Chương 48: The Unwilling Hand

A single beat of my heart. Then, a deafening blast of thunder, not unlike an odaiko drum, echoed through my skull. The first had been slightly softer, the swift second, what blew my eardrums. In that darkness, the ring that had been piercing my ears was gone, drowned by the crash of the drum as it came again; my head splitting. Again, my ears burst from the volume. Then another, and another. Each one, that same call and response. Faster, they came. Faster.

Until finally there was no telling where one ended and the next began. Through stuttering hitches, I struggled to take in air, just a single breath. Choking on the taste of copper, I managed a scream. As the black of my vision was replaced with a scarlet hue, the iron manacles crumbled from my wrists, falling to the ground in a tuft of black ash, and my Chi exploded outward. Expanding from my body, a sphere of crimson light churned across the courtyard of our estate as a rolling wall of destruction.

Upon smashing into the invaders, the power cooked them inside their armor before dissolving the metal, iron plates warping and melting directly into blistering skin. Muscle and tissue peeled away into a red mist, leaving only scorched bones and scraps of distorted metal to shatter in the wake of the wave.

The light tore through the estate walls, reducing the wooden beams to ash, and liquefied the ground, fusing soil and rock together before continuing beyond my sight, no doubt reducing everything else it touched to cinders. I sat in the center of a glowing, glass-lined crater, slick with molten slag and arcing with red electricity. Gone, they were gone. Their bodies, there was nothing left. I was unable to even give them a proper burial. What had I done? The townsfolk, our people!

Anyone who may have survived the attack I—Rin! No! I made to stand, to turn and search for her, but my body—it refused my commands. Instead I sat on my knees in that glass crater, and punched at the ground repeatedly, grunting with each strike like some kind of mindless beast. Move. Move! I must move. I must do what I can to help my people. I must make up for what I have done! Rin! Please be well! Rin! Onore, move, you useless sack of meat!

I sat there like that for so long, fighting, begging my body to move, that amidst the broken glass of the crater floor, there was a puddle of blood from my knuckles. In the center of that devastation, my annihilated home—annihilated by my own hands no less—a hole deposited Grahk, his dark metal gleaming and pristine against the floating dust.

"Beautiful," he cooed, looking down at me. Him! He was the reason for everything! Had it not been for him, my parents would still be alive, my people would still be enjoying the late morning. This GEDO! With a snarl, I lunged, but as I went to take another step, my body launched a wild swing at the armor plating, allowing Grahk to simply sway to the side, letting the strike pass through empty air.

Next, my body pivoted with me, yet kicked at his knee from too far away instead of closing the distance first, as I had intended. Grahk stepped alongside the strike, mocking me, "Quite the feral one, Aren't we." Frustrated, I struggled for control. Why, why did my own body refuse my commands? As my body threw my weight into a third erratic strike, black clouds rolled in from the horizon. The violet, lightning-like Ki of my familiar arcing through them while thunder trailed behind as if to announce his arrival.

"Oops, your pet's here. Time to go," Grahk hummed, weaving through my final attack. Body blurring, he vanished from in front of me, before I was gripped by the back of the neck. The sharp metal of his gauntlets dug in under my ears, the feeling of a foul Ki as it coursed from his palm. I lost focus. My mind addled. My vision blackened.

Kurisu shivered, feeling a chill in the room despite the mound of blankets on his bed and the ambient heat of the numerous machines lining the walls, their hums having been forgotten behind the lingering echo of the memory.

"I killed everyone," he sobbed, his body shaking the reinforced hospital bed.

"That bastard claimed he saw some supposed power in me and was nurturing it. He dragged me from the ashes of my home, the ground not even cooled, and kept me in a box no higher than my knees while the seasons bled together. He would keep me in that box until he had a use for me." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Bandaged hand raised while he wore a sheepish expression, Kellevra asked, "Um, sorry to interrupt, and I know it's not as big a deal as the rest of the story, but how did you uh… pee?" With a cough, Kurisu looked over to the boy, a bitter spark of amusement tugging at his lips.

"On myself. I would be released at random to have buckets of cold water thrown at me to rinse my filth off. Afterward, his staff would beat me in order to force me to use the Chiyu-in to stave off infections. Or they would have me fight vicious creatures for sport. Then right back in I would go." Squeezing his eyes shut, he trembled, his skin slick.

"When he took me out of the box to earn my keep, I would relive that day, and many more like it. So many fabrications and reproductions of that day played out before me. In some of them, I killed my mother by strangling her." He strained against the cuffs, his knuckles blanching as the tactile memory washed over him.

"I would relive that day until my mind broke, and the Calamity came out."

"He threw me into the crowds," Kurisu choked, the words spilling out in a rush.

"He wanted me to touch them. I had to feel the life extinguish under my own hands. I had to feel the warmth drain from their skin and the last breath escape their lungs, never to be filled again."

"Why, who, what crowds?" Kenji asked, his voice cutting through the sobbing.

"If you're that strong... why didn't you just stop him? Why didn't you destroy him?" Kurisu let out a long, ragged exhale, staring up at the lights.

"Because I am not stronger than him," he whispered.

"And my body does not listen. I scream, but no sound gets through. My hands move, but not by my will." Wiping the back of his hand across his face, Kurisu looked Kenji in the eyes.

"Crowds of people, large masses. My hands ripped flesh apart, tore limbs from their sockets. I felt the warm blood of countless people on my skin, felt their lives fade under my fingers, and there was nothing I could do but watch. I must have killed thousands, maybe millions at his behest."

"Not to downplay it or anything, but uh, you'd have to destroy entire countries to hit the millions mark," Kenji pointed out.

"I did." Those two words seemed to fill the room as no one spoke.

"After a time, I stopped returning to myself and stayed as the Calamity. I stayed that way for so long. Grahk would point and I would destroy," Kurisu said, his voice almost a whisper.

"Until Ryū and Bahamut found us. They were able to separate Grahk from me and send him away. They managed to break through my madness and fix my will... to bring me back. That is what this collar is for. Bahamut took this form to keep me in control." Hands tracing over the choker, Kurisu looked at Ace, at the traction rig the poor boy was strung up in, and it was thanks to him.

"Ryū saw the judgment coming for me," he continued.

"There was, of course, an execution order. After everything I had done, I would finally be put to justice. Instead, Ryū used a hole, a rift like what deposited the ko-oni, to send me here. Telling me to live, he put himself at great risk to save me from the punishment I deserved."

"Is this gigadouche, Grahk, going to come here?" Kenji asked.

"That is uncertain, but highly unlikely."

"Explain unlikely," Ace demanded.

"If this Grahk guy was already able to use portals, what makes you think he can't portal here? That he hasn't already, just to summon these monsters from your world? I mean all the sudden, a giant spider, that you're obviously terrified of, appears out of nowhere. Is it really that unlikely that he could have tracked you down and started some mind games again?"

"It is. Bahamut is the one who sent him away, and his power is incredibly vast. It would take Grahk years to track me down and finally arrive."

"That fancy necklace of yours couldn't keep you from going murderhobo! Look at what you did to me!"

"I am sorry he could not, but that is different."

"How!?"

"Bahamut is a familiar, my familiar. We are bound to one another. He is unable to act against me directly by bond. So when he did so, it caused him great pain," Kurisu explained.

"At least he can still feel pain," Ace countered, Kurisu looking down in response.

"So what's up with the spider fear?" Kellevra questioned, eyes bouncing between Kurisu's and Ace's beds.

"Seems a bit weird for an all-powerful samurai-bender. You could have just squashed it, then maybe we wouldn't be like this." The image of the tsuchigumo flashed through Kurisu's mind, and he shook his head, scoffing.

"It is a fear I have always possessed; I know not why. But when Grahk learned I feared spiders, I would wake up to all manner of them—small and large, mundane or yokai—thrown into my container, constantly. So that was of no help. I freeze, even when they are small, it becomes difficult for me to breathe. I know I could simply end them, but I cannot bring myself to act." As silence reclaimed the room, Kurisu looked among each of the boys, lying in the wreckage of their own bodies.

Even injured, they still had an odd energy about them he couldn't put his finger on. Yes, they were angry at him, though that was an understatement, and rightly so. The condition they were in, by his hands, was no laughing matter. In spite of that, and the suffocating blanket of resentment in the air, Kenji and Kellevra, at least, still had a feeling of optimism surrounding them. Ace stared at the ceiling tiles with his mouth open as if to speak, but no words came.

"Jesus," Kellevra breathed.

"That's too heavy, man. That's a hell of a lot to carry. Millions?" Kenji looked at Kurisu before he slumped back against his pillows.

"Don't ever do that again."

"I don't know what to say to all that," Ace finally whispered while his eyes remained fixed on the ceiling.

"I want to be pissed and I also don't, but damn it, I'm not sure. I can't fucking move."