- Created By Sanku12
Blood Wars Book 1 Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Sairi Kaneda
What the hell was Lu Xun THINKING!!?’ That’s what was going through my head while running the streets of Tokyo. Zhou Yu had me by my wrist, and frankly, it was HARD keeping up with him. He was probably almost as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog. I could tell because at maybe five or six different times, I almost fell face flat on the concrete.
You know, I never noticed until then. “Notice what,” you ask?
Okay, listen, you know Tokyo is the capital of Japan, right? Well, during my stay in Tokyo, BEFORE all of this started, the streets had cars going in every and all directions and you could barely walk without bumping into someone. After the gators came along, Tokyo was a ghost town. Not a single soul in sight…besides Zhou Yu.
Well, we were MILES away from Ayaka Ally, and Xun…
I started to wonder what had happened to him, if the gators had made mince meat out of him, or if he was able to escape.
“Oh, Xun…” I whispered to myself.
I stopped and snatched my hand back from Zhou Yu. He stopped and faced me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I starred into his eyes. “We HAVE to go back. We HAVE to help Xun.”
“What!?”
“You heard me! Xun needs our help, he can’t fight those gators alone!”
“WE can’t fight them, either. Do you want to die, or-“
He stopped; either that or he lost his train of thought.
He sighed. “I can’t help.”
“Why not?”
“I…I wasn’t there during the trials and…I know nothing except for what Xun told us.”
I was confused, but after a while, I figured it out. “You’re from AI too!?”
He sighed and nodded. Apparently he wasn’t too proud of it, ‘cause after I asked that, his eyes showed a terrible pain.
“I WAS from AI, but…” He sighed again, “After Jannete told us the results of her research, I wanted no part of it. So, I…showed myself out.”
“Got the boot, huh?”
“……Yes.”
Jackpot! Ding ding!
See, I had heard from my mom, after she presented her report, that someone had gotten fired for supporting her. Now, here’s the good part. My mom got fired the next day, THAT means, if my hunch is correct, THIS bum here was fired MINUTES after she finished her presentation.
I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You…got…fired…minutes…after…you…heard…my…mom’s...
report!!” I said between bursts of laughter.
“So?”
I calmed a bit. “You are REALLY bad at your job, aren’t you?”
He blushed.
I must’ve hit a BIG nerve, ‘cause when he blushed, he went volcano lava red. Seriously, his whole face went that way.
“It…it was for a good cause!” he argued.
I had a comeback for that too, “A cause that seemed to have given you the pink slip.”
His face got even redder, probably redder than MY face after I ate an ENTIRE jar of red hot chili peppers.
…Don’t ask about that. It was a dare. A very STUPID dare at that.
“Can we PLEASE change the subject?” Yu asked with his hand on his forehead.
“Oh, alright.” I said kind of bummed out.
I was having so much fun picking on him about him losing his job, which it made me forget how worried I was about Xun.
“Thank you. Now-“ He didn’t get the chance to finish, why? I’ll give you two guesses, first one don’t count.
If you guessed “gators”, step on up, ‘cause YOU, my friend, are correct!
We heard their growling coming our way, so, we decided to give OURSELVES the boot and get the fuck outta there. Unfortunately…we didn’t get very far, at least, not until I fell into an open manhole, which means I fell into Tokyo’s main sewer line, and, DAMN it’s gross. I’ve seen military toilets cleaner than that sewer.
Seriously, there was mold EVERYWHERE! And, not to mention, the amount of GARBAGE!! Oh…I get sick just thinking about it.
“Sairi! Sairi, are you alright?!” Yu asked from above.
“What do YOU think?! I’ve fallen into a godforsaken sewer!”
“Not too well, I’m guessing.”
“Watch it, smartass!”
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It took Zhou Yu four minutes for him to join me. FOUR MINUTES!!! It took him four frikin’ minutes just to get his ass DOWN the ladder to join me. I’m surprised the gators weren’t cowing down on Zhou Yu a-la-mode. I guess they gave up.
Actually, now that I look back on it, I’m not surprised he took so long. The ladder was covered with sewer water, which meant it was slippery. One wrong move and he would have either fallen into the water, which would NOT have been pleasant, or cracked his head on the sewer’s iron surroundings.
Well, we moved out…to where, I had no idea, but walking through it was NOT fun. …Why? You’re asking me WHY? Could you even possibly BEGIN to guess how MANT dung piles I stepped on? More times than Guilmon can eat.
“By now, we should be below Warehouse Fifty-one near the Tokyo Bay docks.” Zhou Yu reported after a good six hours of silence.
Now, how he could know where we were in the city from the sewers is BEYOND me. I didn’t even think we were in Tokyo at that point. I figured we had found an underwater shortcut to Hokkaido.
Getting to another island by a sewer line…interesting, no?
Well, above us was another manhole, the twentieth one we came across. Who knew Tokyo had over ten ways to get into a nasty, goddamned sewer.
I checked my watch. It read two-fifty a.m.
I yawned. I was pretty tired, especially after running for dear life for God knows HOW many hours, but I did NOT want to fall asleep in a sewer.
Why? Again with the stupid timing of the word “Why”.
Well, let me explain…so hopefully there will be no more stupid questions about this.
The two of us were in a SEWER!!! In the six hours of being there, we saw over thirty rats! There are people who snore, and those who sleep with their mouth open…I am one of the mouth-open-while-sleeping people. Now, think. Would I like seeing a rat’s ass sticking out of my mouth? No? Good. I’m glad you understand.
Well, getting back to us, the ladder at this manhole looked a little slippery as well, and Zhou Yu went first.
I groaned a little. ‘I hope he doesn’t take as long getting up there as he did getting down here,’ I thought with annoyance, ‘Maybe I should’ve gone first.’
I sighed. “Don’t take too long, okay. The less I have to stare at your ass the better.” I called.
“You don’t HAVE to look you know,” he replied, “You COULD be a look-out for those gators, you know, just in case any of them followed us down here.”
“Where the HELL do you think we are, New York?”
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This time, it only took a few moments before we were standing in front of Warehouse Fifty-one, the last wooden warehouse left in Tokyo.
You see, after World War Two ended, Japan had lost over a thousand warehouses, filled with valuable supplies. It was then that Japan decided to tear down all, except for Fifty-one, wooden warehouses and replace them with metal ones. No one knows why they left Warehouse Fifty-one standing…I guess it was too much money to get rid of ALL of them.
We were there, but we just stood there. We were frozen. Stiff. Couldn’t and wouldn’t move.
As we starred at the ancient building, we saw, at least, twenty gators outside the warehouse door.
TWENTY GATORS!!! Ten plus ten gators! Nijyuu gators!
‘Just how many people did AI experiment on, the whole city?’
I shuddered at the thought and pushed it away. Now was NOT the time to think about that, we needed to find a way INTO that warehouse, hopefully finding the weapons we might need.
“We need to find a different way in; the front door seems to be out of the question.” Yu whispered to me.
I nodded and tried to slide past him, not even thinking to pick my feet up. Zhou Yu kept a keen eye on the gators.
Suddenly, he pushed me! “Run,” he whispered, “They spotted you, run.”
So I ran. I didn’t really CARE where, I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
I ended up running all the way to Warehouse Forty-one. I looked around for a way out of my situation. Ahead was a wall, about five feet high, and behind it, a window.
‘It’s a good thing I hit five foot seven.’ I thought with pride.
I ran towards the wall and climbed it. Standing on the top, I starred at the window. Then I jumped through.
By now, I’ll bet you’re thinking, “You are one CRAZY bitch, you know that?”
Well, after I went through the glass, I fell to the ground, though I didn’t really land on my feet.
I ended falling back and hitting my head on the corner of what felt like a metal crate, or, was it a wooden crate? Either way, I ended up blacking out.
But…you know, I learned something that day. These gators’ hearing is SUPER enhanced, right? They can’t seem to hear whispering, right? So, why can they hear the smallest of shuffling? I’m thinking, selective hearing. They hear what they want to hear…it’s just weird that they don’t want to hear small voices. Get my drift?
Blood Wars Book 1 Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Lu Xun
Step by silent step we moved across the body-littered floor. Sairi had nearly fainted when we entered, but so far, she had done a wonderful job keeping her composure. Although, I knew she was terrified just looking at the room, she probably thought I was an idiot to even attempt to move towards the door. But yet, here we are.
I felt sweat falling down my terrified face. Yes, even ancient warrior-kin can get scared. I hope this doesn’t surprise you.
“Xun, I’m scared.” Sairi whispered.
“I know, I am too,” I replied, “But, there is nothing I can do about it.”
Suddenly, I felt myself fall forward, crashing face first onto the blood-stained floor. Sairi fell on top of me.
I was able to keep myself from grunting from the impact, but the noise I made when I hit the floor…yeah, couldn’t control that. The bang filled the room, and alerted the gators.
‘SCREW being silent now, we have to get out of here!’ I thought frantically.
“Come on, run!” I yelled to Sairi.
She got off of me and stood. “But, what about being silent?”
I jumped onto my feet, grabbed her hand, and ran for the door. “Dammit, forget that, just run!”
We got closer, and closer to the door, but a gator appeared in front of us. I froze. Sairi clamped her arms around mine.
I was gasping for air. This was it, we were done for.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash behind us, FAR behind us. The gators moved away from us and towards the restroom. Now was our chance, but…I couldn’t move. My body wouldn’t obey my commands.
“Let’s go.” A man’s calm voice whispered.
I turned to my right. Next to me was a man, early twenties, long, brown hair back into a ponytail, crimson armor and cape. I recognized him: Zhou Yu!
I nodded and all three of us, with Sairi still clamped onto me, ran through a no-door doorway to who the HELL knows WHERE, but as long as it was away from THOSE things, anywhere was fine with me.
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We ran for hours on end, but, it seemed that no matter WHERE we went, there were gators. As a last choice, Sairi suggested we go to the top floor of Tokyo Tower and wait for the gators to die off.
We were running through Ayaka Ally when I stopped. Sairi and Zhou Yu stopped as well. They turned to me.
“Xun, what’s wrong? We’re almost there.” she said walking up to me.
“Your plan is flawed.” I told her.
She raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
I starred into her eyes. They looked as if she had just been insulted.
I sighed. “The gators, even when starving, can live their full time here on Earth, which is ninety-“
“Days?” Sairi interrupted.
“Months?” Zhou Yu put in.
“YEARS.” I finished.
Sairi groaned. “Well, that’s just PERFECT! PLEASE tell me this isn’t going to be like that Tremors movie!”
I chuckled nervously. “Well…”
“’Well?’”
“How does the fact that these gators have an asexual reproductive system sound to you?”
Sairi groaned even louder. “Well, that’s just WONDERFUL!! So, that means no matter HOW long we wait, those thing are going to call Tokyo their BREEDING GROUNDS?!”
“Basically.”
Sairi got VERY irritated. “How the FUCKIN’ HELL can you even THINK of being calm AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!!”
I covered my ears while she said that, just to turn down the volume. If I hadn’t, I probably would’ve become opposite the gators and gone deaf.
Zhou Yu covered her mouth with his right hand.
“You are too easily angered, and because of that, you are too susceptible to screaming,” He turned his attention to me, “Xun, that sort of information would have been better off being told to us BEFORE we started running for Tokyo Tower.”
I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. “I know. I’m sorry, it-it just sort of slipped my mind.”
While Zhou Yu dealt with Sairi, I turned to look behind us. With Sairi going from raised voice to SOS level, I had SOME feeling that the gators would have heard her and have been on top of us by now. Well…I was right. I heard growling, about three or four, one after the other.
“Guys, we’d better leave.” I stated.
“Are they coming?” Yu asked.
“Yep, about three or four of ‘em,” I reported, “Go on. Get Sairi out of here, out of Tokyo.”
“And, what about you?” Sairi asked.
“…I’ll hold them off as best as I can.”
“Xun, that’s foolish! You know better than either of us what these things can do!” Yu shouted.
“No, I don’t. Neither I, nor anyone in Akifumi know the extent of these creature’s abilities. It’s just like Jannete said. ‘It’s too risky’, she told us, but no one listened.”
“Wait, YOU’RE from AI?!”
I knew that was Sairi’s voice asking that.
Tears fell from my eyes, but I didn’t face her. I didn’t want her to see me like that.
“We’ll…talk about this later…if we survive.”
“You BETTER not die on us.” she said, and I swore I could hear concern in her voice.
I smiled. “I can’t guarantee that.”
Once I heard their footsteps leave the area, I drew my sword.
“All of this happened because we created you,” Yes, I was talking to the gators, “And now, in order to redeem myself, and for Jannete’s warning to be heard by all the bastards in Akifumi, I WILL have to kill you.”
I raised my sword and rushed the gators. I was about to slash one of them, but…I got knocked into the wall. One of them had hit me with their tail.
My head hurt with a terrible pain, but then again, so did my heart. I placed my hand on my chest. The pain was too much. It felt like I had betrayed Sairi, and Jannete.
I moved my hand from my chest to the back of my head. I looked at my palm after I felt a warm, wet substance. It was blood.
I chuckled a bit. I half expected the gators to start chomping down on my flesh. I couldn’t believe that I would actually be dead soon.
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Seven years ago, I was taken away from my home in Wu by a staff member of Akifumi. I was brought to one of their facilities in Tokyo, Japan. There I was forced to work as a slave, cleaning up after everyone, bringing them their food, stuff like that. I felt more like a butler than a slave, to tell you the truth.
I know that child slavery is against the law, but this was a government corporation. In other words, the prime minister of Tokyo was allowing this to happen. It was during this time that I met them.
A woman in her early thirties with long, blue hair put up in a ponytail in a white lab coat walked up to me one day. She said hello, I shyly replied.
I noticed a little girl with her. A nine year-old with very short blue hair in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. The shirt had a Bulbasaur, a Charmander, a Squirtle, and a Pikachu in a circle just dancing around on a beach background. Her shoes were black with flames on them. She hid behind the woman.
“Come on Sai-chan, say hello,” the woman told the girl.
The little girl just waved from behind the woman. I chuckled a little.
“Shy, isn’t she?” I asked the woman.
She smiled. This woman had the most beautiful smile I had EVER seen.
“This is her first time here. She had been begging me to let me take her to Akifumi, just to ‘see what it’s like’.”
“Oh. I understand. I remember my first time here. It was only about five months ago, after I turned ten. They had to bribe me with chocolate cake first time on the job.”
She started laughing. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yup! And THAT only to get me to clean every bathroom in the entire facility.”
“All of them?! But, there are thirty in the entire building!”
“Yeah, I know. But, I didn’t realize that until I sat down to eat the cake.”
We both started laughing. It took a couple of minutes to actually calm down.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting. My name is Jannete Kaneda. I came all the way from Phoenix, Arizona in the US.”
I was amazed. “Well, for an American, you seem to know Japanese AND Chinese quite well.”
“But, aren’t you speaking in Japanese as well?”
“Oh! Right, I am. Kinda forgot,” I changed the subject,” I’m Lu Xun from Wu territory.”
“Isn’t that where some of the ancient warrior-kin live?” came a tiny voice.
The little girl shyly came out of hiding. She was pretty cute.
I nodded at her question. “Yeah, but only if you’re a member of the Kingdom of Wu.”
“The Kingdom of Wu?”
I nodded again. “If you’re from any other kingdom, and you wander in without consent, you’re considered a trespasser.”
“Oh...,” She looked at her mother, “What’s ‘trespassing’?”
“It’s when you enter someone’s home without an invitation or permission.” Jannete answered.
“OH!!” Sairi shouted happily.
“Hey, you brat! Get back to work!” That was my evil taskmaster.
“Yes sir!” I yelled back, “We’ll talk some more later, Miss Sairi.” I added to the little girl.
She looked a little sad when she left, but obediently followed her mother anyway.
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Looking back on that moment, I knew fate had brought Sairi and me together for a specific reason. After I turned fifteen, she disappeared from my life. And now, two years later, we were brought together again. However, I wish we had been reunited under…different circumstances.
“Sairi…I’m…sorry…” I managed to say before I blacked out.
End
