Tenshi de Shinigami

(Angel and Reaper)

Prologue – the Night of Fate

A group of bandits had arrived to Lukso Province. They were looking for a specific treasure. Houses were burned, people were forced out of their homes and brutally killed. Dogs were barking, horses were screaming and birds were silent. Mothers begged for the lives of their children only to find themselves next on the kill-list. Most didn't give up without a fight. Both men and women of a certain clan fought in order to protect the younger generation, not knowing that that was exactly what the villains wanted. Most were to never make it out of the battlefield alive. Their scarlet eyed were carved out of their lifeless bodies and in some cases the bandits just cut off their victim's heads. Nearly a hundred lives ended on that single night.

In the middle of that massacre there were two boys who had somehow made it to the outskirts of their home village, away from the fight. They were both scared, but the other boy was still able to find some courage within himself. His friend's family had been wiped out right in front of their eyes, but there was still a small chance someone from his own family could still be alive. Although barely 12 years old, he knew he would never be able to forgive himself if he simply ran away without at least trying to help his parents and his four-year-old sister. He took his friend's hand and looked him in the eyes, scarlet from overwhelming sadness and fear.

"Kurapika... There might still be time for me to at least save Sué. I'm going back in there. You run away and..." He was unable to finish his sentence when Kurapika was already screaming back at him:
"Not without you!" Kurapika was crying as he said it.
"You have to! You can't stay here. I don't want you to be put in any more danger. I have to at least try to save my family of otherwise I'll never forgive myself", the boy said while placing his hands on his friends shoulders. They were shaking from fear. Kurapika could barely think clearly but one thing was for sure. He did not want to lose his best friend.
"But Kurama... What if... What if you don't make it?" he said through the tears. Kurama forced himself to smile, not taking his eyes out of Kurapika's.
"I won't die. Don't worry". He couldn't think of anything else to say. Kurama reached for his pocket and took out a photo, taken and developed only two days before. It pictured them both, Kurama and Kurapika, holding hands as they ran on the nearby field while playing one of their games. Kurama carefully tore the photo in half, separating the pictures of himself and his friend.
"No matter how many years it will take, I promise I will find you. Just run as far away from here as you can and hide. Change location if necessary. I'll become a hunter and find you, just stay alive until then. We can use these as a way of identification", Kurama said and gave Kurapika the other half of the photo. Kurapika took the photo from his friends hand and with the other hand reached for his own ear and took off one of his earrings and gave it to Kurama.
"You better keep your promise." Kurama swore one more time he'd make it back alive, leaned closer to his friend and kissed him right on the lips.
"I love you Kurapika", he whispered before yelling out an order "Now go!"

This time Kurapika listened to his friend and ran away. He ran until his legs could no longer support him and after resting a little he'd run some more, praying that his best and only friend would survive. Not knowing how long it would take before they'd see each other again.

Kurama went back to his house, right in the middle of the battlefield. It had gone quiet. Too quiet. Something was definitely wrong. The boy hesitated for a moment before opening the door to his own house. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. His mother and sister were lying on the floor covered in their own blood and their eyes had been carved out. Further away was his father's lifeless body, his hand still clenching on his sword. His head had been cut clean off. Kurama fell on his knees. This was way too much for a child his age to handle.

Suddenly he heard a sound nearby. People were talking. Kurama didn't recognize the voices so he assumed they were the thieves. He ran into the house as silently as possible, opened the secret door and closed it behind himself. The hidden room wasn't big, but it was good for emergency hiding. Apparently his family hadn't been given enough time to hide.

Kurama's assumptions were soon proven correct as the bandits set foot into the house. Kurama listened to their conversation, trying his best not to make a noise.

"You must have been seeing things. There's nobody here."

"I could've sworn I saw someone go into this house."

"Whatever, the house is empty. Besides, I already took care of this family."

"Lucky bastard. Taking out the village head."

"And literally cutting off his head. C'mon, let's get out of here and join the others."

Before the two bandits left, the other one decided that it was a good idea to take out a wall before he left. After he could no longer hear them, Kurama let out a sigh of relief, since it hadn't been a support wall and it wasn't the one in which the secret room was located. Kurama's legs failed from beneath him and the boy cried. Those overwhelming emotions were almost too much to bare. That was the first time in his life he experienced emotions strong enough to turn his eyes red.

Five years later...

Chapter 1 – Long Awaited Clue

Kurama woke up in a hotel room covered in cold sweat. He had had that same dream again. The dream about the night he lost everything five years ago. For some reason unknown to him, he had been having that same dream more frequently than usual lately. It was the third time that week, and it was only Wednesday.

He sat up and ran his fingers through his blazing red hair. He could have sworn his eyes were equally scarlet at that moment. He looked at the clock next to his bed and thought: 'It's already 9AM and here I am, dreaming of the past like some old man...' He got up from the bed, took a cold showed, got dressed and checked out of the hotel. He wasn't in York New city just for fun. He had work to do. He was tracking down the last member of The Triad, a notorious group of three criminals so dangerous that in order to avoid global panic, the general public and even some hunters weren't even informed about their existence. So far, Kurama had taken out two of them by himself. You see, he was no ordinary hunter. He was a three star shadow hunter. Shadow hunters, or S-class hunters, are responsible for taking care of jobs nearly impossible for other hunters to complete. Needless to say all their personal information is classified. There are only five shadow hunters in the world and all of them have been awarded the title of a "three star hunter", and Kurama was one of them.

The streets of York New were as busy as always. It would be difficult to find a single person among all those people. Difficult, but not impossible. Kurama knew that although normally it would be wise for a single person to hide themselves within the crowd, members of the Triad would stick out like sore thumbs if they did that. All he'd have to look for would be a mass of people passing out around someone and she'd be found out. But the last member of the Triad wasn't so stupid. She knew she couldn't keep her nen perfectly in check and thus wouldn't place herself in a situation that would expose her. According to a reliable source however, she was last seen in York New, so she was probably in the alleyways or other discreet places. Somewhere with little to no people. That's where he'd search for her.

Kurama started his search from the outskirts of town. The houses in the area were abandoned, soon to be demolished out of the way of new, modern buildings. There was no one in sight, but he could hear someone breathing in the distance. He deployed his ten gently to find out who or what it was, but not drawing attention to himself while he was doing that. Got her. There's no way he could mistake that nen-signature. It was so powerful an average person wouldn't be able to stay conscious within a hundred feet of it, not to mention it leaked out at a ridiculous rate. Kurama's own nen was at a higher level than that, but he was able to keep it contained within his body, so people around him were never in danger.

He approached her silently, careful not to give out any malicious intent. Assassination wasn't his favorite hobby, but this criminal trio was so dangerous they needed to be eliminated, since there was no lock strong enough to hold them in jail. Hunting them down however had become considerably more difficult after Kurama took care of the first one. Now the situation was "two down, one to go" and the last one was right in front of him, with only a few feet between them. Kurama wanted this upcoming fight to be over as soon as possible. Kurama wanted this upcoming fight to be over as soon as possible. Although they were far from the city center, they were close enough to populated areas to draw unwanted attention if the fight were to continue for too long.

Kurama conjured a scythe longer than his body and prepared for the confrontation. He was a specialist by his nen-type, but he liked to make his opponents believe he was a conjurer to create them a false sense of security. Just like always, it worked this time as well. The last member of the Triad stepped into hes sight from behind the next corner. Apparently she had sensed his presence for some time before he conjured his favorite weapon, but decided to stay hidden for a while longer in order to assess the situation. Kurama didn't mind that in the least. He'd prefer face to face confrontations over assassinations any day.

The two took each other on. The triad member was sure of her victory before their weapons clashed for the first time. His opponent was a manipulator and from start to near end she thought she had the upper hand. However, she had terribly wrong. Kurama finished the battle in less than 45 minutes without even messing up his clothes. The boy took photographic evidence and the woman's left index finger, as well as a few strands of hair, for the person responsible for the reward, before disposing of the body.

###

While walking down the street the only thing Kurama could think about was his childhood friend. It had been five years already since they had last seen each other. Just as he had promised, Kurama had taken the Hunter Exam the first chance he got and passed it. He had started looking for his friend right away but all his attempts so far had been in vain. He had had no idea where to start looking, so the only working strategy was to do his job as a hunter and hope he found Kurapika while doing so, or at least untill he got a reliable clue. Nothing turned up so far and no clue he ever got was reliable enough to follow. The only thing Kurama prayed for during those five years was a clue. One clue that was reliable...

"Young man. You seem to have something bothering you."
Kurama stopped on his tracks. Who had just talked? At first he saw no one but when he looked at a nearby alley, there was an old woman sitting behind a small table with a crystal ball. A fortuneteller. Kurama walked to her cautiously. He knew some fortunetellers were nen-users and their predictions were pretty accurate, but you could never tell by appearance who was the real deal and who just wanted to fool you.
"Every person has something bothering them and I'm no exception. You don't have to be a mystic to figure out that much", he said to the woman. She looked at him kindly, as if she had known what he was going to say.
"You're right. There is no person in this world who doesn't have a single thing bothering them. It may be something daily, seemingly insignificant, but everyone worries about something. In your case however, I sense it's not something so simple. Tell me what's wrong. There might be something I can do to help you", she said to him without taking her eyes off his for a moment. Kurama looked away from her gaze. He felt extremely uncomfortable when anyone looked him into the eyes for too long. It gave him the feeling that the other person could see right through his black contact lenses and hazel (or scarlet) eyes, right into his soul.

'I guess telling her won't hurt... If she's a real deal I may have just struck a jackpot, but even if she's a fake, I'll at least be able to get something off my chest', he thought. Kurama sat down on the other chair around the fortuneteller's table. He crossed his hands on the table, took a deep breath and told the woman a short, stripped down version of his story:
"Due to a certain incident that took place five years ago, my best friend and I got separated from each other. I've been trying to find him all this time, but luck hasn't been on my side. I know in my heart that he's alive, but... I have no idea where to look for him. Kurama could feel tears forcing their way into his eyes but refused to let himself cry in front of a stranger. Even after all these years he loved his friend more than anything, and talking about that fateful night five years ago still hurt a lot even when he didn't directly mention the events.
"I think I may be able to help you. Do you have a picture of your friend?" the fortuneteller asked him. Kurama nodded while trying to hide his excitement. Was this elderly woman a real thing after all?
"Yeah... It's a pretty old photo however", he said. The woman smiled and told him the age of the picture didn't matter. All she needed to know was what his friend had looked like at a moment in time.

Kurama took the photo out of his wallet, or half of the photo to be more precise, and showed it to the fortuneteller without giving it to her. The woman looked at the picture, put her hands onto the crystal ball and said something that sounded like a chant:

"Chronos, guardian of time.
The boy in this picture you shall now find,
and show me where he'll be in seven days time"

At that same moment Kurama used gyō to see if there was anything going on inside the crystal ball. And there it was. Nen, flowing rapidly from the woman's hand into the crystal ball, forming vortexes and then settling into the form of an hourglass. At this moment he knew this woman was the real deal. He had always been good at analyzing things based on visual information alone, and he could tell easily how this woman's ability worked:
The vortexes of nen trapped the essence of time within themselves. Once they had done that, they settled into the form of an hourglass to analyze the "data" and to find what the user was looking for. This was different from any other nen-ability used by fortunetellers around the world. Instead of relying on present and past events to predict the future, this ability takes time inside itself and "fast forwards" it into a specified moment around a specified place or person. The prediction it makes becomes a predefined future and cannot be changed in any way. The downside is, it only shows it's user a seven second long "video clip", but that short clip contains enough information to make a reliable conclusion based on it.

Of course it was Kurama's own nen-ability "the Emperor of All" which allowed him to figure out that much. Kurama describes his ability as "a power to copy and create". Ever since he was young, he could easily tell exactly how an object or an artwork was made and what materials were used just by looking at them, and he could copy the famous masterpieces freehand. He was also able to produce his own works of art that rivaled those of the world most renowned artists. When the time came for him to decide on his nen-ability, he simply adapted his natural talent into nen. To put it bluntly, he can analyze and learn any existing nen-ability after seeing it once, and if (and only if) the ability doesn't already exist he can create his own. He can also change the conditions of copied abilities without affecting their strength as long as the number of conditions stays constant.

After about half a minute the vortexes of nen inside the crustal ball disappeared and the fortuneteller took her hands off of it. She looked at Kurama and said:
"You're right. Your friend is in fact alive. It appears he's currently working as a bodyguard..." Kurama almost burst into laughter.
"Kurapika? A bodyguard? Never would have thought in a million years he'd pick a job like that. Where is he?" he asked.
"In seven days he'll be in a city in the Republic of Padokia, near Kukuroo mountain. I can't tell which city unfortunately. They all look alike to me", she answered. Kurama understood her completely. There were three cities near Kukuroo mountain, all of which had the same layout. Despite the uncertainties he was still grateful. This was the first clue he'd got that was worth following. You'd think it would be easy as a hunter to track someone down, but you'd be wrong. If you're looking for "a Nobody", a person with no historical, scientific, cultural or political significance (in other words an average person who has never been caught braking the law), it becomes nearly impossible to find reliable clues. Kurama's five years worth of searching were based on the assumption that he was looking for such person.

The chance of him going to the right town was one out of three, but that didn't bother Kurama. He smiled, knowing that if he got lucky, he'd bee able to see his friend again very soon. There was no way he could ever thank the woman sitting in front of him enough. She had given him something he had been praying for every single night for almost five years. She didn't want any money from him, and Kurama didn't offer. No amount of money in the world would be enough to express his gratitude. Instead, he gave her his secret phone number and told her:
"If you need my help ever again, don't hesitate to call." He explained to her exactly what kind of hunter he was and made it clear that the phone number must never fall into the wrong hands. After that he searched tor the nearest public computer and made reservations for a flight to the Republic of Padokia and a train ticket to one of the towns near Kukuroo mountain.

Continues in the next chapter...