July 20,2175
12:30 P.M.
Jack took off his helmet and looked around the room. Diana's cat, Juno, was lying in the corner—a bullet hole in her stomach. She had died, caught up in something she wasn't even a part of in any way.
Jack could feel the world crumble onto him right now. All because of Ortho-Sapiens. His father had died on duty. His mother was trapped in Rawkins Law, and he didn't even know if she was alive.
His best friend was murdered—he died fighting, and Jack, who was pathetically hiding, didn't help. And the person he loved—the one he saw his future with, the one he always kept in mind before making any decisions—was now lying at his feet.
And he was helpless as ever, just pathetically watching.
"Only if I had my Ikanamis… Only if I wasn't so powerless… Maybe I could've saved everyone. If only I wasn't this pathetic," he sighed, looking at the ceiling.
His body was standing like a statue—motionless—yet countless emotions were welling up in his mind. He was alone. This world of his was destroyed because of the greediness of humans. He hated them. He wanted to return the favor—kill them all. He wanted to grab their heads and pull them off their bodies. He wanted revenge. He wanted to end what they started.
The atmosphere rang with dead silence—well expected. He closed his eyes, thinking about everything that had happened.
Why? Why wasn't he crying? He had lost everything dear to him—his family, friends, and love. Yet why? Why didn't a single tear slide down his cheeks? He thought, his throat paining with the heaviness of his emotions.
The skies had completely darkened up too. It started raining. Thunder and the sound of rain falling filled the atmosphere.
It was as if the sky was crying with him. The rainwater fell on the dead bodies, washing away their blood into the drains. The roads were now covered in water, dyed crimson with blood.
The thunder roared, mighty as ever, as if scolding Jack for his uselessness. Scolding him for his lack of power. Scolding him for why he was so emotionless that what had happened till now didn't awaken his Ikanami.
Jack knew too that they were right. He was so sad. He was so angry. Regret, self-blame, and hatred filled his mind, and his aggressiveness rose.
"Stop... Please, I know it's my fault that I wasn't able to protect anyone. Am I hollow for still not being agitated enough to unlock my powers? I have lost everything, yet here I stand like an idiot who is waiting for a hero to show up and fix everything. Seriously, I am such a moron. WHY AM I LIKE THIS?" he asked out loud.
The clouds answered with more rebuking.
Jack stood there, silent as ever. His anger was off the charts at the moment, but he just kept looking at the ceiling, tired of life.
"Stop… Stop… Please, just be silent for once," he thought over and over again.
His heartbeat was off the charts. His hands were shaking. His eyelids were twitching. He was breathing heavily.
"I need power… I need my Ikanami. I need revenge. I will avenge everyone. This is the duty I have chosen. Even if I don't get powers, I will fight. This is my law—I will protect and avenge," he thought, his mind unsettled because of all the strong emotions he was feeling.
Just then, he felt a tingling feeling in his lower abdomen. It disturbed his emotional conflict. He was angry—angry at the world for taking away everything from him.
His heart was beating fast. His heavy breathing and his hands, which were shaking until now, were clenched into firm fists—so tight that his non-existent nails were drilling into his palm. His senses suddenly diverted to the strange feeling in his abdomen again. He focused on the foreign sensation, which was making him restless—disturbing his thoughts.
"Get out… GET OUT," he thought as he tried to drag that feeling out of his body.
But instead of coming out, it just spread all over his body. Suddenly, he felt something—something filling up his body, coming from his abdomen. He tried to eject it all, the sound of thunder in the background booming loudly.
Then there was a sharp crack, and again, and again, and again.
Jack opened his eyes. He was enclosed in what seemed like a gas, violently flowing upwards. He could feel it emitting from within him. His hair waved from it. He suddenly felt warmth wash over him. He suddenly felt calm. The foreign substance around him calmed down too.
He tried to focus once again on his abdomen and draw everything out again. The substance grew violent, and suddenly, electric sparks started happening around him.
It was his Ikanami. Finally—at last—he had unlocked his powers. Yet he was ashamed of himself for the price it took for him to awaken.
Lying below, Diana stirred. "Water… water," she croaked faintly.
Perhaps she was unconscious. Jack hadn't checked because he didn't want to accept that she had perhaps died. He couldn't think of what he would do after sensing that her pulse had stopped.
Maybe her sensitivity to Kana energy emitting from Jack brought her back to her senses.
Jack quickly fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. He sat down and raised Diana's head into his lap.
"Here you go. It's water," said Jack faintly, handing her the glass.
"Thank you," she took the glass weakly and drank some water.
Jack felt really weak then, perhaps it was because of him overdoing his Kana energy emission or because a new ray of hope had pierced into the dark realm of negative emotions he had sunken into.
"Thanks, Jack," she said weakly.
"It's alright now, don't worry, I am here." Jack's body could be seen trembling, but he hid it from Diana as he took out a first aid box from his bag.
He gave Diana some painkillers, a regenerating, and a Kana energy recovery syrup. He then lifted her up and carried her to her room, where he laid her on her bed.
"I could feel so much Kana energy from you then. It's monstrous. Your Kana reservoir—an average Kratian or Homo-Kratian would've passed out if they maintained that form for even a second," she said to Jack as she used her Ikanami to heal herself. The wound closed up as if it was never there, and she rubbed off the blood stains on her forehead.
Jack didn't answer; he was lost deep in thought, looking at Diana, glad she was safe.
"So, what's been going on? Those guys, who are they? They broke into my home, and they... they killed Juna," she said heavily. Juna was the only family member she had, as her parents were at the army camp most of the time.
"I will tell you that in the evening. Please rest for now. There are still some things I need to think over," said Jack, getting up and smiling at her.
"Okay, sure," said Diana, who brightened up a bit, seeing her friend's smile.
Jack stepped out of the room and leaned against the wall, his composure crumbling as he slid down heavily. With a deep, weary sigh, he found some peace in the thought that there were still some things left for him to hold dear.
After Jack regained his composure, he came back into the room. Diana was still awake and was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.
The rain was pouring as hard as ever, and the deafening crackle of thunder was loud as ever. It was as if the Earth was scolding its inhabitants for the infighting, and it was crying for the species that was almost driven to extinction.
The rough weather wasn't making it easy for Diana, who was already pretty shaken up because of today's events.
She still wasn't told what had happened outside and thus thought that some thugs had shown up at her house.
She had many questions regarding this, like how did Jack know they would come? Why did they come?
Did they do something to Jack too? Such questions were welling up in her brain, and the answer? There was no answer, at least not a reasonable one.
After all, there is no way a mass genocide could be justified.
Jack entered the room and noticed that Diana still hadn't slept. He walked over to the windows and turned on soundproofing. The windows turned opaque, and the sound of nature vanished.
"There you go, no more noise. I know you have a lot of questions, but please rest for now. I will be in the other room, reading the books in your study. I am allowed to, right?" asked Jack, smiling at her.
"Yeah, go ahead. Make yourself at home. But can I ask you to read it here instead? I am feeling uneasy," Diana said, embarrassed for making such a childish request.
"I mean, I have no problem doing so, but are you sure you will be able to sleep with the lights turned on?"
"Yeah, I have my eye patches, don't worry," she said, pulling out a pair of eye patches from underneath her pillow, showing misaligned eyes. She put them on, and it looked really goofy.
"Pfft~ Hahah," Jack gave a faint laugh.
"Huh? What?" asked Diana, lifting the patch over one of her eyes.
"It's nothing," said Jack, grinning at her. "I will be right back," he added.
"Okay."
The medicines that Jack had given her, especially the Kana energy recovery syrup, were quite straining as they refilled the internal Kana energy by stimulating Kana energy absorption from the atmosphere and also by increasing the rate of formation of Kana energy by cells of "Kai centres" called "Kai cells."
The energy was then sent to the main Kana energy reservoir (Dantian). As a result, it wore down the body considerably. Why did Jack give her this medicine? Was it because she used healing Ikanami to heal her wound? Does that mean the healing Ikanami consumes this much Kana energy?
The answer was no.
The reason was the vest he had asked Diana to put on.
It was an army training vest. It would absorb all the Kana energy engulfing the body and would actively absorb Kana energy from the inside.
This ensured that the body muscles handled the strain on their own and that the trainee wasn't using physical Ikanamis like body strengthening or speeding to help with their training.
It also refined the body's Kana energy flow as the trainee continuously had to absorb Kana energy from the atmosphere so that they didn't exhaust their internal Kana energy because that would be lethal.
Diana was now sleeping soundly. Her black hair, which used to smoothly wave in the air every time she had it open, was now in a mess, lying around her.
Her soft breathing could be heard faintly by Jack. Her eye mask had become lopsided from one side, revealing her right eyelid that was shut tight over her deep brown eyes, which had a depth as vast as an ocean, making Jack drown in admiration every time he saw them.
Jack got up. He had some things to figure out. He entered Diana's study room. The room was well-organized, with a table and chair arranged adjacent to the right wall. A bookshelf was mounted on the left.
Her bookshelf was full of books. He began to browse through them to find a suitable one.
He looked through the books and found a suitable book titled "The Essence Of Kana Energy And Its Uses" on the top left corner.
He picked it up and went back to Diana's bedroom. He fixed Diana's eye mask and then placed a chair before starting to read the book.
I can't waste any more time. I need to master my Ikanami. Now that it's mine, I won't hesitate to unleash it, whether it's to protect what's left or to strike down anything in my way.