Andras (chapter 2)

Chapter 2


It was about twelve-o-clock, we had found a nice house in a suburb. We opened the door and looked around the first floor. The furniture was nice, they had great food, and as long as it was artificial food (I hate natural earth food). The living room had a huge flat screen HDTV. They had all kinds of game systems, and another thing was; they were home. I had walked into what I soon found out to be the master bedroom. The couple was asleep in their bed. I drew my pistol and put a suppresser on the barrel, then aimed at the man's head. I was about to pull the trigger when Yuki came in and saw. She quickly moved my hand down about an inch to his heart,
"If we kill them, they're no use to us." She winked then nodded. I pulled the trigger and the gun went off with what sounded like a type-writer key stroke. The bullet hit him in the sternum and he frantically awoke. I aimed at the woman next to him, and fired a shot at her chest as well. As they both sat up, they let out piercing screams as they writhed in pain, but I put my hands over their mouths to quiet them down. The screaming stopped, and they eventually calmed down. Their new red eyes focused on me.
"Who are you, and why did you do this to us?" the woman asked with a tear rolling down her cheek, confused and alarmed.
"I don't exactly mean you harm, Notice I didn't kill you, god, ungrateful."
"You broke into our home and…." A strange look came over their faces and they stopped talking. I looked at them expectantly. Their expressions turned quite sinister. They slowly got out of their bed. I didn't know what to expect so I put my hand on my desert eagle. "Yuki, we're leaving now." We stepped back a few feet. They started to come towards us, drooling. Their eyes began to glow.
"Let's kill them for what they did!" The woman hissed as an evil smile crept across her twisted new face.
"Then drain their blood and hang them to dry!" The man added viciously as he lunged toward us. He opened his mouth, exposing his razor sharp teeth, ready to rend our flesh. I held up my arm and he sank his teeth in. The blood shot from my arteries as he tore away at the muscles in my forearm. I pulled away and a huge piece of my arm was left hanging in his mouth. He spat it out and smiled.
“Gah! Your blood is sour!" He snarled, spitting and gagging.
"The sourness comes with my title. I'm the creator of all vampires, the scourge of humanity. You can't drink my blood, because it has no value other than to create your kind.” I held up my arm and the fibers of my muscles and other tissues reattached themselves to the bone and the skin grew over and hugged the reformed forearm. The woman saw this and went for me and opened her gaping maw. She lunged for my neck, but Yuki's heel collided with her temple and there was a sickening crack as her skull split wide open, exposing her brain. She lay on the ground shrieking in pain. I pulled out my pistol and aimed it at her head.
"You were of no use after all. My hemo-biotics have been having trouble lately, you were just a mistake." I pulled the trigger and her screaming stopped as the inside of her head exploded onto the floor and my shoes.
"You……I'm gonna kill you!" The man charged at me but I held out my hand and put all my fingers together, fused them into one point and hardened them into solid bone. He ran into it and was impaled through the chest. He continued gnashing his teeth, but he died after about a minute from severe blood loss.
"Well…That's that, let's get the food and head back to my apartment. If they have any natural food, that's yours." I headed down the stairs to the kitchen. Yuki followed me and found some different things like ground beef and stuff. She said she wasn't hungry, so we left the house.
"So, why did you chase me when I ran?" Yuki asked. I looked at her for a moment and thought. We strolled in the moonlight down the street in the direction of my apartment.
"Well, why did you run?" I retorted. She looked at me with squinted eyes, as if to say 'touché'.
"Well. I knew that you were a demon, it was pretty obvious. I thought that you were one of my master's agents or something." She explained. "He told me that if I strayed from my mission, he'd have me punished." I looked at her and couldn't really think of much to say, so I just asked her the first thing that came to my mind.
"Who's your master?" I asked, as the curiosity peaked.
"Well, His name I can't tell you. He'd kill me if I gave that away. But If you wanna' know, I can take you to him. It'd be difficult, and may be risky, but I think I could do it." She removed her mirror shard and broke it in half. She handed me a piece and looked into her half. She slit her finger along the edge of it, blood dribbled from the tip of her index finger. It started to shine and she instructed me to do the same. I slit my finger on the edge of my shard and it too began to shine. I didn't know what was going on, but I just decided to bear with her, I was bored enough. The mirror shards began to make a loud ringing sound.
"Take a deep breath and brace!" She shouted over the noise. The top of her head began to glow and break apart. This pattern moved down the rest of her body as parts of it broke away and flooded into the mirror. The last thing I saw was the mirror itself, which hovered there for a second, shrunk, and then disappeared. I felt the top of my head start to tingle as my scalp slowly came undone. It passed over my eyes and I could only see blackness. I remember 'awakening' in a tunnel of rushing red and blue lights. I was weightless, yet heavy as I traveled along. I could see Yuki in front of me; she was facing forward, stomach down as opposed to my awkward forwards spread eagle-like movement. She looked back and shouted to me
"We're on our way to Hell!" I stared after her, very confused.
"What?" I hadn't ever used this particular mode of transportation to get from one dimension to another. We usually just ripped open the fabric of time and stepped through into another world, back when I was a soldier in the infernal army.
"Yeah! You mean you've never traveled by wormhole before?" She laughed and told me to brace again.
"We're almost there; do you see that black hole at the end? Get ready!" She put her hands up in front of her face and I hastily imitated her. We shot out of the worm hole which upon further inspection turned out to actually just be my mirror shard. I fell to the ground in a heap as Yuki came down gracefully on her feet next to me. I looked up at her, and my shard hit me in the forehead, cutting me.
"Gaah!" I picked it up and tossed it, but Yuki caught it.
"You'll need this in the future, keep it." She tossed it back to me. I caught it and put it back into one of my trench coat pockets.
"Well, this is it. Japan: the four Island paradise of Hell!" She exclaimed loudly. "Kind of Ironic huh? The paradise of Hell." She giggled and held out her hand to help me up. I looked away from it and picked myself up. I looked around and saw that I was in a field of small, green, uniformly planted crops. The full moon shone a dull silver color, as the night sky's blackness fought to keep its shade. Next to the field, about twenty feet to my right was a paved road. I never really saw any cars on it. There were cracks in it, and chunks missing, there was even an old rusty 2005 mustang there. Then I remembered that Heaven and Hell were billions of years ahead of Earth.
"So, since we've got nothing better to do apparently, let's just take boring ol' Andras to the boonies in hell, why don't we!" I exclaimed angrily. Thinking back on it, I realized that I'm the one who was to blame, I tagged along. We came closer to the town and I could see that the houses were all at least two stories, and the people all seemed completely normal, Nothing strange. Twenty-first century tradition was still strong here, obviously. All the people walked around in business suits, tee shirts, and were even driving normal wheeled cars as the stoplights instructed them to stop and go. We finally passed a sign with some kanji on it, then in English below it read: 'Welcome to Waruka, the little village that's big on food!' We passed shops and restaurants, spas, and gyms. We even passed an arcade. Their night life was like New York or D.C.!This didn't seem to be a very small town, more like a small big city.
"So, this is my home town, I come back here every century or so, it's no biggie." Said Yuki, like it really was no 'biggie'. "My master lives in Tokyo. It's about a two hour train ride from here, so we'll find a place to stay for the night." We came to a white building with at least twenty stories and entered.
"Konichiwa!" The man at the front desk greeted us with a smile. I drifted in and out of the here-and-now as boredom took over. They talked a little bit more in their weird gibberish, and then I heard a 'hai, arigato. Genki desu' then Yuki told me to follow her to a strange capsule in the wall. She said something in Japanese then I felt the capsule move upward. I gathered, with my superior deductive abilities, that it was an elevator. The elevator stopped, the door opened and we stepped out.
We walked down a long hallway. There were doormen with hovering luggage trolleys would go by from time to time. We arrived at our door.
“Nii…Nii...Ichi!” She said slowly, yet cheerfully.
“English please.” I said, exasperated.
“Two…Two…One.” She looked at me and gave a playfully sinister smile. "Aren't I so annoying?" She taunted. We entered the room and removed our shoes. Nothing out of the ordinary caught my eye…immediately. I saw two futons on the tatami towards the back, red and white cherry blossom patterns covered the comforters. There was a small rectangular table with four cushions around it. The television was large, about fifty inches and it hung from the wall as if by magic. That was all the ordinary stuff, but as I walked into the bathroom, it was a completely different story. It was an earthy shade of beige, and there was no toilet and no sink. A closet was positioned to the left of the door; its brown wooden doors slid open as I inspected the space. There were many black and white towels arranged neatly on the three shelves. There was no shower, and no tub. There was, however, a glass sphere in the back of the room. A short wooden staircase led to a hole in the top of it about four feet in diameter. Two beautiful silver spouts hung from the ceiling over the hole. Inside I could see two panels side by side. The left panel was red and had a hand print for you to place your left hand on. The same went for the right hand panel, but it was blue. Then I noticed a black rubber mat at the bottom of the sphere with soft bristles poking up.
"Are you finding everything alright?" Yuki popped in to check on me.
"Yeah, I'm a little confused." I admitted. "What is this thing?"
"Oh, it's a wash tank." She said. "You've never seen one before?" She asked. I looked at her and glared.
"I haven't been to Hell in a thousand years. What do you think?" I said through my teeth.
"Oh, well do you want to know how it works?" She asked, ignoring my anger.
"…Yes…" I said, gritting my fangs. She climbed up the staircase and began undressing. "What!? Hey! What are you doing!?" I screamed. She looked at me with a perplexed expression on her face.
"What's wrong? Don't tell me you're like that . C'mon, you've never seen a woman's body before?" She smiled at me, showing razor sharp teeth.
"No….it’s not that…you’re not supposed to…seriously? Just never mind! I’ll figure it out! Put your shirt back on!" She hopped down from the ledge.
"Okay, fine. Just don't come crying to me when you get scalded." She gave an apathetic laugh as she put her shirt back on and, closed the door behind her. I turned and went after her into the living area. She was sitting at the table watching television, laughing every now and then. She turned and noticed me.
"Oh? You're not gonna wash?" She asked as she got up and walked over to me.
"No, I don't need to bathe. I'm not dirty, you women are so picky." She licked her finger and swiped my right cheek. Her eyes scanned her fingertip, which was black from dirt. She looked up at me and squinted her piercing red eyes.
"Oh yes you are!" She scolded. She pushed me into the bathroom and explained how to work the panels and that I should say 'English' when I stepped inside (this confused me). She finished explaining everything else, then she slammed the door behind her. I got undressed and touched the right and left panels at the same time and warm water came pouring onto my head. The tank filled with water and the hole closed. I held my breath and tried as hard as I could to escape. I couldn't use my reality warping, because that only worked on Earth. I got ready for the end. I couldn't believe that I, Andras of the dark army was going to die in a shower. I braced for the pain of my lungs filling with hot water, and closed my eyes. My strength gave, and the urge to breath was too great. I flexed my diaphragm and my lungs expanded, pulling in a good bit of water.
Nothing happened. I looked around and saw that everything was clear, I didn't pass out, and I definitely wasn't dead. I exhaled and continued to breathe. It must've had a high concentration of oxygen, because I didn't even feel any burn like I usually would from breathing in water. I finished washing, and a computerized voice said 'no impurities detected' and the water drained out through a drain under the mat. It rotated so that the hole was facing the bathroom door and I climbed out. I got a towel from the closet, dried off, and put my clothes back on.
"Well, well. Look who's all clean." Yuki teased, as I entered the living area.
"Save it." I scolded as she giggled at my dismay.
"We're gonna stay here for tonight," Yuki began "tomorrow, we have to go deliver some bad luck to my target. He's an agent from Heaven, and I have to get his mission to fail. It'll take careful planning. I'm not to kill him." She explained. "You may not interfere. He cannot know that he's being attacked." I listened intently, so I wouldn't anger her again. She got up and moved for the door and motioned for me to follow.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"We are going to the best noodle house in all of Japan!" She said excitedly. She opened the door and moved down the hall as I rushed to keep up with her. She was walking so fast that her hair was flowing behind her in her wake. We arrived at the elevator which opened for us to enter. Yuki spoke in Japanese and the elevator moved downward. The door opened and we exited the elevator, then the hotel. We walked down the sidewalk for about a minute before Yuki hailed a cab. The driver said something in Japanese, to which Yuki replied and we drove along.
"So, why were you on earth if your mission is in Hell?" I asked curiously.
"I figured I'd have some practice. You know, giving random people bad luck." She explained. "I'm kinda' bored with my job, to tell the truth."
"Okay." I continued, "How come you said that this is your home town? You're from Earth, right?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm from Earth. I came from Earth's Waruka. This is Hell's Waruka. I'm familiar with both of them." Yuki finished.
"So how different is Earth's Waruka from Hell's?" I asked, actually interested for a change.
"Not really any differences, except for the wash tanks and the gravity-panel luggage trolleys, and elevators, but the Ramen and Oudon are the same as ever! DELICIOUS!" exclaimed Yuki. She started to look off into space and her mouth started watering, as an enormous grin slid across her face. We passed by all kinds of shops and houses. The lights mounted on the sides of the buildings were almost blinding to my sensitive, night vision eyes. The driver pulled to the curb and spoke. Yuki replied with an 'arigato', then she handed him some cash and we stepped out. We were in front of a big black building with an open doorway, half covered by flaps with pictures of fish on them. We entered and the smell was overpowering. It was the most beautiful smell I'd ever encountered in my long and bloodstained existence. I looked in awe at the many short rectangular tables with happy looking, well fed customers stuffing their faces with sushi and ramen. We sat down at an empty table and waited for our waitress.
"What is this magical place?" I asked in wonder.
"This is my favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle joint in the whole world. Bunpei's." Yuki said excitedly. A woman with geisha apparel approached us and knelt down. Her face was painted immaculately, completely white with small red lips. She began speaking and Yuki answered.
"Oudon to miso o kudasai." Yuki said to the waitress. "Andras, what'll you have?" She asked in a half whisper.
"Umm, I'll have their biggest bowl of ramen and some…Coke." I replied.
"Ramen to Coca-Cola o Kudasai." She said and the waitress nodded her head as she got up to head to the kitchen.
"Wow." I began. "You have to teach me how to speak Japanese like that." I said.
"Okay." Yuki eagerly replied. "Well, I said 'I would like some ramen and Coca-Cola please' when I took your order." She explained.
"So how would you word that?" I asked.
"Well, first you say the subject of the sentence, the first item you want, which would be ramen in your case. Then you say 'to' which means 'and'. You would then list your second subject, Coca-Cola in your case. So you'd say 'ramen to Coca-Cola' then you finish off by saying 'o kudasai' which means 'I would like ____ please'. So the complete sentence is 'ramen to Coca-Cola o Kudasai.' She finished. It actually wasn't that hard, I could grasp it pretty easily. The Waitress came back and put down our meals in front of us. I gulped my ramen and Coke in less than thirty seconds, and Yuki took her time. While I was waiting for her to finish, I was scanning the room to pass the time when something caught my eye. I wasn't sure of it at first but then it hit me.
"Oriax!" I shouted across the restaurant, causing many people to spray food out of their mouths or to drop their drinks in their laps. A man turned around to look for the source of the disturbance. His shoulder length black hair swayed as he looked around.
"What!?" he shouted back.
"It's me, Andras; remember me from the seventy soldiers of Solomon!" I replied.
"Andy?" His eyes locked onto me and he walked over from his party of three-including him-and took my hand to shake it.
"So, where did you go? It's been a thousand years!" Oriax said in surprise. "You were here one day then you vanished overnight. What happened?" He asked. His piercing red eyes scanned my face, taking in the sight of his long lost friend. He was a native to Japan like Yuki, but of course, he didn't know her. In honor of his heritage in this fine restaurant he wore a black and grey hexagon patterned gi, which is a form of traditional attire, much like a robe, he was always kind of weird like that.
"I got banished, man." I admitted, shrugging. His face contorted into a surprised smile, and he gave a suppressed chuckle.
"Seriously?" he asked in shock. "How did that come about?" He finished.
"Let's just keep it short and say that Satan's an…" I couldn't finish my sentence before Yuki interrupted.
"Hey Andras, who is this guy?" Yuki asked in her signature playful voice.
"Oh, hey Yuki." I said. "This is my good and until you, only friend, Oriax." I introduced them to each other and they shook hands. "We used to fight together in the Marine Corps before I became Satan's body guard." She looked at him in awe.
"You knew Andras before me? Was he as annoyingly stuck up back then too?" She asked jokingly.
"He's actually very immature!" said Oriax, with a laugh. I scowled at him, and he stopped quickly. "Yeah, he went on after our days as soldiers and became an elite body guard for the dark king. I went on and eventually become the general of Hell's army. I'm not there anymore though. The war's still going, but I had to give up my position, because it could become a danger for my family." He pointed and waved at a woman and a little boy sitting at his table, they were talking and they looked up and waved back at him. They too were wearing traditional Japanese apparel.
"So what brings you to Hell, anyway?" He asked "How come you didn't come back earlier?"
"I couldn't come back." I said. "Yuki is the reason that I'm able to be here right now." I looked over at Yuki and she smiled at me.
"Are you two married?" Oriax asked. Yuki looked at me and gave a sinister smile.
"Yes, we are!" She lied. I looked at her with my jaw gaping.
"I thought you didn't believe in marriage, Mr. 'lone wolf'" He laughed an Yuki wrapped her arms around me. I pushed her off, and snapped at her.
"No! We aren't married; she's just a 'tard sometimes. She just lied then for no reason what so ever! Why would you even do that, Yuki? That doesn't even make sense!" I yelled. Everybody in the restaurant was staring in silence, unmoving.
"Okay…" Oriax just stood there looking at me and Yuki. "Well, if you two would still like to stay at my house for a day, I'd be happy to have you." He offered.
"No, we already have a hotel room." I said, declining his offer.
"Well, then, if you ever want to go do something, you two and my family and I, Here's my number." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He got a pen and a receipt. He wrote down his number on the back of it and handed it to me.
"Just call whenever you feel like talking about old times." He said and said goodbye as he went back to his table. Yuki and I paid for our meal and headed out the door. Just as we started on our way down the sidewalk, a car pulled up and four men piled out with ski masks and AK-47's, they had black sleeveless bullet-proof vests on and green camouflage pants on. In one of their hands were maybe two or three pillowcases. I looked on with my adrenaline starting to pump as they crossed the street to the bank. I told Yuki to follow me and we went after them. They entered the western, neo-roman style bank as we followed and entered after them. They were quick workers, everybody had already been instructed to get on the floor, and one man had even been shot and was clutching his chest as he hyperventilated.
"Alright everybody!" one of the men began. "Give us everything you have, and you, teller, fill these bags with as much money as you can fit in there!" He pointed to one of his men, who thrust them into the arms of the young woman as tears streamed down her fear stricken face.
"Hurry up!!" He fired a burst into the air. The woman screamed as she hastily and sloppily opened the vault on the wall behind the counter. "Faster!" He roared. "If you don’t hurry up I’m gonna waste this kid!" He wrenched a little girl out of her mother's protective arms and lifted her up. He pulled a .9 mm. Beretta out of his back pocket and pressed it against her temple.
"Maybe we're going over the top man…" said one of the others, apprehensively.
"Hey, am I gonna have to kill you just because you're afraid we'll get caught? We can't get caught man, we've got our bullet-proof vests, and this opium makes pain a thing of the past. We're invincible!" Amused by his statement, he unleashed a maniacal cackle.
"I think you better put that kid down." I said as I slowly started toward him.
"Who the h—" I cut him off mid sencence.
"I'm just the guy who's gonna turn your life around, even if it kills you—and it probably will." I smiled, to which he replied by once again laughing hysterically. He dropped the girl and pointed his gun at me. I just stared.
"No. you're the guy who's gonna get his brains splattered all over the ground and your pretty little girlfriend back there." He pulled the trigger as I simultaneously stepped to the side, avoiding the bulled, which crashed through the window behind me.
"Lucky…" He scoffed. He aimed again, but I dashed and jumped into the air. I did this so quickly that he didn't have time to react (probably because he was so hopped up on opium). I came down on him with an axe-kick to the head. He crashed down onto the ground, laughing as he went. He picked himself up as his men rushed after me.
"Wait!" He barked. "Let me take him. This is fun!" He sneered, ran toward me with a loud and hideous battle cry. I waited for him to come within reach and I fired my fist at full power into his abdomen which stretched inward about at least five inches. He crumpled as his diaphragm seized up. As he was unable to breathe, he began crawling toward his AK. He shouldn't have moved though, because the movement of his muscles expended valuable oxygen, which he could have used to stay conscious, just long enough for his diaphragm to recover and begin breathing again. From his all-four position, he collapsed, and lay there, turning blue. His men saw this and came after me. I grabbed the first one that came close enough and tossed him at another. I moved to another and head-butted him in the nose, breaking it. He didn't feel it, but he stumbled backwards.
"Andras!" I heard Yuki call me from the door. There was a crowd outside and I could see Oriax come running up the stairs. He yelled something back at his family, who were among the growing crowd of spectators. They stayed and looked on as he jogged toward the bank. "Hey! What's going on!?" asked Oriax as he entered the building.
"Oh. Just a little scrimmage, that's all." I replied calmly as I dodged a punch from another one. I broke his arm as it passed by my head.
"This is a scrimmage!?" The leader had gotten up and had his assault rifle pointed at me. He smiled and pulled the trigger. It hit me in the side and sent a searing pain through my body. I feigned passing out and collapsed. He turned back to the teller and told her to keep up with putting the money in the bags.
"Does anybody else wanna die like this joker?" He laughed as he pointed at the crowd of terrified citizens on the floor. My anger quickly turned to rage. And I flew into a blind rampage. I could feel my teeth grow longer and sharper, and my hair hardened and became as quills. I stood up and faced the man who shot me.
"Oh. You're still alive?" He asked with a smirk. I looked on, expression unchanging. I gripped one of my quills and slid it out of my scalp. It finally came out at about four or five feet long. I charged at him and swung my blade. He stood there unmoving, unresponsive. He dropped his gun, and for a few seconds, stood there. I poked his forehead with my index finger and his head tumbled backwards off of his neck. The people on the floor didn't react, and the other men made a break for the door. Yuki and Oriax met them there.
"Leaving already? I though you still wanted to play!" Yuki giggled as she drop-kicked one of them, the force snapping his spine. The other guys tried to power through Oriax, but he pulled a switchblade from his pocket and in one motion, opened the abdomens of the fleeing thieves. Their gizzards littered the floor as they collapsed in a heap at his feet. The hostages slowly but surely rose off of the ground. Red and blue lights caught my eye, and I turned to see the police and some ambulances pull up. The officers came in to ask questions, as the paramedics patched up the sucking chest-wound of the man who had been shot before we arrived.
“Nani o shimei desu ka?” A reporter had come up to me with her news crew.
“Huh?” I didn’t know what she was saying, she repeated and Yuki translated for me.
“She asked what your name is.” Yuki explained.
“Oh. Andras.” I replied, and she smiled.
“Nani o anata tenrai wa teiryyuu tounan desu ka?” she asked.
“What inspired you to stop this robbery?” Yuki translated.
“I was bored, I happened to witness it.” I replied. Yuki told the reporter, who smiled and looked at the camera.
“Arigato. Kore wa hito no isamashii, korera wa minshuu no genki desu yo. Watashi wa Yamamoto Amane desu, kore wa nyu-zu sichii chaneru. Makoto-san, sonchi desu.” She ended, and the camera turned off. The camera man turned to leave and hit the reporter in the head with the back of the camera. “Kuso! Bakayarou!” She exclaimed as she stormed out of the bank and into the van. I looked at Yuki and Oriax and shrugged.
“I guess we should go back to the hotel then.” Said Yuki as she grabbed my arm and tugged me out the door. Completely unfazed by the publicity we just received.
“Andras.” Oriax called me from the bank door as I made my way down the stairs.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“So tell me the reason you’re back in hell all of a sudden.” He said seriously as he caught up with us. We started to head in the direction of the hotel. Yuki kept quiet as she looked up at me, waiting. I hesitated for a minute, and looked at her expectantly. She nodded as if to give me the green light to explain.
“Well, you see, I really just came here with Yuki. I’m not supposed to be here. She’s on a mission to sabotage one of Heaven’s agents. He’s on an intelligence gathering mission, and she has to deliver some bad luck to him. It’s a long story.” I explained. Oriax thought for a second.
“Tell ya’ what.” He began. “I’m really not doing anything important…ever, so maybe I can tag along with you two. My wife and kid will be okay here. They can stay with my brother while I’m gone. If this will help the war effort, I’m more than willing to lend a hand.” Yuki and I looked at each other, and shrugged. I didn’t mind. I actually welcomed the Idea, having my childhood friend getting his hands dirty with me was like back in the day when we’d waste angels on the front lines. She looked back at Oriax and smiled.
“Looks like we’re forming a little crime-fighting squad!” She laughed. Her jokes didn’t entertain me in the least, but Oriax took great delight in them and gave an enthusiastic chuckle. “If you wanna come with us, you’re more than welcome to, but you have to remember this: You may not interfere in any way until my mission is complete. You can come with me and you can be seen with me, but you can’t help me. I have to deliver bad luck to him and cause him to fail his mission.” She explained to him.
“Deliver bad luck?” he laughed, half serious, but still taken aback. “What are you, some sort of Neko-Oni or something?” He laughed.
“Yep.” She replied seriously. Oriax stopped laughing.
“Really?” He said surprised. “I thought they were legend.” He added, fascinated.
“Yep, I’m also a vampire. Yes, I’m a busy girl.” She sighed.
“Wow. What a colorful little group.” said Oriax, with a small chuckle. We arrived at the hotel and waved at the receptionist, and he waved back.
“I’m gonna check in.” said Oriax. “I’m also gonna call my wife and let her know what’s going on.” He stopped at the front desk while Yuki and I headed to the elevator. After the long trek back to the room, which we entered with great delight due to the horrible exhaustion of the night’s activities, I turned on the TV. to see the bank on the news. There were more police on the scene asking people questions. I obviously couldn’t understand what they were saying, and to tell the truth, this actually bothered me.
“I’m gonna go wash up.” said Yuki. She stood in the foyer waiting for my reply.
“Oh, okay.” I said bluntly.
“You wanna join?” She asked with her annoying ‘playful’ tone.
“No, I don’t wanna join. Why do you feel the need to act like that?” I asked in disgust. She laughed and went into the bathroom. I looked at the clock and was shocked that it had only been a few hours ago that I was at the convenience store buying ramen and coke. I turned the T.V. off and turned off the lights and got in bed. I tried to close my eyes and sleep, but the little stint at the bank earlier still had my adrenalin pumping. I heard the door to the bathroom click then slide open. I couldn't see Yuki because of the angle of the bed relative to the futon, but I could see her shadow in the light from the doorway. It closed.
"Why do you have all the lights off?" She asked as she clicked the ceiling light on. "Hey! Turn that off! I'm trying to sleep!" I shielded my eyes, and waited for them to adjust to the intense glare. I could see Yuki, she was only in a towel and her hair was up. She pulled the towel from her body to dry her hair. I couldn’t help but blurt out: “Do that in the bathroom!" I roared. She took the towel off her head and let her hair fall back down. The stuck her tongue out at me, and got into the futon next to me.
“Put your clothes on!" I demanded, utterly shocked at her lack of modesty.
"I never brought a change of clothes." She replied simply. And when I came to think of it, I realized that I hadn't brought any either.
"Hey, Andras." Yuki began.
"What do you want?" I asked, still shaken from a minute ago.
"If Oriax is Japanese, then why doesn't he have a Japanese name?" She asked inquisitively.
"I don't wanna tell you his name; I'll let him tell you. He's weird like that. He uses that name as a kind of 'secret identity'. Being in the army for so long made him kind of paranoid." I explained. Yuki sighed and I heard her blankets rustle.
"Yuki." I called. There was silence. I turned over the other way and began to drift to sleep. Sleep was upon me when I heard extremely loud snoring next to me. It was Yuki! I didn't believe it at first, but it was her! It was worse than any man's snore, that's for sure. It sounded like she was firing off a fifty caliber anti-tank machine gun! I pulled my blankets off and kicked at the darkness, in Yuki's general direction, until I hit her. The snoring abruptly stopped and she shifted in her sleep and I finally closed my eyes and slept.