Just adding here at the beginning, a shout-out to Noelle Strife, for liking the story enough to get inspired into writing one himself. If you like Resurrection you'll probably like his too. As always, reviews are welcome, especially advice as I have no idea how good what I write is sometimes. Chapter 4's starting with some comedy and I never know how close to the games that is...

Shadow Hearts: Resurrection

Chapter 4: Rice Paddy Nightmare

Accompanying a farmer taking his goods to sell in Yokohama seemed the easiest way to get to Tokyo, but Charlie had started to take note of all the odd looks they were getting. Kaede in her robes seemed to be getting none of it, apart from a few strange "Why is she dressed in Chinese clothes" looks, which she must've been used to.

And Jack, well... if people didn't look at him funny he'd wonder what was up.

But him and Dawn seemed to be catching most of it, the two prominent white faces in a sea of Japanese, and the looks said everything. Restrained anger, repressed rage, they were keeping their resentment in check because of the American occupation but their hate was making Charlie distinctly uncomfortable.

He didn't know why, maybe it was because of his transformation, but he saw glimmers of red light shining in the air around them whenever he passed. He didn't really know what it was, but he had a good idea. Malice.

Malice was created whenever a great tragedy occured, and malice was the raw material of Monsters. Hatred, rage, sorrow all negative emotions congeal with natural conditions and spawn monsters. He'd heard different theories but that was the one that made the most sense. Monsters were made from people's hatred and thats why they hated everything.

He didn't want to examine what that meant for him.

Dawn had woken up on their first day of travel but she'd agreed to rest in the wagon for the duration of the trip. Charlie had felt worried about having her fight, she wasn't ready for all this yet. Plus, he noticed uncomfortably, that she'd shot Heart right in the eyeand he didn't really want her panicking and blinding him. That was one of his pet fears, one of the few he allowed himself.

They were moving down a fairly quiet high-way and the sun was now beginning to sink below the horizon, setting the sky ablaze with orange and red. Frowning at the sudden change in lighting, he shouted towards the front of the cart where Kaede was walking. They seemed to have formed a convoy with Jack on the left, him on the right and Kaede at the front with the horses talking to the farmer.

"Hey Kaede! Are we stopping soon? Night-time travel isn't all that safe after three days straight walking"

"Oh, isn't it? It's almost as if in my 18 years of life I never noticed!"

"Yeah, 18, riiight" Charlie rolled his eyes and was completely unprepared for the rock Kaede hurled at his head.

Ignoring the downed man, Kaede hopped down from the carriage and scanned the area for a safe spot to rest up. Seeing a small village surrounded by fields, she noticed with distrust that the fields were all fully submerged and that might make getting to the village difficult. The farmer shrugged at her face and simply muttered

"The horses can manage, you go on ahead." The farmer's weatherworn face nodding at her. Kaede smiled and bowed as quickly as she could

"Let's go, you three"

"Arrrgh, my head's bleeding, why are you so mean?" moaned Charlie as he got to his feet, noticing Dawn's concerned face looking at him. His eyes darting from side to side he raised a thumb and said, as convincingly as he could "It's OK, a little injury like this could never stop me!"

"Spoken like a TRUE Potato!" Jack announced, slapping Charlie on the shoulder as he started wading through the Rice paddy towards the village

"Does he know there's a path to his left?" Dawn asked

"Lord, I hope not" Charlie replied, "That guy is genuine crazy..." helping Dawn down, the two of them realised they were holding hands and quickly let go, each blushing furiously. Kaede ignored them and started walking towards the village. This whole Exorcist business was never meant to be so complicated...

- \ - o - / -

The village was apparently called Madanda, and the small arrangement of houses in the traditional style gave Kaede a few warm memories of her own hometown. They had the same collection of shifty glances that they always had but nothing that put them out, Kaede was just pleased they'd found somewhere to stay.

Finding the inn, she slipped inside and saw the old woman talking to an eccentric old man in blue. The conversation seemed to involve randomly selecting something and winning a prize.

"What the heck?" Charlie slipped in behind Kaede and saw the old man suddenly look at him

"Ahhh! Young man! Would you like to play the lottery?"

"Uhhhh, OK... Kaede, help!" Charlie was dragged away by the old man and left Kaede with Dawn and Jack to book the room. Kaede sighed, looked like Charlie was intent on being unhelpful. Approaching the desk, the grateful old woman asked how many would be staying.

"Four, two double beds please"

"Ehh! Double beds! Kaede, we can't, I mean..." Dawn's heart started pounding in her ears, sharing a bed? But she didn't even know if Charlie liked her like that, what was she going to do if he wasn't how he seemed or, or... they really should date first, how could Kaede just do that and-

"What's wrong? We share one and Jack and Charlie share the other."

"Oh." Dawn tried her best not to sound disapointed. Then blushed furiously at her own thoughts giving Kaede another bout of migraine. This was hard enough without two mysteriously magical people being hormonal!

Charlie returned to the party with a weird metallic loop in his hand and a confused look on his face

"Does this look like a key to you guys? He seemed really angry that he had to give it to me"

Kaede and Dawn looked blank, Jack's face was hidden by the Pumpkin but from his shrugging shoulders, he seemed not to have any idea either. At any rate, they had lodging. At Charlie's behest they ate a good dinner at the local Ramen store (where Dawn had to be taught how to use chopsticks the Japanese way, with much merriment from the locals) before retiring to bed.

Dawn and Kaede seemed to be a little awkward with the arrangement, but after a few brief conversations agreed that what they had in common (Thinking Charlie was OK if dim, that Jack was crazy and that they both had very pretty hair) was enough to think sleeping in the bed wasn't that weird. The conversation was a lot weirder with Jack and Charlie.

"Please don't mind my carrot"

"Oh god, please tell me you brought an actual vegetable to bed with you, because that is honestly less disturbing than the alternative"

Despite this, the two of them drifted off to sleep and Charlie found himself catapulted once more into his own dream hell...

- \ - o - / -

That same eerie music filtered through his ears as Charlie felt his face on cold stone, lifting his face up to look confusedly around the room. This wasn't real, but why was his face cold? Sensory perception and mystical mumbo jumbo did not go hand in hand. Wandering around the gravestones, Charlie noticed that one was glowing with a faint orange light but he didn't think he should try touching it just yet...

Still, worth remembering. The air around the gravestone seemed to swirl and blow so maybe it was Wind Element.

Another glowed red, but only faintly.

This whole graveyard was confusing, it seemed to have all 6 elements and one extra grave (with no visible name) but as far as he was aware his Element was Dark. Kaede used to mention it a lot until she saw it was bothering him. He didn't like being Dark element, it seemed to go hand in hand with those who were REALLY evil. It just gave an affinity for evil magic.

The gates were another thing, the four indentations always bugged him. What was meant to be there? It was definitely something, but he couldn't work out what. And the tree. Walking over to it, he tapped the trunk absent-mindedly and heard the same hollow, slightly crystalised sound, he expected to hear.

He stayed away from the river now he'd realised what it was. The swirling red light... this entire graveyard was surrounded by a river of Malice seperating it from the darkness. He didn't really want to imagine how much Malice there was there, because he was beginning to think this whole Graveyard thing was connected to him.

He was still touching the tree when he heard her again

"Big brother, when are you coming back?"

"Stop it" Charlie whispered "Why would you pretend to be her?"

"I'm not pretending, big brother"

"Kirsten meant everythingto me! Stop pretending to be her!"

"You meant everything to me too, big brother... you have to be careful"

"What?"

"The four of them are after you, they don't want to come back here... it's cold"

"What four?" Charlie turned and saw only a fragment, only a glimpse. Blood staining a pale hand with those fingers, so small, only a child's fingers. Kirsten's fingers.

"CoMe BAck soOn" she said, as everything around Charlie went black.

- \ - o - / -

Screams were echoing from outside, Charlie's eyes snapping open as he got to his feet awkwardly, the dim light of the room was being created by a fire blazing outside. Scrambling to the window, Charlie looked outside and saw shuffling inhuman shapes rampaging around the village, tearing apart the villagers...

"Jack! Wake up, we have a problem!"

"Alright, give me a second to put on my face" mumbled Jack as he tugged on the pumpkin. Charlie hadn't even realised he took it off. The two of them stormed next door to find Dawn clutching the gun and point it at the door. Charlie immediately ducked while Jack seemed not to notice the danger of a young girl with a gun and extremely twitchy hands.

"There are monsters outside! I suspect Abrakadabra treachery!" Jack confided, Kaede had already donned her clothes and had her spell sheets ready, tucked into the sleeves of her robe. Dawn seemed to relax a great deal at the sight of it and put the gun down, relieving everyone.

"Me and Anjou will deal with this. O'Connagh, you protect Dawn. Do not let anyone near her!"

"Roger!" Jack shouted, a strange glow surrounding his pumpkin.

"Uhhh, just going to add. Do not let anyone near her apart from me and Kaede. And don't kill any humans"

"Oh... Roger!"

Slightly concerned, but deciding to pay it no mind, Charlie and Kaede rushed out of the inn and prepared to see what monster was assaulting the village. Back in the room, Jack and Dawn sat in awkward silence as the faint screams of fighting slipped through the window

"So... you like vegetables?" Dawn asked as politely as she could, unsure how this conversation was going to go...

- \ - o - / -

The village was in chaos, the entire of Madanda seemed to be engulfed in flames. Kaede wasted no time in setting charms to the few buildings she could, spheres of water erupting from the paper sheets and extinguishing the flames. Charlie held his bat ready as one of the creatures started sprinting towards him. It looked like a blue frog person, a vacant expression on it's face and a single white dish on it's head.

Seeing the obvious target, Charlie swung his bat and with a loud discordant hum, knocked the creature down. Exhaling, Charlie got ready for the next one as it ran at him and tried to kick him. Moving to one side, Charlie swept the bat upwards and cracked the creature's chin before bringing it down once more, knocking the standing creature down onto the downed one. Only problem was they didn't seem to be evaporating into light.

Kaede seemed to notice his problem and slammed a charm down on top of the bodies causing a water sphere to engulf them. That seemed to be enough damage to make them explode into light. Charlie shouldered his bat as a few survivors huddled behind them

"This is taking ages... do you have any other big spells?"

"Kappa aren't a good opponent for us," Kaede mused "Water element means my magic isn't that powerful and your bat can only do so much"

"I could use my fusion?"

"No, you couldn't. The villagers are scared enough as it is"

"Get Jack down here to fight instead of you? Fire VS Water?"

"Then we either leave Dawn unguarded or Jack unsupervised"

"Damnit, alright, uhh, other options? Come on, Kaede, there must be a way to do this..."

"Find the source. These aren't natural monsters, someone's making them appear. There isn't a river nearby for them to live in so, logically, they must be coming from somewhere else" Kaede punctuated this by slamming another spell to the floor, a snake of water rippling out through the ground like a whip and throwing the Kappa into the air.

"Making them appear... from water?"

"Yes, I'd think so but- Anjou!" To Kaede's surprise, and anger, Charlie was sprinting away from the village. Where was he going? There was nothing there but... the Rice Paddys! Kaede felt a smile twinging her mouth. Nothing there but the empty Rice Paddys. Maybe Charlie was getting smarter after all.

Sprinting through the streets, Charlie took time to take swipes at the Kappa menacing folks but the whole attack seemed weird to him. The village was taken completely unawares, he hadn't smelt anything out of place walking up to Madanda which only made him more suspicious about the whole thing.

Bursting out into the cool night air, the navy sky stretching above him lit only by a smattering of stars, he saw something strange standing in the Rice Paddy. It was a strange steel device, manned by a man in khaki military gear. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his helmet was set at a strange angle and he didn't seem to be holding his rifle, simple sitting cross-legged.

"Weeeell, what do we have here" He sneered, his American accent a lot more pronounced than Dawn's. Grinding his teeth, Charlie folded his arms and shouted back to him

"Hey jarhead! These monsters your fault?"

"I was told to test this machine here, so that's what I'm doing. Ain't my fault that those Jap's gotta build a village next to it."

"Oh, so you're one of thosesoldiers" Charlie groaned. He'd encountered them a few times, the kind who killed German citizens because of the war-crimes of the Nazis. They saw no difference between acts during war and acts out of war. Everyone was a target. Only this one was somehow making monsters and sending them into the village, that couldn't just slide.

"You get one shot," Charlie shouted "turn the machine off before I get nasty!"

"Heh, kid you don't know the meaning of the word!"The soldier began to glow with an eerie light, a sound like shattering glass and suddenly a dark green skinned humanoid, with a single red eye was staring down at him. Charlie was genuinely taken aback by this, what the hell? He heard shouts from behind him as Kaede, followed by Jack and Dawn, ran to meet him and the monster.

"Let's see how tough you are now" the Cyclops cackled, diving at Charlie, it struck at his ribs. Charlie blocked as best he could but the bat bent under the blow, bending in half as he was sent catapulting into Dawn and Jack. Kaede carried on forward and used a spell sheet to summon a shield

"What the hell was that? Didn't you transform?" Kaede bellowed as blows rained down on her shield of water, wet thumps as each strike weakened it.

"No, he did! I thought there weren't any more fusion people?"

"There aren't! You're the only Harmonixer on record!"

"I'll eat your skin! I'll eat your flesh!" Screeched the cyclops as it started prying apart the layers of water exposing his face as he wrenched apart the shield

"First, you should eat... your vegetables!" Jack shouted, throwing both hands forward as a perfect sphere of light shot forward, surrounded by fire and exploded in the cyclops face into a Jack o Lantern shape. The spell staggered the cyclops as Jack clutched either side of his pumpkin and fired another blast, a flaming skull bursting forth and shooting at the Cyclops to knock it back and into the Rice Paddy.

"Uhhh, my Curse magic is weakening..." Jack mumbled "I didn't eat enough greens..."

"I have to fuse" Charlie shouted, ignoring Jack "any idea what element that thing is?"

"What? What does that matter, you can only become dark" Kaede stated, her eyes looking at Charlie as if he was made, even as she laid charms to keep the Cyclops busy with walls of water, summoned by the Rice Paddy. Dawn seemed to look long and hard at it before announcing

"He's Earth, so you shouldn't use that plant one." Dawn sounded confused how she knew this but her eyes were clear. Kaede made a mental note to raise this issue with her later. Charlie simply nodded and felt a familiar falling sensation, an orange light in front of him. He tapped it lightly and started sprinting towards the cyclops.

"Hey buddy! You think your a monster? Get a load of THIS!" Mid-run, Charlie's body began glowing and drawing in wisps, a more complicated and powerful transformation than the soldiers. With a sound of breaking glass, a cacophany of wings began buzzing as Charlie leapt into the air and flew upwards, he looked at his legs, black and jagged with razor thin hairs lining them.

His arms had become short and multi-jointed, his eyes had compound vision but the biggest change were his enormous wings and the weight he felt on his back. The enormous stinger, striped gold, green and black in alternating colors. With a loud buzz, the wasp like fusion spirit dived down and slashed across the Cyclops chest with it's stinger.

Roaring, the Cyclops slapped the machine, causing a Kappa to appear. The monster had enough time to look confused before a rush of wind sliced through it and left the pieces to fall into the water. The cyclops snarled once more when there was a loud ping of a shot being fired and it felt sudden stabbing pain as it's eye was punctured.

Clutching at it's face in pain, the cyclops was caught completely unaware as the Wasp like form of Charlie landed in front of him and with a loud buzz, issued a bladed tornado at him by beating his wings rapidly. The cyclops screamed as it was torn to shreds, reverting with a flash of light to a bloodied and butchered human soldier.

With one last gurgle, the soldier fell dead, his blood leaking into the rice paddy and polluting the water. Charlie sighed, his voice sounding strange to his own ears, as he looked across to Dawn, still clutching her gun. Her hands weren't as shaky any more.

"Dawn? Just a small thing but... please stop aiming for the eyes" Charlie said, reverting as he finished, white light blinding everyone as the transformation ended.

"It just felt fitting" Dawn smiled, the very picture of innocence. Kaede exhaled loudly, wiping her brow, all those spells had taken their toll on her. But she had more issues at hand right now.

"So, you can turn into more than just Gallax?"

"Gallas. Yeah, there's an Earth element called Blyk and now a Wind element called Suzuring." Charlie explained, slightly awkwardly. He remembered now that he hadn't mentioned this to Kaede yet.

"Didn't you think this was worth mentioning to me?" Kaede asked, her voice dripping with icy anger.

"It slipped my mind, sorry." Charlie said, genuinely apologetic. Kaede stared long and hard at him before snorting

"Whatever." and promptly leaving. Charlie called after her briefly but stopped as she passed from view into the town. She'd seemed really angry... angrier than he'd ever seen her. Charlie sighed, this whole thing was getting so out of hand. He glanced at Dawn and saw she too looked concerned. Smiling weakly at her, Charlie helped Jack to his feet as they returned to the inn, intent on getting as much sleep as possible before tomorrow.

Nobody said anything about the soldier. Or about how he'd managed to learn the forgotten art of fusion. Maybe they were afraid to?

The Party so Far

(active party)

Charlie Anjou
Role: Harmonixer
Element: Dark
Weapon: Broken Aluminum Bat

Jack O'Connagh
Role: Pumpkin King
Element: Fire
Weapon: Smiley-Face Carved Pumpkin

Dawn Tyler
Role: Unknown
Element: Neutral
Weapon: BB Beretta

(inactive)

Kaede Abe
Role: Taoist
Element: Water
Weapon: Holy Ink (Navy)

Fusion Information:

Gallas:An elementary fusion of Darkness, with wisps of evil energy coming from his finger tips, his primary usage is as magical attacker. Gallas is a hunter who seeks out lost souls to consume, forged by the goddess of Death herself, his evil energy suffuses the air itself.

Blyk: An elementary fusion of Earth, with branches forming his horns, his high special defence makes him useful against magical opponents. Blyk is a nature spirit, sworn to protect the forest he resides in, with sharpened roots and storms of stone, he smites tresspassers.

Suzuring:An elementary fusion of Wind, an enormous poison stinger for it's back and glistening wings, it's speed and evasion are second to none. Suzuring has a hive mentality, seeking to protect the hive through vicious poisonous assaults and bladed wings.