The Unspoken Truth Chapter 2

Chapter 2 “Class, have you seen Kiyomi at lunch?” asked Hosoya-sensei after lunch time was over. Most of us gave exchanged looks, murmuring over the situation. Yuliya raised her hand. “Yes, Yuliya?” “I had seen her going through the 16th corridor in the fourth floor, but I don’t know where she went and that was, like, 20 minutes ago…” “Rooftop,” I replied. “Is that so, Yoshio?” asked Sensei. “Uh-huh, I can’t be wrong.” “Well than, thanks for the information. Class, I need to report this to the administration, so—“ Someone opened the door. It was Kiyomi, whose eyes were still red, and she looked more tired than this morning. “Kiyomi, where have you been? You don’t look like yourself today, being late and tired like that.” “…….I’m sorry, Sensei….I didn’t realize…” “Pardon?” “…didn’t realize the bell had rung….sorry…” Sensei observed her for a while, and he sighed. “Well, in any case, please go to the health center, I think you should really need a rest. Are you sure you’re okay?” “…..yes, Sensei…” “…Very well then, go back to your seat. Don’t hesitate to ask permission to go to the health center, okay?” I had remembered that vision very clearly. When that ray dissipated to one of the cards, Kiyomi’s face had

appeared. Was it true that that imposter is really involving my classmates? I had not realized the answer until one day when school ended. Until that time, her condition has worsened, physically, mentally, and academically, at a point that she was absent for a couple of days. She was present on that day, but when you look at her, she looks as if she was a walking zombie, having no interest at anything whatsoever. She could at best reply with only four words and at worse ignore you at all. When school had ended, I had to have a talk with Nanaho first discussing about the sports festival before going home, which is really not far away from today. At the last class meeting, I was assigned to collect data about the itinerary of the event, so she could plan our sports aces’ training schedules. Being the leader of an information gathering task force, I love my job and managed to get the final copy of the itinerary with ease. It really helps being the leader in the Information Group. It originally started with Sensei who had suggested creating a whole class group to discuss about the daily events that happened or will happen in our school, like festivals and exams. We were expected to use English as best as we can to talk over those issues and its okay if we made mistakes, because Sensei said it’s all part of the learning process, he said with a smile. So then our male and female class leaders were chosen. Nanaho and Masahiro were our best candidates for their “aura of leadership” (that’s what Mieko said), but most importantly their ability to make good decisions. After all, we don’t choose our leaders just like that. And although Nanaho said she was the only one in her family who has the

worst sense of leadership, she’s enough of a good leader for us. It was a strangely redder hue of a sunset that day, as the sun slowly sank into the west. I strolled through the public park and into my area of residence. You could see a couple of boys playing soccer to the right, just beneath the bridge that connects one side of town to the other, where a river separates them. And yet in this peaceful surrounding, something was a bit eerie. The image of my imposter appeared to me again. His appearance, which perfectly resembles me, with his trademark sinister smile as if plotting an evil ploy, it’s like my doppelganger within me. And all of that happened just because of the temptation to open that brown dusty book. Goodness, this really sounds like an anime story the more I think about it. The sound of a pickup truck’s loud honking woke up my senses. “Shoot,” I cursed. I was heading in the wrong direction. I was supposed to turn left on the second intersection, but now I just kept going straight. It was the way to go to Kiyomi’s residence. Speaking of which, she can be seen not far where I am now. Maybe I could follow her a little, I thought. After all, she is acting strangely these days. I followed her to a corner, but the moment I turned, she disappeared. No sign of her going anywhere else. Even the people who were walking close to her didn’t notice this. I became suspicious. I headed for her house which was really not that far away, about 2 blocks down. I saw her, but she had just entered her house.

I took a close look at her house. It was the usual 2storey family house, nothing special except for a small bonsai collection further in the front yard. It had a pretty little cherry blossom tree in the collection, but it was removed, perhaps because springtime is already over. However, there is one thing that caught my attention. Why is her window stained with blood? And on top of that, it seems like I am the only one who noticed this. “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” I fell to my knees. That was clearly her screaming the top of her lungs out. I couldn’t be mistaken. And it was loud as a nuclear bomb. Yet again, nobody seemed to notice it but me. Then I saw horrible things on her window. At first, nothing happened after the scream. But a while later, there was blood spurting out from somewhere, onto the window. And then more blood. And then a saw an object that was thrown to the window, but it didn’t break. I took a closer glance. It was a limb. And further on, I heard more incomprehensible screams, but that limb on the window was enough for me. I ran scurrying out from that neighborhood and hastily retreated to my humble abode— home. “Yoshio? Is that you?” My mom called from the back of the kitchen. “Yeah,” I replied, taking breaths in between. “Why do you sound so tired? Did something happen?” “No, not really….” I said as I drifted to my room. After a nice hot bath, and a lovely grilled salmon dinner, I tried to get myself together again. Come on, Yoshio, you know it isn’t real, one corner of my mind said.

Maybe it’s some sort of a messed up conspiracy, another voice said. How the heck can stuff like this be called conspiracy? Too many thoughts suddenly rushed to my mind. The scene was played over and over again. It was too gore to be true. And yet it was so clear. “Aaaaargh,” I moaned as I threw myself to the bed, face covered in my pillow. I paused for a while, letting all the thoughts flow out of my mind. Yet amidst all this confusion, a strange feeling of excitement rushed to my blood. And I asked myself again, could the vision I had in the library really, really true? Praise the gods, it is. Why, you may ask? Something had stabbed me. And it hurts, not like any other kind of hurt, but that real, physical hurt that actually kills you, far from just a pinch in your arm. And what hurts even more, It was a direct hit to the neck. My world went black.

I woke up shortly after that because I felt as if my bed was made out of heavy duty steel. But there’s something a bit odd. I can wake up and even open my eyes. I was supposed to be dead, you know. Reincarnation, I guess? Nevertheless, I got up to my knees. Somehow, my eyes are still very blurry, although I can open them completely. I tried to grope something that was right in front of me. It was an asymmetrical, cylindrical object with a really pale dark grey hue, but that’s all I could see. It felt

stone cold to the touch, and it has a very rough texture. Slowly, my vision starts to gain their clarity. The object in front of me was starting to become clearer as well. After a while, what I could see that it was a tree that was in front of me, but it was still vague. After a while, I can see everything. And what I saw was feet-numbing. It was a tree, yes, but it was a tree with blades sticking at the end of its branches. And no leaves at all, on top of that, as if it is withered. Blades of all shapes and sizes is all I can see, from the standard sword you see in video games until ones that has lots of razors embedded and jutting out within the blade. There’s even a branch whose blade looks like a question mark. Oh, please, in a place and time like this, out of all anomalies, a question mark? Only the gods know of this madness. The sky was a dark bloody red. A moon, no, make that, a glaive shines on the sky like a full moon to the west. I turned my feet around to get a good panorama of the place. All I can see is a forest of trees that look like the one I saw earlier, ranging from all shapes and sizes whether it be small or big, tall or wide, it looks like a botanical garden gone absolutely wrong. I looked to my feet, and around 5 centimeters from me, I saw small little blades that looks like grass. I touched the tip of one blade with my finger by curiosity’s sake, and boy, it hurts a lot. It’s sharper than any needle I’ve ever seen. I wonder how much painful and sharper those trees are compared to these blades of grass. Aside from that, trees and grasses are not the only objects that ext in this otherworldly place. I could hear the sound of water gushing like a waterfall a bit far from here. But that’s not what really caught my attention. The matter

of fact is, that I am actually flying the moment I raised my foot to take one step forward when I want to see what made the noise. “How fictitious,” I said, half-chuckling. I was flying like Peter Pan. And I loved it. I finally found the source of the sound of gushing water after I drifted around the forest for a bit while. It was yet another shocking scene. In front of my eyes, I am seeing a waterfall of blood. It was a shining dark crimson red, with blood clots forming at the edges of the pool. It was pure blood and nothing but blood. And the smell of the blood was even horrible than the one that we sometimes smell, it had the more reeking and decaying smell, yet in this whole forest I can’t find even one trace of flesh around, just the tools for cutting it and the resultant which was what I can find in all of this forest. The pool of blood formed by the waterfall was continued by a river which ran north of the water fall. I could not figure out where the river will go in my ground level vision because firstly, there are lots of trees crowded, blocking my view and secondly, the branches with their blades are sticking out all over the place like durians, and so I had to get a bird’s eye view. The blood eventually made it self, after quite a long while, into another lake of blood, which on the center of the lake, was the biggest tree I have ever seen in this forest so far. Its body resembles an oak tree, large and wide, and it has lots of branches sticking out of it, but the blades on the edge of the branches are the most weirdest and most dangerous out of the whole trees in the forest. Some blades are even 2 meters long.

Eventually, I took a closer look on this tree out of curiosity, but it had quickly killed the cat. I heard the same scream that I heard in Kiyomi’s house. “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” It had the same tone of agony and spite. I lost my flying ability, plunging hopelessly to the ground. I fell into a plain space of ground, but a tiny blade of grass had made a cut in my arm. It hurts like getting injected for immunization, only this time the needle’s larger and even sharper. I groaned in pain, trying to get myself up. My back ached because of the stone-hard soil that I imagined is fairly impossible to be dug. I tried to let myself fly like before, but I failed to do so. I was panicking because all around me was blades of grass and trees that are clustered very close to one another, so there was no way out. What made me panic even more was that I felt a glare of hatred and remorse which made ice-cold chills down my body. I couldn’t dare to turn around, so I tried to escape the glare and tried to fly once more. It finally worked, and after that, I had the courage to see who was glaring viciously at me. I saw a girl wearing a white ceremonial cloth robe stained in decaying blood, which covers sixty percent of her robe. Her skin is pale white with her veins showing out, and her arms and feet sustain many cuts and injuries, some of them still have blood oozing out and dripping into the surface below. Her facial appearance is anything but pretty; it has a scar across her chin down to her neck, teeth stained with blood, uncontrolled breathings, and the worst bloodshot eyes I have ever seen. Her hair is a frizzled mess, out of place, and has a hue of withering gray. That was not the Kiyomi I knew.

“You……why do you disturb me…….?” She asked, taking heavy breaths between words. I was still shocked by all of these shortcomings, so I only muttered, “Uh……um….well…..uh….” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” she screamed at the top of her lungs. I can sense even more hatred circling around her. She took even more breaths then spoke again, “You….came here…..to watch….to watch me suffer….do you?” I said nothing. “Do you? Do you!? DO YOU!!???” She demanded for an answer. “No….” was all that I can reply. “DON’T GIVE ME NO’S! You don’t come here and LAUGH AT ME LIKE PIGS!” By this time I can visually see the aura that has been enveloping her; an aura of deep, murky, wicked hatred and remorse, even gross and disgusting than sewer waste, and of the most horrendous colors. Fear was growing inside my heart. Her blind hatred for me had turned into a chilling fright for me. Then it happened. It seemed that for her, she had enough of my ridicule. From a distance, one branch broke off, but as it fell, it teleported right into her hand, and immediately she lunged after myself. I dodged, magically, because I didn’t know for one second that she was going to attack me. Irked, Kiyomi summoned another blade, making her wielding double blades and lunged for me again. This time I had anticipated her attack so I stayed out of harm’s way. I was thinking if I could do the same thing she did, so I tried to gather my focus onto a single-edged tree not far away and I attempted to make it break and teleport it into

my hand. Slowly but surely, it began to break, but I was interrupted by more strikes. Getting even irritated by my evasion techniques, she summoned three more blades, and this time all of the blades were circling her back like a windmill. A moment later, they all stopped circling, jutted out of her back, and faced me, and with bullet speed, it went out straight for me. One of the blades missed my ear by 2 centimeters. I had finally managed to retrieve a blade from one of the trees, so now I am armed as well. Great, this really feels like one of those fighting scenes, I said to myself, somehow feeling excited to battle her. What I had failed to realize that I was fighting an innocent girl who was possessed by her own sin of blind wrath. “Heeeya!” She engaged me once again. She swung her blades with swift and precise movement. I dodged and parried some and blocked a few. The clash and cling of blades was singing and echoing the entire forest beneath the silver grey glaive moon. Her blade dance was like nothing I have ever seen before, in those action games or films, anime, or the like. This was me, putting my life at stake battling my classmate Kiyomi, for survival or for death. “All who live to mock me shall DIE!!” she screamed as the clashes continue. Certainly I can’t reply, because it would be useless since she wouldn’t hear me anyway. She finally decided to knock me down with one strong blow with both of her blades. Her impact made such a big knock back force that I almost fell into a porcupinelike thicket of blades. I stopped at 5 centimeters from the furthest blades, and flew myself into the air again. Truth be told, flying is actually an exhilarating but weird experience.

You get what you might have always wanted when you were little, but when it comes down to it, it’s quite hard to learn to control yourself, especially when doing fights in the air. This time, I couldn’t give up, so with all my concentration, I managed to summon two more blades from the nearest tree, since my first one was broken after parrying so many hits by her. I engaged her this time, and I try to find her weak spot amongst her now increasing blades, reaching up to six. It seems that I hardly broke a sweat in this world, and my power is somehow surging through my body. I stabbed and slashed and spun as I blocked her counterattacks. I tried mimicking every move I could from all the games I played, from moon slashes to repeated stabs. “You are no match for me, idiot…..nothing can stand against me!” Kiyomi suddenly said whilst turning away from me. She rose up her hands and closed her eyes. Her hands are then covered with the same black aura I saw before battling me. As they grew larger, the ground shook slightly. Suddenly, she summoned twenty blades and made them disappear. This made me worry. If she purposely hid her blades she just summoned, there was one possibility about what she was about to do that came across my mind — “Stealth blades!” I said to myself. I immediately moved away from where I was hovering, because I know she’s going to make a blade close to my position and attack me. My goodness, that is so classic in RTA games. Each time a blade attacked it would always have a void in its starting position, and all I have to do is just keep moving so I don’t get hit. As I evaded the blades that kept on

appearing, I used this chance to strike her, since she was supposedly vulnerable when I assumed she stood still controlling the blades. As I carry out my attack, and as I was getting closer to her, the ground shook again and this time, several branches below me broke off from their trees and lunged towards me, while there are still those stealth blades continuously appearing to attack me. I tried to evade them whilst approaching her, but the amount of branches that broke off and homed at me kept increasing, so I had no choice but to stay away from her. Even so, it still won’t stop. Kiyomi opened her eyes, and said the ultimatum. “This insult ends here, now.” Within milliseconds she had teleported to me at point blank range and did a subtle attack that I didn’t took notice off. As I was pushed back by the force, I tried to regain my control, but then I couldn’t move. I struggled to move all my muscle, but not one of them twitched. I was frozen in place. Well, I could still move around my head, miraculously, but there was no way of escaping. She teleported to my view, and stared lifelessly on me. “I would have forgiven you, but you make me limit my options,” she plainly said. I replied nothing. “SO MUCH FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF MY SUFFERING! You trampled around me with your jokes and gossips and you don’t have the even the slightest idea! Don’t you understand the pain of being ignored!? No, you can’t, AND YOU WILL NEVER LEARN!” She raised one hand that emitted a black glow.

“It doesn’t have to be like this….”I said. “Enough. This is punishment for people who don’t understand.” I heard the ground shook again. Trees were uprooted from the ground and brought to the sky. Blades were cut off and trunks were dematerialized. The blades gathered up in Kiyomi’s back, and made some sort of a ritual circle with a star that has 7 points. There were hundreds of them. The circle was at least the size of half a football field. It began to shine in a bloody red blaze. Incomprehensible writing was inscribed on it out of thin air. As the light began to get stronger, a sense of fear was overlapping my mental state very quickly. Tension was developing constantly. I was genuinely affrighted. “Vanquish the vile souls of ignorance with the torment of the pain of hatred,” she chanted. The next thing I knew was that I heard many objects were broken, one after another, sometimes simultaneously. When the sound had finished, there were shards of blades that were broken into small, thin, needle-like pieces gathering around me, and in a matter of seconds, uncountable amounts of them were surrounding my body. They were small but so many that my world almost went pitch dark. They were surrounding me, making a giant sphere. Each and every one of them had the power to cut wood into half with ease, putting aside cutting flesh alone. “So now you have reaped what you have sowed. Comical remarks are loathsome after all. Ignorance is not bliss…..Any last words?” She said it like an executioner to a death-sentenced prisoner. “You have been blinded by yourself, Kiyomi,” I replied quietly. She let herself chortle.

“Blinded by myself? Preposterous! You have been blinded by your own pitiful sense of humor! You think this is child’s play and all just a joke?! You, Yoshio, have failed to live, and I shall make that true to every word!” That was the first time she called me by name in this world, and her statements were filled with the most hatred I ever felt. I was literally chained by the very bonds of horror. “Prepare yourself!” She made her final move. I saw all the shards of blades going backwards slowly. I can see her from a distance now. She was crying tears of blood and even sweated blood. It was a horror watching her in pain as she tried her utmost power to punish me. I felt miserable for her. As the shards stopped moving, I can’t take it anymore. With energy that even I didn’t realize, I tried to focus in my mind to get rid of the shards away. A searing bright light flashed quickly, and all I could see was white. Pure white. No red, no gray, no black, just white. I was standing normally when in truth there was visually nothing below or under me that served as some kind of ground. It was white all over. In a distance, I saw a girl crying softly and slowly. She cried as if she has absolutely no idea what to do but cry. “Mommy….Daddy…..stop it……” she muttered between her tears. “Hey, are you alright?” I asked, approaching her. The girl then turned to me. It was Kiyomi. The Kiyomi that I knew since the beginning of 9th grade. “Kiyomi?”

“I…I couldn’t understand why my dad and mom are fighting all the time. Fighting over this, fighting over that….and it seems as if they’re ignoring me….what should I do?” She cried even more. I would have never thought she had problems like this. For all I know, she is as normal as she always was everyday, before I opened that book. Maybe the book was what caused these things to happen…. I approached her and touched her shoulder. “Look, Kiyomi, no matter what the situation is, you don’t have to just lock it away. I mean, share your feelings with your friends, you know? It’s no good blaming yourself and others. Especially me,” I added. “But what if they wouldn’t listen to me? What if they ignored me?” She asked in fear. “Oh, come on, I know your friends, they wouldn’t do something like that….Be more open to them, they can always help you and stay by your side, even in the situation you’re facing You can’t call them friends if they ignored you.” She stopped crying for a moment “So that means I don’t have to blame myself for all of this?” she hopefully asked. “Why do you have to? It’s not your fault. Besides, you should help your parents too. If you just keep hiding to the corner and cry all the time, it only makes things worse,” I said. I felt like a wisecracker. “Well, that’s the word of the wise from someone experienced.” I silently thanked Nagata after saying this. She slowly stopped crying, and her sorrow face turned into a sweet smile. “Hehe……thanks. I feel much better now.” “Like you always should….my pleasure,” I replied.

She slowly faded away. I stepped back, surprised, and moments later, my eyes were diving into a white-red vortex. I was back at the forest again, at the moment where I had dispelled the shards of blades. The possessed Kiyomi was still there, but now I see the possessor on her back. It was in a shape of a sword, bearing the same aura that I saw earlier, and it was shaking, as if it were empowered by something evil. The white, helpless Kiyomi I consoled moments ago appeared to the right (We were sill floating). She closed her eyes, transformed into a white wisp, and materialized into my hands, and I was finding myself holding two pieces of daggers, shining the color of rainbows all over from handle to edge. It felt weightless to the touch, and created a faint trail of colors as I swung it. Good, time to take out the real troublemaker. My regards, Kiyomi. I instantly engaged her at full speed, and with two moves, I slashed past her, making a loud resonance. A lowtoned voice screamed. As I turned my back, I saw all the evil inside of her evaporating to thin air. The sword was evaporating as well, and it vanished moments later. Any trace of blood that was found in Kiyomi earlier had gone completely. Her robe was gleaming white, her hair was straight and smooth, and her skin returned to the normal light caramel shade she had. A wind of petals blew out of nowhere, and it circled around Kiyomi. The same white light flashed again, and everything changed. No longer did the glaive moon shine its eerie red—a bright, yellow sun took its place. No longer are the trees with deadly, spiteful blades, leaves and fruits are all that I can see that took its place. The ground was filled with lush

greenery; no more signs of sharp blade grasses were present. No longer did the fountain cried tears of blood, a ranging surge of pure, white water flowed into a light blue pool and made its way in to several rivers, flowing ever so gracefully. It flowed to what was now a big, wide oak tree, with its roots spreading everywhere on the lake. No longer did it had blades as well; lots of little white flowers blossomed throughout the tree. I was truly a beautiful sight. On one of the roots, I could see someone sitting, playing with the water with her feet. She looked at me. It was Kiyomi, who was now wearing a white summer dress with a straw hat. She turned at me and waved, smiling gleefully. I waved back Thank you. I woke up. I was in my bed, and it was already morning. I looked around; there was no blood. I was alive. And I didn’t do my homework last night. But who cares, I saved a life.