PHASE 5 - REMEMBER, TIARA IS STILL ON A DIET

You know you’re pretty screwed when all the things in the universe decided it.

These past days, I have been seeing weird things. The gigantic red moon, the creepy voice inside my head telling me to commit suicide, and the faces of some people who had their eyes hollow and are crying with black blood. I’ve seen the movies about exorcism, and I have been praying the whole week even though I’m not an active Christian (I sometimes become an atheist when everything is pissing me off).

But nothing works. Maybe I need Jeanne-... No. I don’t need her. I wanted to say that I need Jesus. I don’t need that fraudulent runt.

I once asked Tiara if these hallucinations are dangerous, and she said that it was. She was so worried about me that she asks if I’m okay whenever we see each other at the start of the class.

For the next days, Tiara has been watching me. She said that unbaptized Gate Guardians are prone to Eidolon attacks, so she wanted to protect me. I protested at first but she insisted. Wherever I go, she’s there, ten meters behind me, stalking, as if she’s an agent from FBI and I’m in surveillance for selling child pornography.

Her bodyguard duty ends in the bus terminal every day. I feel guilty for her effort in escorting me for the past four days so I decided to treat her for lunch.

<>

Tiara has been chomping down the fried chicken and rice, while we, the five nerds look with astonishment. This girl...has an appetite of three hungry full-grown pigs! She already ate five cups of rice in just ten minutes! All our hopes and dreams of having an ideal girl eating on our table went down like a bomb.

“Thanks for the meal, Rikkun!” She made the shy charming smile again. Normally, guys would fall in love, but there are empty plates scattered all around her.

“Y-You can order for more rice if you want… Ric has an unlimited budget for you.” Chrisprel said. I want to punch this guy.

“I-I can’t eat more rice! I’m on a diet…” Tiara shyly replied.

Really?

“A-Anyway.” I cleared my throat to shift the mood. “How long has it been since you lived together?”

“E-Eh?” She tilted her head like a confused puppy.

“That runt.”

“O-Oh, if you’re talking about senpai, she’s not living with me. In fact, that’s the first time she went to my home. She visited my place when I said that I have discovered a candidate.”

“Senpai?” I crossed my arms.

“Yes!” Tiara had her eyes sparkling. “She’s my senior, and the most intelligent and skillful Gate Guardian I’ve ever seen. She said that she has done a really bad thing to you two years ago, and she wants to apologize for that.”

I was about to ask Tiara to expound about that phrase but then...

“So, you two are playing online games, huh?” Heushac butted in. We forgot that the whole squad is listening!

“Y-Yes! You’re right!” Tiara and I shrieked in unison.

<>

It was already eight in the evening, and I just got out of the bus. I am finally here in my hometown, Mirose Grande City. From the bus terminal, I should wait for a taxi to pick me up and drop me at my house, which is ten minutes away.

Usually, this place is swarming with cabs, but this night, it’s different. There’s no one here. The bus driver and the dispatcher mysteriously disappeared, as well as the other passengers. The lights are eerily flickering.

I am scared to get out of the terminal. I don’t want to see a blood moon, especially if Tiara is not on my side. I waited for five minutes until I heard something… inside of my head.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

It hurts so much that I felt like my brain is being fried. I ran out of the terminal and finally found out, after looking up in the sky, that there is a gigantic blood moon.

As I ran on the empty sidewalk, the place drastically transformed. The buildings around me withered like sand castles being blown by the wind. There were small fissures on the asphalt of the ground. All the trees around me were burning, and there was intense heat coming from everywhere!

I turned around, hoping that I could go back, but everything that I know in this place ceased to exist. I’m here again, in the parallel dimension.

Yami.

There was a heavy flapping that I can hear not far from here. In fact, that thing is directly above me! It’s not a bird, not a plane, and certainly not Superman.

It was a seven-meter red dragon! Its scales give a perfect reflection of crimson blood from the moon. It has razor swords as claws, and its tail has a gigantic mace! What’s more terrifying is that its red glowing eyes are targeting me!

The dragon charged a basketball-size fireball from its mouth and launched it to my direction! I leaped forward to immediately evade it! The ball of flames made a small crater on the ground!

I was about to run at my full speed when the dragon landed, slamming its four feet to the ground, making a loud tremor that destroyed the landscape of the earth! I failed to maintain my balance in running so I got my face smacked on the crunchy asphalt!

I felt that I can’t move my arms and legs. I realized that I was being held by the giant dragon!

There was the sound of three consecutive gunshots. When I came to my senses, I noticed that the dragon’s left eye has been oozing with black blood. The dragon roared that echoed all over the place.

“GRAAAAAAHHH!!!”

Because of the unbearable pain, the dragon tossed me with the speed of fifty miles per hour! Once I fall to the ground, I’m splat!

But in the nick of time, there was this swift sound of the wind. I realized that I was being carried by a tall blonde woman who had her lower face covered by a metallic mask.

She was so… beautiful. Her long golden blonde hair waved like the ocean as she landed. Her purple eyes also have this golden cross sigil. I’m certain that she, too, is a Gate Guardian!

She’s not just beautiful, she looks so badass. On the upper part, she was wearing a white kimono jacket exposing the cleavage of her melon-like breast. She’s also exposing her flawless long white legs by wearing very short cycling pants. On her waist are disks that perform like jetpacks which releases rocket flames.

When she landed and released me from her grasps, I finally had the chance to assess her height. She’s a six-footer! So tall!

The golden beauty nodded to me, and then looked at the monster. She slowly raised her arms, and I noticed that she was wearing fingerless black gloves with a yellow diamond attached on each. The gems glowed, and it materialized itself in the form of submachine guns! That’s so cool!

The mysterious Gate Guardian then activated her disk boosters, and she dashed in the speed of a jet plane. She circled the dragon, which made it more confused. She was so fast that I can only see golden streaks of light!

The dragon used its mouth to bite, its claws to scratch, and its tail to smash the lightning-fast Gate Guardian, but no good. The golden beauty is too fast for it to hit!

“GRAAAAAA!!!” The dragon finally got annoyed and started to charge a much bigger fireball in its mouth. It is ready to burn everything around him!

In a blink of an eye, the golden Gate Guardian braked in midair, and pointed her two submachine guns at the mouth of the dragon!

“!!!” The mysterious Gate Guardian shouted, and there was an endless barrage of missiles coated with a blue aura that surged forward and destroyed the ball of flames from the dragon’s mouth!

There was a loud explosion which gave off sonic waves that made the whole place covered with dusty smoke. When the surroundings finally calmed down, the dragon was already lying on the ground, headless. It must be toasted due to the explosion.

After three seconds, the body of the Eidolon decomposed as black particles.

Eventually, there was a blinding flash of light.

When I opened my eyes, I was finally back in my world, the Earth Realm.

And the beautiful lady was nowhere to be found.