The air-vent that his dad had told him
to stay in wasn’t very comfortable. The metal was cold and hard,
and with the vent cover in place he couldn’t see out of it very
well. Reaching under the left side of his denim jacket, Kenji
felt the handle of the small knife that Dad had given him in
case any bastard Zoanoids showed up. It was kind of comforting
in a way, the fact that Dad trusted him enough to take care of
himself if any of them tried to take him away.
It was the same way he trusted Dad to
come back every time he had gone out to hunt those bastard
Zoanoids in the first place. The two of them were all the other
had, Kenji knew, so they had to trust each other. That was just
the way things were.
Moving back farther into the vent, so
that if any bastard Zoanoids did show up they would at least
have a hard time finding him, Kenji tried to be as quiet as he
could. Dad had told him that they had a very good sense of
hearing, and he didn’t want to take the chance that any of them
would be able to hear him. But then, Dad had also said that
their sense of smell was really good, too, which was why he was
trying to move as far back into the vent as he could without
losing sight of the grate.
He was hoping that the smell of the
metal would cover up his own smell if he got far enough, but the
crash of something heavy falling startled him, and he went still
farther inside the vent so he wouldn’t make any more noise than
he had to. Kenji could hear people muttering, but the echoes
inside the vent made it almost impossible for him to figure out
what the muttering people were actually saying. All that he was
really sure of was the fact that the people who had just come
into the old hotel with him were all men, about the same age as
his dad.
That wasn’t a good thing as far as Kenji
was concerned, since Dad had told him that Chronos always went
after people when they were about that age. Raising himself up
onto his hands and knees while still trying to be as quiet as he
could, Kenji started to move farther into the vent, away from
the bastard Zoanoids that were coming into the room with him.
When the grate in front of him was
suddenly ripped away, Kenji didn’t wait to see what was going to
happen. Turning around with surprising speed, even in spite of
the confining space inside the vent, Kenji moved away as fast as
he could, from the Zoanoid that he knew was on the other side of
the now destroyed grate. Moving on all fours wasn’t quite as
easy as running, but Kenji managed it.
Right up until the large hand closed
around his ankle. Turning around, Kenji bit the hand that held
his ankle until the Zoanoid that had been attached to it let go.
He Kenji could hear someone cursing violently,
and some of the other Zoanoids that had come into the room
seemed surprised—Dad had always said that they never expected
anyone to fight back, especially anyone as small as him. That
was his advantage.
Kenji continued to crawl, almost making
it to the part of the vent that turned away from the part where
he was. He couldn’t see just what was beyond the sharp right
turn, but he hoped it was better than what was currently behind
him. When he heard the roars of transforming Zoanoids coming
from behind him, Kenji sped up. He could still feel the knife
that dad had left him, but he knew that it wouldn’t be much of a
defense against what sounded like – at the very least – four
Zoanoids, unless he could get at their eyes. Unfortunately, he
knew from long experience that something like that wasn’t likely
to happen, but when the Zoanoid grabbed hold of the back of his
jacket and started to pull him out of the vent, he thought that
he might get his chance. Sure enough, when he had been pulled
back almost to where he had started, he was able to turn and
bury his knife almost up to the handle in the Zoanoid’s
vulnerable left eye.
Not stopping to do anything but wipe the
blood off the knife the way Dad had always taught him to, Kenji
half-crawled half-ran back into the vent. Ducking around the
sharp corner, he realized it also led upward. Hurrying, Kenji
reached the part of the vent that went straight up…
XxXxX
As he put together another pipe bomb,
Kenji looked over his right shoulder for a minute, thinking he’d
heard something—something like soft footsteps coming toward him.
Remembering what dad had said about some Zoanoids actually being
able to be quiet while they were moving, Kenji carefully put
down the newly completed bomb on the table and made himself
scarce. Washing the chemicals off with a bit of bottled water,
he ducked under the room’s only bed.
It wouldn’t provide that much cover,
Kenji knew, but it was better than being out in the open where
any Zoanoid couldn’t help but find him. As he hid under the bed,
curling his small fingers around the handle of the knife, Kenji
couldn’t help but feel that he’d forgotten to do something. He
forgot all about things like that as the footsteps got louder
and he heard the door opening. Someone was in the room with him
now, and everything that Dad had told him let Kenji know that
this person could be an enemy.
Working to control his breathing, Kenji
saw the legs of the person who had come into the room with him,
looking like what Dad had been wearing when he’d gone off to
scout that new Chronos base that they had found out about. Kenji
didn’t know quite what to think about the ACF, since they fought
against Chronos like him and Dad but Dad had always seemed kind
of sad when he talked about them.
Dad had always said that normal people
who fought against Chronos, not including those who were
protected, didn’t tend to live very long. Maybe these ACF people
didn’t have the right kind of protection, and that was why Dad
always seemed sad when he talked about them…
XxXxX
Imakarum wondered for a moment just what
the other Overlords were thinking about the memories Kenji had
formed. It was true that Kenji was loyal, but even Imakarum
could not deny that the person that Kenji Murakami was loyal to
was his father—his father, Masaki Murakami. It would perhaps be
difficult to convince them that the boy would support Chronos
after the things that they were seeing… still, it was his duty
as a father to support and to protect his son.
Getting the other Chronos Overlords to
accept Kenji as merely a member of Chronos would be perhaps more
difficult now, but Imakarum knew that he would be up to the
challenge. For Kenji’s sake, he had to be.