Chapter 6: Power

As the Monster made its way toward Tompah, Kazuki hopped up on all fours. He frog hopped to the Monster and swept one of his legs under its feet making it fall and slam onto the ground backward. The Monster squawked in confusion as it hit the floor, before quickly pushing itself up by pushing its wings into the ground and spotting Kazuki, immediately boosting over with the flap of its wings, and kicking him in the chest, slashing at him with its sharp bird claws and sending him back ten feet into a wall.

"Ka-zu-ki" the voice ribbited softly, "tear him apart, kill" Kazuki reee'd loudly at the creature, which made it screech at him in response. The Monster, Lunged at Kazuki using its wings to propel himself forward in an attempt to tackle him.

Kazuki rolled onto his back to fall under the attempted tackle and used both his feet to kick the Monster back into the air, forcing it to use its wings to avoid hitting the ceiling above him. Kazuki used this small opening to shoot his tongue at the Monster; grabbing it by its face and pulling his head down to force the beast into the ground headfirst; popping a few of its eyeballs in the process.

The Monster writhed in pain, using its arm to cover its face, and kicking away to crawl away from the monster in front of it.

"Utter fodder" the voice croaked in a bit of laughter.

Kazuki frog hopped to the Monster, which tried to use its wings to boost itself away. Kazuki responded by standing and shooting his tongue out at the Monster, missing, and hitting the wall behind it. The Monster used this chance to recover from its prone state and punch Kazuki directly in the face making an audible "crunch" upon impact. Although Kazuki got hit, however, this time he didn't move a single bit.

Kazuki grabbed the Monster's arm held it tight with one hand and grabbed its bloody shoulder feathers with the other, before sliding his leg behind the Monster to throw it off its balance, and knocking it onto its back, forcing out a painful cry. Kazuki then slid himself under the Monster's arm and locked his legs around it, before pulling back, forcing the elbow backward, to completely break its arm.

The Monster squawked and cried in absolute agony as Kazuki got up and frog stomped one of its exposed wings. It was at this point that the Monster completely passed out from the pain.

Kazuki croaked out a chuckle and pulled one of his legs far back to full force kick the monster, sending it flying into the corner opposite of Tompah, forcing a squeak out of it. This made Kazuki ribbit gently with laughter. Dried skin flakes fell off the side of Kazuki's face as he frog hopped towards the silent Monster. He observed it looking it directly into its half-open black eyes and white irises; becoming intimate with his kill, as he wrapped his hands around its neck and started to squeeze.

"Kill for me" the voice in his head croaked softly as Kazuki squeezed the life out its victim slowly. Listening

Almost immediately after Kazuki finished, however, he felt a cold hard smack across his face where he no longer had shed skin, and immediately lost consciousness.

Kazuki woke up in the bed of what seemed to be in the room of an Inn. He looked around to find a fairly plain room with a single bed, and a TV on top of a dresser directly in front of it. Kazuki felt a sharp pain in his ears and at the side of his head. He felt it only to find a welt the size of a Tom & Jerry head injury.

"Ow, what the-" As he winged in pain, and turned his head to the side, he saw a hand axe at the opposite side of the bed, on top of a side table.

"...where am I?" Kazuki felt his head again noticing that his injury was bandaged and hopped off the bed. He walked over to the other side and examined the ax. It was really cool, carved wood that resembled a bear, with what seemed to be a steel blade, with a hammerhead at the back of it. "I got knocked out again?" he thought to himself. Kazuki then went to the bathroom to look at a mirror. He felt around and his face noticed he looked a little different than he remembered two years ago. His face was, definitely softer than he remembered. As he was making this subtle realization, he noticed that his gauge plugs were cracked on both sides, which messed up the floral art that Vaush painted on them.

"Vaush is going to kill me" he said to himself as he examined his ears, only now noticing that many of the petals on each of the flowers were missing, as if they had been plucked...no, as if they had been torn off one by one leaving not more than 5 petals on each flower. When he went to touch the cracks along the plugs, he heard the wicked laughter of his curse. "My seals are breaking? that's what's happening? What happens when these petals finally fall?" He tough to himself.

It was in this moment that Kazuki wished he could talk to Vaush more than anything else. He walked back into the room and started looking around for a walled communication slate anywhere he could, however there wasn't one that he could find anywhere in the room. He hissed in frustration and sat back in the bed to think. Before he could get very far in thought he noticed that the TV remote was sitting by him, and so instinctively he looked to see if the any cartoons were playing. As he flipped through, he noticed a lot of news channels were talking about him. Every channel passing by said his name at least one time before he flipped the channels.

"Kazuki Kazama" Flip.

"Last spotted," Flip.

"New Doobey Library," Flip.

"Bounty," Flip.

"wait, Wah?" Kazuki said to himself. He flipped back to the previous channel. The story was currently ongoing and seemed to be ending. Kazuki's old face from two years ago was in a small box in the corner as the news anchor told the rest of the story. Kazuki at the moment he saw his face stood to touch the screen "Why do I look so much older in this picture?"

"Kazuki was last seen in New Doobey, attending the library alongside a rotund man wearing a tunic, Authorities have provided us with this depiction"

On the screen showed a drawing of...almost Tompah. The eyes were smaller, and the nose was bigger, not to mention the fact that they gave Tompah a Butt chin which tickled Kazuki's immature sense of humor, making him croak out a chuckle.

"As stated, before a bounty for Kazuki Kazama has been 100,000 Notes, If you spot him, alert authorities immediately, we do not know how dangerous he may be-"

Kazuki heard the front doorknob jiggle and immediately switched the channel to anything else – finding reruns of the Tom & Jerry on the TV – before Tompah opened the Motel punishing the door by his back and holding onto a couple of bags.

"Kazuki, I brought back food and clothes, though I highly doubt you'll- " Tompah turned around hearing the TV on and saw Kazuki sitting up in bed and waving to him on top of the bed; Immediately Tompah tackled him giving him a hug.

"Thank goodness, I almost thought you weren't coming back." Tompah had a lot of guilt in his voice as he spoke.

Kazuki reluctantly hugged him back before realizing what Tompah said "eh? what?! what happened?" Kazuki pushed Tompah off of him gently. "How did I even get here exactly. how long have I been out?"

"What happened? You went crazy and killed that Monster for starters. Second, you've been asleep for 4 days now, and how you got here?"

Tompah went silent for a moment.

"Tompah, tell me" Kazuki pleaded.

"Well, you see" Tompah replied...

Four Days Ago...

Tompah Woke up to the loud banging of something large slamming onto the ground near him. He opened his eyes looking at the monster from before holding onto its face and crawling away from Kazuki.

"What the hell? Is it trying to get away from Kazuki?" he thought to himself. "I knew he'd be able to pass the Exam just fine, but I didn't think-" He watched as Kazuki missed the Monster with his tongue and got punched in the face. He then watched as Kazuki grappled the monster onto the ground and broke the monster's arm with an audible snap, as if someone broke a twig.

Tompah cringed in pain feeling it in his own arm before getting a closer look at Kazuki. Be noticed that his eyes had turned from orange to black and that his pupils were white like the Monster on the ground in front of him. "Oh no he's lost control. Is this what happens when Kazuki doesn't get enough sleep?!

Tompah cringed in pain as He watched Kazuki double stomp one of the Monsters' wings making a crunching noise and causing it to pass out. As Kazuki chuckled and full on kicked the Monster into the corner adjacent to him, Tompah wondered if Kazuki was becoming a sadist, and then existential dread swept over him. "Am I next?" He gulped in fear as Kazuki laughed to himself. "At least he's torturing that.... thing, first" he thought to himself. "Maybe, after he's done, I should put him to sleep."

As Kazuki hopped over to the unconscious monster, Tompah slowly stood up, going into his tunic to get his family hand axe, and slowly approached Kazuki making sure not to make a sound lest Kazuki here him. His plan was simple, let Kazuki kill the Monster and then smack him and knock him out. Tompah admired his cunning plan and waited for Kazuki to finish killing the Monster. Once Kazuki was done, he pulled the hammer head of his hand axe as far back as he could and bonked Kazuki on the head to knock him out completely.

Tompah gave a huge sigh of relief and sat down, looking out the open train car door and watching the trees pass by and thinking to himself about what to do now. He picked up Kazuki putting him over his shoulder and walked over to the opposite side of the car, so as to not be so close to the monster. "I guess, I'll keep watch for now." he said to a sleeping Kazuki.

Kazuki croaked out a chuckle to himself "You knocked me out with a hammer huh? Well Thanks for that.?

Tompah looked at Kazuki with a confused expression "Why are you thanking me? I just saved myself." He stated as he rubbed the back of his head.

"you saved me from killing you, I couldn't control myself back there, so thank you." Kazuki smiled at Tompah allowing him to stop feeling guilty over his actions before asking him another question. "How did we get here? I thought we didn't have money."

Tompah lifted his head and tossed Kazuki a sandwich "After you killed that…thing, We were able to ride all the way here and I carried you on my back around town until I found this inn. We didn't have money at the time, but lucky for me New Port has my bank here somehow, so I was able to pull out all of my money for two nights at this inn, but you've been asleep for 3 nights here, so I've been working to make up for the difference." Tompah tossed a pile of folded clothes to Kazuki, "Plus extra, now Go take a shower you stinky"

Tompah grabbed Kazuki by the shoulders and pushed him to the bathroom.

Kazuki rolled his eyes and sighed as he placed his new clothes on the counter. Knowing Tompah was probably right, he decided to pull out all of his belongings, including his tattered Wallet, three boxes of cigarettes, a lighter, a small box of matches, an empty plastic baggie, 2 books, a broken pocket watch which when opened had a picture of his daughter holding a cat. He held back tears and closed the Watch before placing it on top of the new clothes that Tompah got him. Kazuki got undressed and looked into the mirror taking note of all the scars on his body, especially the big sun shaped one on his chest where his heart was. He tossed his old clothes into the garbage after realizing how damaged it had gotten and turned on the shower. He then sat on the toilet and lit a cigarette. As he smoked, he grabbed the spider-woman comic – a comic about a spider that turned into a woman – that he got from the Library and started to read it accidentally getting half-way through before realizing the humidity was making his skin shed off of him and hopping inside of the shower.

When Kazuki exited the bathroom, the small inn room, was greeted by a wall of steam and smoke so thick that Kazuki looked like a demon as he walked out of the bathroom.

Tompah who was sitting in bed mindlessly watching an old movie on the T.V. was alerted by the sounds of angry frog noises and the smell of Kazuki's cigarettes. He looked at the opening to the bathroom and started to get scared

"Tompaaaaaaah" Kazuki Growled, his Orange eyes and rectangular pupils peering through the smoke and into Tompah's soul. "I promised I wouldn't complain about the clothing you got for me considering it was a gift, but how dare you do this to me."