Paradox Saga: Rising Sun

I Get To Be A Star On TV, Sort Of...

I hate blacking out. I dreamed I was a kid again, which I hate more. In my dream, I was eating a bowl of ramen with my parents in a food stand. I figured out that we were on a food park as there were other stalls beside ours. Aside from the ramen’s savory aroma, the smell of hot takoyakis flooded my nostrils. I can smell in a dream. Go figure.

“Hey, son. You fine?” Dad said and patted my back. “Is the ramen still hot?”

“No, Otoosan (Father),” I said in a cute voice. It was strange hearing my voice as a child, maybe because I never remembered it because of my Mum’s spell. “I feel sick…”

True to what I said, my body felt heavy. My head hurt like hell. My whole body felt like I was used as a punching bag, which should be impossible as this is a dream.

“Takechi,” Mom said. “We should go already. His powers are…”

Mom paused for a bit and looked at the walking people behind us before continuing in a hushed tone. “Shiro’s powers are manifesting again. I can feel it and I’m sure you do too.”

The door on the stall’s back opened and the vendor came in. He looked at us and frowned. He probably thought the ramen tasted bad.

The vendor came nearer. “Daijobu desu ka? (Is everything all right?)”

“Yes, everything’s okay. My son’s having a tummy ache. Probably from the cotton candy,” Dad lied.

The vendor let out a loud chuckle like he was glad his ramen tasted good. “Happens a lot of times. My kid just went to the dentist this morning and he loved eating cotton candy. Well, you can come back anytime for some more ramen but for now, you really should get that young kid some medicine.”

Dad put some bills on the table. “Keep the change. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The vendor waved us goodbye with a smile as Dad carried me like a baby. Mom was following us, her brows furrowed and was clearly worried. The people were looking at us as we hurried to our car. As Dad ran with me in his arms, I felt my whole body tingling as if my entire blood was made of pure electricity. My head pulsed every second as if was a living time bomb. My heartbeat was going crazy - beating a hundred beats per minute.

“Dad…what’s that above?” I asked as I pointed at the sky. Dark clouds were starting to gather in the skies as we ran.

“That’s just nothing, son. Probably a fireworks display!” Dad replied though his face clearly said it wasn’t true.

We were getting near the parking lot when it happened. Faint glowing lines traced my whole body like someone put some luminous paint in my flesh. Luckily, no one noticed us as we were now in a tree-filled path and only a few people were spending their time here. We arrived in the parking lot just in time as the lines on my whole body started to glow some more. The lines were like a broken light bulb - glowing on and off.

Dad put me inside the car’s back. Mom quickly sat beside me and made me drink something that I don’t know.

She opened the cap of the bottle. “Drink this, baby. I promise this taste yummy.”

Despite my body glowing, I managed to ask something I found silly. “Like cotton candy?”

“Yes, like cotton candy,” Mom promised.

I gulped a mouthful. I tried not to make a face. It tasted like cotton candy…hot and spicy cotton candy. My throat felt like I swallowed a hot red glowing coal.

Dad looked at the rear-view mirror. “So, did it stabilize the mana flow?”

“I think so,” Mom replied.

I wasn’t able to talk. My body felt like lead – heavy and slowly melting away – as I held Mom’s hands. I looked on the rear-view mirror. Besides Mom’s panicked face, I saw my pale face. The lines on my body had started to faint but my head still hurt. I thought whatever Mom made me drink has cured my headache. It didn’t. The lines started to glow once more and started to become brighter in a shade of blue. Their light was pulsing at the same pace of my heartbeat until I realized they weren’t simple blue lines. They were my veins.

“It’s getting worse. We have to get home as fast as we can,” Dad said and stopped beside the road. He got out a paper with Shelter written on it in kanji or Japanese handwriting. The paper suddenly glowed and before I knew it, my mind suddenly went blank.

“Three cities have been evacuated prior to appearance of the violet vortices. However, with the cooperation of the police and the superhumans that call themselves ‘Figures’, the portals were cleared. From the information obtained by our team, the vortices, or ‘Anaphoras’, were portals that led to another world. According to one of the Figures we interviewed, the Anaphoras need to be cleared to prevent the monsters living in it to break out the portal and cause havoc. We are still waiting for more information in concerns…”

I opened my eyes. Wires and small tubes were connected in my hands, but the wires were not the ones I noticed at first. My hands looked bad. They were black as if I burned my hands. On the other hand, the girls were sitting beside me and seemed to be sleeping. They were still clad in their armor.

I looked at my right. Besides the TV remote, fresh flowers were put in a vase, and fruits were laid in a basket. My body was so heavy like it weighed a ton. I tried to move my hands.

“AHHH!”

I grunted loudly as sharp pain exploded in my arms. The girls woke up and raised their fists alertly like someone might punch them suddenly in their face.

Nami held my hands and laid it down again. “Don’t move yet, Shiro. Your body hasn’t healed yet.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

Thyme looked at my hands. “They don’t look that bad now, unlike last night.”

I was about to ask what happened last night until I understood what they were talking about. I remembered what happened last night. The portal, the caverns, the giant black widow, all of them started to flood my memories.

I was busy summarizing my memories when a message popped up in front of me.

“You have cleared the Anaphora. You have now gained the Achievement [First Blood] and [Sudden Upgrade],” I read. I looked at the girls. “Wait, does this mean that I killed the boss?”

Nami nodded. “Yes, you did, Shiro. Besides…”

She scrolled down the message like a phone screen and let me read the rest. “As for killing the boss, you have now received the following: 3,000 Gold Coins and Random Attribute Stone [Permanent].”

I looked at them. “So?”

“So? You just got a lot of good items,” Fritz said. I noticed she was still a girl. “Just press the OK button.”

I heeded her advice. I pressed the OK button on the bottommost part and as quick as a flash, a sack full of heavy gold and a colorless stone from nowhere dropped on my legs.

“Someone help me, please,” I said and tried to get the sack of gold away from my legs.

Saiko lifted it with a single hand. “This will be a lot once we convert this into cash.”

I didn’t mind the cash-thing. My eyes focused on the stone. It was colorless so it looked like a see-through glass but much hazy.

“So, how can I consume that stone when my hands are still hurt?” I asked.

Thyme walked to the door, looked around, and locked the door close. She went to my direction and nodded to the others. She got out a small bottle of clear liquid from her pockets.

“Say ahh,” she said as she uncapped the bottle.

“If that is another peanut-butter flavored potion with a hint of poison, I’d rather face the giant black widow again,” I said before opening my mouth.

Thyme poured the bottle's contents into my mouth and I closed my eyes, expecting another horrible taste to seep in my tongue. Almost like a miracle, the liquid didn't taste bad. Perhaps because the contents were not that many or the potion's ingredients were not made from peculiar monster ingredients, but the potion tasted fine. In fact, it was tasteless. 

"That potion was an Essence Potion," Thyme said, seeing me breath out a deep sigh. "Anaphora Bosses commonly drop potions like this," she said as the bottle's last drop went down my mouth. The bottle slowly dissolved into dust. "I think your an F or E-Rank since that Essence Potion was a Rank-E one, and it works on you."

I looked at my hand which was starting to itch. Ever seen a snake shed its old skin? That's what my hands looked like. As it healed, the burned skin molted away from my hand. After the very irritating process, my hands looked new and seemed to sparkle. I remembered reading something similar on a Biology encyclopedia. As spiders mature, their skin also mature. In short terms, they shed off their old skin like an old T-shirt. I wonder if giant black widows do that, too. 

"Wait..." I looked at them. "You're saying that I drank the essence of the Brood Widow?!"

All of them laughed. "Well, yeah. Besides..." 

Nami put the sack of gold and the stone aside and got a vial out of her pockets. "The giant mama spider dropped this vial along with the Essence Potion."

I sat up. "Huh? I taught the 3,000 gold and that stone was the boss rewards?"

"Of course not!The gold and the attribute stone is the Anaphora's clearance reward. These potions were item drops from the Anaphora's boss," Nami answered and handed me the green vial. 

I did the usual thing. I used Analysis and the potion's data flashed in front of me. 

Arachno-Immunity Potion

Consumable-Type Item

Rank: F

Effect: Consume to achieve total immunity from poison and venoms of arachnid beast-type monsters. Also reduces 50% of damage received from the said monsters. 

"Okay. So do I have to call the nurse and inject this vaccine through a syringe?" I joked.

They chuckled. "Nice joke but yes, you can. However, we Figures normally gulp down potions like a soda-in-a-can," Saiko told and smiled. 

I pointed at the vial. "You drink these?" 

"Yes, and you should, too," Nami answered with a blank face. 

"We just received a footage from a citizen who happened to be around when the portal appeared..."

I quickly got the remote and turned the volume higher. 

"This video that we are about to show you a few minutes after the appearance of a certain Anaphora in Kyoto," the reporter on the TV said as a video appeared on the screen. 

In the video, a swirling violet Anaphora was barricaded by police cars and yellow security lines. A massive truck with a group of military personnel assisted the policemen on warning the citizens away from the portal. It seemed so familiar. Of course, it would. It was the Anaphora that we entered. 

A policeman's voice can be heard in a megaphone. "Please, Maam, Sir. Be in a maintained distance. This thing may be potentially dangerous and can cause dam - " 

The policeman stopped talking. He turned around and seemed to look at the Anaphora. The video blurred as it zoomed on the vortex. When it became clear into focus, the video showed a masked woman carrying someone in her shoulders. 

"Is that us?" I asked, unable to believe my eyes. They nodded in reply.

I looked back at the TV again. The crowd ooh-ed and stared at us. We really looked cool, well except for Saiko carrying me like a sack of turnips, but besides it, the girls' faint silhouettes looked amazing with their armors. The woman carrying a bow, who must be Nami, talked to Saiko for a second and went to someone from the military van. She told him something and the man nodded. The ground underneath us glowed as Nami walked back to our group. After a while, we flew like Peter Pan and flew away from the crowd. 

"We needed to disappear quickly as the people would've recognized us, even with our maskes," Nami explained.

The video shook and I thought it was the owner shaking his hands until a strong rumbling noise broke out and I realized it was an earthquake. The people screamed as they put their hands on their heads as the earth shook some more. The Anaphora glowed violently before a brief swish! sounded and the Anaphora seemed to be vacuumed and disappeared. The video ended and the screen now showed the reporter in the studio again.

"The identity of the people who emerged out from the portal remains unidentified. The government's Security sector has released a statement saying that they've already  had reports of supernatural occurences around the country and are already investigating the current situation. The Military Security-General has also stated that: 'We have already contacted one of the people who managed to clear the second portal. The individual have already revealed the existence of superhumans or what they call themselves as Figures.They have already provided us some information that we must consider Confidential as of now. We will release everything in due time'." 

I turned the TV off. They looked at me like they're waiting for me to ask something.

"So, we're like the Power Rangers now?"

Midorima stood and unlocked the door. "Sort of."

I furrowed my brows. "What did the woman in the TV mean with the second portal? Was there a second portal?"

"Yes. There were three Anaphoras around the country. I don't know why but they are not supposed to show in public places. As for what the Secretary-General said, one of the Figures have already revealed our existence," Nami replied and looked at me. "It was probably Touya-san." 

I was about to ask who this Touya-san was when bright light shone from outside the windows. I turned around and my eyes widened. Rays of light were dropping down from the skies from far away. The light beams continued to close its distance to our direction and crossed into buildings and skyscrapers. One hit a window on a building and the room glowed as if the light rays were targeting the people. 

"Shouldn't we be running away from those?" I said in panic.

The girls didn't reply. They were looking outside with terrified faces. 

"It's happening," Nami uttered, her eyes still locked outside. 

"The what?" I asked. 

Nami looked at me with a hint of horror in her eyes. "The prophecy..."