Paint it all Black

Tears fall from an angel’s eyes

Over a thousand miles away.

Her child has died a hero

Yet his story has just begun.

Chapter One:

Death

I’ve stared into my eyes more times than I can count. Every morning, before I shower and go to school or work. But not that morning. Every time I see in those eyes a reflection of my soul, of who I am. But not that time. I see myself seeing myself, but those eyes will see no more.

“God dammit I’ve been dead for what,” I looked at my watch in disdain, “Twenty minutes, and I’m already reciting damn gothic poetry. Fucking hell.” I sighed as I floated over my body, lifeless, blood leaking out by force of gravity and equalizing pressure now. My hearts been stopped for a while. My ghost-self...my... konpaku ... I think is the Japanese word for it... Is transparent and independent of the gravity below it. Police officers and ‘Public Defense Soldiers’ are teeming all around my body, stuffing the maniacs who had caused my death into body bags with little respect for them. The weird bomb they had—which looked like it came out of Count Chocula’s ass for all its bargain brand look to it—was being moved into a portable disposal unit.

A woman in a uniform that only had the bare minimum of the flair that would indicate her rank was on a cell phone. My mom was on the other line. Damn the Japanese were fast on distributing information...well it was my phone actually so of course all she had to do was find ‘Mom’ under the listings for recent calls...she was my last ten. Actually I’d called her right before my death.

The nutjobs were a radical terrorist cell that was Anti-Chinese. There have been lots of talks between China and Japan and they were finally on the verge of dropping all the bigotry from days of old and making friendly. These nutjobs didn’t like that idea. They had ranted on and on about how it goes against their culture and other crap like that. Apparently the same plane that was dropping me off from my connection in Hawaii to Tokyo was the same one the delegates were gonna use to get to China. Ain’t that just my luck?

Well as I’m passing by the delegates, the fuckers make their move, again: LUCKY ME. So yeah Ranting begins shortly, the PDS show up and are all calm and crap. Then they notice me. Now my flight had been almost entirely Japanese citizens coming home, except me. The one American on the plane. This off course makes it an International incident cause they have no jurisdiction over my lively hood.

The terrorists notice this too and get all giddy cause apparently they also belong to an Anti-American group (but who isn’t now adays?). I’m like “Oh shoot me now...” and sadly one of them takes me seriously, and my first bullet wound, in my left arm, is a quick painful one. After some swearing and a declaration of my utmost contempt in the finest Japanese I could muster at that point, I sat there, bleeding and fuming.

Things degrading fast after that, a team of US troops show up (all for little old me? How thoughtful, Uncle Sam). I sigh again and more uptight negotiations happen. Now all this is going down while the PDS are moving around and getting a good footing in. Now they could waste the suckers now problem, except this nut with a machine gun has us all in her sights, and she’s a trigger happy suicidal psycho bitch. You know that’s good news for a hostage.

At this point things look bad, I ask one of hostage takers if I can call my mom, in case I’m dead in a few minutes. I get my chance and soon I get a hold of her fairly quick and try and sound calm. It fails, this is already on the news back home and she’s in hysterics. I tell her to be calm. I tell her I love her. I tell her to take care of my pets and tell my sister I love her and fully support her getting married to that total badass boyfriend of hers. Before I hang up I tell her one last thing. “I’m not gonna die for Japan, or America or anything like that. I’m gonna die for Peace.”

At this point several of the delegates catch on to what I’m about to do. They try and grab hold of me. I’m glad I decided to start seriously working out last summer, their grips slipped off, I rushed the psycho bitch, got a stomach full of lead, and kept going. I grabbed her by the throat and put all my energy into one last punch.

I got into a fight with a girl during high school. I broke her jaw and a rib, she broke my arm. She’d started the whole thing by calling me a faggot and shoving me down. I told her to fuck off and shoved back, of course I got the worse punishment. After I served my minor sentence, my mom drove me home, silent all the way, and when we got out of the car in front of my house she said one thing before going in. “When you fight a girl, avoid hitting her in the breasts.” She smiled at me. “It’s just awkward then.”

I smiled at that memory as I broke that bitch’s face in. I heard the gunshots all around me, and as I spun around I could hear my cellphone chirping the tune I had picked for my mom. It was a nice little melody, and as my vision fogged, I laughed. One last laugh.

Which brings me here; Watching and listening as the Japanese soldier lady with a surprisingly good grasp of the English language talks to my mother, who’s nearly inconsolable. She gets the facts of what I said and gives the whole, ‘Your son died a hero’ bit, kinda wish she hadn’t. It’s so cliche’ it takes from the severity of the fact that I was dead.

“YOU JACKASS!” I sighed as I turned my head to the psycho bitch. My punch must have been lethal cause she was floating next to me, a broken chain hanging from her torso like the one hanging from mine. “YOU KILLED ME! YOU FUCKING KILLED ME!”

“You killed me first.” I traced a square with my index finger. “We’re square.”

“I don’t think so...” came a husky voice, the other terrorists were all dead too.

“Oh, lighten up!” I yelled, floating a bit away.

It may help to the observant reader that we are all speaking Japanese at this point, but I choose to interpret to the best my abilities.

“No. You ruined our plan. You got us all killed. You. Must. PAY!” He roared, I sidestepped him as he charged. “Dude...we’re dead, there is nothing you can do to hurt-“

A horrific roar ripped open my spiritual eardrums. I grabbed my head in pain and as a sudden pressure wrapped around me. I could see the terrorists doing the same thing.

I swore a few times in English and immediately hightailed it outta there, or tried to. I was crawling along, the pressure around me was intense. The terrorists were huddled together, holding each other in fear. I hid under a table that had some computers on it and kept an eye on them. I had a bad feeling about what was gonna follow in the moments to come.

A tremor shook the room, but noone around seemed to notice; noone living anyway. The terrorists were all screaming in terror. I guess death really kills your courage. They were looking in my direction when something hit the table. HARD. The computer monitors were knocked off and hung between me and the open space. The lady who had been standing there had leapt back, knocking her chair down there as well. I was hidden. Luck may have finally been on my side.

The souls of the terrorists screamed again as another roar ripped through the room, this time it was right over my head. The pressure ebbed a bit, but then the table nearly snapped in half. God, I was sick. I wanted to heave. But it would hear me if I did....I wondered for a moment if I could eat, drink, or defecate as a ghost. Thoughts of the possible true source of ‘ectoplasm’ crossed my mind and gave me a grim smile as I peeked around the opening of the desk. I watched as a giant beast with black skin and a white mask started to grab the terrorists and pinned them down, it had so many arms it easily managed it.

Then it started to eat.

I couldn’t watch. I started to crawl away, through the walls and tables, and people, and luggage I that got in my way. I accepted that fact that I was dead. I embraced it. It meant that I didn’t have the same limits of a living person. But now I had that THING to worry about. Whatever it was.

After I got through four janitors closets and an interrogation room were two security officers were filming their own special ‘Yuri’ video—I didn’t linger, lesbian stuff doesn’t do anything for me— I stood up and started running. I figured the beast was taking his time. Evil things do that don’t they? Plus he had like ten souls right there, he wouldn’t go missing one, would he?

As I ran through a wall into the main lobby two things immediately struck me as off. One was that while I felt the spiritual pressure of the beast, it wasn’t at all overwhelming, though it didn’t seem any weaker for my distance from it. If that makes any sense at all, than your brain capacity is higher than mine was cause I couldn’t figure out how it could be that way.

The second thing was the dark skinned girl in a black samurai get up– “Gi” I think was the word for it— .She looked right at me. Saw the terror in my eyes and nodded. She walked up to me and drew her sword, crap that thing was sharp looking. From her general appearance; the black outfit and the sword, I drew some pretty bad conclusions, and I panicked.

“Wait a second! I didn’t do anything bad in life! I didn’t even lose my virginity! Please don’t send me to Hell!!” I backed up and suddenly I hit something solid.

Bad sign, I told myself. I looked up and I saw the hideous mask of the beast.

“Fuck you.” I said before bolting toward the girl. Its arms shot after me but I pushed off the ground and shot into the air, out of its reach.

The girl seemed a bit surprised but gripped her blade and sped forth, striking at the beast with a cold wrath. I don’t know what made me say it but I screamed: “He’s eaten ten people, be careful!” The girl seemed shocked at this and immediately began attacking with an even cooler manner, my limited knowledge of swordsmanship told me her guard had just tightened quite a bit.

“DUMB GAIJIN! YOU RUIN THE SURPRISE!” The beast roared as wings broke out from its back and its many arms, I could see at least fourteen, gained white clawed tips.

“-ood thing you di-” I heard a whisper from my left. I turned, but saw nothing.

“Who...” I looked around.

“-ear me?...most pro-” again, the whisper broke apart as I tried to focus...so I relaxed.

“-earning fast, and without anyone to teach you?” the voice, a girl’s, giggled, “Not bad at all... you have potential, but its not time yet. The seeds are burrowing deep before they will break the surface...”

“Won’t they die without sunlight?” I asked, keeping to the metaphor.

“These are seeds that bloom in the moonlight in the land beyond life. Be patient...Kaito.”

I was surprised to hear my inner name spoken, but for some reason it didn’t feel wrong for the voice to say it.

“Who are you?”

“----------------” The voice said something, but I couldn’t hear. “Don’t worry, you’ll hear it in time...” The voice faded and spoke no more.

All this happened while the girl dispatched the beast with unnerving ease. It started to dissolve into a mist as she walked back over to me.

“Kneel.” her voice was like iron; Cold and unrelenting. I stood my ground, as much as I could while being incorporeal. The girl sighed. “I’m not gonna harm you. I’m gonna preform Konso.”

“Soul Burial?” I repeated in English. “But...”

“Just kneel and it will all be clear.” She said, her voice a bit nicer. I sighed and did so. I looked up at her and she pressed the pommel of her sword into my forehead, a rune was placed and suddenly I felt a feeling of peace over my body, and everything went white.

=========================End Chapter One================================