Shadow in the Sun
an excerpt

I walked through the familiar hall to the throne of the Immaculate Emperor silently, this was the first time since his death that my brother and I would be face to face. I stopped just before the enormous gates catching my breath, why was I even feeling my heart rcae at all? It was so stupid, why was I nervous about meeting him? Then I realized, he was one of the Lords of the Reborn, a lower class Reborn like myself would naturally be in extacey meeting him. Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear Galian Beast, Death Gigas and Hellmasker calling out in longing to meet up with their lord. And with no Chaos to aid me…

I shook it off. This was the way to save my brother from the darkness, and the only way I could do it was to open this door. But why was I so scared to open it? Was it because I was afraid to lose him a second time? Was it because it meant that I would be facing up to the past I’d tried to desperately run from? Or maybe it was because I was for the first time scared for my own life? Maybe… it was all of those things put together. Either way I needed to open that door. Not because of me caring about the world, but because maybe I could finally find the nerve to tell Lucrecia how I really felt and what exactly a jerk I was about the whole thing with my father I’d been about it.

I seriously was going to open that door at some point but maybe a little more thinking would help to calm my nerves down. After all I had about every emotion know to humans and several known to Reborn running through my head and heart at the moment and damn if it wasn’t confusing as hell. Why was I so lazy and wanting to put this off? It was pathetic. I hated the fact I wasn’t in there already kicking some ass, or getting mine handed to me. Then again an energy snack couldn’t possibly hurt, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. Just wonderful, a stupid sugar rush would kill with the mako in my system, I’d get a berserk high then crash like crazy. I sighed turning it over and checking the contents on the back, it did say 75% natural cacao chocolate so it wouldn’t give me a horrific crash.

Sighing I carefully slit the wrapper with one claw and leaned up against the wall and took a rectangular prism of it off. It was sweet, and surprisingly not too bitter, as far as natural chocolate goes. Usually the natural stuff is bitter as radish but this was sweet, with a bit of a citrus tang, I looked down at the bar seeing little orange bits of zest in it. Taking another bite out of it I chewed through it thoughtfully, putting orange zest in chocolate was a good idea. The tang and slight bitterness of the orange complimented the taste of the chocolate with its milky sweet texture.

How did I get this chocolate bar in my pocket anyway? I usually don’t keep chocolate at home and I hadn’t bought any so where did it come from? I checked the sell by date, it said, ‘Best used before 10/02/07’. Wonderful, the chocolate was three weeks past the sell by date, I was lucky it hadn’t killed me yet. It still tasted safe enough to eat, it wasn’t green or purple or florescent pink, I didn’t smell any toxic decomposition coming off of it. Carefully I took another bite, this really was good chocolate, sighing I hastily finished off the rest of the bar. I wadded up the wrapper and threw it on the ground.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Came an anguished scream as the door flew open and a cloaked figure stood up. “LITTER BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DARE YOU DESICRATE MY LAIR WITH YOUR …TRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DAMN YOU!!!!!!!! I WILL SHOW YOU NO MERCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But first,” he walked over shaking with rage and anguish with a toothpick. Almost in fear of the garbage he knelt down and gave it a poke before standing up and shoving the toothpick under my nose. “See this? This was my last all natural 100% pine wax coated mint flavored toothpick! And you… you and your trash,” I winced feeling very confused about my brother’s behavior. He’d never been this much of a neat freak before. Back home he was always forgetting to pick up his room, so why was he being so anal over a chocolate wrapper? “Made me waste my last one! YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO NOW?! DO YOU?!” He glared at me before pulling out a pair of extendable tongs and clamped up the wrapper before walking back into the throne room and throwing it in the trash incinerator.