Death's Hunt

Chapter 15

As I kept waiting for Chiyoko to return, I looked over to the scoreboard, if you could call it that. It was really just a bunch of wooden plants haphazardly nailed together. I was honestly expecting it to fall apart at any moment. As I kept watching it, one of the deaths Alger had hired walked up to it and placed a white card in the number one position. “Anga isn’t going to be happy about this,” I thought. I turned my head towards her and as I had suspected, she was practically throwing a temper tantrum. Honestly, I was not very surprised that Sheri’s team had gotten first place in this event. Wik was so terrifying in appearance that usually all he had to do was show himself to kill his victim.
“Well then, it seems like I won our little bet,” Sheri laughed.
“The bet isn’t over yet, Sheri. The deal was whichever team is eliminated first has to pack up and leave. Until everything is set and done, we’re still in this game,” I growled.
“He is right, you know. That was the deal you agreed to,” Pennu pointed out.
“Whose side are you on?” Sheri hissed.
“Oh! Shut your trap!” Anga shouted. “When I get my hands on you, I’ll…”
“You’ll what? In case you forgot, I have many more limbs than you do.”
Vlagor held Anga back while Urgaz did the same with Sheri.
“Come on ladies. Let’s be smart about this and call it off,” Vlagor said.
“Call off the bet!?!” they both yelled simultaneously.
“This is ridiculous,” I grumbled. “These two can’t even be near each other without trying to rip the other’s throat out!”
Just then, the blue team took second place. Now I was definitely getting worried. I had no idea what was going on with Chiyoko, but at this rate, Sheri might actually be right. This could be the end of the line. Just then, Chiyoko came out from the fog, panting and trembling. Quickly, I ran over to her.
“Chiyoko! Are you okay?” Slowly, she opened the pouch on her kimono revealing a single orb, glowing inside it. I gave her a proud smile. “I knew you could do it.”
“Hah! Seems the bet is still on!!” Anga blurted out behind her mask. Sheri only answered with a growl before she stomped away. After Chiyoko had deposited the soul she got, we waited for the other teams to return. But when they did come back, both green and yellow were empty-handed. This of course meant they were eliminated, meaning that there were now only three teams left: blue, white, and black.
As my team sat around waiting for the instructions for the next event, Vlagor asked the question we were all pondering, “Chiyoko, if I may ask, how did things go? I mean clearly they went well enough since you came back with a soul, but what exactly happened?”
“Straight to the point, aren’t you,” Anga commented.
“Well, hum…” Chiyoko mumbled, trying to find her words.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, Chiyoko,” I calmly told her while placing a hand on her shoulder.
“No, no. I can say it… It’s just…” she trailed off, looking into the empty void that was the fog.
“Just what?” Anga asked, her voice constantly muffled by the gas mask she wore.
“Well, it’s just… I don’t think I did well,” Chiyoko replied.
“You got the job done, didn’t you?” Anga stated.
“Well, yes but…”
“Then don’t worry about it. In my opinion, if you get your target, you did a good job.”
“Anga, could you please stop interrupting Chiyoko?” I said.
“Geez… I was just trying to be nice,” Anga scoffed while pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“It’s fine Kakrix. I… hum… she… well… I know that she was just trying to be nice.”
“Wasn’t I nice?” Anga questioned with a confused and somewhat annoyed tone.
“Of course, you were!” Chiyoko immediately exclaimed.
“So Chiyoko, do you want to share what happened?” I asked. “Or would you rather keep it to yourself?”
“I’ll say it. So, you remember how you asked me if I was sure that I wanted to do this event?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I tried to take your advice and hum… I don’t know if I executed it very well.”
“Nonsense! I mean, we taught you practically everything you needed to know in what? Ten, fifteen minutes?” Anga laughed.
“I highly doubt that we taught her everything we knew,” Vlagor stated.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Anga responded with irritation.
“Well, hum… I did try to act creepily, but I don’t think I really scared anyone. Really, I was pretty scared myself.”
“Why?” I asked. “You know, nothing can really hurt you now.”
“I know… I just never did it by myself!”
She was right. Every single time she had made a kill of some sort, I had been near her, ready to help or give her advice at a moment’s notice. But with this one, she had been completely alone. I remember my first kill alone. The first time I ended a life, I wasn’t a death yet, so my fears were definitely founded back then. I was completely terrified. Still for Chiyoko to have to do something like that by herself, well, I could understand her fear.
“So, what did you do?” Anga enquired curiously while leaning forward, towards Chiyoko.
“Well, I was too nervous to do that slow walking thing, or just hiding in the background where people would only see me through the corner of their eyes…”
Anga laughed a bit, “I tell you those two tricks always work.”
“Maybe for you. But that is only because of your looks,” I told her.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Anga asked, offended.
“Well… have you looked at yourself in a mirror recently? You are quite unnerving to look at,” Vlagor commented.
“Look who’s talking, bear man!” Anga mindlessly grumbled. “But I mean it as a compliment,” she quickly added remembering what happened to all the other beings who had called him some kind of name. Vlagor only responded by giving her a suspicious look.
He then turned towards Chiyoko and asked, “Well Chiyoko, did you try Kakrix’s idea of just chasing them around until they fell into your trap?”
“I couldn’t even set a trap! There was nothing that I could use to make it look normal,” Chiyoko said with frustration.
I gave her a pat on the back, “It’s okay Chiyoko. I should have warned you that this trick only works sometimes.”
“Well, how about my idea? Did you try leaving big marks everywhere, loud noises, broken windows… those kinds of things?” Vlagor said.
“I did… but the owner of the house only seemed annoyed by it.”
“Then how did you kill him?” Anga quickly demanded.
“Well, hum… remember how I kept saying that I was scared? Well, because I was so nervous… I… I kept popping back and forth…”
“Popping?”
“Well, I don’t know how else to explain it, but you know that visible and invisible thing? Well, I was so scared that I kept switching modes, and I mean, the person saw me appear and disappear throughout the house. Eventually…” she stopped talking.
“It’s all right Chiyoko. No one will judge you,” I said encouragingly. She then took a deep breath and continued her story.
“Eventually, I just popped right in front of him. He was going up the stairs when it happened. The person fell backwards. Came crashing down. And… split his head open on a cabinet. I then just grabbed the soul and ran. There… there was so much blood…” she started shaking slightly so I began to wrap my tail around her when suddenly, Anga burst into laughter.
“At a time like this?” I growled. I had half a mind to get up and slap her across the face for her insensitivity, but I quickly changed my mind when I heard what she said next.
“Oh my goodness! That is the best scare-kill I ever heard,” she managed to sputter out through her fits of laughter.
“R… Really?” Chiyoko asked in surprise.
“Chiyoko, I’ve been around for a long time. And I have heard a lot of stories of deaths killing people without ever touching them. But yours… yours really is the best!”
I looked over to Chiyoko who now had a big smile painted across her face.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully.
After that we settled around our fire, and the four of us spent the rest of the time talking and telling each other stories. It was nice. If I was honest, I would admit that I wished this could have lasted forever. But eventually, it had to end and it was time for the next challenge.