Jaded Blood

“I don’t care if the demons are coming and you can have your damn crystal. Neither one of them matter… she does! I love her. I have always loved only her. Don’t you dare take her from me again.”

The statue’s glowing eyes seemed to regard him for a moment then a soft burst of light shown from them. Without hearing a voice, Toya knew what the Heart of Time was asking. He felt a sense of calm wash his anger away and he pulled his gaze from the statue to look back down at the dying child in his arms.

“If that’s what it takes,” Toya whispered willing to sacrifice anything if only she would live. Her small body began to glow in sync with his and the soft blue light expanded around them. Lowering his lips to hers, Toya gave her his breath… sealing their fates as her heart kicked back into rhythm.

The water in her lungs evaporated as Kyoko inhaled the warming air and fought her way up from the drowning darkness that clung to her. Warmth, she was surrounded by it. She struggled to open her eyes remembering the angel she was trying to save.

Blinking the water from her dark lashes, she waited on the blinding blue light to die down. When it finally faded, she found herself in the arms of the angel and he was watching her. Feeling her lips tingling, she touched her fingertips to them in wonder.

Toya couldn’t take his eyes off her as she opened those emerald green eyes that glowed with warm curiosity and intelligence. He felt his chest constrict painfully when she smiled up at him. He felt the bleeding wound of it all as she innocently reached up and pressed her small fingers against her lips as if she could sense that he’d kissed her.

“What would make an angel cry?” Kyoko asked as she watched tears run trails down his cheeks.

Toya saw her smile start to fade and realized… he was crying. “I’m not,” he blinked back the tears and wiped his arm across his cheek. He had to wipe more tears away unable to stop them. “Just promise me you won't go back in the water until you learn how to swim.”

He could already feel himself disappearing from this world… but if she lived, he didn’t care.

Kyoko rose up in his arms and looked at the pond then back at him. “I forgot I couldn’t,” she whispered wondering how she could have forgotten such a thing.

Toya could see the glow of the statue over her shoulder and knew his time was running out. The Maiden’s hands had begun to glow brighter and in the distance, he could hear the monsters of his world trying to break through the rift. The barrier between worlds was always the weakest where Kyoko could be found.

Without warning, he reached out and pulled Kyoko into a tight embrace already missing her. Rubbing his cheek against her auburn hair, his voice shook as he whispered, “I have to return to the other side and keep the demons from coming here.”

“You sound like Grandpa… he knows all about the demons,” Kyoko said pressing her ear against his chest so she could listen to his heartbeat. She slid one of her arms around his back and wondered why she couldn't feel his wings even though she knew they were there.

Glancing back down at her innocence, he cupped her chin and turned those stunning emerald eyes up to his. “Do not fear the demons Kyoko… you have the power to send them out of this world.” With that confession, Toya glanced toward the maiden statue. He could feel the demons coming through the Heart of Time at a dangerously rapid pace.

Setting her on the grass, Toya stood up and moved toward the statue, drawing his twin daggers as he went. “And I am not an angel… I am your guardian. My name is Toya.”

Still kneeling in the grass, Kyoko leaned forward watching as he entered the shrine house and it lit up in a blue mist. She screamed when a set of arms suddenly reached out of the light and gripped the angel then several more demons emerged around him. As her scream and the angel’s roar rang out in the night, the light from the statue started imploding backwards as if being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner

Kyoko could hear the back door of the house slam but she couldn’t take her eyes off the angel and demons. Stumbling to her feet, she took off running toward the open doorway of the shrine house. She could hear her grandfather and brother screaming her name but it was Tasuki that was closing in on her.

Just as she reached out to grip the angel’s hand, Tasuki’s arms went around her, hauling her into the air a second too late. When Kyoko’s index finger barely brushed the outstretched hands of the statue, it caused large beams of light to erupt from the exact spot she had touched. To Tasuki, it looked as though a barrel of Fourth of July fireworks had just been set off right in their face.

One of those beams of light hit the left side of Tasuki’s chest making the twelve year old wince in surprise. Instead of pain from the impact, he felt the sensation of something rushing in to fill him up… like he’d been missing something all his life and it had finally come home.

His eyes widened when he saw a beautiful ribbon of florescent blue light still connecting the hands of the statue to Kyoko’s fingertips as though it were trying to keep them linked together. Tasuki blinked when, for a split second, he saw a beautiful crystal spinning around inside the ribbon. Wanting Kyoko away from it, he stumbled backwards with her held tightly in his arms.

The crystal spun faster and faster until it exploded, sending more shards of light straight up this time and out across the city… looking like a beautiful starburst in the dark night.

Tasuki breathed heavily. When he had snuck back to his bedroom window, he’d seen the strange man with Kyoko in his arms and panicked seeing that she was limp. He wasn’t sure what that man had done to her but he’d felt satisfaction when that light had sucked him up and taken those red eyed demons with him.

“The angel needs our help,” Kyoko screamed trying to wiggle loose from Tasuki but he was too strong. Seeing her grandpa step in between her and the statue, she cried out not understanding, “There are demons inside that statue and they’re going to hurt him. You fight demons… go help him… please!”

Leaning back against Tasuki, she sobbed when she saw that fearful expression once again cross her grandpa’s face, except this time it was much worse. “You can’t… help him?”

Grandpa Hogo turned around and looked inside the shrine. The barrier scrolls he’d placed all over the inside of the small structure were still smoldering, now mostly ash. Backing out of the shrine, he glanced at the young boy that was holding his granddaughter and felt chills crawl up his spine. Tasuki’s eyes were normally a soft brown… not the angry amethyst he was now using to glare at the statue.

His blood had ran colder than ice when he’d witnessed the connection Kyoko made with the Maiden Statue and Grandpa knew their time had finally run out. The appearance of the crystal was bad enough, but seeing it shatter like that filled him with dread. He also hadn't missed the fact that a piece of the crystal had slammed into young Tasuki’s chest.

“The scrolls were right,” he whispered hoarsely, wishing it had been a lie.

Grandpa Hogo lifted his eyes skyward and sent a silent prayer to whatever deity was listening to guide him. He needed to get the children away from here and, more importantly… he needed to get Kyoko away from Tasuki. Without meaning too, that boy would lead the demons right to Kyoko, and the guardians of the crystal would soon follow.

Tasuki flinched when Kyoko was pulled out of his arms. He turned his amethyst gaze on the one that had taken her from him… her grandfather. He really shouldn’t be gripping her shoulders like that.

“Tasuki, you shouldn’t be out here after dark. If you don’t want me waking your father, then I’d advise you to go home. Now,” Grandpa Hogo demanded in a harsh voice. He shoved Kyoko into Tama’s waiting arms and turned on the two grandchildren that had been left in his care.

Tasuki stared at Kyoko, watching as she buried her face in Tama’s chest and continued to cry for the angel that she was sure had been killed by the demons.

“Kyoko, I’ll be waiting to walk you to school in the morning,” Tasuki stated and sent one last glare at the shrine before heading back toward his own home.

Grandpa Hogo waited until Tasuki crawled back through his bedroom window. He took a deep breath knowing he was going to be in for a severe tongue lashing once his grandchildren understood what they were about to do.

“Pack up kids… we are leaving within the hour,” He instructed.

*****

Present day… PIT Headquarters, the Castle.

Storm leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts about the guardians. The legend behind the original guardians told of a strange love story that was paradoxical in nature.

He had become curious after finding the strange legend and traced it back to a powerful crystal known as the Guardian Heart Crystal. That alone had been no easy feat seeing as how the legend would be written on paper or carved into a stone one minute and gone the next, leaving no proof that it had ever even existed. It was an enigma even to a Time Walker.

The oldest legend he’d found on the dimensional crystal told the story of guardian twins, two immortals that protected all of the human parallel worlds from overlapping into the demon realm. These two powerful immortals had fallen in love with a human girl that had come through a tear between the dimensions with the help of a crystal her father had created.

The two guardians had fought over her, almost destroying the seal they were supposed to be protecting.

One of the twins had sought to end the dangerous conflict by taking the paradoxical crystal and merging it with the girl’s soul along with a statue he’d created of her that was made out of the fabric that separated all dimensions. He thought that by merging the three, she would appear in every parallel world they protected.

He had intended to then shove his twin brother into one of those parallel worlds and seal it off from the demon world so that they could both have her. Things didn’t go as planned though. When the girl, the statue, and the crystal had merged, she’d suddenly disappeared from the demon realm and the rip was once again sealed.

When the other brother found out what his twin had done to separate them from the girl, he’d flown into a jealous rage and killed his brother, shattering both of their souls. Because they were immortal and can never truly die, the souls reformed and five new guardians had stepped forward still feeling the pull of the girl who now existed in all parallel worlds.

He looked up at the ceiling knowing those were the same five guardians that had taken residence on the third floor of the castle.

The riddle was hard for Storm to understand, because not only did the crystal shift space and time… it also shifted dimensions. He’d learned a long time ago to just stay out of things that were beyond a Time Walker’s ability to manipulate. With the demons invading LA and his powers already on the fritz, it wasn’t the best time for him to be pressing his luck unless he wanted to wind up in a parallel world with no way back to this one.

Nope… the guardians were on their own.

Chapter 2

Tasuki’s mood hadn’t improved much since returning to the station. All the way here, he could hear other officers over the radio reporting in on demon sightings. It kept reminding him of the first time he had ever seen a demon… the same night Kyoko disappeared.

He touched the place on his side where the light had entered him that night and frowned in remembrance of his fear and disappointment when he found the Hogo family gone the next morning. He’d showed up to walk Kyoko to school like he had promised, only to find the house abandoned.

It was something that had haunted him for a long time and he still hadn’t gotten over it. Hell, he still had Kyoko’s birthday present. It was a small golden promise ring that his grandmother Mrs. Tully had helped him pick out.