Onihunter Yuna

53 The long way home

The huntress had dozed off for a few minutes. With difficulty she pulled herself up on the fence until she stood upright again. Thoughtfully, she looked down at her right, bandaged hand. Well, as much of it as still was bandaged. The bandage was partially ripped away, so she could see her fingers. The flesh was still burned, but it had started to regrow in some places.

"Why can I feel my stomach, but not my hand?"

She clenched her fist a few times to verify her observation. Indeed. The hand didn't give her the slightest pain. The blue-haired untied the knot from the shirt scraps that enclosed her abdominal wound. She lifted her shirt and looked at the wound. At the edge the blood had coagulated. Yuna checked the injury. When she applied pressure, fresh blood pushed out immediately.

"Perhaps because it's an open wound?"

She kept pressing around. In certain places the wound didn't hurt, but on others it did. Strange. She focused on a point, which caused her pain.

"I won't feel it."

She squeezed. Damn, it burnt like hell. She groaned loudly and blinked the stars in front of her eyes away. She carefully wrapped the shirt around her waist again.

She had to continue. She had to get out of here.

The sun was already rising. Not too long from now, there would be people on the street. She had to hurry. Or she needed a place to hide. That's it. Here was the amusement park. West of it was the middle school. That meant in the south lived Hikari, her best friend since kindergarten, with whom she attended the same class in high school. Or had attended. Hikari's family had a tool shed standing in their garden. Maybe Yuna could hide there and rest up. It would take her several hours to get back to the pension. Impossible, that she would not be discovered.

The huntress avoided the main roads. While she sneaked through the streets, she saw her reflection in a window. She looked terrible. Her hair was disheveled and dirty. Some strands had come loose from the bun. She looked like a mop.

Her burnt face was also uncovered. Apart from the layer of dirt. Yuna wiped her face a few times. Wow, she could almost no longer see the bones shining through her cheek. Her self-healing really did an amazing job. From her belly downwards everything was sticky with a mixture of dirt and blood. No pretty sight, but what could she do?

"I can't wait for the next bath."

A couple of times she had to find cover behind garbage cans, but all in all she made good progress and remained unseen. She had reached the house of Hikari's family, but for the time being she observed it from across the street. What day was today? Saturday? The boys in the park had said, that it would be Friday night.

How long had Yuna passed out? The blue-haired tried to remember. Time. Minutes, hours and days. All this had become irrelevant for her. Yuna's ties with the normal world had almost dissolved completely. She had lost so much humanity, how in the world should she ever find her way back to a normal life?

How could Yoshiro live like this? Did he know a different life at all? She definitely should start to write down all her questions, which she wanted to ask him.