The ticktocks of the timepiece were filling the heads of the group. The looming sensation of vulnerability was upon them, devouring away the last ounce of faith they had for the military like a vacuum. Truly, they felt all alone, isolated from the outside world. Haruto felt furious, everything that came to pass before felt like bad luck, but now it seemed that fate was beginning to demonstrate its unforgiving side.
Keiko gulped, she knew she now had the obligation to finish such a dangerous job that threatens the lives of her family and friends. She told herself that it was for her brother, to keep him safe no matter the cost. But she was dubious, reluctant to accept it all.
Gokuro felt the same, the same anger Haruto had against fate, it was all outrageous, unforgiving, and worst of all, undeserving. They looked back into their lives, trying to recant all the past deeds they did, "Do we all hope to do this?" Everyone thought in sync.
"Excuse me, master Keiko." A woman's voice caught their attention. "Your bath is ready." She said. Keiko precipitously excused herself as she ran to the other room that the bath was in. It was warmly lit, just like the lights back in the foyer. A pair of fresh clothes and a headband was prepared on the sink next to the bathtub. Keiko untied her hair and threw the garment next to her feet. She took a glimpse at the fabric before breaking down near the toilet bowl, she felt her chest throb, she condemned the world for what came to pass to them, her tears of frustration fell on the soft rug she sat on.
Gokuro sat still on the couch next to Haruto, taking off his headband and placing it on the blond table. He peeped at the boy with a worried some look before speaking. "So... what's your plan?" He murmured. "Anything else you got?" He asked the boy.
But Haruto looked back at him and shook his head. Even with everything they've done so far, he couldn't tell them anything else. Gokuro understood it and patted his shoulder. Telling him to get some rest before exiting the room while being attended by a butler towards the bath. Leaving Haruto alone in the quiet room.
Haruto looked over at the dark window, the moon had vanished, and the sea outside was concealed, only the white ripples of the current were apparent. He stood up, snatching the sketch in his hand, and taking a good look at it. His fingers were crumbling the edges of the paper before he threw it aside and hurled all the books on the table in a tantrum. He screamed, the voice of his anger echoed throughout the entire island. Alarming everyone before they went back to their own activities.
Inside her room, Sayozane's eyes restrained themselves from shutting despite the fluffy pillows and the thick comforter that surrounded her bed, these were the things that could make any normal man fall drowsy in a beat. She unlocked the drawer of a table near her bed and grabbed both a pink book and a pen. Her hands felt the flat, shining surface of the book of her cover before flipping it open and writing her thoughts on the paper.
"Dear diary,
I'm having trouble sleeping. I can't seem to get rid of the feeling that for the first time, I feel like there's something very wrong. It's not just the frightening things that happened at Talisay, but it's all of it. I'm scared but I trust my friends.
Sincerely, Sayozane."
Her pen rested on the table as she slid her diary into the closet. Her open window allowed the peaceful sounds of the ocean to enter her room. The damp breeze of the outside nearly froze her fingers that she turned on the heater to warm herself. Her stomach rumbled as she rubbed herself and she went out of the room to get a small snack. The hall outside her room was empty and quiet. She approached the kitchen on the first floor, the coldness under her feet was somewhat comforting to her as she prepared her mug for a glass of chocolate oats.
Outside of the room, footsteps came strolling down the stairs as she continued to stir her drink, they came closer as she took a sip from her glass, the lights turned on and a touch on her shoulder startled her, dropping the mug before being rescued by someone's hand. Sayozane looked up to recognize who the person was.
"Sorry about that, " Keiko whispered. "it's already really late and you still couldn't sleep?"
Sayozane looked at her companion with glaring cheeks and raised eyebrows. "I-I'm s-sorry, Keiko, I didn't see you..." She stammered. "I got hungry because I couldn't sleep..." She said as she looked down on the ground in embarrassment.
Keiko chuckled. Her hands danced around her companion's shoulders before reaching her face and tucking the hair next to her ear. "Sayozane..." She whispered.
Sayozane looked up to see a smiling Keiko with blushing cheeks as well, a sight that made her heart pound faster and leaped with joy. Keiko stared her straight in the eye as her face turned into a warm expression, Sayozane could feel the pounding in her chest become faster, her eyes flickered, and she stiffened when she felt two arms squeeze her tightly.
“Thank you... for my mom, and for everything else.” Keiko said, holding her hand with both her own while uttering to her in a warm tone. “Let me protect you Sayo... I promise I'll always protect you. If you'd let me...”
Keiko smiled at her companion and clasped her hand one last time before turning away and walking slowly towards the door. Sayozane could still feel her legs quivering as she placed the mug on the sink. "Wait," She blurted. "K-Keiko, I'm actually a-afraid of sleeping alone, do you mind... accompanying me?!" She cried out. Keiko approached her hand and hushed her companion.
"You don't need to scream to tell me what to do," She whispered as they slowly headed towards the bed. Almost tripping on their way to the stairs.
The darkness had passed and the sun shined its light over Maharlika again. Haruto stretched for a minute before shutting the door behind him. Sunlight was breaching the mansion from every direction and the noises of the maids and butlers walking by were prominent beneath him. The windows were wide open that a bear could probably wriggle its way with little to no detection. As he walked down the glistening golden stairs, the voices of his friends were in a discussion in the next room.
"We have no other choice. The military can’t do anything against it!" One boy spoke, slurping into his morning coffee before explaining his quiet indecipherable plan thanks to the density of the walls between them.
"Do you think we should bring them too?" A girl asked, it was most likely Keiko, Haruto guessed. "Haruto can use a sword, can't he? It only makes sense to bring him along." She added.
"Yes, but I’m not sure if that’s the best idea. He was the first one to experience the attack up close. I can’t imagine what he must be going through right now...” The boy retorted, taking one last gulp of his drink before resting it on a nearby table. "If everything goes well today, we'll leave before sunset."
Haruto glued himself to the wall upon hearing what the boy said. The memory of confronting it back to the grocery store shook him. His chest jolted as little recollections of the encounter started swarming his mind. Sweat came running down his forehead and his pupils danced as the feeling of dread came rushing from the back of his mind, like a plague contaminating the masses. He reminisced in perfect detail the horrifying outcomes of the beast's attack. The cries of the people, the blood on the roads, and the moans of the lost were all too terrifying for him. It was something no child should ever go through, yet it seemed like this was what he must go through. His body kept squirming as the sounds of the tournament and the nightmare almost came off like they were all over him, dragging him into hell with their monstrous voices. The light around him began to wither and the area around him turned hazy and dull. He was breathing shallowly, the state he was in caused all manner of awareness to disappear. An inaudible voice called out to him, he couldn't comprehend if it was a name or an action that the person was screaming, all he knew is that the voice was there. It grew louder, eventually taking over his entire mind.
"Haruto!" Kenriki shouted. "Haruto! Are you okay?! I'm here! Haruto!" He said, eventually snapping his friend back to reality.
Haruto jolted once again as his vision came back to normal, his friends' terrified looks gawking right at him as he struggled to recall what happened. He glanced at Keiko and Gokuro before turning back to Kenriki who was still asking him frantically about what happened. Haruto merely looked at him with an uncertain look, his mind too occupied to formulate even a single sentence, his mouth could only communicate grunts and sounds as his friends tried their best to console him.
Kenriki sighed and peered at the twins behind him. His head was shaking slowly as if he was telling the twins that it was no go. They supported Haruto up and dragged him into the clinic, his eyes stared deeply into the floor with a blank expressionless face. His feet dragged across the fluffy fabric as they approached the flawlessly rectangular white door. Haruto looked up with his face near the white wood, half-lidded eyes suggested he was still in a state of semi-consciousness.
Keiko placed her hand on the handle but paused for a moment and spoke, "What's happening to him, Kenriki?" She asked. "Is there something we don't know about him?"
Kenriki looked at her with sorrow, he knew that the answer he'd give would only inconvenience them even more. He didn't need to distract them from their job later and chose to remain silent, urging her to open the door. Keiko hesitated at first but complied after seeing Haruto jolt again. As they unlocked it, the group was greeted by a somewhat cold odor. It swam into their nose like mist, their minds couldn't express what it was nor did they want to anyway. At the center of the compartment was a nurse who was handing a doctor his hand notes. Haruto noticed how bright his surroundings were, everything about the room seemed so white. From the clean walls that hanged medical pictures to the beds and utensils sitting right next to each other. It was almost like the heaven they talk about in cathedrals but without the sounds of the choirs and the wings of angels, only the monotone sound of a machine buzzing next to the air conditioner.
The nurse approached the group and took the drowsy boy into her arms, slowly placing him on one of the beds as the doctor approached and examined him before turning to his friends to ask what happened.
"Hmm, this isn't good..." The doctored uttered. Eyeing the nurse to let them leave before they began their tests, Kenriki and the twins had no choice but to comply, and were left in the quiet hall as the door in front of them shut. The clock on top of the door already pointed its shorthand at 12.
Kenriki glanced at the twins with an awkward smile and spoke. "Some friend amirite..?" The twins stared back at him with forced grins, uneasy around his presence. Kenriki cleared his throat before briefing them again about the plan.
Inside his mind, Haruto arose to the spectacle of a pinkish sky with an obscured moon on the side. The fragrance of sweetness and serenity swam into his nose as sakura petals skimmed over his face and plummeted into the shallow lake bed he was lying in. The place felt usual to him, like a nostalgic fantasy of one's preadolescence, surprisingly, the liquid that touched his hands was neither cold nor warm, it just felt like it was there, containing half of his entire body as he squinted to adjust his vision. He stood up, glimpsing that the area around him appeared to stretch forevermore, the mountains in the distance provided him some hope that he could reach if he jogged towards them. He sluggishly stood up, astonished to see that he remained dry despite lying down on the water for what felt like hundreds of years because of the numbness in his body. He stretched himself, the result of his exercise was like energy immediately flowing into his veins before he cooled down. His eyes set onto his destination, one of the smaller mountains in front of him, but before he could begin his journey, something whispered into his ear.
The noise of thunder caught his ears as his eyes witnessed the movement of the spiraling clouds above him and an idling draft flung all the sakura petals away from where he stood. The light around him was beginning to recede as if all the vitality in the area was gradually withering. The clouds proceeded to stride rapidly, constructing an upward vacuum that looked like a portal to somewhere else. Webs of lightning were all over the atmosphere and the sound of thunder grew even louder, Haruto stood and watched it all unveil as his body was still as a statue, unwilling to move as if something was anchoring him to the ground. Unexpectedly, an earsplitting surge of thunder cracked the skies and turned the area red. The fluid around him turned red and thick enough to almost resemble blood, Haruto trembled as he saw the same red liquid drip from his coated hands. His eyes teared up as his mind immediately recalled the exact moment of what he did back at the temple, a constant reminder of the atrocious sin he had committed. The ground shook as a large portion of the water started to open to reveal flesh and mass coming from below, it was somehow conjoining itself together, slowly revealing several limbs before finally revealing what it was all along, the monster.
His uneasiness escalated even further as the humongous monster warped in and out of his view like a glitch on a computer, with each disappearance it took one step closer, its heavy hands reaching out to him as if the beast was crying out to his very existence. Haruto closed his eyes as everything unveiled around him, he kept telling himself that it wasn't real, that this was all a bad dream, and that he'd wake up soon in the arms of his friends. Gradually, the noise died down and the storm began to dwindle, he clenched his fist and took a deep breath before gradually opening his eyes. But what appeared right in front of him made him fall in unconditional fear, a bloodied and deformed Hiromoto stood in front of him, his mouth was gurgling blood and the area of the chest where his heart was, vanished as if something significant struck him there. Haruto continued to tremble as flashbacks of the horrible things that happened came running into his mind, cramming every corner with every detail of the encounter. His mind and heart raced as everything that happened around him started to drive him off the edge. He clutched his head, his screaming and sobbing accompanied by those of the victims he witnessed back home.
"It's all my fault! It's all my fault! It's all my fault!" He cried out repeatedly, his throat beginning to hurt from the amount of screaming he did. Haruto could feel the ripped hair in his hands as his legs jerked forward and back, his mind was in pain, aching from everything, his mouth was drooling and his eyes were red.
Hiromoto stood still and looked down at the boy before taking a step forward. Haruto could hear the pitter patters of the water come closer, his mind still ached as the hands of both the monster and his enemy came closer towards him, and before they could touch him as Haruto screamed, he felt two soft hands touch his shoulders. He gasped, his face expressed a mixture of despair and peace. He could feel someone's face get closer, the person's mouth getting close to his neck before their breath was felt by his ear.
"Haruto..." a feminine voice whispered to him, "are you... afraid, Haruto?" She spoke as her hands danced around her arms, lifting them towards the monstrosities in front of him. Somehow, he felt safe, it's as if his guardian angel had come to protect him.
Haruto turned his head to see the same woman he once saw in his dreams. She smiled at him, her motherlike aura comforted him, as she placed her hands on the tips of his fingers, healing all the injuries he had when he was losing his mind.
"Haruto..." She whispered again, "The sun will always protect... I'll always... protect you." Suddenly, a flair began to light up from his chest. An orb of dawn began to grow, placing itself gently in front of his palms, the light felt warm and gentle as it continued to hover in front of him, illuminating the area around him and the woman. Her hands danced around her arms once again before resting her palm on the back of his hands. She smiled at the boy once again before speaking.
"Haruto, after this you must go to help your friends." She said. "You must fight with them, help them win." She explained before kissing his cheek and letting him go. "Now you must go boy, you must keep moving forward. Wherever you are, I'll always be with you, in your darkest times and your brightest, always remember..."
Haruto saw her lips move but he couldn't understand what she was saying, fading away as the light in front of him grew stronger. He turned back to see the monster and Hiromoto stepping away from him, afraid of the sun he was projecting. Haruto took a deep breath and looked at them straight in the eyes, he wasn't afraid anymore, and now he was going to banish them from existence. In a flash, the whole world turned bright and the screams of Hiromoto and the monster faded into nothingness.
Back at the clinic, Haruto's body jerked upwards as he awoke from his short nap. Startling the doctor and nurse who ran up to him to check him. They kept asking him questions that he seemed to ignore as he looked at his hands, he clenched them and looked straight at the perfectly rectangular white door in front of him, he grinned, running out of the room and into the hallway.
