The growing light was now receding a bit. Kaoru could trace a golden shape spiraling in front of him.
“What the hell am I seeing?” said Die.
A gigantic glittering dragon appeared before the five of them. Its long and massive body was enough to coil around Nippon Budokan twice. Its scales did shine like swimming carp as legends say. The eyes contained the ferocity worthy of being the king of beasts on the earth and the skies. The giant dragon looked at Kaoru.
Holy crap, Shenron is real, thought Kaoru.
The dragon spoke with booming volume. “You, small mortal, have broken an ancient seal using your blood and the rest of you became sacrifices to invigorate me once more as this mountain’s god.”
“Are you the same mountain god that chased away the rasetsu?” asked Kaoru.
“Indeed I am the one. So my story has not been forgotten,” said the dragon.
“An old man told me, but has has given his life,” said Kaoru.
The dragon coiled in the air as if it were swimming in water.
“He will suffer ninety nine years of torture in Hell for the cowardice he has shown,” said the dragon. “After ninety nine years, he will be reborn as prey to understand the fear of being hunted. Because he had shown courage at the very end, he will be reborn as a human at the end of his cycle. As gratitude for freeing me from my thousand year slumber, I bestow upon all of you a special gift.”
The blinding flash of light covered the dragon and enveloped the five members. In a moment, the dragon had disappeared. Kaoru stirred from the ground and opened his eyes. His nostrils caught whiff of dried blood and mountain grass. His fingers caked with blood were still grasped on the cut stone. He slowly sat up and patted himself free of grass and dirt. Kaoru pressed on his chest and looked at the inside of his shirt. The lethal wound had completed disappeared. He pressed his stomach beneath the remaining bloodstains to make sure the wound had closed. Surely enough, the skin was smooth as if it had never been marred before.
Die began to shift from his sleep. He turned his body to the side and found himself dangling closely on the edge. He let out a small scream before rolling back quickly to safety. His hands reached through his ragged clothes.
“What the …? My wounds …,” he said in amazement.
Kaoru got up to look at Toshiya who was lying facedown on the grass. The pool of blood and the rock was still there like before, only that Toshiya’s skull remained intact. Kaoru gave the bassist a gentle shake. Toshiya gave a quiet groan before opening his eyes. Shinya had also woken up. His neck was no longer crooked and nor was there a scar left behind.
“Should we try to wake him up?” asked Shinya.
Kyo was sound asleep with folded hands and his face directed up to the sky. The hellish air was no longer upon him. The sudden breeze disrupted the tufts of blonde hair. A helicopter roared above their heads. Some rangers and policemen came running a few minutes later.
“Medic! We have an unconscious person here!” one of them called out.
A stretcher was quickly prepared and Kyo was strapped on.
“Quick! We have people that need medical attention!”
Kaoru was quick to refuse. “It’s ok. It’s just a tumble or two …”
“The cut on your hand will get infected if it’s not treated,” said the medic.
Kaoru glanced down at his own hand. The scorpion bite from before was now a bloody gash. He gave a light smile. I guess the dragon god left us a good cover up story.
The medics treated each of the members from small scratches and bruises. Toshiya had a knife graze and a swollen head as opposed to a concave skull. Die had a slight gash across his chest while Shinya had his on his shoulder.
“Will it go away?” Die asked anxiously.
“If treated properly, there shouldn’t be a scar,” assured the medic.
“Phew. My body is safe,” said Die.
“No one wants to see your body,” teased Toshiya.
“No one said anything showing anything to anyone,” retorted Die.
“Who knows if the narcissist in you awakens out of nowhere,” said Toshiya.
Die laughed. “Me a narcissist? I’m a perfectionist.”
“More like perfect idiot,” said Shinya.
*****
A prison guard took a peek into one of the fail cells. Inside was a man with the most frightening eyes. It was as if his eyeballs could be plucked so easily from their sockets. He was bound in a straitjacket and placed uncomfortably in a metal chair. Half of his face was obscured by metal fixings used to keep him gagged. A fresh cut across the bridge of his nose was the one thing that stood apart from the entrapment. The prison guard continued his stroll down the hallway. Another guard was waiting at the very end.
“What’s with the new guy in room 304?”
“He’s the occultist that murdered a bunch of people. Supposedly when they found him, he was close to dead with every bone in his body fractured, split, or powdered.”
“Hot damn. It is always the strange ones that have the most deranged sense of reality. In the last decade, we had cult leaders, religious fanatics, and disciples of the unholy that fill these cells. I don’t care whether you believe in ghosts or Colonel Sander’s fried chicken, you kill people you pay the price.”
“Isn’t that how some people say when you believe hard enough you can even worship a sardine’s head?”
“Where did you get that saying from? That sounds like something you get from a poorly written fortune cookie trying to be authentic.”
“Bob. That doesn’t sound remotely funny or intelligent.”
“As if Phil here is a Harvard educated academician. Going back to the subject, how did they get the guy in 304? He didn’t just fall off a cliff on his own will to commit suicide when he’s having so much fun on his own murderous spree.”
“The superiors didn’t divulge too much except that some musicians had stopped him. A foreign metal band supposedly.”
“You need hardcore people to stop other hardcore people,” said Bob. “Any idea how long he is going to last in here?”
“It depends on the sentence. At most over a hundred years, but depending on how heinous they will rule it, I’d say a chance at death penalty would be very convincing.”
“No one comes into this prison with a clean background. They come in here fully aware of what they did and look at what happens every time. No remorse.”
“All who kill must pay whether it be living out your end of days in these bare walls or lethal injection.”
“Sometimes I get scared just thinking how people go from newborn babes to homicidal maniacs. Where did all the bad begin to seep in.”
“Sometimes I feel proud that we are still living,” said Phil. “Some people go from degenerates to godly saints. You have to believe that the good in the universe also seeps in.”
*****
A conference room filled with cameramen and reporters of major television broadcast stations and media press waited impatiently. The room escalated loudly when Officer Kobayashi entered accompanied by a lieutenant and other members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
“What will the police do with the aftermath of Tokyo’s gruesome murders!”
“Can you divulge how the police apprehended the murderer!”
“Is it true that some famous celebrities were involved!”
Question after question bombarded the police. Kobayashi asked for the crowd to settle down with the raise of his hand. The cameras mercilessly flash. Kobayashi leaned forward to speak into the microphone.
“We, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, had collaborated with the Iwate Prefectural Police to apprehend the criminal, Stephen Mavros. It is thanks to the hard work of the department and collaboration of fellow Japanese citizens that we were able to close the case. The persons involved have asked to remain anonymous for the presiding case …”
*****
“The serial murderer and self proclaimed occultist, Stephen Mavros, has been apprehended by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police on December 11. The apprehended murderer has been transported back to the United States to be tried for his evil acts. Family members of the deceased victims are demanding that Mavros be tried on Japanese soil. The American representative has expressed condolences for the families and friends of the deceased while also offering a promise of delivering justice as compensation …”
“What kind of compensation can you offer? The families are grieving now,” said Die.
“I’m wondering how much Kobayashi has promised to keep under the wraps. He has been quite lenient with our special encounters,” said Toshiya.
“On the charges for 127 murders committed on Japanese soil, 85 were involved in the inexplicable hospital massacre. Footage reclaimed from the scene recording the massacre was found to be damaged and irrevocable. The surviving footage only shows Mavros entering and leaving the hospital the day before the murders. Foreign exchange student, Colin Hill, was found dead in his room and police have reason to suspect that Mavros was involved. Hill’s family from the United States have been reported to have arrived yesterday. Shimizu Mari, a bartender that worked in Club Praha, was confirmed to be murdered in an alleyway by Mavros as captured on footage. The remaining 40 victims have been identified as the missing persons documented over the course since Mavros’ appearance in Japan. A candlelight vigil will be held in Yoyogi Park and shrines across the different communities to memorialize the victims.
Mavros has also been charged with forceful entry, illegal possession and illegal transportation of restricted items and human remains. Two months earlier when he been identified as the man who caused the disturbance at Narita International Airport before fleeing by taxi, police were investigating the reason for escape. The department has come to conclusion of contraband items and is still investigating how it was transported from Mavros’ home country. Among the restricted items were the bones of a human child that were excavated from the front yard of a residential home. Forensics have identified the bones to have belonged to a young female that had been deceased fifty years ago. The bones have since been claimed by the FBI for further analysis to determine its origins.
Officer Kobayashi that had been working closely with the case since the very beginning managed to disclose that this was a highly abnormal case that defied common logic. He said that perhaps it was a stroke of luck or justice appointed from above that four people, who chose to remain anonymous, managed to take down one of the deadliest killers we have seen.”
“And now the case is closed,” concluded Die. He took a big gulp of shochu.
“Are you sure you should be drinking so soon? Don’t forget we were dying not so long ago,” said Toshiya.
“It’s thanks to the mountain god that we are still alive. I think he may have fixed my liver,” said Die. “Tenchou! Another round of oden!”
“Haiyo!” said the owner.
Unlike the usual, Haiiro no Ginka was teeming with customers. A steamy clay pot of oden was brought to the table. All the chewy and simmered treats were floating in a bubbling pot of sweet broth. Die ladled one of the fish cakes into his shallow bowl.
“You know what would be nice right now? Spicy sundubu,” said Die.
“I haven’t had that in a long time since we lasted visited Korea,” said Toshiya. “That sounds nostalgic.”
Shinya came shuffling into the izakaya. He was bundled from head to toe and busy patting off snow.
“Shin-chan, you’re just in time for delicious oden,” said Die.
“For the last time, stop calling me Shin-chan,” said Shinya.
“I think he prefers Yamo-chan,” laughed Toshiya.
Shinya took off his gloves and placed his scarf in his bag. He poured himself a cup of tea from the steaming pot.
“So how is he?” asked Die.
“Still the same,” replied Shinya.
“Still being an old man cooped up in his room,” said Die.
“He said that there was no need to meet up anymore,” said Shinya.
“I guess it’ll just be us three tonight,” said Toshiya.
“Would it hurt just to have a drink together?” said Die.
The night carried on with more food and conversation while first snow gently sprinkled from the sky. Kaoru sat by the kotatsu with a burning cigarette dangling between his fingers. He thought of Genma all of a sudden. Poor soul to be damned for giving into fear. Was it really fair for him to go through torture while Mavros himself is still alive in this world? It wasn’t up to him to decide who lives. Kaoru looked at the painted statuette of the Virgin mary resting on top of a shelf. He prayed for mercy on Genma’s punishment in Hell. He was grateful to the dragon god for giving them all a second life, but now he worried for the last member now breathing through a machine in the hospital.
Your friend has suffered much more than the rest of you, the dragon had said before it disappeared that day. He will need more than a simple healing. It will be up to his karma to decide whether he will wake or not.
It had been one week since the incident and Kyo showed no signs of waking up. Doctor Yamaguchi had no explanation for the state of Kyo’s body, which was extremely healthy. Before he knew it, the cigarette had burnt out entirely into a stub with ashes collecting below. Kaoru lifted the shades of his windows. The blanket of snow grew thicker than before. Kaoru only thought of how pure and white it was like Kyo’s intentions. He was always the kind one deep inside behind the moody and unapproachable exterior.
Buzz buzz. Who could be messaging me at this hour, thought Kaoru. The message from Die read: Kaoru, the hospital called. There’s been a change in Kyo’s condition. Kaoru took a deep inhale. This better not be for the worse. He glanced at the statuette again. He reached for his jacket on the coat stand and headed out the door.
*****
BGM: Glass Skin by Dir en grey/ Karasu by Dir en grey
To the readers who have stayed with me since the beginning, I thank you graciously. There is one more chapter before this tale comes to an end. Will karma prove to be fair for Kyo? If you liked this chapter, don't forget to leave a comment.
