Chapter 4 : Marshy
People were following behind Duri, Duri was now limping and holding his broken arm, repeating, "Hungry...hungry.."
The people behind him said:
"Stop so we can help you!"
"Yeah kid! Stay still for a moment!"
"You need medical attention!"
"Guys...he's probably from another realm. He just popped out of nowhere, I saw it with my own EYES! He may be a threat! You saw what he did to that guy's truck!"
"He's just a child, and plus, he's not hurting anybody."
Duri turned around to everyone, "Why are you all following me? Do you want to get hurt?"
"We just want to help you?"
"Why are you pointing those things at me? Can I break them?"
"No, these are our phones. Someone restrain him so we can get him help!"
"Restrain?"
Four men out of the crowd started walking slowly towards Duri, saying, "Easy there, easy there, random kid from another place...we're gonna fix your broken arm and tend to your wounds."
"You said you were going to restrain me. That means you're going to hold me and I can't move. I know what restrain means. I can't let you touch me...human."
"But...you look like a human.."
"Only partially. Now leave, I must find food."
"We can't let you. Plus, we don't know if you're really a threat. Can anyone here read his power level?!"
Duri was gone, away from them all. He was 70 feet away, walking past stores, people working in the stores and restaurants, workers constructing buildings, police crime scenes with yellow tape everywhere, a drive-thru, a car wash, people playing golf at a golf field; he also walked past news crews reporting various occasions and so forth.
Duri saw a male reporter and a female recording the reporter with her camera. They were both standing outside of an area where a fighting tournament stadium was being built magically on it's own.
The male reporter's name was Kenji, and the camerawoman's name was Akari.
Kenji : (Black square classes, 27 years old, wavy blonde hair, green eyes.)
Akari : (Elbow length messy pink hair, a band aid across her nose, and blue eyes with freckles.)
Kenji said into the camera with his microphone, "Being built by the Titans behind me is an arena called 'Rukong.' This will be finished in approximately 2 days, and then the tournament will begin. All the rewards for the winners are unknown until someone wins, so we can't clarify the prizes. But we can clarify the stakes. Well, ya know, each tournament has high stakes, death could occur in them as well. And for a stadium that is taking 2 days to build, our guess-is that the stakes will be HIGH. This is Kenji from Kokoro Connect news, follow me on Bloggerz please, I need 100 more followers until I hit 90k!"
Akari grinned while cutting her camera off, "Annnd cut! That was great!"
"WE'RE GONNA BE SO RICH! PROMOTIONS, PROMOTIONS EVERYWHERE!"
"HELL YEAH! ONCE WE GIVE THIS TO THE BOSS, HE'LL HAVE TO PROMOTE US SINCE WE WERE THE FIRST ONES TO COVER THIS STORY!"
"EXACTLY!"
"MONEY!"
"MONEY!"
"MONEY!"
"MONEY!"
Duri was right behind Akari, and he interrupted, "Food."
Kenji got quiet, Akari screamed in fear as she got behind Kenji.
Duri said, "Where is the food?"
Akari scoffed, "Don't-Don't scare me like that! I have nightmares a lot! Look at my eyes! Look at the bags under them! I haven't slept in days."
"Food."
"What's the matter with you? You're hurt...where are you parents?"
"I don't know. Where's the food?"
Kenji said, "We need to get you to a healer or the hospital, whichever one is closer."
"Healer?"
"Healers are people who patch up the contestants after their round in a tournament. It doesn't heal them all the way, but it fixes them up a little bit."
Akari shoved Kenji, "Why are you wasting time explaining shit to this wounded kid?! We gotta help him!"
"Right, right."
They looked down, and they saw that Duri was gone.
"Where did he go?"
[Mei's coffee shop]
Outside of the coffee shop, were 11 tables, filled with people drinking coffee, eating bakery foods, on their laptops, or talking with friends and family.
The sun shone peacefully over the horizon, the wind was soft, and the sounds of the city were echoing through the perimeters of each corner of the city.
Sitting at one of the tables was a 32 year old woman named Marshy. She had shoulder length wavy black hair, dark brown eyes, and semi-pale skin with a tattoo of a rose on her neck.
She was on the phone, drinking her coffee, and eating a plate of bagels.
"Yeah...yeah...I get it I get it. Look, I fucking lost it, okay? I lost track of it. Don't worry, don't worry, I'll get it back. Yeah….yeah I understand. I mean, get your panties out of a twist dude and chill the hell out, you act like it's the end of the world. Blah blah blah can't hear you. If I ain't losing sleep over this shit, then you shouldn't either, I get shit done. I'll call you later."
Marshy hung up the phone, and she took another sip of her drink. She looked at a kid that was staring at her, and Marshy said to the kid, "What are you looking at?"
Marshy turned back around, and she looked down at her plate of food, and saw that it was gone.
Down the alley beside the coffee shop, Duri was running along with Marshy's food, chewing it down drastically.
He smiled, "So good!"
Duri kept running, and once he turned right to cut across to the next alley, Marshy was standing in front of him.
Duri stopped in place, and stopped eating.
Marshy said, "Well well well….who the hell are you, brat?"
Duri responded, "I'm Duri. I was hungry. If you wanna fight about it, we can...but not while I'm eating. It'll have to be after."
Marshy inspected Duri's bruises and she said, "What happened to you?"
"I…"
"Hold up, before you answer...where are you from? Because you obviously don't know anything about theft."
"I'm from the Shadow realm. I got transferred here by Band. A man with no face came and attacked us...and destroyed everything, killed a lot of shadow men and women. I fought too."
"The Shadow realm...no way, really?"
"Mhm.."
"A man with no face...describe him even more. I think I have an idea of who you're talking about."
"He had wings, a lot of eyes where his head is supposed to be, and a halo."
"Zabel."
"That's his..name?"
"The man you described is Zabel. One of the 10 guardians of the Arcane realm. Isn't this some shit?"
"Shit?"
"You're too young to be cursing brat. Usually, I dont help little bastards that steal from me...but in your case, I'll help you. You can eat the bagels, but I need to get you to a healer. The hospitals are full since a level 5 mythic beast attacked a few hours ago in Mount Fuji."
"Is it dead? Can I fight it?"
"Me and the other hosts beat it already."
"Hosts?"
"I'M a host. You sure ask a lot of questions, brat. And about what happened in the Shadow realm, I wanna see more of it. The healer I know has the ability to look through memories, but in exchange, they fuck his up. It's worth the risk, he doesn't care about anything anymore. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"TO MY CAR, YOU THIEF. Thief means someone who takes something that's not theirs, by the way."
"But once I grabbed your bagels, they became mine, so I didn't steal."
"You little..shit. Come on."
Seconds later, Marshy was driving a black four seater Hyundai coup, Duri was sitting in the passenger's seat, still chewing on the bagels.
Duri looked out of the window, and he saw more propaganda of the tournaments all over the place.
Duri asked Marshy, "Are you a mom?"
Marshy gasped silently, "That's….a random ass question. I love no one. I've never been a mom. I can't.."
"Mm?"
"Nothing. Anyway, usually in times like this, with you coming from another realm, you'd be questioned or attacked on sight by me or the other hosts. Looking at you, I know I can't read your power level, because all shadow humans have power levels that are unknown and unreadable. But by determining the energy and aura I'm getting from you, you'd be a level 10 threat or higher. Human creatures like the Titans in the Garden realm have unknown power levels too, they would be a big threat."
"Is that bad?"
"That's bad. Real bad. Meaning, we'd have to kick your ass. And I'm saying this in a nice way: We'd have to kill you."
"Oh no.."
"Yeah, ya like that ya little brat?"
"No, not really. What can you tell me about Earth?"
"I hate world building. Um...there's like 20 billion people here. Um...there's a ton of fighting. This world is filled with pop stars, authors, actors, idiots, dumbasses, cheaters, sports players, people that works for a living, manual labor people, business owners, prisons, military, bad guys, tournaments, school, mythical creatures, magic of some sort, powers, manga nerds, anime, shows in general, and pretty much anything else you can think of."
"Fun!"
"Not fun. I know the Shadow realm breed people for their dumb plans of destroying the other realms."
"My mom was a human. My dad was a shadow man. I'm not like the others. I miss them all...why did we have to be attacked? Why did they have to get destroyed? Not fair. Not fair at all."
"You're awfully acting strange about this tragedy. I can't blame you, you're only a little child."
"I'm mad. I wanna find and fight Zabel for what he's done. I don't know why I'm not crying, maybe I really am different."
"Damn right you're different. But Zabel is well known. Me and the other hosts play as the guardians of the world, almost all of the guardians in each realm know that Zabel wishes for the power to control everyone's mind and emotions."
"I heard a little bit of what they were saying. He wanted to use me to fuel that power through some kind of evil ritual thing. He wants the power inside of me...but I've never even used my shadow powers, I don't even know how. I just know how to fight hard."
"Now that shit changes everything. Zabel would be considered a level 10 threat as well. I have to tell the other hosts about this…"
"Are they gonna fight me?"
"Not gonna lie...they might. But we'll have to see them some other time. You're banged up pretty bad."
"Right...right. Can I join one of the tournaments?!"
"What?! Kids as young as you aren't allowed to. You gotta be 15 or older. Titan rules."
"I guess I'll wait until I'm 15. I'm 6 now."
"Still a brat that asks too many questions."
"What is your name?"
"Marshy. Yours?"
"Duri."
"Alright, alright."
"Why does the Garden realm make tournaments for Earth?"
"Enooughhhh questions, kid."
On a rooftop, standing on the ledge, was a man and a woman.
The man's name was Conan, he was pretty muscular and tall, and he had blue tattoos all over him, he had peach skin, blue eyes, and hair that was in a dreadlock fashion and a ponytail.
The woman's name was Akane. She had long black and dark gold hair, pitch black eyes, and a black dress on.
Akane said to Conan, "There she is."
Conan replied, "Marshy knows what she's doing."
"She has a child with her too.."
"That child is a newcomer from another realm it seems. Do not falter, my love. He will not be a problem. He is injured."
"Our quest for true strength lies with Marshy. Marshy will lead us to the one who crafted the weapon Excalibur, a former weapon crafter for the Titans and the Garden realm."
"Yes, my love."
"But we must keep our eyes peeled, the one who is notorious wants excalibur to expand his finances. To sell for the highest bidder. A weapon that valuable belongs to the ones who need it most."
"It's okay. We'll get there first. Following Marshy is just the first step…"