I
Prologue
October 6
"What are you?"
The contractor blinked in repulsion as the man she'd been sent to kill… well, she wasn't quite sure what was happening to him. She'd worked for various crime syndicates for years, taking the lives of all sorts of contractors with all sorts of deadly abilities, and yet she couldn't remember ever seeing anything even remotely similar to this creature. Silhouetted in the dry, limp moonlight, it was difficult to make out the writhing masses erupting from her target's back; she clicked her fingers and a small quivering flame appeared in the palm of her leather-gloved hand, creating distorted shadows across the grimy walls of the tenebrous alleyway in which the confrontation was taking place. The orange light flickered and jumped, and the grotesquely dancing shadows mocked the thrashing of her target's ungodly tentacle-like appendage; the contractor shaped the flame and thrust it in the direction of the creature.
Streaking brilliantly through the air, it found its target with ease, and the man's face was engulfed in white hot fire near instantly.
Instinctively the contractor took her left hand in her right, wrenching back the index finger until it was almost touching her wrist, and cracking it painfully; her Obeisance was a painful one, but the pain was something she had grown used to by now- in fact it often helped her clear her head.
The cries of the creature in front of her had dwindled and morphed seamlessly into silence in the second or so it had taken the contractor to perform her remuneration; she glanced in his direction, expecting to find him on the ground, engulfed in flame and convulsing violently.
Instead she found herself quite gruesomely impaled on the twitching, blood-drenched organ.
The ghoul retracted his kagune and the contractor let out a piercing cry as she stared down at her own shredded torso, the wavering flame dying in her paling, trembling hand, blood mixing with meaty chunks of flesh and innards beginning to surge from the open wound in her mid-section as she sank gracelessly to the cold concrete ground. By the time she lost consciousness, more blood was spilled on the damp alley floor than was inside her; by the time the ghoul took its first bite from her well-shaped thigh, she was already dead.
He peeled off her layers of combat clothing (all the while his own skin slowly stitching itself together cell by cell, his raw, melted flesh molding itself back into shape) and inhaled deeply, noting with some interest that there was a peculiar scent surrounding her: she certainly didn't smell like a ghoul, but she didn't seem entirely human either. Her sweet, sweet flesh, lean and sapid, had a fraught, twisted taste to it; he took his time on her, savouring her exotic flavor with a warped jouissance.
As the ghoul, by then drenched in thick hot blood and intensely satisfied with his meal, abandoned the unrecognizably mutilated remnants of his victim in the dimly lit alleyway, he took a moment to look up at the vast canvas of stars sprawling out in all directions above him, at the rippling noir of the infinite sky enveloping this dark, depraved Tokyo night. He failed to notice, however, the faintly blinking star just to the north-east of him as it sputtered and spasmed; moreover, he failed to notice as it fell and faded into nothingness.
"Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters."- Stephen King
II
October 8
The four of them met in the same place they always did.
"Are you sure you're ready, Hei?"
Mao would've smirked, had it not been for his physiological limitations. He hopped blithely onto the bench and settle beside Huang, curling his tail neatly round his paws.
"Concerned, are we?"
"Yes, actually," Huang replied gruffly, scowling. "If Hei messes this one up, we'll all be dead. Or worse."
"I'm fine," Hei muttered, frowning slightly more than usual. If he hated one thing, it was people thinking he was weak. The truth was, he'd been torn up pretty bad on their last assignment, and had required a couple of weeks to lay low; better to rest up, he was advised, than to put his team and their missions in jeopardy. He hadn't thought it necessary, but, come to think of it, a break from the constant pressures of Syndicate undertakings had been refreshing, however brief.
"Good. Now, can we get on with it?" The resulting silence indicated to Huang that yes, they could get on with it. "Two nights ago, a contractor was killed in an alley on Syndicate business." He paused almost imperceptibly, shifting his gaze. "They tell me she was… eaten."
Hei blinked. "Eaten?"
"As far as anyone can tell, yes. She was, ahem, eaten by what we think was her target: a suspected Syndicate defector."
"Let me guess, it's our mission to find him and not get eaten, right?" Mao asked, jumping down from the bench and landing lightly on all fours.
"We don't know very much about him- everything the last contractor managed to find out was lost with her, obviously- but," Huang continued, ignoring Mao's question with a glare, "we do know that he works at a bar in the 14th ward, and that he possesses documents that, for whatever reason, the Syndicate don't want him to have."
"Can we get Yin to watch him for a while?" Hei asked. At the mention of her name, Yin, who was sat on the other side of the bench staring contentedly into nothing, raised her head ever so slightly.
"Sure, she'll be able to track him- it's a bar, there'll be tons of water around. No, it's not finding him we should be worried about." Huang stood up and began to move away, expertly dropping a white envelope beside Hei as he did so; Hei discreetly slipped it into his jacket pocket, not pausing to glance at it. "It's the fact that he's some kind of monster," he uttered to himself gloomily as he left.
Mao coiled round Hei's ankles sullenly. "Don't you just love this job?"
That night, Hei was struck with an intense sense of restlessness.
III
He considered shrugging on his coat, slipping on his mask and stealing out into the cold October night in search of trouble. However, he thought better of it, instead deciding to go on a simple walk through the night, as he'd done many times during his short break from his dangerous work.
The city was hardly empty, but honestly, he liked the bright lights and bustling crowds (not that he'd ever let such a thing on to anyone but himself). His instincts were still as sharp as ever, and he couldn't help but glance around every corner and peer into every shadow, as if expecting there to be a threat lingering at every turn. As ironic as it seemed, nevertheless, the Black Reaper really did enjoy the feeling of blending in with city's endless mundane chaos.
He wandered aimlessly about the artificially lit streets, occasionally glancing up at the equally artificial stars. Briefly he remembered the real stars, and all the painful memories associated with them- memories that, for the time being, he'd much rather repress.
He quite suddenly got the urge to be up high.
There was, in his mind, safety in high places; and anyway, it was kind of his thing. Not particularly far away was an old hotel, he knew, with the sad remains of a rooftop lounging area, and before he could quite come up with a good reason why, he found himself heading towards it with a real sense of urgency.
The door onto the rooftop was rusted metal; it swung open with an unsatisfying clunk. Although his facial expressions remained characteristically impassive, Hei's breath caught ever so slightly in his throat as he surveyed the view from the top of the building. There was nothing he couldn't see.
The cold air stung his face, and the expanse of buildings and lights before him was incomprehensible; his attention, however, was soon diverted.
A small lone figure was sat at the very edge of the building, seemingly muttering to themself, though the words were whipped away by the wind. The person- he couldn't tell their gender- seemed childlike to Hei, and for a moment he was almost concerned; curiosity was his prevalent reaction, though, and he slowly crept towards them. He was well accustomed to moving in complete silence.
Obviously he wasn't quite silent enough.
"Who are you?" The young boy- for Hei had come to the conclusion that they were a boy, though he really wasn't certain- stood up straight on the narrow ledge and spun around quickly, smiling sweetly with an almost maniacal glint in his eyes.
Hei was momentarily thrown by his appearance: he was tiny, with long white hair and deathly pale skin punctuated with red… stitches?
"My name is Li Shengshun," Hei replied softly, unsure of how to react.
"I'm Juuzou Suzuya," the odd-looking boy announced proudly, tilting his head a little. The encounter was beginning to make Hei a little uncomfortable; he found himself on edge, though he couldn't quite explain why.
The sound of someone clattering up the stairs to the roof made Hei jump to attention quite suddenly.
"Juuzou, there you are," a large man in a suit exclaimed breathlessly from the top of the stairwell. "I've been looking all over for you!" His attention turned quickly to Hei, and he frowned slightly. "Who are you?"
"My name is Li Shengshun," Hei repeated, trying to think of a less whimsical reason for his presence on the rooftop. "I was just… looking for… someone up here." He beamed, giving the stranger his best awkward Li smile.
He received nothing but a suspicious look in response, before the man turned his focus away again.
"Come on, Juuzou. We've got business to attend to, and I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of them are already annoyed that we're late."
"Where are we going, Mr Shinohara?" Juuzou Suzuya asked in a sing-song voice, jumping down from the ledge lightly.
"I'll explain in the car."
As the pair left, the boy, Juuzou, turned around and gave Hei another garish smile, and Hei noticed that his eyes were the strangest shade of red.