Chapter 10: Discovery Pt. 2

For a moment, nothing but darkness encompassed the whole room around Sebastian and all sounds suddenly stopped. His eyes open wide as if he'd just seen a ghost right before him. His fists gripped the invisible sheets his lower body was covered in, with not just his mind, but his whole body filling with disbelief.

"I'm... what?" he whispered to himself, not expecting an answer from the dark void before him. He stared at the nothingness, chuckling softly as he was now suddenly sitting in a chair around the dinner table of his old home, his position allowing him to have eyes on his mother preparing breakfast in the kitchen. A tear fell down his cheeks as he recalled every detail from the area, from the sturdy textures of the chair he sat in, to the wrinkles that slowly formed on his mother's face in the past few years.

He stared, still in disbelief of what he was seeing before him, but that didn't stop him from attempting to make the most of it. He kicked the chair he sat on backwards, using the table to hoist his body upward, ready to run toward his mother and embrace her in his arms, reclaiming the hugs that he's been missing for years, but he stopped in his tracks, pure shock rushing through his body the moment he saw his younger self make his way down the stairs, excited to start the day.

"No no no no," he muttered, over and over again, pretty much chanting it as he dashed over to where they stood, causing the chair he previously sat on to fall to the floor. He approached his mother, his hand reaching out to her as he attempted to touch her, to hold her, even if it were just a singular strand of her hair that he'd happen to touch, he'd be more than happy, however, his dreams wouldn't be realized at that moment for both his mom and younger self disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Don't go~" he whimpered as the smoke rose to the ceiling, his eyes swelling with tears, but before they could fall, he heard something. He turned quickly, slowly walking down the hallway, the sounds of human speech becoming clearer and clearer the closer he got.

"Get out of my house!" yelled a voice that was way too familiar to him for him to forget. It was his mother's voice, and he knew exactly what was happening, but not how to stop it. He clenched his fists and strutted off toward the room everyone gathered, coming to a halt at the passageway the moment he could see everything clearly.

Everything was the same as he remembered, however, it was all from a different perspective. Time seemed to stop, everything in a freeze-frame as he observed his surroundings. His mother with the frying pan extended toward their uninvited guest, his father by her side, seeming as though he was attempting to calm her down, and his younger self behind it all, frozen in place by fear as tears swelled his eyes. Everything was the same, except the person standing at the end of his mother's pointed pan.

Rather than Shouji Kliver facing the full brunt of Maki's threats, it was Sebastian... But not as a child as he saw earlier, it was his grown self, standing before them with a sinister smile on his face. His heart sunk at the sight, walking over to the mirror image of himself, however at that moment, time seemed to resume, the entire scene changing itself with his next step.

He was now behind his father's body, his hands bloodied as Matsuda grasped his wound and staggered to the floor. Sebastian's eyes swelled with tears once more as he tried to scream, but nothing came out. He glanced to the right, witnessing his mother's body sprawled on the floor, throat open and all, exactly how she was in the first iteration of the 'incident' years ago.

"Why'd you do this?" asked a soft, shaky voice.

He looked down, seeing his younger self at his hip, tugging on the coat he belt of his pants, head held down to the ground before looking up at him, tears filling in his eyes to the point it seemingly started to overflow.

"Why'd you have to kill them?" he asked, the tears now streaming down his cheeks to converge at his chin and fall to the floor.

Sebastian wanted to reply, to say it wasn't him, but he couldn't give the child that as an answer, especially at this point where he was no longer sure whether or not it was him, but then the house, the child, the bodies, were all gone, and he was once again left in a void of pure darkness.

He stared endlessly into the void for what felt like hours... days... years? He wasn't sure anymore, but then a voice echoed in the space of nothingness, a voice he knew all too well, it was Nana Moe's.

"Sebastian?" she said, a tone of concern in her voice, "Earth to Sebby... Are you there?"

After blinking rapidly for a while, he was no longer in a void but was once again sitting in a hospital bed with both Doctor Ai and Nana Moe before him, a streak of tears on his right cheek only as he gripped tightly onto the bedsheets.

"Yeah..." he said gently, a soft smile appearing on his face after his response.

"Are you sure?" Ai asked, arms folded as he stared intently at the boy.

"Yeah, a hundred per cent, why wouldn't I be?" he responded, pulling the sheets off his body and making his way off the bed.

"Where are you going?" Nana Moe asked arm extended halfway across the bed with the intention of stopping him, however, it was met by Ai's that clasped around her wrist before she could grip onto Sebastian's clothing.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just gonna take a little walk... I'll be fine," he said smiling back at her as he approached the door, "I'll be back before you even know it, I promise."

Then with the sound of the hinges and the clasp of the door fitting into its frame... he was gone.

***

Reinhardt manoeuvred himself rather quickly through the woods, jumping rapidly from root to root as he tried to identify the location that the metal projectiles were sent from.

As if to help him out, a distant flicker of light was caught in the corner of his eye, forcing him to force his entire body weight to his left side, sending him flying over to the tree on his left with the speed that he was travelling at, however, he was capable of successfully avoiding another metal projectile that was sent in the exact path he was travelling through.

He rested his hand on the tree, taking a deep breath before clawing down it.

"This isn't fair, you can tell exactly where I am, but I can't smell you? What's up with that?" he asked, chuckling as he did so, "Come on, let's play it fair, fight me. One on one with the same playing field and let's see who comes out on top shall we?"

At the end of his statement, Reinhardt noticed another shimmer of light from the same direction, this time, barely being able to avoid it by hiding behind the tree he leant on.

"Well, I guess that's the answer I should've expected huh?" he shrugs to himself, readying himself to dash toward where the projectile is being fired from.

He gripped onto the tree's shoot with his sharp claw-like nails and used it to pull himself forward, giving him a speed boost in his chosen direction. While running toward the location of the shots, he was forced to sidestep a lot that were fired toward him, some being easier to dodge than others, with every close call lightly scraping him on portions of his body such as his thighs, his shoulders and his arms.

"Got you now!" he muttered, hand up as he neared the location the projectile shone brightest, however, there was no one there. No one he could see at least, but despite that, he went with his gut feeling and swiped the area, his fingernails grazing something that seemed like it wasn't there before, but after being hit, they came into full view.

Before Reinhardt stood what seemed to be a teenage boy with flat blue hair and a blue jumper jacket that had white lines down the zipper. Underneath the open jacket was a black and gold T-shirt and a necklace hung down the shirt with a bullet as the pendant. The boy stepped back, lightly bruised on his arm by Reinhardt's earlier slash, a smirk on his face before he stood up straight, His blue eyes shimmering in the slight light that made its way through the trees.

"You really think you could beat me in a one on one?" he chuckled, both his arms raised to hip height, hands open as if he was to grab something from that area, "I was being generous allowing you to stay a good distance away from me... Time for another poor sucker to die cause of his arrogance."