Chapter 7:

Almost there

Izanagi's soldiers and Izanami's warrior


We tend to take a great deal for granted because you feel like you're going to live forever. It's only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, [that] many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance.
- Brandon Lee


 Instinctively I bent down, doesn't matter how much I didn’t want to obey the girl.
Blades swish past my head and stopped in something. I looked behind my back carefully and saw a huge fly creature, with only one big eye.
"Takaki, run!"
Because of the shock, I could barely hear anything other than my heartbeat. I faced the ghost. I looked at it and it looked at me. My body was numb and I couldn’t move. I squeezed my broken necklace so much that blood spilled out of my hand, but I couldn’t feel anything. After I took off the necklace, do I have to face death for now?
There was a strong pain in my shoulder and I slid off the ground. Hasegawa was standing in front of the ghost now. It swallowed all of the blades, except one what was in her bloody hand. She reached into her pocket and tossed her phone toward me, it stopped right in front of my feet.
"Run and call the others!"
She ran in the other direction than where I was, and the creature followed her.
I dialed the others immediately. I don’t remember what I said, probably nothing useful, I was just babbling, but they seem to understand because they slammed the phone down.
And now? Hasegawa led the monster away, but I could still smell the disgusting stench. They may be nearby. Something sharp should be, right? I had a box cutter in my bag that had been there since last year.
After a short search and getting lost, I found them. Hasegawa rather defended herself than attacked. I don’t know how her “power” works but even I realized that the guns are the most useful.
Hasegawa had just jumped over the fly's tentacles and tried to move as far away from it as possible.
"Hasegawa!" I yelled, swinging my box cutter in my hand.
 I don’t know how much it'd help, but if it can a little, it’s already worth it. She looked at me, but the problem was that the fly also noticed me and depart for me on a straight-line course. It was so fast I couldn’t even react and then before I knew it, it was already in front of me and it reached toward me with its tentacles.
Suddenly Hasegawa also stood in front of me and cut off the tentacles then the fly roared painfully and stumbled backward.
She had a red sword in her hand, and the wound on her hand got even bigger and blood leaking from it.
The fly grew back its tentacles and now headed for the girl again. With more power than before. They avoided each other's attack for a while, then Hasegawa stabbed her sword straight into the center of its big eyes. The ghost yelled and disappeared.
"Hasegawa!" I rushed up to her and held her thin body. "Are you okay?"
"Is not over yet." And really. I could smell them and hear their screams.
She climbed unsteadily to her feet and leaned on her sword. The other ghosts arrived as well, but now there were three, and all looked different.
Hasegawa straightened and walked towards them while she was breathing heavily. She was moving slower and slower, and she could barely dodge the attacks. She wounded and killed one of the monsters, but the other two immediately hit her and dashed her straight against the wall, she crumpled like a broken doll. She doesn't get up from the ground anymore, and the ghosts wanted to finish what they had begun.
I threw at them the only thing what was close to me, and they turned around.
Then a blow struck them from above, which cut them in two, but they were not dead yet.
Nishikawa knelt in front of Hasegawa and checked her pulse. Naoto also rushed over to them, and after a small discourse, Nishikawa jump at the regenerating monsters.
"Shuichi come here!" Naoto's voice was very serious and it sounded scary. He took my hand as I knelt beside him. "I'll borrow your power."
I felt how my body got relaxed and I felt more and more tired. Naoto then tore Hasegawa's shirt apart. He placed a talisman between her two breasts without any confusion or fear and lied his cardigan on her bare chest.
"Watch out for her!"
And Naoto also jumps into the fight with Nishikawa. The two of them defeated the ghosts pretty quickly, then Nishikawa picked up the girl and started running, followed by Naoto and me.

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We could sit in the hospital speechless for a few minutes. Nishikawa was the only one walking up and down with folded arms. He stopped in front of me and lifted me from the chair by my shirt.
"It's all your fault! If anything goes wrong with her, I'll kill you with my own hands!"
Naoto put his hand on the boy's arm.
"We're in a hospital Tsurugi. We'll discuss what happened later."
He let go, and I hopped back on the chair. He's right, it's my fault. 
"Shouldn't we call her parents?" 
Okazaki and Nishikawa looked at each other, then Naomi spoke. "Chi-chan has no family. Everyone is dead. The 'cursed blood' was in her family for generations. If not the ghosts, then the blood loss would kill them. We recommended Chi-chan the human weapons to avoid this."
It didn’t seem like any of them wanted to continue.
"Why didn't she has her weapon then?"
No answer. I'm just an outsider. I have no right to know about things. 
The door opened, and a doctor stepped out from the room. He walked over to Nishikawa and talked to him, then walked away.
Nishikawa went to Okazaki and told him the news, then left the hospital.
"She survived." I blew out the air, which I didn’t even know I was keeping inside. "It was a close shave."
"Nishikawa doesn't like me, right?"
Naoto set right his bandage.
"I'll be honest. If Chiyo died, I would help Tsurugi killing you."