Chapter Thirty-One
Even though Shintaro had given them no explanation on why they were heading face-first into the battle, not one of his friends questioned his choice. Rachel, Gabriel, Falte, and Abby had given him shocked, panicked, and confused glances but said nothing. Shintaro knew the terrified panic that everyone was feeling all too well, and though he empathized for them, he would not change his mind. He knew that this choice was scary for them, but there was not much else that they could afford to do. They had already lost enough time by running and hiding, and Shintaro had finally had enough.
Thorn even seemed surprised at Shintaro's choice to walk right into Brethren's hands. Thorn seemed shocked enough that he remained silent the rest of the time, which unsettled Shintaro slightly. Shintaro didn't mind the quiet, but when the quiet was coming from Thorn, it was a strange feeling. Everyone was used to Thorn talking away about pointless things with an air of smug arrogance.
Shintaro was just as afraid as everyone else, though he refused to let his friends see that. He felt just as mortified as he had been the day his father had been released, the time that Shintaro's mind and body had locked up, comprehending nothing but Brethren's presence. Shintaro hoped through his panic that this time would be different - that this time, Shintaro would use his fear to keep him going, that he wouldn't freeze like he'd done before.
Though Shintaro hated Brethren, he admittedly feared his father more. He wouldn't let anyone but him know this, because he couldn't let his fear be dominant. There was no time for seizing fear when Brethren had to be stopped. Shintaro could not let himself freeze this time, or everything - everyone - would be at risk.
To Shintaro's left, Linda made a low, groaning sound of pain. Gabriel and Shintaro leaned toward her eagerly as she rolled jerkily onto her back with another grunt, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her hands slowly lifted from the floor and went up to cover the left side of her face gingerly; but as soon as her fingers touched her skin, her hands jerked away and she hissed through her teeth.
"Careful," Gabriel instructed her sternly, but there was a worried gentleness behind his words. "Don't touch it. You might make it bleed again." With a grimace, he adjusted his sitting position until he was sitting beside Linda with his legs stretched out in front of him.
"Same goes to you, dummy," Linda said through her teeth without opening her eyes. Seeming to sense Gabriel's presence, she lifted her hand again and whacked him hard on the shoulder. "You'd better have done the best you could to take care of that wound. The one that you shouldn't have got because I could have handled that Dark."
Shintaro turned his eyes over to Gabriel, realizing that Gabriel had taken the hit to his leg for Linda. Shintaro was grateful for Gabriel looking out for Linda, but he also didn't like seeing any of his friends - especially Gabriel, who always had seemed like the tough, relentless friend - get hurt.
"You're welcome," Gabriel shot back dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm fine anyway. It's not as bad as yours."
Shintaro didn't want to agree with Gabriel, but he knew that Linda's cut was in a more dangerous place. As soon as he'd seen Gabriel's cut, the doctor in Shintaro had immediately informed him that the important artery in Gabriel's leg hadn't been damaged. However, Linda's wound was on her face and almost an inch deep, which was a risk of damaging her eye or the muscles in her cheek. Since she hadn't opened her eye yet, Shintaro wasn't sure if the cut had gone through her eyeball or simply skimmed through her eyelid - it was hard to tell because of the dried blood around the cut.
Linda dropped her arm over her stomach, her fingers twitching as if she was holding herself back from pressing her hands to her face. "Where are we?" she asked tentatively, and Shintaro felt bad that she couldn't open her eyes to look around without pain.
"We're still in the house," Abby replied as she scooted a little closer to Linda to peer at her face. She flinched with a pitying look and leaned back again, glancing up at Shintaro briefly. "Apparently the Darks have to regain some strength before they can teleport all of us." Abby obviously knew there was a way to finish that sentence, but she closed her mouth over the words.
Linda must have heard the unsaid words dart through Abby's mind, because she turned her head toward the sound of Abby's voice with a harsh, confused frown that looked painful. "What? We're doing what?"
"We're walking right into Brethren's hands," Amy said flatly from her spot, where she was looking more and more ready to leap up and attack the nearest thing she saw. Her multicolored eyes were fixed on the floor in front of her, filled with hatred for the Darks that were rummaging carelessly through her old home.
"Who's stupid idea was that?" Linda snapped, shoving her elbows under her to elevate herself a little. She whipped her head to the side where Amy's voice had come from, then winced and stilled again. "That's literally the most ridiculous thing we've thought of so far. Why the heck would we go straight to him? That's literally sentencing us all to our deaths."
"That's what I was saying before," Ozai intervened, raising his hands for emphasis. Ever since Shintaro had told everyone that they were letting the Darks take them away, he'd been looking pale, shaky, and nervous. He obviously didn't like that plan, but there was no way that he could get Shintaro to change his mind.
"We don't have a plan yet," Linda said back, turning her head slightly to the right, carefully this time. "That's why it's dangerous. We wouldn't have gone anywhere earlier until we figured out what we were going to do. Which we haven't done," she added through her teeth. "Seriously, which idiot came up with the idea of submitting to the Darks and The Dark Lord?"
"That idiot would be Shintaro," Thorn said suggestively from his spot in front of the reclining chair.
Linda abruptly turned her head in an arc, obviously searching for Shintaro because he hadn't spoken yet. When she realized that she was hurting herself and wasn't going to find him, she laid back against the floor again. "What the actual heck, Shinta- Wait, THORN?!" In a flash, she was sitting up straight this time.
Thorn normally would have grinned toothily at Linda; but even if he'd had a mouth, Shintaro noticed that the grin was not glinting in his eyes. He simply turned his dark red eyes toward Linda and stared at her for a moment before replying. "Yes, that's me."
"What are you doing here?" Linda asked furiously, frowning harshly in Thorn's direction. "I could have sworn that you ran away like a coward and ended up locking yourself back in the Abyss or something."
Thorn's eyes narrowed slightly in a small frown, but he had no comment on the "coward" part. "I did leave, but I can assure you that I did not 'lock myself in the Abyss'." He leaned back against the chair again, crossing his arms lazily over his chest.
"Linda," Gabriel said urgently, reaching forward and touching her shoulder. "Lie back down. You're moving around too much." He pulled her back gently; and thankfully, Linda obliged and laid back with a sigh through her nose.
"You never answered my question," Linda said roughly, and Shintaro realized that she was still talking to Thorn. "What the heck are you doing here?"
"I'm not exactly on The Dark Lord's good side, nor any other Dark," Thorn said with a shrug of his right shoulder. "These Darks found and captured me as a side mission to please Brethren, I'm guessing. Apparently, they knew where you were as well, and decided to take advantage of that. I just happened to be with them when they made the choice to attack you."
"And you're not even trying to fight back?" Linda questioned with genuine curiosity, frowning up at the ceiling. "Not... I don't know, marching around and telling all of them what to do because 'you're the boss around here'?"
Thorn's eyes narrowed again, and Shintaro pictured the same expression that Thorn had used on Luke's face. "No," Thorn said shortly. "I'm not."
Linda made a "huh" sound, but otherwise didn't reply. She was silent for a few moments until she seemed to remember that Shintaro had made the choice to walk straight to their deaths. She surged upward again, propping her elbows behind her. "Back to the idiot plan. What the heck are you thinking, Shintaro?"
Shintaro, resting his elbow on his knee and leaning forward, reached out and gently touched Linda's chin, directing her head toward him. He opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes got stuck on the wound on her face, and he closed it again. His hand didn't leave her face as he examined the wound absently.
Would Linda ever be able to see out of that eye again? It was too early to tell if the eye itself had been damaged, and he wouldn't force her to open both eyes. Even if he used his magic to heal it, he wasn't sure how much he could do, especially if the muscles in her face were damaged.
Shintaro realized that everyone was looking at him, all of them wondering the same thing that Linda had asked.
"I know what I'm doing," Shintaro said softly to her, wishing he could look into her blue eyes as he spoke. Wishing that she could look back at him, intelligence and concern swimming in her eyes. He missed that look already, and she'd hardly been injured for a few hours (at least, that was what he was guessing.).
"I don't know what you're doing," Linda said back in the same tone, her eyebrows furrowing with worry. Even with her eyes closed, the look of concern somehow managed to look perfect on her face. "I need to know these things, Shintaro. If you have a plan, you have to share it with the rest of us."
Shintaro shook his head, then stopped with a twinge of a guilt as he realized that she wouldn't know what he was doing. Sighing, he ran his thumb over the curve of her chin without thinking about it. "There isn't anything you could do even if you did know," he told her gently.
Her mouth pinched in a frown again. "I'm sure I ... we could do something, Shintaro. You can't have a whole plan figured out in your head and not tell the rest of us. That's like knowing the answer to a murder mystery but not saying anything about it."
"She's right, you know," Moon said from her spot to Shintaro's right, where she was sitting with her elbows on elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands.
Shintaro shook his head again. "None of you can do anything to help me. I'm the only one that can fix this. Believe me, if I could prevent you all from being dragged into this, I would." It was true. If Shintaro was able to keep them from coming with him, to go back to their homes and wait it out...
He would.
Everyone except Thorn - including Ozai - was frowning concernedly and nervously at Shintaro now, each one looking confused and concerned and nervous. Abby looked the most scared, like she was nervous that she would lose her father because of this.
Shintaro gazed at his daughter solemnly, then lowered his hand away from Linda's face. He turned slightly to the right, toward Abby, and opened his arms slightly.
Abby was folding herself into his arms almost immediately, burying her face into his chest like she had the night Shintaro had found her awake. Her arms clung tightly to his back as if she could hold onto him to prevent him from leaving.
"It's alright," Shintaro whispered to her. "This will work out."
"Enough with the sappy promises," a voice snapped from the stair doorway, his voice mocking and impatient. "On your feet, little rebels." The Dark that had spoken was a tall, lanky male who claimed to be called Blake - the one that Gabriel had been fighting when Shintaro had arrived in the living room. He walked into the living room with annoying swagger that made Shintaro want to punch him in the mouth.
The Dark sauntered toward Zeke, who had woken up some time earlier with a few symptoms of a concussion - headache, dizziness, and blurry vision - and had chosen to remain lying on his side silently. Blake stopped and grinned mischievously down at Ezekiel, who hadn't opened his eyes yet.
Before Shintaro could stand up, Blake pulled back his leg and kicked Zeke carelessly in the stomach. Zeke grunted lowly and opened his eyes with an annoyed, pained frown, narrowing in on the tall Dark above him.
Blake started to walk away, but that was his second mistake (The first being kicking Zeke in the first place. Shintaro knew that Zeke wouldn't allow a Dark to toy with him.). Zeke's hand darted toward the Dark's foot, his fingers wrapping around Blake's ankle.
In a flash, the tall Dark was crashing to the floor to the right of Ruby, who shrank to the side toward Moon. Ezekiel rose to his feet behind the Blake, swaying slightly as he narrowed his eyes down at the fallen Dark.
"I don't need your assistance, thank you very much," he spat angrily, shakily crossing his arms over his chest.
Shintaro noticed that the two Darks that had been leaning on the doorway were now standing alertly, cautiously eyeing Zeke. Strangely, Shintaro found himself smirking - the Darks realized that Zeke could put up a good fight.
As Shintaro pulled away from Abby, a thin, pale female Dark descended down the stairs, her fierce brown eyes locked on Blake, who was scrambling to his feet with incoherent sounds of anger. Though she was small and thin, Shintaro had the feeling that she could do much more damage than it looked like. Her brown eyes and black hair made her look average, but Shintaro figured that she had a well-known status among the Darks. The woman glided toward Blake smoothly and intercepted him before he could even turn angrily toward Zeke.
"Lay a hand on them, Blake Matthews, and you will regret ever living," she said in a calm voice, but there was sharp malice behind her words. She didn't even look at him while she spoke, simply stared past his shoulder, her eyes fixed on the wall behind Blake.
"Y-Yes, of course," Blake stuttered nervously, and Shintaro's suspicions were confirmed. This woman was well-known among the Darks, possibly even feared for her ruthless ways. He was sure that he'd never met her; but if he heard her name, he figured he would recognize it.
"Good," the woman said, listing her head to the side with a ghost of a smile. She turned toward the group that, aside from Zeke, were all still sitting defiantly. Abby and Ozai looked more nervous than defiant, but the rest of them were frowning in annoyance up at the woman.
"The rest of you should be up by now," the woman said smoothly, resting one hand on her hip and gazing down at them with emotionless eyes. "I do not expect those who are hurt to get to their feet right away, but the rest of you. Now."
Abby and Ozai shot to their feet, both looking startled and confused. Shintaro noticed with a hint of - he wasn't sure what. Pride? Nervousness? - that Abby had a twinge of annoyance in her blue eyes.
Shintaro was next, taking Linda by the shoulders and guiding her close to him so he could help her stand. She had her head turned toward the sound of the woman's voice, and she didn't flinch away from Shintaro like she probably normally would have (Shintaro tried not to take it personally - Linda wasn't one for touching.).
Once everyone was standing, the woman leaned back slightly with another faint smile. "Good. Now, before we leave, I would like to set some ground rules that should be pretty obvious - but since some of us here are extra rebellious" - her gaze drifted to Amy - "I will drill them into your head anyway.
"Do not speak a single word while you are in The Dark Lord's presence, unless he addresses you," she said sharply, sliding her eyes along all of them. "I'm not only warning you because you should listen to what I say; but because if you do or say anything that displeases him in any way, he will not hesitate to hurt or kill you."
Shintaro couldn't help but tilt his head. Was this woman looking out for their well-being?
"If any Dark tries to toy with you, do not let them," the woman continued. "They shouldn't even lay their hands on you by orders of their higher-ups. No one is to touch you except The Dark Lord himself. I give you all permission to fight back against any Dark that tries to hurt you." She shot a look at Blake, who shrank under her gaze.
Shintaro shared a look with Falte, who had been silent for most of the time. Falte was looking just as suspicious and confused as Shintaro felt. What was this woman trying to say? Was she really given the orders to tell them these things, or was she saying this for her own reasons? What reasons were they?
"And last," the woman said in a concluding tone, "do not get in the way of anything." For some reason, her fierce brown eyes locked on Shintaro. Her gaze was knowing, intent, like she was trying to tell him something.
But what?
What was this woman doing?
"That will be all," she said suddenly, breaking eye contact by walking smoothly toward Shintaro and his friends. "For some, the experience of mass teleporting may be strange. Please do not hurl anywhere when we arrive, because I will be the one who has to clean it up."
Shintaro frowned at her as she stretched out her hands, palms down. What was she planning? Was she helping them? Did the other Darks know? Was Shintaro misinterpreting the meaning behind her words, or was she really looking out for them? What had she meant by "do not get in the way"? What had that look meant?
The woman's eyes met his again just as the Dark Magic wrapped around them. Her brown eyes were filled with knowledge, understanding, and eagerness. She gazed intently up at him, her mouth pressed into a thin line. The world around them began to get darker.
Just as the room vanished, she spoke to Shintaro.
"Hurry up and banish your stupid father already, Shin."
~
3,216 WORDS.
THAT IS HOW LONG THIS CHAPTER ITSELF IS (not including my commentary at the end).
THIS IS THE LONGEST CHAPTER I HAVE EVER WRITTEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE ON WATTPAD.
FRICK GOSH MY FINGERS AND ARMS AND SHOULDERS HURT.
BUT THIS CHAPTER IS GOOD.
Who is this woman??
WHAT'S GOING ON XD
Thanks for reading this freaking maddeningly long chapter!!
Love y'all!!
P3ac3!!!~~
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