Chapter 5: God of War
Raiden didn’t move. Hell, he hardly even breathed. One twitch in the wrong direction would be all it took to sever his jugular. His life would be pumped from him in liquid red.
The rustle of wings hadn’t ceased. It was in time to the breathing he could feel on the back of his neck. He would have craned his neck to see into that blind spot if he hadn’t been afraid of the action being taken as a threat. He had to live through this; he was the only real family Amaterasu had left. Their aunt and uncle weren’t around enough to be a substitute.
“Wha-What do you want?” Raiden whispered. He held his hands up to show he wasn’t holding anything. The car keys dug into his hip, the only way to safety was with those.
Whoever was behind him didn’t reply. Instead, they lifted up Raiden’s shirt slowly. Raiden flinched and the blade bit into his skin, raising the slightest bit of blood. The one behind him seemed to pay no attention. Trying not to move his head, he looked down and saw a sliver of skin on his left side where his shirt no longer covered. The dark black ink stained otherwise unmarked flesh.
A cold finger traced out the lightning shaped tattoo that extended from just under his ribcage to his hip. Tendrils and arcs branched out from its elegant and sharp edges. Sweat beaded around the mark until the drops became large enough to start sliding down. As they touched the tattoo, tiny sparks flared and died, evaporating the sweat beads.
Raiden felt the blade lift from his neck. He shuddered and collapsed to his knees. His hands smacked the pavement and he panted, gulping in air fast enough to almost choke him.
As he coughed, great wings the colour of virgin snow shielded him from the outside world. They were translucent. He could see the veins even through the feathers. Somehow, it felt safe.
Finally getting his breathing under control, Raiden stood. The wings parted to make room for him. As they passed through his peripheral vision, he noticed black at the edges that reached inwards and consumed the white like a virus. He slowly turned to face his opponent and readied himself for what he thought had been a knife. His arms raised, fingers only slightly curled, feet spread apart. He almost attacked out of pure reflex when his eyes finally landed on the person who had been behind him.
An ornate scythe with a handle almost as tall as he himself was and a blade to match it was hooked behind the man’s neck and resting its weight on his shoulder. One hand rested in the middle of the handle, its wrist shackled. A thick chain attached it to the opposite wrist. The owner was almost as tall as Raiden but older, mid twenties about, and had defined muscles. His iron grey shirt had no sleeves and the jeans he wore were faded from constant wear. For some reason, it was difficult to concentrate on his face.
Forcing himself to look into the man’s eyes, Raiden studied his appearance carefully. His black hair seemed to absorb the light that touched it. It appeared permanently messy and obscured the top half of his face. His eyes were a dull brown where he could see though the hair but filled with an odd curiosity with which Raiden was unfamiliar. He tried to focus on the rest of the man’s face but simply couldn’t. It was as if the man, if that was what he was, had no face at all.
The man suddenly bowed, his wings following the sweeping action before retracting and disappearing without a trace.
Raiden’s brain was speeding along without him. Only one thought kept reoccurring; that this man must be the one who had destroyed the church, the one on the news.
“Who are you...? What are you?” Raiden asked, disbelieving.
The man didn’t respond immediately. He seemed to appraise Raiden with a critical eye. It was disconcerting.
“Ares,” was all he said. Though deep and resonating with bridled power, its source didn’t seem to be its owner. The man’s lips had moved to form the word but the voice had come from everywhere but his mouth.
Raiden’s eyes stayed fixed on the man, Ares, in front of him. A picture came to mind, something on the cover of a book. That thing had been called a Shinigami, a Japanese kami of death. A Grim Reaper. That scythe was used to slice the soul from the body and send it to the realm of the dead. Skeletons were carved into it, wide and hungry mouths, wanting to reclaim the life its blade had taken. Dark hollows for eyes until a ray of light caught them in just the right place, and then a fire burned in their centers.
“Beware, Lord of thunder,” the voice boomed again. Raiden flinched and Ares took that moment to spread his wings and leap for the sky. He soon was no larger than a bird, a distant speck of colour against a blue backdrop.
Glancing around wildly, Raiden saw nothing to indicate that what he had just witnessed was nothing more than a figment of imagination…except, a dark ring outlined where Ares’ shadow would have been. The pavement was scorched.
Raiden’s eyes widened, like a deer in headlights. He back stepped slowly for one, two, three steps, before turning around and racing for the car.