11 - Lucid Dream

“Oh well...”

“I guess it was my time to go.”

“It’s not like I gave much value to my life anyways.”

The blurry and indistinguishable pictures in front of Sakuto’s dying eyes were pleasantly tormenting him. He couldn’t lie to himself and say that this wasn’t amongst his long-term ambitions - simply going to the other side. The abyss had been calling his name for a while.

At the same time, when the flaming rapier pierced his chest, he felt a will to fight on for just a little longer and persist in this world. His mental fog was quickly abolished, impeached by a light of hope and the manifestation of his determination. It was that dream again, presenting itself not as scenery or a message, but as simple yet so complicated colors.

“I couldn’t understand you properly, Ichika...”

“Even though I really wanted to.”

“Maybe in another life...”

He slowly opened up his eyes. Slightly leaning forwards, he was still in a half-asleep state, so he couldn’t really take drastic measures or even speak all too much. But his presence alone terrified Asami into yelling for Mukawa’s assistance.

“What the...”

He slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes. He noticed that his awful wounds were less awful - tightly wrapped and taken care of, and his head had a few bandages on it. A few moments later he properly regained his consciousness.

“I don’t recognize this place.”

“What...is this?”

“MUKAWA!!!!! GET HERE FAST!!!!!” Asami yelled.

“What the hell is- oh...” Mukawa exclaimed, entering the room. “He’s really awake.”

“Huh? Where am I?!” Sakuto asked. Mukawa rushed to him, placing his hand on Sakuto’s forehead.

“You’re not too far away from home. And you’re alive.” Mukawa coldly replied.

“Your name...you were... you were the guy that sat next to us during that show!” Sakuto yelled, pushing Mukawa’s hand away.

“I’m Mukawa, that’s all you need to know for now. On paper I’m a member of the GSC.”

“GSC? Are you kidnapping me?!” Sakuto exclaimed, getting out of the bed. He grabbed Mukawa by his old sports clothes, shoving him away. Unexpectedly, he stopped.

“Kouta...” he said to himself. He drew his weapon.

“What did you do to Kouta?!”

Mukawa wobbled in place. It felt as if something was off the whole time, the environment around him, Mukawa himself, even Sakuto’s own weapon.

“What the fuck did you do to him?!” Sakuto yelled, slashing Mukawa’s chest open. An unnatural amount of blood gushed out of it.

“Did you get your anger out?” Mukawa asked, as he slowly melted into the ground. “Good riddance.”

Sakuto gasped loudly, waking up. He was still in the same room, on the same expandable bed. Mukawa was walking back and forth next to him.

“What...was that?” Sakuto asked, trying to get up. He felt something restricting his legs and arms.

“Just a security precaution. Wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do anything too rabid.” Mukawa sighed. “Looks like I was right.”

“No, not this... why did you restrain me anyways? I can just break through this stuff...” Sakuto said, doing just that. “I meant, what was up with that...was it a hallucination? A dream?”

“It was a dream.” Mukawa said. “It was an application of my soul expression - ‘Dreamcatcher’. It lets me instantly put a target to sleep and implant fabricated dreams into their minds as long as my palm makes contact with their forehead. It was also what I used on Diego to pacify him and snatch your body. I don’t know If you remember it...but this wasn’t the first time you experienced the effects of my ability.”

“What do you- oh.” Sakuto said. “The show. That’s when you used it on me, right? It wasn’t something I did or some unnatural soul thingy...it was just you.”

“Precisely so. I didn’t want you to die just yet.” Mukawa said.

“What do you mean by just yet?” Sakuto asked, sitting up.

“I took an interest in you once I felt your pretty scary soul presence.” Mukawa sighed. “I had coordinated to follow you when you got isolated during Diego’s mission. And Diego didn’t kill you, he poked a hole in your chest and threw you into a wall before I intervened. That doesn’t kill a soulful, that just puts them into a coma in the worst case. You’d be surprised by how much a soulful’s body can endure before breaking.”

“I don’t care about the ‘how’ as much as the ‘why’.” Sakuto said. “What were your motives? What are you gonna do with me now?”

“Had to do a good favor for an ally of mine.” Mukawa said. “Had to do a favor to you by not discarding your corpse once the deal was done.”

“Favor?”

“Confidential stuff.” Mukawa sighed. “I’m sure your soul expression will go a long way though”

“Who-wait, what? My soul expression?!” Sakuto jumped up.

“Yeah, your soul expression. The thing I had to do also revealed to me what it was.” Mukawa said.

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“So what’s my soul expression?”

“One hundred dollars.”

“Huh?”

“If you give me a hundred cash, I’ll tell you what it is.” Mukawa smirked.

Sakuto just stared at him.

“Fine, I’ll spell it out for you considering how impeccable your sense of humor is.” Mukawa said. “Your expression, as he put it...is the ability to adapt to and overcome anything and everything.”

Sakuto seemed to be in utter disbelief.

“Say that again?!”

“The ability to adapt to and overcome anything.” Mukawa said. “Certainly not the ability of speech comprehension.”

“That’s...hold on...I mean, it’s a defensive type of ability, but still...I can adapt to everything?” Sakuto asked, overly excited.

“Pretty much. I doubt there’s too many restrictions.”

“That’s probably why your presence is so fucking heavy. You’re a damn monster.”

“Are there any cooldowns? Any special conditions? Super abilities maybe? Anything offensive?” Sakuto asked rapidly, closely observing his own hands, excited like a child.

“That’s up to you to discover.”

“What’s this on my weapon?” Sakuto asked, surprised. He was referring to three small X-shaped marks on his blade's handle.

“Huh...it looks just like the markings on his sword.” Mukawa commented. He took a closer look and brushed his finger over them. “If I had to guess, but this is only hypothetical, it either tracks the adaptation's progress or lets you store an adaptation to something. Going off the fact that your ability is just adaptation and not somehow a part of something even bigger.”

“That’s...awfully convenient.” Sakuto smiled.

“Convenient for what exactly?” Mukawa asked, a bit more aggressively.

“And why should you know?” Sakuto answered. “You haven’t told me much about you, and expect me to tell you much about myself.”

“Is that so?” Mukawa sighed. “I guess distrustfulness is common amongst soulfuls like you. Say, do you think you’re still in a dream?”

“I’m not.” Sakuto said. His gaze pierced Mukawa’s own eyes.

“Right.” Mukawa said. “Your power is already kicking in. Now let me guess, you want to kill Diego, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I will kill him. For putting Hayk’s friend onto a hospital bed, and for...wait, you didn’t answer me, what happened to Kouta? Is he alright?” Sakuto asked, worried.

“Kouta Touriki, eh? I don’t know.” Mukawa replied. “There’s a chance he uhh...”

“There’s a chance he what?”

“There’s an equal chance of him being alive or dead.” Mukawa said. “That’s all I can say. I don’t want to be involved with whatever the fuck is going on at the academy right now.”

“Academy?” Sakuto paused. “You-”

“Yes, the soulful academy. It was opened while you were napping and destroyed just as you woke up.”

“Right...”

Sakuto quietly walked off to the exit. He stopped for a few moments.

“Wait, that’s it? You’re just gonna let me leave?” Sakuto asked.

“Well, I’m certainly not gonna try and stop you.” Mukawa shrugged.

“Do I owe you a thanks for saving me?” He asked.

“Not really.” Mukawa sighed. “Just make sure the fire boy is a corpse.”

“And why’s that?”

“...”

“To save the world.” Mukawa exclaimed. “The most basic and least believable of all responses. Now go on and kill Diego. One of your kin killed Hwang, there’s a good chance William is a corpse too, and Luca got booted from the group. It's just him left.”

“Wait, what?!”

“For future reference, I did not save you, nor do you even know about my name or my existence.” Mukawa said. “This isn’t a matter of trust. We will both get killed if that information gets out.”

“How long have I been out for?”

“Around three days.”

“Right.” Sakuto took a deep breath. “Where’s Diego?”

“That’s up to you to find out.” Mukawa shrugged.

“Could’ve given me something to work with considering you want Diego dead so much.” Sakuto said. “Could’ve also told me why exactly you want him dead. I know for sure you’re not doing it to get into my good books.”

“Oh, be a little grateful!” Mukawa exclaimed. “I’m saving your life, you should be begging me to let you wash my feet and chuck grapes into my mouth! I chase what I want, not what the GSC wants, I’m only there to keep my eyes on them. My loyalty is to a completely different cause.”

Sakuto didn’t respond.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about the soulful world, and the most important thing is that it doesn’t matter whether you have a soul or not - you’re still entangled in petty politics. Except the stakes are much, much higher in this game than in whatever sloppy garbage the soulless are drooling over.”

“Right.”

“You don’t have to overthink about the whats and the whys. You want to kill him, I want him dead. Mutual benefit 101. All I’m asking you is to keep my identity covert and make sure you kill that asshole for real. And don’t tell anyone that you’re alive unless Diego has no pulse, otherwise, you guessed it, everything goes to shit.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see the image.” Sakuto said. “I won’t reveal your name or whatever the hell you’re planning.”

“Just make sure you get the kill.” Mukawa said. “I’m gonna say it again. If he sees you and escapes, everything will fall apart. Also...”

Mukawa took out a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket and tossed it towards Sakuto.

“One of my associates discovered this while we were spying on Hayk. I thought you should take a look at it.”

“Spying on Hayk? Well...I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this point.” Sakuto sighed. “By the way, one more thing. You got a lighter?”

“A lighter? You can’t smoke here- oh...right.” Mukawa said. “Right, I like that strategy a lot. Here.” He reached into one of the drawers close to him and tossed Sakuto a small black lighter. The latter nodded his head in appreciation and left the room.

“So he’s the solution to all our problems, huh? Giving Otto a stupidly strong ability, and taking care of that psycho...where’s the catch?” Mukawa said to himself. “Asami, when were the first readings? The first signs he was waking up.”

“Approximately two minutes ago...maybe three...” She replied.

“Let me take a look.” He said, approaching the monitors. “Here it is...It also happened at the exact time Kouta Touriki’s divine acclamation made every soulful in the area wet their pants.

“Talk about coincidences...”

“Aside from Diego, there’s two more elementals left.” Asami commented.

“Won’t be the case soon.” Mukawa said, getting up. “I’ll do some meddling myself. Gotta make sure their group ceases to exist by the end of the day. It’d be perfectly timed with the academy’s destruction.”

He took out his phone.

“Would you look at that, the soulless all around the world are looking for answers...” He smiled. “And the people that are used to shouting those answers will soon be dead. An awful situation to be in right before election season.”