Grimoire - Vol 1. Revelation of Rakshas

26 - Asking Some Tough Questions

"What?!" I screamed. My stress rock fell on my toes and a short pang of pain travelled through my body for a brief moment.

"Well, not now," she defended herself. "I mean, we can't take you there just yet since we're still in the middle of a mission right now, so you know, don't worry about it for now."

"Oh trust me, I am worrying about it!"

They'll take me away? Just like that? Without my permission or consent?

What am I—a quest item?

She's literally saying she'll kidnap me. And this time officially. That too in some another fucking realm!

"Look, right now, your problem isn't us. It's the Rakshas," she continued as if my dead senses couldn't register the panicked look on my face. "You're still a big open target for them for some reason. And while the Ruh seems to love you and empower you, we also know you have no idea how to use that power to defend yourself. You're practically a giant target in this town that's screaming to be taken advantage of by some corrupted soul."

"So your solution is to rip me away from my life and take me to heaven?"

"No, you wouldn't be going to heaven, mostly because there is no heaven but also because of the mission thing." She said, stepping back once again to her previous spot, "Since we can't take you away and you can't defend yourself if you stay here, we decided to keep a watch over you. Be your guardians, if you. Temporarily, atleast. Just until our work here is done."

"No!" I said instantly. "Nah. Nope. I'm not doing that!"

"...which part?"

...She can't be serious. "For everything! No, I am not going to go with you to your realm of something—"

"Realm of inbetween."

"—and no, I do not need you to babysit me. I can take care of myself." In all honesty, I didn't really believe that. I can't take of myself against a street dog, let alone a giant monster.

But at the moment, anything that helped me get rid of her and her group, I'll do and say with no hesitation. I can't trust them. Not if that's their end plan with me.

I can't go with them. I can't be what they are.

Most of all, I can't leave my uncle all alone.

The Claw girl stared at me with a blank face for a few seconds then burst out into laughter. And when I say laughter, I mean the whole 'covering her mouth, tears from the eyes and clutching of her stomach' laugh. "I'm...I'm so-sorry. I just—" and then she laughed more.

I'm glad there's no one around us to witness her craziness...or not. I guess they couldn't her anyways so it wouldn't have mattered. But no, they could see me. Me who, from their viewpoint, was talking and screaming at the air.

Taking in a deep breath and getting herself in control, she began again, not losing her smirk, "I'm sorry but do you really think you can take care of yourself? You can't," She answered before I could. Sure, this you don't wait for me to guess the answer.

"Do you want me to remind you of yesterday's event? For which, by the way, you're welcome. We are the ones who took care of you. I was the one who healed you. So trust me when I say that, as you are now, you can't fight it off with even the lowest and weakest form of Rakshas."

Yes, I know she's right.

I managed to land a few hits on Quadro but they were purely on a fluke. Even now, I still have no idea how I did that.

On my way to the park today, in the morning when no one was around to see me, I tried to do the light thing again for about...a dozen times, probably, but nothing happened.

No gauntlets. No explosion of energy. No bending of light to my will.

The closest I got to was getting my fist covered in light. But even then, as soon as the hardened light left my fist, it dispersed into thin air like smoke.

With a skill level like that, it was true that I would not last even half a second against a Rakshas.

But, I am a prideful man. I may not have much of it, nonetheless, I try to hold on to as much as possible.

"I can take care of myself," I said, walking towards her all seriously. Intimidation technique 101: show them who the boss is by talking and walking slowly. Really get near them. Step into their personal space. Saw that on some show whose name I can't remember. Plus it also helps that I was slightly taller than her. "I don't need you or your magician friends to protect me. I don't need you to save me. And you can definitely forget about taking me to your little grim city."

I stared at her and she stared at me.

I don't know how long we kept at it. I think a couple of hours must have passed since we met at the bus stop.

Guess my plans of doing my homework on time will just be a pipe dream—not that I really cared. I'll just copy someone else's. I got three smart friends for that...and Kushal but he was pretty much in the same boat as me so kinda useless for that particular scenario.

...My academic image isn't really looking good to you all, huh. I swear I'm not like this every time. Sometimes, things like these just happen that get me out of the mood to do my tasks.

"So what's your plan when you encounter a Rakshas?" She asked with strong eye contact. This time there was no snicker on her face. No smirk. No sly smile of mockery. Just a hard question.

"Um..." Shit in a juice box. They didn't show this part in the show. Technically I know what my plan will be if I ever see a monster again. It's actually a very simple one—

"Run? That's what you will do right?" She answered her question before I could. She likes doing that huh.

And yeah, that was going to be my answer. I mean, stick to your strengths, right?

"I'm not insulting you or anything," she shrugged, "It's actually a fair choice. Logical one. "But what if that Rakshas was targeting someone else? Like that little girl yesterday? Will you still run? Or will you fight?"

"I..." I don't know. Or rather...I know what I would like to do but I also know what I'll end up doing. And I guess I just didn't want to admit that. Not to her. Or even to myself.

"I mean, we can help you with the latter," she said, "We can show you how to use your powers. I don't know what will happen to you once we take you to Aatmahal but chances are that you will be asked to attend the academy. Become a full Grimmer. A being that can help people and the world become safe. A being that could save the soul of that little girl. Don't you want that?"