8Chapter 4: Burn my dread
Dreamless dorm, ticking clock, I walk away, from the soundless room.
The music from the MP3 player helps to keep its wearer awake near midnight.
Windless night, moonlight melt, my ghostly shadow, to the lukewarm gloom.
The late night bullet train gently rocks Kira, it reminds her feelings when she was still a baby in the cradle, and her mother would gently rock her to sleep…
Nightly dance, of bleeding sword, reminds me that, I still live.
She wears a black shirt with a pair of black pants. Kira would wear a skirt to better show her gender, but it has already turn cold.
Of course, Kira has a very cute face. But the only problem being she is passable to be either a cute girl or a cute boy, take your pick. Her purple colored eyes seem to have the magic to drown people in. Her face, always have a soft smile had a childish innocent charm to it. And her very short plain style brown hair doesn't help to distinguish her gender either.
Where am I going again… is it Aprillius city? Why would I want to go there boarding a late night train…
Kira thinks to herself while the bullet train enters Aprillius train station. She takes her luggage and leaves the bullet train. The station is quit empty with only a few passengers and security guards walking around, shadows flash around every corner when there's not enough lighting. How will I be able to get to the dorm?
She doubts her impulse of coming to Aprillius once again.
Well, Kira… blaming your impulse would not do anything for you now. Start walking towards Tatsumiya district would be a good start… Maybe I'll even find a nice man or woman willing to take me there on the way.
Of course, this plan will not be easy since her destination is a good… what, twenty to thirty kilometers away at least? But it will have to do for now.
So she just keeps her cheerful face and walks toward the exit of train station with the song 'burn my dread' plays over and over again in her MP3. Not noticing behind her, all the people suddenly turned into coffin…
Dreamless dorm, ticking clock, I walk away, from the soundless room. Windless night, moonlight melt, my ghostly shadow, to the lukewarm gloom. Nightly dance, of bleeding sword, reminds me that, I still li…
The song suddenly stops and Kira takes the MP3 player up to her eyes. Nuts, did it run out of battery? Or broken? I just got it too…
Then she realize something else, the moon light above her which had a comforting white gloom seems to turns into a menacing amber green.
Although people would usually associate green with life, this color certainly made Kira uncomfortable. Soon she realized the reason, but she wishes she didn't.
Green is the color of death. Kira shivers, as she remembered the line her English teacher gives, when her teacher brings visual novel 'The Watchman' in as an extra-curriculum reading material on popular literature.
Well Kira… This is all in your head… I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason as to why the moonlight turns green… It's just some kind of natural phenomenon you don't know… Don't fret yourself over it…
Despite trying to overcome her fear, Kira picks up her pace. This is definitely not normal, and she would at least finds some level of comfort around other people.
She didn't…
Or more precisely, she only finds the coffins on the street. Kira know there's people in them despite she doesn't know why she knows.
She quickly twists her body to the back.
Something is in the shadows… Or perhaps… the shadow is something.
The shadows near the corner of Train station slowly twisted. Revealing masks on them, and then it twist inward on itself, forming into some kind of… flouting sphere with a mouth and a long tongue stretching out of its mouth.
Kira slowly takes a few steps back, before turns around and made a break for it.
The shadows charge at her.
"Leave me alone! Leave Kira alone!" Kira desperately shout and flings her luggage backpack at one of the shadow closest to her like a flail. It meet the shadow on it's circular body's side with such force the shadow is knocked flying more then ten meters and made a splat against one of the walls.
More shadows come at Kira, so she did what sensible thing she should do, which is running at her top speed while screaming at top of her lung.
At all the running, Kira starts to some how think irrelevant things. Perhaps it is due to a lack of oxygen to her brain?
How did that song go after it? Oh yeah… I will burn my dread! I once run away from the god of fear and he chains me to despair.
Seems very fitting to her current situation, she's only glad she is not chained down by someone right now. Since those… shadow things seem to want to make her into their health mid-night snack.
I will break this chain and run, till I see the sunlight again.
Well… She'll probably not see sunlight any time soon, unless she can keep on running at her top speed for more then six hours.
I lift my face, and run to the sunlight…
Kira wants to lift her face, wants to find sunlight just like in this song. But she could not find the welcoming warmth and she trips and fall done on her face flat. This is it… she'll be dead in a few seconds. If she has a gun she'll probably use it to blow her head open, since being eaten by one of those shadow things… doesn't sounds like a good way to die.
She wants to bury her face into the pavement and pretend all this is just a bad dream while accepting her fate. But perhaps with one last hope, she turns her head to see what is going on behind her.
It worked… A teenage boy, who doesn't seems to be much older then Kira who wears some kind of white uniform, with a red 'S.E.E.S' on the back stands between her and certain doom, holding a sheathed long two-handed Katana in his left hand.
Well… here's my knight in shining armor… But it doesn't seem like he'll do much better using that sword then my backpack…
"Twenty Nautilus Class? That's barely a challenge." No matter what Kira thinks, the boy seems to be pretty confident as he opens his free right hand. A card appears, flouting on top of a splendid purple flame, "Susanoo."
The boy says in a low pitched voice as he crushes the card with his right hand, clenching into a fist now. A giant biker gang, like one of that hell's angel with red skin appears besides the boy. The biker stands over two meters tall, definitely larger then the biggest body builder Kira saw in her entire life.
The biker named Susanoo charges at the incoming shadow things, with a wooden sword in his right hand. A strong gust of wind forms around its wooden sword as he slashes it against the shadow things. The small wind twister forms into a large hurricane, twisting and shredding the shadow things down to bits. It also disappears into a fragment of light after the shadow things are no more.
The boy turns back towards Kira. She blushes a little in front of her savior but the lack of light helps to hide it well. But even though the light is dim, Kira notices the boy has an unusual pair of red colored eyes, which seems to drown her in just as her purple eyes drown in so many… She couldn't help but notice there's something hiding behind the gentle pond of red. Is it sadness? Is it anger? Or perhaps some stronger emotions…
"Hey, aren't you that… that Kira dude from two years ago?" The boy suddenly says with a confused look.
"Yeah, my name is Kira Yamato (A play of word, her name is actually different when written in Japanese then the Kira from SEED's original cast. But it pronounces the same, and also spells the same in English.). Thank you for saving me from those… those shadow things… Mr. Knight in white uniform…"
"Don't tell me you forgot me already? Didn't we meet two years ago in an arcade in Orb? You are like, the only guy who ever has a draw with my brother and I in Gundam VS Gundam. And we promised to have a rematch someday when you get yourself a partner." The boy looks very annoyed at Kira's response.
"I'm sorry? I don't… remember to be in Orb's arcade… I do remember some fragment of the place called Orb though…" Kira, scratching her head as she lift herself up, the boy didn't offer to help.
So much for my knight in shining armor… Kira thought to herself sarcastically, then she realizes the boy probably mistaken her to be a boy.
"Humph, so you lost some of your memory or something. We'll deal with this problem later, first we go find the rest of my team." The boy walks past Kira, then he turns back toward Kira once again, "Just for the second time, my name's Shinn Asuka, don't forget this time."
"Shinn… Asuka…" Kira slowly chanted his name, is if trying to better memorize it, "I'll be sure to remember your name, Shinn-Sama (A kind of Japanese honorfication, roughly translate into 'master')."
Shinn tripped and fall on his face.
"Are you trying to make fun of me? We aren't that close, and what's this calling someone your own gender 'sama' with that kind of… that kind of… Just call me Asuka (Japanese people usually don't refer to other people they don't know well with their first name, they usually call others with their last name.)! Or else I'll stab you with my anti-ship sword!" Shinn says angrily and point the tip of his sheathed Katana at Kira's nose before continue on.
"Yes, Asuka-San."
Shinn fall on his face again.
A group of teenage boy and girl who wears the white S.E.E.S uniform is waiting near a Jeep with S.E.E.S painted on its side. One purple haired teenage girl with an assault rifle seems to be particularly annoyed, "When will that kid Shinn grow up already! Ditching his team members and just go solo like that."
"Well, Luna you know nii-san don't like to rely on others. And plus he's a natural type persona user, so we don't need to worry about him." A boy who looks just like Shinn, except with a warm smile on his face tries to calm the girl down.
"Like hell I'm worrying about that Mr. Bad Attitude. He needs to be more mature." Luna's face swollen up, showing that she obviously carries a grudge, "Why can't he be more like… like you Yu?"
"Well, I'm so sorry I'm not your type like my brother is." With a sarcastic tone, Shinn appears from the shadows, "Go get married to my brother, and live a happily ever after life together already."
"Why, you little… I'm not…humph!" Luna looks so angry, she looks like she's gonna bash Shinn's skull in with her assault rifle before Yu jumps in between the two.
"Come on, don't be mad at each other, we are a team right?"
"Well, since Yu says it so nicely… I'll just be the mature one and back off, unlike Mr. Bad Attitude here." Luna says as she turns her head the other way, not looking at Shinn.
You dare call yourself mature… And denies you like Yu… Shinn thought with annoyance.
"Well, who's your new friend nii-san… oh hey, aren't you Kira Yamato from Orb? It's been two years since we last saw you." Yu turns towards Kira who follows Shinn out of the shadow.
"No need to be friendly, he lost his memory and don't even remember us." Shinn says with an obvious sign of annoyance again, and he added with a low voice, "The nerve, after he beats us at…"
"Everyone, I'm getting a reading." A red haired girl who ties her hair in two ponytail pops out of the Jeep, "And it's a big one."