The forest around Kenji’s tent was
darker than Masaki remembered it being, and this was even with
the sun still clearly in the sky. The shadows under the trees
almost seemed alive, and even his enhance vision somehow wasn’t
able to penetrate them. All of these things combined to give
Masaki a very unsettling feeling as he made his way back to
Kenji’s tent. There was something he was supposed to be
remembering right now, but for the life of him Masaki couldn’t
think what it was.
"Dad! Dad!"
"Kenji? Where are you?!"
"Dad!"
"Kenji!"
Masaki looked around frantically.
Kenji’s voice had sounded panicked. But all he could see were
the oddly writhing shadows under the trees and the eerily dark
sky.
"Kenji! I can’t find you!"
"Dad! Help me!"
Suddenly, Kenji’s calls were cut off.
Masaki could still hear his son’s muffled cries, but the words
were no longer intelligible. Masaki didn’t waste any time
thinking about it, he just took off at a dead-run. The trees
were green-and-brown blurs to either side of him as Masaki put
his full Proto-Zoalord enhanced-speed to good use. But still, no
matter how fast he ran there always seemed to more trees in his
path.
Finally he came to a clearing. But
standing in the clearing next to the kneeling, shivering form of
his only son was the one person who Masaki hated most in the
world: Reholt Gyou, Regional Commander of the Chronos
Corporation. Kenji’s arms were wrapped around himself and he was
rocking back and forth, both sure signs of Kenji’s extreme
distress. Gyou, the miserable son of a venereal bitch, was
actually looking down at Kenji with amusement.
Masaki wanted nothing more than to kill
him, preferably as slowly and painfully as would be possible.
"What have you done to my son, you
motherfucking bastard?!" Masaki demanded, his voice raw with
hatred.
Gyou only turned to look down at Kenji,
his amusement even more pronounced. Kenji slowly stood up, and
Masaki noticed that there was a thin trail of blood running out
of the right side of his son’s mouth. Masaki realized then that
he couldn’t see Kenji’s eyes, his bangs were too short to cover
them but somehow the eyes themselves were still in shadow. Kenji
took a shaky step forward as blood continued to drip off of his
chin.
His ragged breathing became all too
apparent to Masaki then, and the way he stumbled as he tried to
walk made it obvious that there was something very wrong with
his Kenji’s body. Masaki felt as if cold hands had been plunged
into his chest and were now wrapped tightly around his heart as
he watched Kenji struggle forward. Masaki wanted to beg Kenji to
stop, to tell Kenji that he was sick and to let Masaki help him.
But he knew now that Kenji was beyond
all help; Masaki was remembering at last that his son – his
precious little boy – had been taken by that bastard Gyou into
Mt. Minakami. What was standing in front of him wasn’t even his
son anymore, not really, it was just some Zoanoid who looked
like him for the moment. Masaki could see the glow in Gyou’s
eyes and he knew better than most what it meant, but it was
still hard to have to watch the transformation happening to
someone he knew.
Even watching Gray and Evans change
hadn’t affected him this way, but that was because Masaki had
long ago accepted the fact that Chronos was capable of taking
anyone and everyone close to him and changing them into a
Zoanoid without warning. But with Kenji it had been different,
Kenji was the one person that Masaki had sworn to protect above
all others, the one person that Masaki had never believed could
be taken by Chronos. Chronos, after all, had never seemed to
have any interest in children. Least of all someone Kenji’s age.
That was what Masaki had always
believed, or it had been up until the point where he’d come back
to find the destroyed remains of Kenji’s tent scattered all over
the forest floor. There were claws just starting to sprout from
the ends of Kenji’s fingers now, and Masaki could see the white
fur that was staring to grow in waves up and down Kenji’s arms
and legs. Then came a sound Masaki would never be able to
forget: the sound of flesh tearing and bones being broken.
This was the same sound that had let
Masaki know that part of his life was over, this was the sound
that Masaki had learned to recognize and to hate, this was the
sound of a Zoanoid being born. But this time there came another
sound, one that sounded like thick cardboard being repeatedly
torn in half. Watching in horror, somehow not able to do
anything more than that, Masaki saw Kenji’s body literally tear
itself apart from the inside out.
Kenji’s skin was the last part to give
way, tearing like thin mesh as blood-soaked muscle tissue was
forced apart by the growth of bones that were never supposed to
exist in a human body. Kenji was dying in front of his eyes and
all that Masaki could do was watch in helpless fury. As the last
of Kenji’s mangled wreck of a body fell to the ground, Masaki
watched the remains disintegrate. Like all Zoanoids did when
they were killed. The skull, ribcage and pelvic bone collapsed
in on themselves, and Masaki saw the last of his son’s blood
ooze away into the ground.
"Young children are always so very…
fragile," Gyou said, sounding more amused than anything by what
he had just seen.
Masaki, finally free of his paralysis,
lunged forward. Both hands outstretched and ready to strangle
the son of a bitch, Masaki aimed for Gyou’s throat and charged…