Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

Sickly Death

Maxwell's POV:

"Ryker's been acting odd, haven't you noticed?"

Akihito came up to me while I was meditating, with that exact sentence.

I didn't know Ryker that well admittedly, but even I could tell something was off. Naga confirmed that to me with a single hiss. He was shaken up by something... something that I didn't know.

I expected Naga to tell me, but she continued meditating. I didn't push; maybe it was something that was none of my business, and not something war related.

"I have," I finally responded. "But I think it's just nerves. War nerves, that is."

"Really?" Akihito took a seat next to me. I watched him rock back and forth while thinking. "I thought it may have to do with... the commotion that happened. Shortly after he took a walk yesterday, remember?"

"Commotion?" I repeated, acting oblivious. I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I paid no mind to it. War was noisy. I preferred quiet.

"Yeah," Akihito confirmed. "I asked him, but he didn't give me an answer. Not a direct one."

I slightly opened one of my eyes to look at Ryker. He was writing frantically in his notebook, clearly acting different than normal. Maybe it was a little more than war nerves.

Before I could respond to Akihito, I heard mine and Ryker's name being called. "Sasha and Anxo are back!"

Astaroth presented both Sasha and Anxo in one piece, which relieved me. At least they weren't dead.

But I did wonder... where was Draven?

I felt a pit in my stomach.

I stopped meditating and stood up, walking over to both of them. They were both being crowded with questions about the war, the Shirokages, and other irrelevant stuff, but nobody mentioned Draven yet. I shooed the crowd of my classmates away and stood in front of both of them.

"Draven," I said, "where is he?"

Sasha and Anxo exchanged glances.

"He ran away," Sasha muttered. "We haven't seen him in three days."

I was shocked with Sasha's lack of feeling for her cousin's disappearance.

"Why?" I further questioned.

"He went crazy," Anxo piped in. "Something about finding Kenichi and Shirokages getting in his head or... whatever."

Keiji, I thought to myself.

"Did you come in contact with a Shirokage? Maybe one of the oldest three... tan-ish skin? Red hair streak?" I asked.

"We ran from one," Anxo shrugged. "After that, Draven went crazy. I think he had tan skin, and he looked kinda old."

"Keiji Shirokage, he has some hallucination quirk that's meant to make you crazy like that," I told them. "Usually the people kill themselves in the end, or in better and more usual cases, do something so dumb that they hurt themselves. Then they'll snap out of it, usually."

"Poor guy..." Milo commented.

"But is he really all that crazy?" Ryker walked up to the crowd, finally saying something. "We have to find Kenichi, that's the only way we can stop the war. Think about it, if they're so threatened by him that they have to kill him, he can end them."

I could tell on Astaroth's face that though he didn't completely agree, he had no more energy to argue.

"Alright," I said. "Let's go find Kenichi."