I am so sorry I have been swamped with work and classwork, and my girlfriend and my family... Damn I hate being exhausted, I will have another chapter out by 4 days time

Chapter 19: Shiro's unfortunate past

Volume 2 Chapter 6

I wake up in a foggy state, I felt as if I was in a dream as my body had felt a little rigid and numb however that changed after about a minute.

The foggy state and numbness began to fade at a stready rate and I soon felt pain and anguish as my surroundings shook and vibrated, I opened my eyes slowly but my eyelids felt so heavy

I felt so cold and my body doesn't move like I want it to.

My arms feel so rigid and heavy as I try to pick myself up from my laying position to a sitting position but I am stopped by someone who begins yelling

"--ul ...Hes awak-!" I hear a woman scream loudly

"Uwa---ah... Im u-, im up, stop hit--n- me!" I heard a man shout but I didn't catch everything he said but I understood he was in pain

"Uggggghhhhhh" I writhe in pain as the floor shakes around under me and I could feel a sharp pain coming from my back as each bump we hit shakes the creaking floor even more, I try to move to get in a position that's less painful

"Don't m-ve, you'-e lost a l-t of bl-od and your stitches will tear if you move ar--nd too much." The man holds me down and tries to talk to me

As I was in pain and had hearing problems and couldn't focus, most of what he said went in one ear and out the other, I stared at the ceiling as my neck was stiff and it hurt to turn it.

"Ughhhhhhh... Wh-Where are we?" I asked in excruciating pain as I tried to wiggle to get in a better position

I had started to regain my senses as I came to understand that I was in the groups wagon, my vision began to become clearer... well still blurry but it was a blurry state I could tolerate

"We'-e heading to the city of A-tok, ev-ry-ne agrees we ne-d to rest, and ri--t now it's closer th-n Qi Village." Paul retorted

I rolled onto my side so I could peer out the back of the wagon to see that darkness had taken over the sky, the stars in the sky were completely visible in the dead of night unlike the stars on earth.

"When will we reach Artok?" I knew which city he was referring to even if I didn't hear him say it correctly as it was the closest city to the north of Aztar, where we currently were.

"In a couple hours, if my estimations are correct. You have been asleep for close to 6 hours in case you were wondering." Paul responds

"I see, thanks Paul." I said while staring at the stars

After stargazing for a couple minutes and experiencing a soreness on my side I rolled onto my other side, I adjusted my body so I was laying on my left side now and I opened my eyes wide with surprise.

It was that moment I noticed Brooke laying beside me, the right side of her face was scarred pretty badly and she laid there with closed eyes.

"No.. Brooke... You can't be dead..." I was overcome with sadness and I extended my hand towards her face, and placed my palm on her cheek, however it wasn't cold like I believed it would be.

We hit a bump almost as if it were a coincidence and she shook and twitched a little bit with signs of pain on her face after we hit the bump.

"Hahahaha" I cried while laughing as I felt overcome with relief on a colossal scale

"Why are you crying?" Anastasia asked confused

"I'm not crying, I just... I am just so happy Brookes alive... where is Shiro?" I spoke without looking at Anastasia as I didn't want her to see my face covered in tears.

"Shiro is sitting with Ares in the front, he has been pretty discouraged since the fight with that big creature." Anastasia said

"We weren't ready, it's an amazing thing we are all still alive." I said while touching Brookes cheek

"You aren't going to ask about Dia?" Anastasia asked curiously

"Dia abandoned us, so she should be fine, but I don't think she would show herself after abandoning us. I can't bring myself to blame her though... it was a fight that should have been unwinnable it surprises me that Brooke didn't run. We were all pretty useless in that fight." I said as I rolled back on my back and stared at the ceiling with a face full of indifference

"That bitch, I knew we couldn't trust her! I told you Gabriel!" Anastasia yelled at me

"Yeah you were right, I should have listened... I'm sorry." I said with a frown

"Sorry isn't good enough this time! Brooke will never walk again and you think sorry makes it all okay!?!?" Anastasia shouted loudly with anger and disdain clearly visible on her face

"What, what are you talking about? You're lying to me, she's fine... right?" I asked confused

"She was crushed by a tree sometime during the fight with the Rhinoceros, her left leg was crushed by the tree!" Anastasia shouted

"You're kidding, tell me you're messing around and you just said that as a joke! Ughhhh" I pleaded for Anastasia to tell me it was a joke, and then I pulled myself up to a sitting position and pulled the blanket covering Brookes lower half off of her.

"Fuck! Fuck! This wasn't supposed to happen! I told her to run... I told her I would protect her, goddamnit! I shouldn't have held back!"I hit the ground and then I smacked my head into the ground over and over again "I am so sorry Brooke, I'm so sorry."

"Hey! Stop that Gabriel, you're going to tear the stitches... and break the wood..." Paul said as he grabbed me and stopped me from smashing my head into the wagons wooden floor

"Hey Gabriel, what did you mean when you said 'you shouldn't have held back'?" Anastasia said with a curious expression

"What?" I asked back

"You said 'you would protect her' and then you said 'if only I didn't hold back,' im asking, what did you mean." Anastasia interrogated me

"I said that? I don't feel so good so I am going to get some rest, wake me up when we get to Artok." I deflected her question

"Answer my question Gabriel!" Anastasia yelled at me

"I'm tired let me sleep" I responded coldly

I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep soon afterwards

Shiro's perspective

"I heard shouting, what happened?" I entered the back of the wagon where the rest of my group was

Upon seeing Brooke laying down I became sad as I failed to protect her as men are supposed to do, that's what my father taught me anyways

"I was picking a fight with Gabriel, but I was just messing with him." Anastasia said while smiling

"I see, that makes sense you wouldn't hate Gabriel because he is a hero like us." I said while smiling at Anastasia

"Yeah, because he is one of us..." Anastasia said while showing a less truthful smile

"I will keep training so I can protect everyone important to me!" I yelled to reassure myself and reassure my friends, but also so Anastasia would take me seriously

"Geez Shiro don't yell we have people trying to sleep." Paul stood up and lightly smacked me

"S-sorry, I won't do it again." I apologized and glanced at Gabriel and Brooke

"Don't worry about it, just be a little more careful about your voice. Do you want to tell us about what your life was like back on earth?" Anastasia spoke gently

"It is a long unfortunate story, I don't like thinking about my past much as it's very depressing." I said to Anastasia as I frowned

"It can't be that bad you are barely 13." Anastasia said while putting her hand on my head

Shiro's story

We were a well off family as both my mom and dad came from wealthy families. I had 3 older brothers, an older sister, a mother, and a father. My mom died when I was 7, due to heart failure.

My oldest brother died when I was 11, he was mugged and stabbed. My older brother disappeared 6 months before the disappearances started, he disappeared one day, he left the house one day and never came back.

My mother was 45 when she passed away due to heart failure. Everyone took it badly my 3 older brothers took it hard, but my older sister took it far worse as she didn't speak for 2 years, however my dad took it the worst, he became violent and started drinking.

Well it wasn't always bad, my dad was named Seiji, he was a traveling businessman for a large company. My Dad's father loved swords and so my dad learned how to blacksmith when he was younger, he loved reading as he was always away from home on business, he enjoyed reading on plane rides.

He was nice and extremely caring when my mom was still alive, he always pushed me to do better, whether it was school or training for Kendo tournaments.

He trained me extensively on how to predict opponents strikes and counter attacks, we did reflex exercises and agility training, he also taught me a little about blacksmithing.

I personally enjoyed the process of blacksmithing the most, watching the creation of the blades was remarkable and I loved watching the fire melt the metal to the form the blacksmith desired, the strength that was used to beat the metal into submission, the incredible concentration I saw in the blacksmith's eyes when he forged a blade. He was always talking about how much he was proud of all of us, my brothers and sister I mean.

He was a great man until my mom died, then he became something else. He started drinking after her death, he quit his job and didn't do anything at first except wallow in self pity. After 2 weeks he became more violent and aggressive, when he was ignored he would become loud.

After a year and a half after my mom's heart attack, father started to leave the house looking for work and drank less. He found a job in which he worked as a convenience store clerk, he still had a bad attitude but as his boss was an old friend he allowed my dad to work there as long as my dad made an attempt at fixing his attitude.

That was where he met the woman named Ren Kurosawa who would one day be my step mother. He never really talked about how he met her but he said he wanted to make an attempt to change to fix what he had broken.

He changed again it was similar to how he was with mom and he stopped drinking and got out of the house more to exercise. My sister did not happy when Ren was brought over to our house, she probably felt like dad was betraying the memory of our mom.

It had been 2 years since our mothers death and still Sora didn't talk, however when Sora saw our dad kiss Ren she lost it. Ren jokingly said "Don't be so cold Sora I may be your mother one day."

Sora yelled "you can't replace mom!" and "you just got with my dad to steal his money" and threw things at Ren, Sora ran out of the house crying, I chased after her but she was gone. I went home hoping she would come home later that night however she didn't, my dad, Ren, and my three older brothers and myself went looking for her and another day passed with no luck.

On the third day however I was wandering around in the abandoned warehouse district and I heard screaming "Noooooooooo! Stopppppppppp!"

I ran in the direction of the scream and found Sora being held down by two men with her top ripped apart and bruises all over her body, her pants were being pulled down.

When I first arrived on Planet Kol I was filled with so much guilt as my status window read "The true hero" it made me feel so guilty and angry with myself as I had already killed two people. When I saw my sister being forced down, I ran towards them and saw a bottle on the ground near the two men.

I grabbed the bottle and shattered it over one of the man's heads and then stabbed him in the neck with the broken jagged parts of the bottle that was created from breaking the bottle on the man's head.

The other man jumped to his feet and reached for me, I dived forward towards his legs and stabbed him in his ankle and then stabbed him in the stomach when he collapsed on his bloody leg.

I know it was justified as I protected my sister from these evil men, however it didn't help with the way I felt. My sister and I discussed what to do, I wanted to turn myself in as I just committed the most evil crime in the world however Sora wanted to bury them and protect me as she didn't want me getting into any trouble.

I did what she said and together we buried the bodies of the two men in one of the old warehouses, We went back two days later to check to see if there were any cameras or evidence we left behind as we were in hurry last time however while we were there we decided to check on the bodies.

We walked into the warehouse in which we buried the two men and I was completely caught off guard as I saw a hand sticking out of the graves we made for the two men, his fingers were covered in dried blood as well as dirt under his fingernails.

We buried one of the men alive and didn't realize it, I was about to start crying as I was thinking about how much pain someone would go through to suffocate the way this man did, however Sora walks right to the hand and pushes it back into the ground and fills in the dirt so it doesn't look like anyone disturbed the dirt.

things became better and within another 2 years Ren had married our father and we were all okay with it as father had become a better person again. Ren treated everyone nicely, it was during this year that Hajime my oldest brother would be killed by a mugger.

We all took it hard as it was so untimely, life just didn't make sense. I stopped interacting with others and just focused on training, studying blacksmithing and school.

My father didn't take it very hard which surprised me a lot as he had become a heavy drinker when my mom died however he didn't shed many tears for Hajime.

Close to 2 years went by again and we all survived as we had to, 4 months before the disappearances started my older brother Hisashi disappeared, he left the house to go to his part time job as an automobile salesman, he never did come back. I fell apart and just stayed home and in my room.

My oldest brother now Jirou moved out, finished school, met a girl, and started working incredibly long hours as a police officer.

however a month after Hisashi's disappearance, I heard a loud scream that originated from my living room so I grabbed a blade my grandfather made a long time ago. Once I got to the living room I see Sora standing over dad holding a bloody kitchen knife and then she turned towards Ren who was crying.

I yelled to Sora to stop but she didn't listen she sprinted at Ren and pushed the kitchen knife into Ren's forehead. Time stopped and Sora and I stood there staring at each other, I was shaking in front of Sora with only the blade I had in my hands separating us. The only though going through my head was "she is going to try and kill me too"

I dropped the blade and ran out the backdoor screaming for help, police arrived later and raided our house, Sora was taken out of the front in handcuffs and I overheard a police officer call her a psycho because she just sat in the kitchen and ate.

I had to move in with Jirou as there was no one else in our family left for me to stay with, he said he was happy I was okay and asked if I knew why Sora went crazy in which I had no answer.

3 months later Sora mysteriously disappeared from the detention center she was held in, in retrospect it's obvious that she was one of the first people to be summoned to the other world.

Shiro's story end

We were within sight of the city of Artok and it was still very dark and a bright beacon pinpointed the city in the never ending darkness of the night. As we got closer we heard sounds of metal clinking and the beacon blinked ever so often.

Figures in the sky moved fast towards the ground, sharp movements and finesse followed this figure, as we got closer we noticed that the beacon was a fire and the flying beings were angels...

As we got closer we saw a man on a horse heading in our direction quite fast,

The man slowed down to say four words to us

"Run, Angels have attacked!" The man yelled as he sped past us

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