Eiyuu
By The Mauve Lantern
Chapter 2: The Modern Hero
"Dear, I think that we're lost!"
"Keiko, relax! I know exactly where I'm going!"
Adam Yamamoto and his wife Keiko were out for a picnic in the countryside, and now that the sun had sunk beyond the horizon, they were heading back to their apartment in the city of Deimon. Adam was a man of large stature, and always promises that he will protect his wife from whatever may come. The two of them were not prepared for what was to come that black night when they took a wrong turn and wound up going down a deserted road…
The darkness of the evening had somehow infected the forest like a disease, and helped to transform it into an ominous, foreboding vision of death and despair. Keiko shivered and wrapped her husband's jacket around her slim figure as he drove the car down the road, nary a thought crossing his mind. "Adam, can you turn down the air conditioning? It's freezing in here!"
"What're you talking about, babe? The air conditioning is off!" Adam suddenly felt the cold that his wife was talking about. "Now that you mention it," he mumbled, "I do feel a little cold!"
"Why is it so cold?!"
"That would be me, ke-ke-ke-ke!"
The couple turned around in their car and saw that there was someone riding in the back seat. It was a large figure, large enough that its back was bent to allow it to ride in the car, and its face was an ashen-gray, with white, gleaming fangs bursting out from underneath. Black, spiky hair burst from its head, and two glowing eyes beamed at Keiko as the demon licked its dark-blue lips in hunger.
"KYYYAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Keiko screamed in terror as the demon in the back of the car laughed maniacally.
"Sorry, doll-face, but your screams won't do you much good out here," the demon chuckled as it raised a clawed hand. "Which means if I call ya and eat ya, no one'll find out!"
"I sincerely doubt that, demon!"
There was now another rider in the car, and this one was even more fearsome-looking than the other. His hair was spiky and blonde, and he wore a mask that covered half of his face, leaving his dark, menacing eyes exposed. The mask itself was like a demon's mouth that ran around to cover the side of his head, along with wings that burst out from the sides. As for the rest of the man's body, it was cloaked in a billowing cape that covered his body entirely. He cackled wickedly and then grabbed the demon and threw it out of the car.
When the black demon crashed, it growled. "Who are you that you throw ME!?"
"Kekekeke, I am the Akumetsu, slayer of demons!" He pulled a massive handgun from the confines of his cloak and fired six shots from the gun, blowing three holes into the monster's body. It collapsed to the ground, all three holes in its head.
Adam stopped the car and ran out, alongside Keiko, and he asked Akumetsu, "Are you okay?!"
The hellish man leered at Adam and cackled. "You have been saved, now all I ask is one small thing!"
"Name it, it's yours!"
"Give me your car," the man said with a smirk.
"What?! Th-the car?!"
"Yes. Or I can leave now and let that demon come back…"
"Wait! You…you can have the car…"
"Excellent!"
Thus, the demon slayer, Akumetsu, retreated into the night, leaving Adam and Keiko to walk back to the city. The hell-spawned man was not without a heart, as he left the two with directions to a nearby hotel and a talisman that would ward off other monsters. So, another mission accomplished, Akumetsu sets out again to battle the children of the night once more!
***
"AHHHHHH!"
A young freshman shoots up from his bed screaming, his body covered in a cold sweat. The boy takes a trembling hand and pushes it through his messy, brown hair as he curls his knees up close to his chest. Tonight, for some reason, he feels restless and unable to go to sleep; visions of lightning bolts, demons, and indigo-haired girls on roller skates dance through his head, causing him to wake up every time he falls into slumber. Sena wipes the sweat from his forehead and groans. "Why can't I sleep at all?" he asks, though there is no one to answer him. "Is this because of what happened in the lab earlier?"
Earlier that evening, Sena Kobayakawa, a rising freshman at Deimon University, had been forced by an upperclassman, Yoichi Hiruma, to break into the science lab, so that the older student might make some repairs to a particle accelerator the Science Team had been working on. In the process, however, Sena had been bombarded by a beam of light that seemed to engulf every molecule of his body in pain. While in pain, the freshman burst out of the room and fled to the sanctity of his friend Mamori's apartment; the run back had somehow taken mere seconds, though Sena did not notice. When he entered the apartment, his roommate had wondered if he was all right and why he was shaking, but he had told Mamori that he was fine, just really tired. Now, here he was, unable to sleep and twitching slightly.
"A shower might help me calm down," he says as he crawls out of the bed. Sena maneuvers around the dark apartment over to the bathroom, his tan arms wrapped around his scrawny body to keep warm. For some reason, the apartment had been lacking heat since earlier in the week; of course, Sena only knew this from Mamori, who had heard it from a grizzled maintenance man.
Considering the fact that he is only clad in a pair of thin, cotton pajamas, the young freshman begins to rub his arms furiously in an attempt to generate warmth and heat from the friction. Before a second has passed, his arms feel extremely hot, to the point that Sena pulls his hands away before they can be burned. "What the heck?!" he shouts in his head as he looks at his palms, glowing red from the intense heat, "Did…did I do that?" He puts the question aside in his mind, and decides to ponder over it in the hot shower.
Sena nimbly tip-toes into the bathroom and prepares a shower for himself. When he turns the faucet on, the water comes out extremely slowly; so slow, in fact, that the boy can grab it from out of the air with no effort at all. He blinks, and suddenly, the water returns to normal. "That does it," he says as he holds the drop of water in his palm. "I'm calling that Hiruma guy and asking him what's going on!"
The hot water falls about his body as he steps into the shower, and he lets the rejuvenating liquid coat his body before dripping down into the drain, spiraling down into the pipes below. Sena's brown hair becomes soaked and clings onto his forehead. He can feel every inch of his body cooling down and releasing pent-up tension and heat from every inch of his skin. Why was this happening to him? Why was he, a normal, mediocre, insignificant freshman having to suffer through this…change? All he wanted was to graduate, get a decent job, get married and have kids; that was all, and he sought nothing further in life.
"Why," he bemoaned, "why me? When did this start? Was it when I saved that girl this morning? Was it when I met that guy Hiruma? It probably was Hiruma's fault. That evil monster…the next time I see him, I'll kick his ass. No I won't, 'cause I don't have the guts. I'm spineless. I couldn't even ask that girl her name this morning until she was almost a block away." Sena turned his face to the water and let it wash over his face, his inner monologue finishing.
***
Meanwhile, as Sena scrubs away the sweat turmoil from his body, a certain blonde-haired demon is typing away furiously on a keyboard. The keyboard is connected to a large computer monitor, which is only one screen amongst the myriad of screens that fill Yoichi Hiruma's apartment. The wall of screens, comprised of televisions, shows flickering images of the streets of Deimon City, as well as the outer limits of the town, in high quality; from these screens, Yoichi is able to keep an eye over his city. Yes, it is his city, and he is the sole guardian. He is the Slayer of Evil, the Akumetsu of Deimon.
On the screen where the blonde boy is working is an image of Sena Kobayakawa, along with data such as his birthday, height, weight, etc. As he types, Hiruma speaks into a microphone in front of him. "Subject 021, Sena Kobayakawa," he says, an evil grin spread on his face, "showed signs of a positive reaction to exposure to the particle accelerator, and seemed to have gained super-speed from the bombardment of energy. Will examine closely tomorrow for any disturbances in the Speed Force." His long fingers finish clicking against the keys, and Hiruma turns off the microphone as he pops a piece of gum into his mouth. The blonde demon gets out of his chair and strides over to the large window in his apartment that allows him to overlook the city below.
As he gazes down at the rooftops, the phone in his pocket rings incessantly. He picks it up right before the ring ends, and says, "What the fuck do you want, old man?"
"I wanted to know," a gruff voice replies, "If you had actually gone through with this."
"Of course I fucking did. I've only been planning this for the past five years, y'know."
"God damn it. You did it. You fried someone with that particle accelerator."
"Hell yes, and now we've got our own little speedster for the squad."
"You've ruined this person's life."
"When has that ever stopped me before?"
"You got me there." The voice on the other end of the phone stops and sighs. "This doesn't mean that I'm coming back, of course."
"Of course, you fucker. You'll come at your own fucking time."
The man with the gruff voice laughs. "Good night, you evil devil."
"Good night, fucking old man."
He presses the 'Cancel' button on the phone, and then dials a different number on the phone. The phone rings once or twice until a groggy voice asks, "What…what is it, Hiruma? I'm tired…"
"Get up, you fucking fat-ass. I found a new cape for us to have!"
"A…a new cape?!"
"Meet me at the football field at 8 AM, fat-ass."
"Will do, Hiruma!" The phone hangs up on the other end, and Hiruma puts his own phone back into his pocket. A malicious grin crosses his face, and he begins to laugh hysterically. Soon, all the cards will fall into place, and his plan, which has been years in the making, will come to fruition.
***
The next morning greeted Sena in a most peculiar fashion. He woke up at 7:00 AM with his alarm going off next to his head, which further disturbed the boy even more than his lack of sleep. When he raised his tired head from his pillow, Sena rubbed his eyes in an effort to wipe away the endless night from his mind.
He did not notice the cloaked figure that was perched outside his window, nor did he notice the gun that was trained on him.
Sena had gotten out of his bed and walked over to his dresser. He pulled a white t-shirt from the top-most drawer and slid it onto his body. Next came a pair of gray sweatpants, and then a sweatshirt that read, in kanji, "Deimon University", which was just a little too big for him.
"Okay," he said as he tied the laces on his sneakers, "today, I'm going to go figure out where my classes are, and then I'm gonna find Hiruma and give him a piece of my mind!" Sena shivered and changed his mind; he'll politely ask Hiruma not to kill him, and then ask what was wrong with his body.
As he gazed in the mirror, wondering if he needed a shave even though he had no facial hair yet, he did not notice the shadow that was on the ceiling. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was seeing a man in a devil mask with a dart gun in his hands.
***
When he came too, Sena found himself in a dark room. There was no light, save for the one that shone down on him from above. He could hear the constant beep of a machine and the hum of a computer, but that was all. His eyes were readjusting to the light when he heard the voice talk to him. It was crackly, like someone with a dry throat.
"Kekekekeke…Well, looks like Sleeping-fucking-Beauty decided to wake up! Welcome to the land of the living!"
"Wh-Wh-Where am I?" Sena whimpered.
"You're--"
The voice stopped talking and was replaced by fitful coughing. The noise was almost painful to hear, it was so bad. When the hacking stopped, the voice shouted, "Where's that fucking fat-ass with my water?!"
"Here ya go, Akumetsu!" The new voice that entered the room came from behind Sena, and he strained his head to turn around, but he found that he was bound by thick ropes that were wrapped around his body and tied to the chair. He does not need to turn his head, as the man that joined them walked by him just then.
This man was very…large. He was large and rotund and basically round. He was big, and he seemed to be almost one big ball of fat. In spite of his massive girth, Sena felt an immense power being exuded from the man's body. The large man was wearing a helmet that completely covered his head and was red in hue. The rest of his body was contained in a black suit of armor that had red boots and gloves. In one of his hands was a large bottle of water; the bottle was made of glass.
The fat man disappeared into the shadows, and then there was screaming. "You fucking fatty! I wanted regular water, not this carbonated shit! Goddamn, can't you keep a single thing in that thick fucking head of yours?!" There was a sound like glass being shattered across something hard.
"Che," the voice hissed in frustration, "you made me lose my concentration. Where was I?" There was the sound of snapping fingers. "Right, I remember! You're in the Devil's Lair, Tartarus, home to the one, the only hero AKUMETSU!!!"
Dozens of lights burst on in the room, revealing the man who had been talking to Sena this whole time: it was Yoichi Hiruma, clad in a black costume that had a long flowing cape attached to it. The man in armor was standing beside him, and the two were facing Sena. Hiruma was looking extremely sadistic and quite vampiric, while his companion was clearly uncomfortable, as he was fidgeting in his spot.
With the lights on, Sena could now see that there were dozens of computers, TV screens and other sorts of contraptions that he could not identify. The screens were showing, what he realized after a few seconds, Deimon University and all the students that were wandering about.
He blinked a few times before asking, "Why…why did you bring me here?"
"You're special," the devil replied. "You survived the test last night!"
"Test?"
"When you were hit by the beam of light from the particle accelerator. I knew, from the moment I saw the fucking brunette drag you in, that you would be perfect for the experiment."
"Y-You mean…that was just an experiment?! I was your GUINEA PIG?!?"
"Listen, shrimp, let's just call it water over the dam and start over anew, hmm?"
Sena did not hear the last part of Hiruma's sentence because the blood was pumping furiously in his head. Never had he ever wanted to hurt someone as much as he wanted to hurt Yoichi Hiruma, living proof that there was a Satan. Without thinking, the freshman vibrated out of his bonds and charged at the smirking devil. He picked him up by the collar of his black jacket and charged him into the metal wall of the underground base.
"You evil son of a BITCH! What have you done to me?!?" Ordinarily, Sena did not use foul language, but he felt no need to restrain himself in this case.
Hiruma giggled like a madman and said, "Never hit someone's head if you want to ask them a question; it makes their head all fuzzy…"
WHAM! Sena threw the devilish man against the floor and began to punch him at a rapid speed. "What did I do to deserve this?! Why ME?!?"
"If you'll stop for a moment," the large man said, "I think I'll be able to explain it better than Akumetsu." He walked over to Sena and pulled the smaller boy off of Hiruma's body. Sena refused to let go of Hiruma, but the man was incredibly strong, ripping Sena off and holding him firmly against his immense body. He asked, "Will you please calm down for a moment? I'd be happy to explain if you would relax a little." The smaller boy sighed in defeat and nodded. When the man took him away, Sena cast one last look at Hiruma; surprisingly, even after being beaten by the super-fast boy, the blonde demon was still grinning.
The man led Sena to one of the computers and typed in "Devilbats21" on the keyboard. A blue screen popped up and the large man took off his helmet. "I hope you don't mind," he said, "it helps me to see better if I take the helmet off." Underneath his helmet, the man had a soft face, like that of a young boy's, and Sena realized that he must be student at Deimon University. The man's hair was dark brown, and it was shaped into a spike, making his incredibly round head resemble a water chestnut.
"See, Sena, we live in a world that holds many secrets. The greatest secret is that of the existence of super-humans, or people with special abilities. There are, quite literally, thousands of these people out there, and Akumetsu and I are just two of them; now, you are too!"
The word 'super-human' buzzed in Sena's ears. So it was true; he really DID have superpowers now. "Why did you guys pick me?"
"Akumetsu said that he felt something about you. What was it you said he had, Akumetsu?"
"Potential, ya fat-ass!"
"Right, that! See, Sena, the world needs more good guys, like you and me. Oh, and Akumetsu too! So what do you say? Will you work with us?"
Sena looked down at his shoes. Out of the blue, these complete strangers were asking him to be a superhero? After using him as a test subject for an experiment?!
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I can't do this. For me…for someone who's never been anything special in his life…to suddenly be asked to save the world is just insane."
The large man pouted. "I understand. If…if you want to…" He stopped himself. "The exit is down that hallway, the third door on your left."
Sena nodded and vanished in a bolt of light. He was gone.
"Do you think," the large man asked Hiruma, "that you went over the line?"
"Of course, moron. But we have bigger problems than some twerp worrying about his fucking problems! The world is going to be destroyed in a year if we aren't ready!"
***
It was a bright day for winter, and Suzuna Taki was out skating on her new rollerblades that she had gotten for Christmas. They were given to her by her brother: they were white, with navy-colored smiley faces on the sides and lavender wheels. It was the best Christmas gift. While she was skating, she had her eyes closed; she did not notice the quickly moving blur that was headed her way until it collided with her.
When Sena had seen Suzuna coming, he had tried to stop himself before running into her, but he only managed to trip himself up and go flying face-first into her chest. He pushed himself off the ground and rubbed his head. "Ouch…that really hurt!" he thought to himself until he looked down and saw the skater girl that was filling his dreams last night was just inches away from him. He blushed heavily and pushed himself off of her body.
"Oh my God, I'm sososo sorry!" he said.
"It's…it's all right," she told him. She took a good look at the boy and then gasped. "Ohmygosh, you're that guy from yesterday! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, what about you? I'm the one who ran into you!"
"Don't worry about me; I'm a lot tougher than you think!" The two of them laughed and then they stopped and glanced at each other, crimson spread across their faces.
At the same time, they both asked, "Are you doing anything right now?" When they realized they had spoken simultaneously, they blushed again and looked away from each other.
Suzuna looked at Sena with a sparkle in her eyes. "Do you want to go hang out?" she asked.
A smile crossed the boy's face. "I'd love to!" he said. "I mean, I don't have anywhere else to go!"