Death's Stain 死の染み

Chapter 7: What Am I?

Present Day, August 23rd, 2019:
"Woah... is—is that all actually true?" Seiji asks with wide eyes full of admiration and respect towards Satoshi who is sat in front of him.

Satoshi nods slowly, his grey eyes aren't just milky and lifeless-looking, they've seen more than Seiji could ever comprehend in his young mind.

"Yes... forty-three years ago. It left temporal imprints and a mess of overlapped timelines there," Satoshi says in response with his low, raspy tone.

"Temporal, uh... imprints?" asks Seiji, tilting his head slightly out of curiosity, his fingers on his chin.

Satoshi would then let out a slow exhale, then replying to Seiji, "Mhm... think of it like leaving a trace of my actions in the air. These imprints distort time, kind of like ripples in a pond but you can't see them to the naked eye, only with special equipment. When someone encounters them, they might feel like a glimpse of what I did, like a ghost from the past still lingering. In the area in Tokyo that I just told you about, it is the prime spot where my temporal imprints reside due to that one fight. This gave it the nickname 'echo chamber' because of its effects."

Seiji blinks a couple times, trying to process his explanation. Distort time? Ripples like a pond you can't see with the naked eye? Like a ghost from the past? That's like gibberish to Seiji's brain. He sighs inwardly, wishing he could grasp the complexity of Satoshi's experiences.

"So... okay. Maybe that will make sense to me one day," Seiji remarks, a hint of determination in his voice despite the confusion.

Satoshi would nod, not too fast though or his old, creaking neck would fall off his shoulders—or that's what Seiji would think since Satoshi is an old man, of course.

Then, the greenish-blue bio-energy cell bars disappear into the ground. This catches Seiji's attention and his head immediately turns to the exit of the cell. He saw a bio-agent wielding a blade crackling with blue bio-energy in his right hand with spiky orange hair and a black headband wrapped around his forehead. The right half of his face bore a pinkish-red scar resembling a burn mark, which had seemingly turned the eye on the side of his face that's burnt a hazy grey, while his left eye remained an ocean blue.

"Lunch time, mutant—or now mutants," the bio-agent says, noticing there are two people in the same cell now, not just Satoshi. He then taps the tip of his bio-blade on the ground to get the old man's attention. "Come on, old head. Your body needs nutrients."

Seiji's head then turns back to Satoshi, and he rolls back on the worn chair as he watches him slowly stand up. At least he's mobile, I guess.

After the old man, Seiji slowly stands up and follows behind him. They both walk past the bio-agent and out of the cell. The agent stares at Seiji with a curious gaze, maybe because he's the only thirteen-year old in a prison full of people far older and stronger than him.

Other inmates of the BETHA facility get released in unison like them. He sees people ranging from normal looking, to alien looking, to big bulky and steroid looking. The vast array of people inside of this place makes him curious. What did all these different people do to end up here? Also why does BETHA keep such a diverse group of inmates? What in the world are they trying to accomplish? Compared to everyone else, he's literally just a kid while there's Hulk built superhuman-looking men walking around.

"This place is packed..." Seiji whispers to himself before accidentally walking into a tall woman with blood red hair flowing down her back. He looks up at her with wide eyes, stammering his words.

The red haired woman slowly turns around, her aroma nice and her body even nicer, hugged nicely by the blue BETHA uniform. She then shifts her weight to her left foot, placing her right hand on her hip and bites her lip for a second before speaking with a Russian accent and a sexy voice, "Ohh... we got us a young one here, hm? What's your name, little boy? I'm Trixie Lyubov."