Tsinko's Misfortune

Part 27: Fire

"Yo, Takahashi! Can I come over tonight?" someone asked a young Kazuhiro (4th grade) as they were leaving school. "Sorry, but I have a lot of homework to catch up on," Kazuhiro replied back.

"Aw man, I was totally hoping to play Demon Hero!" said someone else in response.

"Well, I'll see you guys tomorrow then," Kazuhiro told them as he started walking off in another direction.

Kazuhiro had a lot of friends back when he was in elementary school. Despite this, he didn't like school all that much. Every day he'd come home dreading the homework he'd have to complete. Today, however, he'd gotten extra homework due to being absent for a day, and that pretty much sealed the deal. He didn't want to put up with the constant stress anymore. For his grade, he did get quite a lot of homework, as his school was an costly one.

'I'm gonna take this book, and burn it!' He thought. 'That'll teach 'em!'

That night, Kazuhiro found a box of matches in one of his kitchen cupboards. He lit it, and was about to toss it onto all of his books that he had left in the middle of his living room. Seconds later, chances are he would regret his decisions.

"That should do it," Kazuhiro said triumphantly. The book was set aflame and it lit the entire room. Kazuhiro had waited for his parents to go shopping, meaning he was alone in the house. Before long, their wooden floor had caught fire along with the book.

"Crap!" Kazuhiro said, running into another room, searching for their fire extinguisher.

He managed to find it, but it was on a high shelf, too high for Kazuhiro to reach.

'I need to get out of here' Kazuhiro thought, but when he tried to leave, he had nowhere to go, as the hallway that lead to the exit had been enveloped in flames. Before long, Kazuhiro found himself trapped in his kitchen, with no windows in sight. Kazuhiro had nowhere to run, and the smoke was making it hard to breath, so he did what anyone else would've done: he closed his eyes, welcoming the end.

But strangely enough, it didn't.

Kazuhiro felt something pick him up, and by the time he opened his eyes, he was outside of his burning family home. A quick glance to his left revealed what appeared to be a ghostly feminine figure of some sort, which disappeared almost as fast as it appeared.

"Wh-what the hell is going on here?" Kazuhiro said, standing up and watching as his house was torn apart.

Later that night, Kazuhiro's parents had come home only to find that their house was missing. Kazuhiro lied that he didn't know the cause of the fire, and that he was playing outside when it happened. He still didn't know what had saved him, but one things for sure, it'd be something he'd never forget... or would he?

Several weeks later, Kazuhiro's family had moved into a house in another neighborhood due to them not being able to afford a new house in their original area, so as a result, Kazuhiro had to attend a new elementary school.

Once he started going to the aforementioned school, he didn't have much luck in finding any new friends. Most of the kids already had their own groups of friends, so Kazuhiro was all alone for the first few weeks of his time there.

This would soon change.

"Yuck, my mom packed me a bad lunch again," Kazuhiro complained to himself, he was sitting outside in the schoolyard.

'Well, I guess I have no choice but to eat it,' he thought.

At that moment, a ball came at him at full speed, hitting him right in the face and causing him to lose grip of his lunch box.

"Oh shit, I dropped my lunch!" Kazuhiro said.

"Oh my god, sorry!" someone said, approaching Kazuhiro. He looked up at who was talking to him. It appeared to be a girl who looked about his age. "I'm terrible at sports, I should've left this ball where I found it... But I was too tempted to kick it!" the girl admitted.

"Hey, it isn't that hard, watch this!" Kazuhiro said, taking the ball and kicking it into a nearby fence.

"Hey, you're pretty good! You think you could teach me?" the girl asked him.

"Sure, why not?" he replied.

"Cool! I'm Isaya Yoshizaki!" the girl told him.

"Oh, uh... I'm Kazuhiro Takahashi!" Kazuhiro said.

"Heh, that name sounds stupid" Isaya said, chuckling.

"Hey!" Kazuhiro said, annoyed, he was about give Isaya a good push, but instead tripped on his lunch, which was still on the ground, and fell backwards. At that point Isaya couldn't hold it in any longer, as she had burst out laughing.

"Pfffff... you idiot... B-Bakahashi," she said, still laughing.

"My name is Takahashi!" Kazuhiro pointed out.

"Well whatever, come on!" Isaya said, taking off into a run. Kazuhiro wasted no time in running after her. It seemed like he had finally made a friend (She seemed to be rather slow, as he managed to catch up to her rather quickly)

Then came a flash of white light. It was only there for a second. Kazuhiro noticed it, but didn't pay it much attention.

From that point on, Kazuhiro would forget about his past life in his old home, about the fire, about transferring, about everything. All his memories prior to the day he met Isaya were replaced with lies.

Back in the Vlivvech cave, Kazuhiro just stood in place as the memories came flooding back to him.

"Hey, you ok, man?" Satoshi had asked him, but was given no response. After a few minutes had past, Kazuhiro fell to the floor.

"H-hey! What's wrong?" Isaya said, worried.

"It may have been too much for him to take in at once" Sopheria told them.

"Well, let's not waste anymore time, do me next!" Satoshi said.

"Oh, uh, alright," Lucine said, turning to Satoshi and closing her eyes again.

A few seconds later, Lucine opened her eyes once again.

"Here... Why don't you take a look?" Lucine said, creating an image for everyone to see. What appeared was a grey van in the middle of a snowstorm. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Satoshi to remember everything.

"Oh... Oh shit" he said.