“My Sweet Emotion”
by Ash
Chapter 01:
Complicated
There was a presence, an angry one, and it became all the more vicious as I neared the gaping, dark alley. I should have been on my guard, but stupidly, I wasn’t, and my ignorance was rewarded by the feeling of cold metal against my temple.
“Hands up and give me your wallet,” he said, and I could hear the light click of the trigger.
Slowly, I raised my arms into the air. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t fight back, not when I was taken by surprise like that. It was an unfair fight; I might lose my life.
But no one said life was fair.
It’s not fair because all life ends at one point.
And I would know.
I could feel the power course through my body, and the world became purged of colors for me. Upon the ground, I could see the corpses of—or spirits of—the dead long gone, the people who had died in the alley before. Out of the group I selected one rather gruff looking man and called out to him in my mind.
In that world of black and white, the man’s dead eyes opened, and I promptly returned myself to color. There, in the real world, I could see the man for what he really was—a rotting corpse. The man’s real eyes were no longer in their sockets and his skin had disappeared in some places, while much of the flesh on his hands were dangling from his wrists. This man had passed from Earth only a few weeks ago, I could tell, because normally the dead I summoned were mere skeletons.
The thug had removed the gun from my head and repositioned it to point at the dead thing.
“W-what the hell is that thing?!” he asked me in a panicked voice, not shifting his gaze from the Shell. His hands were shaking with fear.
“It is my warrior.”
The Shell charged at the thug on my silent mental command. His hands reached forward like a zombie, but the came together like a noose around the thug’s neck.
There was a loud crack and I felt the life of the human man leave his physical body; his weak spirit would soon become one of the corpses in the world of black and white, just like my warrior had once been.
Its job finished, I returned the Shell to its former form of a lingering spirit in the alley, the physical body turning to ash.
Amara-Aranel Sango, the necromancer. Gaia-Mehtar Inuyasha, the geomancer. Kai-Aranel Kagome, the girl of hydromancy. Together we were an unbeatable trio.
I, as the necromancer, raised the dead into Shells and had them do our bidding. Inuyasha divined for us using his geomancy, as Kagome did with her hydromancy. Not only that, but the two could also control their elements of earth and water.
Sure, it sounds corny. Oooh, these people can control the elements. So what? So can a whole bunch of other “super heroes.” Well I have news: we’re not super and we’re not heroes. I’m sure this is really bad for my self-esteem, but the three of us aren’t really all that special.
That’s because there are other gangs of “mancers” like us. Most of them not as strong, but they’re out there. The groups usually had more members than three though, like the Kuro gang of Naraku, Kikyou, Kagura, Kouga, and Sesshoumaru who was Inuyasha’s own half-brother. They were powerful, and they had “connections”, you had to give them that. But our relationship with them was complicated.
The morning after I was attacked, Inuyasha called us into the living room for a meeting.
“I’ve called you here today because–”
“Inuyasha, I know you like to think you’re our boss or something but–”
“The keyword there being ‘think.’”
The comment earned me a couple of glares.
“But,” continued the interrupted Kagome, “you’re not, no offense.” When I looked at her face I knew that silently she thought she was being mean to him. “What makes you think you are?”
Inuyasha, on the other hand, didn’t take the comment with offense at all. In fact, he smiled arrogantly while saying, “Because I’m the only guy in this pack. You ladies need a leader. And I’m just the man for the job.”
I don’t know about Kagome, but I raised my eyebrow at this. We needed a guy for a leader? Excuse me? A guy? I’m not sexist or anything, but really. My kitty Kirara would’ve made a better leader than Inuyasha, if brains were anything to go by.
I’m just kidding!
But if looks had anything to do with it, the two would have a lot in common too. Kirara, being a cat, although an undead one, had little ears on the top of her head. Inuyasha had animal-like ears too, but it wasn’t so odd, considering he wasn’t human. The fur on those doggie ears was silvery, just like the silky long hair that cascaded down his back.
Like those ladies on the Herbal Essence commercials.
He’s got the urge! Oh, yes, yes!
I shook my head to get that ridiculous picture out of my head before I started cracking up.
“Oh, so you’re saying a girl can’t be a leader? Is that it, Inuyasha?” Kagome stood up from the couch she was sitting on and cocked her head to the side.
“No,” he answered, making Kagome sigh in relief. “At least, not really.”
“Meaning?” She was irritated all over again.
“Meaning, as long as a guy’s available to be the one in charge, he might as well be. He’d make a better one than a woman, is all I’m saying.”
Ouch. Wrong answer.
“Ok. Well, if that’s what you want to believe, we’ll have to respect that. Right, Sango?” Kagome winked at me, and I smiled back. She was planning something.
It didn’t take too long to figure out what that something was, either. A ring of water, just… floating in the air seemed to be hovering precariously around Inuyasha’s shoulders. It much resembled a snake with no head.
“Right.”
Inuyasha seemed content with our “agreement.”
“That’s right. Oh, and, Inuyasha?”
“Hmm?”
“Sit.”
The poor Inu-chan had about .21 seconds to have this really cute puzzled look on his face before splat! The ring of water had wrapped itself around his waist and dragged him to the hard wooden floor.
Yeah. Ouch.
While we were busy laughing our heads off, Inuyasha stood up again, wobbling. He had a tinge of red on his cheeks as he yelled at us. “What the hell what that for?”
“For being… for being a… chauvinistic pig,” Kagome managed to say between gasps. “Ahahaha! Have a little more faith in us women, will you?”
I, on the other hand, had completely given up on speech. The laughter was too much; my sides felt like they were going to split. Ok, I’ll admit, it wasn’t that funny, but hey, this is Inuyasha we’re talking about. And he just got sat.
Even Kirara’s furry chest shook with laughter with us.
“Keh.” Aww, Inu-chan was upset.
“Getting huffy, are we?” asked Kagome.
“As huffy as a PMSing goldfish,” I answered.
My best friend made a variety of fish faces and kissy noises and we laughed hysterically some more.
That is, until the ground began to shake.
“Inuyasha!” Kagome complained. “Cut it out with the earthquake, all right? C’mon, you know we love you.”
“That isn’t me.”
When he shook his head we both stopped laughing. The lamp on the desk next to me was shaking uncontrollably, threatening to fall, along with just about everything else in the household—bookshelves, drawers, the stereo set—everything.
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.”
I could feel death. It was draining slowly from someone nearby. Slowly, and painfully.
Jumping to my feet, I ran out the door into the street. The scent of death grew more pungent as I sprinted down the street, heading for the park.
At Fujin Park the trees were swaying like laundry hung out to dry. Leaves and branches blew all around before heading towards the center of the field.
What in the world was going on?
The winds were powerful, the strongest I’d seen in a long while. They could only be the result of aeromancy, and a strong mage of the art at that. But the trembling earth could not be the work of an aeromancer, even an incredibly powerful one.
Could it?
I shivered at the thought. To think an aeromancer could possess such strength… it was unthinkable. If this mage were indeed as strong as I thought he was, I certainly wouldn’t want to get in his way.
As I turned away from the park, ready to head back home, a man’s yell caught my attention. A person was in trouble, but who? And why? What had he done to anger this aeromancer so much?
Curiosity got the better of me that day. What could it hurt? I thought. So I crept closer to the origin of the winds.
What I saw there was not something I had expected to see. Ever.
Instead of the aeromancer and victim I had anticipated, I saw one man. He stood in the center of the park where the ground had begun to sink in beneath him like a crater. The winds, along with various leaves and small woodland creatures, were being pulled into the palm of his right hand.
What I saw next disturbed me the most, though. In his palm was a black hole, as deep and dark as the ones you see in Star Trek and shows like that. And it was expanding. Quickly. The young man’s left hand wrapped around his other wrist tightly, and he looked as if he was trying to push his hand away from him. Not that I could blame him. If there were a vortex like that in my hand I would certainly want to get away from it. As the hole expanded, he seemed struck with pain again and again, and soon his left hand had disappeared into the hole too.
He’s dying.
The man’s face contorted with each second that passed, but I could help but think… I couldn’t help but think he was kind of, well, cute.
I’m sorry, all right! I was sixteen, ok! Give me a break!
From the distance at which I was standing I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, but it was simple to see that they were filled with pain.
And I knew I had to help him.
But what’s a necromancer to do? I could manipulate the dead, not a swirling vortex of death.
So as I ran to him all I could do was watch in horror as the black circle on his hand grew and grew, torturing him. His arms disappeared and then his chest began to give in.
He said, as his last living words, “Damn you… Nara…”
And then he was gone, vanished into thin air. All became quiet again, as if nothing unusual had occurred, save for the stripped trees (who I’m sure would have complained, if they had mouths.)
That was when I did something I never should have. That was when I did something that caused me more pain than I’d ever imagined.
I brought the dead man back to life.
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