Chapter 3. Similarities And Backgrounds And Also Swords. Part 1: The Dream.

It was quiet and silent, his eyes began to open as he observed his surroundings. He tilted his head forward and downward as he saw his black, dark-colored skin. He was in a void, there was nothing and more nothing. A black void covered the area, he was all alone. His mind wandered on while his body stayed stuck in a standing position. He had no idea where he was, he couldn’t remember anything. All he could remember was his name, Alex. He was confused, but that name was familiar, it was his name. He closed his eyes, he felt tired, and lazy, and he didn’t know why he was tired.

Alex tried to move his body like his arms, legs, and neck but as hard as he tried it was not possible. His body began to shake without him realizing it, he then felt a presence he felt like someone was watching him from behind. He had no idea what the presence was, it felt cold and sorrowful but somewhat reminded him of himself. It felt cold, he heard cracking noises. The coldness grew tremendously as goosebumps began to appear around his back and his legs.

He blinked his eyes suddenly and subconsciously, it's something all humans do subconsciously. As he opened his eyes once more, he found himself in an alleyway. He still couldn’t move his body at all, his eyes wandered around the alleyway but could only see in front of him since his body faced that way. He was confused, he didn’t know why he suddenly was moved to an alleyway and a random one at that. Due to his random situation, his attention was not on the cold feeling that was getting colder behind him. He had taken his mind off of it and started to think of why he was in the alleyway. But as soon as his mind wasn’t paying attention it happened.

Alex felt coldness on his lower back skin, he felt cold pressure on his skin, and then he was impaled through the back and stomach. He felt the internal pressure in his stomach as his large intestine ripped as a coldness began to grow internally throughout his body. A sharp item began to rip through his back and quickly reached to his stomach. The sharp item quickly made a big hole through his back and stomach. Alex was in pain, he coughed blood quickly as he moved his head down to see what had impaled him. He saw the item and was shocked.

It was a blue ice-like structure and looked like an ice spike. The ice spike was covered in blood so much that the blueness started to fade to red. He fell to the ground on his side as he felt the cold alleyway ground hit his face. Even though there was adrenaline running through his veins the pain was so severe he couldn’t even describe it. He fell onto the ground, his blood, and contents of his abdomen, and his intestine spilled on the alleyway ground as his breathing slowly decreased every second that he was still hanging on for dear life. He wanted to scream but even when he tried to move his mouth he couldn't, he felt and knew it wasn’t possible. He knew he was going to die, his heartbeat slowly faded but before he died, he heard a familiar voice say something.

“Nothing personal, I’m sorry Alex.”

Alex knew the voice, he knew it he kept repeating the same words in his head he kept repeating the same thoughts. He knew the voice so much but still couldn’t put his finger on who it was, which made him furious but he couldn’t express it. He couldn’t move or speak, all he could do was lay there and die. If the blood loss wasn’t going to kill him then his lack of will to live was going to. With that Alex Zuki lost his life.

There was nothing after that, just a void there was no afterlife, no heaven or hell or anything of the sort. But there was the voice, The voice he always heard when he was going through weird times. The voice that was always mysterious and unknown, he repeated these things in his head.

“Power, Taida and Kinben.”

The voice sounded demonic but at the same time all too holy.

He then saw a glimpse of light and darkness, he reached out his hand and felt an aura. The light and darkness were in front of him and were surrounding a humanoid figure. He could feel an aura coming from the humanoid figure. An aura that felt all holy and all evil but something felt so human about it. The light and darkness were fused into each other. He reached his arm and attempted to touch it with his hands. He reached and reached, he was close he was gonna touch it but, before he did. He heard a percussive ringing sound.

Alex awoke as he heard the ring sound, his breathing was heavy and he was panting very loudly. He sat up as soon as he awoke as he looked around, he soon realized what he just experienced was a dream. He reached his hand over his stomach and back, he wanted to make sure there wasn’t a big hole in his stomach. The dream freaked him out, it felt surreal. This dream was different from all his dreams, most of the time they would just be random and he’d forget them as soon as he woke up but he knew this time was different. The angelic voice in his head spoke to Alex.

“Be careful.”

Alex ignored the voice. The bell was ringing. He reached in his book bag and grabbed his phone, he turned it on and saw the time. It was three-fifteen pm, he was shocked he had just skipped school for the first time. He put his phone back into his right pocket as he began to think. He knew his mom was gonna beat him to death so he didn’t want to go home.

“Holy Shit, Mom is gonna kill me.”

Alex thought to himself, He put his hand on his forehead as he suddenly felt sweat. He was sweating; it surprised him that his body was reacting to a fake experience. But it wasn’t just because of the dream, he had just skipped school he knew his mom was gonna whoop him when he got home. He tried not to think about it so he remained focused on the crazy dream. The only time his body would react to dreams is when he was dreaming dirty and perverse things.

It then popped into his head, he remembered hearing the voice. The dream reminded him that he still would have to deal with it, the voice, and his supernatural time ability. His body kept sweating as he thought of the events again, time stopping. He heard talking from outside, he had realized that school was over and most people were leaving school. He knew he would have to wait till most people left the school. So, to kill some time he would try to talk to the voice inside his head as crazy as that sounds, but he didn’t want to talk to the voice for no reason, maybe because he knew he was lonely and bored.

“Am I Insane?”

Alex asked the voice quietly, he was hoping for a response but at the same time fearing that the voice was going to reply.

“No, as I said previously, you are mine, human.”

More sweat trickled down his forward, Alex was terrified by its voice. It wasn’t like this before. Its voice changed from before, before it was just a regular voice, but now it has a pitch and a tone. It sounded like a demon but at the same time an angel. It sounded holy but also demonic; it made him scared but hopeful.

The voice laughed with a deep and high pitch that echoed in Alex’s mind.

“Heh. I can read your thoughts, you know.”

“What?!”

Alex had a hunch that the voice could read his thoughts, meaning it was somewhat common sense that the voice could since it was inside his mind speaking.

“W-What are you?”

Alex said with a stutter in his voice, he feared the demonic voice.

“The light and darkness, the evil, the good. Just like any human, I am you and you are me.”

That’s when it popped into his head, his dream of a humanoid figure that was surrounded by light and darkness. He also remembered hearing the demonic, but the angelic voice in his dream. He remembered these things and kept them in the back of his head.

“You’d be right, human. I've also given you my ability to use glow and stop time. Your ability and glow are far weaker though.”

“That was you?”

Alex said to the voice, He wondered what glow was but decided to ignore that remark for now. He was asking no sense to him, he didn’t know what glow or ability is.

“Yes. It was.”

“I’m done, I must be going insane. Supernatural abilities don’t exist in our world.”

A sigh came from the demonic voice, he then spoke a word that he had spoken before. This time the voice had a bit more anger in his voice than it did before.

“As I said before, you're not going insane. Now I feel pain.”

“Can you shut up?!”

Alex spoke toward the voice angrily and knew what was going to happen when the voice said pain. His breathing increased as he got more nervous and his anxiety was through the rough. He pants harder as he feels sharp pain similar to a headache on the right side of his head. It hurt and felt like someone was stepping on his brain in the inside of his head. He bites his lower lip thinking it would somehow lessen the pain, but it didn’t.

He was done talking to the voice, he tried to get answers but they didn’t make any sense and when he tried to have his own opinions he felt pain. He knew that supernatural abilities don’t exist, he wanted them so bad when he moved here just to have his dreams crushed. He was insulted and was angry at the voice for playing around, so, before he would stop talking to the voice he let out one more angry remark.

“I’m done, stop bullshitting me! Abilities don’t exist in this world if they did I would know. So stop and just tell me why this is happening!”

Alex said with emotion in his voice as he moved his head down and averted his gaze. He knew that abilities don’t exist in this world. He believed in it for so long. He wanted them to be real ever since he watched his first anime. His last hope was when he moved to Japan that he would unlock some cool abilities like being able to use chakra or ki or maybe demonic powers, but he was wrong, there was nothing from any anime here. There were no loli’s, sexy teachers, supernatural abilities, or even a useless goddess.

The voice sighed, He was a bit irritated as he spoke to Alex before he went away.

“You’re a fool.”

Alex heard those words, he quickly began to block out the voice's attempts to talk to him anymore. He just ignored it. At first, he could still hear him but after a few minutes, all he could hear was subtle mumbling. But after ten minutes, he couldn’t hear the voice and on top of that, the pain in his head went away. He knew that the voice was going to come back but for now he tried to not think about it.

He let out a sigh, all this time stopping business was tiring physically and especially mentally. He then realized that the school was much quieter, he knew that most of the people in the school had left. This was a good thing for Alex, so he could leave the school without being noticed and ridiculed by others for what he did to Daizen. Alex slowly made his way out from under the stairs. He grabbed his backpack and made sure there was nothing that he left behind. He stood up and walked over to the staircase door and opened it.

As he opened it, he thought of how he could keep a low profile because he had just skipped most of his classes and only went to two out of the seven that he had. So as he stepped into the hallway he looked from left to right, he averted his gaze down as he walked past classrooms making sure to not run into any of his teachers. He walked down the straight hallway, he made sure to not move quickly or to act suspicious. He avoided some of the other students walking past them and some of them looked at him weirdly. He knew he would get looks, especially after what he did to Daizen.

After a few minutes of walking and trying not to bring any attention to himself, he made it to the door that led outside. But before he walked out, his phone rang with a notification. He reached into his right pocket, turning on his phone and checking what the notification was. It was a text message from the group chat that read.

“- Alex, Come to the front we are waiting for you.”

It was a message from Fuzumi, Alex knew this would happen. Fuzumi sent these kinds of messages every day. They always did meet at the front, But this time it was different. Alex looked at the door window and saw all of his friends standing together. He saw Daizen, Fuzumi, and Hiroto. He felt too bad. He couldn’t go to them like he normally did every day. He felt terrible about what he did to Daizen. He couldn’t go to them because he felt he didn’t deserve them. He observed how Daizen walked around and saw him holding his back in pain. He didn’t want to go, because he knew he was trash.

“I don’t deserve my friends. I’m sorry Daizen.”

Alex said to himself quietly under his breath, he turned away from the door. He looked down as he squinted his eyes and tightened his right hand into a fist that was filled with anger, but then he remembered something that he said he was going to do today. He facepalmed as he realized what he had forgotten. Earlier today, he had promised that he was going to go to the kendo club to meet Toroma and do the Japanese Island Project. He thought about leaving the school by the side door to avoid everyone else, but he felt bad and he also promised himself to go, so he had to go. So, he decided to not go to his friends because of his wrongdoings and to not upset Toroma he decided to head to the kendo club, but he also didn’t want to go since he did skip most of his classes and he knew his mom was going to kill him so he might as well go to Toroma.

“I hope Toroma won’t be mad at me too. He must've heard the rumors, I hope he still wants to be my partner for the project.”

Alex thought about different situations of how Toroma was going to react to all the rumors he most likely heard. He walked throughout the hallways and headed up two steps upstairs as he thought of the outcomes of how Toroma was going to react. He hoped that he maybe wouldn’t have heard about it but that was a small chance. He was on the third floor of the school somewhere he had never been before, surprisingly he had been in this school for at least three weeks. Alex passed a few classes as he looked for the kendo room. After a few minutes, he found the room. The door’s room had a Japanese aesthetic to it. It had sakura petals on the door that had been taped to it. The door was also very different from the other ones at school, this one was wooden and had Japanese kanji on the door.

“Wow, this kendo club must be really Japanese.”

Since this door was wooden and different from all the other doors and classes, it didn’t have a lock, so he could slide the door open from the handle. He reached his right arm to the handle and opened it with his hand. When he opened the door he saw something he wasn’t expecting.