to go into whatever trip he wanted.
After walking a few blocks behind the bar, along many dark alleys, they parted a bit before reaching the dealer and Himekawa met him alone. After a short chat, the young man led him through disguised cover into the city sewers. Oga and the rest of the team, always tracking him, opened a crater inside a parallel tunnel a followed Himekawa until he got the instructions he needed. Waiting a few minutes after man disappeared, Oga and the rest of the gang appeared around a corner.
"He says there's some interesting hell spawn down here.'' Himekawa says, smirking.
"One of my life dreams was playing doom in Hell itself. Don't worry for me.''
Oga says, while leading the stroll.
Ignoring the instructions of the junkie, the gang took a completely different path, intending to enter the mine from a route they hoped to catch their foes completely off guard: the aqueducts that carried out the grey water out of the mines went on parallel to with the city sewers. After an entire day of street research consisting in bribes, abductions, tortures, beatings, death threats and reading some public police reports (mostly led by Himekawa and Kanzaki), the gang found confirmed the theory they needed to be true the most: that most of the Spectre Breath made in the city was made in hidden labs inside the marble mines, where whoever was in charge disposed of the alchemy and materials needed to create and refine the drug.
After three hours of walking over waste liquid and tearing down whatever wall they needed to create shortcuts Beel indicated and killing some of the most disgusting lizard and rodent like creatures they had ever seen, the young men finally arrived to their desired destination, the tunnel used by the dealers to get the drug out of the mine.
"Let's hope this dumbass doesn't seem to out of character to whoever we may encounter there.'' Himekawa says, smirking at Kanzaki.
"I'll just shut up and let you and Furuichi do the talking, and you better not screw us by saying shit you shouldn't.'' Kanzaki replied.
"I'll whoop your asses if you fuck the plan morons. Move on.'' Oga angrily says, with a tired tone.
The group walked to the entrance and rang the doorbell they knew would be there, courtesy of the drug puller on the first tunnel, whose head they crashed into the wall in the same moment a hell lizard got out of the water a few feet away from them.
"What did the Poltergeist said to the Ghoul?'' A voice from the bell phone asks.
"I'm fine with my Parkinson, while you eat dicks and balls from corpses without realizing.'' Furuichi replies, while sighing at the terrible joke the dealers used ass password.
"Cleared.'' The voice answered.
"Even your friend Shiroyama could write a better joke than that, my goodness.'' Himekawa stopped his hand just before his finger could straight the nonexistent glasses on his forehead.
"He's not stupid, just misunderstood. Now let's go.'' Kanzaki replies.
Metallic sounds filled the air for a few seconds before the iron hatch was opened.