This chapter is pretty much a flashback of what was going on with Kikaito as Ichise was going through everything the plot put him through as well as how/why he ended up needing a new arm along with both legs.
-Admin!Franceypants ᕙ(눈‸눈‶)ᕗ
"Will you at least tell me where I am?" Kikaito asked as he began to walk on his own, curiously following the paths of the fish swimming above his head. "You're in my lab which was formerly my auntie's before she passed, but more broadly speaking, you're in Lux." It was then that he remembered who he was entirely.
Kikaito Isamine was a performer who worked at a disreputable stage where multiple prize fights took place. He would often pay special attention to a specific fighter with raven hair and stunning blue eyes until he disappeared from the ring one day after a rumor spread about him having an affair with the arranger's girl and never returned. After his disappearance, Lux became chaotic as the Organo, Salvation Union, and Racan groups suddenly declared an all out war on each other. Kikaito, being a member of neither group, managed to evade the majority of the gang war. However, being continuously hunted down by members of each gang to join them, the pale blond saw no other option but to run from the war zone. He eventually did find a place to hide away, not escaping the sounds and rumbling of gunshots and Shapes marching around the city.
One day, everything stopped. There were no gunshots or mechanical buzzing and whirring of Shapes patrolling Lux. After taking a careful lookout of the area, Kikaito Isamine got up and out of his hideout and saw something he absolutely did not expect. Dead bodies and mangled Shapes were scattered everywhere. The pale blond walked around only to see more of what he saw in the beginning. Soon enough, his stomach had had enough of the stench and sight of rotting corpses and took it out on the wall of a building. After wiping his mouth of his stomach's anger, Kikaito became curious as to whether or not there were any remaining survivors other than himself. "Hello?" He began to run around Lux in a state of panic. "Hey!" He then made it to his home near the Obelisk and noticed a familiar face. That face belonged to the missing prize fighter who was laying against a column. He didn't look dead. He was simply sleeping. It was then that he noticed something strange. The prize fighter had the same kind of arm and leg the Shapes had, except he himself was not a Shape. Or at least, he didn't look like one.
While Kikaito was debating on whether or not to wake the sleeping prize fighter to see if he truly was sleeping, his vibrant blue eyes opened to see the surprised performer looking at him. "You used to perform at the ring." Kikaito's eyes widened at the fact that he had been recognized the same way he recognized the man on the ground. "Yeah, that was me." He responded with a gentle yet firm voice. The pale blond knew not what the other man's personality was so he did not know how to act toward him. All he could deem good to do was hold a hand out to help the other man up, the man with stunning blue eyes accepting his assistance and standing up, letting go of the grasp that helped him up. "Are we the only ones left?" Kikaito asked, the man with the strange arm and leg gesturing to follow him as a response. As the two were walking, both paid mind to the innocent corpses and didn't even step on one by accident, instead using the destroyed Shapes as footholds.
"How did you manage to survive?" The man leading the way asked the one following him. "I found a place away from the war." He responded, "You?" Kikaito turned to the man with tattered clothes and blood staining his bruised body, receiving a mere three words in response: "I don't know." "Where are you taking me?" Kikaito asked as it got darker and emptier the farther along they went. "The answer to your question" was the other man's response.
After what felt like an hour of silence, the man with raven hair and shocking blue eyes led Kikaito to a single door. The pale blond felt a sense of anxiety as the other man opened the door to a teenage boy with a doctor's outfit on along with a surgical mask with mouse brown hair sleeping on a bed in the corner of an empty room. "His aunt gave me this arm and leg." He said as he looked over at Kikaito, "Us three, we're all that's left of Lux. What do you want to do?" The pale blond looked at the boy for several minutes. "Is he actually sleeping?"
"I don't know."
"Wake him up." The man with raven hair shook the boy on the bed and much to Kikaito's surprise, mouse brown eyes opened.
"Hello." The masked teenager mumbled with a light smile, "Are you a friend of my auntie?" The man with strange limbs merely nodded, "Okay." The boy got up and dusted himself off, joining the two at the door. "Hey." Kikaito looked over at the man with shocking blue eyes, "You never told me your name."
"Ichise." The man responded quickly without making eye contact.
"And your family name?"
"Don't have one." Choosing not to pry into Ichise's personal life, Kikaito ended it there by following the other remainders of Lux out of the dark area and back into where the mangled corpses and Shapes laid rest, the stench that inspired the pale blond's stomach to paint a building multiple shades of green slowly returning.
"You." Ichise looked over at Kikaito, "You never answered my question." "I have a name." The blond responded with squinted eyes, "It's Kikaito Isamine." "Isamine." The raven-haired man repeated, adding his name into the mix, "You never answered my question. What do you want to do?" After several moments, Kikaito looked Ichise sternly in the eye. "I want to hear what the boy has to say." They both then passed their glances onto the boy with mouse brown eyes and a surgical mask over his face. "Well," he began, "my auntie told me to wait in that room until someone came to get me. And then she said to get them and me out of Lux." "It's settled then." Ichise cut in abruptly, "We're leaving. I highly doubt either of you have anything you want to take with you so let's get go-" "Hey, wait!" The masked teenager interrupted with a nervous tone to his voice, "I do have one thing I need before I go. I'll only be a second." He then sprinted to an area where the other two could still see him and appeared to remove something from one of the corpses. After returning, he showed his elders a gold locket in the shape of an eagle wing and put it on around his neck. "I'm ready." Ichise then turned to Kikaito. "What about you?" The blond merely shook his head, "Let's get going then."
It did not take long for the only survivors to reach the only exit to the underground city of Lux. "Well, this is it." Said a slightly nostalgic masked teenager, "Are we all gonna go our separate ways after we get out of here?" "No." Kikaito was surprised to hear that lone word come out of Ichise's mouth since he had always struck him as more of a loner than anything, "We are Lux. We're staying together." The other two merely nodded and looked up at the rickety looking route to the surface. "Well?" The teen asked his elders, "Who's gonna go first?" Several minutes passed before Kikaito volunteered after carefully examining the path, "Good luck, Mr. Isamine." Kikaito nodded and carefully took the first step, then the next, then the next. Eventually, the path turned out to be surprisingly sturdy as the pale blond nearly reached the top. "Mr. Kikaito, you're almost there!" The masked teen shouted in order to encourage the man above him. "Hey, kid." Ichise looked to the boy next to him and attempted to remove the surgical mask covering his face, "Take that off. The smell's not that bad." "I can't, I can't!" The younger argued as he evaded Ichise's grasp, "My king would never forgive me if I took this off!"
"Your king?"
"Yes, now please stop!" Ichise merely nodded.
"Almost there." Kikaito thought out loud as he jumped up to the ledge of the surface. Suddenly, the foothold he found gave way, making the pale blond stumble and fall down to the place he jumped. "Mr. Kikaito," the masked teen shouted from the bottom, "are you alright?" He was about to receive a response when the platform cracked underneath Kikaito and collapsed, dropping the man to the ground, but not without having him hit every beam and splinter that was in his way. Stunned from the original fall, the man who had climbed to the stop of the exit could do nothing but watch himself plummet to his death, landing on the hard ground. Surprisingly, the fall was not fatal. It did, however, render him unconscious along with mangle his left arm and both legs to the point where he would never again even do so much as walk.