Night Blade: Dawn of Discovery
***
"Where am I?" Chisai asks as she walks onto a sidewalk of a bustling city. As she walks forward, the light behind her quickly fades away. One thing that she notices is that she is no longer carrying her glaive in her hand. As she looks down at her hand that was carrying her weapon, she starts to panic, thinking that she had lost it.
"Chisai!" a familiar voice calls out.
She looks in the direction of the voice, only to find Niko waving his arm in the air to get her attention. He is standing in front of a table at an outdoor noodle shop.
Worried that she was still in her demon form in front of a large amount of customers, and possibly some of her friends, she runs up to Niko, hoping that not many people saw her. "Niko! When did you get here, and where are we?" She says as she quickly approaches the table.
Niko pulls out a chair and offers it to her. "I got here about an hour ago. I thought you were right behind me, so I started waiting. After about 45 minutes, I ordered some noodles for us to enjoy, hoping you would arrive soon."
She leaned in to Niko and asked the question on her mind. "Niko, am I still in my demon form?"
Niko looks at Chisai like she just told the punch line of a joke. "What? Of course not!" he says as he lifts a hand to grab some of her hair and shows it to her.
Relieved, Chisai turns around and sits in the chair offered to her. Niko quickly moves to the other side and sits in a chair of his own.
"Really? You've been here for almost an hour?" Chisai asks as she smells the aroma of warm flavorful noodles. The sight of a cold blue drink sits near her bowl.
"Yeah." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. "Look," he says as he holds it up for Chisai to see.
The digital display on the cell phone says 12:44PM. Chisai couldn't believe that an hour had passed from when she walked through the light in the first place. "Well, I guess it's time for lunch then!" She says with a smile as she holds up her chopsticks.
"Agreed!" Niko holds his chopsticks up and breaks them apart, ready to eat.
Chisai pulls up a few noodles from her steaming hot bowl and slurps them up. "Mm-mmm!" After a few seconds, she says, "These are delicious!"
Niko picks up a few noodles and starts slurping them up as well.
"So if it took me nearly an hour to get here, shouldn't Kitsune be here in roughly an hour?" Chisai asks as she picks up another few noodles.
Niko stops mid-slurp. "Mmph?" Noodles are hanging from his mouth.
"You know, the guy that we just met, before coming here. He kept saying that he was in a 'prison'. He had the large gold bird!"
Niko finishes slurping his noodles, then nods his head. "Right, him." He wipes his mouth. "Haven't seen him yet."
"Well, he should be here soon. Hopefully there are plenty of noodles left for him!" Chisai says as she picks up some more noodles.
A chiming ding echoes through the house. Only a few centimeters from his mouth, Niko is denied his first bite, yet again, as he lowers his onigiri to look at the front door. He then looks at Chisai, trying to figure out which one of them will answer it. Being the chivalrous man, he places his onigiri back on the cookie sheet and stands up to walk to the door.
Upon his approach, the door opens. "Naki! Hey!"
Nakafumi, standing on the other side of the door, is surprised to see her old friend from cram school, and more importantly, her crush. "Niko? What are you doing here?"
Trying not to explain that he had just come from demonic training, he answers with the only reasonable explanation he can come up with on the spot. "It's a long story."
"It's okay – we should get together and catch up." She tries her hardest not to reveal her feelings towards him.
Relieved that she doesn't ask for his real reason, he agrees with her. "Yeah. There's a great noodle shop in downtown. We should get a meal there soon."
"Sounds like a plan. Text me with a time." Changing the subject to reflect her real reason for appearing at Chisai's house, Nakafumi continues talking. "Anyway, I'm actually here to see how Chisai is doing. The whole class got really worried when you carried her out of the classroom in a hurry."
"Oh, yeah. She's doing great." Basing his next statement on the context of the conversation, he tries to cover for Chisai. He leans in to Nakafumi and says softly, "I'd rather not explain the details right now." Meanwhile, he thinks If I told her the truth, she'd never believe me.
Understandable of the finer details, Nakafumi nods. "Oh, okay. I understand."
Chisai walks around Niko to see who is at the door.
At the sight of her best friend, Nakafumi raises her voice in excitement. "Chisai!"
Chisai looks at Nakafumi. "Oh, hey, you!"
"I wanted to check up on you, but good ol' Niko here says you're doing just fine!" Nakafumi says as she lightly punches Niko in the arm.
"Oh, yeah. I'm doing great." Chisai responds.
"Since you're doing so well, are you still up for seeing 'Sword Titan 4' later today? I got tickets!" Nakafumi says as she holds up two translucent pieces of paper with reflective details on them.
"You guys are seeing 'Sword Titan 4'? I love that movie!" Niko blurts out as he opens his over shirt for better visibility of his block "Sword Titan" letters on his gray shirt.
At the sight of his shirt, Nakafumi gets caught up in the excitement of the moment, and knowing that her crush had another commonality to her. "Cool! I can see if we can get you a ticket, too! It'll be just like old times!"
"Awesome!" Niko responds back.
Feeling generous, Niko asks Nakafumi "Hey, why don't you come on in? Chisai made some onigiri that I have yet to try."
"NO!" Chisai immediately says. Nakafumi jumps at her response. Realizing that her outburst was unexpected, and not well planned, she tries to think of a reason. "You know how my parents are; only one guest at a time!" She says followed by a light laugh.
Nakafumi sighs. "Yeah, that sounds like your parents alright." She turns around to walk down the walkway. "Well, I'll see you guys at the theater. Say, 4 o'clock?"
Niko raises a hand to wave goodbye to her. "Sounds good. See you then."
Niko starts to walk away from the door, unaware that Nakafumi wanted him to stay. However, with Chisai in the doorway, she feels like she must ask her a question. "Chisai, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Slightly confused at the sudden request, Chisai faces Nakafumi. "What is it?"
Nakafumi wraps an arm around Chisai's neck and walks onto the porch. Getting closer to her so Niko can't hear what she is saying, she whispers to Chisai. "What is he doing here? You know that I've had a crush on him for years!"
Chisai is unsure about how to answer her question. "What? You've never told me that." She says with no emotional attachment.
"I know I've told you that, like, a thousand times!"
"I don't recall you ever telling me that." Chisai says in a monotone voice.
"Look, just don't do anything that might embarrass yourself, or more importantly, me. I still want to see if I can ask him out on a date soon. 'kay?"
Trying to process this new information made Chisai uneasy. "Okay, sure."
Happy with her situation, Nakafumi runs to the oak tree to get her bike. She waves a hand in the air towards Chisai. "Okay, bye! See you guys at the theater at 4!" She picks up her bike resting on the oak tree, hops on, and rides down the street.
Chisai walks back through the front door, which automatically slides closed behind her.
Walking back to the couch, Niko feels compelled to clarify something that had been on his mind, following the recent events. "I didn't know you were a 'Sword Titan' fan, Chisai."
As Chisai sits back on the couch, she reaches over to pick up the onigiri that Niko had placed back on the table. "Yeah, I've been a fan as long as I can remember!"
Picking up the onigiri from her hands, Niko suspiciously responds. "It's only been out for two years."
"Really? Wow, time sure does fly when you have fun wi
th 'Sword Titan.'"
As his suspicion rises, Niko raises the onigiri to his mouth again while keeping a close eye on Chisai.
"Sis, have you see Leo the Leopard?" Buyo calls from the staircase.
"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STAY IN YOUR ROOM!" Chisai yells up the staircase.
The sudden call from Chisai's younger brother and the sudden outburst from Chisai startled Niko, causing him to drop his onigiri. Once it hits the floor, a few rice grains fall off.
Buyo starts crying at the top of the staircase.
"Whoa, whoa. You talk to your little brother like that?" Niko asks, trying to comprehend the violent side of Chisai.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep beep beep.
A soft series of sequential beeps is heard coming from near Niko. "What is that?" he says as he looks around, he is trying to find the source of the beeps.
The beeps increase in repeating frequency. He looks down and notices a small red glow from the onigiri he just dropped.
"HIT THE DECK!" He calls out as he forces himself over Chisai, pushing both of them towards the kitchen door. As they both fly into the kitchen, he grabs a cabinet edge, swinging himself and Chisai safely behind it.
Moments later, the red glowing light on the onigiri becomes solid red, followed by one second of a solid "Beeeeep".
Niko holds his ears closed to protect himself.
A powerful explosion emerges from the onigiri, quickly expanding outward.
The force of the explosion pushes the couch upwards and towards the kitchen door, blocking Niko and Chisai from the damage.
A few seconds later, after not hearing any debris falling or moving, Niko removes his hands from his ears. "What. The hell. Was that?" He stands up and walks to the couch that is blocking the kitchen doorway, shoving it out of the way to see what the carnage was from the bomb he held in his hand moments earlier.
He was not prepared for what he saw.
A gaping crater was in the middle of the living room floor, and part of the front of the house was blown outwards, wrapped around the oak tree in the yard. Scorched floorboards scattered the whole area, reaching halfway up the staircase. The seating items were scorched and torn to shreds from the explosion. The table that sat in front of the couch was now sticking half-way into the chimney.
As his hearing returns, Niko hears the cry of Buyo from the top of the stairs. Over the crying, he asks, "Chisai, what just happened?"
Not receiving a response, Niko turns to see Chisai, hoping that she wasn't hurt. She was sitting on the ground, laying up against the corner cabinets, but her hair was covering her eyes.
Kneeling down to offer some support, Niko reaches up to push the hair out of her face. "Chisai, are you okay?"
Her eyes are closed, and she seems unconscious.
Realizing his only course of action was to call the emergency support, Niko stands up, takes out his cell phone and looks at it before he dials, noticing something odd. Knowing that that his cell phone synchronized with the network time server provided by the cell phone company, it automatically updated to whatever time was set by the company. So why did it say "11:50AM"?
Pushing those thoughts aside for the moment, he presses the appropriate keys to dial out. "Hello, Emergency Services?"
Behind Niko, Chisai opens her eyes. She starts to snarl.
"I would like to report...." his sentence trails off at the sound of snarling. He turns around to look at Chisai.
Her eyes glowed bright and solid red. She looks at Niko with a sinister expression.
"Hello? What kind of report would you like to file?" the voice on the phone says.
"I-I-I-I gotta call you back." Niko reaches his thumb around to press the "End Call" button.
Chisai's nails grow longer and her teeth become longer – longer than in her demon form.
"Chisai? What's happening?" Niko nervously says as he backs up slowly.
All she does is snarl and growl. Her mouth starts to produce a large amount of drool.
"Chisai?" Niko says, giving her one last chance as he backs up to the refrigerator.
Within the blink of an eye, Chisai lunges at Niko with an arm ready to swipe at him.
He ducks and moves away as her arm goes above him. As he stands back up, he looks at the refrigerator. Large claw marks penetrated through the door and into the food inside. "Whoa! That's new."
Chisai, or what's left of her, turns to Niko, ready to strike again.
Trying to look at her face, Niko barely recognized her anymore. Aside from the brown hair and clothes, it looked more like a mannequin dressed as Chisai than Chisai herself, except with red glowing eyes, long teeth, and sharp talon-like claws.
Seeing that he was no match against "her" without his sword, Niko races towards the front door. The Chisai copy follows him with agile speed.
The door starts to open upon his arrival, but Niko doesn't want to wait for it; he pushes right through the thin semi-translucent door panel, landing on the other side with countless glass shards, and runs towards his car.
The Chisai copy is on all fours, galloping towards Niko.
Arriving at his car, Niko hops in through the window, presses the start button, and stomps the gas.
Within a second, he takes off, and the Chisai copy lands right where his car was.
"That is NOT normal!" Niko says as he speeds along. Hoping he had lost whatever was chasing him, Niko looks in his rear view mirror. To his surprise, the reflection of the Chisai copy is keeping up with his speed. "What? Impossible!" He quickly turns the steering wheel to the right and stomps on the brake, sliding the car's back end left, but pointing the car right. After the car lines up with an adjacent road, Niko stomps on the gas again. "Let's see you keep up with me in the city!"
The Chisai copy stays on his tail, and quickly turns right to follow Niko's car.
"Wow, that was good." Chisai says as she places her bowl on the table after finishing off the broth. "Why haven't I ever been to this place?"
"I don't know – it's been here forever." Niko responds.
Chisai picks up her napkin to wipe her face.
Putting his bowl down on the table as well, Niko reaches for his drink. Noticing that the level of Chisai's drink was unchanged, he thought of mentioning it. "You haven't touched your drink yet. Aren't you thirsty after a long morning?" He takes a sip from his drink.
"No thanks. I find that a flavored drink take away from the flavor of the noodles." Feeling slightly embarrassed, she looks down at her bowl. "It's a personal thing."
"No worries. We each have our own quirks." Niko says as he puts down his cup.
The sound of a speeding car approaches from the distance. Chisai looks up at the direction of the sound. "Who would be speeding through a city at this time of day?"
As she hones in on the sound, the sight of Niko's car speeds past the noodle shop. Following the sight of passing car, Chisai focuses in on the driver. The first thing that she picks up on is the red hair. "Niko, isn't that your car?" She holds up a finger following the car's direction. "A guy that looks just like you just drove by."
Niko turns around to look at the car, missing the sight of it. "What? Nah, that couldn't happen. You must be seeing things."
Moments later, a blur of brown, green, and blue passes the noodle shop at the same speed as the car. The blur snarls and growls as it passes by, frightening some of the customers. Chisai looks down at her clothes, thinking of how coincidental it was that she wore the same colors.
"What is that?" one man yells.
"A monster!" a lady yells as she quickly stands up to get away from the sight.
"Call the police!" another man yells, trying to force himself through the crowd.
Niko and Chisai stay seated as they survey the scene. "I think we should go." Chisai suggests.
"Don't worry, it will pass." Niko says as he raises a hand towards Chisai's cup. "Please, drink up. It may help calm you."
Calm me? How will a drink calm me? Chisai thinks. As
she reaches for the cup of blue drink, a frightened customer bumps into their table, knocking the cup over and spilling the blue liquid all across the table.
Chisai quickly stands up, trying to avoid getting the blue liquid on her, and starts looking around for something with which to wipe up the mess. In the chaos of the situation, she doesn't notice that the blue liquid on the table starts to bubble.
Moments later, the table dissolves, dropping the ceramic bowls to the hard ground and shattering. The shattering noise draws Chisai's attention over the chaotic crowd. "What just happened?"
Not hearing a response from Niko, she looks over in his direction. He is no longer in his seat.
She stands on her seat to get a better view above everybody's heads. "Niko?"
The chaos of the unorganized crowd makes it hard to view anything. "Niiii-ko?!" She calls again.
The crowd seems to stand still for a moment, then everyone runs out of the indoor restaurant and away from the building entirely. Chisai tries to get a look inside one of the doors to see what the commotion is about. She sees a bundle of red hair inside, but it moves out of her view.
The object moves into her view again, and she sees the khaki pants and black over shirt that Niko was wearing. "Niko, is that you?" she tries to call again.
The last of the indoor crowd moves outside, which gives Chisai the chance she needed to view the full object that is causing such a racket inside. It was Niko, but he looked different; his eyes glowed bright solid red, his teeth were longer than usual, and he was pouncing and swiping at everything in sight.
One final customer runs out of restaurant, followed by loud claws tearing through the doorway and wall like tissue paper. Tripping over his own feet, he falls to the floor. "Please, spare me!" he yells out.
The glowing eyes of Niko, or whatever he was now, stared directly at Chisai as it held on to the side of the door frame. It starts to snarl in her direction, sounding just like the strange thing that dashed down the road moments ago.
Realizing that she was in its sights, she tries to back up. Catching the armrest of the chair she was standing in, the chair tilts, causing her to fall backwards. The chair catches the railing of the outdoor area and tosses her backwards. As she stumbles, trying to gain her balance after falling off of the chair, she loses her footing and falls on her back.
The Niko copy lunges from the door frame and aims straight for Chisai.
Chisai tries to flip over and push herself off the ground. Right as she gets up, a loud "WHOOSH" followed by a "CLANG" heard from behind. She turns around to see what happened, hoping the monster that attacked her slammed into one of the outdoor poles.
Instead, she sees a figure in a long white floor-length jacket with a silver trim. His black hair spiking up at least a foot from his head. He's hold a long, yellow, glowing sword-like object above him, braced with both hands, holding back the claws of the Niko copy.
"What's going on?" She yells in no specific direction as she starts to run away from.....that.
"Go! Get out of here!" the figure in the white jacket yells. "I have this covered."
Chisai looks closer at the man in the white jacket, trying to match a name, or a face, or anything. The sound of a metallic key hitting the ground grabs her attention. "Do you have a death wish? Then take this and go!"
Chisai bends down to pick up the key, careful not to accidentally press one of the various buttons on the key base.
"NOW!" The person yells, pushing away the Niko copy with a swing of his sword-like object.
As a tear forms from her eye and rolls down her face, she nods, then runs towards parked cars lined up along the opposite side of the street.
As other metallic-sounding noises come from behind her, Chisai doesn't dare turn around. Instead, she is pressing the "Unlock" button on the key base, hoping that a car responds with the stereotypical soft "honk honk".
Luckily, a car does respond to her commands. As she approaches the car, the sight overwhelms her. A sleek red sports car hisses, then opens its driver door straight up. Assuming that this is the right car, Chisai hops in, and the door lowers to close.
Sequentially, lights, buttons, and circular charts start illuminating the interior of the car. "Welcome," it says in a friendly female voice. "Where would you like to go?"
Slightly freaking out, Chisai calls out, "Anywhere! Just go!"
"Acknowledged. Proceeding to-" the voice cuts off as a large metallic creaking noise is heard from the hood. Chisai withdraws into the bucket seat, trying to protect herself.
When she opens her eyes, she notices the Niko copy is on the hood of the car, in a large dent most likely caused by when it landed, and is staring directly at her. Drool from its mouth drops onto the car hood and starts to sizzle as it hits.
Trying to get away from the terrifying red-haired thing, she flails around trying to reach for anything that she can throw at it.
"Autonavi-navi-navigtion has beeeeeeeen lost." the friendly female voice from the car says in various jarred tones. Lights start to blink on and off all around the console.
The male in the white jacket calls from behind Chisai's position. "Override command: omega-zeta-3-1-9!"
The car revs up its engine and pulls away from its parallel parking spot. The force of the moving car makes the Niko copy roll forward, then over the car.
The person in the white jacket jumps towards the monster, but only strikes the road with a "CLIING" from his sword as the monster continues the pursuit after Chisai.
Seeing the countless dials and buttons blink on and off, Chisai is completely lost on how to exactly operate this crazy runaway car. She reaches for the door handle, but the only thing she can feel is the smoothness of the interior of the car. She frantically searches for any kind of handle on the door to get out, but to no avail.
There is a map on the center dashboard constantly showing her current position, but goes blank every few minutes. Meanwhile, the car speeds down the road, avoiding near obstacles, but increasing in speed.
She looks out of the front window, hoping to see if there is any sign of where she is, or where she is going. To her surprise, she sees a traffic jam on a bridge leaving the city. With the car going almost full speed, she stomps on the floor, hoping to find some sort of brake.
I'm trapped inside an out-of-control car, going faster than I want to know, directly towards traffic on a bridge, and I can't find the brakes. I'm so dead! Chisai thinks as she considers her options, which at this point consist of covering her eyes, hoping to make any sort of death quick and painless.
The car continues towards the traffic jam, but makes a slight turn to the right, straight for an empty car-loading trailer ramp. As the car veers up the trailer ramp and over the truck in front, it hangs for a while in the air as it flies over the edge of the bridge, and directly into a forest below.
The Niko copy follows the car off the bridge as well.