Liberation

“Everything has an opposite, but no matter how hard you look, sometimes you can’t find the other half.”

“What we have today can be gone in seconds. What we have from the past, however, stays with us always.”

XX

Fifteen years ago the Oni were entrusted with a new lord and their keeper, the supposed last of the bloodline in mortal men. For well over twenty years prior they had roamed the Eastern world mercilessly, preying on the live creatures that were everything they were not.

That is, until the former overload kidnapped a child; an important heir to the kingdom of Shivé. He had done it for her own safety, but it wasn’t believed that he could possibly be doing anything good-natured, for the Oni were rumored as demons from ‘hell on earth’.

Four brave warriors-and a cook-took a stand against this ruler in an effort to get the child back and succeeded, but just barely. Their endeavors had not been in vain, however. They had taken the child back in order to relieve themselves of curses and debts.

But taking the child had consequences. If the child were to go back home it was said she would die, and prophecies had not begun to hide the truth from the world. In the end, the warriors decided it best to keep her with them and leave the Eastern world until whatever danger there was, passed.

They asked an old acquaintance of theirs, a witch, to send them somewhere else beyond the Eastern world and even the Western world to the Northern world, the roof of the entire earth. The witch obliged but on the promise that the child would have to come back no matter what should the current ruler of the Shivé kingdom pass away. Danger was nothing compared to a Nation without a leader.

Two warriors-and the cook-stayed behind in the Eastern world in an attempt to keep their boundaries safe while the heir remained hidden, and the other two left with the child to the Northern world. When they got there, everything changed overnight. The dangers of their former world disappeared and it seemed the two warriors could forget it had even existed.

Unfortunately, life does not let one forget about his or her past that easily.

XX

“Shay!” Someone yelled at her over the thumping bass. “Shay Chandler! Get your butt over here!” Shay ignored the minor threat and let her hips shake a little more seductively, feeling like some sort of stripper. Why didn’t her counselors at school want her to be an exotic dancer again?

Who cared anyway? Her guardians had said she could be whatever she wanted, and so what if she really wanted to dance? It wasn’t like it was their choice to make…

The music stopped abruptly and everyone in the club groaned in unison. “Will Shay Chandler please escort herself out of Club Taboo immediately?” A DJ’s voice questioned out of the DJ booth.

Shay stopped, irritated that her friends would resort to such ruthless tactics to make her go home. She winked one of her camo green, dark green rimmed eyes at a guy in a backwards cap as she ditched the dance floor, already feeling mad when the music resumed. Kai was going to be in trouble if she found out he was the one who’d asked the DJ to stop!

Just because she had a later curfew than the rest of them didn’t mean she had to go home, too! She was just fine roaming the City on her own; nobody would dare touch her. She seemed to have an aura that said ‘back off’ at night when she left her friends.

“There you are!” Her friend Sylvi, a sophisticated looking girl, exclaimed when she got outside in the warm summer air. “Christ, it took you long enough.”

“Yeah well you didn’t have to wait for me.” Shay replied icily. “You all know how to get home; you’re not lost little puppies!”

“We’re not ditching you in the City though, either.” Her other friend Van shot back, crossing his dark arms in an effort to look serious. “Remember what happened last time?” shay blushed and pretended like she had no idea what they were talking about.

“I’m perfectly capable of getting home on my own.” She said defiantly. “And hypothetically, if I even ever did pass out on that corner I would have been perfectly fine if it hadn’t been for those bums asking me for money!” they all burst into laughter at the reminder of last year on their final Free Friday at school.

Free Friday had been one of Shya’s stupid yet genius ideas. On the last Friday of every month, it became her group’s thing to ditch school that day and head downtown in the City. She’d come up with it about two years ago and now it was just…tradition.

“All right, you got me…” She finally told them. “Let’s jet. There’s a guy in there who thinks I like him anyway.”

XX

Kai was the only other person in their group who had a summer curfew past one. Therefore, after everyone else had been dropped off, he and Shay went and got ice cream and hiked up to their favorite abandoned Bridge at the edge of the City. It was one of the last bridges that hadn’t been torn down and reconstructed ever since the City had been built, and no one knew why it stayed. Shay and Kai speculated it was because maybe they couldn’t. Maybe it was like some kind of black hole in the universe, and if you fell off it or something you would be sucked up into and endless void of blackness.

It was getting chilly since school would be starting soon but Shay and Kai figured there were only so many more times before they’d never get to do this again.

“So you told the DJ, huh?” Shay asked, flipping a strand of shaggy black hair away from her face. Kai grinned mischievously. Out of their group, he was the only sixteen, soon to be seventeen year old. He’d been held back in the eighth grade because of ‘unique circumstances’ but Shay didn’t believe that. She figured he just wanted to be with his friends so he purposely failed himself.

“Depends.” He replied. “Come on Shay; you know those kids can’t stand to let us have all the fun.” She giggled-Kai was the only one she let herself giggle for-and bit off some ice cream.

“That’s true. Whatever though, you know? That’s bogus that they’d resent us for wanting to party all night.” The sky seemed to pulse for a moment in Shay’s opinion and she paused in her social rhetoric.

“Hey…did you see that?” She asked, her dangling legs motionless as well. Kai looked up at the pinkish black sky and shook his head, his pale, silvery hair ruffling in wind that had just picked up.

“No, why?” Shay shrugged slowly, her eyes on the sky like a hawk’s.

“Never mind…so what’re we going to do for our last week of break?” He shrugged back and dropped his ice cream bar, sending it plunging towards a watery quarry below. No echo resonated after the initial drop, confirming their belief that this was a hotspot for black holes.

“Dunno. What haven’t we done so far this summer?” They had to think about that, for there was a lot they hadn’t accomplished this summer. They hadn’t gone to the beach, they hadn’t played Gengra, and they hadn’t even seen any cheesy movies, only the big ones coming out in all the Theaters in the City.

Gengra had been one of their favorite things to play until Trey, a friend of theirs, had ruined it. All one needed was a team of five or so, a black ball that represented the game’s ancient origins, and a few flat bats. If one got the black ball past a goalie to a certain point on the field-which was generally a deserted parking lot for Shay’s group-and then used the flat bats to hit the ball back over to their side, the team one was playing on would score. Trey had ruined the game by getting the ball flattened by a truck and now refused to get another one. They could buy a new one, of course, but no one had the money to get the latest model.

“We definitely need a Gengra match before school starts.” Shay suggested, glancing at him. “Sylvi, Trey and I will beat you, Van and Amora.” Kai pushed her gently, but caused her to drop her ice cream down the black hole abyss as well. Shay watched it disappear before smacking Kai on the shoulder. They resumed their conversation only after a precarious wrestling match on the bridge’s ledge had ensued.

“Yeah right!” He replied lazily. “With Sylvi on your team? She’s so bad at Gengra!” Shay grinned because that was true. Only she and Kai had been able to make the Gengra teams at school last year, not anyone else in their group.

“Whatever, you’ve got Amora!” Kai groaned at the fact that he even had to put up with such a bad Gengra player for a teammate and turned around, sliding off the bridge’s ledge to the pavement below. Weeds had sprouted up in the cracks of the cement, but they’d been coming here for so long they didn’t even notice the bridge’s sore shape.

“Come on Shay; Sai and Syaoran will have a mega heart attack if they discover you’re not home when you probably should be.” He held out his hand to her, patiently waiting while she took one last look out towards the uninhabitable land that encompassed the City and then up at the sky. Everything looked fine, so why did she feel so tense? Nothing was going to happen to her; not if she had any say in the matter!

She swiveled around and grabbed Kai’s hand, letting him pull her down to the pavement with him. With a grin, she took off, shaking his hand away-it was an unofficial race back to her guardian’s apartment as usual. Kai let her get a head start because he always did, protesting that it was the gentlemen’s thing to do, but Shay just knew he liked to let her win.