Prologue

Hunter

The night was cold with the full moon shining brightly with nary a cloud in sight to cover its glory. It could be said that all was quiet and not a sound was made but the steady rhythm of swaush, swaush, swaush said otherwise.

Down below, a ball of darkness raced from one roof of a broken down building to another. It blazed down its chaotic path in blinding speed. Swaush! Swaush! It continued in its flurry of seemingly random paths, jumping acrobatically from one point to the other. If someone were to witness the thing move about, they'd have thought it was a mindless shadow that had no destination in mind. And they would think wrong.

Thump! It stopped.

It was frozen on the cold concrete, staying still for a few long moments. Until finally, it rose up like dripping paint would in reverse. As it kept rising, ever slowly, its form wobbled and matured until it took a form of a tall humanoid figure.

Light flashed over its frame and a white mask appeared over its head. The sockets of the mark's eyes were empty like a vast cave. Then, two miniscule beads of light flashed from within them as if it was a machine that had just turned on.

The figure was draped entirely in various black materials. All of which were either a mixture of synthetic leather, vinyl, or polypropylene from head to toe, and none with any discerning features that would stick out over the others. Only its white mask and right white armband really stuck out. On the other arm and legs were at least half a dozen small belts that were probably meant to keep the jacket tightly attached to its limbs but was a bit one-too-many, merely coming more off as a garish statement than anything else.

Silently, the dark figure started to walk, taking a few steps forward, and placing its leather-covered hands over the broken cement wall when it stopped, leaning forward. The sounds of a conflict immediately filled its ears.

It quirked a brow from under its mask, the red in the eye sockets beaming slightly in an intense fashion.

"No! Get away!" The voice of a young male cried out pitifully.

Slowly looking around, the figure locked onto the image of a young boy who fell to the ground and scratched his elbows on the rough surface. He was twisting his lithe body to and fro, trying to get out of the grabby digits of disgusting looking older men. The men were hovering all over the boy that the figure could barely discern any real details of the boy, only spotting messy black hair. The figure could only grimace in silent disgust as it took in their features; one lanky and tall while his partner was short and round. They were the men it was looking for, it recognized.

"Nah, pretty boi, we just wanna have sum fun, aint that righ'?" The lanky man laughed in what sounded like a toothy grin.

"Yah, yah, you look like you could use some assistance, kiddo." The other man joined in, his laughter bellowed in a deep baritone.

It raised a brow up in mild interest from behind its mask but the figure shook its curiosity away as fast as it came. None of it really mattered. It could care less about the boy. There was only one thing on its mind at the moment and that was its job.

Raising its right hand out, a swirl of shiny black dust suddenly appeared from thin air over its shoulder forming into a large cannon as they locked together. From its chambers, through its conduit lines, blue energy started to spark, giving a low hum. The figure's fingers held the trigger tightly. Sayonara... the figure thought and prepared to pull the trigger.

Then, the boy's cries rang through the air once again, "Please! Someone! Help! Help!" One of his legs came flying up, attempting to knock the muggers away but to no avail. His shirt was torn in two, the right half of it barely over his shoulders, his jacket was thrown aside, and his pants were already unbuttoned with both men trying to pull it down to access his bottom.

It was so obvious that they were interested in more than just his belongings.

The figure's finger twitched on the trigger. What a memory to die to... Dropping its aim downwards, the laser cannon in its arm slowly dispersed turning back into black mists hovering in the air for a moment before they linked back together into a single thin blade of concentrated metal.

That brat needs to shut it, it thought before jumping down with a light flutter.

Thump!

All three pair of eyes turned to look at the interruption, all of them gawked in absolute horror at the menacing figure that was suddenly towering over all of them. He, they assumed, almost seemed to float over the surface under where he stood.

The boy held in his breath, wondering what bigger mess did he just get himself into? As if the thugs weren't enough on his plates now some mysterious masked man is here looking none too friendly. He just screamed 'psychopath'!

"Y-Y-Youkai?!" The two men nearly tripped over each other when they screamed his name. Apparently, these two were well aware of who the figure was as they took off without a second's notice, but the boy still had trouble grasping what was going on as he watched them flee with a look of confusion plastered to his beaten face. Was the masked figure his savior or executioner?

He didn't know what to think anymore after being on the crutch of being violated.

The black figure, Youkai, took a few steps, walking slowly towards them, seeming to pause for a moment. His head seemed to be in the clouds as if he was lost in thought and even though his face was behind that frightening white mask, the boy felt a cold chill run down his spine with a dark voice in the back of his head that told him what the man was actually thinking about: death.

There was no doubt about it now! He was imagining the various way he could inflict death and fear into them! The boy was more than positive about it. He hesitantly reached his hand out to look for a weapon of sorts to defend himself but cursed his luck when he found none.

He froze in fear when he felt Youkai's gaze fall on him, as if laughing at his audacity for even trying! But the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came when the man raised a hand in the air and clenched it into a fist.

A black mist appeared above his fists and he turned his head to look at the lanky tall man who was still running. It shot out in the blink of an eye and wrapped around the man's neck with such an instantaneous force that the momentum sent the man's legs kicking up into the air as he choked, his eyes rising behind their sockets and foam was already forming in his mouth.

With a simple snap of his wrist, the chain followed the motion, rippling up and down in a whiplash and whipped throughout the man's body. His body flailed, waving around like a towel being dried except instead of the sounds of fluttering cloth, all you could hear were bones crunching between flesh.

It continued for some time until the levitating chains lost their rigidity and fell to the floor with a couple chink chinks. The tall man's body fell with them as they no longer held it up by sheer force. His body now laid there: twisted and contorted like a tangle of wires.

"Don't worry," he said (his voice was manly but light, somewhat high pitched). He turned towards the quivering fat man who was trapped at the other end of the alley, blocked by a black wall that appeared out of nowhere over 20 foot high. "I made sure that your friend's still alive." He said, his voice was full of assurance and with the calmness of morning waves brushing against the shore. Then the facade quickly disappeared with the next words. "Just for the moment."

The boy could hear his snicker just as he flicked his wrist again and the chain shook violently for a second before rising up like a mesmerized snake, lifting up the poor human and slammed his living corpse into the ground in one heavy body-splattering smash. It was followed by the sloppy crunch that followed pureed flesh as sharp split bones protruded out of it. "And now he's not." Youkai laughed and flicked his wrist again, reeling back his chains and while doing so, tossing the splatter of dead flesh near the fat man's feet.

The boy turned his eyes away from the man's decrepit corpse, a mass no longer resembling the form of any living creature, and stared back at the dark figure with his mouth hanging agape from the cruel statement. It sounded like it was supposed to be a joke. A cruel horrible joke that he had found to describe something that he found laughable and boring. Boring! The life of a man who he killed was too boring to even muster any actual sympathy or empathy.

While these men were planning on eternally scarring his body in ways he'd never recover, he couldn't stomach what was going on before him or the cruelty of the other man. It helped that the boy was saved seconds before the deed and maybe he'd be singing a different tune if Youkai had come later but all he could think about at the moment was how very wrong all of this was.

"Now, Rat-tit-tat-tat, what do you have to say about that?" Youkai singsonged the words with a bit of a childish glee that unnerved the boy even greater. He started stomping towards the sniveling man with a crazed tilt of his head.

"Please! Don't kill me!" The fat man cried, dropping to his knees and clasping his hands upwards. He tried to beg and back away all at the same time, scuffing his pants in the process. "I'll do anything! Just please don't kill me!"

"It's too late for that." Youkai said, pulling out a sleek black blade that the boy hadn't realized was there the entire time. He scraped the ground with its tip, creating red sparks before he lifted it up and gently placed the tip just lightly over the man's nose, drawing a bit of red. Then, in the blink of an eye, the fat man's upper half of his face, where the tip had touched, disappeared. Some of his pink brain was still sticking out from the newly opened hole.

The boy heard something and had just noticed a small fleshy object falling with a thunk at his feet. When he looked down, his eyes dilated and he cried out loud, trying to run away from the object as far as possible but his back hit the wall. There, before him, laid the missing half of the fat man's head! It was sitting down like a disgusting caricature of a bowl in flesh form, holding up pieces of the brain that was cut off for him to see.

His throat muscles tightened and he felt the urge to cry and bawl suffocating him, only overcame by an even sicker urge to vomit. Which he greatly satisfied soon after.

Guargh! The boy choked. Guugh! Guroowh!

As if finally taking note of his presence, Youkai looked up at the young boy, and pointed the blade at him like he did earlier to the other man. His expression was the same; apathetic and uncaring.

The boy flinched and froze gazing at the blade, fearful of meeting the same fate despite his brain telling him that it was too far away to slice him. At least for now.

Dark chestnut brown eyes traveled up the blade's black metal and up past the figure's arm to see glowing red eyes sticking out from under the white mask. He could barely will himself to wipe away the disgusting remnants of his stomach that were on his lips out of fear that any movement would stir the killer.

The two of them stared at each other for what seemed like an hour until the smaller boy's panic consumed him. He desperately shook his head when realization hit that he was cornered with no where to escape. He silently begged the gods that this was just horrible nightmare that he'd wake up from soon.

Youkai took a few steps closer towards the boy thinking about what to do with him, when suddenly the boy opened his mouth and began to bawl out in fear. His tears ran down like a faucet. Youkai gripped his blade tightly as he stopped his advance and slowly looked over at the boy.

He was young, possibly around 17 or maybe a little older. The boy seemed to be a bit scrawny but not by too much. He had visible muscles but nothing to be proud of. Definitely not enough to put up much of a fight, either, if what happened tonight was anything to go by. His white T-shirt was ripped, the left shoulder completely torn and there was some blood and dirt smeared across its chest area. The khakis that he was wearing were slumped down below his butt and Youkai couldn't help but raise a brow at what looked like chibi-panda dotted briefs. If he were anyone else in this situation, Youkai would have laughed at the idea of such a boy at such an age still wearing briefs, let alone ones that one would expect a child to keep.

That peeked his interests slightly.

Then his attention was brought back to the boy's face when the bawling became louder. The white of his eyes were red and the tears were never ending, pouring down over the cuts across his bleeding cheek and chest. Youkai's hand tightened even further around the blade, cutting a bit through his leather gloves.

This boy was draining his nerves rapidly with this pathetic 'damsel in distress' act of his.

Man up, already, dammit!

Although, he appreciated the length that he could gauge the boy's slender jaw and soft skin... He stopped his thoughts in their tracks. What the bloody fuck was that about?

"I'm not going to kill you." Youkai stated, causing the boy to immediately stop crying. Was he just faking it? Or was he one of those emotional roller coasters...gods that's irritating.

He looked up at the boy and noticed him still quivering. The boy was biting his lower lips tenderly as he gazed up at him with shaky eyes. His face was skinny and long with a nice pale touch to the natural tan of his skin, not the sickly color of pale hospital white.

The boy's mouth opened in a small O that looked so inviting...

"You!" The boy's voice broke the figure's concentration and now they were looking each other directly in the eyes, the smaller male flinched at the glare that he felt coming from behind that swirling mask, not sure of what was earning the man's rage. "You..." he repeated more strongly and grounded. "Why," at first Youkai had expected the typical bull with the weakling, thanking him for saving him like he was oh so important to this world and everything revolved around him. But he would not have expected the words that did come out of his mouth.

"Why did you kill those men?" the boy asked.

If Youkai didn't have a mask covering his face, he'd have his eyes bulging out this very moment at such a ridiculous comment. His grip was so tight on his blade now that his hand was drawing blood from the sharp blade and he unconsciously dispersed it to stop the pain. He glared venom at the boy for his audacity. It wasn't like he was here to rescue him but for him to be so thankless...he should've let the men finished what they were doing and then kill all three of them!

Though, he thought. There's nothing stopping him from rectifying that mistake...

Black mist slowly stalked behind the boy, rising above his head, him being none the wiser about the situation. It'll take little effort to choke out the life from that pretty little face–"It's wrong to kill people," the boy stated, firmly. His fists were at his sides and he looked up at Youkai with one of the most defiant looks that he's ever seen.

The black mist stopped where they hovered and dispersed, flying back to the shadows from whence they came.

Youkai's blood ran cold. He thought, Of...Of all of the things, this brat should be thankful that he didn't get deflowered by those sickly men! Regardless of me just happening to intervene!

"And if I hadn't killed them, where do you think you would be now, boy?" Youkai growled, taking a step forward. He expected the boy to flinch again but instead the boy merely stood up (where was he getting this bravado from?) to match his glare, though the boy was still a head shorter than him.

"I didn't...I didn't get–" the boy paused, looking the masked man up and down. "I was left untouched but even then, my point stands." Youkai wanted to shout in frustration and slap himself in the forehead! This was so priceless that he didn't know whether the boy wanted to get raped! The boy continued, "You could've just knocked them unconscious or something. Or call the police!"

Youkai shook his head. "Do you want to get raped, you little slut? Is that it? Do you like, get off on the idea of being used and abused and possibly murdered and left in the dumpster where no one cares about you?" The boy jumped at the accusation and looked away, looking at something on the ground. "Of course you don't, so shut up and appreciate that I didn't kill you too. I don't–" His mouth almost slipped. He didn't want to sound like something he wasn't. He didn't save the boy. He's no hero. He merely chose not to kill him along with the other trash here.

The boy mumbled something.

"What?" The masked man said, aloud.

"...Thanks. You're right. I shouldn't be ungrateful." He took a genuine bow. When he got back up he smiled a toothy grin and Youkai felt his heart jump at the display. "Life isn't something to take for granted, so thank you." He said again. The boy stuck out his hand, "I'm–"

"I don't care." Youkai quickly interrupted, he just needed to get out of here. This was giving him a headache. He jumped up and was quickly swallowed by a swarm of black mist and disappeared when they dispersed.

The boy was shocked. His mouth was slung open and he stared at the place where he saw the man disappear right before his very eyes.

Alone now, he looked around at his surroundings, wanting to gag at the bloody mess around him. Should he call the cops? No, he didn't want them investigating and trying to apprehend that masked man. Or worse, that man would only do the same to the cops like he did to them.

He couldn't let anyone find their bodies either but he couldn't just 'toss (them) in a dumpster' like the man had said about him. The boy quickly picked up his belongings and grabbed his cap from the ground, gingerly placing it over his messy hair.

Taking pity on them, he grabbed the lighter of the two first, dragging the mangled body away. Luckily there was a nearby park that he could bury them and light some incense and say some prayers for them.

Unbeknownst to the boy, a pair of red was watching his every movement, having never left completely yet.

The figure scoffed at the boy's sudden interest in the rotting corpses, questioning the boy's mindset. He was standing on a roof with light interest that was rapidly diminishing as he watched his actions.

"The fuck?" The masked man spat out the words in disgust. Was he some kind of cannibal or necro? Ignoring the scene before him, he left, hoping to the gods that he didn't have to see that boy again.

There was already too many trash in this area.

And this was why he never trusted others.