Age of Darkness (29 page)

***

“Kei,” Yata’s voice froze Keimaro in place
as everyone began to disperse from the scene. Keimaro watched the back of
Yuri’s cloak as the werewolf walked away and then turned to face his friend.
“You mean what you said, right? That you’re becoming attached to this place.”

Keimaro nodded. “Yeah. I think I am.”

“Then it would make sense to leave the key
here, wouldn’t it? I am beginning to trust these people as well and—”

“No.”

“No?” Yata said with a frown. “Why not? If
we can trust them, then—”

“I trust no one more than I trust myself.
I’ll keep it safe. There’s no reason to risk leaving it here and have it
possibly fall into the wrong hands,” Keimaro said. “I am becoming attached to
everyone here, but that doesn’t give me a reason to trust anyone. Anyone but
myself.”

“Not even me, Kei?” Yata asked with a
rock-solid stare that caused Keimaro’s eyes to widen. “Hand me the key. I’m
staying here in Zylon’s mansion while you’re off in enemy territory. There’s no
reason that—”

“No, I—” Keimaro interrupted, but Yata’s
hands curled into tight fists at his side.

“
Listen to me
!” Yata yelled, his
arms transforming into their gleaming metal. Keimaro jumped, shocked. “If you
can’t trust me, then who can you trust? I’ve been here for you for four years.
I’ve been there since the time your mother died, and I was there when your
father, our master, passed. I was there when you had a fever that almost killed
you. Don’t you remember that I took care of you when you were weak?

“I was the one you complained to every day
about how rigorous our training was. I was there when we first journeyed into
the darkness of the Forbidden Forest when we both reached sixteen years. We
were almost eaten, but we had each other’s backs. You put your life in my hands
as I put mine in yours. How can you not trust me with that key when you have
already entrusted me with your life? Tell me, Keimaro,” he snapped, grinding
his teeth. “Do you not consider me your friend? Don’t you trust me?”

Keimaro’s eyes widened. It had been a while
since Yata had yelled at him like this.
Just give him the key.
“I trust
no one other than myself, Yata. That’s all there is to it,” he murmured and
avoided eye-contact with Yata.
You idiot.

Yata watched his old friend with widened
eyes, but the look that came after was that of pity that made Keimaro’s heart
sink. “So be it,” he said simply and walked past Keimaro without so much as a
single glance.

Keimaro remembered the time that he had
placed his life in Yata’s hands. It was more than just once. The first time the
two of them had entered the darkness of the Forbidden Forest as a team was when
they were sixteen, two years after the Bakaara massacre. It had been the second
time they had walked on such unholy soil. Alone, separated from their master,
they were to survive one night in the dark woods. As night approached, the two
had felt the blackness of the forest closing in on them. The fire they had
created could not fight back the shadows that crept from all sides, ready to
close them in an everlasting darkness. At sixteen, Keimaro had believed that he
was ready for anything. After two long years of training with his father to
master the way of the sword, he believed that he could best anyone. He was
wrong.

A beast of the night had leapt from the
shadows and smothered their fire in a single instant, locking the two
companions in blackness. At the time, Keimaro had been confident that he could
conquer the beast, but the darkness of the forest was too dense; even his
Shokugan had trouble penetrating the thick, black fog that blinded him.
Igniting his flames, Keimaro realized that the beast that leapt from the
shadows was the same black tiger that they had seen two years before. With
widened eyes, the teenager had begun to step backwards with fear beginning to
course through his veins. The beast leapt outward at him, and Keimaro tripped
over a thick root of a tree and landed on his back as the black tiger landed
upon him. Keimaro raised his sword forcefully and brought it between the
tiger’s sharp fangs and his throat. His heart pounded and he began to gasp
heavily as he applied pressure, trying to stop the tiger from biting open his
throat.

A crack resounded through the night, and
the tiger suddenly was sent flying off of Keimaro and into the thick trunk of a
tree. The beast whimpered for a moment as it slid to the ground and Keimaro
turned to find that Yata had swatted the tiger away with a powerful swing of
his bat. The boy extended his hand to Keimaro with a smile. “What’s wrong, Kei?
There’s nothing to be scared about. After all, I’m here.”

Keimaro had stared at Yata with shaky eyes
and then shook his head, snapping his mind back to reality. He reached out and
accepted his friend’s hand as he was pulled to his feet. “Thanks for the save.
I messed up,” he murmured, whipping his sword through the silent air as he
turned to face the recovering tiger. He held out his hand, allowing a flame to
spark in his palm. “It’s our turn.”

Now, Keimaro watched as Yata walked away
from him, guilt already beginning to build up in his chest. His breath was
heavy as tears began to form in his eyes. That was the first time the two of
them had fought in a long time. There were so many times when Yata had been
there for him.
Go after him, you idiot.
But Keimaro didn’t move.
Instead, he kept his head lowered and watched his friend’s back from a
distance. There was no reason for Keimaro not to trust Yata, the person who
deserved his trust the most. Yata always had his back, no matter what it was.
Keimaro ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. On that night they had entered
the Forbidden Forest, Yata had saved his life countless times.
I should be
grateful—grateful that I have someone who is willing to put his life on the
line just for my sake. What’s wrong with me?
He put his face in his hands
and groaned.
Only an idiot would push away a friend like that.

***

Aika darted through the hallways of the
castle, her heart racing. Keimaro was so different than she had remembered. So
dark. His eyes were unlike anything she had ever seen before. They were filled
with even more hatred than the day four years ago when he had been told the
truth about the Hayashi clan. His eyes lacked any type of compassion, and when
they locked onto her, everything seemed to freeze. She could see the flames of
the burning village in the pools of his eyes. The entire past was represented
by him; the flames of his hatred were his power that he used to express his
frustration. And now he wanted revenge.

She had heard that her father was in his
bedroom being tended by multiple doctors. That meant that Keimaro had done
something to him. She had received no news on whether her father was okay.

The Royal Guards that had been escorting
her opened a large wooden door that led into her father’s room. Inside were at
least ten doctors, all dressed in white coats. They were scrambling around the
king’s bed. The decorative red and blue silks hanging from the ceiling had been
thrust out of the way, allowing them to work. Everyone was in a rush, but Aika
just wanted to see her father.

The princess pushed past some of the
doctors and finally made her way to her father’s side, only to find that he was
completely fine. His head was a bit bruised, and maybe he had a broken bone or
two, but overall he seemed okay.

“Father, are you all right?” she asked,
just to make sure.

The king nodded with a long, exasperated
sigh. “I’m growing too old for that sort of thing, being dropped from a balcony
into a group of people,” he muttered, leaning back against the dozens of
pillows that propped him up. “Keimaro Hayashi is much more dangerous than I
could’ve imagined. That was magic that he used today—and it wasn’t any ordinary
magic. Artificial magic, which is already extremely rare, requires body
movements in order to perform, and it exhausts the caster. But when Keimaro
used his magic tonight, he didn’t use any movements. It was as if the fire were
a part of him that acted to protect and fight for him. It truly was something
else, and he, as the Bounts have said, is extremely dangerous. We need to take
the proper precautions.”

“Milord,” General Mundo said, walking
through the open door with several Royal Guards behind him. “If I may, perhaps
we might see benefits in calling in Junko and the Bount organization. They
forewarned us about tonight’s occurrence and—”

“I refuse to create a partnership and give
terrorists as much power as an advisor!” the king bellowed but was quickly
restrained by the doctors to make sure that he didn’t move too much. “Send a
message to my son. He will take care of this matter swiftly. Take him off of
the Spartan front. We have internal affairs to deal with before we worry about
foreign conflicts. Inform him about today’s events, and increase the amount of
security that we have. And you,” the king said, looking at a Royal Guard by the
name of Judal, who stood tall and saluted his lord upon being recognized.

“Yes, milord?”

“Find me Riku Hikari. We are going to need
his skill in order to protect against this new uprising. It seems that there
isn’t just one enemy that we have to deal with. There are many of them,” the king
said, leaning back into the softness of his pillow. “Riku will have to protect
my daughter in case there are any assaults by this rebellion. We have to crush
them. Mundo, I heard that you have captured one of the members?”

“Yes, milord,” General Mundo said with a
proud grin. “We have yet to make her talk, but we do have our ways to forcing
one to speak.”

“Good, use whatever measures necessary to
get her to talk. Then have her executed in public to send a message to these
rebels,” the king muttered. “Dismissed. Allow me to rest.”

Aika blinked a few times as the doctors and
guards began to file out of the room, most of the soldiers standing right
outside of the door. She turned to her father. “Father, are you sure that you
want to bring Darius all the way into this conflict? I mean—”

“Darius is the most skilled warrior in the
entire world when it comes to swordplay. He can easily defeat opponents with or
without magic. It doesn’t matter who they are. However, if it is Keimaro
Hayashi that we are dealing with, perhaps his honor will allow him to duel
Darius fairly. In that case, Keimaro will be slain; there is no doubt in my
heart. He is good, but there is no way that he is good enough to face my son,
the heir to the throne.”

***

The wind howled against Tobimaru’s cloak as
he sat upon the rooftop of the bell tower from where the assassination had
occurred. So, they had utilized a zip line in order to catch the politicians by
surprise and create quite the scene today. Why in hell’s name was Keimaro
giving himself away so quickly? And why hadn’t he just assassinated the king
when he had the chance?

Don’t tell me that he actually stopped
midway in the assassination just because his “friends” were in trouble. How
pathetic.

He sat down on the edge of the bell tower,
his legs dangling into the open air. “To think that I’m related to a coward
like him, tch.” He scowled, picking up a small blue chip off of the floor and
tossing it into the open air. That was a part of the teleportation mechanism
that Zylon had. So, they had used teleportation in order to reach the top of
the bell tower without any sort of suspicion, and the event began quickly after.
It was a pity this chip had been damaged in the scuffle. A means of teleporting
into the mansion would’ve meant a quick end to this little uprising.

“They must have quite the tactician,” Hidan
said, the wind blowing as he gusted into the area behind Tobimaru with Mai on
his back. The young girl was asleep, snoring soundlessly against Hidan’s
shoulder. “And an engineer to develop a plan like this with all these gnome
inventions. Then again, it seems that everyone has gnome inventions. I heard
that the Faar government even got their hands on the recipe for creating
rifles. They’ve been mass producing them.”

“That’s what I heard, too,” Tobimaru said
with a bored tone. “When is the king going to realize that he’s fighting a
pointless battle and that he should come to us for help already?”

“When the king loses his pride,” Hidan
said. “He’s probably going to call in his son Darius from the Spartan front in
order to eliminate Keimaro. I’ve heard rumors that the battle-prince is capable
of matching a Bount with his blade. An ordinary human without any magic, able
to defeat a Bount. Can you imagine that? He’s quite the legend.”

Tobimaru looked out at the twinkling bright
stars that lingered in the blackened skies. “Yeah? Well, we can only hope that
Keimaro kills off that legend. I can already tell that the Shokugan is growing
stronger in him, but he hasn’t obtained full control over it.” He sighed. “In
tonight’s event, it looked like he almost completely lost control to his
Shokugan.”

“I still don’t understand this whole
Shokugan thing,” Hidan muttered, “to be honest.”

“These eyes aren’t just a representation of
a demon. By being a member of the Hayashi clan, we are half-demon. We are not
fully human. That is, unfortunately, something that all of the people are right
about. We aren’t like them. When a member of the Hayashi clan activates the
Shokugan in order to benefit from its all-seeing prowess, the demonic side
threatens to take control. In tonight’s case, the revenge and hatred that dwell
within Keimaro’s demon side took control when the king spoke about the Bakaara
massacre. This means that he still hasn’t come to recognize the demon part of
himself and rule it. He’s still weaker than I would’ve predicted at this point,
though his training with his newer father did him well in controlling his
flames. That fire truly has become like a part of him,” Tobimaru admitted.

“Was that a compliment I heard?” Tobimaru’s
partner sneered.

“Shut up,” the Hayashi clansman muttered. “And
what about you? Why are you always carrying Mai around and treating her like
she’s your own daughter? It’s annoying.”

“How is it annoying? It shouldn’t affect
you if I bring her around or not!” Hidan exclaimed. “And for the record, I told
you! She reminds me of my own daughter that I had before I joined the Bount
organization,” he said, gently putting Mai on the ground and walking over to
sit beside Tobimaru.

“Yeah? You never told me about your
daughter.”

“So you want to know about her?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’ll tell you anyway,” Hidan muttered and
smiled when Tobimaru rolled his eyes. “It’s important for partners to
understand each other, anyway. After all, you should know why I decided to join
the Bounts.

“My daughter was nine years old, and she
was the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen. The fact that my wife and I
created her made her all the more special to me. I can still remember her dark,
long, straight hair and her glistening, crystal blue eyes that would smile at
me whenever I looked into them. She was always happy, you know, excelling in
every subject that she had in school. I never really got to see her all that
much since I was in the Faar army at the time. We were at war with Sparta. I
didn’t really know why I had joined the army. I was fighting Sparta for no real
reason; I had nothing really against them. In fact, Faar was just trying to
take over Sparta, and the other empire was simply trying to defend itself. I
constantly asked myself whether or not we were the good guys. All we did was
pillage, kill, rape, and destroy. At the time, I was quite the master of the
staff and used a spear in combat. They called me the Flashing Wind because I
always took down my opponents with a single flash and was as swift as wind when
I fought. But my mind was always set on seeing my daughter again. In fact, she
was the reason that I kept fighting. The government didn’t treat cowards kindly.
They were executed in public in order to establish discipline amongst the ranks
in the army. They didn’t care if they killed their own men. The Faar army has
millions of soldiers at their disposal. Losing a couple hundred cowards in
order to scare the rest of the warriors into fighting for their empire was a
small price to pay.

“So, I never left the army, and I
constantly waited for the war to end so that one day I could go home and see my
wife and child. However, while the end of the war was nearing, the Spartans pulled
a fast one on us. Their skills in combat are without a doubt the fiercest and most
coordinated that I’ve ever seen. Their units become one, and they can cut down
our soldiers swiftly. Their only downfall is their lack in numbers. In their
empire, their population has decreased because weak babies are dashed against
walls or killed in their youth because they are incapable of contributing to
the military. Quite scary, I dare say. At any rate, the Spartans overpowered us
easily in the final push into their territory. We lost hundreds of thousands of
men as the Spartans slaughtered us, but the Faar generals didn’t tell us to
retreat. They told us to keep fighting.

“As my eyes wandered around the roaring
battlefield, I could hear the clanging of metal against wood and see the flash
of blood spurting into the air. Corpses lay scattered across the desolated
plain, which was covered with ash from flaming arrows. The Spartan warriors
released a loud battle cry that shook the very earth as if the titans had awakened
to condemn us all to hell. And in a swift moment, I knew the fate of this
battle. I watched each of my comrades and friends fall, and I began evacuating
many of the men. My final and closest friend, who had been in the service with
me for ten years, was decapitated before my eyes. There truly was nothing that
I could do about it. Without magic, without strength, there was no way that
even I could face such a dangerous force as the Spartans. I took command and
forced the Faar troops to retreat, which the soldiers had no problem doing. But
I paid the price soon after.

“I was lashed relentlessly with a spiked
whip fifty times for taking control and saving the soldiers’ lives by ordering
them to retreat. Apparently it showed weakness in the Faar Empire. An ordinary
human supposedly could survive only thirty of those lashes. By then, my skin
was raw with bloodied wounds, and my breath was heavy. My eyes could see
nothing but an abyss of darkness, making me believe that I had somehow gone
blind when I lost consciousness. I was locked in a cell for a week before I was
released and allowed to go home. I was relieved that the fighting would be over
and that I would finally be able to see my family. Though, I never should’ve
expected to see my family, after having pulled the stunt that I did. When I
returned home, I found my wife had been raped and killed. My daughter had been stabbed
multiple times and was hanging on a cross in front of my burning home. She was
only nine.

“From that very moment, I hated everything.
My hatred wasn’t directed toward Faar alone. It was directed at the universe. I
wanted everything that the gods had ever created to be obliterated. They had
done so much wrong with the creation of humanity. There were so many flaws if
humans would do something as barbaric and terrifying as what they did to my
beloved family. I joined the Bount organization in hopes that one day I would
be able to destroy the gods that had done these terrible things to me. Kuro
promised me that, when he becomes the new god of this world, he will bring back
my family when he recreates the world into perfection. That’s all I ever
wanted, actually, to see my daughter’s face again.”

Hidan glanced over his shoulder at the
calm, sleeping face of Mai and smiled slightly. Tears had begun to form in his
eyes, and he exhaled, his voice strained as he tried to hold back from crying. “It’s
actually quite hard, seeing Mai’s face. It truly does remind me of my daughter’s.
Sometimes that’s good, but sometimes it just reminds me of my mistake. If I had
never tried to save those soldiers, then my family would still be alive.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tobimaru said,
looking at the city before him. “What you did was what any good man would’ve
done in that position. The only reason that you were punished for it is because
of the cruelty of humanity. I always wonder what the gods were thinking when
they created humans, believing that they were such a beloved creation. In
reality, all they do is bicker and destroy each other. They cause pain, the most
terrible feeling in existence.”

“What’s your story then?” Hidan asked his
partner.

“I don’t like sharing my life story,”
Tobimaru said, pushing himself to his feet as he began to walk back toward the
bell. Changing the subject, he said, “It won’t be long before this idiot of a
king decides to communicate with Junko. Get Mai out of here before someone sees
two Bounts wandering around the city. I just wanted to see what happened at
tonight’s occurrence.”

Hidan wiped the salty tears that had
generated in his eyes and nodded, lifting the young girl off of the ground and
putting her on his back. He held her tight as he stepped off of the bell tower
and gusted off into the wind, vanishing into thin air.

Tobimaru glanced into the distance, his
eyes red with the Shokugan as he saw Z’s mansion.
So, he’s using some type
of an illusion in order to cover up that large mansion of his. Huh, anyone with
the Shokugan can see how flashy that is. Not to mention, the amount of
artificial magic radiating from that place is impossible not to spot.
He
sighed as he looked once more into the sky, this time at the full glowing moon
that illuminated the night. He remembered a night long ago that had been just
like this one. Just as silent. Just as sad. He didn’t make a single sound as he
simply vanished, his image completely gone from the face of Bassada in a flash.