Zack was about to take a step back when he realized that he couldn’t move. He felt as though he was being crushed by something and dropped to the floor.
He was not the only one.
Everyone, including Jake, was crushed by the overwhelming ki emanating from Sora. Zack couldn’t breathe. He had never felt such a high and powerful ki. For the first time in his life, he experienced fear.
Jake struggled to look up. He saw Sora walking towards Zack slowly, with a black energy swirling around his left fist. The air went hot. Jake did not know what it was, but knew that something like that had happened earlier. All he understood was that it was dangerous and he must stop Sora from using it at all cost. But Sora was already over Zack, with his fist drawn back…
The air suddenly went completely cold. Jake could even see his breath. That was when he realized that standing in front of Sora was a big beast with thick, white fur.
Sora’s feet were stuck in ice. He couldn’t budge at all. He shouted, “Glacio! Don’t stop me!”
But the bloody yeti shook its head. It turned its head and looked at its master walking towards them.
Sora said, “Kai! Tell Glacio to let me go!”
Kai replied, “No. Not until you calm down. Your hand is already burning.”
Sora was still breathing hard, but the ki he was emitting disappeared. Jake noticed that the gloves that Sora always wore had melted and his hand was scalded.
Zack was still on his feet, staring in disbelief. He was trembling, not knowing what to do or say.
Sora glared at him and said, “Don’t think you are some tragic hero and are the only one to lose someone you love. Everyone experiences something like that. But all of them learnt to move on. It was not easy, but they did. They were strong enough to do so. But the way you’ve been… you are pathetic… you’re weak.”
Sora turned to leave. But then he stopped and said, “You aren’t the only one who lost someone that day. Your father lost his wife. Your sister lost her mother. The Titania family staff had their beloved mistress taken away. The Smiths had just seen their saviour die. Jake lost a woman who he respected with all his heart. And I…”
He paused.
“… I would never again see the first person I felt I could call my mother.”
Zack gaped. Sora slowly walked away through the guild entrance. Zack was getting to his feet and he stuttered, “W…What was all that about?”
Kai said quietly, “What Sora said was absolutely right, Zack. You should get your act together.”
Zack growled, “I asked why Sora acted like that. Answer me Kai!”
Someone placed a hand on Zack’s shoulder. The next second, Zack jerked and suddenly fell unconscious.
Kai stared at Dr. Reed, who caught Zack just as he was about to fall. The doctor said, “I’ll handle Zack. You go after Sora, Kai.”
Kai nodded and said “Thanks,” as he chased after Sora.
Jake was about to go as well when Dr. Reed said, “Jake, could you help me take Zack to the infirmary?”
For some reason, Jake did not feel like disobeying.
Kai ran through the morning crowd of Gildartz City looking for Sora, who seemed to have disappeared. After a while of searching, Kai smacked his head when his eyes fell on the G watch on his wrist.
Using the GPS tracker, he realized that Sora was on the roof of the HQ. Kai rushed to the party hall and jumped to the roof through the window. And there he was, sitting on one of the benches and gazing at the clouds.
Sora didn’t show any signs of having noticed Kai who sat next to him. He just stared listlessly in front of him. For a long time, they didn’t say anything to each other.
“I… am a fool.”
That was the first thing Sora said after a long silence.
“No you’re not,” Kai replied without looking at him. “Everything you told him was the truth. You did nothing wrong.”
Sora shook his head. “I lost my temper… completely snapped. I couldn’t even control my emotions in front of my friend.”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“I had even promised Mrs. Titania that I would always be there for him… that I would always be his friend. But my emotions took over. I’m an idiot.”
“You really did think of her as your mother, didn’t you?” Kai asked.
Sora nodded. Kai ruffled his hair and said, “As far as I know, you did the right thing as a friend. A true friend is someone who can bluntly tell his friend his faults to help him.”
Sora said after a moment, “I should never let go of my emotions out ever again. I should hold it in and seal it up.”
“You’ve been doing that for almost eight years now,” Kai said. “You never complained no matter how harsh my training was. You never demanded anything as a kid. And despite the ordeal you had to face at such a young age, you accepted your fate so fast that I was frightened. You are amazingly strong at heart.”
Kai moved closer to Sora and half-hugged him.
“But holding in all that pain and suffering to yourself can destroy you. Showing your emotions out is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you really are a human and not some heartless fighting machine. There is nothing wrong… in letting your emotions out from time to time. And it’s about time that you do.”
Sora, for the first time in the conversation, gave a small smile and whispered, “You’re right.”
Slowly his eyes welled up. He let out everything trapped inside him. For the first time in a long while, Sora cried. He cried out all his sadness… all his pain… and lamented like there was no tomorrow. And Kai held on to him the whole time they sat on the roof of the guild HQ, giving Sora a shoulder to cry on.
Zack opened his eyes. For a moment, he could not remember anything at all. He stared around and realized that he was in the infirmary.
Then, in a flash, the memories of what had happened came back to him. Sora’s reaction to what he had blurted out without any control and the question he had asked Kai were fresh in his mind.
“Zack, you’re awake?”
Zack jumped. He hadn’t noticed Katie who had been dozing off on the chair next to his bed. Her eyes were red and she looked completely worn out.
“K… Katie? How long was I out?”
Katie replied, “Around two days. Dr. Reed used some weird technique by applying ki on one of the pressure points connected to your nerve. It knocked you out completely. He then gave you a small dose of a medicine that made you sleep undisturbed.”
Zack was still a bit dazed. “Katie, were you here all this time?”
Katie went a bit red and nodded. She muttered, “You didn’t speak properly to me at all for the past month. I knew that it was because of your mother’s death, but I was still scared. And just when I came back from one of my jobs, I heard all about what had happened with Sora. I was so worried…”
Zack felt his stomach churning remembering Sora’s expression. He knew that Sora would never forgive him for all that he had said. There was a pain in his chest as he thought that.
Katie said, “You sister dropped in. Jake had come along with her. She left after she knew you weren’t in any danger. And then Sora visited as well.”
Zack’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Katie nodded. “He sat by your bed for a while. He didn’t seem to want to talk about the incident, so I didn’t ask. Also, he wanted to apologize for what he did then.”
Zack’s stomach churned again. But this time, it was because he felt ashamed. He had been at fault. He had insulted the things Sora felt were precious to him. He had been a huge jerk. But why was Sora apologizing? Sora had been a real friend, helping him from the bottom of his heart; while Zack had uttered such unforgivable things to him. And yet, here he was, apologizing.
“What an idiot…” Zack muttered as he covered his face with his arm.
“What?” Katie asked, bemused.
Zack wiped a small tear rolling down his cheek and said, “Where i
s he?”
The first person he met after Dr. Reed had discharged him was Jake. Jake was surprised to see Zack, but was even more bewildered to see him apologizing so profusely.
Jake said, “Hey, we’re friends. We have to fight from time to time, don’t we?”
Zack grinned. He then asked, “Have you seen Sora?”
To his surprise, Jake shook his head. “He left a note at home saying that he wouldn’t be coming to the guild today. He said that there was something he had to do.”
Zack was agitated. He had wanted to speak to Sora as soon as possible.
“Any idea where he could have gone?” Zack asked Jake.
“No,” he replied. “But I think there is someone, who does.”
Thousands of miles away, near the southern region of the south continent, Sora climbed up a big valley and took a deep breath of the familiar air around him. It was a long time since he had seen this particular scenery.
Zack and Jake ambushed Kai just as he was leaving the toilet. Kai was a little annoyed by the timing, but when he heard that it was about Sora’s whereabouts, he asked them to follow him.
He took them all the way to the sixteenth floor, the conference rooms. When the door was tightly shut behind them, Kai rubbed his hands and answered their questioning looks by saying; “The fewer people who know this, the better.”
Sora walked down the memory lane as he approached his destination, smiling at the happy thoughts it filled him with. Soon, he was in front of the familiar wooden archway in between the two valleys… one of the few things that had not crumbled over time.
Jake and Zack were intrigued. But Kai had an irritating habit of building the suspense. He asked, “Does anyone know what today is?”
Zack looked at his watch and said, “It’s 14 September. What’s so special about that?”
Jake realized that the date rang a bell. His eyes went wide. He had seen the date written on the black door inside Sora’s mind.
“What is 14 September to Sora?” Jake asked.
Kai looked at them, took a deep breath and said, “Today is Sora’s birthday.”
Sora went through the archway into the place he had once called home. Most of the rubble had already been removed, but there were still traces of houses and buildings in many places. Wild grass and bushes had begun growing haphazardly as well.
He walked on through the paths he was so accustomed to.
His mind began imagining the place just as it had been all that time ago. The houses and shops sprang up in front of him and familiar faces beamed at him. He even stretched his hand out to touch them but they disappeared before he could do so.
He reached the place he was brought up in. The orphanage no longer existed but Sora could see it through his mind’s eye well. All his old friends as well as Riku were running around in the garden. Sora shook his head and moved on to the place he had actually come to visit.
At the center of the town stood a big tombstone. He had heard that such a thing had been put up, but was seeing it for the first time now.
“HIS BIRTHDAY?” Zack and Jake gasped.
Kai nodded. Zack said, “Why didn’t he mention it to us? We could’ve helped him celebrate his birthday today.”
Kai gave a sad smile and said, “I’m afraid Sora has not celebrated his birthday for the past eight years.”
Jake asked, “Why?”
Kai replied grimly, “For Sora, this was the day he dreads the most in his life. And he has done so for eight years now.”
The royal government’s symbol was engraved on top of the stone, a big crest of a dragon wearing a handsome cloak and holding a multiple bladed sword. Below it were the words:
THIS IS A MEMORIAL MADE FOR THE VICTIMS
OF THE TERRIBLE VENTO MASSACRE.
ON 14 SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR 5016,
THE VILLAGE OF VENTO WAS WIPED OUT
BY AN ATTACK FROM THE DARK ALLIANCE.
NOT A SOUL WAS LEFT BEHIND.
THIS WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED.
ONLY DEATH AWAITS THE ONES RESPONSIBLE.
Sora could see many mistakes in the lines. For one, there had been a survivor and he was sitting in front of the stone and reading those lines. Secondly, it did not sound like epitaph. It sounded more like propaganda.
But he smiled and placed the flowers he had brought along with him in front of the tombstone.
He kneeled and placed a hand on the stone and spoke out, “Hello everyone, it’s me, Sora. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Sora licked his lips and went on. “As of today, it has been eight years since you guys went ahead of me. And ironically, today happens to be my sixteenth birthday. Guess I look all grown up now, right?”
Sora felt the wind blow against him. He then got to the part he really wanted to convey.
“I couldn’t come earlier because I’ve been training really hard. I ended up making a contract with the legendary contract and have been trying really hard to learn how to use it. I joined the Lucifer’s Fall guild and have met some really good friends. And there are some people I even owe my life to there. It’s been tough, but I’m not complaining. All this is for the sake of getting revenge on the people who destroyed our home and killed you all. I swear I will do it.”
Sora sat there for a long time. He didn’t know how long. He was not even aware of the short man wearing a hooded cloak standing behind him.
Sora jumped when he realized it. He had not been able to sense that man’s presence at all. The hood hid the man’s face, but Sora knew he was smiling when he said, “Are you done?”
Sora nodded, not knowing what to say. The man too placed a bouquet of flowers on the foot of the tombstone.
Sora finally spoke. “I didn’t think there would be anyone else coming.”
The man said in his high, shrill voice. “I’ve been coming here for the past eight years. I never forget days like these.”
“Did you know somebody from the village?” Sora asked. The man replied, “No… I didn’t. Not until today, that is.”
Sora was taken aback. “You knew I was from this village?”
“Of course I did,” the man said. “By the way you bowed in front of the tombstone, I could find out.”
Sora became alert. The tombstone clearly mentioned nobody had survived. And yet this man had assumed without a second thought that he was from this village.
“Do you know me, by any chance?” Sora asked. There was certainly something familiar about the short man in front of him.
“As a matter of fact, I do. And you know me as well, Sora. Though our meeting was not for long.”
This startled Sora. The man even knew his name, even though he had not said it out loud in front of him. And there was still that familiar feeling.
“You told me your name, though not directly. You could say I heard your mind say it.”
Mind? What was he talking about? But Sora put together everything he had heard. This man knew that he was from the village. They had met before, but the meeting had been brief. And he said that he could hear his mind? What was he, a psychic contractor like Jake?
A psychic…
The horror dawned upon him slowly. He could not believe it. It was not possible. It couldn’t be him. Why would he come here? How dare he place flowers in front of this tombstone?
The man’s shrill voice said, “I guess you remember me now.” He removed the hood.
Sora’s worst fears came alive. His heart was beating madly. The proof of the man’s identity was right in front of him, but he still could not believe his eyes. The cunning smile, the thin eyes, and the unusually squat nose that made him resemble a pig… The man he had sworn to kill was right in front of him.
“GENERAL MALVA!”
“The day he dreads? What do you mean?”
Kai sighed and said, “Look, guys. What I am about to tell you is Sora’s biggest secret. Normally, I wouldn’t tell you this. But you guys are his friends and I d
on’t want him to do this alone. But swear to me that you will not mention any of this to anyone else.”
They swore that they wouldn’t. Kai took a deep breath.
“This incident happened eight years ago. It was pretty well publicized at that time, but you guys would’ve been too young to have understood then.”
Kai cleared his throat and went on. “On this day, there was an incident called the Vento Massacre. I’m guessing you must’ve at least heard about it.”
Zack and Jake nodded, but they did not know the finer details.
“This village of Vento, which was in the southern regions of the continent, was one of the oldest villages. But many people did not know it. This incident changed that. In one single day, the entire village was destroyed. Each and every one of the villagers was slaughtered. The Dark Alliance is not known for its mercifulness.”
Jake and Zack stared.
“You don’t mean the Dark Alliance, the biggest anti-government organization in Gara, do you?” Jake asked.
“The very same,” Kai muttered. “The attack was led by the infamous leader of the organization, General Malva.”
Sora was trembling. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to think. Malva gazed at him with those despicable eyes and said, “You don’t seem too happy to see me, Sora.”
“Happy to see you?” Sora growled. “Of course I am. Now I can kill you faster than I had planned.”
Sora summoned the Wind Fangs and took his stance. Malva let out a low whistle. “Looks like you and the Twin Blades of the Wind have completely become one now. That’s good.”
“Good?” Sora asked icily. “Yes, it is. You wanted to make me your pawn with this contract. But I’m going to take your life with it. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Malva seemed surprised. “Pawn? Oh no. I wanted you to work for me, yes. I wanted to use your power, of course. But I never wanted to make you my pawn. I wanted you to join me whole-heartedly. Did you forget?”
Sora spat. “Whole-heartedly? After you destroyed my home and killed everyone in it? You are despicable. I’m taking my revenge NOW!”
Contractor: The Legendary Contract of Vento Page 27
