Chap. 2: Facing the truth
“ The Saejimas home,” Gonza told the old headset “...I do not think this was a good time to Mr. Kouga, Miss ... An urgency? I will try”.
He leaves the handset on the top of the furniture and goes out to the garden, where crouching Kouga is trying to find a trail.
“Excuse me, sir. Miss Jabi whishes to talk to you with extreme urgency”.
The young man looks at him with some discomfort. He sighs, gets up and walks inside toward the phone.
“Jabi ... How? ... And Kaoru has disappeared ... I don’t think it's a coincidence, either ... I wonder how they could kidnap her without us to realize it. The lock on the door isn’t forced ... How could she leave on her own initiative, at night and wearing her nightgown? ...”
Zaruba gets involved.
“Remember, lately Kaoru is very rare”.
Its owner covers the microphone with his hand and whispers strongly.
“Shut up!”
He continues his conversation.
“And you are okay? ... I'm glad you can use the Madou in such a case. I guess it has been possible because it spent few time between the wound and the treatment ... A anesthetic? ... In short, somewhere there is a Bariri disguised as you, and is five hours ahead ... Agreed”.
After hanging, he faces Zaruba, but before he could utter a word, the ring comes forward.
“I know you don’t like what I said, but circumstances forces you to become more open to other possibilities”.
“I refuse to admit that there’s any hint of evil in Kaoru”.
“There’re other possible reasons” Zaruba tries to appease him. “An influence by bad companions, as some workmates for example. And, if she had been convinced to go out ... how they call it ... to have a drink or two?”
“Secretly?” His skepticism is clear.
“Why not, if she risks having you a whole month sulking?”
Pause. Zaruba takes advantage of this moment of reflection by its owner.
“Please, think about it: has she behaved normally in recent weeks?”
“She’s pregnant”.
“I dare you to go to a library and read a book on the psychology of pregnancy. And then, tell me to see auras, going out at night alone and wearing a nightgow, knowing how much you care about her, and refusing to tell you where she goes, if she’s always done it willingly, are normal changes in pregnant women”.
A new silence gives rise to Zaruba to finish his challenge.
“Plus, you’ve no right to doubt about my perceptions. It may be acquired or not, but there is something demonic about her”.
Kouga takes away the ring from his finger and goes fast to put it inside its box.
Then, he sits on a armchair with his elbows on his knees, and covers his face with his hands.
He leaves the handset on the top of the furniture and goes out to the garden, where crouching Kouga is trying to find a trail.
“Excuse me, sir. Miss Jabi whishes to talk to you with extreme urgency”.
The young man looks at him with some discomfort. He sighs, gets up and walks inside toward the phone.
“Jabi ... How? ... And Kaoru has disappeared ... I don’t think it's a coincidence, either ... I wonder how they could kidnap her without us to realize it. The lock on the door isn’t forced ... How could she leave on her own initiative, at night and wearing her nightgown? ...”
Zaruba gets involved.
“Remember, lately Kaoru is very rare”.
Its owner covers the microphone with his hand and whispers strongly.
“Shut up!”
He continues his conversation.
“And you are okay? ... I'm glad you can use the Madou in such a case. I guess it has been possible because it spent few time between the wound and the treatment ... A anesthetic? ... In short, somewhere there is a Bariri disguised as you, and is five hours ahead ... Agreed”.
After hanging, he faces Zaruba, but before he could utter a word, the ring comes forward.
“I know you don’t like what I said, but circumstances forces you to become more open to other possibilities”.
“I refuse to admit that there’s any hint of evil in Kaoru”.
“There’re other possible reasons” Zaruba tries to appease him. “An influence by bad companions, as some workmates for example. And, if she had been convinced to go out ... how they call it ... to have a drink or two?”
“Secretly?” His skepticism is clear.
“Why not, if she risks having you a whole month sulking?”
Pause. Zaruba takes advantage of this moment of reflection by its owner.
“Please, think about it: has she behaved normally in recent weeks?”
“She’s pregnant”.
“I dare you to go to a library and read a book on the psychology of pregnancy. And then, tell me to see auras, going out at night alone and wearing a nightgow, knowing how much you care about her, and refusing to tell you where she goes, if she’s always done it willingly, are normal changes in pregnant women”.
A new silence gives rise to Zaruba to finish his challenge.
“Plus, you’ve no right to doubt about my perceptions. It may be acquired or not, but there is something demonic about her”.
Kouga takes away the ring from his finger and goes fast to put it inside its box.
Then, he sits on a armchair with his elbows on his knees, and covers his face with his hands.
* * *
Kaoru could not imagine that horror’s world was so desolate and so ... Just as if it there were some terrible winds eroding only surfaces, and leaving corners and edges as wild as if they had been cut off from the continental plate, or whatever they had in here.
Jabi loses her shape, becoming a Bariri horror. “She” says something, but among the powers transferred by her child there is not to understand the horror’s language.
Kaoru sees a huge coming black cloud with curiosity, composed of many tiny dots. As she watches it, she realizes it is over a lot of winged horrors, hundreds of them. Some few of its components land, say something, and three of them proceeded to grab her armpits and thighs, so they rise her almost being sit. The flight produces some contacts in their private parts, but she has already ceased to care about these things. There is something that is more interesting to her: what did the false Jabi meant that they were "waiting to their Queen”?
The flight looks endless. And it looked again endles after they descended under ground through a very wide tunnel dug in the rock, and entered to completely different landscape.
The highest mountains touch the sky made rock, and liquefy it slowly, generating large rivers of a sort of water of chocolate color, which feed a thorny and whitish vegetation. Small forests provide shelter to a multitude of horrors perched on the gnarled branches of trees thorny too. There are no buildings, but there are strange rock formations in the air in slow rotation, with the upper side conical; occasionally they release a ray toward a very specific place of the strange landscape.
The group flies to one of these formations, but only Kaoru and two Bariri two goes into. Inside, awaits a Bariri in human form.
“Welcome, my Queen. I am the high priest of Meshia’s Temple and it is my duty and my pleasure to serve you and your guide through this, your new world”.
“I would’nt call it pretty.” Kaoru does not hide a grimace.
“Because your view is still human”.
“We'll see. Inform me, priest, if this is your mission. Why you all assume I am your Queen?”
“You are here to be. You were the chosen receptacle by Meshia herself when she awoke from her long sleep. Her genetic markers remain in you. They will not be difficult to revive”.
“D’you want me to become Meshia?”
“We have inherited her knowledges. We can do it and we will do it”.
“No way!” Kaoru shouts. “I won’t become a guinea pig! I won’t submit to further medical experiments! You’ve a wrong Queen!”
“My Queen, you are talking by human experience. We know what we do. Meshia developed amazing powers. Her blood is not normal, and it has a transformative virtues that you can not imagine ever”.
“How d’you know it’ll be compatible with my own?”
“Your pregnancy. Thank to it, your body has already accepted our DNA: the first step is already done”.
“That was because it has been necessary to make my child into a horror...”
“And it would have been very difficult to bring you this far without the evil influence by your child. So, we would have to force you, and you at risk an abortion”.
“I understand. But there’s something you don’t seem to understand. Through my experience as Meshia carrier, to put it in some way, I got completely annulled. My name is Kaoru, and I remain so, okay?”
“I understand your reluctance”, he wanted to appease her. “That was a possession in which the possessed’s consciousness can only be a watcher at the best. However, we propose a fussion: two things will combine to one. You will not miss Kaoru, my Queen, but you will win Meshia”.
“How many times have you done this?”
“With Meshia’s blood as powerful as it is now, once, and gave immortality and great powers to Kiva, although it was a very limited transfer. Kiva not only retained his full individuality, but he feared the Queen so much that he managed to bewitch her”.
“Kiva betrayed her?”
“Yes, he did. After getting to draw her attention by devouring a huge number of us, he offered himself as an ally that would operate from the human world. Then she gave some of her genes, and he plunged her into unconsciousness”.
“And he resigned to the human world?”
“Of course not. But, while he was dealing with Meshia, the humans closed the Temple of Darkness, and with it disappeared its gateway”.
“But the horrors have appeared in the human world for millennia”.
“The consistency of such accesses makes them more impervious to major spirits and humans. Fortunately, now we have got the Temple of Darkness”. He fixes two determined and merciless eyes upon Kaoru. “It is time for you to claim your crown, my Queen”.
But Kaoru still doubts. What if they deceives her and she is re-possessed?”
“It. Is. The. Time”. The horror priest is inexorable.
She swallows. He makes a signal to his attendants, and take her to another session of air transport. Now he, recovered his original form, goes with the group. Only the fear of falling down prevents Kaoru from struggling. When they leave her on the ground, she has already decided to resist.
But she can not do anything. They put her among the branches of a thorny bush that is at the center of a gray patch and keep her there. The thorns stuck into her flesh, deeply. She cries. She realizes that these spines also pour something into the wounds. She feels terribly ill.
After becoming unconscious, the process begins its hardest stage.
Jabi loses her shape, becoming a Bariri horror. “She” says something, but among the powers transferred by her child there is not to understand the horror’s language.
Kaoru sees a huge coming black cloud with curiosity, composed of many tiny dots. As she watches it, she realizes it is over a lot of winged horrors, hundreds of them. Some few of its components land, say something, and three of them proceeded to grab her armpits and thighs, so they rise her almost being sit. The flight produces some contacts in their private parts, but she has already ceased to care about these things. There is something that is more interesting to her: what did the false Jabi meant that they were "waiting to their Queen”?
The flight looks endless. And it looked again endles after they descended under ground through a very wide tunnel dug in the rock, and entered to completely different landscape.
The highest mountains touch the sky made rock, and liquefy it slowly, generating large rivers of a sort of water of chocolate color, which feed a thorny and whitish vegetation. Small forests provide shelter to a multitude of horrors perched on the gnarled branches of trees thorny too. There are no buildings, but there are strange rock formations in the air in slow rotation, with the upper side conical; occasionally they release a ray toward a very specific place of the strange landscape.
The group flies to one of these formations, but only Kaoru and two Bariri two goes into. Inside, awaits a Bariri in human form.
“Welcome, my Queen. I am the high priest of Meshia’s Temple and it is my duty and my pleasure to serve you and your guide through this, your new world”.
“I would’nt call it pretty.” Kaoru does not hide a grimace.
“Because your view is still human”.
“We'll see. Inform me, priest, if this is your mission. Why you all assume I am your Queen?”
“You are here to be. You were the chosen receptacle by Meshia herself when she awoke from her long sleep. Her genetic markers remain in you. They will not be difficult to revive”.
“D’you want me to become Meshia?”
“We have inherited her knowledges. We can do it and we will do it”.
“No way!” Kaoru shouts. “I won’t become a guinea pig! I won’t submit to further medical experiments! You’ve a wrong Queen!”
“My Queen, you are talking by human experience. We know what we do. Meshia developed amazing powers. Her blood is not normal, and it has a transformative virtues that you can not imagine ever”.
“How d’you know it’ll be compatible with my own?”
“Your pregnancy. Thank to it, your body has already accepted our DNA: the first step is already done”.
“That was because it has been necessary to make my child into a horror...”
“And it would have been very difficult to bring you this far without the evil influence by your child. So, we would have to force you, and you at risk an abortion”.
“I understand. But there’s something you don’t seem to understand. Through my experience as Meshia carrier, to put it in some way, I got completely annulled. My name is Kaoru, and I remain so, okay?”
“I understand your reluctance”, he wanted to appease her. “That was a possession in which the possessed’s consciousness can only be a watcher at the best. However, we propose a fussion: two things will combine to one. You will not miss Kaoru, my Queen, but you will win Meshia”.
“How many times have you done this?”
“With Meshia’s blood as powerful as it is now, once, and gave immortality and great powers to Kiva, although it was a very limited transfer. Kiva not only retained his full individuality, but he feared the Queen so much that he managed to bewitch her”.
“Kiva betrayed her?”
“Yes, he did. After getting to draw her attention by devouring a huge number of us, he offered himself as an ally that would operate from the human world. Then she gave some of her genes, and he plunged her into unconsciousness”.
“And he resigned to the human world?”
“Of course not. But, while he was dealing with Meshia, the humans closed the Temple of Darkness, and with it disappeared its gateway”.
“But the horrors have appeared in the human world for millennia”.
“The consistency of such accesses makes them more impervious to major spirits and humans. Fortunately, now we have got the Temple of Darkness”. He fixes two determined and merciless eyes upon Kaoru. “It is time for you to claim your crown, my Queen”.
But Kaoru still doubts. What if they deceives her and she is re-possessed?”
“It. Is. The. Time”. The horror priest is inexorable.
She swallows. He makes a signal to his attendants, and take her to another session of air transport. Now he, recovered his original form, goes with the group. Only the fear of falling down prevents Kaoru from struggling. When they leave her on the ground, she has already decided to resist.
But she can not do anything. They put her among the branches of a thorny bush that is at the center of a gray patch and keep her there. The thorns stuck into her flesh, deeply. She cries. She realizes that these spines also pour something into the wounds. She feels terribly ill.
After becoming unconscious, the process begins its hardest stage.