Fateless.

Act I. Part III.

Ryu wakes up, still in shock, and begins to stand up. It is then he looks up to notice that his surroundings we're "different", still the lifeless, dark, but light-present world but it was "different". Mainly because there was an old house made entirely of rocks, one door, two windows, and a chimney protruding out.

He ran towards the house and noticed that he wasn't moving both backward and forward anymore. He continued to move toward the door but this time, slower and with caution. He climbed up the small stone steps and reached the door. He started to stretch out his hand to grab the brass-like handle. Before he could make contact, he heard a voice.

"Who are you? Where are you from? Why have you come here?" The voice asked.

The voice sounded like that of a boy. Ryu quickly turned around, looking for the source of the voice.

"My name is Ryu, I'm from central, please I need your help!" He answered in a panicked and hurried tone.

"And helping some random boy covered in blood in a place where people don't exist is a good idea." The voice said sarcastically.

"Please I'll do anything you want. I just want to get back home."

"You.... You're from the other side? Get in quick."

Ryu proceeded to open the door handle and was immediately met by an incredibly bright and familiar light. He raised his arm to cover his eyes as he went into the house. The light from the house seemed to consume the darkness behind him as he entered.

Finally, inside, he closed the door behind him and dropped his arm. He looked around the room and realized that the house has normal light inside it.  He ran to the nearest window looking for the light's source. What he saw amazed him, on the other side of the window was a blue, no azure sky, purer and fuller than any sky he had ever seen.

He ran to the door and left the house. Lo and behold the outside was still a dark, mundane, upside down, and lifeless place with peculiar glowing water for a floor. He went back into the house looking for anything he could use to survive, and at the back of his mind, get home.

"There's no food or water in this house, now go to the end of the hall." Said the voice, catching him off guard.

Ryu assumed that's where the voice was coming from; he grabbed a metal candle holder from the small dining table and tucked it into his sleeve. He went down the hall and came across a door. One of only two doors in the corridor. He proceeded to open it and to his surprise, there was someone there. A small girl with flowing white hair that had black strands mixed in the beautiful pure white. He felt an urge to reach out to her. But before he could touch her skin, he heard the voice again.

"I want you to take me and this child to your world."

He looked around but still couldn't see anyone apart from the girl.

"Wait, are you just a voice? Where are you?" He asked with a confused expression

"You won't find me if you look for me. All I need is a response to my request. I can tell we've both been wronged by the rulers of this world, if you take me back, I'll help you. Because right now you won't last long if one of 'them' decides to look for you."

Ryu was left even more confused by his words; he opened his mouth to form a sentence.

"Someone else is coming, who else did you come here with?! Argh, it's probably them." The voice shouted.

Ryu went into a panic and fell silent, completely dumbfounded because he had an idea of who came to look for him.

I know you're here! Come out or I'll kill the boy and girl." A voice from outside the house shouted.

"I think he has my friends; I need to go see if they're okay," Ryu told the voice.

"Of course, they're not okay!" He retorted.  "He has no intention of letting you or your friends live regardless of whether you come out of the house or not. You're safer here, he doesn't even know you're here for sure."

"That is a possibility. But right now, I have to ignore it. I don't want the extra guilt of watching my friends die because of me."

Deep down he assumed, no he knew, that all they were was is bait. The poor fisherman wouldn't catch a fish, feed it and let it go, after all his livelihood solely relies on him catching the very fish. He realized that in this situation someone else's will and intentions overshadowed his need to live.

Ryu started to open the door and walk out of the house to meet the man. As he left the warm and colorful inside of the cabin, he began to remember what type of place was outside.  Dark, desolate, and upside-down.

The darkness outside started to consume the bright light coming from the cabin as he walked out. He continued to walk towards the figure from which the voice came. The face and figure of this man became visible, as well as a woman he didn't see earlier by his side. And not just that but his two friends kneeling on all fours in front of this man, he noticed that his friends were softly crying and whimpering seemingly unable to move because of fear.

The unknown man looked at the scared and frail demeanor of Ryu standing across from him and smiled as if laughing at Ryu's choice to die without resistance for a reason he doesn't know. Is what Ryu thought to himself.

At this moment Ryu let out a light laugh because he may have come to the last realization of his life, and it was fairly simple for the last realization of his life. It simply was:

                                    "Oh, tHis Is wHEre I Die."

The unknown man seemed disappointed by his willingness and began to scratch his head.

"What about a bet?" Hishe said to Ryu, shocking him. "If you beat me, I'll let them go and take you back home. And no weapons, just a normal fistfight."

"This is a waste of time. They're just kids, don't prolong the unnecessary." The woman by his side butted in.

"Urghhh all you do is nag…"

As the man and woman are arguing, the voice asked Ryu,

"Do you think you can win?"

"I'm fairly confident in my ability to hold my own in a fistfight." He replied.

Hishe began to add rules to the wager, and while he was speaking, Ryu walked up to and struck a to his head using the short metal candle holder and he dropped onto his face.

Ryu immediately let out a sigh of relief.

"I didn't think you could land a blow on him," Said the voice. and Ryu retorted by saying,

"Didn't I tell you I'm fair----"

"That's great and all but he's still awak--" Th voice interrupted, and was unable to finish his sentence.

Ryu was met with a vicious dropkick to the back. Kicked into the stone step of the house he began to cough up blood. He raised his head to look around and was the woman who was by the man's side sitting on the other side of the step. She made a hand gesture at Ryu that said: "Don't look at me, it's all him."

His friends were brought to clarity by this scene and quickly jumped at the man, trying to hold him back from going to finish off Ryu.

"Please! Please don't! " Cried Mila as she was holding onto Hishe's left hand.

He shrugged her off and said,

"I don't hit girls. But you.." He said as he turned to look at Toshiko with a crude smile.

Toshiko hedg onto him from behind and had no time at all to react to the vicious blow his stomach received. Hishe continued to walk to Ryu, once he stood over him, he picked him up by his neck and held him in the air.

All eyes were on Hishe who now was holding up Ryu prepping his fist, and at that moment all they were all shocked to see Hishe sent flying towards the left because their eyes were focused on him, they did not see the man who threw the punch come into their surroundings.

Another unfamiliar figure came into the picture, and almost immediately the expression of the woman who was with Hishe changed from that of complacency to that of fear. She rushed to Hishe's side who was now on the ground unable to move.

The man who had just appeared had short, jet black hair as well as a hair-bun at the back of his head, sharp facial features that accented his black studded earrings. He was wearing a black and gold military-esque uniform, with several decorations on it, in short, he's another pretty boy/man.

"We're doing lady Inari's will, why do you involve yourself in matters unrelated to you, láng bīng?!" The woman shouted as she held Hishe in her arms.

The military uniform-wearing man began to laugh, he shortly came out of his fit of laughter and glared at the woman.

"Well this time you chose wrong my moronic underlings, you see that boy," He said pointing at Toshiko. "My king ordered that I bring him as well as anyone with him, back with me. And I'm sure you know how difficult things will get for you if you have the wrath of my king on you. "He said confidently,

The woman looked like she had more to say but quietly resigned

"We shall inform our lady on what has happened here. You will regret interfering." She said with a hint of anger underneath her words.

The man continued to laugh and went on to pick up Ryu. He then walked towards Mila and Toshiko and dropped Ryu to the ground, piling the three up, and in a flash of light consuming darkness, they were all at the train station, but it was evening time.

said,

"Hi! My name is Lars, and I'd appreciate it if you kept what happened to you today to yourselves. So g'night, and sleep well." He said before he proceeded to walk away.

The three were left on the edge of the platform by the train tracks, traumatized from the events that had just happened. They just sat there in silence. They then heard a voice, they all slowly turned to look behind them and it was a small girl,

"Where am I?" She asked.

end