Chương 5: Girlfriend
Arima held an ice cream cone in his face. The sun was starting to set and the nightlife of Tokyo had just begun.
Mai licked her ice cream as the both of them sat at the top of the rooftop, looking over Tokyo from 40 floors above. "I had fun today." Arima said.
"It's been really fun." Mai looked over to Arima. Both of them share a silence, yet this time it wasn't awkward. They both enjoyed each other's company. "Tell me, was money the only reason you joined the Organisation? You seem to be able to relate and share the same sentiments as me."
"Well..." Arima had tensed up, but when he looked over to Mai's soft smile, he eased. "I guess you could say that."
"You lost your parents at a young age, didn't you?" Mai asked, tilting her head at Arima.
"I don't even know if I have parents." Arima bites his ice cream. "Well no, I do know I have parents. I just didn't know them. Until I was 8, I had no memories of my childhood. I just remember being raised by Urahara."
"You were raised by him?" Mai looks on in amazement. "That's awesome!"
"Well, not really." Arima looks at Mai. "There's something I haven't told you." Both of them lock eyes as Arima holds this comfortable silence between the two of them. "I'm a hybrid."
Mai continues looking at Arima. "I could tell."
"You could tell?!" Arima nearly falls off the rooftop in shock.
"Yeah," Mai says with a smile. "I've worked and seen hybrids before. They're just like us humans, they're just missing a piece inside of there." Mai points to Arima's chest. "They've got a full heart, but no humanity to express it."
At that very moment, Arima knew what he was missing from his life. It wasn't only love, it was her.
"You're okay with hybrids?" Arima asks, out of confusion with her previous answer to how she felt about Chimeras.
"Most if not all hybrids didn't choose to be a hybrid. They're just humans who got unlucky and pulled the short straw in an attack by a chimera. Their blood fused and they turned into one." Mai tapped her fingers. "It doesn't matter if they're 99% chimera and 1% human. It's that tiny ounce of humanity that lingers." Mai looks at Arima. "I think you're 99% human and 1% chimera."
Both of them looked at each other as Arima inched his hand closer to Mai's. As the sun sets, Arima places his hand on top of Mai's. "Mai, I might not be human enough to know this, but I think I lo-"
A splatter of blood slaps Arima out of this dream. Within a flash of a second, an object flew past Arima's face and destroyed half of the building in an instant.
His ice cream falls from the 40th floor to the ground where a pool of blood lies. "Mai?" Arima said with a blank expression as her blood painted his entire body, his hand destroyed from the impact. A singular drop of ice cream on his nose, falling to his lap.
"Mai?" His hand flew through the sky, falling from forty stories and landing on the cement below, next to his ice cream. The entire building had been blown apart in half by a chimera.
From the dust emerges a ginormous chimera, standing at nearly sixty feet tall. Its giant tusks protruded from its leathery face, and ginormous sharp teeth tore through its flesh, leaving behind a pile of blood everywhere it went. Nostrils flared and eyes glared wide open, the beast's blank stare pierced through Arima's.
"Mai!" Arima cried out as she was nowhere to be found, completely obliterated to dust by the Hippopotamus Chimera. A ginormous chimera that dwarfed even buildings.
"Hey!" A man appears by Arima's side. "It's not safe to be here!" He grabs Arima and they both disappear, away from the scene the chimera had caused.
As the two of them make their getaway, the hippo cries out in pain as large chunks of cement pierce his thick leathery skin. A pool of blood from the people he had trampled and destroyed from the building built up around him.
"No! Wait! I have to find her!" Arima and the man traveled to another nearby rooftop. At this point, the sun had finally set, and the lights of Tokyo had illuminated the night sky. "Mai is still alive! She's still there!"
"Sorry buddy, anyone in that building has and will die." The man had long white hair and a full beard. He was old yet his body moved like a teenager's. He had the spring in his step that only someone who was in their prime would have. "My name is Lentor. I'm an A2 Poacher from the organization, let me handle this." He looks at Arima, still in shock from what had occurred.
"Poor kid, can't even live without nearly dying." Lentor sees his hand had been destroyed. "He's running on adrenaline and can't feel the pain yet. Or he's so scared that he's completely ignorant of the missing limb." Lentor looks back to the chimera and it is flailing around on the ground. "Whatever the case, we've got to make this a quick one." Lentor places his hand on the sword on his belt.
The hippo fell on its back, destroying the main foundation of the building which caused it to come crashing down, scattering pieces of rock everywhere. The people on the ground floor were either trapped under tons of rubble or had suffered a mercifully quick death.
The city had started to evacuate as poachers on the scene came. Among one of these was an exceptionally powerful Poacher.
"Agh!" The hippo cried out in hunger as it used its stubby hands to pick up a human on the sidewalk. Their legs had been crushed and the hippo merely tore off its lower half.
"Butterfly!" Lentor whizzes past the hippo, jumping from rooftop to rooftop as a flash sparks in front of the hippo and into his hand. In one slash, Lentor had completely cut off the hippo's hand, causing him to drop the man to the ground.
"Agh!" The hippo cried out in pain as it thrashed around, hurling itself into the building Lentor was standing on.
"Move like a butterfly..." Lentor disappears before the hippo can collide with him. "Sting like a bee!" Lentor appeared above the hippo, giant butterfly wings appearing from his back as he thrust the sword straight down with all of his might, embedding it into the hippo's head.
"AH!" A man shouts from the ground as it caught Lentor off guard. "You bitch!" Arima runs towards the hippo with an axe in hand.
"It's not safe!" Lentor tries to warn Arima but has let his guard down, allowing the hippo to fight back. The hippo mutated as his teeth grew out of his mouth, and his hand regenerated back. The hippo cocked his hand downwards, flinging Lentor off and straight into a building.
"Die!" Arima strikes the hippo's foot with his axe, however, it is barely sharp enough to cut through his skin. "Agh!" He cries as the hippo's entire weight lands on Arima, crushing and pulverizing his bones in an instant.
"Shit, he's dead!" Lentor had landed on the side of the road, his back heavily damaged as he had been flung straight into a building. He was bleeding from his mouth and his side, a piece of sharp metal had embedded itself into his side.
"Yo-you did well Lentor." A soft female voice spoke. "I'll ta-take it from here." A woman in a suit walked up to Lentor. "Take t-this." Lentor opened his palm as she put a golden feather on his palm. It was shining with a fiery hue, like something that had been forged in the sun.
"Maximillia?" Lentor looks up and nearly gets blinded.
Maximillia turns and looks at Lentor. "That feather c-can heal yo-you." She spoke with a stutter. She had long orange hair that was tied up in a bun, two strands that protruded out in the front. She wore a golden mask that covered her face but revealed her shining eyes.
"Shit, I'd never thought I'd see it with my own eyes." Lentor smiles as the feather falls through his palm, phasing into his body. The cut on his side had started to heal, like a burning singe that closed his wounds. He coughed up blood as the pain was overwhelming. "This is the power of the Mythical Phoenix Hybrid!"
Maximillia disappears in a flash, appearing above the hippo with bright red-orange wings made of flames on her back. She wore a black and white suit with an orange tie, making her an eyesore with the ring of fire above her head. Maximilia stretched her hand outwards. "Judgement." She said with confidence as a pillar of flames, straight from the sun, emerges from the sky and falls straight onto the hippo.
Its bones and muscles turn into plasma instantaneously as the flame pillar permeates its body. "My et-eternal flame will make sure you'll fuel h-hell for the remainder of your sen-sentence." She stuttered.
Within a matter of seconds, the hippo had completely been eradicated and turned into dust. Leaving behind only its limbs that were out of the flame pillar's vicinity.
"One of the Organisation's trumps cards," Lentor commented as his wounds had completely closed. "The first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Maximillia the Phoenix Queen."
She levitated above the carcass as more poachers arrived on the scene along with the police. Now that the threat had been subsided, the human poachers and humans could now look for survivors.
From the ashes emerged a hand, well the skeleton of a hand, but a hand regardless. The flesh around the hand started to mold itself back as a whole arm popped out, along with a head and an upper body. His entire skeleton structure was encased in flames.
Arima had been caught in the crossfire from the flame pillar, causing his entire body to turn into mush, along with his bones. Yet his healing factor was so strong he could regenerate from a single cell. But this flame was a new kind of pain, a pain he'd never felt before. His whole body was covered in the eternal flame, constantly burning off what he was regenerating.
"Someone's alive?" Maximillia could hear Arima's screams from below, seeing a human made of muscle and bone emerging from the ashes.
Arima's eyeballs grew back as tears instantly flowed out from the sheer amount of pain he was in. His brain still hadn't regenerated, thus he couldn't be rendered unconscious, he was running purely off instincts.
The flame and temperature had penetrated through his bone structure and not only turned them into plasma but cooked his entire body. He felt as if he was being boiled in a cauldron of lava.
"Release," Maximillia commanded as she snapped her fingers, flying down next to Arima. The flames immediately subsided as Arima's body could continue to regenerate. "Re-regeneration. It's a c-curse and a ble-blessing at the same time." Maximillia commented as Arima rolled around in the ashes.
Before long, his entire body had regenerated back to its original state, with his clothes and hand back. "Why'd it have to be her!" were the first things out of her mouth. "The first time I felt human!"
Maximillia turned her head, unsure. "W-who?"
"You're a hybrid too, right?" Arima looks at the glowing figure in front of him, completely unfazed by their presence. "Have you ever felt not human enough?" He says, tears flowing from his eyes.
Maximillia doesn't reply. Arima digs his hand deep into the molten hot ash. "The one goddamn thing I've been looking for all this whole fucking time! The only thing I've felt missing, It's not a fucking Axolotl, it's a girl! I just want a girlfriend!"
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