Andromeda

The jungles of Yuglaovia were not a place for man to be trespassing, but he did not know fear. The stories of the man eating plants that grew out of the trees and hanged like vines did not even make an impression on him. Wild beasts that had not been seen by the eyes of humans for thousands or millions of years were only further enticement for him. As for the ancient ruins where the rumored Yugla people were said to still inhabit due to their god granting them immortally to protect it from anyone that dared to plunder the riches, they were simply an adventure waiting to happen.

However, even all that being said he still had to deal with getting there first. The jungle air and normal plants stood in their way before any of the real dangers would even begin. It was a deep jungle and there was still time before the risks were going to appear. At least that is what everyone thought. He remained alert, but his companions were too relaxed. They were warned to be ready for anything and never let their guard down, but their confidence was their undoing. The man carrying their supplies disappeared first and no one even knew until the native aiding them called their attention to it. Unfortunately, they were too late and the native was gone to a trap that left him bleeding out from dozens of holes.

He was angry and saddened by the loss of two people already, but there was the hint of excitement tempting him on the edge of his tongue like a sweet perfume. The woman explorer looking for her first adventure and historical find was the next to fall to quicksand. He lunged for her trying to save her before she was completely out of reach of him. The others grabbed on to his legs keeping him from sinking in as well.

She tried to reach for him, but only continued to sink deeper as she struggled more. “Yuki!” she shouted to him as her hands were just out of reach of his.

Chapter 24 – The Watcher

“I’ll save you, Sarah!” Yuki shouted standing up from his chair in his Japanese History class.

Ms. Kuniyoshi broke her chalk on the blackboard as Yuki disrupted her class. She turned around immediately flinging the jagged end at Yuki like an arrow hitting him square in the forehead knocking him off his feet and backwards into Ayumi sending her to the floor with him on top. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop sleeping in class, Mr. Hayashi!” The other students in the class continued to laugh at him for his daydreaming.

Both Ayumi and Yuki were lying on the floor for a minute dazed and swirling neither certain what had happened. Slowly, Ayumi came back finding Yuki laying on him becoming flush and panicking. She tried to get free from Yuki, but his weight was too much for her weak body to move. “Yuki!” she said softly at first and then raising in volume when she saw it was not getting through to him.

Yuki snapped out of his confusion and pushed himself up not realizing that he was on Ayumi. ‘There’s something soft under…me…’ He looked down expecting to find the tiled floor, but saw that it was Ayumi instead. “Ayumi! I-I…”

Ayumi became alerted and extremely embarrassed discovering a new found strength to throw her fist up at Yuki sending him flying across the room against the wall narrowly missing the windows. When she came back to her reality she looked down at her hand and then over at Yuki. “Oh no! Yuki!” She ran over to the now unconscious Yuki shaking him and apologizing to him. All the while, the teacher was cracking her chalk over the board grinding it into a fine powder trying to control her anger.

The entertainment for the morning was over and lunch had come. Yuki found his way back to his seat after everything that had happened and they were all working on getting together for going outside for lunch to enjoy the late spring air. Hiroshi grabbed Yuki by the back the neck with his arm slung over him as they went into the hall. “So who’s Sarah?” he said giving Yuki a playful grin.

“What are you talking about?”

“Who were you dreaming about in class? Some beautiful babe, huh?”

“W-What… Wait! Hiroshi, it’s not-“

“Yuki’s not like you,” Saki said appearing in front of the two of them staring Hiroshi like she was ready to punch him. Hiroshi turned a little pale and squeezed on Yuki reflexively as he was being threatened by Saki’s presence.

“Can you believe him? He acts like a clown in class and looks like nothing happened now,” said Katsumi, one of Yumi’s friends. She was standing next to Yumi staring down the hall from the front door of the class watching Yuki and his loud friends leave. Katsumi had long black hair with straight cut bangs just above her eyes and sat one seat out of the way of Yuki’s airborne stunt in the classroom.

“You should stay away from him, Yumi,” said Kaede on the other side of Yumi nodding in agreement with Katsumi. Kaede sat at the front of the class next to the class representative and had shorter black hair held close to her neck and face.

Yumi shyly looked between her two friends trying to think of what she was going to say. She had known them since middle school and they were fortunate to have gotten into the same class. It made life for her much easier in a new school to know that she had friends nearby. “He’s not a bad person…”

“But he’s always causing trouble in class and sleeping,” Katsumi said not certain why Yumi was standing up for him.

“Besides, you’ve heard the rumors haven’t you?” Kaede said hoping that she could change her friend’s mind.

“What rumors?” said Yumi confused by what Kaede suddenly said. However, she had to admit that she knew nothing of Yuki’s past before coming to the school and it had her curious.

They were interrupted by a small group of female students breaking through them charging on mass to the other end of the hallway having been tipped off. Near the end of the hall, where the school widened into classroom on both sides, a young man walked through with a commanding presence that pulled away some of the girls with love struck eyes. The girls that broke through were a part of the ‘Official’ fan club. The upperclassman came to stop in front of Yumi and her two friends looking directly at Yumi.

“Brother…” Yumi said softly as she looked up at him not certain why he had come up to the first year halls.

“President Yori Mizuno!” Kaede said a little surprised that the most popular male student in all of the school was standing next to her.

“Yumi…” he said pausing for a moment trying to ignore all of the attention that he was drawing for being seen. Yori was the student council president and well known by all of the female student body without even needing an introduction. His short medium to dark brown hair and warm light brown eyes made for a perfect match against his tall and well… (he was a good looking boy and we’ll leave it at that). He had a very soft and charming appearance that he tried not to portray, but it seemed unavoidable for him. It made him unusually charismatic and one of the more successful presidents in the recent school history. When he ran for president all of his competition nearly disappeared knowing by his mere presence that he would win. “Are you free for lunch today?”

“Huh? Uh…I was…” Yumi looked at both of her friends, who she was planning on spending the lunch time with today. However, Yori was in front of her and she did not want to disappoint him anymore than her friends.

“No, it’s alright, Yumi,” Kaede said seeing the expression that was coming over her.

Yori picked up on it quickly stepping in for them. “I’m sorry for interrupting you. You had plans with your friends. We can have lunch another time.” He politely bowed to the three of them and departed quickly making the fan girls draw away in waves.

“Yumi?”

“Yori…” Yumi stared at the ground confused by her brother’s sudden appearance. ‘He had something he wanted to talk about… But what?’ Her friends were starting to stare at her with worry. She turned to the two of them trying to give a pleasant smile. “I’m sorry.”

Lunch for Yuki was never boring when Hiroshi and Saki were around him. He had a pleasant smile on his face not looking like he had a care in the world. The truth was he was distracted again with daydreams and slowly eating his food. He stared at the clouds that were slowly moving through the sky picturing what they could be in his mind. They started out simple being only animals like a rabbit or a dog or a dragon, but quickly changed into a spaceship and giant robot.

Ayumi had been quietly eating watching the others acting crazy and trying not to stand out noticed Yuki. She had caught the look in his eye having seen it before and then across from them out of sight of most of the students in the grass a modestly sized dragon suddenly appeared. Her eyes went wide for a moment and then narrowed as she knew what was happening. ‘He’s not concentrating… the idiot!’ Ayumi was quick to expand her field out to blend in with the grass and remove it from sight of everyone when it changed into skeleton warrior. The physical image that he was summoning seemed to be changing so fast that she was not able to react to it in time to keep it under control.

“Hey you hear something?” Tatsuya said looking over to Hiroshi holding his food that he was about to eat back down to look around. However, there was, naturally, nothing for him to find but the normal grass field to track field.

“Huh? What you telling about?”

Ayumi jumped up in surprise sending her mostly empty container of food for lunch flying through the air landing on Yuki’s face. Yuki fell back in surprise slamming his head into the ground roughly dazing him. “Yuki! I’m so sorry!” Ayumi dropped over to his side picking him up and shaking him to hopeful get through to him. She darted her eye around to his friends that were pulled in and then to the field. ‘It’s all gone now and they don’t seem to have seen anything.’ While she was getting Yuki back to normal as he came around her eye caught someone in the distance looking at them. ‘Did they see something?’

“Ayumi?” Yuki said slowly not certain why she was so close to him. He leaned back trying to get some room from her until she was startled back away to her original seat in the group.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to spill my lunch on you. Are you feeling okay?” she said trying to keep down the red that was bleeding into her face. The embarrassed look was not lost on the others that had sly and mischievous looks in their eyes. Her eyes looked over her shoulder trying to find the person she saw a moment before, but they were nowhere in sight. ‘Disappeared… Who were they?’

Hiroshi leaned into the center that everyone made looking at Ayumi. “You seem to be getting pretty close to our friend Yuki a lot lately.”

“Huh? N-No-no I haven’t!”

Tatsuya grinned to himself seeing Hiroshi having some fun teasing Ayumi. “Like during class this morning.”

“Wha?! No, that was an accident!”

Hiroshi laughed a little seeing the innocent girl trying to deny the accusations. “Yeah! You sure you didn’t throw your lunch just now to be close to him?”

“N-No! Why would I? That’s ridiculous!”

“Is it?”

“Stop teasing her already, Hiroshi…” Saki said leaning in on the two boys with a glare that they were all too familiar with now.

Hiroshi and Tatsuya were immediate in their ceasing and stared down at their food. Yuki tried to smile it all off and look like he was not involved even though both Ayumi and Saki were staring him at him now as well. “What?”

“Idiot!” the two girls said in unison.

After school was over, they were all walking out of the school together for once. Saki did not have practice today and Hiroshi’s club activities were on other days. Yuki was very happy to be able to spend some time with his friends and even Momoko was going to be home early today to be able to take care of Ken and Jun. It seemed like everything was lining up perfectly for him to have an afternoon with his friends.

As they walked out of the school grounds to the sidewalk along the school they were all stopped by a shout towards Yuki. “Yuki I challenge you!” the voice said, but no one had any time to react as a fist was already flying through the air towards Yuki’s face in a flash. Ayumi and Saki caught it a moment before knowing that Yuki was going to be flattened in an instant by the sudden attacker.

“Yuki!” the both shouted trying to get to him and knowing that they would be too late.

The flash ended and the arm of the boy was held straight out in front of Yuki, but he was not on the ground. It was the opposite; he was standing his ground with his own hand up having blocked it with his palm. There was a moment on Yuki’s face where he looked different. It caught Ayumi and Saki off guard not certain what to make of what just happened. Yuki changed back immediately afterwards lowering his hand as the stranger pulled back. “Is that… you? Seiji!” Yuki leapt forward grabbing on to Seiji’s waist making him spin around.

Ayumi narrowed her eyes in the moments of happiness from Yuki. ‘For an instant he had the look of a wild animal… What was that? I’ve never seen Yuki look like that before.’ She held back to the outside of the group still trying to sort through what she had seen a moment ago.

Saki had nearly the same expression on her face that Ayumi did, but for a different reason. ‘No… It can’t be surfacing. All of the fighting that he’s been forced to do lately... Is it bringing it back to the surface? For a moment it was like the old Yuki was back.’ She was quick in changing her look at Seiji stepped closer to her. “Hey, Seiji…”

“Saki…”

“What are you doing here, Seiji?” Saki words had gone cold in front of Seiji like his mere presence was offending her.

“Yeah! I haven’t seen you in like a year, Seiji! What have you been doing?” Yuki was almost clinging on to Seiji with the excitement of an eight year old getting a present. It left all of his friends staring still in shock by the whole thing.

None of them knew what to make of the very tall stranger from another school, judging by his white and black uniform. Seiji stood much taller than Yuki or anyone else around and had his shoulder length dark brown hair tied back in a short pony tail. His uniform jacket was left open with the dress shirt underneath showing. He had a wild look in his light brown eyes while his face seemed to have a calm stoic appearance.

Hiroshi was the first to recover himself and step around on the other side keeping his distance from Saki. “Judging from Yuki, you seem to know each other. Did you go to the same middle school together?”

“No, if you can believe it. We’re old friends. Though I haven’t been in touch for quite some time.” Seiji seemed to gain a softer expression and a smile like he was recalling fond memories. It still was leaving everyone a little confused.

“What’s with the fist then?”

“Oh that? It’s just something between us.”

“Yeah, Seiji likes to kid around like that. Sorry for the scare guys.” Yuki stood up on his own looking a little embarrassed about what had happened before. Seiji apologized for his misunderstanding earlier smoothing out things, but the uncertainty did not leave the air. Saki remained staring cautiously at Seiji the entire time that they were talking.

“I was actually hoping to catch up on old time with Yuki, but I didn’t mean to interrupt you and your friends.”

“Interrupt, you nearly dropped Yuki to the ground with your interruption,” Saki said glaring at Seiji not giving him an inch.

Seiji rubbed the back of his head trying to brush it off. “I said I was sorry already, Saki. Old habits.”

In the warehouse with cells a darkened figure walked around examining the scene. The figure knelt down to the ground rubbing their hand over the surface. Their eyes scanned the room once more before standing up. “As they suspected. He’s dead. Your death was not for nothing though. We know where to look now. It is only a matter of time.”

To be continued…