Chapter Fourteen

“Wait, what?” Tatsuya exclaimed. “What do you mean? Are you telling me you wanted me to die?”
Kaida sighed, but nodded. “I feel bad for saying it, but yes, I was hoping your suicide attempt would be successful.”
“Why?” Tatsuya exclaimed.
“Well, it’s a bit complicated. But if you had killed yourself, my power would be free.”
“So you’re doing this all for yourself?” he said. “Because you wouldn’t be under my control anymore or something?”
“No, not at all. Tatsuya, this is incredibly hard to explain. But I don’t hate you or anything, and I’m not selfish. You just have to understand why it would be better if—”
“Well it would be better if I had just killed myself?” Tatsuya snapped.
“Would you mind just LISTENING to me, Tatsuya?” Kaida snapped. “I’m not selfish, and I’m not trying to kill you, I’m just thinking about it in a long-term sense!”
“Yeah, because you’re a dragon. You’re probably like, what, thousands of years old?”
“Tatsuya, just shut up!” Kaida said. “I can’t use any of my power in my human form, but if I want to change into my true form I could very well break down this entire building, killing ALL of these people. I’m sure you don’t want that, so keep your mouth shut and let me explain.”
Tatsuya began to feel slightly intimidated by Kaida, so he folded his hands and kept quiet.
“Thank you,” she said. “Let me just explain from the beginning. I’ve told you this before, but just to refresh your memory, I’ll explain it again. There are two ways to obtain the power of a dragon. One is to be born with it, which is how you got it, and the second way is to steal it. And there are two ways to steal a dragon’s power. One way is to steal their talisman, and the other is to kill the person who is the last in the line who was born with the power.
“It is extremely difficult to steal a dragon’s talisman. Usually it is placed in a shrine of some sort. The shrine is there to protect the talisman and to charge it.”
“Charge it?” Tatsuya asked.
“Yes. It’s kind of like… like an iPod or something. If it’s away from the shrine for too long, then the magic sort of drains like a battery.”
“Oh,” Tatsuya said. “I didn’t know magic worked like that.”
“Well, it does. Anyway,” Kaida continued, “just think about the things I’ve said for a moment.”
Tatsuya had no idea what she was talking about, but he tried to think about it. If he had killed himself, then where would the ability to control Kaida go? What would happen to all of that power, the power to kill people by just rejecting them? Would it just disappear? That would actually be a good thing, Tatsuya thought. Because then no one would have that incredible power, and no one would unnecessarily die.
“You’re trying to make it go away,” Tatsuya said. “Your freedom is just a bonus, but if no one is able to control your power, then no one will die from it.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“The power will never fall into the wrong hands,” Tatsuya said. “Because if someone evil were to obtain the power, they could just kill anyone they’d want. They would be incredibly lonely, though, but they would still be able to kill people easily.”
“That’s it. You’re catching on. Keep thinking about it.”
Tatsuya looked down. He didn’t know what sort of revelation he was supposed to have. “But I just don’t get it. It’s not like there’s an evil person trying to steal my power or something. They would’ve killed me a long time ago.”
“Of course. Because to obtain the power one must kill the person who has the power who is also the last generation of that family.”
“Yeah,” Tatsuya said. “So I’d be dead a long time ago, right?”
Kaida sighed. “Yes, but just think about this. What if the person who is trying to steal the power didn’t know you existed? What if they just didn’t have the right information, and didn’t know you were born?”
It took a while for the words to process in Tatsuya’s head. “If they didn’t know I existed…” he said slowly. “If they didn’t know that I was in the last generation of my family, then…” Tatsuya’s eyes widened. Kaida smiled because she knew he finally understood.
“If they didn’t know that you were the last in your family’s generation, then…?” Kaida said, waiting for Tatsuya to finish her sentence.
“Then they would think that someone from the last generation was the last generation,” Tatsuya said. “And they would try to kill one of them.”
“Correct,” Kaida said.
“And… my father,” Tatsuya gasped. “My father was killed when I was five.”
Kaida simply nodded once.
“Oh my God,” Tatsuya said. “It… it kind of makes sense if you think about it.”
Kaida nodded again.
“So the person who killed my father wants the power,” Tatsuya said slowly. “And he never knew that me or my sister was born, so he thought my father was the last one, so he killed him.”
“Yes,” Kaida said bluntly.
“This evil guy wants to control the power to kill people,” Tatsuya said.
“Oh, he wants much more than just that,” Kaida said. “He wants the power of me and my three brothers. He wants to control us all. He wants complete power, complete domination.”
Tatsuya swore under his breath. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“He calls himself Lance,” Kaida said. “I don’t know if that’s his actual name, or what his real identity is, but that’s what he calls himself.”
“How do you know about this guy?”
Kaida scoffed. She seemed to find Tatsuya’s panicy state quite amusing. “Tatsuya, I know about everything. I’ve been watching over you, and before that I watched over your father, and before that your grandfather, and I even watched over Drake Gray. All those journal entries you read, I practically saw him writing them.”
“That’s actually really freaky,” Tatsuya said, trying to shake the thoughts of his ancient stalker out of his head. “But whatever. Just please tell me more about this Lance character.”
“Well, he’s kind of insane,” Kaida said. “He wants total world domination.”
“How does he plan to get it?”
“When you have control of the four most magically powerful beings on this planet, it’s hard not to get complete control of everyone and everything.”
“But his plan failed,” Tatsuya said. “He wanted to get you by killing my father, but it didn’t work out because my sister and I were there. So he just failed, right?”
“Yes, he failed,” Kaida said. “But he hasn’t given up. He’s been trying to get the power by other methods.”
“What other methods?” Tatsuya asked.
“For one thing, he tried to kill the other people in the world who have the power that was given to them by my brothers,” she said. “But I think he wants to get me first.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he thinks I’m the weakest one,” she said, shrugging. “It’s possible he thinks I’m weak because I’m the youngest, or because I’m the only girl, or something along those lines.”
“That’s so stupid,” he said. “But why would he be only after you? It doesn’t make a difference, right? I mean, he’ll have to get all of you guys eventually.”
“If he has the power of one, it’ll be easier to obtain the others. For example, if he is able to get control of my brother, and uses him to battle me, it’ll be a lot easier to get to me while I’m weak. So if he gets me and puts me against my brother, I’ll weaken him, and he’ll be able to obtain his power with greater ease.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Tatsuya said. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just not an expert on dragons or anything.”
“Yes, I figured.”
“That just means I have more questions.”
Kaida sighed. Tatsuya figured that she was annoyed with the questions, but with Drake Gray’s journal coming to an end, Tatsuya had no where to turn to for this sort of information except for her.
“What more do you want to know?”
“When Maddy was in here, she was talking about how Darren was kind of getting better, but he was still ridiculously sick. So what’s going on with him right now?”
“Honestly, he isn’t looking too well,” Kaida said. “There is a slight possibility that he is strong enough to withstand the power, but I highly doubt it.”
Tatsuya groaned. He felt terrible because he was still responsible for killing someone, and currently in the process of killing someone.
“Isn’t there any way to reverse it before it’s too late?” Tatsuya asked. “Also, is there any way I can help to stop this crazed Lance guy?”
Kaida frowned and cocked her head to one side. “I’m not sure. I thought the only way to do both for sure would to make sure you killed yourself.”
“I don’t want to kill myself, though,” Tatsuya snapped. “Kimi was right, it’s such a cowardly thing to do, even if it is for a cause like this. There has to be some other way to reverse this stupid thing, or to stop that insane freak who killed my dad.”
Kaida frowned again. “I can sense the anger in your voice.”
“Well of course I’m angry,” Tatsuya snapped again. “We’re talking about the mother fucker who killed my father. I want to see that guy dead.”
“I never knew you could get so angry. It’s so out of your character,” Kaida said, her voice sounding almost sweet.
“I’ve never been this angry before,” Tatsuya said. “I mean, I’m finally obtaining information on how and why my father is dead.”
“Yes, understandable,” Kaida said.
“That guy is going to pay. Do you know how much shit my sister and I had to go through? Because of him, I practically had to raise her myself.”
“I know,” Kaida said simply.
“I mean, it’s because of this guy, this random, selfish guy who wants this magical power, that my father is dead. It wasn’t even my dad’s fault,” Tatsuya continued to rant, completely ignoring what Kaida was saying.
“I’ll try to find a way,” Kaida said softly. Tatsuya acted as if he didn’t hear her.
“This guy put my mother through so much pain, too,” Tatsuya said. “And I’m just talking about me and my sister and my mother. He still took my father’s life. He shot him in the head. Right in front of me. He didn’t even see me. He could’ve shot me there, too. He added so much to the worst day of my life. The day where I was finally alone. That must’ve been the day where I started to get my power. I was alone and my father died. Oh, that Lance guy is going to pay dearly.”
“Tatsuya, please listen to me for a minute,” Kaida said again, her voice still soft and sweet.
“What?” Tatsuya snapped.
“It’s going to be fine. We’ll help your friend Darren and we can get your revenge on Lance.”
“How? How are you going to fix this? If you could you would’ve already, right? Tell me, Kaida, what do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to find a way.”