Enki

Two Days Later

"I'm getting the impression you aren't taking this seriously," Dion said. I simply stood there, holding my sword in front of me. We were sparring in the warehouse basement, training for the upcoming battle. Normally, I wouldn't train at all, but fucking Dion demanded me to spar with him. He used the "you're still a rook" card on me, and threatened me with dish duties. And I was not going to clean the dishes for people who will be a passing presence in my life.

Firmly gripping his metal baseball bat, he accelerated towards me, aiming to wipe off my deadpan expression. He moved gracefully, with outstanding footwork to throw me off my guard. Clutching his bat, he twerked his wrist towards my abdomen. With stunning precision, he quickly retreated his bat and cocked his arm back. Dion smirked as he felt his bat strike with something other than air. His smirk instantly vanished after he realized that his bat only collided with my sword.

I yawned. "Can I go now? They're having a sale at the buffet and I could really go for some bread."

"Fine. You're dismissed," Dion said, frustrated that he couldn't even force me to change my facial expression. And who did he think he was? I can dismiss myself. I don't need fucking permission.

As I walked towards downtown Cyra, where the buffet was, I noticed the weather was cloudy. That bastard people called the sun wasn't home apparently. Obviously, it was thinking of ways to insult me. Fuck the sun.

Without that loser here, that meant I was truly all alone while walking to the buffet. Well that's excluding the voices in my head, but no one wants to listen to them. They say the same thing over and over again and never shut up. I tried to have a conversation with one of them once, but they only whined and insulted me. And I really hate people who whine. A lot of the times, they only whine about stupid shit like that they are hungry or tired.

When I finally entered the buffet, I was seated to the farthest left booth in the restaurant. Kinda rude, not gonna lie, but I understand why. I looked like one of those pre-purge terrorists with my kevlar armor and night cloak.

I sat down and ordered the classic scrambled eggs with bacon on the side. They always say simplicity is beauty and I wholeheartedly agreed.

"Oh my, what a coincidence seeing you here again," said a voice to the left of me. As I turned my head, I was greeted with a familiar face. The face of a young woman. She was the daughter of the nice woman who let me rest at their house.

"Good morning Miss Newman," I politely said. "How are you?"

"I'm feeling fabulous! Thanks for asking," she replied as she slid into the seat across from me. I hoped she didn't expect me to pay for her meal, because she would have left disappointed. The waitress came over and Miss Newman ordered a simple cup of coffee for her breakfast.

She smiled at me. "So how are you Mister?"

Her bubbly attitude was starting to irk me, but I decided to humor her. "I'm doing no better or worse than yesterday. And for your information, I felt okay yesterday."

"It's good to hear that you are doing so well," she said. Her coffee came soon after. She took a short little sip of it and then smiled at me again. "Anyways Yori, I have a favor to ask for you."

I raised my eyebrows, interested in hearing what she had to say. "My mother got a really bad flu and medicine is hard to come by. Luckily for us, I found a private dealer in West Cyra."

"I don't see how this concerns me."

"Yori," she whined, "Cyra is a pretty well behaved city, but there are still criminals lurking in the night and the alleyways. A young girl like me isn't safe out there alone."

"If you don't feel safe down there, then you probably shouldn't go," I pointed out. West Cyra was like a forty minute walk. I don't want to spend an hour picking up drugs. "Besides, they could be lace."

"I already asked some of their clients. They are completely legit," she explained. She pointed her finger at me, "But just in case, I need a strong man to accompany me there. And besides, you do owe us a favor."

Fuck, I should've known she was going to bring that up. I really don't want to do this pointless trip, but never let it be said that I was ill-mannered. My whole philosophy and way of life surrounds being responsible for my decisions.

"Fine," I conceded, "I will go with you."

"Great!" she responded. The waiter came and gave me the check. I put a twenty down on the table and waited for Miss Newman to also pay for her expenses. However, she was already out the door. Fucking bitch.

After putting another six dollars on the table, I followed her outside. Her golden brown hair was dancing in the breeze as her eyes gazed upon the sky. She was probably enjoying the sky since the sun wasn't there now. See, I wasn't the only person who hated the sun.

Hearing me come out of the restaurant, she gestured for me to follow her. I've been feeling like a dog these past few days. And I really didn't like this new development.

As we reached the border of West Cyra, I noticed the streets were getting dirtier and unpolished as we ventured closer to the border. The shops and neighborhoods also got more shady looking. There definitely was some illegal stuff going on around here.

"Just another block or two and we will be there," she said as we turned another corner. It felt like we were walking for hours already. On that note, why did we have to walk? I knew gas prices were pretty high these days, but is it too much to ask for a car ride? Hell, the buses just started being operational around a year ago. This was a waste of my damn time.

"We're here," she pointed out. I had no idea what "hear" meant as we were just standing in the middle of an empty alleyway. She was most likely waiting for someone or something to happen. So I decided that I should finally take action.

Gripping my greatsword handle, which was resting peacefully on my back, I unsheathed the sword and it pierced the breeze itself, making sweet love with Miss Newman's body.

Plot twist, that wasn't Miss Newman.

"You're a perceptive one, aren't you?" I heard a voice say. My eyes darted back and forth across my surroundings, looking for anything out of place, but I couldn't find any. I moved my head to look downwards but was suddenly hit with an uppercut.

The wall cried in pain as I collided with it. Getting back up, I realized that my enemy came out of Miss Newman, as a black gas. The black gas materialized into a young blonde hair boy.

He smirked. "So, how did ya know it wasn't the girl?"

"First," I said as I picked up my greatsword, "she was way more bitchy the last time I saw her. Second, why would she be asking a stranger who barely knows her? Third, I never told her my name."

The emerald eye boy blinked. "Damn, I really do suck at acting."

"You should have studied the character before doing this. All great actors and actresses immersed themselves into the character-"

The boy rudely threw a throwing knife at me while I was speaking. The knife flew through the air at incredible speeds and impaled my heart. Immediately, I fell to the ground.

"I always do leave my audience in deathly awe," the boy said. He did a cute little bow before turning to leave.

I started clapping. "Rotten Tomatoes gives that," I paused for dramatic effect, "...a thirty-four percent. That's a real rotten apple folks."

"Tell me, how do you still live?" The boy narrowed his eyes on me. He wasn't quite angry but he was definitely not amused. In fact, he looked quite irritated that his "marvelous" performance went off script.

I smiled at him. "My heart keeps beating and my lungs are still breathing."

"You must be a rabid fan," the boy arrogantly said. "Don't worry, you can have my autograph."

"You look like a twelve year old, what fans are you getting?��� I mocked. He threw several more throwing knives, all which hit my right arm. "That's pretty rude, you know. I'm a righty and it feels uncomfortable forcing my left hand to do stuff."

He smirked. "There's your autograph sir!"

"You just threw a bunch of knives at me. What do you me-" I paused immediately when I saw my wounds.

"In case if you're illiterate, it spells Enki," the boy, Enki, said.

I wiped the blood off my arm. "I'm not fucking illiterate. If anything, you would be illiterate. I doubt you can read anything even close to an high school reading level." I don't condone child violence, but I do encourage discipline. Especially heavy duty discipline.

Firmly gripping my sword, my feet danced on the pavement as I rushed him. Lifting my arms, I slammed my sword down onto him. Like a sneaky bastard, he barely dodged the sword. Dispersing into gas, he put some distance between us, obviously trying to utilize his knives as a ranged weapon, something I can't do.

Materializing into his physical form again, he threw several more of his knives at me. Despite the power poured into his throws, none of them could even scratch my sword due to its superior material and thickness.

Deciding to test my luck, I threw my sword at awing speeds. It's like the air moved aside, bowing to the superior force at hand. Enki attempted to disperse again, which he nearly managed to succeed in doing, but the sword managed to cut his left off.

Ignoring his fallen hand, Enki, in the form of gas, fled the alleyway and ventured into the streets. I was going to follow him, but I assumed that he could take the form of any human. Of course, the human might have been missing a hand, but I didn't know the full extent of his abilities, so it would be foolish to attempt to follow him. Also, it would have been a lot of effort and I wasn't that invested into beating the shit out of that little rascal.

With him gone, I decided that I was done for the day and started walking back to the warehouse, to take a nice long nap. However, a question kept on popping in my head as I traveled back.

Who was that kid?