15. Contract.

A loud ring echoed through his head nonstop, his mind was in pieces and his insides felt like jelly, he'd felt all kinds of ways before, but this wasn't the first Tatsumi had experienced this feeling. The familiar windless atmosphere tickled his senses; senses that were all screaming danger at him, so he kept his eyes closed, half awake and battling a sick nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach. Nothingness was the feeling lingering roundabout him, giving him a good idea of exactly where he was. "Limbo." Tatsumi muttered. "Hey kid, wake up." Ravana called in a sickeningly sweet voice to Tatsumi, causing him to slowly open his eyes. "We need to talk." "What for?" The teen rasped back, lifting his head and looking around at the barren field of black grass. "Why am I here?" He inquired grumpily sitting up with a huff. "Send me back." He ordered her. But with a smirk, she folded her thin arms and shook her head in the negative. "Get to the point then, no lingering this time." Tatsumi spat, trying to overcome the fearful rush of hormonal imbalance coursing through his head as he confronted an actual demon. "Do not annoy me, Tatsumi." Ravana gave him a very convincing human pout, shooting him a glare as well. "You are only still alive because I willed it, you should be grovelling at my feet." "No way in hell," His narrowed eyes remained trained on her, noticing something different about her appearance. "You look... healthier." he gasped, eyes widening in subdued surprise. "Shut up and listen, you idiot." She snapped calmly at him, willing his body to stand before floating herself up to a stand as well "The way I look now is the direct consequence of you not accepting my offer when you had a chance, and then using power you had yet to be gifted, this is your atonement." "What do you mean by atonement, you're punishing me by making your skin look like mine?" Tatsumi asked casually with little care, looking a bit too comfortable with the situation he was in; Little did he know... "To put it simply, I had to force a contract on you to save your sorry ass, and as a result, I had to take something from you in return." She deadpanned, causing him to blink rapidly, yes, that had definitely stolen his complete attantion. "What, what did you take?" He asked hesitantly, waking fully and checking himself. She chuckled at his reaction, sending him a dark grin. "I will have to admit; I do look better, but this was not at all to your disadvantage." She grinned at him. "I have improved you, to make sure a mere bullet will never harm you like that again. Her skin had changed from that of a freezing corpse, to the same as his tan, the bags under her eyes we're gone, and there was even a bit of color in her lips. "I took your entire digestive system." She laughed. "You can thank me later." The demon continued to cackle, seemingly impressed with herself, but Tatsumi's heart fell to the pit of his stomach and he went pale from terror. Had he been in control of his own body, he would've fallen numbly to his knees in shock. “My...Digestive system...All of it?!” He trotted away in growing fearful thought. ”All of it?” He gasped again, swallowing hard against the lump that formed in his throat. "Hey, you are going pale." She grinned again, before her entire appearance went dark with anger. "Do not be a fool, Tatsumi just what did you think would hapoen; that you would be given great power without a consequence!?" She roared at him as her hair grew even taller than her body and began weightlessly floating around her head, casting into the black sky and vanishing there. "There is a price to pay for doing what you did Tatsumi!" She roared at him madly again, causing the surrounding scape to tremor and distort. "How can I keep you alive, if you will not even let me, there is a limit to my patience and mercy human, do not trample upon my kindness ever again!" He just stood there, speechlessly staring into her eyes in well-placed fear; mouth quivering madly as he fought a powerful urge to burst into hysterics. "You are lucky I did that instead of ripping your soul right out of your f*****g core!" She growled angrily, facepalming herself and staring into the black canopy that had no end, before steadying her eyes on him again and calming down. "You do not need to say anything for now, just listen, and remember what I tell you." She waved her hand and his control over his body returned causing him to collapse to the dark grass, shaking and breathing heavily with tears building in his eyes. "The Human-Demon contract is a fragile one; that is why our bonds never last long, mostly due to the fact that my kind grasp at any given chance to rip your souls from you and kill you." She began; frown vanishing into her usual cynical stare. "Look at me, Tatsumi." He glanced up at her, clutching his stomach and still breathing heavily; an intense discomfort building up the longer he looked, until he peeled his eyes away. "Or what?" He hissed groggily. She took a moment looking at him before accepting that he was more stubborn than any human she'd ever seen or encountered in all her existence before folding her arms and continuing. "It is fairly simple; the contract, whatever a demon takes from a human, can not be undone, damage of such nature is irreparable." She droned on, watching without much care as each word caused another wave of expressive depression on Tatsumi's shoulders. "What we do, is basically grant enormous power to whomever we are bonded to, in return, we are freed when they finally die, but like I said, demons usually grant that power to a lethal extent to free themselves right away, however, there are demons such as myself who remain with their hosts, and in return, we are given a small portion of that human's self to change as we please, it becomes our property; whichever place they choose, but because you stupidly used what was not given to you, without even so much as my permission, I was forced into taking a great amount of your being, thus I took your digestive system, that, is considered mercy, otherwise I would have simply killed you and moved on, but that would be hard considering how fast the human population is dwindling, it would make no sense at all to leave you behind." His mouth finally hung open, and a fit of uncontrolled sobbs instantly erupted from his body. "I, I'm gonna die... she's killed me!" His open mind screamed at his sub-conscious, causing the sobbs to momentarily increase. "Calm the hell down kid, you are not gonna die, I said I took it, I did not say I removed it." Ravan corrected his fears. He forced his gaze on her again, this time staring with mixtures of hate, fear, anger, and sadness; overwhelmed by what he'd heard. "You... you really are a curse, you monster." He croaked, breathing heavily and staring with more intent. "You are a hypocrite if you think that Tatsumi, you who used my powers with such passion." She retorted sweetly. "Give it back." He narrowed his eyes, glaring with a hollow depth. "I want my body back!" Tatsumi screamed, standing and running straight at her, much to his surprise, she let him tackle her to the surface beneath them. "It is permanent, I can not give back what I have taken." She stared blankly, eyes dulling in color as her expression went monotonous and unreadable. "A Contract between human and demon is final, irreprible; absolute." "..I want it back!!" He screamed in her face, lifting her small body by her blouse and slamming her into the surface. ".... Please.... Give me back what you took, I'm begging you." He sniffled, stiffening over her, causing a flow of tears to fall on her chin, instead of another honest response, she grabbed hold of his face and threw him a considerably far distance away from her, seeing him land on his head in a fall that could break necks, luckily for him, limbo couldn't kill a fly. "Tears annoy me, do not ever touch me without my permission, and like I said, you can not get it back, that is beyond me, what you need to do is finish the contract to prevent things like this from happening again." She sighed, floating to her feet and over to where he'd fallen while wiping his tears from her face. She stood, small body looming over his slouched shoulder as he kneeled on the surface with his back turned. "What you should do is be thankful, if I did not like you, I would have taken your soul without a second thought." She hissed in his ear before a pause. "…Your physical body is calling for your consciousness to return, you should wake up now." Instead of protest, he closed his eyes and accepted it, he'd been defeated, and he was on the verge of breaking. Slowly, the grass began to strip away and wither into nothingness. "Think about what I have said, and come up with a good contract in the future." She lazily instructed, before vanishing as well. Then with a gasp of air, his eyes shot open and he instantly regained control of his physical body, while his mind slowly awakened. Remembering the whole conversation, he was hit with a forsaking wave of depression right away. "Digestive system gone, what exactly does that even mean?" Tatsumi frowned. The raindrops beat heavily on his body as he weakly stumbled backwards from his crouch and hit the glass of the windshield with his legs lazily spreading forward when fatigue rocked him down to the bone. "Atop all that news, he couldn't stop thinking about what they had just escaped, he had no doubt in his mind, hundreds if not thousands of Akugami gathered in one spot could only mean that the first wave really had already been in effect, the future had changed, he didn't think he'd be able to properly predict any thing else from then on, he would have to become strong and force his way through this new world. "What have I done?" He quietly asked himself, removing the glasses for the rain to beat against his eyes, to wash away the tears that had suddenly and in an unwelcoming manner started flowing. "What, have I, done?" He continued, slowly. Feeling taps against his back, he lifted his head and turned. Seeing a pink haired girl waving at him before drawing back and sitting with a shocked expression on her face. He returned a small smile, ignoring her reaction before his smile faltered, seeing his eyes reflect in the dark windshield; Crimson in color, no wonder the girl seemed afraid. A frown creeped up on his face and he dismissively closed his eyes, turning his back and sobbing again, placing his forearm over his eyes, and opening his mouth, using his tongue to check. And sure enough, there they were too; sharp canines that almost cut his tongue, it seemed his features had changed to look just like Ravana's all that was missing were her pointy ears, but he was glad he'd been left normal ears at least. "No." he whimpered, shaking violently and bursting into tears again. "Ravana... Why?" "Shut up, and accept it, I did what I had to in order to ensure your survival, Idiot." The demon replied. "You cursed me!!" He barked, slamming his fist against the windshield but then jolting upward when it unexpectedly cracked under his blow. "Have fun, dear Tatsumi." The demon chuckled before any awareness of her vanished from his consciousness completely. "God-damned demon." He angrily growled, before standing and climbing up to where han was. To his surprise, all he saw was a leg caught in the straps. "Figured as much." He mumbled before untangling the limb and throwing it aside and then he released a big huff, falling like a dead fish on the roof, just as buildings came into view. "We made it to Ketchup." Tatsumi spoke to himself, ketchup had been one of the safest places for a while in his last life, but looking at it in as it was Ketchup was little more than a ruin. "Regardless." He spoke to his doubts. "We made it." "We've been up all day and through the night, I've been craving for a bath and something to eat." Yukiyo groaned. "My shoulders... ugh, I feel so close to porridge right now, I just wanna eat, take a long, hot, bath, and sleep forever." She sighed heavily. "It has, been a long day, I know a few places where we could spend the night." The pink haired girl sitting beside her stated, rather anxiously, staring ahead and glancing at everything the light touched "I'm Yukiyo." She quickly spoke, breaking the silence she'd left lingering. "Suteki, I'm Suteki Shimora." She mumbled, nodding at Yukiyo nervously before they fell silent again. A few more minutes of aimlessly driving in silence was finally broken when she started telling Yukiyo to take turns. Ketchup Town was a whole lot smaller than Salt Springs, but the buildings there were all so huge that Yukiyo; a first timer there couldn't help gasping at every turn she took. "There." Suteki finally pointed, and in reaction, Yukiyo slowed down to a stop in front of… a mall? "Are you sure this is where you wanted to lead us?" Tatsumi poked his head beside Yukiyo, causinh to jump from shock, but, getting no response from Suteki, he repeated the inquiry with closed eyes, and a scarf over his mouth. "This is it." Suteki responded with a cautious stare in his direction. She was about to alaborate, buy then Teru poked his head through the small door. "We're there?" He asked before a blank expression gifted his face. "Wait, a mall, are you sure this is the place?" He asked with as much scrutiny as one could conjure in a single question. "Yes, this is the place." She frowned, looking at all three of them. "Seriously, that Mall, right there, the big one with the busted door?" Yukiyo deadpanned, pointing sharply at the building. "That one, there, with the blue stripes?" Tatsumi sighed in monotonous disbelief. He too was hesitant of a busted building, of all the places she could have chosen, but thinking about it logically, it really was a good spot, there were many different ways to escape that building, but far fewer entries. "Yes!!" The pinkette snapped at the three of them. "That one!" She flailed her hands. "The mall right there, that one with the f*****g blue stripes!" She screamed at them, turning as red as a cursed balloon. "Hey-Hey, relax, I just wanted to make sure." Tatsumi giggled before jumping down and opening her door. "May I?" He asked softly in his usual gentleness placing a pair of tinted glasses over his eyes before opening them, with a lock-lipped smile. "Yeah… Sure." She sighed, turning her legs in the roomy seat and letting him in, he went up and crouched beside her, then turned to Yukiyo. "Er.... Y-You need...uh...Some-thing?" She stuttered stupidly at a loss of words when her eyes met his. Although she could'nt see his eyes, it was bothering her a whole lot, to the point where she even turned my gaze away. "It can wait." He sighed before turning to the dashboard and opening the compartments "I'm actually really tired; I'm beat, as a matter of fact, so if anything happens in there, you guys just run okay?" He looked up at her briefly. "And I'm not kidding this time, I'm so beat right now my body is shaking to just keep me from keeling over." He grumbled softly, pulling out a handful of conveniently placed energy bars from the dash. "Nothing's gonna happen Tatsumi!" Yukiyo yelled at him, startling both Teru and Suteki, but him, he had no reaction, he didn't even as much as flinch. "Sorry, but I'm just stating the facts, as soon as we're set we're leaving for Ramen city, I don't want to get caught up in another hoarde like earlier, we won't escape something like that in a dense town like this." He grunted, opening some of the bars and gorging on them like an animal, humming and unwrapping more "Hey, Teru." he swallowed waiting for a response. "What is it?" Teru asked slowly staring at Tatsumi's back with an expression Yukiyo recognised could only be honest rage. "You think you can fight now?" Tatsumi asked. "I might need your help." He spoke after downing the bars and handing Teru two over his head, but when he didn't accept them Tatsumi withdrew his hand and ate them then and there. "Well?" He asked again when Teru didn't answer right away. "You seem capable, why do you need my help?" Teru asked, "You can do it yourself, just look at how you killed those Akugami before." Teru shot back harshly, then narrowed his eyes when Tatsumi turned and met his gaze with a shocked expression. "Teru!" Yukiyo gasped. Even though he didn't react to Teru's hostility other than wide eyes, Tatsumi seemed more distant to Yukiyo when turned his gaze to the c***k on the windscreen and beyond the glasses. "Okay." He responded, even Suteki could tell that it hurt to hear the blonde say that, not just the recipient of the hostile tone, but Yukiyo as well seemed hurt just hearing the blonde asshole speak like that to the one who'd saved his life just moments ago, and she could see it in his actions afterward by the way he slouched. "Fine then." He grunted, and this time the hurt was evident in his voice. "If I don't come back in ten minutes, move on without me, but don't come in unless I'm at the doors." Tatsumi instructed them, hoarse as if he'd been crying, then without sparing any of them further glances, he turned and exited the truck, removing the glasses only after he was paces ahead of them. In his mind he was battling, he'd never seen this side of Teru before, he was wondering if it could also have been a part of the changes coming from his reinvarnation, or maybe Teru was like this all along and only showed himself because the world was flipped upside down. "Teru, you'd let him do this alone?" Yukiyo looked at her cousin shocked. "What's wrong with you?" She asked, but he only looked at Tatsumi's as he vanished inside the dark of the mall "Go help him." She whispered harshly. "We're supposed to be together now more than ever." "Yeah, he seemed pretty hurt." Suteki commented, but surprisingly all Teru did was scoff. "He's got it." He snorted again before turning his back and leaving to the company of the others in the truck. With the engine dead, and the headlights off, we watched the entrance with bated breaths, Suteki was anxious that something would happen, but kept herself still as she listened at her window, but Yukiyo's moving lips continued to distract her. "Tatsumi," she whispered. "You got this." She continued. "I know you can do it." She wasn't praying, but she believed that simply simply believing he'd be fine was enough to keep him alive, he had been doing impossible things recently after all, surely he wouldn't just vanish and die by a few after all he'd done. 'The rain has kept on for so long. It's been fifteen minutes since he went in." Yukiyo spoke up. "You're putting a lot of faith in one person, are you sure it isn't misplaced?" Suteki slowly spoke, turning her head on the dashboard and looking at Yukiyo. "Maybe he's.." "No." Yukiyo sharply cut her off. "Tatsumi is strong, he won't die here, if you'd seen what he did to get us out of that mass of Akugami your words would be the exact opposite, he's better than even those monsters, he's the best." She looked at Suteki worriedly. "He'll come back." "But it's been a while, maybe he didn't m-" "He's not gonna die!" Yukiyo snapped causing Suteki to clendh her teeth and fall silent. "Tatsumi won't die, he can't, It's not possible, can't you see that he's different from everyone else?" "What's going on?" Teru came up behind them again, but she flashed him a look of rage that caused him to flinch as if threatened by a weapon, she was getting pissed just seeing him at that point, afraid or not, he had left the task to Tatsumi. "He's not gonna come back." Suteki commented, hugging her knees and sobbing. "If those Akugami monsters are in there, he's probably d-" "Shut the f**k up!" Yukiyo screamed at Suteki like a woman gone mad. "Tatsumi isn't dead!" Instantly, Teru's hand fell on her shoulder. "Yukiyo, maybe we should be-" "No!" She screamed on top of her voice, starting up the truck and pushing him out of her way. "Teru, why would you even suggest it when we both saw, after what he's able to do, don't you think having him around will be better than being a d**k and shooing him?" She looked at him infuriated, of course she understood that he was being cautious after someone he'd known for years suddenly changed in a time when people were being eaten alive by monsters, but what she couldn't understand was how quickly he'd discarded all those years of bonds. "Does being different mean you're just gonna reject him all of a sudden, how could you, can't you see he needs us now more than before!?" She reached over her seat and grabbed a first full his shirt. "We're all he has left, just as he's all we have left!" Entering the back and picking up the bag Tatsumi left with Mai, she pulled out the first weapon that touched her hand, along with a torch then ignoring both her cousin and Mai, she jumped out the back and turned, heading straight into the mall. "He's not dead, he's not dead, he's not dead!" She desperately began to chant inward, feeling sick in herself for letting him go alone in the first place, to her Tatsumi was everything, it had been that way for as long as she could remember, she didn't care that he suddenly had red eyes and could move faster than she could keep track of, he was still Tatsumi, and that alone was enough for her. "Please, please, please don't be dead!" The moment she was inside of the building, Yukiyo screamed his name with all of her strength, but quickly snapped her mouth shut. What of being there made a bad impact? She hadn't thought about that, but it was too late now, she couldn't turn her back to a dark building. But then lightning flashed behind her and illuminated the mall; soaking wet from the downpour outside, she instantly froze in horror. They were everywhere; Akugami were everywhere, there were dozens of them strewn about, and they were all in pools of thick blood. "I told you to leave, what're you doing here?" His hoarse voice croaked behind her, and she hastily made a turn, almost falling when her legs moved without the necessary momentum to keep her standing. "You should've left." He rasped, with closed eyes, renched in Akugami blood from head to toe; somewhere along his walk into the mall to his confrontation of the many monsters, Tatsumi had completely given up on this second life, Teru had completely crushed his spirit. So there, clutching the katana and leaning on the wall next to the busted door, he was breathing heavily. "Why didn't you come back?" Yukiyo shouted at him running over and sliding to his side. But Instead of a reply he lowered his head and averted his face. "Tatsumi, what's going on with you?" She asked quietly, placing her hands on his shoulders He lifted his hand to say something, but lowered it on her leg and sighed an exhausted "nothing", and she understood what he meant befpre in the truck instantly; about being tired, because even then, while he was trying to rest, his body was shaking and his skin was cold. "You're lying." She retorted, slowly folding her arms around his neck and pulling his head into her breasts, pulling herself closer and squeezing him onto her to stop his shivering "Don't lie to me, Tatsumi, tell me what's going on with you." "I didn't want this, I never wanted it to happen, but It just did and now I can't change, I can't go back again, I don't even know of I'll be able to properly protect you anymore, I really just wanted it to be better this time, I was hoping so hard that it wouldn't happen again, but then... It did..." He started crying on her. "You're not making sense, Tatsumi, tell me what happened." She softly tried hushing him, but his still shaking body shuddered even more as he croaked out desperate words that broke her heart and caused tears to form and fall at their own will from her eyes. "Yukiyo, Please, I want you to kill me, maybe I'll be able to redo it all."