180 Chapter 180
The screams and the clanging of weapons was so close to her as if she had been standing amidst a huge battle but not a soul could be seen when she finally found the courage within her to help the ones in need.
It was as if the dead were calling out to her from beyond the veil of death and were asking her to avenge. Her tears kept falling as she watched the pain and the horror that the blood red sky might have witnessed, felt the warmth of fresh blood that had mottled the walls that couldn\'t protect anyone from wind and rain any longer, heard the cacophony of voices that were now silent to the rest of the world, and felt the grief and sadness as if it was her own.
As she remained in stasis thinking about what was going to happen next, a blinding light tore apart the darkness that was an eternal component of this dreary place. The light blurred everything around her as the glare forced her to close the eyes once again that she had opened with all the courage she had in her.
In the blinding light, she saw people that she was familiar with but seemed to have forgotten for some period of time. She saw her parents who had raised her and had loved her looking at her as if they were in so much pain. She saw her friends looking lifeless, her whole family terrified as if something terrible was happening around them but the blinding light didn\'t let her catch sight of what it was that caused them such distress.
She scoured around blinded by light determined to find any sort of clue as to the reason behind the devastation. There seemed to be something obscured by the light but no matter how hard she tried she was unable to look past the glaring curtain.
For some reason the face looked really familiar but she could not quite place a finger on it. As she kept on staring at the blurry figure the image started to clear up and she finally caught the slightest glimpse of who she was. Anger coursed through her veins and the rightful wrath and the thirst for vengeance that had seeped inside her every cell, her very existence finally broke past all barriers and awakened her bloodlust and fury.
She screamed at the top of her lungs as if she wanted to gut that figure into pieces with her screams but the figure vanished into pieces as the scene around her started to crumble into pieces.
The whole world was falling apart just like the current state of her mind. The endless rage and the urge to kill were running rampant. Her flaring nostrils and her chest that was heaving up and down forcefully were the precursors to the bloody storm that was about to descend unto the world.
At some point she didn\'t want it all to go away because she still had a task to complete, a promise to keep and someone to kill. But the more she wanted to save the world from crumbling, the more it started to fall apart.
An unwilling and hoarse scream escaped her mouth that was already tired from all the screaming but the world that had been dyed in blood vanished into nothing and in its place was an abyss; a chasm so deep and endless that she couldn\'t even begin to perceive where it began and where it ended.
Consumed by her anger, she stepped into the darkness that seemed to be tangible from how potent it was. The next thing she knew, she was falling. The depth truly was unending and she experienced it first-hand.
She didn\'t know for how long she continued to fall before she finally felt something familiar and homely.
She opened her eyes with a jerk as if her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. Had someone been there with her, they would surely have freaked out at her crazy behaviour. She had been screaming in her sleep and had woken up in shock as if she had suffered from a horrific nightmare that had left her deeply scarred.
Shiranui was unable to believe that all that she had seen and all that she had experienced was only just a dream. It had felt so real as if she was reliving that horrific day all over again. She touched her face to make sure that this was real and not just the continuation of her dream. Her cheeks felt cold; as cold as the dead.
She was freezing but she didn\'t care at all. She just knew that this was reality. There was no one left to wipe away the tears that had been sneaking out of her eyes while she was asleep. She rubbed her eyes with enough force to scratch away her skin. The white and pale skin had turned blood red from the force she had applied to get rid of the tears that she found to be unsightly.
Shiranui felt that she didn\'t have the right to be pitiful. She didn\'t have the right to cry until she was successful in keeping her promise.
From the sound of the birds and the bright light that was invading the room through the window; she deduced that it was already morning of the next day. Even though the bright morning outside was nothing like the bloody world that she had seen in her dream, her mind was still focused on the dream.
She was refusing to come to terms with her nightmare and was still immersed in that dream as if that was her reality. She clung to it as desperately as possible because it was the purpose of her life. Everything else didn\'t matter at all.
As she found herself in the real world again, her eyes became lifeless as if she had lost her real self inside the bloody world and only a second rate copy of her managed to escape the world that was incapable of any sort of emotion or expression.
It had been so long since Shiranui had had such a nightmare. Previously there had been frequent occurrences which had been the reason why she had been so obsessed with becoming strong in order to never lose again to anyone. She had tried to forget everything so many times but the memories came traipsing back as if to taunt her and each time they did, it made her feel even more painful. It had happened so many times that she had already lost count of the number of times that she had tried to be normal again and had failed.
Since the tragic night was still as vivid to her as if it had happened just yesterday, she was unable to let go of it completely. When she tried to forget the incident somehow by indulging herself into other activities, she would always be haunted by nightmares that reminded her of her sorrowful past, the people she had lost and those she had been unable to avenge.
It was as if it was a reminder to her from her own subconscious telling her never to forget, never to forgive the ones responsible for that tragedy. It gave her a sense of purpose and a reason to live for in a life that was worse than hell for her. No matter how hard she tried to be happy and to forget everything to start a new life, it always dragged her back down to hell so she would suffer for the crime of surviving by herself.
She sat down and grabbed her knees while trying to hold back her tears all the while. She had somehow ended up remembering once again. She recalled her vow that she had made that day. It was a promise that had kept her from falling apart and becoming a weak person. It was a promise to never fail again in this life until she had completed the task that she was still living for. She had wanted to put all the unnecessary baggage aside but was unable to do it. Every time she did so, she would be haunted by the voices of all the ones she had lost. She knew that her world would only be silent after she was done exacting her revenge. Only then would she be able to let go of the pitiful life that she had been holding on to.
Shiranui sat like that for a long while before she was able to calm down slightly. The nightmare had affected her too deeply.
After a bucket full of silent tears and snuffed wails, Shiranui stood up with a practiced motion. It was as lifeless as that of a mechanical robot instead of a normal human being. Any individual would have felt uncomfortable after sitting in one place like that for such a long time but Shiranui seemed to have forgotten what comfort was or it might have been that she didn\'t think that this much discomfort was something that she had the right to complain about.
She dried off her tears with the sleeves of her night clothes and robotically took off her clothes to wash herself. She was feeling as if she had walked out of a river of blood and needed to cleanse herself of all the filth. She scrubbed herself clean like a crazy person so she could race out for the competition.
The second test was already underway and their school had somehow managed to reach the final four. As they had been matched with the Caesar High school, Shiranui had to be in top condition if she wanted to succeed.