27 CHAPTER 27: GUARDIANS

Chapter 27: Guardians

Minaro moves Rinka off the mattress and lays down, he closes his eyes.

"My whole body hurts. I need to relax a little before I start looking for them… But can I even survive until I find them? Something in my body is definitely broken, and I'm bleeding thanks to all these cuts. My arms are sore too… I'm so fucking tired."

Minaro accidentally falls asleep.

…

"Minaro, wake up… Minaro! Hey, wake up!"

Minaro slowly opens his eyes to find Maya in front of him.

Minaro: Maya?

Maya: Woo! You're awake!

Minaro quickly rises up and looks around, he's in a nice bright brown room on a small white bed, Doa is on a different bed using her phone.

"My body doesn't hurt anymore, all my injuries are gone?"

Minaro: What the fuck? Where are we? Am I dreaming or something?

Maya: No… This is real.

Maya sits down on an empty bed next to Doa.

Maya: Let me tell you what happened-

Yesterday we were in the forest and hours passed by, and you still hadn't met us at the Amormi tree.

We waited there until it was nighttime, Doa and I were debating on whether to go look for you, and so we did. And as we were running around we stumbled into 3 guardians and they took us here, this is their base...You got here a few hours later, turns out 2 other guardians hadn't come back from the forest so they sent more guardians to find them and they found you by chance.

Minaro: …. Nice.

Maya: That's all we know, they told us they would tell us more later.

The door to the room they are in suddenly opens, a guardian known as Osora walks in.

He has light orange hair and green eyes, a yellow bandana with a dragon drawing on it is wrapped around his neck. He's wearing a dark green long sleeve shirt with shoulder pads that resemble a green dragon's scales and blue pants with a sheriff's belt around his waist.

Osara: Oh, you're all awake.

Everyone stares at him without saying a word.

Osara: … I'm here to tell you what's happening to you.

Maya: What's happening… To us?

Osara: Yes, We were actually going to kill you, but guardian Liz requested we keep you alive, as she wanted to check if you were innocent or not… That she wanted to grant Sumairu's last words.

Doa: His last words?

Osara: Yeah, Sumairu was killed, did you not know?

Maya: No, uh… What?

Maya tears up.

Minaro's expression stays the same. Doa stares at the wall lost in her thoughts, a tear runs down her face.

A few seconds go by, Osora stares awkwardly.

Osara: Anyways… Are you guys hungry?

Minaro stands up.

Minaro: I am.

Doa: I'm good.

Maya: ... Not hungry right now, thanks though.

Minaro and Osora walk out of the room and down a hallway.

Minaro: … Hey.

Osora glances at him.

Minaro: Did you bring a boy with a blue sweater and black hair to this place as well?

Osora: Is his name Rinka?

Minaro: Yeah.

Osora: Yes, we did. We're keeping him in a room. He's currently unconscious thanks to a substance Guardian Liz gave him.

Minaro and Osora walk into the living room.

Osora: Alright, you wait here. I'm gonna go get you cereal.

Minaro sits down on a sofa.

"... Cereal? Man, I'm craving bacon."

Osora walks into a different room, and as he opens the door, Guardian Shima comes out.

Shima spots Minaro and sits next to him on the sofa.

Shima: Hey, you're that guy from the Cazuya incident.

Minaro doesn't say anything.

Shima: Minaro... Right?

He glances at her then glances somewhere else when he hears something.

A door opens and Guardian Raskan comes out of a room.

Raskan: What the fuck?

Raskan speedwalks towards Minaro and points at him.

Raskan: You! I should kill you right now!

Shima: Don't do that, I'm trying to talk to him.

Raskan: This guy is an enemy, you shouldn't talk to him!

Osora comes out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal and hands it to Minaro.

Osora: Here.

Minaro: Thanks.

Osora: Eat it quickly, all the guardians are going to arrive soon.

"All?"

Shima: Aren't they on missions?

Osora: Yeah, they just finished and we're having a meeting.

Raskan: I assume it's about this guy and his friends.

Osora: Yeah, Liz wants to tell us stuff about them.

…

About 15 minutes have gone by, Raskan and Osora are talking to each other, Shima is still talking to Minaro when Shima recognizes some voices that can be heard getting closer.

Shima: … They're here.

Shima stands up, waves goodbye at Minaro, and walks off.

Osora: … They've arrived.

Osora glances at Minaro.

Osora: C'mon, and get your friends too.

…

Minaro, Maya, and Doa are all sitting on a sofa next to each other in a big room next to a big circular table with several chairs around it.

On every chair there is a guardian, these are the guardians present.

Liz, Defei, Mausho, Osora, Shima, Raskan…

Guardian Zeph, who has brown hair and black eyes with grey circles within them. He's wearing a black long shirt with a grey long sleeve under it and black pants.

Guardian Iza, who has dark purple hair in a ponytail and yellow eyes, she's wearing a white cap, a white sports bra, and black spats.

Guardian Zizin, who has curly and spiky white hair and blue eyes, he's wearing a cyan onesie.

Guardian Xika, who has blue hair and light green eyes, some of his hair is hidden by his grey hoodie. He also has grey pants on.

Guardian Kofron, who has big yellow spiky hair with some purple in it and purple eyes with some yellow in them. He has earrings and a piercing on his nose and tongue. He's wearing a black leather jacket with a purple shirt underneath it and black jeans. He also has fingerless gloves on and 4 rings with random symbols, 2 rings for each hand.

Guardian Sosa, who has light purple hair that has some black in it and light red eyes. He has a white short sleeve shirt on and blue jeans.

Everyone is staring at Liz waiting for her to say something.

Liz: … So I've brought you all here to tell you about the whole situation we have.

Liz points at Minaro, Doa, and Maya

Liz: You're all wanted for the murders in Cazuya.

Liz: Before this whole forest thing happened Sumairu requested we check and make sure you were innocent but we ignored him. Then he died and I felt like it would be disrespectful to not fulfill his last request.

Liz: So I went ahead and did some searching and it turns out you are innocent, people in Cazuya actually managed to capture videos of the murders, turns out they were committed by other people.

Liz: But as for your friend Rinka, he isn't really that innocent. 84 confirmed deaths in the last few days. He has to be held accountable… But-

Liz looks around.

Liz: … Do any of you know what the void is?

Everyone is silent for a few seconds, then someone talks.

Mausho: … A big empty space, right?

Liz: That's a void… I mean THE void.

Everyone is silent.

Liz: I guess you don't know.

Minaro: Uh, I think I might know... Is it where the dead go?

Liz: Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of. Your friend Rinka has a Skill known as the void, correct?

Minaro: Yes.

Liz: The void is a big, black, infinite dimension where the souls of the dead go. The souls there can even talk to each other.

Liz drinks out of a water bottle.

Liz: The ability to use and manipulate the void. It's quite a rare Skill and for a long time, it was rumored to be extremely dangerous...Your friend has been going on an insane killing spree, right?

Minaro: Yes.

Liz: Well, a couple of years ago a young man who also had the void as a skill went on a crime spree and was arrested. But during his trial he claimed that he was "not even in his own body, he was possessed", they thought he was on drugs.

He comes out of jail 9 years later, only for us to find out he was telling the truth the whole time. The reason the void skill was classified as dangerous for some time was because it turns out that in the void, people who have the void skill when they were alive will keep it when they are dead and will be able to possess the body of someone with the skill who is still alive if they figure out how.

However, it turns out that most void users don't know how to do that so the skill was then put back as a normal extremely rare skill instead of dangerous.

Liz: I had an old friend who was a void user, it's why I know so much. I studied the void skill a lot at some point.

Liz: Anyways, there was an infamous person with the void skill that was executed a few years ago, he was a mass murderer known as Nunda and I'm pretty sure your friend has been possessed by him.

Minaro: … I remember back in the forest, I was fighting who I thought was Rinka but then the real Rinka started talking and he told me that he was being possessed by someone. So what I think you're saying is right.

Liz: Well, that solidifies my words.

Defei: … So, what do we do with these three? They're innocent so we just let them go, right? And We just keep Rinka.

Liz: I mean they're not entirely excused, they still caused a lot of damage in Cazuya, lasers from Minaro's skill were shot on one of the biggest buildings in the town and it was destroyed.

Liz: … And since Rinka is unconscious, he can't be held accountable for the recent deaths, so you three will have to be held accountable for him. You three must do stuff to pay back for the Cazuya damage and your friend's murders.

Sosa: … We could literally make them pay for the damage done in Cazuya, and pay for the funeral expenses of those who passed.

Kofron: That's a good idea! Bet the loved ones of the dead would appreciate that.

Liz: I doubt they have enough money for any of that. And even If they did, I want them to do more than just pay.

Minaro smiles internally.

"... I actually do have the money, I could just summon it. But they wouldn't like that, I'm just taking money from random banks."

Shima: … We could make them work with us, Raskan got beaten by Minaro and I was beaten by those two girls. So they seem semi-strong. They could go on missions with us as extra reinforcements.

Osora: How about they work for us instead of working with us? Like they can be servants and stuff. We need people who can cook and clean stuff while we're busy.

Iza: I like that one, I need people to help me clean my clothes after a workout.

Defei: I think they should work for the community or something, instead of working for us or with us. They should go pick up trash in the city, or help an old lady cross the street, something like that.

Mausho: I like the whole "go on missions with us" that Shima mentioned. We can test how strong they are. By fighting them or something. Then they can go on different missions according to their strength!

Liz: … Why don't we just do all of that?.. We test their strength, then take them on missions with us, which is helping the community and when we don't need them we make them clean.

Mausho: I'm down.

Defei: Sounds good.

Sosa: Yeah. Let's do that.

Every other guardian nods their head.

Liz: Well then It's decided… The first thing we have to do is test their strength.

Mausho: Oh, we're doing that right now?

Liz: Yeah, we have the chance to do it now, so we might as well… Hope you're all ready to fight.

Everyone in the room stands up and leaves.

…

Behind the guardian's base is a flat space of land surrounded by trees.

The guardians are all standing by to witness the first battle test.

Mausho and Minaro are standing a few feet away from each other as the others stare from a couple of feet away.

Maya: You've got this, Minaro!

Minaro looks at Doa and Maya.

Doa shows Minaro a thumbs up.

Mausho: You ready?

Minaro looks at him and doesn't respond.

Maya taps Liz's shoulder.

Maya: Hey, will Minaro be seriously injured in this battle?

Liz: Depends on what Mausho is feeling, but don't worry. If Minaro is hurt I'll just heal him.

Defei: … Liz can heal almost any injury as long as she isn't tired.

Kofron is holding a megaphone and is yelling into it.

"On one side, we have the elemental guardian, Mausho who loves to fight and harnesses 3 elements as his skills-

And on the other side, we have some dude with long hair, Minaro!"

"Who will win this battle? Place your bets, everyone, grab your snacks!"

"Anyways, without further ado, LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!"

TO BE CONTINUED…