A girl sat in a dusty old house in a dusty old couch.
Her clothes were worn out, her hair dirt and messy from being on the run for so long.
She breathed out, cuddling into the large and thick jersey as she stared around the mansion.
It should be all right to hide out here for now, as it's Halloween.
Now, one might question the logic in that as teenagers are more likely to enter haunted houses as a form of testing their courage.
Well, here is the reason why.
"KYAAAAAA!!!!"
She heard the sound of thumping, heard how the teenagers whimpered, crying and scared as they left the school grounds.
Then the noises stopped, everything settled back in place.
She felt a cold hand touch the top of her head, she looked up to see a familiar face.
His hallow eye sockets greeted him, his mouth covered with a mask, his entire being pale white, making his slightly matted hair look darker than it is.
Than it was.
"You didn't kill any of them did you?"
His hair floats, like a dark, dark sea one would see see at midnight, as he shakes his head.
'Good.'
"If I attracted police here with rumors of disappearing students, it would be harder for me to protect you." He says, his voice deep just like it was when he was alive.
Old abandoned houses are an obvious option when you have a ghost for a guardian.
"…By the way, Yukinoshi-" "Yukino-chan Hachi-kun." She corrected him before he could continue.
Hachiman stays silent for a moment before he redos.
"By the way Yukino-chan. Are you doing alright being cooped up in here?"
"I will be fine as long as you don't disappear on me Hachi-kun." She says, grabbing the manifested sleeve of her ghost.
HER ghost, no one else can touch him but she.
"Hai hai Yukino-chan. Though, I will have to leave to scout out some places we could stop by after we leave here. Is that okay?" He continues, petting her head.
She remembers a time when she would call him disgusting for touching her, now she wants him to never leave her side.
"Hmmm, okay."
She wouldn't be this clingy either.
It was little past middle of the night when Hachi-kun took her smaller, but less delicate compared to before hands in his. She held the knife in her other hand, in a way that would concealed under the sleeves of the overly large coat.
She felt her hands itch as she walked through rows of people, her eyes twirling around, seeing how their necks moved. How little bumps moved from under their skin.
Aaah, there were insects under peoples skin. She feels Hachi-kun grip her hand tighter, keeping her calm, reminding her that those bugs won't get her.
Hachi-kun would destroy them along with the source before they could.
She feels something akin to a headache as she moves along the colorful crowd, so many clothes so many candies….
Aaah, she wants to get Hachi-kun candies. He always had a sweet tooth didn't he? She wonders if he has some cravings.
She feels him stop, she looked up to see his face angled in a certain direction.
She followed his non existing gaze, and spots a particularly fat greedy kid, having more than one candy bag. Some of those probably weren't his.
Yukino looks up at her partner, taps at his arm, and beckons him to come downwards.
"Are you craving sweets Hachi-kun?" When silence greets her she pursues. "You know, it's bad to hold back. You'd keep craving for more and more till the convenience store, so you should satiate your hunger now."
Reluctantly, Hachi-kun nods.
The fat kid would do.
Obe grinned as he sat at the river bank. He had made a big catch tonight.
His stupid mother had putted him on a diet, all because some stupid doctor said something about 'dia-byt-is' and stuff. Whatever, he didn't care.
At least now he could abide Halloween traditions, and dig into candy. It didn't matter if he wasn't able to get them himself, his mother shouldn't have starved him.
"Ah excuse me…" he hears a soft voice, turning around he sees an onee-san coming out of the darkness.
Pretty~ but... she also looks really dirty.
"...Are you dressed up as a robot?" She asks, tilting her head as her eyes seem to glow.
"U-Un. It's one of my favorite characters in this game."
"Oh, I see. The design looks really detailed."
There is a moment of silence as the onee-san stands there then asks a question.
"Hey, wanna guess my costume?"
Eeehh cant you see when a kid just wants to enjoy their candy?!?!? Weirdo! But his instincts told him to play along.
"Ummm…" He looked her up and down. He wouldn't say what she wore looked exactly like COSTUME…but it did give her the creepy vibe, so there must be something to it.
"A homeless person?" He guessed bluntly.
Onee-san suddenly smiled, shaking her head.
He pondered a little more.
"An underground person?" She shook her head again, this time closer to where he was.
Any child, at this moment would get the urge to run away. At this day and age with all those video games almost every small children are aware of what could happen if approached by strangers.
But alas, Obe was lulled by a comforting feeling, unsure of where it was coming from, but such wonderings were chased out of his head by his focus on the older girl who kept on approaching him.
His false sense of security made him miss the glint from the moons light that came from her right hand, its tip emerging from the overly large hoodie.
"A runaway character from a movie?" He was getting tired with each guess, and the onee-san was getting closer and closer….
Till she stopped right in front of him, kneeling, the knife in her hand fully in her hand now.
"You got all of them wrong…you see…I'm a serial killer."
Suddenly he felt pain in his chest, then his throat.
He would have gurgled and screamed in pain, but such feelings were silence by the sensation of being gently cradled, rocked back and forth. A feeling of being in his mothers arm at home.
He could see the door to his house opening, his parents smiling down at him, his father putting an arm around his shoulder as they watched a movie for halloween…
Ah, his mother apparently prepared surprise for him, it's a cake shaped like a pumpkin.
Now he feels guilty for stealing all that candy……
Obe drifted into a deep deep sleep, devoid of the sensation of his soul being devoured swift and painlessly.
Yukino watched as Hachi-kun cradled the body of the child as if it was something precious even as he had already gulped down his soul.
She knew how sad Hachi-kun could feel whenever they did this. How he saw every single child as a precious being that should have a chance to live their life.
But they had to do this.
Had to, or Hachi-kun would lose control over his appetite. And children, as they both knew from experience, were most satisfactory for his hunger pangs.
If Hachi-kun lost control, Yukino wouldn't get the chance to do the killing, and there would be no way to hold Hachi-kun back.
And Yukino would never burden Hachi-kun with that.
Not when he is burdened enough.
Never, ever, ever. Yukino will protect Hachi-kun till the end.
Never ever ever should Hachi-kun cry from empty eye sockets as he tried to destroy his own being, failing to do so.
Yukino can't do that to him.
Not when it was her fault that he was like this.
Yukino snapped out of her blank haze, as Hachi-kun finished gently placing the young boy in a manner respectable for the dead, his face in a peaceful smile, as if he had been dreaming a really good dream as he died.
"…You have blood on your coat Yukino-chan." He said eyeing her critically, making her feel flustered as she held the knife and the overly large coat close to her chest.
"Hachi-kun could always clean it for me though." She said poutingly.
He let out a sound that seemed to be the same as a sigh as he walked past her, doing exactly what she knew he would do, phasing her out of the blood as he grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her along.
She pressed herself close to him in their half-hug, the knife already back in her sleeve.
Now they move towards the next town, a girl and her ghost.
A serial killer and her first victim.