His Reflection (2)
written by Sycia
Alien Fire:
The
next morning was a foggy one. K’ was up early as usual, anxious to get to work
on tracking down Kula Diamond and eventually, NESTS. He had found Maxima
dribbling all over the cushion and sprawled out messily on the couch.
K’
shook his head and shoved Maxima off the couch roughly. He wasn’t exactly
being mean; that seemed to be the only way to get Maxima fully awake.
Maxima
landed with a rather muffled thump and let out a grunt of surprise. He sat up blankly and
stretched for a bit before K’ spoke, “We’d better go soon…”
“Sure… but first things first. I need breakfast.” The other man mumbled,
dusting himself when he finally stood, yawning.
K’ didn’t have much to say to that. He felt hungry too, “Fine.”
* *
*
Deep within an abandoned broken-down warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of
Tokyo, a tall dark figure regarded Kula Diamond from the shadows, his face
hidden.
“Still haven’t found him?” The figure growled at Kula in a deep, sinister
voice.
“Not yet. I will find him soo…” Kula started nervously in a timid manner.
“You’ve not been doing well, Kula.” The man cut her off mid-sentence with anger welling up in his words.
“I’ve
been trying my best, Sir! I’ve done everything I can think of to get his
attention!” Kula whimpered, on the verge of crying.
“Tsk.
But that is not enough.”
“Please
Sir… give me some more time… I swear I will find K’!” Kula begged the
figure with both her hands together, eyes watery.
The man sighed, disappointed, “A week more, Kula Diamond. No more. You know
what will happen should you fail to bring him to us.”
The
girl nodded vigorously, “Please don’t hurt Foxy or Diana! I will not fail
you!”
“See to it that you do not,” He said with a frown apparent in his tone,
“now go.”
Kula ran out of the warehouse, with tears streaming from her eyes, into the
heart of the city to do what she was forced to do.
* *
*
Maxima was stuffing himself with mouthfuls of salad and cold noodles at the
restaurant. K’ was pecking at his roasted beef, wondering where to start
looking for any traces of Kula.
“So… tell me about yesterday.” Maxima managed to say between his
mouthfuls.
“Nothing much. I was just walking down an alley not far from here. Kula was on
the other side, in the street. She was looking for us, I think.”
“And you didn’t confront her?” Maxima commented when scooping up another
helping of salad.
“Wasn’t in the mood for fighting. Besides, it might have been a trap. She
was trying to get our attention, I think. Otherwise she wouldn’t have frozen
the whole place.”
“Yeah. But it is a little strange… I mean… she seemed almost desperate to
find us. It was never like that before.” K’ finished off the last scraps of
his roasted beef.
Maxima gave it a bit of thought but no answer presented itself, so he changed
the topic, “Maybe we could go to your sister. She and those soldier guys might
know something about NESTS.”
K’ looked at
his companion strangely, “I don’t know she’s my sister for sure. And even
if she is, I don’t think she would remember anything about my past. Not to
mention those ‘soldier guys’ are far too proud to let us in on anything they
find on NESTS.”
“You’re
right, they’re too afraid you’ll smash the place up before they can do
anything else.” Maxima smiled and ate.
“…”
K’ resorted
to observing people walk past the restaurant window while waiting for Maxima to
finish his seemingly never-ending meal. He could make out his faint reflection
against the glass panels and was reminded of his reoccurring dream. And at that
instance, his reflection on the glass vanished.
What
the…?
K’ and Maxima
had been sitting at a table right next to the glass panel and K’ was pretty
damn sure he wasn’t hallucinating after blinking a few times. Maxima was too
busy to notice his buddy’s situation.
K’ tried
waving his arm a little in front of the glass to try and figure out what
happened to his reflection. Maxima had his just fine, K’ saw when he glanced
over. Just as K’ was about to ask Maxima about it, a wave of dizziness
overwhelmed K’ and he leaned back against his chair for balance.
It might have
been forever that that sensation lasted in K’s head, or so he thought. When
the dizziness finally stopped, he realized Maxima was talking to him with a
worried expression.
“…alright?
You don’t look that good…” K’ heard Maxima’s voice.
K’ wanted to
reply, but a fiery sensation was felt at his hands. He lifted them up to see and
found both his hands giving off strong fire.
“Not
again…” He grumbled. This hadn’t happened ever since K’ threw his red
glove away. But then again, only one of his hands could emit fire previously.
Maxima was
growing worried. He shoved some money to a bemused waitress (everyone in the
restaurant was looking at them) and led a confused K’ out of the place.
“I’m fine.
It's just these hands…” K’ stopped Maxima when the latter support him.
“We’d
better get somewhere quiet… and figure this out.” Maxima said, seeing the
amount of people around them who might get hurt.
Maxima led the
way to a lonely street while K’ held both his arms in front of him to prevent
the fire from burning his suit. The fire burned furiously crimson and
persistently but did not hurt K’. Ordinarily, the black gloves would protect
him from being burnt for the short time he used his flames during combat.
However, K’ would still get hurt if any fire, from him or not, touched him for
too long. After all, K’ was still a human.
Now though, the
sudden flames had completely burned away K’s gloves and were threatening to
eat into the sleeves of his suit too. But there wasn’t any pain, merely
uncomfortably hot hands.
Maxima sensibly
helped K’ roll his sleeves up immediately when they were well away from the
crowded area.
“Doesn’t it
hurt?” Maxima asked when he noticed K’ hadn’t have the slightest look of
pain on his face.
“No… but of
all the times… now?” K’ swore under his breath, looking at the fire.
“We’ll talk
about that later… right now we’ve gotta find you some water for that…”
Maxima looked around.
K’ spotted a
tap nearby. They tried putting out the fire with the water, but for some strange
reason, the flames seemed unaffected by its natural extinguisher.
“You want me
to try stamping it out?” Maxima suggested, giving up on water.
“?! On my
hands? Are you out of your mind?”
“… Fine…
I don’t get it, how could it resist against water?”
K’ looked
down on the ground, staring into the puddle of water at his feet. The fire
seemed to be stronger now, “This isn’t my fire.”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t
feel like mine.”
“Of course
not… the fire you’ve always used was something you got from Kyo Kusanagi.”
Maxima balked.
K’s face
turned a darker shade of brown at that instant, “Kyo’s fire is now mine. I
learnt to control and use them to my will. But this isn’t mine, or Kyo
Kusanagi’s.” K’ motioned to his burning hands.
“Jesus… you
don’t need to be so touchy about that…”
“…”
K’ looked at
the puddle again. His reflection was there now. For that he was glad. In the
next moment, his reflection became horrifically distorted. Perhaps it was
because of natural ripples in the puddle, or maybe some other force was making
this happen.
Whatever it
was, one thing was for sure. A painful laughter filled the area. Its deafening
echoes bounced off every angle, and its full audio force was directed at the
pair.
Maxima felt as
though he eardrums were going to give. He covered his ears tightly, shouting,
“What the hell is that?!”
K’ too was
experiencing the same side effects from the laughter, except that Maxima’s
shouting only made it worse. He was afraid to cover his ear with those burning
hands so tried to bear with all the noise distortions around him, looking down
at the puddle at the same time.
His normal
reflection did not return. It stayed distorted and eerie. K’ was suddenly
struck with recognition like a bolt of lightning; the laughter had sounded
familiar. Yes! It was from that
reoccurring dream! K’ jerked in surprise.
His reflection vanished once more, and the flames on K’s hands became so unbearably hot that a shriek of agony tore out from him, only ceasing when the pain halted as those flames turned absolutely sable black.
Part 3 coming up...