I've spent three years in that hell hole, three years of not being able to do anything, not being able to help anyone. But now I can do something. Now I can help people, Teresa thought in confidence, ready to pay back her debt for the deaths she's caused.
They were far outside of town now, and were on a dirt road that lead into the next city. The group followed the water arrow that seemed to sway every now and then. It glittered in the sunlight that began to fade, seeming to drench it with glittering beams of insolation. Teresa followed the arrow, keeping her eye on it as Walter walked directly behind it with his eyes showing no care except a sense of cruelty, his arms crossed in front of him. His dark blue jacket made his figure look large, even if he wasn't that tall.
They walked past a few trees, the shade of the ebony figures that stood up to the sun cooled us for short and uplifting moments. They soon walked into a grassless forest, paying no attention to the lush, prickly plant life around them, their whole bodies taken over by shadows of trees with sunlight punching holes through them.
Behind them, only a few feet away stood a man behind a tree, watching and waiting for the group he had just begun keeping an eye on to make more distance between them and him so he could move closer, creeping towards them like a kind of stalker. His face completely covered in shadow, his arms crossed in front of him, he listened to the footsteps of the group pacing on the dirt ground, waiting for the sound to fade away in the climbing trees that so desperately tried to grasp the clouds. He was following them, and for a good reason too. What was the reason? Because it was his job.
PoVS
I had spent a few days in the Inner World with the rest of the Council, meeting a few of them all ready. That's when I probably began to realize that everything we were going through was serious. Dead serious. We could lose our lives, or we could help save the world. It all depends on how we do, and even though it's a lot of pressure, I had to suck it up.
My forehead itched under the orange headband I wore, a layman's picture of a sun on it. I sat at the weak, wooden table, the large room dimly lit by an electrically buzzing light. I gripped the bamboo style teacup in my hand tightly, feeling it's outside warm the palm of my hand, feeling nervous and wondering how Jeremy and the others were doing. I heard they only needed on more left, I thought.
I looked up for something interesting, to keep my mind off the dead silence given from the room. I found two of the three new Minors who had just come in yesterday, getting used to Inner World life all ready.
One of them had blue hair, the other one red. The blue haired one's shade of color was obviously from dye, looking periwinkle, his hair wild and going straight up like a roaring fire. A large strand stuck out from the right side, hanging a little in front of his right ear. He looked fairly nice, his sky blue eyes round and forgiving, his body structure average and his height, average. He wore this white polo shirt with the collar unfolded, a light blue T-shirt showing its short sleeves from underneath the polo's short sleeves.
Next to him was the red headed one, wore rectangular glasses, his eyes rectangular, looking like they could give a mean stare, but they didn't. They looked worried, the corners of them elevated, like he was about to cry. His red hair looked like Rick's but much shorter, so short you could actually see his eyes. He was shorter than the other one, and had one thin strand of hair hanging on his forehead. For a shirt, he wore a light green short sleeve shirt, a white T-Shirt underneath, both of them excessively long, looking like they could fit someone ten years older than him.
They sat next to each other, the blue haired one having a cup of tea, the other one looking all worried and panicky. Looking at him even made me a bit anxious as well. I decreased the pressure of my hold on the teacup, the hot steam from it streaming into the dimly lit air, the red-brown liquid reflecting light from above.
I wonder how everyone else is doing, I thought. Marissa was being trained by the Sound Council, being the one with the least experience so far. I'm with these two, and the other one is somewhere hanging out. Jeremy and every other Minor with him are looking for the last one. Look's like things are really just about finished, huh?
"So, what're your names?" I asked them, turning away from my thoughts and looking up with my friendly smile, grabbing their attention first thing. The red haired one looked up and found me, then looked back down and sunk in his seat in shyness. The blue haired one, unlike his friend over there looked up and greeted me with the same friendly eyes I gave him. He cleared his throat and began to fulfill my request.
"My name is Takiato Kenneth. Pleased to meet you," he said, smiling.
"Pleased to meet you too," I replied in a friendly way, crossing my arms in front of me like the red haired one did. "My name is Kokori Dylan," I told them, knowing that both of them were paying attention. At that moment, I realized just how close my last name was to the Botany Council. Kokori–Kakori, its weird isn't it?
Kenneth cleared his throat again. "This is Takiato Daniel," he introduced, making me notice that they both had the same last name.
"You both are Minors?" I asked, raising one eyebrow.
"Yeah, that would be right. I'm the Ice one, he's the Life one," he said, looking to his companion. Daniel seemed to sink in his seat even more, if possible. At the mention of him, he seemed to become even shyer, and nervous sweat drops rained down crazily down his forehead. "So, are you one too?" he asked me, turning back to me, Daniel calming down a bit.
"Yeah, I'm the Botany one," I told them, keeping my eye on Daniel. Why is he being so nervous? "So, are you two brothers? I noticed you guys have the same last name," I told them.
"Yeah, we're brothers. Hard to believe right?" he said, giving a slight chuckle and putting his hand behind his head, nervously scratching his hair.
I sat on my side of the table, staring at theirs a few feet away, Kenneth and my eye's locking into each other in wonder, both of us thinking thoughts about who the other person was. Their table was a few feet away in the dark room, the walls painted a dead plaster orange. I looked away from Kenneth's face and stared at his teacup. It seemed to be frozen over, solid. Looks like he's been practicing, I realized.
Then I looked to Daniel. He seemed so nervous and tense, his teacup still full in front of him, the hot steam beginning to die out and become cold. "So, tell me a little about you guys. What're your hobbies?" I said, trying to break the silence. All three of us knew that it had been quiet for too long.
Kenneth began talking about all these things like how he liked baseball and how he's surprised about being a Minor while I sort of ignored his words, his teenage voice going in one of my ears, and coming out the other. I was really paying attention to the anxious old Daniel. Why was he so… antisocial? He's nothing like his brother.
When I sensed that Kenneth had stopped talking, I turned back to him, pretending I had heard every word. "That's great, me too," I told him, not knowing what I was agreeing to. I wonder if he's having trouble adjusting, I wondered, returning back to the topic of thought.
"I mean, I still can't believe that I'm involved in this whole thing, you know?" Kenneth's voice rang into my head.
I didn't take my eyes off of the strange Daniel, giving my late, blank reply to Kenneth's words, saying, "Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?"
PoVS
I sat in the large dark room in the Inner World, getting my thoughts out through creativity. I sat on a wooden stool, totally surrounded by darkness and a few dim lights, the room looking all dark and ghostly, like it was something from a horror movie. The cracked corners of the room and dim electric lights didn't bother me as I sat there, holding my palette in one hand, and a paintbrush in another. A large stand was laid in front of me, holding a huge piece of paper for me to paint on, my eye detecting every detail to be made, every single thing to be painted. A line of sweat came down my forehead as I wiped it away, taking a short breath before I resumed painting with my right hand.
As I added detail after detail to my soon-to-be-finished masterpiece, I began thinking. It's so surprising that I turned out to be a Minor, and sometimes I really think that they're tricking me or something. I mean, why I, out of all the people in the Outer World, would be chosen to get these powers? It makes no sense. Plus, why would Metal have chosen me? I'm a guy, and the Metal Council is a girl. On the other hand, though, the Metal Council sure acts like a tomboy sometimes, I thought as I put my fat paintbrush into the splotch of red on my palette, rotating it in the blue liquid, and then continuing to add the detail on the blue, raging fire portray in the picture, releasing hints of my emotion with every stroke I made with the brush, delicately fingering the edges of the fire with my hand.
I took my hand away from the picture for a while, and just looked at it, thinking about what to add next, pausing for a thought that came to my mind. They said that when they get the last Minor, they would return and start preparing us. Prepare us for what? And an even better question would be, how?
I picked at the splash of black paint one more time, and then traced the dark rocks that rained from the sky, the racing meteors with their energetic, orange streak. I let out a deep breath. I wiped my forehead to get the sweat out, my body feeling hot all over as I continued thinking. I wonder how the others are doing, I thought as I resumed my tracing of black paint.
PoVS
The room was completely darkened and no lights were on, but despite that fact, everyone could see each other, the outlines of their figures silhouetted against the great shadows that ate at the room.
"So, how is he?" a voice asked in the darkness, only his eyes could be seen glowing, piercing through the darkness of the Inner World.
"His power's increased tenfold over the last three years. It's just as we expected," Tsukansu's voice popped in, his stare serious and dark.
"So could he really be…?" another, different voice form before asked, his voice piercing the darkened walls like sunlight did to a shadow.
"I don't know. Maybe. We can't be so sure yet. We can only hope that he regains back what he's lost, and if the group becomes suspicious, which I all ready think they do, we're going to find ourselves lost in quite a mess," a familiar voice rang. The speaker couldn't see anyone else through the darkened, Council room, but he could sense the feeling of agreement given off from every direction, every wall and corner of the room.
PoVS
In a place different from the Inner World, underground were two people that were unable to see each other thanks to the underground darkness. They peered to each other the best they could, but could not find each other. The sigh of infinite darkness was seen and the sound of water dripping pinged off the dirty, disgusting walls.
"What are you going to do now?" the first voice asked. "You don't even seem to try, letting Walter-kun go like that," the voice came out belittling with a hint of confusion.
"There are more sources of power than Walter and the rest of them, you know. Let the Council gather all the Minors. The problem with my last attempt for the power they so selfishly hold was the absence of a backup plan in case everything went wrong. That won't happen this time," the second voice called out, a deeper, raspier and scratchy voice than the first.
"But… how? I thought you said that your power was not strong enough to even take one Council down. Won't they try to protect the Minors?" the first asked, this time in a much deeper voice, as if trying to match the second's.
"Yes, but as I said before, there are much more ways of getting power, you know." Among the darkness could be seen, if you could see, the evil smirk of a devious plan coming into place, a malevolent chuckle coming right after.
"Just as I expected. You're going after them after all, aren't you?" the first voice asked, much, much deeper than before, and less confused as well, the speaker thinking that he had everything figured out.
The second voice did not reply, but instead just gave a long, deviant chuckle, the booming voice echoing off the walls of the large place, the sound of dripping water being the only thing that could be heard.
PoVS
"We're almost there," Walter told the rest of the group, his stare kept on the marine arrow that swayed with the wind a little, but still maintaining its direction so everyone else still knew where to go.
"Mm," Jeremy grunted in reply, his eyes one of confidence. His right hand lay on the big cure bag that Shihou had given him long ago back in Hanayuki, never used yet.
Teresa walked with big steps, yet small enough so she would stay behind everyone else. She looked to her sleeves, having nothing to really think about anymore, when she noticed something. Her sleeves were soaking wet and heavy, the outside of them painted red. The long straightjacket sleeves seemed to be bloody, and the sight shocked Teresa even more.
She stopped her pace for a second and cried out in surprise. She rolled up her sleeves as everyone watched, grumbling in shock just as Teresa did. Underneath the long, trapping sleeves were her arms, thin and slender, all bloodied and red, blood leaking from almost every part of the body. Teresa stared with horrified eyes. "What-What's going on?" she said, her voice cracking up in fear.
Her fingers were soaked with the red liquid, and she felt like she was about to scream because of the sudden deathly sight.
"Hey! What happened?" Rick asked, everyone else watching. Walter stopped walking, sensing trouble. He turned around to find the sight, his eyes becoming shocked just a little bit, only returning to their normal state a second later.
"I-I don't know. I just noticed my sleeves soaking wet and rolled them up to see the problem. Then I found…. I found this," Teresa told them, still in shock and confusion as to what happened. So was everyone else.
"I guess it really doesn't matter now how it happened. We need to heal that wound," Jeremy said, walking up to her and taking her forearm, not scared of touching the blood at all.
"How? We don't have a doctor," Teresa told him, confused as to what he was doing looking at her arms like that, the fear and horror seeming to have been washed away from his face, completely dried out.
"We may not have a doctor, but we have something just as good," he said, taking off the Cure Bag and searching through it thoroughly. Clinking and clattering of potion bottles and supplies were heard as he rummaged the bag completely, looking for something that would help me.
I kneeled on my knees and laid out my arms in front of him as he took out a spherical, potion bottle with green liquid in it, filling about half of it up and a roll of bandages to tie around my arms.
He traced the bandages with the green liquid that had been labeled "Blood-Healing Ointment" with directions scribbled on the path of paper that seemed to be glued on the container.
Then, he wrapped the bandages around my forearms and parts of my upper arm, the pressure of the fabric and the chemicals of the green liquid stinging my arms like a million bees that were chasing after me.
As he continued to constrict my arms in the beige colored bandages, I looked at the bloodiness of my arms. What happened here? I thought. What could've caused it? I remembered back in the forest when I caused a huge outburst. I remembered when the straightjacket's hold finally broke off due to the great amount of energy being released from my seemed to be possessed body. The release was so high, and even after my arms broke free, my body still constantly created purple energy, pushing it outwards from my body. Now that I come to think of it, I did feel pain and stinging in my arms while it was going on, too. What a scary thought.
Just how strong are my powers, really? I thought as I found it hard to bend my arms anymore, but it was all right. I got used to it. After, I thanked Jeremy and he smiled, the whole group surprised that he stood up to the situation so quickly.
Being just returned from my flashback, I smiled at Jeremy in a thankful way, and began walking again, the small child by my side. He strapped on the Cure Bag again across his chest, the insides of it clinking as he got up and continued walking. Everyone's stare on me seemed to wear off after a while, and I knew that I was probably the only one who knew why my arms became so bloodied. But surprisingly, ten year old Jeremy gave a knowing look, too, as if he knew exactly what happened.
This kid… I thought. Just who is he?
PoVS
I stood at the city entrance gates, looking out to the sunset portrayed on the orange sky. They should be coming soon, I thought. Where are they? What's taking them so long? I asked myself repeatedly in my black hoodie jacket.
My mind began to wander away from the people whom I was expecting and to one person in that group specifically. I wonder… if that guy is with them. The guy from before. I wonder if he had finally come to his senses.
Please hurry, I told the group in my thoughts; hoping somehow they would hear me. I need new people in my life. New people I could care for. And that group would be the first of many.