Chương 12: Foothill Fray

Once again, Kurisu sat in the back seat, his gaze fixed on the passing rock faces. The truck lurched to a crawl in the stop-and-go procession of brake lights as the sun dipped behind the peaks of the Front Range, casting bruised shadows across the I-70 corridor.

"That was a hell of a kick back there, Kurisu," Steven said, glancing at him through the rearview mirror.

"I've seen martial arts movies, but I've never heard of a tree just blowing up like that. We really need to work on the 'low profile' part of the training." Kurisu looked at his hands.

"Tree was... weak," he muttered, then slipped into his native tongue.

"This aberrant form... commanding its power proves arduous." A forceful impact against the bed jolted the truck.

"What was that?!" Steven gripped the wheel harder as the truck swayed at a crawl. A twinge sparked at the base of his skull as his Zanshin alerted him.

"A hostile presence!" Kurisu barked. Without waiting for the truck to stop, he threw the door open and swung out into the bed by the doorframe. There, crouched by the tailgate, was a small humanoid shape with olive skin and yellow-slit eyes. Kurisu's eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening as he recognized the stench of his old world.

"A ko-oni?" he hissed, his voice low with disgust.

"For what purpose does the refuse of Terra manifest within this realm?" The creature lunged with a rusted shiv, and Kurisu sidestepped. Grabbing its wrist and pulling it off balance, he thrust a palm-strike to the chest, followed by a downward elbow to the neck that produced a sharp snap. Grabbing the monster by the throat, he pitched it over the tailgate. It hit the asphalt and bounced before scraping along the ground, leaving a trail of blood in its path.

"Kurisu!" Charlotte screamed, looking through the back glass.

"Dad, look!" Ace pointed ahead before pulling the door shut. The air fifty feet down the interstate was split by a swirling black oval casting a dull blue hue. Twelve more creatures scrambled out of the rift, brandishing rusted spears. Steven slammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to a full stop. Kurisu jumped from the truck bed, his boots hitting the pavement as he saw the dozens of commuters in the cars around them reaching for their phones, camera lenses pointing at him.

"Don't let them see you," Steven whispered as he walked by the driver door, receiving a slight nod in return. A vortex of wind suddenly billowed through the area, blinding the onlookers and their cameras with airborne dirt. Kurisu slapped his palm against the asphalt. With a groan the ground erupted upward in slabs of concrete and red earth. In seconds, a rock dome arched over the truck and the monsters, sealing them within the dark enclosure sixty feet wide.

Inside, the rift cast the only glow against the pitch-black enclosure. Kurisu vanished in an arc of azure-white electricity, leaving a thrown spear to whistle through the empty air. Thunder cracked against the hollow stone. Gray intestines spilled from a slashed belly, slapping onto the pavement as the first creature collapsed. Flashing again, Kurisu carved his katana up the second's back, parting the spine with a wet tear as blood sprayed the asphalt.

As he darted forward, he drove his knee into a third's face, caving the snout in a spray of splintered bone, simultaneously burying his blade to the hilt through the fourth's eye. Lunging over the kneed creature, a fifth drove a dagger toward Kurisu's face before his foot struck the ground. Ripping the katana from the ruined eye, Kurisu braced the handle under the attacker's wrist, blocking the downward strike.

Pushing the monster airborne, a horizontal cut bisected the creature, dumping yellow fat and muscle onto the road. Spinning with the momentum, he severed the sixth's carotid artery, painting the stone wall with a bloody line. Tilting his head in a lazy dodge to let another spear whistle past, Kurisu caught the shaft before it cleared his shoulder, spinning the weapon and launching it back.

The tip pierced the seventh's chest as the force ripped the creature off its feet, pinning the twitching body against the opposite rock wall. The spear's shaft exploded outward into a shower of splinters, leaving only a stump buried in the monster's chest. To the Millers inside the truck, it was like a haunted house. Flashes of light strobed through the dark, followed immediately by cracks of thunder and the occasional inhuman shriek.

The trapped air filled with smoke, the stench of struck matches stinging their noses. A monster suddenly dropped onto the hood, smashing its fists against the windshield.

"Jesus!" Steven yelled, fumbling in the center console as Charlotte and the boys shouted in alarm. Darting past the grill, Kurisu grabbed the monster by the throat and slammed it face-first into the concrete road, its skull giving way with a wet crunch as blood pooled under it. As he pivoted on the ball of his right foot, Kurisu met the flank of another advancing enemy. He spun clockwise, bringing his blade down from shoulder to hip, severing the collarbone and ribcage with zero resistance.

The last three charged in unison." Raigeki!" Kurisu cleaved the closest from crown to groin as azure-white electricity arced outward, flash-frying the remaining two instantly and leaving them as smoking husks. Releasing the excess energy, Kurisu illuminated the dome with a blinding flash, sending an invisible ripple of high-frequency electromagnetic force exploding outward.

Overloaded by the surge, the rift crumbled inward, swallowing a chunk of the highway and half a sedan in the implosion, before finally sealing with a pop. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Outside the dome, dozens of recording phones and dashcams hissed with static, prompting a chorus of muffled shouting and honking horns from the commuters as their screens went permanently black. Sheathing his blade, Kurisu raced back to the truck.

"Go!" he commanded. Steven dropped the gearshift into drive. The engine revved, but the dashboard immediately lit up with a red battery icon. Pressing the gas, Steven watched the headlights dim slightly. His grip on the earth tightening, Kurisu forced the dome into a fine, red dust, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble and thirteen dead monsters in the middle of I-70. The interior of the F-150 was quiet as Steven drove, his hands tight on the wheel.

Charlotte sat with her body turned halfway toward the back, looking Kurisu straight in the eyes over the headrest.

"They were... they were alive, Kurisu," Charlotte whispered. She held her phone up before shaking her head and lowering it, tossing the dead device aside.

"I possess knowledge of these beasts," Kurisu said as he met her gaze." Ko-oni are naught but the stain of scavengers."

"I know they were attacking us," Charlotte said.

"But you killed them."

"Charlotte, honey, he saved us, and he doesn't understand you right now," Steven said, his voice tight.

"I know, but he's our son now!" She turned back to Kurisu.

"I don't want blood on your hands. It's not right." Kurisu looked away, staring at the passing lights of Golden.

"Upon Terra, to permit a single one to survive is to summon a hundred more," he said, his eyes hard.

"To safeguard one's clan, the enemy must be utterly eradicated," he continued. He looked back at her and added in English, "Necessary." Charlotte let out a long, shaky breath and turned forward.

"We're going to have to talk about this. Really talk about it when we get home."

"Yeah," Steven whispered, reaching for his phone in the cup holder. It was dead.

"Ace, is your Switch working?"

"No," Ace said, clicking the button frantically.

"It just went black." Steven looked at the rearview mirror, a grim sort of relief washing over him.

"The lightning... Kurisu, you fried everything. There won't be any clear video of this. We might actually get away with it." The truck limped into the driveway of the house, its engine sputtering as the fried electronic timing struggled to maintain a steady idle. Steven hopped out, punched the code into the keypad on the garage frame, and waited for the door to roll open before waving for Kurisu to help.

Once Kurisu and Steven had pushed the truck inside and the door sealed them off from the street, the kitchen island became a graveyard for the tech that had been in the truck. Two iPhones and Ace's Switch sat in a row, black screened and unresponsive.

"Is it just gone?" Ace asked, clicking the power button on his Switch over and over.

"All my saves? My videos?"

"The circuits are melted, Ace," Steven said, his voice weary as he tossed his own dead phone onto the granite.

"It isn't a dead battery. The hardware is fried. It's basically a brick now." Ignoring the phones, Charlotte opened the family's spare laptop, her face pale in the LED glow as she stared at the screen.

"Look, you need to see this." She turned the laptop around. The 'I-70 Rock Egg' was already the top story on every local news site. Grainy photos from distant commuters showed a large dome of red earth sitting across three lanes of traffic.

"They're calling it a geological anomaly," Charlotte whispered.

"But people in the comments are talking about the light, and looking for a black pickup." Kurisu stood by the sliding glass door with his back to the room. He looked at the reflection of the kitchen in the glass, watching Charlotte's hands shake. He wanted to explain, but the English words wouldn't come.

"We need to know what we're up against," Steven said, leaning against the counter. He looked toward the glass door, trying to catch Kurisu's eye in the reflection.

"What the hell were those things?"

"They were goblins, Dad!" Ace interjected, looking up from his dead Switch, with Kellevra nodding vigorously beside him.

"Like, straight out of a video game." Steven rubbed his face before looking back to Kurisu.

"Do you think more of them are coming?" Kurisu stared blankly at the rush of words. Seeing the confusion, Steven pointed at the laptop screen, then gestured broadly around the room.

"More? Coming here?" Kurisu turned slowly.

"It is beyond my knowing." He pointed at the laptop screen.

"Hole is mystery. Why they come? Not know." Charlotte stood up, her lips trembling as she struggled to keep her emotions in check.

"Why did you kill them, Kurisu?" she asked. Kurisu met her gaze. He struggled to parse the rapid English, but he caught the gist of why and kill. He assumed she wanted to know why he had slain them.

"Not people," he said, shaking his head.

"Danger. Filth. Scavenger. Kill or die."

"Living beings, Kurisu!" Charlotte exclaimed, and he could hear the fear and judgment rising in her voice.

"And you killed them, did you even stop to think? You just killed them all." Kurisu squeezed his eyes shut. The image of his home flashed in his mind, the stench of burning bamboo and human flesh flooded his senses. The faces of his parents and grandfather, of sickly Chiyo, and his beloved Rin flashed through his mind. He squeezed his hands into fists until his fingernails drew blood from his palms. Slowly, he brought his gaze up to look Charlotte in the eyes.

"I have already suffered the ruin of my clan! I shall not endure the forfeiture of another!" He took a single step toward her, his gaze steady.

"My mother, my father, my… Rin." His voice choked as he spoke; his eyes grew wet with raw grief as he fought to hold the memories back. He spun away from her, refusing to let her see his face, but he was unable to hide the shuddering of his shoulders. Once he regained his composure he continued.

"I comprehend that you... that both of you abhor the taking of life. This, I understand." Kurisu stepped a couple paces away from the adults, still hiding his face.

"Nevertheless, should the enemy not be extinguished, your lives shall be forfeit." Stopping, he spun on his heel to look them both in the eyes once more.

"That alone, I absolutely forbid... Would you have me suffer such a loss yet again!" Kurisu stood there, his chest heaving. Nobody said a word, as the silence stretched. Charlotte stood still, her lip quivering as she stared at the boy. Steven didn't speak for a long time. He just watched the way Kurisu's hands shook. Clearing his throat, Steven looked toward the mudroom door, unable to meet Kurisu's gaze.

"I... I have to get the truck out of the garage first thing in the morning," he said, his voice straining.

"If the police are tracking a black Ford, I can't have it sitting in our driveway or garage like a smoking gun asking for trouble. I have to handle it. I'll have it towed to the dealership and tell them it was a lightning strike from the storm." Kurisu watched him, straightening his posture and clearing his throat." Ware apologize nari," he said, his voice low.

"Don't be sorry for keeping us alive," Steven said, though he didn't look up from the counter.

"Just... you start school tomorrow. Do your best to lay low. Try not to let anyone see the things that you can do, please." Kurisu bowed his head slightly.

"Kurisu quiet," he confirmed.

"No see."