My college semester has been taking up a decent bit of my time sorry for the delay on the chapter. Please enjoy!
-MalMetal
CHAPTER 42: Praying For Monsters To Go Away
"Open your eyes, it's only me," The Shadow said to Legoshi who opened his eyes to see the scene so familiar to him. A cave surrounded by old rock that he studied, at his back was the light of day and trees swaying in the wind of a beautiful autumn day. Leaves rolling around in the wind's breath and on its force. He was unbothered by the wind's cool howling touching his back despite his fur being the only thing dressing his skin.
"I know. I was just thinking of how I can make things go better with you this time." Legoshi finally responded to the immutable darkness that served as a gateway leading deeper into the cave.
"I know just as much as you do, we do this every time and run in circles. You wonder the same things, dodging what you were supposed to learn. Acceptance is different from acknowledgment."
"I've known that for a long time. That's why I need to keep speaking to this part of me."
"Then accept me. Simple, but you won't because you still see me as a beast."
"It feels like I can only accept you when things become dangerous, and I can't accept all of you. Accepting all of you is to accept that deep within me there will always be a desire to eat herbivores. No matter how hard it gets for me I can never accept that part of me."
"Then as it has been since you were born, I will always be something you reject. We've gone through this over and over and over again. Nothing changes, you won't change, and neither will I. Overcoming this impulse was something you've never truly wanted to face, so, what will you do?"
"Find a way to overcome that aspect, so I can finally accept all of me!" The Shadow laughed.
"You've run this far so now you'll stop? I'll be waiting to see how you do this." The Shadow opened its eyes wide to reveal those crimson-red eyes that reddened no matter how often Legoshi spoke to it. The eyes faded into the darkness, leaving Legoshi in silence. He didn't want to leave until he figured everything out but he'd be wasting time sticking around. Legoshi closed his eyes and opened them again, seeing Bill across from him. The tiger noticed the wolf's gaze and set his phone down.
"How'd it go?"
"Not too good."
"Same here. My instincts were all in my face. I wish I could've strangled 'em. He pisses me off all the time but there's nothing we can do about it now." The two were outside in the opening of trees on the side of the school near one of its side exits. Bill laid back on the dry dead leaves, finding a bit of solace in nature. He took a large sniff of the autumn air, thanks to that breath he felt at ease. Legoshi followed his lead, enjoying the atmosphere and moving his arms about the dried leaves.
"Think we should go back to the Doctor?" Bill asked.
"Yeah, he has a way that can work for us. Although, it's pretty hard. I failed two times."
"What is it?"
"Being able to stay in a chilled room with raw meat for two hours without eating or cutting into it with your claws." Bill shot straight up.
"What?! That's impossible!" Legoshi sat up and shook his head.
"It's just difficult but it'll help us overcome this part of who we are so we can accept our instincts. If we take out that negative aspect of them we can become better than what we are now."
"What if we cave and start eating the meat? What then?"
"That's the risk of the training. I quit both times because I could feel myself slipping and I nearly couldn't stop myself. This is what it takes to overcome the wall between us and our instincts." Legoshi was dead serious with what he spoke.
"Well, I guess we just aren't meant to overcome this then."
"After everything we've done, you think we can just stop?"
"Nope, that's the problem. We're risking going off the deep end, becoming real beasts!"
"It'll be like when we risked our lives to save Haru."
"Don't feed me that, you know this is different!"
"Yeah but if we approach it like it isn't then we can face it. We risked our lives once and we'll have to do it again. I don't want to push you into this but it might be our only way to change." Bill sucked his teeth and thought to himself for a few seconds. Meeting Legoshi's eyes, they were not judging him, they were begging, hoping he didn't have to face this trial alone again. This gave Bill further pause, still, he teetered on the precipice of a decision until he thought of that night with Haru. Letting out a sigh, Bill made his decision.
"When are we going to do this?" Legoshi's tail started to wag.
"I'll talk to Gohin later today."
"This ain't gonna be fun for me I hope you know that."
"It won't be fun for me either." Bill looked at his friend for a few seconds waiting for that tail of his to stop. They held the position until Legoshi caught on and calmed his feelings giving a slightly sad but funny face.
"Sorry."
"Yeah, yeah. Anyways, how'd your dinner with Riz go?"
"...It was good. He made some good soup and we just talked about Tem, school, and that was pretty much it." Legoshi's right ear flicked and he looked down at the leaves.
"He's leaving stuff out." Bill thought. "I guess that's what I should've expected."
"How about you and Haru you guys met last week didn't you? I talked to her for a little bit a couple days ago at lunch when she was with Els. She's cheered up a lot thanks to you."
"Eh, I didn't do much. It just took some talking, that's all, it was because of you she got back to how she used to be." Bill scratched his neck.
"He's leaving stuff out." Legoshi thought. "It's good you and she get along, that's what helped you make your choice, right?"
"Hell no, I just wanted to get this voice outta my head nothin' more, nothin' less!" Legoshi gave a soft smirk that faded as he stood up, the sun was still rising in the sky.
"We'll overcome this together." Legoshi reached out his hand.
"Don't we always?" Bill stood thanks to his friend. "By the way, what'd you think of the first few chapters of the game?"
"It was exactly what I wanted and more!" Legoshi's eyes glowed with the power of the sun.
"I knew you'd love the intro. How many times did you die to the first yokai boss?"
"We passed the controller around three or four times so there's me, Collot, Jack, Durham, Voss, and Minguno, so… between eighteen and twenty-four times." Legoshi looked down with a pitiful and defeated gaze, pouting like a baby.
"Wow, you guys are trash. I got through that boss on my second try with Aoba."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Why're you saying that? I can tell when you're messing with me."
"I'm serious, you're really impressive. You're a good actor, good at video games, and you were able to overcome your craving for meat faster than I did. It's one thing after another that you're just really good at. It's one of the main reasons we're friends. You are strong. I wouldn't be surprised if you're able to pass that test before me too. I guess in that way I've always looked up to you." Legoshi's voice was sincere while keeping that emotionless look on his face.
"I appreciate that but for me, it's always been the other way around. You're the only animal except for my mom or Louis who can get under my skin so easily but you do it with the right intentions. You're always doing something or thinking ahead in a way that I don't see or think of, like setting up Haru and me so we could move past our problems together. Not to mention the whole meat-eating stuff. I always thought you were way more mature than you give yourself credit for." Bill patted Legoshi's back.
"I don't think I could tell you, Bill. I don't think I could ever tell you that when it came to being a male carnivore you were the best example I could think of. After all, we've been through and the truth I forced you to see, I doubt you'd be willing to understand why I would say that now. I'll wait until we're older to tell you." Legoshi let this thought disappear in his mind, walking back to the carnivore male dorms with Bill. This calm for these two found itself a home on this Saturday morning but, as always, somewhere else conflict was brewing elsewhere.
Melon walked about the alleyways in the neutral area of the Black Market. This territory encompasses the entranceways on the north side of the Market. Gohin's clinic is at the end of this neutral area. To the west were the split territory of the Shishigumi and Dokugumi and to the East were the Inarigumi. Right now, Melon was on his way into the southern part of the market otherwise known as "The Deep" because of the Madaragumi's drug trade, addicts, and more violent inhabitants. The Shishigumi used to control a strip club in the territory but now it'd been completely lost.
It was the 23rd, the second to last Saturday of the month. Adjusting his mask Melon continues further south, lights from apartments, small buildings, and the eyes of inhabitants all feel pointed toward him. He scratched his neck a little, monitoring his surroundings while keeping his left hand in his zip-up sweater's left pocket. From the outside, he was eerily slender for a cheetah but too tall for a gazelle. He kept his eyes squinted to soften any animosity widened eyes would cause. For another few minutes, he walked until he hit a fork between apartments one leading to the left and the other to the right. Inspecting the paths further and the flow of many feline carnivores he knew which way to go but heactively chose to go right. The way was a bit more narrow than he was comfortable with but still he enjoyed the walk nonetheless.
On the walls around him were painted words cursing Yahya. Some were in red paint others seemed to be in blood or what it appeared to be Melon couldn't tell. The hybrid smirked as he stopped.
"If you're done stalking me then let's make this short." Melon turned to a hooded figure behind him whose sword handle was visible.
"My boss told me to keep an eye out for a beast with twisted-looking gazelle horns. What's an herbivore showing their appreciation for not being devoured in the Black Market for?"
"After making my offering to the Brachiosaurus Bone. I decided to test my luck." Melon casually responded.
"You got this far so your luck's clearly run out." The figure revealed itself to be Leon. He wore a brown kimono, a soft-looking pair of waraji, and an eyepatch.
"Wearing those shoes in this day and age? You older beasts can't let go of the past!" Melon revealed a small knife from his right pocket. Melon charged forward, looking to strike first but Leon stood still before snapping his fingers.
"Eat him whole!" At that command, several beasts jumped from the windows and buildings around Melon. He dodged a few strikes from three different beasts, but he plunged his horns into the fourth and final attacker. He quickly dislodged his horns from the beast's stomach and moved behind it, wrapping his arm around its neck. Melon studied the other three's pupils; they were slightly dilated, one's palms were twitching, another's jaw was shaking, and the last's fur stood up on its neck.
"Don't you know not to hire meat lovers to do your dirty work?" Melon slit his hostage's throat and threw it into a nearby alleyway. He made a welcoming hand gesture that the other three attackers took and chased to eat the body.
"You're going to regret this," Leon said, drawing his sword full of confidence. Blood dripped from Melon's horn into his mouth, it tasted like nothing except wet sand. A taste he'd had before, nothing but sand, sand, sand, sand. That's all he could taste but he savored one distinct taste that only came with blood in his mouth. Be it his or another animal's blood… tasted like freedom. In search for more Melon charged forward.