Kingdoms Fall

Chapter 7: "Real Brothers"

POV: Zokoso Aragami

Me and Kazumo left the same day me and his mother found him, but I didn't really help. I was really a plan B response for if he wasn't where she thought he was. We reached ChingChin in three hours by foot, since the trains were shut down today for some reason, and believe it or not, we got there faster than any vehicle simply because we didn't run into much traffic on the tops of different stores. We reached the Rolling Hotel at around 7:40 AM; we got a room with two beds, and I stayed in the lobby waiting while Kazumo roamed about. If he was still in his room, he would come down, but if he was gone, he would come back through here at some point. Almost an hour and ten minutes later, I see a very old-looking man rush out of a room that has a sign next to it that reads, "Twenty-one and older Texas hold em all night.". Behind the old man was someone with a black hood over his head that made it hard to see his face, but something about his walk somehow seemed familiar to me. After him came a tall woman with blue hair, a projector, playing poker... She might be a cheater if she's a skilled projector. On our way over to ChingChin, I tried to explain to Kazumo what he would look like. Just as the projector makes her way through the lobby and out of the front of the hotel, Kazumo comes out of the poker room a little after the projector, and he comes rushing over. "It's him." He says, "Where?" I ask him, "He just came through here wearing a black hood over his head." He says, "How do you know?" "Because he took off his hood and the dealer bowed to him." He says, "Good point; come on, they went this way." I say they ran out of the hotel the same way they did. We followed them to an alleyway and decided to get a higher vantage point so we wouldn't be easily seen by them. "We're not going to be able to hear them up, hear Kazumo; maybe we should get a little lower." I say, "Just because you can't hear them doesn't mean I can't hear them, Zoko." He says, "You can hear them clearly." I ask, and he nods and listens, then he says, "The guy in the white suite said, Kid, I don't know why you followed me, but just get out of here and we won't have to hurt you." "Maybe we should help; there's more than one prince in Kishi; maybe it's not." I begin saying, but he interrupts me in the middle of me talking, "Shhh, he's not afraid; I can hear his heartbeat; he's saying... I'm not someone you can hurt so easily; what do you know about my father's death?" He says, "You can really hear his heartbeat?" I ask, and he just nods, his eyes still focused on the situation below us. "Oh, I almost forgot here," he says, holding his hand out to me. "What?" I say, not sure what he wanted me to do or give me, "Hold my hand and you'll hear what I hear." He explains, "I really didn't know that." I say, "Yeah, and I have not a clue how to use the two hearts form; at nine years old, neither of us will ever know everything Zoko, even as gods," he says, and as soon as I grab hold of his hand, I can hear the people talking below us as if I were right next to them. "Not a thing," the white suite says, then the kid says, "Why did you run when you found out who I was then?" That's when the blue-haired projector gets closer to him, as if she's getting ready to attack him from behind, but it looked as if she was getting ready to do so. The man in the white suit speaks again: "I had to go; it has nothing to do with who you are, kid." He then looks at the projector and gives her a quick nod, giving her permission to do whatever she is about to do. "Maybe we should..." Kazumo begins to say, "Help? No, if it's Benji, he should be able to handle them and twenty more people." I tell him, and we see the projector put her left hand on the kids left shoulder, and nothing happens. "What...?" we hear the white suit say in confusion, and quickly the projector says something about how she's never had that happen before and she backs away out of the alleyway, with the man in the white suit calling after her, but she keeps going and she doesn't look back even once as she goes. Then the kid says, "I guess she's never seen an I'tioshon, huh, Oko-toma." All doubt about whether my brother Benji was down there in the alleyway below me with his face hidden by a black hood left my mind, and I knew... It was my brother—my brother of no womb. After witnessing him use one of his powers, which was telekinesis, we both knew for sure that down there was my brother, Benji Aragami. We watched and listened to the rest of my brothers conversation with the man whose name was Okotoma, but it was more of an interrogation than an actual conversation. It turns out that the man being interrogated was the same man who had killed my father just a year ago, and all he ever wanted for his people and for Kishi was peace and prosperity. He preferred to gain power and security through connections and common interests instead of war. But the Vesh Emperor forced a man to kill my father, and even though I've held anger inside of myself for my father's killer, here he is, and I don't have the slightest urge to hurt him, and I feel as though that's mostly because it won't help us win this war and it won't affect the Vesh Emperor in any way, shape, or form, plus he'll be useful. We found out that he knows about various different Vesh strongholds or camps. After Benji was done, we decided not to drop in and make our presence known just yet, so we followed him and Okotoma to a store and back to the Rolling Hotel, where they only went in for no more than five minutes, maybe to check out of their rooms. When they came back out, we learned that Benji was going to have Okotoma take him to each and every Vesh camp that he spoke of physically to verify that they were all actually real camps. We also heard a little about what Benji found when he had Okotoma call at least three different people and have him ask them questions. We also heard a little about a tunnel being completed, a tunnel that ran from one large city in Kishi up north down to another major large city in Kishi down south. All this information from one unloyal servant... We're off to a really good start. As soon as the night began to fall, that was when Benji and his hostage, who was also an informant, sat out for the first Vesh camp. They'd been traveling through thick woods for hours, and they'd finally stopped and set up camp. Me and Kazumo were high up in the trees, right above where they slept. Okotoma may be sleeping, but Benji wasn't going to let him run away, even if it seemed like he was fully asleep. You really never knew that people were trained to do lots of different things; maybe fake sleeping was one of Okotoma's perks. "If this guy my brother took was actually fake sleeping, would you be able to hear and tell that he was?" I ask Kazumo, who looks down at the small tent below us in silence, and then he says, "He's asleep... But Benji, he's up and focused; he's expecting something to happen." "He's coming out," he adds. "Does he know?" I begin to ask him, but Benji comes out and whispers something: "What's he saying?" I ask Kazumo, "Mother and Father, Goddesses and Gods, speak." "What?" I ask, "Look," he says, pointing down at Benji. Right in front of him in the air, words the color of gold that behaved like sparks of electricity appeared; it said, "Your work is good, and what you have learned is true; release this man and meet your kin.", and then the words turned into a stream of yellow sparks that twirled through the air and up to where me and Kazumo sat, now not very hidden. "Guess we shouldn't hide now." I say, Kazumo agrees and leaps down from the tree right alongside me. "Zokoso!" Benji shouts in joy as I pull back my hood, he then runs in for a hug,hug, but I draw my sword, putting the tip of the sword up to his neck.. "You knew." I say, "Woah." Kazumo isis confused about my actions. actions. "What?" Benji says softly and tries to back away from the tip of my sword, but I walk forward with him,him, keeping my sword'ssword's point in place. place. "You didn't tell me you were like me.. Why?!?!" I ask, the irritation obvious in my voice, "Why!!!!" I shout at him,him, "The scroll of...of..." he began to say,say, but I interruptedinterrupted him.. "Don't give me that,that, Coi, bullshit!!" I say, then look at Kazumo for a second. "No offense, but she lied; there's something else, so what is it, huh, brother?" I ask him, looking into his eyes, to see if I can see the truth in them before I hear the truth in his words. "Father didn't want you to find out," he says. "Find out what?" I ask, and he says nothing. "Find out. What?" I ask again, "To find out that all of us I'tioshon will have to choose at some point in our lives to stay somewhat human and age like they do and live like they do, or to take a place among the Gods who walk the earth; after they became actual Gods, they stopped aging, helped mankind from the shadows, and traveled to other worlds that needed their help or protection from various evil forces." He says, "That's it?" I ask, slowly lowering my sword, "Yes." He says, "I'm taking my place among the gods who walk the earth." Kazumo says, I sheath my sword and walk closer to Benji and give him a hug. "What will you do?" he asks. "I'll know when I have to make the choice." I tell him, and he leans back from my hold and nods his head in agreement. "This is Kazumo's phantom and enhanced hearing, and he can feel the smallest vibrations in the world." I tell Benji, "Nice to meet you, foresight and telekinesis." Benji says, Okotoma emerges from the black tent held up by four big branches." "Uhh, whaa," he mumbles, trying to process what was going on. "You can leave; thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Okotoma, and please don't forget to get that urgent message to the Emperor." Benji says to him, and off went Okotoma, traitor to the Emperor, but in a way a savior to the people of Kishi with his vital information... After sitting down with Kazumo and my brother, talking about all that had transpired in the past year since father's death all the way up to now, in the middle of me and Kazumo explaining to Benji how we were following him for hours, Benji starts talking about a made-up story about the one time he'd saved me from a big snake in one of the many gardens that we had when father reigned as King of Kishi, and it's many people. Something was wrong. We needed to talk in private, and that would be a bit difficult given Kazumos's extraordinary hearing abilities. We'd have to speak to each other through writing, code, going far from camp, or something else because whatever Benji really has to tell me, he doesn't want Kazumo to hear. "Well, we should get some sleep; we have a long way to travel." I say maintaining eye contact with Benji, but then looking at Kazumo, trying to make the message about going to sleep clear. He nods and begins to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. "You wanna tell me about that foresight, brother?" I say, pointing a thumb towards the exit and entrance to the tent. "Yea," he says, getting up and walking out of the tent. "By the way, can we get the gods to talk to us?" I ask, "Is that something else you and dad kept from me, or is that one you'd just recently figured out?" I ask him, as we walk away from the black tent, "That's a newer one; you know, we've always spoken to the gods, but they never really gave immediate, super obvious answers, but now they are, and I don't know if that's a bad or good thing really, but so far they've helped me, so I'd say it's a good thing." He says, "Hmm. We should keep going." I tell Benji, making a walking gesture with two fingers, then I add, "We should see our abilities limits." I had to imagine Kazumo could still hear us. After walking about ten miles away from Kazumo "Whatever, remember when dad had us run a thousand miles in one day and we were only twelve years old?" "Yeah, but we have the lung capacity of about 31 grown adult whales." I say. He laughs a bit and looks straight ahead at the Vesh camp that was right before us. "Kazumo, are you really for this?" I say, "No, actually, I'm really tired; I wasn't trained the same way you guys were," he says, his eyelids probably getting heavier and heavier with each time he blinks his eyes. "We can rest for however long you need; they don't know we're here, and they won't be expecting an attack from anyone, let alone three teenagers." Benji says, and then I look at him with a curious look on my face. "What about the message you told Okotoma to pass on to the Emperor?" I ask him. "About that, the Emperor is an atheist; he doesn't believe in the supernatural, so he won't believe what Okotoma is telling him." he's saying, but I complete his sentence for him. "So, they still won't be expecting an attack from anyone, and the Emperor is not signing that peace treaty." "Exactly, brother, it's a little bigger than I thought it would be, honestly," he says, gazing at the camp that was like a small fortress. We were about a football field away from the front gates. "The gates are pretty weird; that red light shines every time it starts closing," Kazumo says just as the black-painted metal gate clinks together and closes. "Right, I think they're controlling the gate from that tower up there. Someone gives him a thumbs up, he gives one back, and a couple seconds later the gate starts to open. That could be a way in or out, but we're going in silently." Benji says.