CH2: Kegare I

Arden.

It was the name of my hometown, the one where I learned the harsh realities of growing up, such as embarrassment. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up with a loving family, it’s just my loving family made my life rather-what’s the word?

Difficult.

Yet there difficult nature couldn’t even compare to what I found this morning, far from it. As of now were taking the Gauss train towards Arden and when I say “were” I’m talking about two. Sitting next to me is what I found this morning, a girl or rather a young women probably around the same age as me with cat-like ears which were covered by a hat I found in my dresser along with some spare clothes I gave her was accompanying me towards my hometown.

Why?

To find answers is to why I woke up to find a cat who I thought was a normal street cat turned out to be a full grown women naked on top of me. Those answers I knew would be found in my hometown because there’s was one person I knew who find these abnormal things normal and sadly enough he was the most difficult person in my life.

My Father…

1

At this point, you probably wonder why the sudden expositions?
It’s because I have no one else to talk to besides myself, my feline friend next to me hasn’t spoken a word to me since we left my house. During are time we stay on this train, all she’s done is tighten her hands around her thighs, almost like she wanted to speak but was too nervous to talk.

Well that makes two of us. I thought.

To be honest, I didn’t know what to say to her, I mean what was I supposed to say?
So what’s it like to be a cat?

Do mind if I can touch your cat ears?

Did you ever lick yourself at times?

All results felt the same, I neither be called a pervert or be clawed to death. Yet at that moment I work up the courage to ask her a decent question.

“So…nice weather were having right?”

“…” she didn’t responded, rather not even look in my general direction.

What the hell was that?! I said sweating in my thoughts.

Nice weather were having? Jeez, I sounded like what an old person would say. Even as I thought about that question was on the fly it still disappointing to think it was the only thing I could think of.

“Why…” in my depress thought, I turned to finally hear her speak.

“Why are you doing this? Helping me?” she said still nervous to speak she continued, “If anybody else were caught in this situation they would try to avoid it as soon as possible, so why?” her eyes glimmered, waiting for me to answer.

She was right about one thing, most people would run away at the sight of this, most people including me. Yet I wonder about that myself, why didn’t I ran away from this? If I avoided this situations I would still be living my complacent lifestyle. The only explanation I could find wasn’t found in my brain but rather somewhere deep in my heart, the part of me that still wanted to be doctor, the part that wanted to help people in need. The very thought made me sigh of how tiresome it was for me to answer her question so honestly.

“Alexia, this morning when you told me you had no idea why or how you were turned into a cat, I could tell there was a lot of distraught in your eyes. For me it was simple, you needed help and at the moment I felt I just couldn’t abandoned you,” I said with a calm and collected voice.

Whoa, even I didn’t expect myself to sound so confident, she must be in awe by now since I said something so profound.

“Huh?”

Well not exactly…

“Eh?” Even I look confused, I thought I said something pretty cool back there but instead I just got her looking at me with a confused look.

“W-Wait Elias, you knew who I was? I-I thought you didn’t know me in high school?” she said shocked.

That’s when it hit me, I forgot to mention during the expositions that this girl goes by the name Alexia Beltz. She was in the same grade as me during our high school days and she was considered one of the most popular girl in school. Even someone as unnoticeable as me realized how every guy in school wanted to be with her, but in my head I thought.

That is such an unattainable girl, no way in hell I could be with her.

So with each passing year I ignored her, which lead up to our graduation. Since then I never saw her, but I never thought in a million years I would see her again on top of me and naked for that matter.

“Come on Alexia, everybody knew you from our school. You were smart, you played sports, and even girls thought you were attractive.”

“But you were the only one who didn’t seem to notice any of that” Alexia said puffing her cheeks.

“Excuse me?” I said confuse, not getting what she meant.

“You know we had class together since freshmen year and you never once spoke to me,” this time she had her arms cross together with a sense of anger in her voice.

“What?” I was surprised, if Alexia and me were the only ones on the train I might have shouted much louder but I didn’t want to cause a scene.

This time I was truly confused, I never realized throughout high school I had class with Alexia. I guess I underestimated my ignoring skills. If I were a RPG character, my ignoring skill was probably set to max, if such an ability even existed in a RPG to begin with.

I wondered…

“If that’s the case, why didn’t you say anything to me? You must have had something to say during that time if you notice I never talk to you?” The moment I asked her face became flustered, heisted to answer.

“Well you never seemed interested in nobody, there were times I wondered if you were just in your own little world during school,” she said struggling.

I wanted to disagree with her on that notion but when I thought about it, she was right. I never did seemed to care about anything, I kind of just went through the motions of life and before I knew it I was already done with high school. There weren’t that many people at school I could call my friends, I guess my idea of forming a bond with someone never registered in my brain or rather I was scared to lose a bond than begin one.

ARRIVING AT ARDEM CITY

With time passing by that felt like mere seconds to me in thought, the train then made a complete stop while the automatic doors slip outward in a horizontal angle. I then felt a slight pinch in my stomach when we arrive.

“I hate to admit it but we finally made it to my hometown…” I said in an upset tone, to which Alexia couldn’t help stare perplexed.

2

“So Elias I been meaning to ask you…” Alexia tap me on the shoulder as we made are way to my family’s house.

“Hm? What is it?” I asked.

“Well how is walking to your family home going to help me?”

We were nearly half way near to my parents’ house when she suddenly decided to ask. I turned back in our general direction rubbing my head in thought of how I was going to answer.

“Well to be honest I don’t know if it’s really going to help you but we might be able to get some answers as to why you look like some character from a fantasy manga.” I said trying to make light of the situation.

“Really, how?”

“Let’s just say there’s someone at my parents’ house who might be able to give us those answers. For now its best you see for yourself,” as I explained I could tell Alexia was giving me the perplexed look like most light novel heroines give to the hero of the story.

Then the fear started to kick in, with each step I took I could feel ourselves getting closer to the house. After crossing a few blocks we had made it to the front yard of my old house, the one my parents still currently lived in, the one where so many memories of being embarrassed and harassed by the most bizarre of things. I then work up the strength to make our way to the front door and as I knock on the door several times I randomly had a thought.

Huh, I just realized, Alexia knew my name quite well for someone who never really talk to me in high school. Plus I never stood out for here to really notice me, now I that I think about it, on the train and even on the way to the house she seem rather familiar with me. Did she feel that comfortable to being around me?

That was when I was too deep in thought to notice what happened next, actually I should have been ready for it since it was my old house.

Wham!

As soon as the door open, I was suddenly attack of what seemed like someone barefoot flying against my face.

“Ack!” I had no time to react, I flew into the yard while landing on the grass. Alexia couldn’t react either, she didn’t know how to perceive what just happened.

“Big brother! Your home, Dad was right you would be here around this time!”

“Uggggh…Figures he would know the bastard…” I said rattled in pain.

“Are you okay Elisa?” Alexia said trying to pull me up from the ground.

“Yeah I’ll managed, this is nothing new coming from my sister.”

“Your sister?” She said surprised.

“Yup that’s me, Elisa little sister Alyssa Lockluster reporting for duty!” Alyssa she taking pride in her ranking by saluting like a solider. If you even call that a ranking.

My little sister Alyssa Lockluster, she was what you call a tom-boy, but you would only see that in her personality rather than physically. To most people you would have thought she was a beautiful young lady until she open her mouth and start sprouting nonsense about the art of justice like she was some main male protagonist from a Shonen Jump series, but I’ll get into that later on.

“Come on, Dad’s waiting for you in his office!” She said excited.

“You’re Dad? What’s she talking about?” Alexia said turning to me.

“My father going to be the one to help us.”

“How?”

“Because…” I was heisted at first because what I’m going to say next was really going change the perspective of the story and shock Alexia to a certain extent.

“He’s an exorcist”

“…” Alexia stood next to me frozen, I think her brain was trying to process what I just said, and then right on cue she reacted.

“Whaaaaaaat?!”

Yup, right on time. I said in thought.