Age of Darkness (9 page)

“Why me?” Keimaro asked.

“You know why,” Tobimaru said from behind
Keimaro, his sword unsheathed and dragging across the dirt. The sharp steel
carved into the earth cleanly, and Keimaro winced as he heard the scrape of the
blade against the ground. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled his fear.

“You’re just like me then, huh?” Keimaro
said, looking forward, taking his eyes away from Tobimaru. “I recognized your
eyes when I first saw you an hour ago back at the apple tree.”

He lowered his eyes. It was hard to believe
that only an hour ago he’d thought he would return to his parents. It was two
hours ago that he and his friends had thought they were going to explore the
forest for the first time. Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes, and
he shut them tight, trying to keep them from streaming down his cheeks. It was
three hours ago that he was sitting alone at the apple tree, thinking about
what he had just done. It was even less than four hours ago that he had been
with his mother and father and yelled at both of them. Why had he done such a
thing? Now his mother was dead. His father was unconscious and probably was
about to be killed. Yata was in danger, fighting one of these Bounts, and Aika
was left in Yata’s house completely unprotected while the soldiers of Faar
burned the city to the ground. Why had he been so stupid? He put his head in
his hands, looking between his fingers at the ground, his eyes darting in
panic. What could he do?

“Yeah,” Tobimaru said with a sigh. “Members
of the Hayashi clan. Our families were both killed, and it somewhat disgusted
me to see you thinking of these imposters as your parents.” He kicked Keimaro’s
father over onto his stomach, raising his sword into the air. “It disgusts me
to think that you ever had a connection to these people. These murderers who
deprived our loved ones of their lives and us of our happiness!”

“Shut the hell up,” Keimaro growled
suddenly.

“What was that?” Tobimaru raised an
eyebrow, lowering his sword and giving Keimaro an irritated look.

“I told you to shut the hell up!” Keimaro
yelled, his eyes glowing bright red. His body was swaying lightly, feeling weak
after such pain.
Happiness?
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking
about. Whatever my parents did in the past, I don’t care!” he snarled, turning
around to face Tobimaru.
In the end, these are the people that raised me.
And I won’t forgive you for this.
“I don’t care about any of your crap—or
what you think is best for me! That was
my
mother!
And you took her
from me
!”

“She isn’t your—”

“She is to me!” Keimaro screamed, rage
sparking inside him. His chest felt extremely hot, as if he were literally on
fire, but he ignored it. His mother was dead now—the woman he had grown up
with. The one who had always been there to listen to his problems when he was
down. She was gone! Forever! And the ones who took her from him were right
before him. Was he going to be helpless and weak like he always was in the face
of danger?
Hell no. This is my chance to finally do something. I’m done
being powerless!

A burst of flame suddenly sparked from his
chest, and he closed his eyes as he gasped, a growling fire surrounding his
body to accentuate his rage and determination. His eyes widened with shock at
the astounding amount of flames that had conjured from nothing and beckoned at
his very call. They surrounded his body in a massive vortex of bright gleaming
fire, howling into the night as the fire stretched toward the sky in a
brilliant display.

Junko’s eyes grew wide with the excitement
of a little child as he clapped his hands with an outburst of laughter. “Oh my,
oh my! Tobimaru, it seems that this young lad has gotten his hands on the
meteor! You never told me that he beat you to it! And to have such an outburst
of magic at once! This could only be the power of the Hayashi clan’s rage!”

Keimaro locked his eyes onto Tobimaru now,
confident with his new power. His wish had come true. Now he would be able to
fight and destroy this bastard who took his mother from him. He didn’t care if
the two of them weren’t related. His mother and father were his family and
would stay that way, forever. All of the fear in his soul had been completely
eradicated, and his mind was set on killing this man before him. He cared for
nothing else.

“You’re angry,” Tobimaru said, pulling back
his hood to reveal that he had a similar hairstyle as Keimaro as well as the
same colored eyes. They looked extremely similar except for the fact that
Tobimaru looked significantly older and more mature than Keimaro. He stepped
away from Keimaro’s father and began to circle the young boy calmly with his
blade dragging across the ground, creating a small path behind him. “I remember
when I used to look like you—filled with defiance and anger, wanting to destroy
everything in my path. I had not a care for anything else in the world. I’m
telling you now, you will fail. And if you don’t accept our offer to join the
Bounts, then there truly will be no one to pick you up when you fall.”

Keimaro leapt up into the air, the flames
swirling around his body and soaring downward into the earth, creating a
massive explosion that erupted outward. The fire buffered his strength,
creating a large crater in the ground while swirling dust and smoke surrounded
his body, drifting out of the destroyed area. The young boy slowly exhaled,
trying to let out some of his anger. He rose back to a full standing position
at a leisurely speed, trying to peer through the dust before him.

“Not bad,” Tobimaru said, and Keimaro found
that the man had appeared inches from his face in a mere millisecond. There was
hardly any time to react, and Keimaro hadn’t even sensed the speed of this
Bount despite his enhanced reactions. A fist was driven straight into his face,
and a crack of pain burst through him as he was rocketed backward, flying off
of his feet as he flipped through the air clumsily. He slammed into the ground
and rolled a couple dozen meters before he finally stopped, his body feeling
practically broken. The energy had been sapped from his body and the breath
from his lungs. He closed his eyes as a cloud of dust breezed over his body.

After a few seconds, his eyes cracked open as
he fought to stay awake. Had he been so easily defeated already? A single punch
had rendered him defenseless. As he watched Tobimaru standing before him, he
heard a small cry and saw his younger sister, Mai, standing before him.

He wanted to reach out, grasp her tiny hand,
and tell her that it would be okay. He wanted to comfort his younger sister,
who was sobbing at the sight of her family lying motionless on the ground. But
instead of Keimaro holding her hand, it was Junko. The Bount stood there with a
bright smile on his face as he nodded at Keimaro before turning and beginning
to walk off. Keimaro stretched out his hand in the direction of his younger
sister, trying to speak but unable to muster the strength.

No … I can’t lose Mai, too. I can’t lose
everything! Please … give her back!

His eyes began to tear up once more as he
tried to stretch outward for her. There was nothing he could do. He was
powerless in the end. Always powerless.

An endless darkness enclosed around
Keimaro, trapping and grasping his very soul. Its tightening grip choked the
life out of him, and soon he could hardly hear his own breath, only a choking
sound that was made as his heart pounded in response to pure panic. Oh, how he
dreaded the thought of death. His eyes were looking forward into the dark abyss
that surrounded him, and he wondered what was grasping his throat. Then a pale,
ghostly face came into view inches from his, and his eyes widened when he saw
that it was his mother’s, coated in impure blood. Her eyes lacked pupils, and
all that he could see was a blank stare, one that brought him dread and
miserable pain.

The young boy’s eyes snapped open, and he
found himself lying with his back on the ground staring up at the dark night.
The stars themselves gleamed as if there were hope, their lights flashing in
the blackness that coated the sky. His breath was heavy, and he no longer felt
as if he were choking. He winced at the pain that was inflicted upon his body;
his ribs might have been cracked, and his cheek was bruised. He turned to see
his father standing there before a burning fire.

Keimaro could see that the fire was made
from his mother’s deformed corpse, which was being broken down into ashes and
drifting off into the wind, scattering amongst the earth. He could see tears
brimming in his father’s eyes, gleaming salty tears that he had never witnessed
before.

But the boy had no more tears to spare. All
he could do was whimper at the sight of the woman who had been there all of his
life as she was cast off into the world, something that he had ironically
wished he could do. His eyes lowered, and he pushed himself to his feet,
ignoring the aching pain that dragged out in his body. By now, Tobimaru and
Junko had probably escaped. Had that been Mai walking with them, or was that
merely a figment of his imagination? No, it had been her. He recognized her
cries. Aika had probably been taken away as well. Yata was probably dead. His
mother was dead. The rest of the village had been burned to the ground and was
probably being devoured by the forest’s creatures. Soon he would be next.

He wiped his eyes with a tired swipe of his
sleeve. He trudged over and stood by his father. In the end, everything he had known
was gone in the blink of an eye. Now he had nothing except for his father. His
resentment for his father had diminished and had only redirected itself at the
Bounts. The sound of the fire popping and crackling was the only thing to break
the dead silence before his father finally spoke.

“I know what you’re thinking,” his father said,
his eyes mesmerized by the soft flame before him as tears began to dry on his
cheeks. “You think that I wish you and your mother would switch spots. That she
was the one to survive and that you were the one to die. Is that what you’re
thinking?”

Keimaro was silent. It was exactly what he had
been thinking—and he didn’t mind the thought either. He now understood what
Yata had felt when his mother was hanged. His mother hadn’t done anything
wrong. In fact, she had been the most pure woman that he had ever known. Why
had she been the one to be slaughtered? What gods that watched over them would
allow such an atrocity to occur? He turned to the fire and allowed the blazing
flame to reflect into his dark eyes.

“I don’t. I don’t wish the two of you had
switched. In fact, I’m glad that you’re still alive, son,” his father said,
bowing his head with a shake as he chuckled weakly. “Everything I’ve done up to
this point has been for your own good, to make you strong. In the end, the
Bounts ended up coming and killing everyone. And now Faar will eventually be
back to take complete control over this area. I’m glad it is you that survived
because you will be the one to restore our honor.”

“Honor?”

“You will avenge your mother and save your
sister.”

Keimaro looked at his father with shaking
eyes, and his heart pounded. Revenge? Was that what he wanted? He felt an empty
hole in his heart, as if a blade had skewered him straight through his chest
and burst out of his back. Would complete destruction of his enemies fill that
void? His hands were tightened into fists at his side and his head lowered, a dark
shadow coming over his face. This new power had activated out of pure hatred,
and he remembered roaring flame howling around him. His younger sister had been
taken. His mother had been slain. The people he had grown up with were
massacred and now lay dead on the land that he had once wandered endlessly,
searching for freedom. He closed his eyes, locking his mind in absolute
darkness. It was ironic that the moment he would gain his own freedom, he was
also bound to the past of this village. What has been seen cannot be unseen. He
had suffered, and now he wanted to destroy Faar. He abhorred all of those in the
empire and its king for what they’d done. He hated the Bounts even more so.

“You don’t have the strength to do so now,”
his father breathed and shook his head slowly, “but I’ll teach you. One day,
you will end the lives of the men who took your mother’s. Do you understand?”

Keimaro watched his father for a moment as
droplets of rain began to fall from the sky, starting off as one or two and
then coming down in showers, making the light of his mother’s fire flicker. He
watched it die down for a moment and saw nothing but ash where she had lain only
moments earlier. He felt just as he had when he’d first seen the body of his
mother—incapable of stopping anything. Powerless. Not even able to keep her
flames alive for a few minutes while she was being cremated. Training
underneath his father, he knew, would improve his chances of growing stronger.
He would be able to defend himself and would never feel powerless again.
Rather, he would obtain the strength to avenge his mother and all of those who
perished on this day. He lowered his eyes and saw his father beginning to rise
from his knees to his feet. The man turned to his son and looked him straight
in the eyes.

“How many men would you kill to save your
little sister?”

The young boy was speechless as he looked
into his father’s eyes and saw the seriousness of the matter. Today had been
the first day he had slain a man and stolen a life. It felt horrible. He knew
that, from this very day, he would be haunted by the screams of anguish that
came from the men he killed. But he had done so in self-defense. Was that not
the right thing to do? What his father was asking was if he was willing to
taint his soul in order to save his younger sister. Mai was the one who gave
him a reprieve from the horror of abuse that he constantly suffered. She
returned innocence to his life, and he felt an unexplainable connection to her.
He wouldn’t let those men take her.

His eyes began to glow a demonic red as
rising hatred for the men who had kidnapped Mai grasped his heart. “I would kill
them all.”

His father nodded casually and pointed to a
young boy who was lying in the dirt a few meters away. “Tend to your friend. He
tried to recover Mai while you were unconscious, yet he was defeated as well. I
will train both of you, and you will both become my legacy when I pass,” he said
softly and turned away as if he had just seen a ghost. He glided silently away
with no particular destination.

Keimaro rushed over to the unconscious boy,
knowing immediately that it was Yata. He touched the boy’s neck, feeling for
his pulse, and sighed with relief when he felt it. He watched as Yata’s eyes
began to crack open, his body filled with agonizing pain. He winced as he awoke
from his slumber.

“Stay still. You’re injured,” Keimaro
whispered

“Where’s the little girl?” Yata gasped,
leaning his head back into the mud around him.

“She’s been taken.”

“As has Aika.”

“We’ll get them both back,” Keimaro said
with a weak smile. He had hoped that at least she would’ve been safe, hidden
away in Yata’s isolated home. “Just you wait.”

Yata didn’t feel like complaining or
arguing against such a bold statement. The men they had fought were unlike
anything that he had read or studied in all of the books and lore of man in
this world. They used unnatural human abilities, like the new powers the two of
them had obtained. Were they monsters? No, monsters were common—but humans who
could control unique powers were not. This new phenomenal gift that had been
bestowed upon them was something else. It would help them find their friend one
day, though Yata knew that the day he would see the beauty of the princess
would not be so soon.

As Keimaro’s eyes wandered upward and
locked onto the cloudy skies that blanketed the land in its shadow, raining
down forceful droplets as the gods wept for the lost souls, Keimaro didn’t feel
pain. Despite losing everything, for some odd reason, he felt numb, as if
nothing had happened.