Chapter 25 – Harbinger of Horrors, Part 1

Sai Summers / Death the Kid

Sai

Kid and I were held over again following lecture on Thursday, but under better circumstances this time.

Stein was shuffling papers on his desk. It seemed to be a favorite activity of his for some reason. "There have been reports of unusual activity at a factory recently, so I'm assigning the two of you to look into it.

There was concern on Kid's face. "What do you mean by 'unusual activity'?"

He leaned on the desk, on top of his work. "Three workers have gone missing after visiting the factory, and several that returned, have begun to appear disturbed."

"Disturbed, how?" I asked. I didn't really have the desire to deal with more people classified as disturbed.

Stein lowered his voice. "Mental instability. It appears to be spreading through the people who have come into contact with the location."

I eyed Kid, and then looked back at Stein. "How does a factory cause people to become crazy?"

Stein's eyes narrowed. "There's a good chance that someone's controlling the factory and spreading this instability through it. Maybe the factory itself is a catalyst for it. A few people have looked into it, but most won't get near the place. Since the local people are afraid to go near it, Shibusen's going to look into what's causing the problems."

The idea of the insanity worried me. Justin's words still rung in my ears from the previous week. "Who's to say it won't drive us crazy?"

He leaned back in his chair. "I can't say that it won't, but I picked you two because you're the least human in characteristics. I'm hoping that will be enough of a difference to prevent you from having full-blown exposure to the instability."

"Aww, now I'm not human either." I whined, trying to sound as faux as possible.

Kid took it seriously. "You make it sound like it's a bad thing."

"Kid, I was…kidding." I tried to restrain a laugh at the moronic nature of the comment, but I struggled. I stared at the ground and dropped my shoulders.

Stein sighed. "You know, I'm starting to feel a sick sense of irony in this."

I sniffed and looked up at him. "The irony being?"

He cocked his head to his right. "The irony being, that you two are probably the most unstable people I've ever met."

"Hey now…" I started.

"I'm not sure if this is the time Sai…" Kid started, looking at me thoughtfully.

Stein was showing signs of losing his patience already, and I wasn't even trying to do it on purpose this time. "Would you two just get going? This assignment has been on Shinigami-sama's list for a while, and people have been killed. We can't waste much more time on this one. And…" He sighed, and let his voice trail off.

"And what…?" I asked.

He rubbed his face with his hands. "Nothing. I get such a headache from you two. Makes me feel a little unstable."

I couldn't restrain the laughter anymore and snorted. "Thanks. I'll remember that for the next time I'm arranging to drive you into madness." I told him.

***

Kid

I am hardly a fan of disorganization. Full blown chaos bothers me even more.

And this place was the epitome of it.

"So where exactly is the factory? All I see if a bunch of boxes and ducts stuck every which way." Asked Sai, as we stood at the top of an overlooking hill.

In the center was a conglomeration of what looked-like buildings and ductwork, with smoke billowing out from the rear. It was surrounded by a close circle of disorganized shipping crates and movable factory equipment, with a second circle of the same set apart from that. The occasional lift equipment or small crate was scattered about between the two rings. There was even a half-sized blue forklift – which was parked inconveniently on its side in between.

I scratched the back of my head; not even I could easily tell what was what here. "I presume it's the large building group in the center."

Liz leaned on Sai's shoulder. "This place gives me the creeps." Liz complained.

"There is totally something weird about it." Sai concurred.

"Hey look, I'm on television!" I heard Patty exclaim from my right.

She was waving and dancing in front of an oversized video camera on a tripod.

Liz was watching her as well, and her shoulders sank. "Uh, Patty, I think that's a security camera."

"It is?" Patty's voice sank a little, but she continued to wave at it.

I stepped around the girls, moved Patty to the left by the shoulders, and stood in front of the camera. "Let me see that."

The head swiveled upwards and aimed the lens at my face. I stepped to the right, and then back to the left, and it followed appropriately.

"That's weird." Sai stated. "Shouldn't it be stationary unless someone's controlling it?"

That seemed like a logical conclusion. "It could be motion activated, but the fact that it moved up to my head is odd. Like it knows where to aim."

Sai walked to the back of the camera and examined the cabling in the back. "This thing seems kind of archaic for that kind of technology." She looked up at me from the back of the camera. "And would you be surprised if we were being watched?"

I had to be honest. "No. It's just unfortunate."

Sai stared at the back of the camera, and put her right arm behind her back. There was a flash from behind her, and she brought her right arm forward in a slashing motion. In her hand was a flat circle of metal, about a foot wide. She held it in the middle with a black bar at its diameter. It was patterned on ring with the black and red saw tooth pattern. She pulled the cords at the back of the camera down with her left hand, forcing them taunt. Sai slashed the ring across the back of the camera, and sparks shot up.

I raised an eyebrow. "Sai?"

She stood up and stretched, pointing the metal ring safely away from her head. "I don't like being watched. Can we go now?"

"You probably could have turned it off." I told her, playing devil's advocate once again.

She took it better this time. Sai grinned and shrugged. "Probably. But you've got to admit that will make an impression on who's ever watching us."

She was carefree even in the moment, and it helped alleviate my own anxiety a bit. However, my anxiety in this instance – yet still unknown to me – was well-founded.

***

We circled the outer wall of the most external wall of assorted shipping debris without finding a proper entrance. We returned to the supposed front of the complex, and debated about our options.

"So now what, there's no real entrance." Sai asked me, apparently assuming I had more answers than she did at the moment. Unfortunately, this was incorrect.

There was a rustling noise from the wall and it garnered our attention.

Patty had started to pull on a crate, and it fell out of the wall; it exposed a narrow hole through the wall of chaos. "Whoops…I broke it." She exclaimed with a giggle.

"So is this where we going in?" Liz asked, examining the hole.

"Unless you want to walk around again." Sai questioned, dropping her shoulders.

"No thanks, the sooner we leave, the happier I am." She concurred.

This wasn't going to suffice for me. "It's not even a real entrance."

Sai looked back at me. "I doubt there is one at this point. You saw the way this place looks." She paused. "And we've already been looking for an hour at least."

I crossed my arms across my chest and stared at the ground. I tapped my right foot in nervousness. I knew this was going to be unpleasant.

Sai watched my nervousness in pity. "Kid? What's the matter?"

I was growing more anxious. "I…I can't bring myself to climb around in it like that. It'll be filthy."

Liz sighed, and her shoulders dropped. "I should have expected this…"

"Kid, come on, let's just go, so we can go home." Sai begged. "I don't want to be here."

I stood stoic and silent, watching the ground. I debated about how to handle the situation.

There was a moment of silence, broken by a light scrapping noise.

I started to look up, and suddenly I was pelted with dust, dirt, and small pebbles from the dirt. Sai had made an obvious point of dirtying me so I'd have no excuse.

"Hey! Come back here!" I yelled at her, waving a fist.

She was already out of sight, having ducked through the wall.

Patty broke out into laughter, and Liz snorted. "You deserved that."

"Look at me…" I whined, brushing myself off.

"Let's go after her, Kid." Liz stated flatly, half-way into the hole already.

I was still agitated about my coat and hair, and had no reply for her demand.

Liz removed herself from the hole and stood in front of me. "What's more important this time, your issues or her being safe?"

I stopped fidgeting and looked at her. "That's an unfair question."

She stomped her foot in displeasure. "Is it? You're the one throwing a hissy fit while she's running around in danger."

I tried to shrug it off for the moment. "I'm sure it's not nearly as bad as the Professor said…"

Liz grabbed the labels of my jacket and shook me. "Do you really want to find that out the hard way!?"

I looked to the side of her, my outlook subdued. "Not particularly, but I'm not seeing another option at this point."

She sighed and looked dejected. "Sometimes you make me just sad, you know that?"

I sighed, knowing what she meant. There were times I made myself that way as well.

***

Sai

I wandered around the courtyard looking for an entrance through the inner wall.

I wasn't having any luck. It was even more compacted than the outer wall.

After some time here was a rustling sound in the dirt behind me, and I flipped around.

"Oh hey, you found a way in."

Kid was pointing the Thompson sisters' gun forms at me.

I dropped back a step and tripped on a rock behind my left foot. "Hey, Kid, come on now….I know this place is strange but…"

Kid released a pair of shots, and a shipping crate to the right of me exploded in the wall. Shards of wood fluttered in the air. His eyes were wide, as if he was completely focused on the fight.

Even if it was Kid, I was taking a chance by standing here. He could be lethal at close range, and he seemed to lack reason at the moment. It was a deadly combination and I had a serious problem. I likely couldn't outrun him, and the walls were too irregular to climb. He would end up chasing me in circles, so I had a choice to make: fight defensive or offensive. If he came after me, I would have to fight back eventually, anyway.

He shot again, and the bullets ricocheted off of a section of metal ductwork, ringing in the quiet.

I tossed out the metal halo again, but stuck it on the end of a black staff this time. It would give me a little more distance between him and I, but I couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't hit me first. And with him wielding guns, distance was not an issue for his side.

I did have one piece of information that I thought would help. I ran at his left, and I brought the staff and chakra up towards his face, slicing a part of his hair. Whips of hair fluttered in the breeze.

Nothing. No response from him.

Kid charged at me, shoved me back with his arms, and threw me into a shipping crate on the external wall. He was far faster than me, and there was no way I could get away. He pinned me down by the barrels of the guns, which prevented me from pushing back. The force was cutting down on my ability to breathe, and I dropped my weapon; it shimmered out of existence.

There was something odd, though. There was no musky smell.

It wasn't Kid. It only looked like him; it was his doppelganger.

In a frightening moment I realized he was nothing more than a psychopomp, here a collector of souls for the otherworld. This was Death's real purpose.

This was what was killing people. You saw things…people who you knew. It tricked people into thinking the thing in front of them was someone you knew. But it stripped everything from them that made them human-like. And if that person had the will or ability to kill…

The pair of guns was buried in the center of my abdomen.

He's going to kill me, I realized. If he pulls the trigger, I'm dead.

I inhaled, and screamed Kid's name, hoping he might hear.

The barrels ejected, and there was darkness.