Chapter Twenty-One

Tatsuya ran back out through the archway as quickly as he could, trying not to look back to see if Ember was still hot on his tail or not.
“Oh my goodness,” Maddy gasped when she saw the burn on Tatsuya’s skin. “What in the world… Tatsuya, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Tatsuya said, trying not to wince in pain from the burn which still stung on his skin. “Don’t worry about me.”
“The pendant?” Kaida asked. “Did she end up giving it to you? What happened?”
Tatsuya frowned and shook his head. “I wasn’t able to get it,” he said sadly. “And nothing really happened. I talked to her a lot. She told me about herself. And then I tried to convince her to give me the pendant. I explained the situation and everything, but she still refused. And then she did this—” he jerked his head towards his shoulder “—and she told me to leave, and so I left. I couldn’t do anything else without burning in the flames of hell in there. I’m sorry, Kaida.”
“It’s okay,” Kaida sighed, disappointed at Tatsuya’s failure. “I guess I couldn’t really expect too much from Ember. She is going to guard that thing until someone ends up killing her.”
Tatsuya looked back into the archway. He couldn’t see anything because all of the flames had been put out. “What happened to her?”
“She probably expected that you left,” Kaida said. “And she assumed you were smart enough to leave and not try to go in there again.”
“She’s kind of freaking scary,” Tatsuya said. He sighed. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“No, it didn’t,” Maddy said quietly. “And after all that I heard, I thought that this was really going to work and save Darren.”
“And stop that maniac who killed my father,” Tatsuya added.
“I thought it would work, too,” Kaida said, her voice flat and serious. “But that Ember is always a complication, a slight blemish in all things pure. There is nothing I can do about her.”
“We’ll just have to go home now,” Tatsuya said. “I don’t want my mom or sister noticing anything like me being gone or something. And I don’t want them to think I’ve killed myself. So let’s just hurry back before anything happens.”
“I agree,” Maddy said. “And we can try to think of something else before anything happens. I mean, there has got to be another way to fix this.”
Kaida shrugged. “I agree that we should just leave now,” she said, looking back at the archway. “There’s nothing more we can do here. Not while that psychopath is still alive. She will burn everything down to the ground if it means protecting that pendant piece. There is no longer a point to staying here.”
Kaida turned back into her dragon form, which didn’t frighten Tatsuya as much as it did the first time. The tone in Kaida’s eyes seemed much softer, and much more mellow than it had before. Tatsuya climbed up on her back, helped Maddy up, and once they were both secure, they took off.
Tatsuya noticed that the ride back home felt a lot longer than the flight to the shrine. There had been many depressing thoughts going through Tatsuya’s mind, all of which were reminded to him whenever he looked at his shoulder. He felt like a complete failure, like a big disappointment.
Kaida helped Tatsuya get back into his room without being heard through means of climbing the tree and getting back in through the window again. He had noticed that no one had tried to enter his room, and no one had even noticed he was gone, which was perfect. He quickly changed his clothes to hide the mark on his shoulder, and sat back down on the bed with Maddy and Kaida as if nothing had happened.
“I think I’m okay when it comes into terms of my mom and my sister,” Tatsuya said to the two girls in his room. “So now I know I can totally go to an undiscovered part of Japan and come back home in time for dinner. Thanks for that, Kaida.”
Kaida pursed her lips, and looked away awkwardly from Tatsuya’s gaze.
“How is your shoulder?” Maddy asked.
“It’s feeling a lot better,” Tatsuya said, trying not to turn around to look at the nasty burn. “Can you see it at all? I don’t want anyone to notice it’s there.”
Maddy shook her head. “You’re going to have to get a new jacket, though.”
Tatsuya chuckled.
“I-I can’t think of anything,” Kaida said, more to herself than anyone else. “I have no idea what to do. There is nothing left. We are done.”
“Kaida, what are you talking about?” Tatsuya asked, keeping his voice steady with all of his might.
“There is no hope left,” she continued to speak, completely ignoring everything Tatsuya was saying. “That’s it.”
“You can’t honestly be saying that, Kaida,” Maddy said quietly. “I mean… think about Darren. Think about his life. He is DYING right now, and you’re just going to give up hope? You can’t let that happen, Kaida, you’re the only one who can help him now!”
“Yeah,” Tatsuya said, raising his voice as he spoke. “And what about that Lance guy? Let me tell you, as soon as I found out about him and that he was the one who killed my father, I’ve just been feeling so… so… I’ve been feeling so angry and frustrated and… so freaked out that I can’t even think up of adjectives right now.” Tatsuya swore loudly under his breath. “I want to see that guy die. I want to take away his life the way he took away my father’s, the way he took away the lives of my entire family. He ruined us, and I want him to suffer for that.”
“Calm down, Tatsuya,” Maddy said, putting her hand on his arm, being extremely cautious not to touch his burn. “I know you’re really angry about this, but there has to be some way to avenge your father’s death. I know there has to be some way, any way, it can’t be completely impossible.”
“Yeah, but it’s not only about my father,” Tatsuya said. “I mean, if this guy is able to get this power, he might become all mighty dictator of the world or something horrible like that. I don’t think any of us want that sort of a person to be ruling us all.”
“The thing is, though,” Maddy started, “the whole plan of obtaining the pendant solved all the problems. It would help Darren, and stop this crazy person who is trying to take over everyone. It was a good plan, but it just didn’t work because we couldn’t get the pendant.”
“What’s your point?” Tatsuya asked, slightly agitated at the constant reminders of his failure.
“My point is that whatever we come up with now isn’t going to solve all of the problems we have,” she said matter-of-factly. “I mean, if we find something to help Darren, then it might help him, but it’s not going to do anything about that Lance guy. And if we find a way to stop the lance guy, well, there’s not going to be any way to save Darren’s life.”
“That is what I’m trying to say,” Kaida said, finally looking up at Maddy and Tatsuya. “There is no other way. Nothing left, no hope at all. We are done. The only way anything good can happen is if we just do nothing and watch and pray that something happens.”
Tatsuya stood up. “We’re not about to give up like that,” he said firmly. “I made a promise that I was going to fix everything, and that nothing bad would happen, and that everyone was going to be fine. I’m not about to just break that promise.”
“You should have known better,” Kaida said. “It never is good to make promises you aren’t guaranteed to keep.”
“I know that,” Tatsuya snapped at her. “It’s not a promise I’m going to break. I’m going to keep this promise, even if I have to die in the process.”
“I agree,” Maddy said, now standing up as well. “I don’t think we should give up yet. I mean, there has to be some way to fix all of this. There has to be another way, something we haven’t thought of yet. I bet it’s right in front of our faces, and we’re just not looking close enough. Come on, we’ve got to think of something.”
“There is nothing left we can do,” Kaida said, more harshly this time. “How many times do I have to repeat myself? Obtaining the pendant piece was the only way to fix all of this. There is no possible way to accomplish our goals. It is over, Tatsuya and Maddy.”
“Kaida, I don’t care if you can’t think of any other way,” Maddy said. “I’m not about to give up.”
Tatsuya sat back down. “I don’t know. Maybe Kaida is right. I mean, she knows more about this than anyone else, and if she says there’s nothing left, then… well, there has to be nothing left.”
“How can you say that, Tatsuya?” Maddy said, almost crying. “Don’t you care about Darren’s life at all?”
Someone knocked on Tatsuya’s bedroom door.
“It’s locked from the outside,” he said. “You can come on in.”
Kimi poked her head in, barely opening the door.
“Hey, Kimi, did you need something?” he asked.
Kimi looked around the room before meeting with Tatsuya’s eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Mom and I are going out. She says that she knows it’s getting late, but she wants your two friends to stay over until we get back just to make sure you don’t… do anything that she would approve of.”
“I don’t mind staying,” Kaida said.
Maddy shrugged. “I’ll stay.”
“Okay,” Kimi said with a straight face. “I’m keeping your bedroom door unlocked. Your friends don’t deserve to be locked up in a cramped up space with you.”
Tatsuya chuckled, unsure if what she said was a joke or not.
“Bye, Tatsuya,” she said.
“Bye, Kimi,” he said back as she shut the door.
Maddy sighed. “I can’t believe we’re just going to give up.”
“I would like to see you coming up with ideas,” Kaida said. “And once you realize there’s nothing left for us to do, then maybe you will stop going on and on about just giving up. For the record, we are not just giving up. We tried. We tried with great intentions and difficulty. But we failed.”
Tatsuya’s burn began to sting.
“And since we have failed,” Kaida continued, “there is nothing more we can do.”
Maddy frowned, and kept quiet after that. The silence filled the room for a few hours, or at least if felt like hours, maybe even days.
“This is insane,” Tatsuya finally said. “This all honestly can’t be real. It just has to be a bad dream.”
“Tatsuya…” Maddy said quietly.
“I mean, I’ve got Madison Anabel Fisher, dragons, flying around, ex-fairies… this all can’t be real, can it?”
“This is as unreal to you as it is to me,” Maddy said. “But if we just keep pressing on, I know we can make it through. Believe it or not, after all of this has happened to me, I consider you one of my best friends, Tatsuya. We can’t give in just yet.”
Tatsuya nodded at her. “Yeah.” He stood up, and opened his room door. “I’m so sick of being stuck in my room all the time. I’m going downstairs.”
He exited the room, being careful to not close the door out of habit because his guests were still there with him.
He took two footsteps down the staircase, and someone knocked on his front door.