Khaos Wars

Chapter 18 - How the end began

Aika sat on the end on Ryuuzaki's bed; everyone had gathered in his messy room, except for Ryuuzaki himself. He was in the guest room across the corridor checking on Tsubasa who was still unconscious. Aika looked to her right. Yumiko laid on the other end of the bed and scrolled down on her phone. She was facing against the wall and seemed to be lost in whatever was happening on the screen. The air was filled with tension and the room was dead silent. Well, except for Zakura who sat on the ground slurping up the rest of her drink with a straw. Aika didn't let herself get too bothered by the sound and looked at Emiko. She had taken her rightful throne in Ryuuzaki's office chair; legs crossed and staring dissatisfied at Yumiko. On the floor beside her sat Reina; Queen Emiko's loyal servant. At the end of the room Sachiko was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, as she inspected everyone. She didn't seem fazed by Zakura's slurping.

"Are you finished!?" Yumiko looked away from her phone and stared directly at Zakura, who instantly stopped slurping. Yumiko turned back to her phone. A few seconds passed and Zakura continued; this time more quietly. Yumiko slammed her phone on the nightstand and stormed over to Zakura. She violently grabbed the drink out of her hands and tossed it in a trash can nearby.

"I wasn't finished with that..." Zakura sounded pretty disappointed. Before Yumiko had the time to respond the door burst open and Ryuuzaki walked in.

"How is he doing?" Reina eagerly stood up.

"He is still unconscious, though he seems to be breathing normally. My dad is with him right now and will alert us when... or if he wakes up." Ryuuzaki explained.

"Are you sure we shouldn't get him to a hospital? Or at least give him Healing Astra?" Yumiko asked. She seemed to have forgotten about Zakura already.

"Like I said; we don't know what will happen once he wakes up. I think it is best for him to stay here until then. Besides; we don't know if the Healing Astra will work and we only have one." Ryuuzaki answered. Aika wished she was as concerned about Tsubasa as the rest, but the current event made her thoughts mix up. Daisuke said he didn't know where the monsters came from; and even though his words didn't hold much ground, it was more than Kazu had ever told her. What if he knew? What if he hadn't told her on purpose? The two of them usually avoided the whole "war" subject; the whole topic was too sensitive, it could cause unnecessary fighting and even ruin the relationship. And if that happened Kazu could ruin her life.

Suddenly everyone stood up and headed towards the door. She didn't have time to think about her problems anymore, she just had to follow the rest. Ryuuzaki's father entered the room across from the one they were just in and everyone else followed. Aika looked around; it was quite bigger and much tidier than Ryuuzaki's. Tsubasa sat in a bed in the corner. He appeared pretty exhausted, but considering his monster-self just got beheaded he seemed fine. Ryuuzaki pushed his way through the rest and ran over to his friend.

"I'm so sorry this happened, Tsubasa, it's all my fault." He sat down on the floor by the bed.

"So, it that our cue to leave you two alone?" Yumiko looked at them.

"No, I owe everyone an apology and an explanation." Ryuuzaki turned to everybody. "As most of you know; Nikka, a tiny robot, randomly came to me one day. And as you can imagine, it didn't sit too well with me. It—She wouldn't stop nagging me about finding five crystals and their owners." Aika glanced down at her bracelet and the green crystal in the middle. "I tried to get rid of her for a while, but that was when the monsters started to show up and I realized that those things were connected."

"I remember that, it was shortly after I discovered my powers as a magical girl. When I defeated the first monster to ever show up, a complete stranger ran after me, yelling for me to wait. The stranger turned out to be Ryuuzaki, but back then I panicked, attacked him and ran away." Emiko added.

"How could I forget..." Ryuuzaki rubbed his neck as if he still could feel the pain. "While I laid on the ground Nikka caught up to Emiko and stopped her. Shortly after she walked over to me, pointed her staff at me and asked a lot of questions."

"Hey, anyone would have done the same thing!" Emiko interrupted.

"After some arguing and a couple of threats we came to a conclusion that neither of us had any idea what was going on and that we had to find four more people with powers like Emiko's to protect the city."

"Buuuuut, we had a lot problems cooperating. We were constantly up each other's throats and argued about every little thing. I was new to all this back then and he was the only one who I could talk to about it. Because of that I ended up exploding and blaming him for it a lot. It ended up with us getting fed up and I took Nikka and left." For some reason hearing this made Aika feel a bit better. It didn't appear that Emiko hated Aika in particular, she was just generally stubborn and explosive. And technically she was right when it came to Aika.

"And I was blaming her a lot for not knowing why all of this was happening. There were even times when I thought she knew more than she was telling me." A sting of guilt hit Aika. "After she left I was so angry with the world and I had to talk to someone about it; so I went to my good friend Kazuki and told him everything that was going on." Aika noticed a bit of hurt in Tsubasa's expression. "He was really supportive and encouraged me to find Emiko again. I've never told you this, but giving you a job here and making this your meeting point was all Kazuki's idea. We decided to search for Emiko together, but since she had Nikka the most likely way to find her was to be close to a monster. Thought our intention was never to let it see us at all; we were just going to wait for Emiko to show up and defeat it."

"You weren't scared? Most people, myself included, are terrified of those things." Tsubasa asked.

"I think I got too confident because I was so sure Emiko would take care of it. But by the time she got there..." Ryuuzaki looked down at the floor. "I got careless and the monster spotted me. It started to chase me, I ran and tried to hide but it was impossible to get away. That was when Kazuki stepped in and tried to get its attention away from me. He threw rocks and screamed at it until it turned to him and grabbed him. He... yelled at me to run. But I couldn't... I desperately tried to turn its attention back to me, but it didn't work... it already had Kazuki in its claws and wouldn't let go... it tightened its grip until..." Ryuuzaki tried to finish the sentence, but the painful memory seemed to get the best of him.

"When I got to the scene I saw that the monster was about to grab Ryuuzaki and I quickly attacked it." Emiko stepped in; Ryuuzaki clearly wasn't capable of speaking about it any further. "That grabbed its attention and a few minutes later, I defeated it. Afterwards, I ran up to him and started to yell. I was so mad at him for putting himself in danger."

"Oh boy, so you didn't learn your lesson the first time around? " Yumiko suddenly interfered.

"Yumiko, I know empathy isn't your thing but try to be more considerate." Zakura whispered. No one seemed to care about Yumiko's question in the first place though. They were all used to her by now.

"After that incident we teamed up again, I got a job here and started searching for you guys with Nikka." Emiko finished the story. Aika glanced at Ryuuzaki; he seemed to still have something he wanted to say. She wondered if it would be appropriate to ask him about it.

"There is one more thing you should know." Ryuuzaki said. "After that I started getting nightmares. Every night I dreamt that I got killed by a monster and the dreams only got more grotesque. I lost a lot of sleep and suddenly everything crashed down on me. I'm not trying to excuse my behavior, but maybe now you can understand why I acted the way I did."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea what you were going through. But I have to ask you girls; you were normal high schoolers before this, right? What keeps driving you to fight?" Tsubasa had been silent for a long time, but he finally spoke.

"Justice and world peace!" Zakura enthusiastically exclaimed and raised her arms in the air. The room went silent; even Tsubasa didn't say anything.

"I'd love to agree, but... that's not the case; it is our fighting instinct. It won't let us run away from a battle until the overwhelming threat is eliminated." Aika said and the rest of the magical girls nodded in agreement.

"Sachiko, do you get that feeling too?" Reina asked. Of course, how come no one had thought about it yet. They didn't really know what Sachiko was, maybe this could be a clue.

"Hmm... not really. It's kind of the opposite actually; I feel like I am the big threat and I don't have an urge to fight something that's weaker than me; unless someone I care about is in danger. Some of you may have noticed this but... my emotions have changed quite a bit since I got my powers. Fear and shame are completely gone, and love and loyalty are sharpened." Sachiko explained. Having your emotions change that drastically must be scary. But then again, she technically can't feel scared... Aika couldn't wrap her head around it. Whatever Sachiko had become; it was not the same as the rest of them. Aika was happy she was on their side; having her as an enemy terrified her.

"So basically; the magical girls fight for their own survival while Sachiko fights for other's survival." Ryuuzaki crossed his arms and appeared to lose himself in thoughts again. To everyone's surprise Reina got up and walked over to Tsubasa.

"Sorry for changing the subject, but I have to ask. Do you remember what happened before you became a monster?" She asked. Tsubasa thought about it for a few seconds.

"I was on my way to the restaurant when all of a sudden I felt like something shot through me. Right after that my pulse drastically went up and I felt an intense pain in my stomach. My body-temperature escalated and my breathing increased. I fell to the ground and the last thing I remember seeing was four people wearing robes standing in the distance. They were staring at me and seemed to try to hide. Next thing I knew I woke up here." Four people with robes... The Guardians... so they are the ones responsible. Aika looked at the other magical girls for confirmation that they had also realized this.

"Come on guys let's leave, Tsubasa needs to rest." Emiko said and turned to Aika "We also have a class-trip tomorrow we need to prepare for."

"Class-trip?" Aika forgot all about The Guardians for a moment.

"Yeah, the one our class has been discussing and planning for the past two months." Emiko didn't appear too pleased. With all this happening the past months Aika had totally forgotten that Emiko was their class president; no wonder she took it so seriously.

"Oh, I forgot. We better get ready then." Everyone except Tsubasa left the room. They all appeared happy and carefree for once. This was the closest they had been to being friends so far, but Aika couldn't relax. She knew the clock was counting rapidly down to Khaos' resurrection and that there was nothing they could do to stop it at this point.