In the snowy town of Hanayuki, furious snow and howling winds raided the large town, the whispers and diagonal path of vicious sleet raining down on the townspeople below.
In the far borders of the town was seen a young figure of a man, silhouetted against the steamy white sky, walking into the town, wearing a black puffy jacket to keep him warm from the freezing snow, the jacket covering his entire waist up, including his head with a black furry hood. He dragged his boots across the soft snow on the ground that seemed to be rising by inch every minute. At his mysterious presence, everyone turned to look at him, only to look away a second later, somewhat bothered by his entering, even though they didn't know who he was, the strange person who kept pacing himself through the thick snow. All they thought of him was that he was different. He was powerful.
About five miles away, the wind was howling loudly outside a tall, snowy hospital's walls, the freezing cold flurries running themselves against the glass window panes. The cold white dots grouped together at the window's corners, creating an icy frame around the outside of the window, fogging it up with cold mist and air.
I sat in the chair uncomfortably. My seat up against the small hospital room, I sat silently by the Minor's resting body as the doctors were taking X-Ray studies on his condition. The neon cylinder lights on the ceiling buzzed with an electric hum, lighting up the small room. The walls, blank and covered with white wallpaper and the floors, shiny and tiled with squeaky clean surfaces painted the scene old and bright.
The only thing that seemed to be in color was the nightstand by the unconscious Minor settled softly on the bed, a plant laid on top of the wooden and brown piece of furniture. The plant, small and inside a round, clay vase had big, green leaves that went down to the surface of the nightstand. It seemed as calm, peaceful, and unmoving as the Minor's position on the white hospital bed, which was big and large, taking up about half the room.
The patient lay silently with his head resting on the fluffy pillow, his hair black and spiked up, not at all disheveled from the fight that took place back in Jagrock. His eyes would seem like they were peaceful yet mean underneath that revealed a cold stare behind the lids. His tanned arms were laid out in front of the plain, white sheets, his body never moving, or even twitching a little in the blank shirt with dotted blue hints on it the hospital had put on him. Tubes stuck out of his arms and other parts of his body, taking blood tests and other searches for signs of any other damage the fight might have done.
I looked down to the bright floor below and sighed, looking at the reflection of myself, the floors glaring bright because of the soft, buzzing ceiling lights. I pondered in deep thought and asked myself how the new Minor would react to the whole thing when he found out that his life was now involved with the whole Council and a mystery we were going to solve once we got the other Minors. Would he betray us and say he'd rather die than help us? Or would he just reject it all and laugh at us, saying that he was being punked.
Well, either way, his body was recovering slowly in his rest, the monitor that lay in front of the nightstand telling the rate of his heartbeat silently, not giving the dead beep as it always was seen on television.
My eyes soon became sore from the glare given by the shiny floors, my stare stuck on it as I was thinking my private ideas. It didn't take a long time until I saw everything in a different tone and color. "What?" a voice said suddenly and blankly, almost in an annoyed tone, breaking the buzzing silence and surprising me.
I looked up to find the black-eyed Minor staring at me with a somewhat cold and lazy stare, his head turned towards my direction on the big, comfortable looking pillow. His voice was clearer now I saw, not like it was before when it was weak and raspy. I suddenly got the feeling where a person would come up to another, more powerful person that had a life of luxury, while the arriving person would have nothing, and the powerful one would look down on him in his misery, feeling worthless and nervous in front of someone who could take away his life in a mere snap of his fingers.
I continued to look at his stare for two or three seconds, an inner pleading in his eyes for an answer or reply of some sort as I began to choke out my answer. "N-Nothing," I told him nervously, taken by surprise at his sudden state of consciousness, losing my train of thought.
"No," the Minor denied my answer, turning his head along with his stare to the ceiling, glancing dead forward into space. "You were thinking about something," he said, not caring to look at me as I talked anymore. He seemed so different. He looked hopeful back at the time when I had helped him, but now he looked so antisocial and uncaring. His sudden change in attitude made me even more nervous than I all ready was.
I looked at him as I couldn't figure out what to say as a reply to his comment, gulping a panic attack down my throat.
Soon, he sighed and closed his eyes, then reopened them with a sigh, blankly saying, "Thanks for saving me." His words came out reluctantly, like he didn't mean it. But I could tell that he really did mean what he said, it's just he didn't want to feel or look weak while he did.
"Oh, it's no problem," I began a conversation, still nervous at heart and wandering in stare as I spoke my words. "I would do it anytime you know, because well, no one should go attacking a total stranger like that, and well-," my words got cut off.
"So tell me, what really happened at that time? People just don't attack others everyday out of nowhere for no reason. What's going on?" he said, changing the subject to a small scale like he was tired of my talking all ready, with his stare still stuck on the ceiling tiles that were bright with reflective light.
"Well, it began like this…" I told him everything Jeremy had told me, about the scroll being opened and the White Cloak person and the mission, and not to mention how he met me. All the while, the listening Minor didn't show any signs of reaction, he just heard my words with care, or at least it seemed.
After I had finished my explanation, he still acted like he had no reply. He didn't give me any reaction, so I thought I would get one out of him. "So, what's your name? I didn't get a chance to ask for it back then," I told him nervously with a weak smile, bringing up the topic from who knows where.
"My name's Yomi Derek," he told me with no enthusiasm, still no expression on his face except a bored yet mean one. And here I though he wanted to know everything.
I was smiling nervously at him so much, desperately trying to make conversation; I began to wonder if this guy saw me as some kind of psycho. Yet he was the one with the last name Yomi, meaning hell or the devil. "My name's Kokori Dylan," I told him. "Nice to meet you."
As always he didn't give me a reply. He just kept staring, searching in space for something he couldn't find.
"Kokori Dylan?" he said in a blank manner. What was he going to say about my name? I wondered as I gulped a nervous knot down my throat. "Kokori means individual benefit, doesn't it?" he asked me, still searching the ceiling for something I couldn't see.
"Yeah, but don't take it the wrong way. I'm actually the opposite of that," I said with a nervous smile and laugh with crinkled eyes, hoping he didn't think badly of me. Although, he didn't really seem to care what my last name was. He didn't seem to care about the conversation we were having at all. Even though he kept it going.
For a while, he didn't say anything, as if he was being deep in thought, trying to make a big decision, when finally, he said, "I'll help you and that Jeremy kid." He said it to me so straightforward, informing me with the answer I had wanted to hear him say for a period of time now. He stared at me a bit coldly but also friendly as he waited for my reply for a change.
All my nervousness went away, and I said nothing and smiled, not caring what he thought of my constant happiness now. I smiled with what I considered his friendly stare in agreement; my eyes crinkled and grin not too wide.
That moment, an echoing knock was heard from outside the room. Just as the knock was heard, Derek seemed to turn back to his search on the ceiling, continuing to look for that lost something he had no idea about, paying no more attention towards me.
I watched as two young nurses, maybe in their early twenties came in the room silently with the clicking of their shoes, dressed in a white dress and medic hat, one with a clipboard held against her chest. Both dressed holily in white, one of them with blonde and tied back hair and the other one with short brown hair, they apologized for the interruption. They looked so nurse-like and proper with their young medic outfit and wide, innocent eyes.
"It's time for the doctor's procedure to begin on the patient," the shorter, brown-haired one said in a high pitched voice, one that could be confused for a little girl's. She sounded so happy about that, I thought suspiciously.
Doctor's procedure? And just what was this doctor going to do? I thought, uneasy in the itchy chair. "Well, if you could tell me first, what's wrong with him?" I asked, shifting in my seat.
Just as one of them was about to give me an explanation, a man came in with a cold and harder stare that that of Derek's and a white doctor's suit with gray and white long hair tied in a kind of ponytail that hung down to his shoulder. His presence was sudden and surprising to everyone in the room except Derek while he said, "The bones in his spine have fragments broken off of them, giving him a weak back, and two of his ribs were snapped off and are inside his body now, making him hard to even try to stand up or move."
Ooh, I thought. That's some damage. I was lucky I only left that battle with burn marks. To think, what would have happened if I didn't practice controlling my powers back at the ship? Derek and I probably wouldn't be here by now. "I'll have to perform surgery on the patient to fix his broken bones and repair them. But don't worry. He just needs a bone position replacement and rest. He'll be all right after that," the doctor told me with an unknowing stare. He didn't seem too trustworthy, I thought.
"Just a bone repla-?!" I began to yell to raise my voice, almost jumping out of my seat when one of the nurses motioned for me to calm down suddenly, as if scolding me.
"Calm down. There's no need to worry for your friend. This doctor specializes in bone surgeries, and because we have him, little pain will come to the patient during the process of surgery, and it will be done in a matter of seconds," the brown haired nurse explained to me. In shock, I calmed down reluctantly as I noticed that the nurse was a confident one. I bet the blonde was just there to hand the doctor a pair of scissors or something, I thought.
So maybe this guy is pretty skilled. But the whole operation finished in a matter of seconds? That's impossible. And how can almost no pain come to him? That's also impossible. His bone injuries are worse than I ever imagined and here they are telling me that he won't feel much pain and he'll be fixed up in just a matter of seconds? No way.
I stared in my chair thinking these thoughts for about five seconds as the two nurses and one doctor gave me a hard look that screamed the words "get out."
"All right," I told them reluctantly, still thinking about it in my mind, only getting up to get them off my back, lifting myself up from the seat. My legs were kind of asleep from sitting in the uncomfortable chair for so long. I slowly walked past the two nurses and the supposedly talented doctor as I headed for the exit of the room. I looked back to see Derek's expression, but there still was none. It remained a blank face with a somewhat cold but kind stare that lay itself on the ceiling of the bright, clean room. It was like he wasn't hearing any of the things the doctors or nurses said. It was like he was all ready dead.
Once I was out of the room and by the doorway, the blonde nurse had closed the door behind me softly, practically telling me to stay out. Could we really trust these people with Derek? I thought. I knew Hanayuki City itself was a good place, but I've never heard anything about their hospital. The place looked trustworthy enough. But I'm not so sure…
I decided to watch the whole "matter of seconds" just to be sure of myself that they were good people working the right way. I peeked through the small glass window pane on the door and watched as one nurse took out a kind of monitor that showed the two x-ray videos of the broken parts of Derek's body that needed to be fixed from the corner of the room as the other motioned to turn off the lights.
The two nurses stood on opposite sides of the bed, surrounding the patient, the doctor with one of the nurses to the right side, and me to the left. A nurse rolled the cart-stand thing with the monitor that showed the two videos on the screen of Derek's body being x-rayed currently. The monitor shone brightly in the darkness of the room, the wind howling viciously behind them and snow puttering somewhat powerfully, creating a background for the whole process.
The doctor, right beside the nightstand and Derek's bed, who was still expressionless just like the doctor was, put his hands together in a praying type formation and closed his eyes. Just what was he going to do? I watched as a white glow began to lace his hands while he put the two palms on the patient's chest in the dark, hospital room.
There was a slight hum that gave off from the doctor's glowing hands, replacing the buzzing of electricity that used to be there when the lights were on, followed by a few painful grunts and moans by Derek as I heard cracking of rebuilding bones inside the room. It sounded like milk pouring on cereal. Well, at least he was showing some emotion now, I thought, trying hard to look on the bright side of things. I was watching him as he pushed together his eyelids and moaned in pain now and then, his body wanting to hunch forward.
The two nurses watched and examined the whole process as I moved my eyes to the monitor that videoed his x-rays. In the darkness, the ghostly glowing videos clearly showed pieces of his spine that were in his blood floating freely and the two rib pieces broken off from his chest coming closer back into their place. How strange, I thought. Was the doctor a Minor, too? No… he wasn't a teenager. So what then? Was he like Jeremy?
I continued to watch the screen through the reflector of light window pane as his bone fragments became one with the original bone pieces again. Then, I heard Derek cough out blood. One of the nurses covered his mouth with a tissue a tissue, and cleaned up with it. He was in even more pain now, his eyes trying to squint and blink the hurt away. But I had to admit, it didn't seem like it was that much pain.
After about thirty more seconds, the white lace of energy around the doctor's hands stopped and the bones were completely healed and back to normal, according to the x-ray videos. I was glad to see it all happen. I felt guilty after for not trusting them. But they didn't tell me they had some freaky powers to help them out, so I assumed the worst.
I finally turned away from the door to find little Jeremy walking towards my direction slowly with a small, paper cup of water with ice pieces in it. The cup was small and delicate, just like Jeremy's appearance, a paint design rendering the cup with an old-fashioned hospital look. He came closer towards me carrying my bag I had asked him to hold for me on one hand, and the cup of water in the other. He was wearing a big jacket that kept him warm that the hospital had kindly given him. I guess small kids like him were lucky like that.
After seeing Jeremy, I automatically knew the doctor wasn't a Minor, since his locket wasn't beeping. So the guy operating on Derek really was someone with powers unexplained like Jeremy, I thought.
I turned my attention more to Jeremy, who was when one foot away from me sipped the cup slowly and then asked, "So how's the Minor doing?" His eyes shone with worry and curiosity.
"He's doing fine," I told him with a smile. "He'll need rest though, and the doctor is operating on him right now, but his life isn't threatened. He also said he'll help us after he gets healed."
"That's great!" Jeremy said with a cheerful look, sipping the small cup of water. Looking at the little guy drinking from a little cup made me laugh for who knows why. "What?" he asked me, astonished that I began laughing out of nowhere.
"You're hungry, aren't you?" I asked, ignoring his question. He didn't give any answer or sign of one. He just gave an interesting look. "Come on, let's go get lunch outside," I told him, motioning for us to go.
"Okay," he said in an agreeing voice. "But what about your clothes?" he asked me, still holding the small cup of ice water in his tiny hand.
"What about my clothes?" I told him with a cheery look, taking my bag from his possession.
"They're all ashy. Don't you want a new sweater?" Jeremy asked, giving me a look as if I was being crazy.
I looked at my clothes. The sleeves were completely melted off and the ends of whatever was left were burnt and my hood was half-burnt off as well. Char marks tinted my green sweater and jeans. "I guess, but I all ready have a new sweater," I told him, zipping open my bag.
"Huh?" he asked, even more astonished than before, and this time with a hint of surprise.
To shock him even more, I quickly took out another, same exact sweater as the one I was wearing and held it up, as if to say "Ta-da!"
"What the…" Jeremy began as he made a funny look on his face, as if to say, "oh my god…are you kidding me?" at the sight of the same exact sweater being pulled out. I laughed at his reaction. I knew he'd do something like that.
"Now, how about that lunch?" I asked, smiling as I took off my old sweater to reveal the black shirt I wore underneath and putting on the new sweater, which felt cool and not warm to my body. My smile was obviously a hungry one and food-deprived, and my eyes crinkled in a pain known as hunger.
He began to stare at me with a considerate stare, looking at me and back to the water cup a couple of times. "Okay, let's go," he said, finally deciding.
"Good," I told him, motioning for the end of the corridor to reach the elevators. "It'll be on me," I said, marching, taking his cup of water and throwing it into a nearby trash can. He followed slowly at first, but he caught up to my speed. I zipped up my sweater as both of us marched hungry and proud through the brightly lit hallway of the hospital, both of us wishing Derek good luck in there.
It didn't take us long to get out of the hospital building and look for a good place to eat. We found this one place that served lunch and dinner, and we both ordered the fried chicken and rice bento which we ate inside since it was so freezing cold outside that we were sure our food would become ice by the time we reached the hospital.
When our orders came in, they looked so good steaming in our face, the fried chicken with a lemon scent squeezed on it. Jeremy stared at his meal in hunger and I didn't prevent myself from doing the same. We ate quickly and hungrily, the hot rice warming our stomachs, the crispy fried chicken complimenting our sense of taste. Of course, I had to order two more while Jeremy still worked on his one lunch. He was so slow, I thought.
The restaurant was a big one, the entrance made of glass and its length much bigger than its width. It was like a long rectangular place to eat, where customers feasted on one long table and had to sit next to each other as they ate in a bright lighting and neon lit walk around the table for waiters and waitresses to traverse around the place, taking orders. The place was painted various colors on the inside, the walls orange and the table green and blue.
The place was crowded at this time, and everyone was being loud and noisy, customers shouting and talking over each other in conversation, workers coming in and out of the kitchen located in a back room to take orders and give them out.
I don't know why, but the owner came to Jeremy and me and began to chat with us. He talked about things like how we weren't regular customers and if we were looking for fun, we should go visit the carnival that was open this season. The fair was located to the far right of the restaurant, but I didn't think we'd go because it was snowing way too hard to walk. I didn't really listen to him for the most part. I just quickly ate my food with faster speed than I used at the ramen store for my chopsticks.
I guess he was just making conversation with the new customers to make their time extra special. I didn't really care. It wasn't like we'd be there everyday from now on, anyway.
Well, the manager was soon taken away by the screaming voice of the assistant manager. They had to take care of some problems back in the kitchen. Maybe a spill or something, I don't know. But I was glad that he was gone. I'm sure Jeremy was, too.
PoVS
In the same dark room as always, the waters colder and dirtier, the room having more of an odor problem, a white hooded man sat in the bacterial water cross-legged, Indian style, and focused hard. He had just finished the Unison Process of learning the skill. Now he had to isolate himself and give him time for the skill to mold into his body, to get used to him after a tired fight of trying to resist the absorption. This was called the Calming Process, the last and final one.
This would only take about a bit longer of the cloaked man's time, and wouldn't keep him in long. He wanted to go straight for Walter right after this. Even if he had been pretty much useful so far, the shady, cloaked man couldn't risk losing hold of him. Walter was the only one in his possession so far.
Suddenly, the mysterious cloaked man sensed something and straightened his back in alert. Another chance, he thought. And I better not fail it. He broke off the Calming Process for now, and tried to track down where the two people he had sensed. Hanayuki Town, he soon realized with the help of his radar skill, gained by studying the arts. Two Half Spirits are being active…
He continued to sit in the darkness and black waters, cold against his legs. "Third-Ranker," he called out, knowing that the weak man had been hiding in the shadows all this time, watching him, observing him.
"Y-Yes?" the Third Ranker called out in a weak, frail voice, stepping out from the shadows with a hopeful expression on his face, expecting to help the cloaked man.
"Alert the ones patrolling Hanayuki Town to get to the carnival and find the two Half Spirits that are active. Also, tell them that another may be there in the hospital while another one would be with the first two along with a small child." That's what Eruption had told the cloaked one, after all. "Do it. Now," he commanded the weaker one, unmoving from his position in the dark, dirty waters.
"R-Right away, s-sir!" the weak one said, saluting the cloaked one like he was a sergeant, then running off back into the shadows to obey orders, eager to do something for the cloaked man for once and become useful.
PoVS
The sudden wailing came at us all of a sudden while we were just leaving the store. A sharp beeping like a siren or a banshee was all I heard for a straight five seconds. I was surprised by the sudden noise, and was almost knocked into the snow outside of the restaurant. The snowstorm had finally weakened down to a calm, drifting state, but now, it was my locket that was seriously bothering me.
The beeping seemed to grow louder next to me as I grumbled with the lace that was put around my neck to hold the locket. When I finally got it to open as fast as I could to see what was up, I was shocked. I ignored the warmness it gave my raw fingers right away, the pretty gold shining in the weather while snowflakes nestled themselves on the lid and other various parts of it. I wasn't a bit happy at all like I thought I would when the sharp beeping finally stopped. Instead, panic rushed through my blood.
My heart began racing in my chest wildly as I saw not one, but two pieces of the twelve Minor pie chart blinking wildly with the colors golden and yellow. Not good, I thought. Two Minors active at once? I tracked the two people to find where they were, and the monitor told me they were at the carnival right in Hanayuki town, where the manager of the store had mentioned earlier. Boy, I wish I had paid more attention then.
"Well?" Dylan asked, not sounding at all surprised, his misty breath floating up in the air and disappearing by the wisp. "Let's go! What are you waiting for?"
He immediately began running through the three inches and still growing of snow as I desperately tried to keep up with him, putting my locket away. It felt cold now against my warm body under my jacket and shirt. I muttered and tried hard to keep up with him, but I kept feeling like the snow would trip me sooner or later. Too bad I couldn't super-speed or anything. We ran off to the right from the diner, and after what seemed to be running for eternity, we saw the amusement park, all lit up with rainbow lights with sounds and cheers coming from that direction, a huge Ferris wheel lit up high in the sky, proud to be there. I knew that soon, more panic would come to our hearts, and that soon, we would have our lives totally in danger.
PoVS
In the distance, in a certain room in the Hanayuki Hotel, four people sat around the small bought room, looking tough and cool, sitting on all kinds of furniture irrespectively.
They waited in the room for some kind of call, some kind of event to happen to excite their souls. But nothing happened. One just lay there on the floor, smoking his lungs off, the other with her hair back with her feet on a chair, staring deep into the depths of a mirror help up against the right wall, admiring her so called "beauty" and giving silently thought compliments to herself.
The other two were in other parts of the room. One on the couch just sitting there coolly, the other one sitting on a desk in the corner of the room, backed up against the wall.
As if their wishes came true, there came a beeping from the direction in which the guy on the floor was. "Eh…?" he mumbled as he stared lazily into his blaring watch, the smoke from his cigarette poisoning the air dangerously with wisps of white, the fire alarm in the room disconnected by him so it wouldn't "cause trouble".
The small black watch strapped to his wrist continued to beep noisily and shrilly in the small, stuffy room until the girl, still staring deep into the mirror finally said, "Answer the damn thing, Minoshi." Her look showed an annoyed one, one that felt like smacking the guy on the floor right across the face for disturbing her snobby thoughts.
The guy on the floor followed her request with his white, spread out in the front hair lifting as he tilted his head forward to see the watch. It seemed like such a strain just to pick his head from up the floor. He pushed a button on the strange watch-type wristband with his other available hand, and settled himself back down on the floor with the lazy stare in his eyes returning as what seemed to be a recorded voice with loud static in the background began echoing throughout the room, giving out a message.
"C-Cloak says that there are two Half-Spirits in Hanayuki Town," a frail voice said through the small speakers on the wristband. Everyone listened with interest, except the wasted guy on the floor, acting like he had the worst hangover of the century, his crooked smile and eyes painting his face high and lazy. "H-He says to also w-watch out for another t-two, o-one in the hospital, and the other most likely in the carnival as w-well," the frail voice said again, shaking his voice violently like he had no backbone, or like he was having a seizure.
"Yeah, we got it. Thanks, Mijai," the wasted one said, speaking scratchily through the mini microphones on the wristband. There was no reply. Just a click and that was the end of that. The static finally died and the silence returned to the room with new thoughts reining the four people's minds.
"So," the girl began in her snobby voice, setting her feet down on the floor and getting ready. "New kid, this is your first time. Are you ready to do some damage?" she asked him, provoking him with a smirk behind her wildly long black hair highlighted purple.
The "New Kid" sat there on the couch, lying like he was cool, his stare stuck on the ground as one foot was on the other leg's knee, and his body covered by a dark blue jacket with faux fur. He lifted his stare directly into the girl's eyes, giving her a ice-hard stare and said, "Just some damage?" he asked, acting a bit too confident and rude, his expression unchanging. His words came out with a low frown, his brown hair jumping slowly in the air as he lifted himself from the couch.
"That's more like it," the girl said, turning to the others. "Minoshi, get your ass off the floor, and you," she turned to the other one in a corner, his mouth and nose covered in a mask, Minoshi getting up silently and lazily from the floor, standing on his butt with his white hair perfectly spread out. "Don't dawdle," she told the guy in the corner as he flash-stepped out of sight and came right in front of her, giving her a cold stare. He didn't care to give a reply to her comment. He just showed a sign that he was ready to leave. She didn't do much at his "attitude", or so she considered it. She just scoffed and opened the small room's wooden door widely, all four of them prepared not to fail White Cloak like the past two who tried have.