[SDU] [Chapter 34 – Ralph – Ghostly Wail]

[SDU] [Chapter 34 – Ralph – Ghostly Wail]

I clenched my fist as I made the first initiation to run towards the oncoming enemies. I hold my guitar tightly and pulled out its hidden compartment to reveal the sharp blade to make my guitar looked like a battle axe. I swung my ‘axe’ to one of the Watchers and they tried to dodge it but I know better, of course. That swing was just a fake attack to make them least expect on what I had planned. I quickly sweep down their legs with my own leg and smashed my ‘axe’ to the Watcher’s body armour. We’re not here to kill anyone that’s for sure so we have to make sure all of our attacks aren’t lethal. So the only way I was able to do was to bash my guitar without using the sharp blade. The blade was only used to deflect any other attacks from the enemies. Lin also jumps in and summons a short sword from her card and helped me out.

“Leave some for us, leader!” Blanc said so as she revs up her mechanical blade.

“Blanc…” Shiro grabbed her shoulder and said, “No killing.”

“I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to leash me, Shiro.” Blanc was annoyed by that and then she quickly made her way to the approaching Watchers.

The sounds of metal clashing with each other echoes throughout the hallway as Blanc and the other Watcher was switching stances for every clash they got. I’m quite amazed to see a girl like Blanc was able to carry such a huge weapon like that.

“She’s like a superhuman…” commented Lin.

Shiro then clarified, “Not really. She’s more of a monster.”

“Yes, I know that. But I just can’t seem to see her as just a monster…she seems human to me.”

“Well you haven’t seen her enough, I guess.”

As Lin ponders about that, Shiro made his way to another Watcher that was about to interrupt Blanc. Shiro quickly punched the Watcher. The punch was strong enough to send the Watcher to the walls. According to our talk we had before the mission, he told me that his superhuman abilities were because of his ghostly nature. Shiro has a bunch of different ghost abilities that he could do. One of it was the power of flight. An ability that allows him to defy gravity and freely move around in the air just like any other ghosts. Other than that, he can also possess any other living or non-living being and control their speech and actions. The only downside to this was that if his possession had a strong will, it may prove difficult for Shiro to control his possession. But in this case, it wasn’t that hard. Shiro immediately flies toward the knocked out Watcher and possess them. He uses that possessed body and helped out Blanc.

“Woah there, it’s me, Blanc.” Shiro tried to calm her down.

“Shiro? I didn’t know you could possess other human.” She said that as both of them continue to fight the other Watcher that was using a sword to fight.

Shiro laughed and told her, “I’m half-ghost. What do you expect?”

“I don’t know…I never seen a ghost before…”

“Then I can show you one.”

Shiro flies with the possessed Watcher and grabbed the other Watcher from behind. As he continued to hold down the Watcher, he went and spoke to the Watchers's ear.

“I call this, The Scream.”

Shiro took a deep breath and opened his mouth. He screams as loud as he could to the point that the Watcher next to him started to bleed through his ears. Even the Watchers that Lin and I fought were affected by it. The scream was very high pitched. It was like a wail. A ghostly wail. Blanc dropped her blade and closed off both of her ears with her hands. Lin shoves me to the ground and we closed off our ears. Shiro finally stops his wail after he found out that the Watcher he was holding was already out cold and lets them go. He got out of the possessed Watcher and went back next to Blanc.

“What was that?” Blanc slowly puts away her hands from her ears.

Shiro smiled and explained to her, “It is one of the ghost abilities that I have. It’s an ability that generates a high-powered, destructive sonic scream. Depending on how loud I screamed, these sound waves could eventually become visible. This is one of the features of a ghost. They made a scary wail to scare people off.”

“But why would a ghost need to do that?

“It can be for many reasons. Sometimes a ghost does that because it wants to be left alone and sometimes they also wanted to have some fun. It depends on what was their final wish.”

“Final wish?” Blanc raised her eyebrows in confusion.

“They say that people die and become a ghost when they believed that their death was unjustified. Say you got yourself into a car accident in the middle of a highway while you were on your way to bring your wife to the hospital because she was about to give birth. Thanks to the accident, three people died including the baby. Their bodies were left to rot as the hit and run incident was left just like that. They were innocent. They were mad. They become vengeful spirits with unfinished business and begin to haunt the highway on any speeding drivers.”

“That’s…terrible…”

“The only way to put a stop to the family from causing harm to other drivers in the future is to let them rest in peace by accomplishing specific wish that the dead requested. Usually it’s a matter of just giving them a proper burial but there’s also a time where it will only rest in peace once it has finish one last thing that it hasn’t done yet. Like go and see their family for the last time or finding out who murdered them.”

Blanc then looked at Shiro with a sad look and asked, “You said that you were…murdered, right?”

Both Lin and I finally collected our bearings and heard what she said to Shiro. Lin felt a little pity and walked toward Shiro and asked him.

“What were you doing before that?”

Shiro stayed silent but the worries from both of the girls forced him to speak up, “I was just outside buying some food for my family. Then somehow I ended up being murdered by an unidentified person.”

I looked at Shiro with a serious look and said, “You’re not really telling the truth are you? Do you even have a family?”

“Ralph!” Blanc shouted to me.

“It is okay, Blanc.” Shiro stopped her and said, “You found me out. I did lie. But I still have a family. Even if it’s just one of them left at the time.”

“Who is this person?” asked Lin.

Shiro begins telling his story to us, “My little sister…she was still young…we were poor…no one wanted to help us…the village we lived in doesn’t have an orphanage. That goes the same for the next village nearby. The nearest orphanage was at the city and even that place was already filled with kids without a parent. I had to take care of her all on my own every day. I took on multiple odd jobs just to fill both of our stomachs.” His eyes were filled with regret for some reason.

I asked him, “What happened?”

“One day, my sister got sick. I took as much jobs as I could just so I could buy some medicines for her. It went well at first but all of a sudden, her sickness got even worse than before. I didn’t really know what happen but around that time was when I was murdered by some murderous bastard…”

“You’re not really even bothered to tell us the full story, is it?” I pointed him out.

“Now is not the time to be talking about my past.” He shakes his head.

Suddenly we heard a creaking noise nearby. It was one of the classroom’s doors. There were two shining eyes hiding behind the doors.

“Looks like the party isn’t over yet.” I crunched my fingers and stretched out my neck.

We opened the door and found out that the classroom was empty.  There was no one around.

But then, Lin points to an object, “Isn’t that a Training Ball?”

The Training Ball was carefully hidden fewer than one of the desk. It was hard to notice it if you were just looking around casually but to Lin, that is no problem. Her eyes were as sharp as an eagle to what I believed.

“Should we take a look inside?” suggested Blanc.

“That’s the only option, I guess.”

We all agreed to get inside The Training Ball and once we were finally transported to the Training Ball infinite dimension, sharp weapons as far as the eyes can see were all over our throats. We were surrounded.

“Are you one of those Watchers?” one of them asked us.

“No, we’re not. Well…except for her…” I pointed to Blanc, “But! She’s with us, don’t worry.”

“You bring along an enemy? What is the meaning of this?!”

I quickly replied back, “We’re trying to rescue you guys! Sam Maximus requested that we are to rescue the other Cardinals.”

Then suddenly, “Hold it everyone. Drop your weapons.”

Everyone puts away their weapon from us and then gave way to this person.

“Did you say, Sam Maximus?” it was one of the Trinity of Magic Administration, Lucky. “She’s alright, huh? Well thank goodness...”

TO BE CONTINUED