Author's Note: This is my first Christmas themed story. Enjoy!
Kit is a singer and he has deep connections with Hachi-no-Orochi. I was his
Paragon. Kit is not a popular singer. His voice is good, but it’s not extraordinary. But what he is good at is pulling strings. What I’m good at is my determination to protect him. Haku, on the other hand, belongs to the eight snakes. Even though the people in Ikanori knows about these eight wealthiest business owners, Haku being among the one, they won’t call them the eight snakes. Instead, they oblige to their governance; ascribe to their virtue to be one day become like them. If they call them the evil, they will question their purity. But to me, that purity is the suppression of good in them, not the suppression of evil. I know that it’s twisted, so does the government. Meanwhile, whenever I stand beside Kit, he is very careful about his clothes. He wants to look perfect, but does he feel perfect? He wants to get rid of the minor bad notes in his voice, but does he want to improve? To improve, he has appointed a motivational speaker. His name is Kenji Fukuchi.
Kenji is all suit and tie. He one day wants to give a speech to the whole world, but as of right now, he is limited to the city of Ikanori. Belonging to Sector I of Fae, a Changeling himself, he has a devilish look on his face. His teeth are gritty. His eyes are monster-like. The young goldish hair on top of his head goes against his too-matured face. But in the end, what is he? A Changeling. His only quality is speaking the truth. That truth is provided by the documentation from Hachi-no-Orochi. Mellifluous in his tone and quite draconian in his appearance, the suit and tie help a bit. At least, that’s what I see.
“I don’t like coming to Sector VI,” he says to Kit. I’m beside him. I look at Kit. He is wearing a brown jacket. His silver hair is slick. His is quite slender. But his face is hidden with a makeup that hides his dark-circles. Even though he is a good singer, but he is not that greatly established to pay for install mechanics. If he goes somehow to the Modders, a thought that he has given many times, he feels like he can’t trust them. Amplifying his physical aspect, he doesn’t want that to work against him. He has seen that happening to many up-coming singers, but I know the illusion of dream and who already is selected. I’m just working, looking at Kit, why he is called to Orochi Core. He has visited that octagonal building before, but with me, it’s going to be different.
“I know that you don’t like coming to my sector,” replied Kit, “but understand that if I get the chance to be extraordinarily big, you Kenji will be considered as one of the greatest mentors. Besides, Christmas is coming. Imagine my posters all over the city. The colors of my songs getting displayed in different roofs as a promotional strategy. You defeating those Pixies who are always ahead of Changelings when it comes to public speaking. The same with Fairies. Though most of them are more into business negotiations, one of their big agencies with hire you. Imagine you being called first and there is a line of Pixies waiting for you to finish fast so they can speak. It all can happen. You just need to motivate me.”
“Have you read How to go Beyond Painful Realities? Have you read Be like Preachers? The Need to Purify the Soul by being Perfect? I have given you more than ten such books that you needed to finish in three days.”
Wolf-Crest: The Ikanori District
“Kenji, I sacrificed my sleep. So many thoughts started coming in. I felt paranoid. I couldn’t make the needed sacrifice to be perfect. I thought of changing my clothes that I changed two hours ago. But this time, I went to the mall at three in the morning so that I can look perfect as a singer while I took sleepless pills.”
“That’s my boy. That’s the way to build your self-esteem,” replies Kenji.
I hear their conversation and I feel paranoid deep inside. As a Paragon: his personal bodyguard, an independent contractor, I always wondered what if Kit sleeps, would he be able to see the glimpse of
personal healing? A step towards it? But that problem doesn’t go away as Kenji gives him another twenty self-help books. I once had read such a book when I was in an orphanage called the Sunflower Home for Wayward Children. Yet if a child is a flower, nobody was there blossoming them except me and my brother, Ryu Kusanagi. Besides, the self-help that I read, the words in it felt like a vomit. The words that Kenji is throwing on Kit feels like a vomit too. Kit's body is breaking a sweat, but he doesn’t want to lose its purity. Besides, Haku likes him, and its not due to his voice.
The minute we get out from his house; a car is waiting for us, which appears like a minute jet. It’s not Kit’s car even though the compactness of his house is small, but its height is quite big. His house is one of the biggest houses in Sector VI. That status drives his passion to be bigger in life as if larger than life itself. That’s what I see in his face when I stand beside him. My gaze then inspects the car. The Orc sitting in the driver’s seat, I check whether he is dressed clean or not. His teeth partly slicing the corners of his mouth are shabby, but his heart is pure in terms of doing a proper job, I think. I can’t say the same about the mind. Before Kenji and Kit enters, I halt them by showing my hand.
“Start the car,” I say.
The Orc nods his head. “Yes, ma’am,” he replies.
Instead of the rims, the four boosters of the car unleash a dim fire. The car slightly hovers. But somehow, the Orc hovers the car more than its usuals height for starting. At that second, I can also see a drone about to pass the street. The length and the width of the street is really minute. The air is all the street has got for a lane to engulf. “Put the car down!” I say before the Orc realizes that the drone is about to fly past him very fast and it won’t go up because the algorithms installed in such drones had superiority complex. They had egos with their bright lights that despises any darkness in any sector.
The Orc puts the car down at the right time. I still halt the movements of my protector, who is Kit, and Kenji, who is irritated. While I’m looking at the Orc’s direction, I know Kenji is looking at me intently. My black breastplate. My black pauldrons. My black rerebrace. My black gauntlets. And my slick black hair. But what he doesn’t know is the sharpness of my eyes. Why? Because I’m always combat ready. The moment I open the door, I tell the Orc to not say any words during the journey. “Perhaps, not open the mouth too,” I add.
He gives me his inexplicable expressions, but I assure him about my intentions by gently placing my palm on his shoulder. I nod and I look back. We all then get inside the car. Next moment, we are in the sky. Sector VI feels like a small place compared to the rest of the sectors. The sky is pink hue as it’s turning into an evening. The illumination of lights – just different colourful lights and nothing else – is the essence of the ground below. The only variation is the tallness of different building. The mightiest of all is the Orochi Core. Its pagoda roof like a big leaf being curled is where the symbol of the government rests. A red sun that is surrounded by eight extending dragon heads. Each head represents each district and races living in it. The light of Hachi-no-Orochi’s symbol is so intense that just like their skyscraper of eighty floors, everyone can see the symbol clearly.
The sky is also filled with all kinds of cars, which look like different spacecrafts, mostly covered up by Faes. Their aircrafts are small, yet most of them fly with squadrons. All from Yamata Armada. All private military contractors who had become ruthless through their training in augmented realities. Against the pink hue sky, they look like flies. Everything is covered up so much that I barely see nature.
“That Orc feels like he worships Yamakami,” says Kenji at the wrong time. “What do you feel?”
When I look at Kit, he wants to shiver as he is feeling nervous while the car is going towards Orochi Core, but he is forcefully smiling, trying to be perfect. “I’m all Shura-Kami. I love the way as I don’t see any nature flourishing and metal taking everything.”
Deciding to kill the tense mood I asked the Orc, "Mind producing some some Holiday themed music"
I catch a twinkle in the Orc's eye at that request. "Will do."
What he requested isn't what I'd personally consider holiday appropriate
At that point the orc is clearly in the zone.
"Isn't this supposed to be Solstice music?"
"It is Solstice music" The Orc corrected.
I glanced at Kit, whose mood had improved and is all smiles. I just relaxed and sat back against the seat.
