Chapter IV: Burning Tide
Tokyo, Japan
The ominous presence of Tashiro had when he has appeared above a crowd of high-class rich people. He looked down on them with a dreadful stare. After seeing what he did to New York, no one dared speak up against him. Not even any of the security officers stood their ground.
Tashiro widened his eyes and several people started the panic. They thought his stare scared the air right out of their lungs. They couldn’t breathe. However, that was not the case. Tashiro took out all the oxygen in the room, making the people inside suffocate regardless of the ventilation system. As he watched everyone drop one after another, he set the bodies aflame. The room around him began to crumble around his dying audience to reveal the city of Edo to be burning and destroyed. Nothing was safe from this man’s terrifying power.
Something quickly caught his eye and he vanished from the large room he was previously in and appeared in a dark room located in the same building.
He looked around to only see darkness. Tashiro raised his index finger and a dim light filled the room. What he saw when the room lit up didn’t surprise him. A bunch of children that were chained to walls.
They all had bruises and scars on their backs. All of them were obviously of different ages from young children to young adults as old as their early twenties. The high-class people he just set fire to must have been planning on auctioning these people to the highest bitter. It sickened him. One of the chained boys slowly raised his head and look at Tashiro. His eyes were dull and lifeless. To Tashiro however, his eyes still has remnants the spark to fight.
He quickly freed the young boy from his confinements along with the rest of the children and then sat amongst them.
“Who…who are you?” croaked the young boy.
“My name is Tashiro Satoru, leader of the Daybreak Empire. And what is your name, my boy?”
“Miyako… Higura.” he mumbled.
Tashiro looked at the boy in silence. He reached over to the boy and gently patted his head.
“Rest. You and the others won’t be hurt any longer.” Tashiro spoke in a soft and soothing tone. These kids were all drugged up. The child named Miyako could barely even get his words out. He sighed as he transferred each of the seven captives to a predetermined place, he would see meet them at when the day is over.
He didn’t know what he felt as he saved them. Something told him that they would be interesting for him. Something promising perhaps.
“Tashiro-kun!”
A painful sensation roared through his head. It was like his mind felt like it was being burned from the inside. Who just called him? It sounded like a girl. It sounds so vaguely familiar. But why? Who is she?
Slowly but surely, the pain subsided as he was left on his knees, panting heavily. Tashiro rose to his feet and quickly left the scene to continue destroying what’s left of Japan.
London, United Kingdom, 1 hour later
“Keep firing at him! Do not let him get to the Queen!” yelled a soldier over the constant sounds of gunshots.
London fell within an hour of New York’s obliteration. After all the United Kingdom was destroyed, Tashiro set his sights on the Queen of England. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom’s military was standing in his way. Although that wasn’t a problem for him at all as he was mercilessly slaughtering them one by one with his bare hands. Not even worth of the effort to use his power against opponents so weak.
Gunfire rained down on him which he avoided with ease. He grabbed the nearest soldier and slammed him against the ground, caving his skull in resulting in immediate death. He latched onto two more soldiers and threw them against more soldiers.
“Spread out! Artilery incoming!” yelled a random soldier.
Tashiro noticed a heavy tank off farther down the street. The large vehicle carefully aimed and fired off a shell at the singular one-man-army. After the tank hit its target, making smoke and dust surround where the target once stood, the soldiers fell into silence.
The smoke suddenly was blown away to reveal the monster holding the large bullet shell in front of him. Not even scratch was put on him. His hair covered the front of his face which he casually brushed aside. The English soldiers were left speechless and horrified by the sight of the “man” that stood before them.
“Geez, you guys are boring.” Tashiro threw the tank shell right back at the tank which exploded on impact.
This world domination plan was far less fun than he thought it would have been. Sure, the world retaliated against him, but not even a single person has managed to cause him harm in anyway. All the ammunition that was fired at him couldn’t even reach him. Not even any heavy artillery managed to damage him.
“This is such a disappointment. I might as well just incinerate this place righ-” Tashiro’s voice was cut off as he was sent flying into a nearby building. What just sent him flying? He was utterly confused but interested. Better yet, something, or someone, has managed He got back up to feet and walked back outside to see who managed to hit him directly. It was a long amethyst-haired woman stood in the center of the street. She wore a lightweight maroon-colored jacket, dark red pants and a black t-shirt.
“Who are you?” questioned Tashiro.
“What does it look like? I’m a heroine, of course.” she smirked in response.
Tashiro quickly rushed towards the girl, grabbed her by the face and slammed her to the ground. The woman then kicked him off, sending him high up in the air. Tashiro quickly gained control and stopped his momentum only to be met by his new enemy. She sent a flurry of punches of kicks which he blocked and parried. He grabbed her arm and slammed his palm straight to her gut, momentarily stunning her. He proceeded to toss her up, grab her leg and begin swinging her around until finally releasing her, aiming towards to ground below causing the concrete within a three-meter radius to erupt and crack into pieces.
Tashiro landed next to the small crater and approached it. Whoever this woman was that he was facing, although putting up a fight, she is very weak.
A nearby soldier panicked and rushed to Tashiro, preparing to stab him but unfortunately met a swift demise as his head fell off his body. There were too many insects around him that would try to interrupt his fight. The azure-haired man raised his hand in the air as his blue eyes glowed a dark hue. Everything immediately became silent.
“Eradication.”
Everyone except Tashiro and the woman who lied on the ground in front of him started dying simultaneously in numerous ways. Screams filled the broken city of London like nothing it has heard before. The howls of the dying lasted no more than a couple minutes until it was met with silence once again.
“You monster… What have you done?” the woman growled as she stumbled to her feet, coughing from the injury she sustained from the strike to her gut.
He didn’t answer. He did not have to for she already knew.
“I’ll make you pay… for killing everyone like this. This isn’t how you should use your power!”
A bright light began to shine around the woman’s fist. This caught Tashiro by surprise. Did he give her this power, did he? He doesn’t recognize her at all. Unless… someone else gave her this power. But who could that be? The presence that the light gave off was bold and stubborn. It was like he was feeling the hope, no, the will of humanity retaliating against him all at once.
The light grew brighter and she began to charge at him, yelling at the top of her lungs. She quickly sent her fist flying towards his face. Unfortunately for her, Tashiro caught her fist with his bare hand and hit her neck, causing the woman to faint and fall to the ground
“You’re still too weak to fight me. But you are interesting enough that I will let you live for now. May we meet again.” Tashiro walked away and vanished from the scene. Leaving only the destruction he caused behind.
A Day Later
It has been hours since the extermination began. The United Kingdom, ninety percent of the United States, most of Japan and Korea, at least half of China and Russia, Germany, and all the Middle East was wiped clean of humanity. And this is only the first day. Who knows what the new day will bring? Who will follow him after this? Who will bow down to that dictator of humanity?
Luka was left baffled in his own thoughts. The unimaginable horrors he could think of are now possible to happen. The number of possibilities of the destruction and death that man can cause was astronomical.
“Prime Minister Luka, sir?” rang in a voice.
Luka sat back in his chair and took a deep breath to regain his composure before answering.
“Yes, what is it, sergeant?” Luka asked.
“We found her, sir. She appears to have suffered some minor injuries but other than that, she’s in perfect, sir.”
“Good work, sergeant. Keep her safe. We’ll come and retrieve her when the time comes. For now, bunker down and wait for Armageddon to pass us and wait for further orders.”
“Copy that. This is Lion’s den, over and out.”
The Prime Minister sat right back in his chair and sighed in relief. A sign of hope appeared before them yesterday. He was relieved to know that they had someone willing to fight that monster already.
“Enjoying the show, Mr. Milan?”
Luka immediately stood up from his chair and pulled out a knife only to be quickly disarmed.
“Allow me to introduce myself, my dear Prime Minister. My name is Nathanial Oracle, second in command of the Daybreak Empire. I’m quite sure your friends have told you about me.” the red-haired man spoke with a peculiar flare. Luka didn’t sense any evil intent coming from his visitor. Knowing that, he sat down and gestured him to sit in turn.
“Ah, some hospitality! You certainly know your manners.” Oracle gladly sat down in front of his well-mannered host, smiling with glee.
Luka pulled out a bottle Ginger Ale along with two glasses of ice.
“Care for a drink?”
“Quite certainly. My poor throat would love to be quenched after such an exhilarating performance from yesterday.”
“Tell me, Mr. Oracle.”
“Oh please, just call me Oracle. No need to be so formal.”
Luka poured them the ale into their glasses and set the bottle down.
“Tell me, Oracle. What has brought you and your friend to commit such an atrocity on humanity?”
“Why do any of us do anything? To cure our boredom? To give us pleasure? No. What me and my lord Tashiro are doing is simply because we choose to. Because we are able to. Although its thanks to that rat bastard of a god.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s nothing for you to mind. I want to make a deal with you.”
“What sort of deal are you thinking of?”
“I did touch up on this idea with your friends of this fine Union. It’s about the secret project known as Lusus Natura.”
“What about it?” The moment the words Lusus Natura rolled out of his mouth, Luka’s gaze changed from a cautious to attentive.
“Well, I know for a fact you recently got your hands on the woman who put up a fight against my lord secured in London. And that you have two more individuals with unnatural abilities in this facility. I’m here to give you more benefits in this fight but I want something in return.”
Luka was amazed by this man’s intellect. How did he already know that they secured the girl in London? How does he know that Ezekiel is inside the facility and that there also another who possesses a Natura? As much as he wanted to have those questions answered, Luka focused on what deal Oracle is trying to make.
“What kind of benefits are we speaking of?”
“I can help teach you and the others how to train your little subjects how to use their abilities. I can even identify what their abilities are and what they can do. In return, I want the war between the Union of Vega and the Daybreak Empire to be very enjoyable. With a bonus of being able to meet my lord.”
A chance to meet Tashiro? That is definitely an opportunity that the Union should take but to meet him now would be very troubling. There’s also the fact that Oracle will help in training each of the Lusus Naturae and even identify their powers. That is most certainly be helpful.
“Do I have a time limit to think about your offer?”
“Oh, most certainly, unlike the previous group, I will give you at least a week to think about it.”
Oracle glanced over to entrance of the room as he hears footsteps approaching the door.
“Well, it seems I must be off. I was a pleasure to have a nice chat with you, Prime Minister Luka.”
“And to you as well, Nathanial Oracle.”
The two exchanged a handshake before the red-haired member of the Empire vanished from sight. The door to Luka’s office opened as Ray walked in.
“Good morning, Lieutenant King. How may I help you?” Luka took one last sip of the Ale he poured.
“I have received confirmation that one of the bodies of the Heavenly Saints has gone missing.” King reported.
Luka stood in silence and placed his glass back on the table.
“Hm. How interesting.”
