Chapter 02: The Hollow Doll

Kazura tagged along with Miyasoto as they made their way to a lift in the mall. She explained that she was a Senior assistant in the medical department in the clinic at the highest floor. It was a small clinic, which can only house around 4 people at a time. She was in charge of the counter, packing the appropriate medicine for her patients. But secretly, she is the co-owner of the place, and many people come to her for cheap payments in health care.

The real owner was usually not seen, and taking care of his business outside of North City. As they approached the clinic, there was a beeline of patients. Kazura stared at the clock above the door, and realised it was 9 am, the typical time where people started to work.

"Oh dear, I am late." Miyasoto scurried to the door, and unlocked them. She handled it professionally, apologizing for being late and making them wait. Kazura decided to join the queue at the back as not to cut the line.

"Boy, what is your business with Lady Miyasoto?" A boy with blonde curly hair and blue eyes stared at Kazura with a thick British accent.

"Lady?" Kazura asked, as he tried not to burst into laughter.

"She is an important person to me. I do not condone anyone else being that close to her." The boy muttered under his tongue, diluting those words at the end. "I am Cavan Doll, the owner's son of this medical establishment. Who the hell are you? And why are your wrists bleeding-"

"Kazura, I will treat your wounds first!" Miyasoto called out to Kazura, which made Cavan rather shocked.

"I have to go, Cavan." Kazura teased him as he strided in high spirits towards Miyasoto. Cavan was angered by his sarcasm, but had no way to refute that.

"Y...you. I didn't give you permission to use my name!" Cavan yelled, as the people in line stared back at the commotion. He blushed and hung his head low, as he followed those two in.

"Lady Miya. Who is this black haired four eyes?" Cavan cried, as Miyasoto cross chopped his head. He sat down on the bed quietly as Miyasoto applied some ointment on Kazura's wounds. She then plastered them, and patted them down nicely. The way she did her job with such content made Kazura fill warm inside.

"Sorry about Cavan, he is just a noisy and uneducated brat." Miyasoto judged him rather unkindly without sugarcoating his attitude. Cavan wanted to argue back but retracted them from matching her description.

"Whatever." Cavan grumbled, looking at Kazura with envy. "There is something strange and unusual about you."

Kazura thought he was not acting accordingly as a human but a robot, and began to question whether he got something wrong. Miyasoto gave Cavan an annoyed stare, before standing up and heading outside.

"I've to start work now, so Cavan, maybe you could show Kazura around the mall." Miyasoto gave a devilish smile as she left them in awkward silence. It took them a few minutes before they headed out of the clinic together.

"Do you hate me or something?" Kazura asked, as soon as they stepped outside. Steam rose from Cavan's ears, embarrassed about being teased.

"Huh? I... It's not like I hate you. I just don't like others to be so close to her." Cavan explained his reasons, quickening his steps and putting his hands behind his head. "But there is really something weird about you."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Kazura asked, feeling rather irritated by his choice of words.

"It's just a gut feeling." Cavan said, suddenly stopping in his tracks. He placed his fist to his heart, and turned to face him. "I am not going into details but I feel like you would have an answer to my problems."

"Problems?" Kazura asked, as Cavan's expression faded to a frown. He knocked on his chest, and it echoed inside like it was made purely of wood. But clearly, he was just a normal human being on the outside. Yet he was hollow on the inside, which piqued Kazura's curiosity.

"Apparently, I was born like this. No doctor knew why I am like this, but an X-Ray scan showed that I had no organs. It is as if I am alive, yet dead on the inside." Cavan said, sitting down on a nearby bench. He sighed, and stared down at his feet. "I have no skeleton, no heart, not even a brain."

"That's impossible. You seem to be fine." Kazura cried, having an uneasy feeling that System had something to do with it.

"Do you believe in a previous life?" Cavan muttered suddenly, laughing pathetically by himself. "In my dreams, I felt like I was in a different place, and had different experiences. Funny, isn't it?"

"Did rearranging everyone's locations create some glitches in System?" Kazura thought as his heart pounded, having attached his emotions with the doll before him. Cavan leaned back and stared up at the dim lights, which glistened his eyes longing to be free from his despair.

"Why did Shiko even recreate this world? Was there a reason he feared that he found it necessary to do so?" Kazura thought. "If it is about society and its repercussions, what exactly happened in the old world?"

"Sorry for sharing my personal issues with you." Cavan said, getting up and dusting off his pride. "It doesn't physically affect me so you don't need to worry-"

"You don't need to fight alone, Cavan." Kazura said firmly, as Cavan noticed how serious he looked and started to laugh out loudly.

"You are taking it more seriously than me, you know?" Cavan continued to squeeze his stomach, chuckling in amusement. "But there is no one that can do anything to fix it. Unless God can give me an answer, a boy like you would be powerless."

"I am ... not someone as powerless as you would think." Kazura said, as a loud sound was heard from the direction they came from.

"LADY MIYA!" Cavan dashed back in an instant, as Kazura was taken aback by his reaction. "They are back again!"

"They...?" Kazura was worried, and ran with him.

"Finally that brat is here." A group of three large men, dressed in uniforms and carrying batons, smashed the glass doors of the clinic. Some patients fled the scene, while others suffered cuts.

"Find that girl! We need to get rid of her." One of the men, who looked like their leader spoke in a boisterous voice. He had short spiky hair that barely lifted off from his scalp, and an obvious scar across his right eye. The typical thug that Kazura would've seen in movies.

"Leave her alone!" Cavan cried, kicking the thug that was stepping into his territory.

"That didn't hurt. It was like a doll was slapping me with its flabby arms." The thug smirked, punching Cavan in the face. He grazed his arm across the marbled floor, toppling over in demise.

"And... who is that? I can't believe the runaway's son could make friends." The leader bellowed harshly, walking up towards Cavan and stepping on his head. "Now, watch us destroy your property!"

A crack was seen across Cavan's face, as the leader lifted his foot off in fear and disbelief.

"What the hell?" The leader cried, dragging his feet back. "His head is cracking but not bleeding."

The other thug with him kicked Cavan's stomach, but all they saw was him screaming in pain.

"Aren't you going to save your friend?" The leader stared at Kazura, smiling and attacking his victims for pure amusement.

"I got her!" The thug who went inside held a knife across Miyasoto's neck. "Oi! Guide us to your cash register and place the money neatly on the table!"

"You monsters..." Cavan yelled, as he lifted himself off the ground. He noticed how his fingers were cracking as well. Tensions built within his realisations, that he might really be a doll. 

"Kazura... just leave us alone. This... this isn't your problems. Don't get involv-"

"Leave that lady alone!" Kazura yelled, as his mental barrier could no hold on any longer. The dark energy that circulated around that crime scene was getting foggy. The instinct he once had, turned into a fit of rage.

"And what are you going to do?" The leader approached him, carrying him up at his collar. "Bystanders like you deserve to be killed. I hate men that are all talk-"

"Quit ridiculing others... Is this how real people in society act?" Kazura held the leader's arm with brute force. His strength was no more than average which led the leader to know that he was a mere small fry. To show his dominance, he tossed him to the ground next to Cavan, and ordered for all the money to be taken.

"Can we take this beauty too?" The thug licked his lips, as he kissed the money before him. "That is what the runaway deserved for ditching you fools."

"My father... what happened to him?" Cavan screamed weakly, only able to crawl with his feeble arms. "He said he was coming back-"

"Coming back?" The leader smashed his arm as it shattered into pieces. "Ohh, you really are naive. HAH! A empty doll like your father's INDESPICABLE name!"

"That's enough! Please! Take me and leave those two alone!" Miyasoto cried out in tears, as the thug tied her arms behind her.

"No... Lady Miya..." Cavan was spacing out, seeing his broken arm that he could no longer feel. "I... I want to protect you... like my father told me... to. But ... it seems like... I might be... gone. Forever."

As Cavan fell into a drift of his own conscience, he could barely feel any pain.

He was indeed a doll, made of nothing but memories of his past.

"We'll take her as debt for your father's wrongdoings." The leader yelled, stepping off slowly and tapping his foot against the ground. "This is too easy. The security guards are too weak, and the police simply can't handle us." Kazura noticed a shotgun strapped behind his back, and knew he wasn't just a normal underground fiend.

"Should we take that boy too?" One of the thugs asked, as the leader wrapped his arm around him.

"He is just a weakling, leave him be." The leader cried, walking away from them. "With all of this money and this chick, we can do whatever we want."

Kazura was still conscious, as he saw Cavan lying motionlessly on the floor.

"You are the key to what I call System." Shiko's voice echoed in his head as Kazura crawled up to Cavan. "You are the link that connects reality and programming. An infinite possibility to open the doors of System is what makes you special."

"If I can extract properties from objects, then I should be able to give them..." Kazura thought, holding onto Cavan's broken hand. "A way to unlock it... to give him life." 

A pitch dark void, Cavan's biological system was seen inside of a large cell. In this cell, there were thick chains surrounding and wrapping it tightly. There were his organs of different kinds, blood vessels, veins and bones. 

"This is what's truly in Cavan." Kazura said, trying to find a way to break those chains but to no avail. In this void, he seemed to be almost powerless. He thought for minutes, thinking about what he could do. 

"Choose one and raise his stats." An unknown voice echoed from above, as it shook the ground vigorously. "Once it's unlocked, he can activate when necessary. But choice equals consequence." The voice spoke in a broken language, as Kazura was afraid of what might happen to Cavan. 

"Am I the key to these glitches?" Kazura yelled but there was no answer. 

"No time. He'll die soon." The strange extraction of speech, made Kazura shiver in his intuition. He knew he had to bear the consequences. For the sake of saving him, he had to do it. 

"I'll pick his heart." He shouted, as the chains started to loosen. He was frozen, unable to move from his spot. The gate opened, as Cavan's heart started beating. 

"Heart picked. Energy increased. Consequence tabulated." The thumping of the heart recalibrated Kazura's own heartbeat till they were at the same rate. The fog started to thicken and the next moment he was back to reality.

A burst of energy glowed from the broken pieces of Cavan, and his heart can be clearly seen in his cracked torso. They started to reform, piece by piece they mended together, merging each crack to how they were originally. 

"Cavan! Wake up!" A voice of a familiar trembled in Cavan's memories, as he finally opened his eyes. He stood up, and realised how light he was feeling. It was like a battery was powering him up, and his energy levels were on its maximum. 

"Leader! That idiot is awake.... His body had regenerated!" One of the thugs noticed him, as the leader turned around with his shotgun. 

"Tch, what an annoying pest!" He fired at a running voodoo doll, leaving holes in his body. Cavan was knocked back a little, but his cells regenerated in an instant. 

"Are my cells... regenerating?" Cavan knew there was something strange happening, yet it fired his confidence to dash forward. He was in front of the leader, grabbing his head and pressed it down with full force. The leader collapsed backwards, dealing a large blow against the ground. 

"You... bastard." The leader smirked as Cavan noticed one of thugs running towards Kazura while he was brawling. 

"Kazura!" Cavan screamed, as he felt his body crumble from all the consumption of energy. 

"If I can take out this boy... then we can at least use it as a bait for that-" The thug snapped out of his thoughts, as he noticed Kazura disappeared. He was behind him, with his instincts, his body reacted automatically to the appending danger. 

"It's strange... that my powers only activated now." Kazura thought to himself, transferring the friction of the ground to his hands. "Did System force this whole ordeal with Cavan to happen?" 

Kazura smacked the thug from the back, as it sent him flying and rolling across the marbled floor. 

"That intense aura I am feeling from him..." Cavan thought, staring at his own hands. "Did he save me somehow?" 

The remaining thug was still holding onto Miyasoto, as Cavan ordered the leader to give up. 

"Don't give in to these meddling kids!" The leader insisted on his rights. His shotgun barely reachable, as Kazura kicked it aside. He finally saw no signs of winning this battle, and clenched his fists tightly.

"I'll slit her throat if you guys come too near... I'll do it!" The thug yelled, as Cavan was barely standing upright anymore. The consequence must have a toll on his body. The choice that Kazura made, was it temporary?

"Kazura, you... as I expected, someone not from this world." Cavan was breathing heavily as Kazura lent him a shoulder. "Damn it. What did you do to me?" 

"Adrenaline." Kazura said, understanding how his powers seem to rely on what he truly craved for. "I unlocked your power to increase your adrenaline. The natural feeling of wanting to protect." 

"Huh?" Cavan questioned what he was saying, feeling distraught and unbelievable strength running through his unseen veins. "This is... what was in me all along?"

"Focus on the enemy, I'll explain it later." Kazura said, as the thug pointed the edge of his knife at Miyasoto's throat. 

"STAY BACK! Don't force me to do this!" The thug screamed, as Kazura signalled Cavan to call the police.

"Don't bother with the police." The crippled leader said as he knew their gestures very well. "Crimson, leave that woman. We are leaving." 

"OI. What are you saying?" The thug cried as the leader stood up from his position. "We can't leave without the girl-"

"They are stronger than they look. We disregarded and underestimated their abilities. We lost." The leader said, emptying out the bullets of his shotgun and using it as a clutch. "We'll give you the girl, but we're taking the money that your useless father owed to us."

"Tch. No fun." The thug released her, as Miyasoto ran towards them. Kazura untied the ropes as she embraced them with anxiety and comfort. 

"Cavan, your father is not as dependable as you think. Why do you think he left you with Miyasoto?" The leader stated the truth about his existence, and left without a second clue. Cavan knew who they were, but still believed in his father's lies. He drowned in his sorrow, forever waiting for his never ending answer. 

"It's time for us to share our views." Cavan said rather abruptly, as his blue eyes shone in the disaster that occurred at their feet.

"Kazura."

"Who are you exactly?" 

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