Chapter 9 - Bottles and a Bridge

"Let's hope he's sleeping..."

The scared boy thought.

He had just come home from the park after playing with Taru. They had found a ball that was left there, and Taru decided to leave it to him. That made him very happy.

But, as he got closer and closer to what was supposed to be his house or at least the house he lived in, he started getting more and more worried.

"Let's hope he's sleeping..."

The boy repeated one more time before opening the door as slowly as he could.

"THERE YOU ARE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

He was not sleeping.

*****

"There you are, you shit! What the hell took you so long?"

"I was just talking a bit with Taru an-"

"SHUT UP! Always chatting up to that uppity son of a bitch... what the hell did he even say to you? 'Hey, moron, if you can bench this huge weight I'll pay you a round with that slut from the other class...'. There's no other reason for that rich daddy's boy to take interest in someone like you, now is it?"

The man taunted him, still sitting on the couch with his clothes from two days ago and a little skyline of beer bottles all around it. He took a long sip from the current survivor.

"Yes, yes, good, now calm down, you drunk bastard. Drink your beer, stay there on the couch, you don't need to do anything else... just lay down, lay down..."

"SHIT!" The man shouted as he threw the bottle against the wall.

Although the glass object crashed into the wall opposite from him, Raiden couldn't help but flinch and shake a little.

"No, no! Calm down, calm down! Stay there, you piece of shit! Stay there. No, no, don't get up, don't get up, don't get up!"

His internal panic increased more and more as the figure with disheveled hair rose up and, with a movement that one might see performed by a clown at a circus, turned around and looked at him.

Raiden looked down, not wanting to cross those eyes, those black, wrathful, evil eyes.

"HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO FUCK UP EVERY TIME, IN EVERY SINGLE WAY POSSIBLE! DO YOU NOT SEE HOW USELESS YOU ARE?!" The man screamed at the top of his lungs.

Raiden's muscles tensed up all together and his hairs all leaped up, signaling to him an impending danger.

His room was right over there, just across the living room, right there, he could go through that door and be in his room downstairs, with his weights, his bed, his freedom.

But was it really freedom, or just the impression of it? A little break from the constant reality of having to live with that monster?

"He's already pissed, it's useless to wait. Maybe if I hurry up he won't even hit me..."

He moved as fast as he could whilst not trying to make it seem too much like he was trying to run away.

He reached the side of that man, barely surpassed him, and... BAM!

Right in the back of the head. Very little muscle there. Very difficult to reinforce it. A very sharp pain. But one he was, at the very least, slightly used to.

He never hit him back. One time he called him out and insulted him when he was 10. He beat him up even more. He never did anything like that ever again.

"Moron! Moron! Once you're done jerking off, go buy more beers! Werter, Werter, ok, you shit? Not like that time you bought me Erasa! Useless fucking moron, why did I even have you, why do I even keep you..."

Raiden finally reached the door as he could see with the tail of his eye that the man going back to the couch.

He closed the door, walked down the stairs and reached his bed. Mold was starting to grow on the walls all around it. It wasn't a very big room. Not at all. Most of the floor was occupied by his weights.

Raiden sat down on his bed, slowly massaging the back of his head. He laid down. He didn't want to live like this anymore.

"I was 13..." He whispered as if to answer his father's taunt about the wrong brand of beer.

That had been his whole life. His whole life, trapped with an uncaring and drunk father. His mother died giving birth to him.

Once, a local lady said that his father was once a normal man. Not a particularly good one, but nonetheless, a normal person. He couldn't even imagine such a thing.

Pain can truly change people for the best and for the worst.

****

The air was really cool. The stars were all slowly appearing, shining and disappearing as the street lights obscured them or revealed them.

"So... are you not going to talk at all?"

"What is there to talk about?"

"I don't know, maybe why in the hell we are going to a creepy place in the middle of nowhere?"

"I already told you."

"Well, first of all you didn't tell me why it had to be in such a location, and secondly, it's not like you were very clear!"

"Everything will make sense, Haru. I promise."

"If you sound like that, I'm totally not going to trust you..."

"You might want to ready yourself psychologically, the stuff you are going to find out is far from pretty."

"Geez, are you going to tell me that we live in a simulation?"

"You could say that."

"Enough with the cryptic shit!"

"We have arrived."

"I can see that... now, should we wait for Raiden?"

"I'm already here, you dunce!"

"Who said that? Who the hell said that?"

"Raise your eyes, wimp!"

Haruki and Akira looked up and saw Raiden with his feet attached to two bars, doing a ridiculous amount of sit-ups.

"What in the hell?! Are you nuts? No need to answer me, I already know the answer!"

"Nuts, hahaha. The only thing nuts about me is how RIPPED I am!"

Raiden shouted as he dropped down with great power, breaking part of the floor.

"Stop making such a ruckus, moron!" Akira quietly reprimanded him.

"Ok, ok, whatever. So where are you friends from the other side? Do they only manifest under bridges?"

"Come closer, I'll call them. You too, Haru."

"O-ok..." Haruki said weakly, now starting to get really concerned for his friend's health. Little worry-waves were oscillating and dancing around all over his body.

Akira touched the ground, knocked on it three times and then said:

"The butterfly is born anew."

There was a momentary silence.

"Hahaha! What the hell does that mean? Are you trying to be a medium? Look man, I heard a lot of absurd things, but this has to be th-"

Akira suddenly fell down, or more like his body was absorbed by the floor. It was as if the ground he was standing on had turned to liquid and he had disappeared.

Haruki's aura changed for a split second to a shining light, one of pure surprise.

However, after a second to even grasp what had happened, both him and Raiden cried out.

"Ahhh! What the hell, man! Your friend is a warlock, no, he's the devil! He's trying to sacrifice us! Let's get out of here!"

"N-no wait, we have to find out where he went! Maybe he was kidnapped."

"By who?!"

"I DON'T KNOW, GHOSTS MAYBE?!"

"EVEN BETTER OF A REASON TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE ARE ALS-"

Raiden suddenly met the same fate as Akira.

"W-what the hell is happ-" Haruki tried to say in complete bewilderment, but he was also pulled down.

He screamed for his life. He felt like he was going through some kind of thick fluid. He didn't want to die. He shouted even more in hopes that that would remind him that he was still alive, or at least give him that illusion.

Half a second later, he found himself in an abandoned sewer system. Akira was next to him and so was Raiden, alongside a misterious man with a vibrant black mustache and what looked like clothes from 200 years ago.

"Did you tell them not to make so much noise?"

"They started before I could do anything."

"And these are supposed to be our new recruits... well, follow me."

The man started walking and Akira followed him. Raiden and Haruki reluctantly tagged along too. It was pretty dark, but there were lights throughout the tunnel, certainly put there by someone.

"Aki, what the hell is happening? What is this?"

"Just a few more seconds and we'll explain it."

"We?"

"Yo, Akira. Is this the friend you kept telling me about?"

"Yes, Kokan-san."

Akira replied as someone else moved towards them. Another man, likely in his 30s, white short messy hair, yellow glowing eyes, a white bomber jacket, orange inside, and a light blue shirt with a huge orange "III" on it.

"I see. And this other guy is..."

"Another one of my schoolmates. I'm fairly sure we can trust him."

"I don't really like it when we are only 'fairly sure' about something, Akira. Way too many people are fairly sure of way too many things. I thought you would have learned that by now."

"No, no, I can assure you, Mr. Kokan, whatever your cause is, I will surely embrace it, and this wimp will too, isn't that right, Shika?"

"Y-yes, of course I will."

"... well, I like your spirit, big guy. Very well, let's sit down over there. Muko, I'll take it from here, you can rest."

"Thank you, sir."

And with that, the guy with the impressive mustache disappeared once more.

"That ability sure is freaky..." Haruki commented.

"I guess, but it's also extremely useful. Well, have you all found a chair?"

"Yep."

"Very well then. We can start. I'm Kakeru Kokan, and I'm part of the revolutionary organisation Chonohane, whose objective is to free this country from tyranny and slavery."