Itchikaru

Book one: The Young Soldier

I can see nothing. There was nothing. What had happened? I don't remember anything at all. Where am I? Who am I? What am I? So many questions. Time to get my bearings. Now what can I remember? Nothing. Think harder. Still nothing. Damn. Odd, I can remember nothing of my past, but all my knowledge remains intact. The sky is blue. Two plus two equals four. My name is… Damn, I almost had it. Why can't I feel my body? I can't remember anything of my past, but I sure as hell remember having a body. Ah, I get it now. I can't recall any memories, but all that I learned remains intact. Still doesn't explain why I'm here or what the hell is happening, but it's something. If only I could recall even the slightest memory. There it is! My name! I can almost remember! My name is Itc… damn. Gone again. Well nothing to do here now, but wait. What's that? A light? Yes! A light! I can see it. I can feel my body again. "Holy crap" I scream! I can talk again! Wait. OH GOD THAT BURNS! My whole body is hot. What the hell!? The light grows larger and I can begin to see my surroundings again. I'M IN THE FUCKING SKY! SHIT! I'M FALIING! I plummet, slowly fading in and out of consciousness. I can now see where I will land. A forest. Well that won't feel nice. My eyes close again and I slip into unconsciousness.

I wake up again, barely, to see a crater surrounding me. I survived? Holy crap! This isn't possible. I look around to see destroyed trees and other forestry before I fall unconscious again. I awake several more times, but only for seconds. The first few times there's nothing. But eventually I hear something. "This is it!" A young female voice cries out. "What is i-" The voices begin to get muffled and I fall unconscious again. I awake to see a girl about my age looming over me. She turns to an older gentle man standing on the outer ring of the crater. "He's alive!" She shouts and turns back to me smiling. "Stay with me alright?" She says to me as my eyelids begin to feel heavy again. This is the longest I've stayed conscious so I might be able to stay awake soon. I fall unconscious again, but not for too long since when I awake the man has only just started to lift me from the crater. "You sure this is a good idea?" He asks the girl. "I'm sure." She says sternly as they load me into a small Jeep. I lose consciousness again, this time for much longer.

I awake to find myself lying in a bed. I feel much better and figure I shouldn't lose consciousness again. "Hello?" I call out in hope that someone will come and tell me what happened. The door at the end of the small, relatively barren room opens and the young girl from before walks in carrying a tray of food. "Feeling better?" She asks as she sits down on a chair next to the bed with the food in her lap. "You could say that." I said as I painfully sat up. "So, I have a few questions." I said as I grabbed the food and placed it on my own lap. "Understandably." The girl says with heavy breath. "Now where do I begin?" "How about the whole me falling form the sky thing?" I ask. "Well, the truth is, I have no idea how you fell from the sky, or more notably, survived the fall." "Oh, well that's just great. Well where the hell am I?" I ask. "Right now you're in the patients housing, next to the infirmary. You see, you're at an army base." The girl replies. "Oh. Well holy shit!" I exclaim. "Yeah, we get that a lot." The girl says. "You get a lot of unconscious people waking up here?" I ask. "More than we would like." The girl replies. "Oh." I say.

Author side note: Okay! Holy crap! Writing shit like "I asked" and "She replied" after every piece of dialogue is super freaking annoying so from now on I'm just going to write the back-and-forth and if you don't know who's talking then too freaking bad. I'll refrain from doing this as much as I can, but it's just so god damn annoying.

We sat silently for a little bit before I stated the conversation up again. "So your name?" I ask. "Zakuro. The names Zakuro." "Nice to meet you Zakuro." "Same here un-named stranger." Zakuro stood up and grabbed the tray after I had finished eating. "Well, you should rest up. We can get all the details sorted out tomorrow." She says as she leaves the room and closes the door behind her. I'm able to fall asleep again before waking up sometime at dawn the next day. This time is different though, I feel different. I sit there for a while before I mutter to myself "Itchikaru… My name is Itchikaru!" I shout in the air and jump out of bed. "YEAH!" I scream jumping in place. I can hear Zakuro from behind the door. "Someone sounds better today." She says as she opens the door. Instantly her face turns red and she quickly exits the room and closes the door while screaming "Sorry for intruding!" I stand confused for a moment before I look down and realize I'm wearing noting, but a pair of boxers. "Good first impression Itchi." I mutter to myself.

A little while later I'm in the infirmary with Zakuro and the head nurse, Ms. Senji. "I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to hurt like hell, but we need to do this to see who you are." Ms. Senji says as she preps a futuristic looking device. From what I can understand the device, which looks like a clamp with a needle on it, is supposed to read my DNA and give any info available on me. "Here hold my hand." Zakuro says as she holds her hand out for me. I feel a little embarrassed, but I comply. Ms. Senji grabs my other hand and I close my eyes in preparation for the needle. After a while I still feel nothing. "Just get my suffering over and done with please." I say before I open my eyes. I see that Zakuro and Ms. Senji are looking at me in amazement. "What happened? Why aren't you stabbing me with the scary future clamp?" I ask confused. "Ummm…" Ms. Senji begins. "Well you see… we just did 'clamp' you." Zakuro says. "That can't be." I say amazed. "I didn't feel a thing." "I suppose your tolerance for pain is quite high. Oddly high for a child your age. This thing can make a full grown man cringe with pain." Ms. Senji says as she looks back at the clamp. "Results are in. Now let's see… Hmmm… This is odd." Ms. Senji says carefully reading the screen on the device. "According to this device, you're not even part of any known species." "What?" I ask confused. "Yes. According to this your DNA is unreadable. An unknown composure. Most interesting." "So what does that mean for me?" We sit silently for a little bit until Zakuro chirps in. "Well we can't find out who you are and you don't have a place to stay… I guess you'll just have to stay here until we can get this all sorted out. You can stay at soldier accommodations on site." "I suppose it's for the best." I say as Zakuro stands up and heads to the door. "I'll work on your DNA for now, see what I can find. Might need to hand it over to Samuel, he knows more about this stuff than I do." Ms. Senji says as I get up to follow Zakuro. "Alright. Thanks for your time Ms. Senji." Zakuro says as we leave. "Yeah, thanks." I call back through the door as well. "Come on." Zakuro says as she motions for me to follow her. "There's a lot to explain."