No Gods, No Officers

In the kitchen storage room, Akilah continued to sob over Taro, whose breath had gotten weaker, but not completely stopped.

The loud choir had stopped some time ago, about the time Taro was stabbed.

“Don’t worry, child. He is on his way to a better place-” Officer 1168 paused his speech as he looked off into an empty wall.

“Brother?!” 1168 mumbled.

Akilah looked on as the Officer raised his hands into the sky, looking up as if God travelled down to meet with his disciple.

“Heavenly father, please lend me the strength that was wasted on my useless brother. Lend me the strength to carry out your will. Lend me the strength to cleanse these sinners of their ways.” Officer 1168 shed tears through his closed eyes, making Akilah grow furious.

“Why are YOU crying?!” Akilah’s tears of sadness turned into tears of anger.

Officer 1168 looked down towards the girl, completely silent.

The golden ring that hovered behind 1168 began to emit a low hum, startling Akilah.

She immediately activated her Mode in response, analyzing the Officer’s system of Spirit.

“His eyes are covered in Spirit, maybe to see?” Akilah pondered.

She grew frustrated with every dead end she thought herself into.

“Your sins are too great for forgiveness, child. Direct punishment from the weapon of god is needed. I am god’s wrath. I am god’s axe, his executioner.” Officer 1168’s words were ignored by Akilah.

“This guy is totally insane. Taro, please wake up…” Akilah thought, growing more angry at the rambling madman with every second.

She had never been so frustrated at her lack of ability. Taro had put his life on the line in close combat, and all she could do was… See.

She looked down at her bleeding friend with her Mode still activated.

“Wait…” Akilah noticed something while looking at Taro, immediately stopping her tears.

Akilah examined Taro’s Spirit system. She wouldn’t have caught this if she hadn’t learned to focus her Mode into her occipital lobe.

“His Spirit is weakening… But it isn’t exiting from the wound.” Akilah remembered the reason why she saw Spirit has a cardiovascular system. She had learned it straight from Jessica.

“Spirit is naturally tied to your blood cells until a Spirit user learns how to separate their Spirit from their blood to channel it or start a manifestation, which is why it’s so hard for beginners. That’s also the reason why, when you bleed from some type of cut or wound, your Spirit exists through that wound as well. Advanced Spirit users know how to keep their Spirit in to prolong bleeding out, but eventually you’ll still pass out from blood loss.” Jessica’s long winded explanation could still ring out in Akilah’s mind word for word, seeing as she had written it down in her notebook.

“Then why…” Akilah tried to connect the pieces of the puzzle together.

“A constant floating golden circle, a choir with no source, and now a wound that’s… Not real…” Akilah finally cracked the code.

“Taro, wake up! You’re fine!” Akilah, who still had remnants of tears in her eyes, started to laugh at the absurdity.

Taro slowly opened his eyes. He didn’t know what she meant. He was feeling excruciating pain in his back, and he could see his blood spilling onto the floor beside him.

“What manner of witchcraft is that Mode, child?” Officer 1168 began to question Akilah as he overheard her statement.

“One that lets me see right through you.” Akilah looked to the Officer with her mode still activated.

“Of course, how couldn’t I have noticed?” Akilah thought to herself as she observed that the Spirit in 1168’s feet were touching the ground.

“In the illusion, he was only a few inches above the ground, so it would be possible to miss it when I first activated my Mode.” Akilah figured it out.

She turned back to Taro, whose Spirit was still weakening.

“Must be the placebo effect in full swing.” Akilah, with her Mode activated, waved her hand through the spot that the Officer’s ‘Divine Blade’ would be sticking out.

“See? There’s nothing there!” Akilah’s hand passed right through the blade that Taro was seeing.

Akilah could feel the cold metal of the blade stopping the motion of her hand, but she pushed past it, knowing it was an illusion.

Taro’s eyes widened as his Spirit slowly came back to him. The pain didn’t subside, but he knew that it was a symptom of an illusion, standing up and assuming a fighting position.

The Officer’s eyes widened.

“You are SINNERS! You do not deserve to see the light of day!” 1168 screamed. He continued to ramble as Taro turned to Akilah.

“What’s the plan?!” Taro asked with urgency.

“You fight, I’ll guide you.” Akilah nodded as Taro nodded back.

Taro charged at the Officer, who abruptly slammed his hands together in a praying position.

“Heavenly Clones!” The Officer screamed with panic in his voice.

Two clones appeared on both sides of him, quickly crossing over each other, trying to mix the real one into a different position.

They then dispersed around Taro, zooming in for an attack.

Akilah activated her Mode, immediately noticing that one of the three had a significantly stronger Spirit system.

“The one on the left!” She screamed at Taro.

He abruptly turned to his left, activating his Mode into his fist and sending a right hook straight towards the Officer’s face.

1168 ate the punch at close range, not expecting the duo to guess his real body.

The Officer was thrown against the concrete wall of the storage room.

As he slid down the wall with blood dripping down his lip, The Officer grit his teeth and assumed the praying hands once again.

“You sinners do not deserve to be in the presence of a disciple! Holy Vision!” 1168 opened his eyes for the first time, exposing a golden light coming from empty eye sockets.

Blood began to drip down his eyelids, eventually dripping down his chin.

The two teens stepped back, not knowing what would come next.

“I see! I SEE IT ALL! Thank you lord!” The Officer thanked the air above him, quickly turning his attention towards Taro.

“What’s the next move, Akilah?!” Taro asked urgently without taking his eyes off the madman.

Akilah understood now why his Spirit was focused in his eyes, but what could the attack be?!

“You’re done! You’re both finished!” The Officer began laughing hysterically.

The two teens looked at each other, both uncertain on what to do.

As 1168 looked back down to the kids, he assumed the prayer hands.

A golden light filled the storage room, almost blinding the two kids.

“What the-?!” Taro was hit in the abdomen by… Something.

Akilah saw him go flying through her Mode. She was grateful that the light wasn’t filled with Spirit, so that she could still discern Taro and the Officer’s Spirit.

“Taro?!” Akilah called for him with concern.

“Yup.” Taro spoke through the pain, getting up instantly.

“You’re all done!” The Officer’s Spirit system became visible again.

“What the…” Akilah was baffled. 1168 had acquired eight more arms, five on each side in total.

“They all have the same Spirit signature as his original arms, so they can’t be illusions…” Akilah noticed that the Officer kept his original two hands in the praying position. That could be the key.

“Try to aim for the hands in the middle!” Akilah yelled the orders at Taro.

“Where?!” Taro yelled back. Akilah realized he couldn’t see through the golden light swallowing the room.

“Shit. This falls on me.” Akilah took slow steps as she tried to figure out a way to overwhelm her opponent.

She hypothesizes as the Officer takes slow steps towards her, waving his ten arms theatrically, just like he did when he had two.

“I need to think of something, fast… Of course.” Akilah didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of this faster.

She channeled her Spirit into her prefrontal cortex and activated her Mode.

“The prefrontal cortex, of course. I just need to move my Spirit towards the area of the brain responsible for deep thinking.” After Akilah activated her Mode, she didn’t feel what she expected to feel.

She was hoping that the move would heighten her ability to problem solve. Instead, it gave her something even better.

Purple outlines of the Officer’s Spirit system moved ahead of him. Each of them only about half a second, one second, and one and a half seconds in advance respectively. Which was plenty.

“YOU’RE finished!” Akilah smirked as she started to run towards the Officer.

She saw that his hands were going to follow each other into an uppercut from the right side, merging into one to multiply the damage. Akilah dodged the attack with plenty of time to push forward with a counterattack.

She put all of her might into a left hook, landing it with certain precision onto the Officer’s chin.

She felt the pain shock through her arm as she realized she never trained herself in martial arts, but she couldn’t give up now.

The Officer tried to collect himself after almost passing out from the whiplash. The golden light started to dim, just enough for Taro to make out the outline of Akilah and 1168.

He rushed over to help. Akilah saw the Officer’s next attack, which would be a panicked lung at herself.

“Double hammer fist down the middle!” Akilah yelled at Taro. She had already deduced the perfect move to inflict the most damage.

“Yeah, yeah. Got it!” Taro burst into a sprint.

“I guess it does help with reasoning as well.” Akilah smirked as she knew the battle was coming to a close.

The Officer lunged at Akilah as expected, panicked and wildly unprepared.

Taro clasped his fists together over his head, activated his strength Mode, and brought them down on the spine of 1168 with all his might.

1168 felt his spine snap as his face crashed into the ground.

The concrete broke under him as the two kids heard more bones crack on impact combined with a fleshy thud.

The golden light quickly disappeared the instant the Officer touched the concrete. Akilah’s eyes blinked, getting used to the absence of light in the room, no gods and no masters left.

Akilah threw herself a mental party as she realized that was the longest she had kept her Mode activated without turning it off from the irritation in her eyes or the sensory overload.

A pool of blood filled the area around 1168’s head.

Akilah looked towards Taro as she noticed his wounds had disappeared.

“See? I told ya.” Akilah shook her head like Taro didn’t believe her.

“Tsk.” Taro sounded.

Suddenly, Vida and Amora barged through the door.

“Are you guys…” Vida slowly noticed the Officer on the ground.

“A little late, ladies. Let’s go find my brother, I’m sure he’s fine.” Taro stretched his back with his hands as he began to walk out of the room.

“C’mon, let’s hurry. We need to find your boyfriend.” Akilah patted Amora’s shoulder as she and Taro picked up the pace, starting to jog down the hallway.

“I thought… I thought I heard screaming.” Amora questioned her senses.

“C’mon.” Vida started to jog down the hallway as well.

After a couple seconds of looking at the scene, she turned around and slowly caught up with the others.