Jin's eyes opened up wide, the young boy snapping awake from a pleasant dream. It took his eyes a bit to get adjusted, but what he saw shocked him. Crimson flames shot up from the walls of his room, burning everything in its path. Instantaneous realization of what was happening hit Jin like a speeding truck. The church was burning down.
He didn't know what could possibly have started this. All he knew was he had to get out of here, quickly.
"Brother!" he instinctively called out. He knew that his brother would come any second to save him from whatever was happening. Jin waited anxiously for a few minutes, and decided to try again after getting no response.
"Brother, where are you! Help me!" Jin yelled. The smoke from the flames began to be too much for Jin. There was no time to wait around for Ragna. For some reason, the other boy wasn't coming for him. Jin grabbed everything that he wanted to savor and ran out of his room, sprinting for the stairs.
"Brother...?" a voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned around and saw Saya staring at him, a frightened expression on her face. She didn't look like she knew what was going on. She looked completely out of the loop, just like him.
Jin looked up above Saya and saw a piece of the ceiling crack, making a loud snapping noise. He bolted for Saya at that very instant and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her away much to her surprise. Saya looked behind her to see a large chunk of wood fall down, right where she was standing. She gasped in horror, realizing that if Jin hadn't grabbed her in time, she could have been crushed by it.
Jin led her down the stairs and made a mad dash towards the door, lunging at the handle and throwing it open, seeing even more flames outside.
"Brother! Where's brother, Saya?" Jin asked in a panic. Saya didn't seem to be paying attention, not responding to his question. Jin growled in anger, not in the mood for Saya's games. He understood that the girl had fallen ill recently, but in a situation like this there was no time for her to show weakness. "Dammit, you useless girl! Where is brother!? Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"
Saya didn't respond again, rather opting to tap her brother's shoulder and point to the left. Jin rolled his eyes and looked over to where she was pointing, wanting to see if it was more important than finding Ragna and escaping. He was also beginning to wonder where their caretaker was as well. She surely wouldn't have let this happen, would she?
As Jin's eyes shift to the left, he notices a tall man in a suit. He seemed to be staring at the ground, motionless. Jin didn't know for sure, but there was something wrong about this man. Something seemed very off about him.
"Who are you?" Jin asked, hoping that the man would realize that he was there and would give him an answer. He seemed to be in a daze as well. It took a few seconds for the man to respond to Jin's question, but when he did, a large smile grew across his face. Large enough to put fear into Jin's heart.
"Ah... it seems as though you two have arrived. I've been waiting for you!" the man in the suit exclaimed. The response came as a surprise to Jin. This man had been waiting for them? What for? He didn't know who this man was! Before Jin could respond, the man walked up to the two of them. He knelt down to the ground and cupped Saya's chin, raising her head up to look at him in the eyes.
"Aren't you just the cutest little thing?" he asked eerily. "You're perfect for it..."
Saya couldn't move a muscle in her body. She was paralyzed in fear. In fear of the man who knelt down before her. In fear of what she had seen on the ground in front of him.
"What's wrong, girl? Are you wondering about what I was staring at?" the man asked. Saya nodded her head slowly, pointing to the ground where he was standing. The flames around them seemed to be nonexistent in the situation at hand. Jin looked to where she was pointing as well.
"Oh? You're worried about that, aren't you? You're worried about that sweet little woman that was taking care of you, right? Oh, don't worry. She's merely sleeping. Merely sleeping, that's all," he explained, with a chuckle that told Jin that their caretaker really wasn't sleeping. It didn't take long for Jin to put two and two together. This man had killed their caretaker.
"You!" Jin yelled, running up to the man to punch him in the face. His fist connected, but he didn't feel like he had done anything to the man at all. In fact, it felt as though he had punched a brick wall.
"Oh, you're a feisty one aren't you? That's just wonderful. Splendid!"
Before Jin knew it, a knee had slammed into his stomach. He cried out in pain, clutching where the mysterious man had kneed him. Saya's eyes widened as she saw Jin fall to the floor.
"Jin!" she yelled.
"Oh, there's no need to worry about him, girl! You're coming with me, whether you like it or not," the man said. He lifted her up off of the ground and began to walk away, holding her bridal style.
"Hold it right there you scumbag!" another voice cried out.
Jin weakly rose his head up from the ground to see his brother finally come to save the day. Jin smiled, knowing that his big brother would beat the evil man.
"Oh, it's you! I honestly almost forgot that you existed, little Raggy! I got so caught up in what I was doing that I just couldn't help myself! I hope you don't mind, but I had sent your little brother out of commission. You can find him there on the floor, probably crying his eyes out like the little shit he is. Oh, your sister is here too. I'm taking her with me if you don't mind. I have some swell plans for her," the mysterious man's personality took on an entirely different tone. He seemed a though he had gone mad now, instead of the creepiness that he showed Jin before.
"You bastard! I won't forgive you for this!" Ragna yelled, charging towards the man. He gently placed Saya down on the ground, as if he didn't want to hurt her, and opened his arms wide for Ragna.
"Come now! We wouldn't want to hurt a precious angel like this, would we?" the man asked. Ragna didn't listen to a word that he said, opting to attempt to punch him in the face. The attack was easily dodged, and the man pulled out a knife. He quickly grabbed the arm Ragna used to punch him with to restrain him, and then stabbed his stomach with the blade. Ragna screamed in pain and fell to the floor with a whimper.
"Aww... now that wasn't fun, Raggy! I expected a lot more from you!" the man exclaimed. "Ahahaha! I think it's time for me to go now! You know, duty calls and all that!" The man, Saya in hand, turned to walk away.
"Wait! Who are you!?" Jin yelled after him. The man stopped walking, and laughed.
"I'm Yuki Terumi. We should play around like this some other time. What do you say, Jin?"
Jin couldn't find it in him to stay awake after the man had announced who he was. What happened next, to Jin, was all a blur.
"What? What do you mean it didn't work!?"
"It seems as though she had died in the process... I suppose she was too weak to handle the strain..."
"Well? What do we do now!?"
"Simple. We take this one as backup. We need only a figurehead, after all."
"Oh, I see... that's a good idea. I'm sure that with some... convincing... we could definitely use him to our own advantage..."
"What of the other boy, then?"
"Who cares? He'll just burn to death in the flames anyway! It's not like he really matters in the grand scheme of things. You know, sometimes you just think way too much."
"Any plan is better than no plan, no? It matters not, however. The boy will die in the flames."
...
"Oh, you poor, unfortunate soul... Whatever shall we do?"
"He looks really screwed up! What the heck even happened here!?"
"My my... it seems as though quite the conflict arose..."
"Shut it, you two. We will take the girl and the boy away from here, and leave them be. I wish to see what the boy will decide to do when he awakens. I'll go and pay a visit to Jubei as well, and tell him to watch over the boy."
Jin's eyes managed to open themselves, revealing a clear blue sky to him. He immediately covered his eyes soon afterwards. The sun's rays were blasting him in the face. As his eyes got adjusted to the light, Jin attempted to get up from his position on the ground. His memory of last night was a daze. He hardly remembered anything that had happened.
Jin struggled to his feet and then took a look around, strictly looking for the church. He couldn't see it in the grassy plain. The church was gone.
"Oh, no..." Jin let out. He figured that the church had either been burned to ashes and it was no more, or he had been moved from the scene of the fire.
His mind immediately snapped to Saya and Ragna. Were the two of them okay? Jin frantically searched the ground near him for his two siblings. If he was able to find just one of them...
His eyes shifted to the small body that was laying on its stomach on the ground. Jin felt a pang deep in his chest as he slowly approached the body. A worried look spread across his face as he began to recognize who it was. Saya.
"Saya...?" he tapped her shoulder. No response. With more force this time, he tapped her shoulder and repeated her name. There was still no response. Jin decided that he wasn't going to play this game forever, and he spun her around so that he could see her face. Her eyes were shut. A sense of dread quickly filled Jin. Though it was not uncommon for Saya to be like this due to her illness, this time, it felt like it was more than that.
He tried to remember what their caretaker would do in a situation like this. Whenever Saya would collapse, Ragna would run and get the caretaker. There was a certain process that she did, but Jin couldn't remember it at all. His memory was still a haze.
Instinctively, he lowered his head down onto her chest. Normally when he would rest his head against the nun's, he would feel it rise and fall. Jin couldn't feel that rising and falling from Saya. The girl wasn't breathing. It didn't take Jin more than a second to realize what happened.
Saya had died.
Jin fell to his knees.
In his mind, he found it funny that he was acting like this. Mourning over the death of someone that he despised. Though, he figured his hatred towards her was childish and immature. Now that the realization of her death hit him, most similar to the knee that he took last night, he only now realized what exactly he had lost.
Tears started to form in his eyes, blurring his vision. Jin didn't bother wiping them away.
"Saya... I'm sorry..." he said. "I'm so sorry for everything that I had done to you..."
Jin was quick to realize that there was no use in crying at this point. His tears would not bring Saya back to him. Soon, the events of last night came back to him in a flash. He could finally see the events that transpired in his mind. The man in the black suit... the burning church... Saya's limp body... the corpse of the nun... Ragna getting stabbed. He was surely dead as well. There was no use in looking for him.
With newfound resolve, Jin stood up, balling his fists.
"You bastard..." Jin spoke as if the man was right there next to him. "You will pay for this."
However, Jin didn't even know where to begin. He spoke as if he had a direction to head towards. As if a massive arrow in the sky was pointing his location out for him. None of those existed in his mind. He had no direction. There was nowhere for him to go.
Jin decided that his best bet was to start walking, and wherever he wound up, he wound up. He needed more power, but he didn't know where to start to go and get it.
"Now now, son. That ain't no way to be," a gruff, old voice said. Jin turned around slowly to see a small cat walk up to him. The cat wore a yellow hood that covered his face, and he had a small sword on his back. His right arm was positioned in such a way that he would be able to reach for the sword without any problems. He seemed to be ready for anything.
"Who are you?" Jin asked, wondering how this stranger even found him.
"I'll tell ya, if you tell me yours first," the cat said.
"My name is... Jin," Jin said.
"Just Jin, eh?" the cat asked. It seemed like he knew better, however. Almost as if he had met the boy before. It unnerved Jin. "Well, my name is Jubei."
The name resonated with Jin, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where he heard it before.
While he thought to himself, Jubei took a good look at Jin.
'The kid's grown up from when I last saw him... Time really does fly, eh?' Jubei thought to himself.
"I heard what you said, kiddo. Somethin' real terrible happened to ya, it looks like. You alright?" Jubei asked. Jin shook his head, thinking about the tragic events of last night. The man who attacked him... he wanted nothing more than to rip him to shreds. But... he couldn't, for the life of him, remember his name. "Hey, if you don't wanna talk about it you don't have to."
Once again, it felt like the man-cat-thing knew better. Like he knew the situation. Like he was there with them at the scene of the fire.
"...My sister... Saya..." Jin began, sniffling between his words. He let a few more out before taking a deep breath, continuing with his explanation. "Last night an evil man came and burnt the church down and he attacked me and Saya and I tried to defend her from him but he knee'd me in the stomach and I fell to the ground and he picked up Saya and Ragna came to save us and Ragna got stabbed and I passed out and when I woke up in the morning I looked for Saya and Ragna and I found Saya but Ragna wasn't there and when I went to go wake Saya up she was dead!"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down there kiddo, I could barely understand a word you said!" Jubei exclaimed. "Do you wanna try explaining that to an old man one more time, just a little bit slower?"
Jin nodded his head, wiping some tears from his eyes before opening his mouth to speak.
"Last night... someone in a black suit came and he set fire to the church. I ran outside immediately and started to look for my brother and sister. My sister, Saya, ran over to me from her room and I led her downstairs and outside. I started to look around for Ragna, hoping that he was outside as well, but the man that had set fire to the church came and attacked the both of us. I was dealt with easily, and he took Saya from me. I... I had wondered where the nun that was taking care of us went, and he pointed out that he had killed her... He showed us her dead body. There were cuts all over the place. It looked terrible... After that, Ragna had run in from the left and attacked him. But the man had laughed at him, like he had known Ragna, and grabbed him by the arm. He lifted him up into the air and stabbed him in the stomach, throwing him away. I passed out then..." Jin explained.
"This man that you're talking about... did he say what his name was?" Jubei asked.
"That's the thing... I... I don't remember..." Jin looked back down to the ground.
"Well, do ya remember what he looked like? Apart from the black suit," Jubei said.
"...The only thing that I remember clearly was that he had green hair," Jin replied, putting his finger on his chin.
"Green hair, huh?" Jubei tilted his head. "Well, that doesn't give me much to work with. I don't know too many people with green hair... except for one..."
Just thinking about that man sent a shiver down Jubei's spine. He looked back up to Jin, who was giving him an odd look. Jubei didn't notice the angered expression that was gracing his features.
"Who are you talking about?" Jin inquired.
"I'm talking about the man known as Yuki Terumi," Jubei began. "Ya probably don't know him, but he's a real-"
The rest of Jubei's words were tuned out by Jin. Hearing that name sent flashbacks of yesterday flowing through his mind. It was like Jin was reliving every single second of that moment. In that instant, Jin remembered everything. He remembered the final words that the man spoke to him.
"I'm Yuki Terumi. We should play around like this some other time. What do you say, Jin?"
"That's his name!" Jin cried out. "He told me that his name was Yuki Terumi before he left!"
Jubei didn't look happy at all. It seemed like Terumi was up to something yet again. He just didn't know what. Jubei knew that Terumi was a snake. There was something going on behind the scenes that he doesn't know about.
'So that bastard is on the move... This isn't a good sign,' Jubei thought. He noticed the look that Jin was giving him, one not unlike how he looked at him before, and Jubei shook his head, dismissing his thoughts.
"Are you absolutely certain that he called himself "Yuki Terumi"?" asked Jubei, not wanting to make any rash decisions. He silently hoped to himself that he was mishearing the child in front of him. Something deep in his heart, however, was telling him that the boy was telling the truth.
"Yes, I'm sure of it!" Jin exclaimed. "Jubei, please! If you know where he is then tell me!"
"Yuki Terumi ain't no ordinary man, Jin. If you go against him as you are right now you're gonna be joining your sister in the afterlife," Jubei warned. "No, you need to get ready first if you want to go up against him."
"I'll do anything... anything..." Jin got onto his knees, tears flooding his vision. He would do anything to kill Terumi. He wanted to see that man pay for what he has done. He wanted to be the one that delivered retribution, not anyone else.
"If you'll do anything, then how about this? I'll train you personally. It ain't no bother to me. I got nowhere to go, and nowhere to be," Jubei said, almost sorrowful.
"You'll train me?" Jin repeated. The thought of being taken in by a cat to learn how to fight was surreal. A fighting cat? Where has anyone heard of that before? Only in stories about the legendary Six Heroes did Jin hear about that.
Jin froze.
He gazed at Jubei wide eyed. There was no possible way. He couldn't be.
"What's wrong, kid? You're lookin' at me kinda funny," Jubei chuckled nervously.
"You're Jubei of the Six Heroes!" Jin exclaimed.
"In the flesh," Jubei nodded. "Now then, let's get started right away."
As Jin began to walk with the cat, he started to think about his siblings. Saya was dead, that's for sure, but could Ragna be alive somewhere? Could Terumi have taken Ragna somewhere with him? Jin didn't know for sure. He hoped that at least one of his siblings was alive, deep in his heart. He didn't want to leave Ragna like he did Saya. He didn't want to never get the chance to tell Ragna how he really felt about him, like he never got the chance to for Saya.
He felt like smacking himself. She had given him so much, and he had given back so little. She had still loved him, even after all he had done to her. Jin couldn't say that he didn't love her back, but he could never show it on the outside, so instead he put up a cold demeanor, and began to hate her for the pettiest of reasons.
Jin decided he wouldn't let her death be in vain.
Suddenly, a cold mist started to form around his hands. Jin looked down at them wide eyed, wondering what was going on. Jubei turned around the moment he stopped hearing Jin's footfalls on the grass. He stared at Jin's hand in awe, in an almost knowing way. Like he knew what was forming around Jin's hand.
The mist started to converge into one, solid object that placed itself in Jin's hand. It was a katana. A lengthy one, at that, covered in a blue sheathe. Taking a look at it, he remembered what it was. It was the gift that Saya had given him.
He had never unsheathed it.
Playing around with it in his hands, he noticed that it felt as light as a feather. Like there was nothing inside of the sheathe. Deciding to test it out, Jin tried to pull out the sword. No matter how hard he tried, however, he couldn't pull it out of its sheathe.
"Now, where did you go and get that?" Jubei asked incredulously.
"This is... this is what Saya had given me for my birthday..." Jin responded shakily. He laughed, though it wasn't happy, or sad. It was empty. "Even in death, you still come to my side to support me... don't you, Saya?"
"Mucro Algesco: Yukianesa..." Jubei stated.
"Huh?" Jin looked to Jubei, stopping his attempts to unsheathe the sword.
"The name of that blade you got in your hands there," Jubei said, pointing to the weapon with his paw. "That right there is what's known as a Nox Nyctores. It's a weapon that uses the seithr that's all around you, even as we speak. Kid, what you got in your hands there is a dangerous weapon."
"Nox Nyctores? Seithr? What are you talking about?" Jin asked, completely confused by what the cat was saying.
"Seithr is the stuff all around us thanks to the Black Beast, son. It's what a lot of things in this world use to function. It normally has an adverse effect on humans like you, but society found a way to harness it and use it for its own personal gain," Jubei explained. "And I already told you what a Nox Nyctores was. You don't need to ask twice. Pay attention when an old man's talkin, will ya? Anyway, we should get to training. Time's of the essence as they say, right?"
Jin nodded, and followed Jubei into the woods that he came out of, ready to put an end to Terumi. He didn't care how long it took. He would make that man pay.