บท 14: Axolotl
"What the-!" Arius' face morphs in confusion as Arima lunges out of the speeding train, disappearing as the train zips past multiple lamp posts that would have knocked Arima off.
"Hey!" She runs towards the window and sticks her head out, looking for any signs of life. Almost immediately, she feels a cloth tighten around her neck as she's pulled upwards.
"I'm not the strongest, I'm not the fastest!" Arima is standing atop the moving train with his shirt in hand, strangling Arius and clinging her against the top of the window. "And I'm most definitely not the smartest!" He places his foot on the top of Arius' head and applies pressure, forcing her throat deeper into the shirt. "But I'm willing to try anything!" He cries out as he applies every ounce of strength he has to strangle Arius.
She screams in pain as a green mist shoots out from her mouth, manifesting into the vague shape of a wolf. The mist bites Arima's hand, causing him to loosen the grip and let go of Arius. The shirt flies off into the wind, caught underneath one of the train's wheels.
"Agh!" Arius spits out blood as her neck is swollen with force. "I'll make sure I'll kill you with my own two hands!"
Arima's hand gets bitten off by the mist as his severed hand lands on the top of the train, swooshing around in the whirling wind. "Shit." He feels his nerves constricting as his arm starts falling asleep. Primordial Selection is slowly kicking in. Without hesitation, he grabs his right arm with conviction and tugs hard. "Agh!" He cries out in pain as he pulls his entire arm out, stopping the paralysis from spreading to other parts of his body.
"You know I've never seen someone so interesting before." Arius climbs onto the top of the train, facing Arima head-on. "You're starting to piss me off." She wipes the blood off her mouth as the train flies through the countryside, the views of rural Japan are exemplified by the rising sun.
For about an hour straight, it was pure grasslands and mountains, not a single civilization in sight.
"You're a real pain in the ass too." Arima bites his lip as he tries to ignore the pulsating pain in his shoulder as he rips out his entire arm. He throws his arm off the train, landing against a pole and shattering into a shower of blood.
"Tsk!" Arius snaps her finger and the mist boomerangs back to her and coats her hand, forming a pair of paws with razor-sharp blades.
Arima stands on top of the train, topless and weaponless. "Shit." Arima realizes that he doesn't have a choice. To get out of this situation alive, he has to fight. His right arm regenerates quickly, the muscle forming around his bone.
Before his hand could fully regenerate, both of them ran towards each other, Arius swinging with her right paw and slicing the air. Arima narrowly avoids the attack and tries to punch Arius in the stomach, blocked by her leg. Arima's left chest was completely open and vulnerable, Arius taking the chance to slice it open with her other paw.
Arima cried out in pain as he trudged through, using his right fist to strike a deadly punch directly into Arius' face. His fist forms right as he makes contact with her face.
Arius kicks Arima and pushes his chest off of her blades.
Arima heaves and breathes heavily as he tries and constrict the Primordial Selection from spreading into his bloodstream. His chest starts to go numb, his heart pounding harder to make up for the decrease in number of pumps.
"Hya!" Arius pounces on Arima, slicing open his chest with her razor-sharp claws. Like a knife through butter, it leaves 3 deep lacerations across his chest, squirting blood all over Arius' white shirt.
Arima's eyes start to close as the Primordial Selection kicks in, the pain is unbearable even to him.
The whole world starts to slow down, the blur of mountains in the background turning into a smear. The wind blows in his hair as the train stops moving toward him.
"Arima." A familiar voice calls out to him. "Arima." It said with a stern inflection.
"Arima!" A man slaps his hand, waking him. "Stop daydreaming!" An older gentleman was reprimanding him. "Pay attention!"
The cold glaciers gave him a sense of warmth, an embrace he missed.
He found himself in the middle of an Icy cold forest, the snow falling heavily as a singular snowflake landed on his nose. He was much smaller, his tiny limbs barely the size of a branch.
"Pick up the axe." The man orders the young Arima to wield the weapon. He lays his hand on the wooden stump and holds a piece of cloth in his other hand.
He sighs as he places the cloth around his neck. "We don't have enough livestock to last us the entire month in these temperatures." He bites the cloth and closes his eyes, clenching his fist.
Arima stands there, his eyes widening as he grips the axe. It wasn't his first time, neither was it his last. But no matter how many times he did it, this very moment felt like it lasted forever.
"Agh!" The man cries out in pain as blood squirts onto the white snow. Arima stands there, expressionless as he puts the axe down.
"Good... boy..." The man said weakly, standing up as his severed arm dripped blood. "Now, eat." He uses his other hand to nudge his severed arm towards Arima.
Arima looks at the severed hand with a sense of hatred in his eyes. Behind those blank canvases of innocence lay an evil creature. A creature that was steadily outgrowing his physical self. "Thanks, Dad." He picks up the arm and bites through the flesh, tearing off chunks and morsels.
As he grew up, the everlasting image of severed body parts lingered. He was accustomed to eating human beings, his whole life was raised with the ideology of a cannibal. He was no better than a monster.
"Hey!" Arima's dad was being dragged through the snow. "Let him go!" He was severely beaten and had burn marks all over his body, his face covered with a sack as his fragile skin was scrapped off by the soft snow.
Arima, tears swelling in his eyes, called out for his father in desperation. He's held back by the town's chief, a man dressed in winter clothing as he has a defeated expression on his head. Around his back was a rifle that he kept a steady grip on. "I should have never let these monsters into my home."
"We are not monsters!" The young Arima grabs the chief's hand and bites it, nearly tearing through the flesh before the chief kicks Arima, throwing him into the snow.
"Tsk!" The chief shakes his hand and wipes the spit off. He inspects his hand and notices that Arima's teeth have indeed broken skin, drawing a small ounce of blood. "You foul beast!" Without a second thought, he withdrew his rifle from his back.
Bang!
A bullet soared through the sky, piercing through a snowflake in mid-air, creating a tunnel straight through Arima's underdeveloped skull. The bullet leaves through an exit wound and embeds itself into the now-blood-covered snow.
Arima's body falls backward, blood pooling around his adolescent head.
The chief covers his eyes with his hat, shielding himself from the view. "Igreal, clean this up." He turns around, signaling his helper to get rid of the body.
"Yes sir." Another man dressed in heavy winter clothing comes and inspects the body.
Arima's world starts spinning round and round, like a merry-go-round that never stops. A sensation he's never felt before, yet one he remembers. "Death?"
Arima, now fully matured, wakes up in the middle of a snow field. "Am I dead?!" A cold sweat breaks out, his breathing materializing into mist as it leaves his mouth.
"Arima." A voice greets Arima. It echoes through the forests that surround him, too dense to make out what's beyond them.
In front of him was a wooden stump with an axe embedded into it. The voice was coming from the axe.
Arima stands up, the raggedy clothes he used to wear as a child in the village barely fitting him now as a fully grown adult. The snow felt cold against his bare feet, the smell of pine bringing him back to a place he didn't want to go back.
"Arima." He felt drawn towards the axe, like an attraction so strong he could not bear to resist it. His hand reaches out instinctively, in his perspective his hand covers the axe.
"You are a monster." The same voice spoke to him as his hand was on the nose of a giant Axolotl. Its slimy skin grazed his fingers and its giant beady eyes stared intently into Arima's soul. Its long frills whirled wildly in the glacial winds. However, he was heavily injured, with giant lacerations across his head and his body. His arms missing and his frills had been torn off. Yet, even as the creature was covered in all sorts of wounds, he wasn't the one in need of healing. The kind of injuries that not even the Axolotl Chimera could heal.
The kind of injury that no one could heal.
"You are the Axolotl Chimera."
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