I Am Become Death

by Rocco Ryg

  Chikara had to laugh. “I’m sure he’s fine. You have his number, right? Call him.”

  Renka blushed again. “But... I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Fine, I’ll bother him. Give me that phone.”

  Renka reluctantly handed over the cell phone and let Chikara find his number. The first screen revealed the extent of her obsession. “There he is... in your favorite five... right next to me.”

  Chikara dialed and heard him pick up. “Kagekuro-san, it’s me.”

  Gen’s crabby voice answered, “Kaminari? Why do you have Renka-chan’s phone?”

  “Never mind. I notice you aren’t with your friends on stage.”

  “Yeah, I have to stay home.”

  Renka felt a twinge of fear from her and knew something was wrong. Chikara asked, “Are you sick? Do you have a headache?”

  “No, the light’s just bothering me. Every light I get close to burns my skin. It’s weird, not even the doctor knows what it is.” Before she could inquire further, he asked, “Say, what did you mean about your ring having side effects?”

  “Nothing. Why, is there something wrong with it?”

  Renka felt a buzzing sensation in her brain, making her hold her head in discomfort.

  Gen added, “I go to bed wearing this thing, and now this happens. That’s quite a coincidence.”

  Feeling Chikara’s fear reach new heights, Renka asked, “What’s wrong with him? Does he have an extra head?”

  “He says light is bothering him. It burns his skin.”

  “Chi, maybe we should tell him the truth now.”

  Chikara, however, didn’t want to disclose that information just yet. She spoke back into the phone, “I hope you get better over the weekend. See you later.” She hung up and handed the phone back to Renka. “He doesn’t have what you have. Maybe we should visit him today and see for ourselves what happened.”

  Renka lit up. “You mean... visit his house?”

  If Chikara were in an anime, a large teardrop would have been falling down her forehead. “Don’t get any ideas, lover-girl. This is business only.”

  ***

  Nagasado Michiko sat at her usual lunch table with Chisato and Yukiko. She pulled her bento (lunch pack) from her case and opened it to find a healthy selection of sushi rolls and rice balls, her mother’s specialty. She had been careful to watch her weight in her later teenage years, but today she had a particular craving for a soda. Her sweet tooth had always been her greatest weakness, and sometimes her friends had to pry her away from the chocolate stores before she pigged out on the selections.

  Nokoribi Kaijin plopped down next to her with a wide smile on his lips. “Good afternoon, Michiko-sama. Do you need anything?”

  Always willing to take advantage of her new servant, she replied, “Yes, Kaijin-kun, can you get me a regular soda?” Without hesitation, he got in line at the counter.

  Chisato said, “Wow. It’s nice of Nokoribi-kun to buy all this stuff for you.”

  Yukiko, however, remained skeptical. “Men. Anything to get in our pants.”

  The trio laughed, which reminded Michiko of a funny story. “Hey, speaking of which, did you hear Moroboshi Tomo confessed her love for Kaijin-kun yesterday?”

  “Really?” asked both her friends at once. “What happened?”

  “He dumped her and said he liked me instead. He told me she started crying and ran into the locker room. Can you believe that sophomore, trying to steal my waiter?”

  “Serves her right.” Yukiko said. “She should stick to her own grade.”

  Kaijin returned with the soda, so Michiko allowed him to sit next to her. She put her arm around him and said in her sweetest, most gentle tone, “Thank you, honey. You’re such a gentleman.” She had to admit he looked kind of handsome, with his dirty-blonde dyed hair and sensitive eyes. She knew she could have any man she wanted in the entire school, but Nokoribi looked good enough to make the less socially-acceptable girls jealous. When a better looking guy came along, she could always just work her magic and make Kaijin go away. Moroboshi Tomo could keep him after that.

  Michiko glanced at Chikara’s former table and saw that she and her friends still weren’t there. She supposed it was better than having them all stare at her from across the room with evil looks. She sighed with relief, thankful to be safe for another day.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Yukiko, having noticed her friend glancing off into the distance.

  “Kaminari’s old seat. I don’t think they’re coming back.”

  “So what? We never cared about them.”

  Chisato asked, “Are you still thinking about her ring? Didn’t Yazawa-san take it from her?”

  A disappointed Michiko replied, “No, she screwed it up. Then Kaminari threatened my life over the phone. Trust me, she meant business.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  Kaijin, listening intently to the conversation, began to form his own plot. He had heard of Kaminari Chikara, the unstoppable samurai girl, and knew that his “girlfriend” had problems with her. If any harm came to Michiko, he would have to defend her honor, but what could he do to such a tough young woman?

  ***

  Around lunchtime, Gen passed the time by microwaving some soup. He had to cover the microwave with a tablecloth to block the light. He then grabbed his copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. He had read 1984 twice so far and he enjoyed this book as well, with its ironic allusions to the former Soviet Union as a farm of enslaved animals. Of all the characters, he hated Squealer the most. The unctuous pig reminded him of the modern-day pundit, justifying the sins of the corrupt pigs in charge and brainwashing the stupid masses with fear. He couldn’t imagine living in an oppressive dictatorship like that.

  Opening to the latest chapter, Gen looked at the words on the page and noticed that he could see them perfectly, even in the barely-lit kitchen. He walked to the dimmer switch and turned the brightness down even further, seeing the room just as clearly as before. Fascinated by this discovery, he turned the lights off. The kitchen remained visible to his eyes. It was as if a night-vision back light had been installed in his optic nerves, illuminating the darkness. He looked back at the book and read the words without fail.

  He pondered the day’s events. Why was Chikara acting so strange over the phone? He could tell that she avoided talking about his condition, and she froze up when he mentioned her ring. He felt the jewelry on his finger and wondered what made it so important. Chikara’s mother said it would help them “save the world”, which he blew off as a delusion from a depressed, cancer-ridden woman. However, his current aversion to light and this new ability to see in total darkness started to change his mind.

  He heard his cell phone ring from his bedroom, so he tried to get it without bumping into a wall. Reading Renka’s name on the front but expecting Chikara again, he opened the phone.

  “Gen-kun, its Renka.”

  “Hi, Renka-chan. I’m doing okay. I think I’m starting to adjust to the dark.”

  “Listen... there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Gen could hear an echo in her voice. “Are you in a bathroom?”

  “The locker room. I didn’t want Chikara to hear this.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Look, we didn’t tell you earlier, but... I just can’t hold it anymore. I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t betray her confidence.”

  “What is it?”

  He heard Renka swallow in fear. “When I took the ring that one night, I woke up with a bad headache, and now... I’m feeling people’s emotions.”

  He had to pause and process this revelation. “What?”

  “Other people’s feelings. I can sense them all around me. I can turn it off now if I concentrate, but... I think something may be happening to you too.”

  As he sat there bewildered, Renka continued, “So, I just wanted to make sure you... uh... were okay.”

&nb
sp; “So let me get me straight... this ring makes you a psychic, and then you give it to me without letting me know?”

  Though she couldn’t feel his emotions from such a distance, she could tell how he felt. “I know you’re mad, and you’re right, I should have told you, but... I just didn’t think, okay, I’m sorry.”

  “Tell your ninja friend to come here right after school and get this damn thing away from me!” He slapped the phone shut and threw it across the room. With his mind swirling from anger, he almost didn’t notice the loud crunching noise from where it landed. The cell phone had snapped into pieces, with the circuit board showing through the plastic casing. He inspected the mangled corpse of his phone with his improved night vision. His hard toss couldn’t have done that. The device looked as though a powerful hand had squeezed it until it shattered.

  Gen noticed the strange glow radiating from his light-deprived hands. The faint sensation grew larger with each passing second, as if feeding on the darkness around him. He held his hands to his face and became mesmerized by the black aura that spiraled from his fingertips. The ring on his finger glowed along with them, and he knew that whatever had happened to Kusaka was happening to him. “Kaminari... what did you do to me?”

  ***

  Renka came back to the roof amidst Hirono telling the girls her hilarious story of the middle-aged pervert who came onto her in Okinawa. The girls laughed, but she could feel their collective disgust. Chikara noticed Renka suppressing her sadness, a look she had learned to notice years ago, and asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Can we talk alone?”

  Chikara walked to the stairwell with her, making the other girls curious. “So, what is it?”

  “Chi, I’m sorry, but... I told Gen-kun about my powers.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He said the light hurts him. I had to let him know.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He’s very angry. He wants you to come and get the ring after school. I think... he’s really mad at me.” The guilt of tricking and harming him made her want to die.

  Chikara saw her angst and hugged her. “I’m sorry. You’re right, that was a bad idea. I’ll get the ring back and apologize, okay. I’ll take responsibility for it and stick up for you, I promise.”

  Renka felt the guilt in Chikara’s mind and knew she told the truth. “Okay. I want to go too, so I can apologize.”

  “Okay. We’ll go together.”

  ***

  An hour later, Gen’s fears of his newfound abilities turned to excitement. With a single thought, the darkness within his room had turned into a large hand. He willed the crawling creation to pick up and put down objects, a job it completed with flying colors. With another thought, the hand disappeared. He then thought of a simple cube, and the nothingness around him formed a symmetrical box that rested on the ground. He touched the mysterious substance and felt a cold, tingling sensation, like a weak electric fence. He dissipated the cube and practiced on more complicated objects, such as a chair, a table, and a turtle. He then formed a samurai warrior, and made the lifeless figure move with only his mind. He created a katana for his warrior, and it cut through the shade on his lamp with ease.

  Gen couldn’t believe it. He had spent his whole life reading fantasy manga, and now he was in one. Chikara’s ring had given him the ability to shape darkness into solid matter, with the depths of his imagination his only limit. He wondered how such a thing was possible. Darkness is just an absence of light, not a physical force. Actually, it’s an absence of illuminated photons. Perhaps I could control photons, but only if they’re dark enough.

  He opened his closet and pulled out his heaviest clothing. He molded the darkness into a wall and rubbed against it. As he expected, his thick leather jacket protected him from the slight electrical surge. Putting on his thick gloves, he created another sword and practiced cutting though the air. He even formed a silhouette of a person and slashed through it, letting the mannequin dissipate into the dark.

  After several hours of practice, his control improved. He successfully recreated the Statue of David and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in perfect detail, and he took on an army of “shadow shogun” warriors, as he called them, all by himself. His concentration broke when he heard the front door to the apartment open and slam. “Big brother! Are you okay? I bought you some food!” Shuya turned the kitchen light on, forgetting about his brother’s condition.

  Famished by hours of isolation, Gen disintegrated his black creations and called out, “Thank you. Can you turn the kitchen light off?” He didn’t leave until the light went out. “Thanks. Hey, pork buns. You’re the man, little guy.” As he feasted on his lunch, he decided to try another experiment.

  “Shuya, can you move the dimmer switch up, just a little bit?”

  “Why? I thought you hate the light.”

  “I think I’m getting better. Let’s test it out.”

  As directed, Shuya increased the light from the overhead lamp ever so slightly, giving Gen small doses of illumination. Gen felt a slight discomfort, but not the agonizing pain from earlier that day. This meant he was getting used to the light again, a positive development. He remembered how Renka had mentioned a bad headache before she started feeling others’ emotions, and he figured the unusual pain was a necessary part of the transformation, like a butterfly breaking out of the cocoon.

  When he finished his second pork bun, another thought came to mind. Chikara clearly knew that the ring did strange things to people, as Renka developed her special gift overnight. Likewise, she probably expected him to develop something as well. What would he tell her when she came to pick up the ring? She knew something had happened to him when he told her of his light sensitivity, so lying to her was out of the question. How could he delay their handoff until his newfound ability fully formed?

  A clever idea popped into his mind. He walked to his room to find his cell phone, only to remember that it was on the ground in a hundred pieces. He asked Shuya if he could borrow his phone and the loyal little brother complied without argument. Gen punched in Renka’s number and typed a text message, knowing that she was in class at the moment.

  “This is gen. Body hurts when I take ring off. Need to keep it longer. Sorry about earlier.”

  He figured that would be sufficient to delay them until he soaked up enough magic, or whatever the ring emitted. He then sent a text to his friend Suekichi.

  “No work tonight. Get the boys.”

  After half a day of pain followed by another half of discovery, he wanted to test his newfound gift on the world.

  ***

  That night, Gen met with the rest of the Democratic Youth League in their favorite hotspot, the Magical Girl. The pleasant little manga cafe was well known for its pretty young waitresses and their elaborate costumes, such as the Goth Girl, the Shy Bookworm, the Little Sister, the Tough Tomboy and the Perky Cheerleader. The men who loved the place had no idea just how uncomfortable the waitresses felt all the time, as the restaurant attracted all the perverted losers who couldn’t resist the allure of young women dressed for their fantasies.

  Gen sat down next to Utatane Suekichi, Usui Hideki, Hotta Shungiko and Sugiura Yoshiharu, his comrades in arms. They were stunned at his unusual attire... his black leather jacket, black pants, black shoes, even black gloves hanging from his pockets. Suekichi had to hold in his laughter. “Whoa. Who died?”

  He smiled back. “The old Kagekuro Gen. You are gazing upon a new man.”

  “What do you mean? Did you go conservative on us?” joked Hideki, knowing that not to be the case.

  “No, my friends. I have discovered...” Before he continued, a thought came to mind. If he told them about his gift, how they would react? He doubted they would fear him, but they sure wouldn’t take it for granted. What if they told the whole school? A secret like this would be hard to contain. Or worse, what if they wanted to take the ring for a day too? He shuttered at the possible consequences, most of wh
ich involved Chikara beating the hell out of him. Perhaps it would be best to keep a “secret identity” for the time being. “What I mean is... uh...”

  “You’ve felt the touch of the fairer sex?”

  Gen’s face drooped while his friends all laughed. Shungiko added, “It was that girl who’s been staring at you, right? Kusaka-chan?”

  Although he had never gone as far as a handshake with Renka, this may have been the best way to cover up his real secret. “Well, uh...”

  “What’s with the ring?” asked Suekichi, pointing to the odd piece of jewelry on his friend’s finger. “Are you engaged already?”

  Gen came up with a simple lie. “Actually... we’re going out tomorrow.”

  The boys laughed and slapped him on the back, congratulating him on his conquest. “So what are you going to do?” asked Shungiko. “Dinner and a movie?”

  “We haven’t decided yet. Anywhere but here, of course.”

  Suekichi couldn’t stop looking at the ring. “So really, where did you get that thing?”

  “Kaminari Chikara lent it to me because her dead mother told her to.”

  The table erupted in laughter. “No really, where?”

  “That wasn’t a joke.”

  “Wow. Now you have two chicks after you.”

  “It’s not that. Kaminari hates my guts. She showed me this tape...” A new mystery then popped into his mind. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” He left the table and walked to the restroom, leaving his friends confused.

  He locked the bathroom door and turned the lights off. Standing in front of the mirror, he practiced making shapes with the darkness, confirming to himself that this was really happening. One question still needed an answer... why would the deceased Mrs. Kaminari want her daughter to share this power with him? He couldn’t recall ever meeting her, and he certainly wasn’t Chikara’s friend before this whole ordeal began.

  He remembered the words she used on her enigmatic video will. There are extremists in this world, Chikara. Fanatical men and women who seek power, and with this power, they will attempt to mold the world to their radical ideas. I have seen what they are capable of, and the results will lead only to terrible destruction. Gen agreed, but why would she give a mere teenager a power greater than the dictators of the world?