Chapter Nine

Tatsuya waited impatiently for Kaida to come over to his house. He had woken up early because he just couldn’t seem to sleep. He waited, and then realized that he didn’t even know when Kaida was coming to his house. Just as he picked up the phone to call her, he heard a knock on his front door.
“Someone’s at the door,” Tatsuya’s grandfather said. He was sitting on the couch, watching TV, and he was slowly trying to get up to get the door.
“You can stay, grandpa,” Tatsuya said, running down the stairs. “It’s for me, anyway.”
Tatsuya opened the door, and Kaida was waiting there. Flashing her perfect smile, and scanning him with her cold eyes.
“Good afternoon, Tatsuya,” she said, letting herself in his house. “I’m really happy you invited me over.”
“I’m glad, too,” he said.
“Who is that, Tatsuya?” his grandfather called from the living room.
“Oh, um,” Tatsuya hesitated, and then he brought Kaida in to introduce her. “Grandpa, this is Kaida. Kaida, this is my grandfather.”
They shook hands.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gray.”
“You, too, Kaida,” he said. “You seem familiar to me. Do I know your grandparents or something?”
“Oh, I doubt it, sir,” she said.
“Okay. Well, if you kids need anything, I’m down here.”
“Grandpa, you can just leave us alone, okay?” Tatsuya didn’t know where the slight anger towards his grandfather was coming from. He just really wanted to get talking to Kaida about the strange events that were happening.
Tatsuya led Kaida upstairs and into his room.
“You must be Kaida,” Gina told her as soon as they entered.
Kaida’s eyes widened, and she gave Gina a death stare. “Tatsuya?” she said.
“Yes, Kaida?”
“Your computer just spoke to me.”
“You can bet your pretty little head I just spoke to you,” Gina said.
“Don’t worry about Gina,” Tatsuya said to Kaida. “She’s just this computer program I developed. She’s like a person. You can just ignore her.”
“No, you can’t just ignore me,” Gina said.
“Gina, please shut up,” Tatsuya said.
Gina didn’t respond, but Kaida still looked frightened at the odd technology.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Tatsuya said, closing and locking the door behind him. “Now I need a bit of information.”
“Oh, Tatsuya,” she said, toying with the pendant around her neck. “I can’t imagine what kind of information you would need to know.” She picked up the journal that was on his desk with her other hand. “I’m sure you have enough information.”
Tatsuya glared at her. “How do you know so much? Okay, first of all, when you introduce yourself to me, you somehow already know my name. Secondly, you have a strange fascination with Japanese folk tales. And now you already know what that journal is about. Who the hell are you?”
Kaida smiled, and Tatsuya tried his best not to be frightened. “Tatsuya Gray,” she sang, her voice swaying in the wind. “Oh, Tatsuya Gray.” She lightly held his shoulders, and guided him to sit on his bed. “The question isn’t who I am, it’s who you are, darling.”
“What are you talking about?” Tatsuya said, sitting down on his bed. “I know who I am! I’m just me! Who are you?”
“Like I said,” Kaida said, sitting down on Tatsuya’s lap. “My identity isn’t important.”
“I don’t care if your identity is important or not, I still want to know who you are,” he said. “And I want to know how you know so much information. And then I want you to share that information with me.”
She laughed. It was almost sinister. Tatsuya shivered.
“Oh, Tatsuya Gray,” she said again. She pushed on Tatsuya’s shoulder, with more force this time, to make him lie down on the bed. She leaned, and followed him down. She laughed again, and then fell silent, simply gazing into his eyes with her cold, black irises.
Tatsuya tried to say something, but found that his voice didn’t want to obey his brain. He simply swallowed the lump in his throat.
Kaida began to move her body like a snake as she smoothly moved herself on top of Tatsuya’s body. She pushed herself up and began to caress his neck.
At first, Tatsuya enjoyed this action. He put his hands on top of Kaida, and helped her move so that her movements felt better on top of him. And then he realized what he was doing. He sat up, which caused Kaida to practically fly off of him.
“What are you doing?” Tatsuya yelled.
Kaida smiled, but didn’t answer him.
“You need to stop this,” he said.
“Tatsuya, I think it’s best if we ask this girl to leave,” Gina interrupted.
Kaida glared at Tatsuya’s computer. She stood up, sauntered to it, and pulled the plug.
“Hey!” Tatsuya snapped. “That was uncalled for!”
“We need to finish this meeting uninterrupted,” she said, her voice low now. “And I can’t risk us being overheard, or recorded, or whatever it is this contraption can do these days.”
Tatsuya adjusted himself to make his body look as tall as possible. “Are you finally going to give me information?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how much of it you’re going to believe.”
“It doesn’t matter how much I believe,” he said. “As long as you’re being completely honest.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I’ll answer your first question. You wanted to know who I am.”
Kaida bit her lip, a bit hesitant in giving her answer.
Tatsuya raised his eyebrows. “Well?”
“I-I’m…” she stuttered. “I’m your guardian dragon.”
Tatsuya didn’t know how to respond at first, and then he managed to find his words. “Wait, what?”
“Allow me to explain what a guardian dragon is, first,” Kaida said. “I have three brothers. Each of us represent a season. For example, spring or summer. And the four of us have incredible power, especially when we’re together. Now—”
“Wait, you believe me to expect that you’re a dragon?” Tatsuya interrupted.
“Yes. I’m afraid I can do nothing to prove it to you right now, so you’ll just have to trust me and let me continue. Is that all right?”
“Fine,” Tatsuya said reluctantly. “Continue.”
“So the four of us together have incredible power. And there are two ways to control us, both of which I mentioned before.”
“You’re either born with it, or you steal it.”
“Correct. Being born with it is a bit self explanatory, but do you know how one steals the power of a dragon?”
Tatsuya shrugged.
“Well,” Kaida continued, “there are two ways. One way is to kill the last descendant of the family who has the power. And the other way is to steal the dragon’s talisman.” She pointed to the pendant around her neck. “My brothers have theirs in protected shrines, but I always keep mine with me.”
Tatsuya began to stare at the pendant around her neck. It was one fourth of a circle with a leave on it.
“The season you represent is fall,” he said, a statement instead of a question.
“Correct,” Kaida said. “My oldest brother is winter, then next is spring, third is summer, and then I’m last.”
“So you’re the youngest out of all of your brothers?”
“Yes.”
“Where are your brothers now?”
“They’re doing the same thing I’m doing. Protecting the one who has the power of said dragon.”
“But how come you’re—” Tatsuya started, but a gaze from Kaida’s eyes answered his unspoken question. “Me? You’re here to protect me?”
“That is correct.”
“But I don’t have any special power or anything!” Tatsuya exclaimed. “I can’t do anything, I’m just… me.”
“You almost killed Darren Morris,” she said. “You froze his heart.”
“Wait… what? I didn’t do anything to Darren!”
Kaida handed the journal of Drake Gray to Tatsuya. “I want you to read more of this journal. Out loud, if you please.”
Tatsuya hesitated, but took the journal from Kaida and flipped open to the page where he left off.

I have good news and bad news. I’ll start with the good news. Kelly is pregnant. With my child. I’m going to be a father. We were discussing what we should name our child. If she’s a girl, we’re naming her Lily, and if he’s a boy, we’re naming him Andy.
The bad news, though, is that I might never get to see my child. Kelly and I were discussing how the villagers were falling ill. How one after another was suddenly having heart problems, and falling ill, and suddenly dying. I know how it’s all happening.
There’s this thing, this mysterious power, that dragons possess. One of them, which controls the power of death, allows the owner of the power to kill whomever he or she chooses. Apparently, this power begins to show signs of existence if the owner has severe loneliness. It just so happens to describe me at the moment. The loneliness causes the owner’s heart to get cold. And when he or she decides to remain alone, he passes his frozen heart to whomever he leaves alone. This power is called the “Dragon’s Frozen Heart.”
This is what’s been happening to the villagers. They’ve been left alone, and because of that, they’re hearts are freezing and failing their bodies. I found all this information out from Kelly. She told me what Chie had told her, since I didn’t want to see anybody but Kelly. She told me this ancient legend, which was the missing piece in the puzzle. She told me how this all was possible, and because of the power of the dragons, and the treasure, and the expedition, and how all of these things tied together. She even told me who was responsible for these acts.
It was me.
I was killing all of these innocent people. I was the owner of the dragon’s power. I had the Dragon’s Frozen Heart. I couldn’t put Kelly at risk, not when she had the baby. I told her to leave, and to save the baby. I chose my words carefully so that I didn’t tell her to leave me alone. But I told her to stay far away from me, so I could sort this mess out, and she would be safe with the baby.
She hesitated a lot. She said she wanted to stay with me, and help the villagers, but I didn’t allow it. She couldn’t get hurt. Not when she was in this condition. I told her to go live in another part of Japan, and it took a long time to convince her, but she eventually recognized it was for the best.
I told her I would see her again, though. I told her that I would come back to her, and I would see my child, and that we could live together as a family. I do believe this is one promise I’m unsure if I can keep.