The Middle Realm

The numbness in Rin's limbs disappeared, being replaced by an ungodly amount of pain in the chest, but there was something weird. The pain was diminishing, but he wasn't losing consciousness as before. In fact, he hadn't felt more awake.

"What is happening?" looking up, he saw the woman with her wing still impaled in him, but her look of superiority and mockery had disappeared. It was replaced by shock and a hint of fear. He took a closer look at the wing. It was pitch-black, and it's feathers consisted of hundreds of knives. The strange thing was, said knives were slowly becoming lighter and lighter in color, before eventually disappearing and becoming golden dust, that was absorbed by his body, now glowing a slight golden color. "Huh?" the golden dust, leaking from the feathers was slowly filling up the hole left by the wing, and the book was nowhere to be seen.

"What's happening? How are you doing that?" She was trying to pull back, but the wing seemed stuck, unable to move even just a little bit. At the same time, he heard the same voice as before.

"I'm able to exert just a little of my power, but it should be enough to finish the job here" he suddenly felt his mind clear. He stretched out my arm and golden dust gathered. I exhaled and swung once at the base of the wing. It made a hissing sound as it met the blade, then separated with a scream that made my heart tremble a little.

"AAAAAHHH! YOU! I WILL KILL YOU!" with a pained expression on her face, the woman stood up and looked at him, her pupils consuming her eyeballs and becoming as dark as the sky, a flame burning in them. Meanwhile the wing that was cut off completely evaporated and melted into his body. Meeting the woman's gaze he jumped forward, the sword meeting her other wing and producing sparks. She was becoming more and more like a hound, her jaw extending and fur growing all over her body, even her remaining wing gained a bit of fur. She howled upwards and jumped him. He put his sword up, ready to meet her, however she jumped to the side and instead clawed at his side. He barely blocked thanks to the enhanced senses. The attacks kept coming, each one fiercer than the last, her appearance becoming wilder and wilder, until she had become a giant wolf with the blackest fur one had ever seen. Something was telling him to get ready, and even if he didn't know what exactly it wanted him to be ready for, he assumed a stance, which was weird, since he had never practiced swordsmanship or anything of the kind. All of these questions were meaningless however in the situation he was in right now.

A sudden howl was heard from the sky, and a blood rain started pouring down. Anywhere these droplets, a small hole was created. He raised my sword above and tried to take cover from the rain. The air around froze as he realized that by doing this, he had made himself open to an attack, which was exploited by the woman-wolf, or whoever she was. Mustering up all his strength in his legs, he tried to escape, however an alien, yet somehow familiar power from within somehow redirected it in his back. Even before realizing what actually happened, he was hovering in the air, a pair of marble-like white wings emerging, emanating a soothing golden light.

"T-this, this is the mark of-" A glimpse of fear and rationality flashed through the beast's eyes, focused somewhere in the space above him. "N-no no no... aaaaghh" her pupils returned their mad look and she jumped at him again. The same force washed over him, and his friends and their demise came to his mind. With a deep breath he pointed the blade at the beast and, guided by the power, he shot at her, whistling through the air, before slashing from her left shoulder down to her right hip, or the equivalent anyway. Black blood shot out of the cut and covered him like before, some of it even getting in his mouth, which inadvertently caused him to swallow it, before coughing a couple of times. 

"Don't think this is... this is the end. I will come back and I will have my revenge." Even if she said that, her body was slowly falling apart, layer by layer disintegrating in a black dust, until only a red flame remained. Rin didn't know what made him do it, but he slowly went to the flame, extending his fingers. Just as he touched it though, the flame engulfed his arm, rapidly spreading throughout his body, until it consumed it all. He fell to the ground crying out in pain. It wasn't just burning his body, he felt his life being burned, like in just a couple of more moments he would fall to the ground, no soul in a body charred by the fire.

"This will be troublesome, this soul flame needs taming, after this however, I will return to deep sleep. We will meet again, but it won't be soon. Use my power wisely." The voice in his consciousness seemingly suppressed the fire in the soul a bit, and Rin could breathe a sigh of relief. A golden light engulfed his physical body, pushing the flame inside it. Strangely, that didn't hurt him as much as he thought, and the burn marks he received just now had already started to heal and he felt his body strengthen. His wings also started to change color, becoming dimmer and dimmer until their color resembled the one on owls. He looked around, and the streets and sky had returned back to normal, however the bodies of his friends were nowhere to be seen. In their place were two thin golden strings, going up. After the voice had disappeared, he couldn't maintain his consciousness awake anymore and dropped to the ground.

***

Rin was in a hospital room in the middle of the night. There was a vase with a couple of flowers as well as some "Get Well Soon" cards on the nightstand. He stood up and looked around. There was no one else in the room with him, yet he felt uneasy, as if he was being watched by someone. He noticed a button nearby to call a nurse and pressed it. Soon a young, maybe twenty year old woman came in, carrying a tray with some water and bread.

"How long have I been here?" Rin turned to the nurse while drinking the water

"A couple of days, as far as I know, a person found you unconscious on the street and called an ambulance. We have already informed your mother that you are awake, and she should be here in half an hour at most. Please rest and call on me if you need anything else." She smiled and got up from the chair nearby, leaving Rin with his own thoughts. She didn't mention anyone else being found around the scene, and a stranger had called him in. That meant that the events he experienced really happened. He shuttered at the thought that his best friends were really gone, but the stuff that happened was still too far-fetched to have actually happened. He opened up his arm a little and tried to summon the same golden dust as before, but the one that came out was a bit dimmer and some of it was black, rather than golden. Still, it came as confirmation that whatever had happened with that book was real, even if he didn't want it to be real.

"Are you still up?" As he was thinking over these things, Rin's mother came in the hospital room. She was a bit shorter than him, and even at 37 years old, she was a bit petite and youthful. Her hair was raven, a bit lighter than his, and was messy, since she had woken up not too long ago. "I heard from the doctors they found you passed out, what happened? And where are Minato and Kurou?" While Rin hadn't really expressed any emotion in the moment, when he heard the two names those moments flashed before his eyes, and now without the shock and the voice to suppress it, he finally cracked and started crying in his mother's embrace. His mind kept replaying the events for a while, still in her arms, before he finally stood up and looked at his mom, still a bit teary-eyed.

"I couldn't do anything. They went just like that, and she was just standing there, smiling while doing it." This startled her a bit, and she grabbed Rin's shoulders.

"Rin, what happened? Who is this woman you speak of? Tell me." She was a bit nervous, but tried not to show it on her face.

"She had wings of knives, and I just stood there while she murdered them both in front of my eyes." When Rin said that, something inside him shook, as if to disagree with him. He didn't really notice it however.

"Did she come from somewhere? Did she take the book? Please, tell me. It's important" Her expression looked more and more pale as she asked these questions, hoping that he wouldn't confirm them.

"S-she said she felt some kind of e-energy." Rin was still shook by the trauma, so he stuttered a bit. "T-the book disappeared"

"But how did it disapp- Wait, don't go back to sleep!" while she was asking her questions, Rin's mind finally gave in and lost consciousness once again, falling on the bed.

"Guess we'll talk when you're dismissed." She stood up and smiled at him, before tucking him in and leaving the hospital to return home.