Good Girls Gone Bad

by Alexa Nichols

  “Don’t talk about my father that way!” Keiko yelled, taking an aggressive step towards the apparition. “After all, he didn’t leave me when I was a little girl to pursue a drug habit - only to die on the streets alone and high. You did. My father is the most honorable man I know, and the best parent a girl could ever ask for!”

  The ghost seemed struck by her comment. “You make it sound so black and white…life is never like that, Keiko. But that is not why I am here. I am not visiting you for redemption. I am here to ease your transition into the afterlife.”

  Keiko took a step back. “No. I am not ready to die. I can’t. Too many people are depending on me. I don’t have the luxury to die right now!”

  The spirit smiled sympathetically. There was a paragraph of words in that smile, and Keiko could feel them reverberate through every part of her being. She looked down and felt something inside her shift, like her entirety was being pulled downwards. She fought against it. She needed to go back to the other Morituri. She couldn’t die. Not now. Not on this world.

  “No!” She screamed, and the face of her mother tilted quizzically. “I can’t,” she cried out, feeling something painful and overwhelming building within her. She had to fight this. She focused on pulling herself upwards, fighting against the metaphysical hooks pulling her down.

  And then something snapped.

  Loudly.

  There was gunfire. She could hear it clearly, but everything around her was a fog.

  Someone was shooting. At her. At the others.

  The fog cleared, and Keiko looked down at Kira, who was laying on the ground, bleeding. Dying. And she had a feeling that it was her fault. Of course it was her fault. She was their leader, and one of her fold had fallen. She was the one responsible for the safety and livelihood of the other girls, so anything that happened to them was because of a shortcoming on her part. She looked around desperately, taking in more of the scene.

  She watched in horror as, one by one, all of the Morituri were gunned down and killed, as each of them fell to the floor and the life drained from their eyes.

  It was her worst nightmare, to lose them. She knew this was not a dream, however. This was one of her visions. She was seeing the future.

  A man she had never seen before walked towards her, yelling something incomprehensible as he pointed his gun at her head.

  Keiko stood firm and looked him in the eye as he pulled the trigger…

  Keiko’s eyes rolled back into view, and she blinked rapidly. She looked at Kira, who was still fighting the strange demons around them, and then at the monster that was helping the girls guard her. “Creature. You. The one we were chasing at the school.”

  It turned and looked at her quizzically.

  “Can you take us away from here? Somewhere less populated by these demons?”

  “I have to pee!” Ayame cried, her long purple hair and abnormally large breasts bouncing as she danced from one foot to another.

  “Well? Can you or not?” Keiko snapped, bringing the monsters attention back to her. It nodded its head and began gathering them, then launched itself into the sky with powerful legs, spreading its wings wide and flapping them mightily to gain altitude.

  “You know, guys, I don’t even have my spell book. I have no idea what to do to get us out of here,” Kira informed them.

  “We’ll worry about that when we get out of here,” Keiko said gruffly, scanning the ground beneath them. “Everyone look around for an abandoned area for us to land. Preferably a building of some sort.”

  “Boss-lady!” Saya yelled, her black tracksuit rippling in the wind, “there. Look. That shopping district looks sparsely populated. There’s a store with a few lights on we could go in.”

  Keiko nodded. “Hana, how are you holding up?”

  The lithe blonde nodded, but her body was rigid as a wooden board. Keiko reached out and took the smaller girls hand, holding it tightly. Hana had an extreme fear of heights, and Keiko knew if she didn’t calm soon she would start hyperventilating. She knew almost everything about the girls in her care, every detail and fear. After all, it was her job to know such things.

  “Take us to the place Saya pointed out,” she commanded their taxi, and before Keiko could blink the monster carrying them dived, causing the girls to scream in unison, and seconds later they touched down in front of the store indicated. It dawned on Keiko then that the monster could not only understand them, but genuinely wanted to help. Were they wrong for attacking it when it appeared in their school? Perhaps it wasn’t there to cause carnage after all…

  Keiko let go of Hana’s hand as the tiny blonde stumbled away from the group and threw up on the street. She looked up at the sign in front of the shop and rolled her eyes. Hana was going to love this place…

  “Wild One Adult Shop,” Hana read slowly as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and rejoined the group with slightly shaky legs. The words were in English, and it was a language she was only just starting to learn.

  “A sex shop?! You took us to a sex shop?” Kira screeched.

  Saya shrugged. “Does it really matter what it is? It’s closed. Besides, out of all of us here, you’re the only one that’s not a virgin anymore. So quit being such a prude.”

  Kira blushed furiously and murmured a simple spell to make the locks on the door disengage.

  Hana was, to absolutely no-one’s surprise, the first one inside. “I am in heaven!” She yelled, running from shelf to shelf, picking up this, smelling that, tasting yet another object.

  Keiko rolled her eyes as she rubbed the scar on her face absent-mindedly. “Hana, your nose is shooting blood. Contain it. Kira, what magic do you know that may be able to help us out here?”

  “Not much,” Kira admitted somberly as she crossed her arms and watched Hana flash from object to object in utter joy. The tiny blonde was moving so fast it almost looked as if she was teleporting across the room. “Honestly, my spellbook is kind of like a recipe book. When I discover a magical effect, I record exactly how it is done, then move on to the next. It contains thousands of spells, but the magic is precise - I may remember the majority of a spell, but if I get even the tiniest part wrong, dreadful things can happen. As you can tell,” she finished, waving a hand lazily around them.

  “Interesting. Do you have any idea where we are?” Keiko asked, crossing her own arms and watching the young redhead intensely.

  Kira looked away. “Not exactly, no. This place is confusing. I mean, people speak Japanese like we do, and shops like this have English signs and such just as some of our shops do, but the demons - creatures - whatever they are - are so different than us. There are so many types of monsters-”

  “Shit. They aren’t really monsters, guys,” Saya interrupted, playing with the zipper on her tracksuit while she looked out the shop's windows. “I’m seeing some of them taking off their heads. They’re in costume. This must be some sort of holiday where they dress up as monsters or something. That means we were fighting real people, not demons.”

  “I think I understand what’s going on now,” Keiko began, but was interrupted by several men yelling. Seconds later the men came from another section of the store, both of them holding guns.

  Keiko froze. It was just like in her vision. It was happening. Now. They were going to die. Before the girls had a chance to react the creature with them hissed and spread its wings, taking several menacing steps towards the men.

  “No! No fighting!” Keiko yelled at the creature, thinking furiously on how to avoid her vision from coming true. She had done so in the past, but it was difficult. “We need to get out of here! Now!”

  The creature ignored her orders, launching itself towards the men and swiping at one of their hands, causing the gun he was holding to fly across the room and slam into a wall. The impact caused the gun to go off, and the next sound heard was Kira screaming and falling to the ground, blood pouring out of her leg.

  Keiko’s eyes widened. Just like in her vision, Kira was th
e first to fall. If they stayed here any longer, they were all going to die. And then a thought leaped into her mind.

  “Creature, to us! Quit fighting and get us out of here!”

  This time, the creature did not ignore her. It turned and gathered them all once again, taking several shots to its massive body, and ran out the door, leaping into the air and spreading its wings to take flight. But it was growing tired, and its wounds were rapidly draining it of its energy. It didn’t have time to fly around looking for another place.

  Suddenly a place of safety sprang into its mind. He knew where to take them.

  Back to Kaito’s bedroom.

  Told You So

  “You cannot blame me for not believing you,” Toshiro said defensively as he cleaned his glasses with the end of his shirt and watched the carnage unfold on the television. I mean, come on, if I would have told you-”

  The kaleidoscope of images and video flickered away, and once again the face of a news reporter appeared on the screen.

  This is Hano Tanaka with the Japan News Network reporting live from downtown Tokyo, where we just received footage of the strange animated schoolgirls attempting to rob an adult goods store...

  The rest of what the reporter said fell to the background for the two young men as they leaned closer to the television screen. At first the scene seemed serene - surreal, but serene - as the lolis went from object to object in the store, especially the petite blonde one, talking amongst themselves and quizzically looking at the shop's wares. And then one of the owners came out, then another, and one of them pulled a gun, which caused the strange winged creature with them to leap to the lolis defense. The creature managed to swipe the gun out of the owner’s hand, sending it flying across the room and ricocheting off the wall.

  And then, strangely, Kira fell to the ground, grabbing her leg. Blood was practically pouring out of her, and she seemed to quickly lose consciousness.

  The creature with them hastily gathered them all together and ran out the shop, an obvious expression of fear and confusion on its face.

  Kaito turned to Toshiro. “We have to find them.”

  Toshiro cocked his head back in shock. “What? Why?! And do what? Did you not just tell me they broke your window? Why do you care what happens to them?”

  “I don’t know, I just do! Especially Kira.”

  “Who?” Toshiro asked, bewildered.

  “The redhead!” Kaito yelled, exasperated. “The redhead that-”

  “Ok, ok, I remember! Quit yelling! Look, this is the real world. How are we going to find them? They could be anywhere. Tokyo is a big place.”

  Thunder punctuated his sentence, followed quickly by rapid taps of rain coming in through the broken window and hitting the exposed floor.

  “And it is raining,” Toshiro said triumphantly as he slid his glasses back on his face, motioning towards the window as if Mother Nature were helping him make his point.

  But the look on his best friend’s face told him he wasn’t just going to let this go. And that whatever he was about to do, they were both going to regret. “Kaito, I know that look. Stop it. There is no way-”

  “Toshiro, it’s raining. If I was an alien, wounded, and it was raining, where would I go? Where could I go? There’s only one place: the hospital. And there’s one not far from that store. That’s where I’m going. You can stay here or come with, your choice.”

  Toshiro glared at his best friend. “You know I’m coming with you, douche. But think: what are we going to do when we get there? Even if we find them, what do you plan on doing? Confessing? You do not even know her! And-”

  Kaito shook his head as he quickly got his things ready to go. It was obvious he wasn’t listening. “I’m going to see to my mother really quick and tell her I’m headed out for a few hours. Can you find my umbrella?”

  Toshiro threw his arms up in the air and sighed, defeated.

  Of Dreams & Secrets

  Kira knew she was dreaming. She spent her entire life honing and becoming one with her mind, so she knew random musings from reality when she saw them.

  But that didn’t make the things she was looking at affect her any less.

  They were in a park. Her and Kaito. Holding hands and talking, occasionally smiling and laughing, close together like lovers as the cherry blossoms bloomed and their beautiful pink leaves seemed to fall from the sky.

  And everyone was watching them.

  Their contrast was huge: her brightly colored, healthy pink hand in his dull, sickly looking pale colored brownish one. Her large sparkling green eyes looking adoringly at his tiny brown ones. Her slight, pixie-like frame accentuated with curves walking next to his boxy, overly skinny frame. They were obviously from two different worlds - literally - but they were happy, and it amazed the onlookers to no end.

  Even though Kira knew it was a dream, her heart swelled painfully. She had never had a boyfriend, never even kissed anyone except for Kaito, and yet she felt connected to him. She was in love with him. Not only did she lose her virginity to him, but she knew him on a deep, primal level.

  She sensed within him a loneliness and sadness that rivaled her own.

  Part of her broke as she watched the vision her mind had conjured up and presented to her. Why? What was the reason? It’s not like a scene like this - a relationship like this - could happen in real life. Or even if it could, it’s not like he would want that. She wasn’t even from his world, and…

  She dropped to her knees, crying, completely losing control of herself.

  She wanted this so bad.

  She was so lonely.

  She yelped when she felt a pair of hands touching her, lifting her back to her feet, lifting her chin.

  It was Kaito. The real Kaito, she instinctively knew. This was no longer a dream - not completely, anyway.

  “How - how are you here?” Kira hiccupped, trying to calm herself.

  “I don’t know. I was going to the hospital to find you. Toshiro was with me, then we…something happened to me…I can’t really remember. And now I’m here with you. Am I dead?”

  Kira’s eyes widened. “I-I don’t know.”

  “If I’m dead, that means you’re dead too. That…sucks.”

  A strange feeling came over Kira, and the words she spoke next seemed to come on their own. “Why are you here, Kaito?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. I-”

  “Why are you here, Kaito?” She repeated, knowing instinctively that he knew the answer.

  Kaito cocked his head and closed his eyes, as if he was searching internally.

  “Because I really want to get to know you better. I have strange feelings for you, feelings that I’ve never had before, and I want to-I want to explore them. I feel like…”

  Kira took a step closer. “You feel like what, Kaito?”

  “I feel like I’m already in love with you.”

  Kira nodded. Kaito took a deep breath and grabbed her, pulling her towards him.

  “You were my first,” Kira whispered, her voice shaky and barely coherent.

  “I know. I saw the blood on my…afterwards.”

  Kira blushed. “Yes, but that’s not what I meant. I meant you were my first kiss.”

  Kaito nodded. “You were mine, too. And apparently, you’re my last.”

  Before she could respond, he kissed her.

  It was then that Kira saw what happened to Kaito, in minute, horrific detail. Her mind went numb.

  He was dying. His friend, Toshiro, was panicking.

  He was going to die.

  He was here with her to die.

  “Good job, Ayame. Your healing powers come in handy,” Kira heard Keiko say. She opened her eyes and blinked rapidly, fighting to make sense of the blur of colors and shapes that were suddenly surrounding her.

  “Kaito!” She screamed as her senses returned to her, looking around wildly. She leaped to her feet and almost fell back down. Keiko’s hands whipped out, grabbing her, supporting her.

/>   “Kira, relax. You were just healed. You’re not 100% yet.”

  Kira ignored her. “Ayame! Put me back! Whatever you did, do it in reverse! I need to go back under! Kaito is in danger!”

  “Don’t get your panties-err, boxers-in a bundle, girlie,” Saya said, annoyance obvious in her voice. “Besides, why does that weird pervert matter?”

  “You love him, don’t you?” Hana asked as she walked towards her, her voice uncharacteristically serious.

  Kira frowned, considering her question. “Yes,” she admitted, “yes I do. Ayame, please help me!”

  “Kira, babe, calm down,” Saya said offhandedly as she unzipped her black jumpsuit and looked around the room. “I wonder if he has anything that would fit me in here.”

  “Kaito is dying! Right now, he’s on the street, dying! Ayame, he needs you! He needs us! He needs me!”

  The girls went quiet and looked at her, each wearing a different expression: pity, confusion, amusement, and concern. Hana grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I’m with you. Whatever you want to do, I’ll help.”

  “Thank you,” Kira said, her voice cracking.

  Ayame shook her head and crossed her arms. “Kira, even if he was right here in front of me, my power doesn’t work like that. I can only heal so much each day, and you took a lot out of me. You lost a lot of blood.”

  The door swung open swiftly, slamming against the wall, and a middle-aged woman wielding a large baseball eyed them all with wide-eyed astonishment.

  “I knew I heard voices up here,” the woman said faintly, and it was immediately obvious to all the girls that she was sickly and weak.

  To the amazement of all, Kira stepped forward. “Ma’am, I need to know where Kaito is. I-we need to save him. He’s in trouble.”

  The woman frowned and wiggled her bat at the young redhead. “Who are - you were the girls on the news! The cartoon characters attacking the city! I’m calling the police!”

  Instead of advancing, however, she froze. Black lines of energy coursed through her body, and Keiko looked instantly at Kira, recognizing the source. The young redhead’s hair was twitching, as if there was a slight wind in the room, and her fingers were splayed towards the older woman. But that was not the strangest thing about her. It was her eyes. They were a dark, an absolute shade of black that Keiko had never seen before. “Kira, don’t-”