The Dream Shifter

Chapter 72

Out of the shadows the individual stepped with the light being cast on them covered in blood through their clothes and sprayed across their face. The sight made Fumiko's eyes widen in horror witnessing the cold empty expression of a killer that had become far too familiar with the company of death. She choked nearly throwing up from what she was seeing pulling away out of reflex regardless of who it was. Fumiko turned down to Yuki out of instinct thinking that he could do something, but it was still hopeless for him. "…Ayumi! What have you done?"

The cold eyes of Ayumi stepped free from the shadow still walking towards them. The coat of blood that she wore was completely ignored by her. "I did what had to be done to protect Yuki. I won't let anyone kill him and I'll become death itself for him if I must."

Fumiko jerked back hearing the words coming from Ayumi unable to believe what she was hearing from someone that she had only met recently. 'Is this really the same girl I saw before? She is completely different from then. I don't understand what's going on…' However, Ayumi's imposing fear inducing stance all washed away as her eyelids fell and her eyes faded to a pale green when her legs gave out dropping her unceremoniously to the ground rapidly pouring blood out into the grass. Fumiko could not think of her fear or questions anymore as she shouted in panic. "Ayumi!" She tried to run to her, but Yuki held her back and then she realized turning to him. "Hey! Ayumi needs your help! Hayashi! Snap out of it!" She slapped him across the cheek hoping that it would break through the wall that was between him and everything else.

A dull echo in Yuki's ears suddenly became a ringing and then clear as it was Fumiko screaming at him. He heard Ayumi's name being shouted and he looked over through the clearing seeing that both of the women were lying in the grass. The assassin was lying dead in the grass with several evenly placed s***h wounds across her body with a large pool of blood soaking into the ground. His eyes were back; he turned and he could see Ayumi bleeding out into the grass barely alive. "Ayumi!" he shouted feeling his entire body heighten and move on its own as he ran over to her side leaving Fumiko behind. "Ayumi! Don't die! Please! Ayumi!"

Fumiko followed behind Yuki when she saw that he no longer needed her help. She grabbed him by his shoulder seeing that he went from one extreme to the next, but still ignoring reality. "She's not dead yet, but she needs you to save her."

"Huh?" Yuki was acting slowly on what Fumiko was saying, but it eventually clicked with him that he needed to use his magic in order to save her. "Right! Healing!" He stretched out his hands staring down at Ayumi as he watched a green glow come up from the earth and surround Ayumi in thin ribbons of silk that began mending the wound that she had taken in her waist. It was taking longer than he remembered making him uneasy. When he looked closer it looked like the sword had gone halfway through entire body making him wonder how she was even able to keep standing. "Come on work…"

They watched the magic working keeping them on edge to know if it would be successful or too late. But Ayumi coughed and began moving as the green light continued to grow stronger. Ayumi's arms began to pull up as she tried to right herself even while the magic still worked on her. When she reached a seated position in the grass the light had almost faded away bringing relief to the others.

"Ayumi? How do you feel?"

"Better…" She waited until the magic had faded to stand up feeling the soreness in her muscles and mental fatigue starting to creep on her. It was a fight that she was not expecting to have to fight so soon. 'They're sending stronger ones sooner than I thought…'

"Should you be standing?" Fumiko asked a little concerned still that Ayumi was not ready to be moving around like she was.

Ayumi nodded to her looking over at Yuki like she had something on her mind. "His power healed me. All that's left is rest." She scanned the horizon still seeing the forest around them. After a moment of unclear pensiveness she turned back to Fumiko looking serious. "I need to you whack Yuki in the head."

"Huh?" Fumiko said stepping back becoming confused by her request. She could not see any possible need to do such a thing to him. 'Is she trying to kill him? But she said she wanted to protect him. What's going on?'

In the usual slowness of Yuki it took him longer to pick up on what Ayumi was getting at. When he did he looked over to Fumiko to reassure her that Ayumi was not being strange. "It's alright, Fumiko. It's normal at this point… Just hit me hard."

"What?! But why?"

"It's the only way to turn off my power."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Please! I'll explain afterwards." He looked at her with all the seriousness that he had shown to everyone when he asked them to do this. It never felt good for him, but until he could control his power it was the only fast way of turning it off, especially knowing that when it was on it usually affected a large part of the neighborhood. He had been lucky that it did not happen often, but he knew that people were starting to get a little suspicious. Most, as Ayumi had said before, just treated it like a dream and thought nothing more of it. People were more likely to forget something that they could not explain that was far too fantastical to be real than go around talking about it. The fear of looking like a crazy person to anyone else usually controlled their decisions, but if it happened too many more times he feared that people would ignore their fear of looking crazy.

Fumiko looked back and forth between the two of them. They were both looking completely serious and earnest about what they were asking her to do. Ayumi was hardly in the shape to be doing much physical leaving it on Fumiko to take the action. She did not like the thought of hitting someone, even though she defended people all of the time it never came to violence. 'I can't believe I'm actually going to do this…' She pulled her arm back not certain if she would be strong enough to do what she was asked, but put as much behind it as she could. "Forgive me…" She closed her eyes as her arm went flying hoping it would all work out.

"It's ok," said Yuki as she launched her fist at his face. The impact bounced his head around a little, but it went by otherwise unnoticed. Yuki looked around to see that the forest was still around them unchanged.

Fumiko opened her eyes looking at her hand still touching Yuki's cheek, but him looking a little disappointed. "I'm so sorry!"

"You need to hit me harder than that." Yuki sighed a little to himself trying to think of another way of doing this seeing that she probably did not have enough strength to knock him out or get anywhere close. But she went to hit him several more times with same effect all while keeping her eyes closed. 'This isn't working…' He started to move thinking that he had an idea when there was suddenly a shadow over his head giving him a sinking feeling that something bad was about to happen. Yuki turned his head towards what was casting the shadow to see a school bag flying through the air at him. "No! Wait!" Yuki flailed his arms at Fumiko trying to get her to stop, but it was already in motion and slammed in his face loudly sending him flying across the grass tumbling to a stop against the school that reappeared with the fading of Yuki's power.

"Oh no! I hit him too hard! Hayashi!" Fumiko ran over to him checking to see if he was still alive flailing her arm about at Yuki's lifeless body. "Hayashi! Stay alive! I'm so sorry!"

Yuki coughed and began moving revealing a large red mark on his face from where the bag hit him. "Ugh…I'm still alive, Fumiko…"

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, please forgive me!"

"It's alright!" Yuki stood up slowly pushing back on Fumiko a little let her know that he was fine and did not need help. He pressed his hand against his head feeling the soreness and cracking his neck feeling a little better. "What you got in that bag? Bricks?"

"Just all of my fantasy books I read and a textbook," she said showing him the contents of her bag.

"Woah, you must really like fantasy books." He could feel sweat dripping down his head looking at the sheer number of reading books.

"I love fantasy! What was that power of yours?" She leaned in on him with her eyes suddenly starting to sparkle with excitement.

Yuki leaned back a little feeling the sweat getting larger. "Well that's a little difficult to explain…"

"But you can do magic, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so…"

"That's so cool! I've always dreamed of being able to use magic. To be able to actually see it used…"

Yuki had been feeling cornered by Fumiko, but he suddenly felt the same excitement realizing that he had used magic. "Wait! I used magic! I can't believe it. That was so awesome!"

"What did it feel like?"

"It sort of felt like I was grabbing out into the ether itself controlling it and manipulating the energies."

"Oh wow! That's so amazing! And when you use that wind spell in combination with the lightning spell to knock off her feet."

"I know! It felt so amazing!"