Post by Dresden Ravenskraft on Feb 27, 2018 9:41:15 GMT -5
One thing Dresden hated about the modern world was how difficult it was to travel without documentation. He remembered how in centuries past it had been a simple matter to walk across the border between France and Germany, whereas now he found that it had been nearly impossible to merely travel from Hokkaido to Honshu—barring the option of swimming across the channel, of course. He had finally managed to stow away on a freight barge that had taken him from Muroran to Niigata, and from there, he had walked, biked, and hitched rides from those he knew wouldn’t ask too many questions across the mountains, slowly making his way towards Tokyo. It was the third day of travel, and he was currently passing through Tochigi prefecture… sitting in the passenger seat of a milk truck.
The driver, Matsueda, had been kind enough to allow him to stow his bike away in the back next to the crates of milk being transported to the city, which should have been a violation of Japan’s strict health codes. But Matsueda, an easy-going middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and drooping eyes, hadn’t seemed overly bothered by adhering to regulations. He had bought Dresden’s half-baked “lost tourist photographer from Germany” story with a degree of open jocularity that almost made Dresden regret having to lie to the man—almost. Considering the way Matsueda had attempted to talk his ear off for the last two hours, Dresden had concluded that the only reason he had picked up a random stranger on the side of the road in the first place had been for the personal benefit of having someone to talk to. Dresden didn’t mind, however, as it spared him from having to invent more explanations about himself. Staring at the countryside outside, which consisted of green plains interspersed with patches of dense forest and the rolling outline of the mountains in the distance, he soon became lost in thought. He would be in Tokyo soon, and from there he only needed to contact the Order, or at least what remained of it, to try and come up with a suitable excuse for his five-year absence and to return the bangle that Rick had given him.
In fact, it was the bangle that he still wore around his wrist, a slender chain and tag that resembled a hospital bracelet. It served as a means to draw in and regulate Reishi, as he himself was incapable of utilizing ambient spiritual energy on his own due to his lack of spiritual powers. But it also served as a constant reminder of the semi-betrayal he had committed against the Order. He hadn’t even really thought about that until now, however, as the fact that he had walked away from the Order without notice hadn’t affected him in the slightest. He had only joined in the first place because it had provided him access with a means to achieve his goal. After he had found what he had been looking for, he had simply left. Ever a pragmatist, Dresden had had found that, over time, it was easy enough to distance himself from association and out-live the various organizations that rose and fell with the passage of time.
“What I really don’t understand is how the government won’t give small-operation farmers like us more of a chance, you know?” Matsueda’s rhetorical question broke him out of his reverie, and Dresden slowly re-focused his attention on what the driver was saying. While his Japanese was still rusty, he found that one advantage the long drive had provided was a chance to re-accustom his ear to actual conversation. Five years of sporadic Japanese television and self-imposed isolation hadn’t improved his skills with the language, that much was certain. “Hokkaido pretty much has a monopoly on the dairy industry, what-with the butter and cheese and all, but for milk farms it’s another story.” The man had a soft, musical tone which, coupled with the gentle curves on the empty highway, had quite a lulling effect. Dresden began to nod off as Matsueda continued monologuing. But then, a sudden needle of pressure at the back of his neck caused him to snap wide awake. A Hollow? What the hell…
Dresden sat straight up and began to scan the horizon, searching for a sign of the allegedly nearby enemy. Sure enough, in the distance he could see a small, black dot hovering over the mountains that was slowly approaching. It wasn’t a plane, that much was obvious from the outline of its horns and bat-like wings. Clearly, it had noticed his Reiatsu and was on the hunt, heading straight for him. The one question he had, however, was how the beast had managed to single him out among all the other potential prey. While it was true that the landscape around him was sparsely populated, it wasn’t as though Dresden’s Reiatsu served as a beacon of spiritual power to alert all nearby Hollows. It was completely random. Then again…
He stared at the bangle around his wrist and frowned. Perhaps his training had been more successful than he had originally thought. Maybe this was the only confirmation he needed. Maybe he truly was ready to take back what was rightfully his.
Dresden felt his pulse quicken slightly. He would welcome a fight. It would be a chance to make his presence known to the spiritual world once again: evidence that he was ready to fight back.
“Is something the matter?” Matsueda asked.
“Eh…” Dresden began haltingly, “How far out are we from Tokyo?”
“About 45 minutes or so, I’d say.” Dresden nodded to himself. The fact that they were now close to a densely-populated node of civilization would explain the sudden appearance of the Hollow. It wasn’t as random as he had thought.
Dresden noted as the Hollow, now closer to the highway, dipped out of sight behind them. While they had yet to make actual eye-contact, both the hunter and prey were aware of each other’s presence. Now, it was only a question of time as to when the monster would make its move.
“I think it might be a wise idea to pull over.” He told Matsueda.
“Why’s that?”
To answer his question, there was a sharp impact that caused the back tires of the small truck to spin out wildly to one side. Dresden felt the Reiatsu of the Hollow flood his senses, which was logical considering it had just slammed into the side of the trailer. The truck began to fishtail back and forth on the highway as Matsueda struggled to regain control of the top-heavy vehicle. Then, Dresden felt as an unseen force pushed them harder to one side of the road.
“What the hell!?” Matsueda shouted. Dresden glanced over and saw that Matsueda’s droopy eyes were wide-open and that his face had turned pale. Both of them were aware of the fact that the truck was out of his hands and heading straight towards the guardrail. Dresden braced himself, with the instinctive awareness that they were going to crash. To his credit, Matsueda had managed to significantly lessen the truck’s speed. Even so, when the front tire caught the rail the truck flipped neatly over the side.
The contact with the ground made Dresden feel as though his brain had rattled loose from his skull. Then, as though executing a perfectly-timed barrel roll, the truck turned over. He counted exactly three complete revolutions as the world outside spun around them before they came to a sudden halt. The truck had landed on its side, and Dresden felt strange staring up at Matsueda, who was sitting suspended in the seat above him. The driver side door was bent-in in an odd shape, the passenger-side window had been shattered, and the windshield had been converted into a spiderweb of cracks. Fortunately, that seemed to be about the worst of the damage.
Matsueda turned to look at Dresden. While beads of sweat had broken out on his temples, the easy-going man had maintained his characteristic calm.
“Are you alive?” he asked matter-of-factly. Dresden nodded and undid his seatbelt, moving carefully to ensure he didn’t cut himself on the shattered glass below him.
“And you?”
“I’ve been worse.” Matsueda said with a shrug. Dresden was about to reply when he saw movement outside the driver side window, and his eyes widened in shock: Matsueda was about to be much, much worse, as the face of the Hollow had appeared unexpectedly above them, peering into the cab.
“Duck!” he shouted as the Hollow whipped a lizard-like tail around, instantly smashing through the window. Matsueda had acted with surprising speed, covering his face with his arm, but Dresden still felt warm blood splash across his face as the poor milkman was cut by shards of flying glass.
The Hollow opened its mouth, exposing a neat row of teeth and a writhing serpent’s tongue. But Dresden had already leveled his Luger at the beast’s face. Then, he pulled the trigger.
There was an explosion of sound, deafening in the small space, and the Hollow disappeared in the flash of light. While Dresden hadn’t killed the monster, as he could sense its Reiatsu a short distance away, he had managed to buy himself a bit of time.
In the vacuum of silence that followed the shot, Matsueda slowly turned to look at Dresden, his eyes now even wider with shock. He was trembling visibly, obviously more concerned about the fact that Dresden had just pulled a gun than the fact that they had just survived a potentially fatal crash. Unable to perceive the supernatural threat, Matsueda probably thought that Dresden had pulled the firearm on a whim—a criminal whim.
“Don’t move,” Dresden said as he quickly lowered his gun. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air, and Dresden’s ears were still ringing from the shot. Matsueda didn’t reply, watching silently as Dresden climbed around him and jumped out through the broken window, avoiding the glass teeth that clung to the window frame with certain agility. Once outside the cab, Dresden quickly checked to make sure the Hollow wasn’t at that moment about to attack him, then he opened the door and reached down to help Matsueda out. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted his hand, and Dresden helped the sturdily-built man to climb out and down to the ground. Matsueda had yet to say anything, which considering his verbose personality, spoke levels of how truly shaken up he was.
Silently, they took in the full extent of the truck’s damage. The middle of the trailer had been folded in, as though a giant pincher had clamped around its center. Milk pooled from the large puncture in the side of the truck, and above its sweet, heavy scent Dresden could smell gas.
“We should probably keep our distance,” Dresden told Matsueda, who nodded as though he were in a trance and began to make his way back to the road. For his part, ignoring his own advice, Drsden walked back to the trailer and pulled out his bicycle from within the crushed cavity of the trailer. Fortunately, it was still in a functional condition. His backpack had been completely drenched in milk, but that was the least of Dresden’s concerns at the moment. He could sense as the Hollow recovered itself and began to make its way back to their location. As quickly as possible, he carried his bike up the hill to where Matsueda stood, still in evident shock.
“Here,” Dresden offered as he set the bike and his backpack on the asphalt. “Can you call for help from here?” Mechanically, Matsueda pulled out his phone and checked for service.
“Yeah,” he finally said.
“Good.” Rummaging through his backpack, Dresden pulled out a small medical kit and handed it to Matsueda. “There’s some gauze in there to stop the bleeding,” he said, referring to the shallow cuts across Matsueda’s neck and arm.
“Who… who are you?” the milk farmer asked him. Dresden did not reply. He heard a hellish howl in the distance—the rage-filled hunting call of the Hollow. But he did not pause as he pulled out several Gintou capsules and shoved them into his pockets.
“Stay here,” he told the man. “Whatever you do, don’t come after me.”
Matsueda did not seem convinced, so Dresden showed him the pistol once more time to make his point.“Do you understand?” he asked. The man nodded. “Good,” he said as he stowed the gun away in its holster. “Thank you for the ride. I’m sorry for the damage to your truck.”
Matsueda chuckled nervously, finally seeming to start to come back to himself.
“Well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk,” he offered.
Dresden smiled as he shouldered his backpack. He gave a short bow of thanks, “Once again, sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Eh, don’t… eh, mention it,” Matsueda said, more puzzled at the normalcy of their exchange after everything that had just happened.
Ending the conversation abruptly, Dresden set off at a jog down the highway back towards the forest, and he didn’t slow his pace until Matsueda and the overturned truck disappeared from sight. It was likely that he was going to call the police, and Dresden needed to make himself scarce before they arrived. Before that, however, he needed to put an end to the Hollow that had attacked them.
As he headed into the forest, following the howls of the wounded Hollow, Dresden thought he felt something else approaching his location. He paused to set down his backpack, and took his gun in hand once again. There was no harm in being too cautious. Proceeding at a slower pace, Dresden followed a small creek that led further into the woods. The midday sun barely penetrated the dense canvas of leaves, and deep shadows wrapped around him. Knowing the Hollow could appear at any second, Dresden steadied his breathing, keeping his finger close to the trigger. He was calm, relaxed, and ready. After scaling a small hill, he found himself in a small clearing that centered around a telephone pole. He stopped, and extended what little Reiatsu he had in order to call attention to himself.
“Come on out, bastard,” he muttered under his breath.
Word count 2,382
The driver, Matsueda, had been kind enough to allow him to stow his bike away in the back next to the crates of milk being transported to the city, which should have been a violation of Japan’s strict health codes. But Matsueda, an easy-going middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and drooping eyes, hadn’t seemed overly bothered by adhering to regulations. He had bought Dresden’s half-baked “lost tourist photographer from Germany” story with a degree of open jocularity that almost made Dresden regret having to lie to the man—almost. Considering the way Matsueda had attempted to talk his ear off for the last two hours, Dresden had concluded that the only reason he had picked up a random stranger on the side of the road in the first place had been for the personal benefit of having someone to talk to. Dresden didn’t mind, however, as it spared him from having to invent more explanations about himself. Staring at the countryside outside, which consisted of green plains interspersed with patches of dense forest and the rolling outline of the mountains in the distance, he soon became lost in thought. He would be in Tokyo soon, and from there he only needed to contact the Order, or at least what remained of it, to try and come up with a suitable excuse for his five-year absence and to return the bangle that Rick had given him.
In fact, it was the bangle that he still wore around his wrist, a slender chain and tag that resembled a hospital bracelet. It served as a means to draw in and regulate Reishi, as he himself was incapable of utilizing ambient spiritual energy on his own due to his lack of spiritual powers. But it also served as a constant reminder of the semi-betrayal he had committed against the Order. He hadn’t even really thought about that until now, however, as the fact that he had walked away from the Order without notice hadn’t affected him in the slightest. He had only joined in the first place because it had provided him access with a means to achieve his goal. After he had found what he had been looking for, he had simply left. Ever a pragmatist, Dresden had had found that, over time, it was easy enough to distance himself from association and out-live the various organizations that rose and fell with the passage of time.
“What I really don’t understand is how the government won’t give small-operation farmers like us more of a chance, you know?” Matsueda’s rhetorical question broke him out of his reverie, and Dresden slowly re-focused his attention on what the driver was saying. While his Japanese was still rusty, he found that one advantage the long drive had provided was a chance to re-accustom his ear to actual conversation. Five years of sporadic Japanese television and self-imposed isolation hadn’t improved his skills with the language, that much was certain. “Hokkaido pretty much has a monopoly on the dairy industry, what-with the butter and cheese and all, but for milk farms it’s another story.” The man had a soft, musical tone which, coupled with the gentle curves on the empty highway, had quite a lulling effect. Dresden began to nod off as Matsueda continued monologuing. But then, a sudden needle of pressure at the back of his neck caused him to snap wide awake. A Hollow? What the hell…
Dresden sat straight up and began to scan the horizon, searching for a sign of the allegedly nearby enemy. Sure enough, in the distance he could see a small, black dot hovering over the mountains that was slowly approaching. It wasn’t a plane, that much was obvious from the outline of its horns and bat-like wings. Clearly, it had noticed his Reiatsu and was on the hunt, heading straight for him. The one question he had, however, was how the beast had managed to single him out among all the other potential prey. While it was true that the landscape around him was sparsely populated, it wasn’t as though Dresden’s Reiatsu served as a beacon of spiritual power to alert all nearby Hollows. It was completely random. Then again…
He stared at the bangle around his wrist and frowned. Perhaps his training had been more successful than he had originally thought. Maybe this was the only confirmation he needed. Maybe he truly was ready to take back what was rightfully his.
Dresden felt his pulse quicken slightly. He would welcome a fight. It would be a chance to make his presence known to the spiritual world once again: evidence that he was ready to fight back.
“Is something the matter?” Matsueda asked.
“Eh…” Dresden began haltingly, “How far out are we from Tokyo?”
“About 45 minutes or so, I’d say.” Dresden nodded to himself. The fact that they were now close to a densely-populated node of civilization would explain the sudden appearance of the Hollow. It wasn’t as random as he had thought.
Dresden noted as the Hollow, now closer to the highway, dipped out of sight behind them. While they had yet to make actual eye-contact, both the hunter and prey were aware of each other’s presence. Now, it was only a question of time as to when the monster would make its move.
“I think it might be a wise idea to pull over.” He told Matsueda.
“Why’s that?”
To answer his question, there was a sharp impact that caused the back tires of the small truck to spin out wildly to one side. Dresden felt the Reiatsu of the Hollow flood his senses, which was logical considering it had just slammed into the side of the trailer. The truck began to fishtail back and forth on the highway as Matsueda struggled to regain control of the top-heavy vehicle. Then, Dresden felt as an unseen force pushed them harder to one side of the road.
“What the hell!?” Matsueda shouted. Dresden glanced over and saw that Matsueda’s droopy eyes were wide-open and that his face had turned pale. Both of them were aware of the fact that the truck was out of his hands and heading straight towards the guardrail. Dresden braced himself, with the instinctive awareness that they were going to crash. To his credit, Matsueda had managed to significantly lessen the truck’s speed. Even so, when the front tire caught the rail the truck flipped neatly over the side.
The contact with the ground made Dresden feel as though his brain had rattled loose from his skull. Then, as though executing a perfectly-timed barrel roll, the truck turned over. He counted exactly three complete revolutions as the world outside spun around them before they came to a sudden halt. The truck had landed on its side, and Dresden felt strange staring up at Matsueda, who was sitting suspended in the seat above him. The driver side door was bent-in in an odd shape, the passenger-side window had been shattered, and the windshield had been converted into a spiderweb of cracks. Fortunately, that seemed to be about the worst of the damage.
Matsueda turned to look at Dresden. While beads of sweat had broken out on his temples, the easy-going man had maintained his characteristic calm.
“Are you alive?” he asked matter-of-factly. Dresden nodded and undid his seatbelt, moving carefully to ensure he didn’t cut himself on the shattered glass below him.
“And you?”
“I’ve been worse.” Matsueda said with a shrug. Dresden was about to reply when he saw movement outside the driver side window, and his eyes widened in shock: Matsueda was about to be much, much worse, as the face of the Hollow had appeared unexpectedly above them, peering into the cab.
“Duck!” he shouted as the Hollow whipped a lizard-like tail around, instantly smashing through the window. Matsueda had acted with surprising speed, covering his face with his arm, but Dresden still felt warm blood splash across his face as the poor milkman was cut by shards of flying glass.
The Hollow opened its mouth, exposing a neat row of teeth and a writhing serpent’s tongue. But Dresden had already leveled his Luger at the beast’s face. Then, he pulled the trigger.
There was an explosion of sound, deafening in the small space, and the Hollow disappeared in the flash of light. While Dresden hadn’t killed the monster, as he could sense its Reiatsu a short distance away, he had managed to buy himself a bit of time.
In the vacuum of silence that followed the shot, Matsueda slowly turned to look at Dresden, his eyes now even wider with shock. He was trembling visibly, obviously more concerned about the fact that Dresden had just pulled a gun than the fact that they had just survived a potentially fatal crash. Unable to perceive the supernatural threat, Matsueda probably thought that Dresden had pulled the firearm on a whim—a criminal whim.
“Don’t move,” Dresden said as he quickly lowered his gun. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air, and Dresden’s ears were still ringing from the shot. Matsueda didn’t reply, watching silently as Dresden climbed around him and jumped out through the broken window, avoiding the glass teeth that clung to the window frame with certain agility. Once outside the cab, Dresden quickly checked to make sure the Hollow wasn’t at that moment about to attack him, then he opened the door and reached down to help Matsueda out. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted his hand, and Dresden helped the sturdily-built man to climb out and down to the ground. Matsueda had yet to say anything, which considering his verbose personality, spoke levels of how truly shaken up he was.
Silently, they took in the full extent of the truck’s damage. The middle of the trailer had been folded in, as though a giant pincher had clamped around its center. Milk pooled from the large puncture in the side of the truck, and above its sweet, heavy scent Dresden could smell gas.
“We should probably keep our distance,” Dresden told Matsueda, who nodded as though he were in a trance and began to make his way back to the road. For his part, ignoring his own advice, Drsden walked back to the trailer and pulled out his bicycle from within the crushed cavity of the trailer. Fortunately, it was still in a functional condition. His backpack had been completely drenched in milk, but that was the least of Dresden’s concerns at the moment. He could sense as the Hollow recovered itself and began to make its way back to their location. As quickly as possible, he carried his bike up the hill to where Matsueda stood, still in evident shock.
“Here,” Dresden offered as he set the bike and his backpack on the asphalt. “Can you call for help from here?” Mechanically, Matsueda pulled out his phone and checked for service.
“Yeah,” he finally said.
“Good.” Rummaging through his backpack, Dresden pulled out a small medical kit and handed it to Matsueda. “There’s some gauze in there to stop the bleeding,” he said, referring to the shallow cuts across Matsueda’s neck and arm.
“Who… who are you?” the milk farmer asked him. Dresden did not reply. He heard a hellish howl in the distance—the rage-filled hunting call of the Hollow. But he did not pause as he pulled out several Gintou capsules and shoved them into his pockets.
“Stay here,” he told the man. “Whatever you do, don’t come after me.”
Matsueda did not seem convinced, so Dresden showed him the pistol once more time to make his point.“Do you understand?” he asked. The man nodded. “Good,” he said as he stowed the gun away in its holster. “Thank you for the ride. I’m sorry for the damage to your truck.”
Matsueda chuckled nervously, finally seeming to start to come back to himself.
“Well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk,” he offered.
Dresden smiled as he shouldered his backpack. He gave a short bow of thanks, “Once again, sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Eh, don’t… eh, mention it,” Matsueda said, more puzzled at the normalcy of their exchange after everything that had just happened.
Ending the conversation abruptly, Dresden set off at a jog down the highway back towards the forest, and he didn’t slow his pace until Matsueda and the overturned truck disappeared from sight. It was likely that he was going to call the police, and Dresden needed to make himself scarce before they arrived. Before that, however, he needed to put an end to the Hollow that had attacked them.
As he headed into the forest, following the howls of the wounded Hollow, Dresden thought he felt something else approaching his location. He paused to set down his backpack, and took his gun in hand once again. There was no harm in being too cautious. Proceeding at a slower pace, Dresden followed a small creek that led further into the woods. The midday sun barely penetrated the dense canvas of leaves, and deep shadows wrapped around him. Knowing the Hollow could appear at any second, Dresden steadied his breathing, keeping his finger close to the trigger. He was calm, relaxed, and ready. After scaling a small hill, he found himself in a small clearing that centered around a telephone pole. He stopped, and extended what little Reiatsu he had in order to call attention to himself.
“Come on out, bastard,” he muttered under his breath.
Word count 2,382
