Gastrick12: This is Devil's Aria, my first story, all characters are mine, as is the story in its entirety. This will be uploaded once a week, every Friday. Hope you enjoy. Read and Review.
October 12th, 2008 - City of Higeki
As the full moon shines, night falls silent. Not for long, though.
"Aaaaahhhhh!"
The scream pierces throughout the dark alleys, yet nobody hears. The worker, of approximately 32 years of age, falls to the ground, lifeless. Blue electricity can still be seen coursing in his body.
"What are you? Please, leave us alone! What have we done to you?"
Expressive brown eyes try to meet with the ones belonging to the person standing in front of them, but the dark atmosphere of the now in ruins Matsutori Center, and the black hood hanging over the man's face, block them from view.
As blue light slightly illuminates the environment, the worker notices the electricity running around the hooded person's body. Unconsciously, the man realizes his life has reached its end.
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"
With a thump, the body falls.
Calmly, with his face hooded from view, the man clad in a black cloak walks through the metallic corridors, paying no mind to the mass of dead bodies he is leaving behind.
With a light push, the man opens the door at the end of the hall.
The circuit core, the battery of the electrical central. He has reached his targeted location. In long strides, the man approaches the main panel, sitting in the middle of the room. When the button furthest to the right is pressed, a screen, up to then practically invisible, lights up, and a map of Higeki in its entirety appears.
After observing the screen for a few silent minutes, the man presses another button, and a deep crimson mark is set upon a middle-class house in the north side of the city.
With no sound whatsoever, the screen turns off, and the hooded man leaves the destroyed central; his memory fresh on the location of this house.
Devil's Aria
Chapter 1: Killer
"Huff! Huff! Nearly didn't make it", Mayu said, her hand resting on the wall of the subway staircase.
Yoshida Mayu, age 15. Born October 13th, 1992. Her black hair reached her mid-back, blue eyes glistening in exhaustion, twin red spheres perched on her head, restraining the ebony strands, bouncing with energy. Looking down at herself while recovering the lost breath, she realized once again that the black and white uniform of Higeki High School really needed a little more colour, even if it didn't exactly look bad on her. But oh, well, that was life. She could have thought up much better ways of spending the afternoon of her sixteenth birthday, though, and those she would have been all for. After all, running all the way from school, getting out as soon as the last bell rang, to the subway train station was quite tiring. She really should send a letter to Higeki's mayor suggesting an entrance to the tunnels located closer to the learning facility.
Well, all that didn't matter now. She was just happy she had made it to the station before the closing time, and before the last train arrived. She would have been quite sad to be forced to go home by walking, considering how far away her aunt Chos house was. What a crappy birthday that would have been!
Having regained her breath, Mayu walked down the steps.
"Huh? How curious. I thought it would be a little bit more packed in here", she observed, looking around the empty station. Spotting the nearest set of seats, she walked over, intending to wait for the last train there.
Sitting down, Mayu waited in silence. As much as she liked quiet from time to time, this soundless atmosphere was really getting her nervous. For some reason, this silence didn't feel right, as though something terrible was about to happen.
As she carefully observed the long halls of the subway station, Mayu expected a monster to jump out at any second. She knew she was being completely unreasonable, but this inexplicable fear was making the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end.
After a few minutes passed and nothing happened, Mayu let out a long sigh. How silly she was! Actually believing some kind of supernatural creature would suddenly make its appearance. Mentally kicking herself, she relaxed as her nerves went down the drain.
Hearing footsteps come down the station stairs, the girl turned her eyes to the last step in the long row, and soon saw a boy of about a year or two older than her appear. The stranger walked the closest permitted distance to the train rails, and stood there. Mayu knew the train would be arriving soon, so there was nothing peculiar about this, as the boy must have noticed it, too.
About to stand up, Mayu paused, hearing another pair of feet come down the stairs. It was a woman this time, bright red hair ending a little past her waist. A pair of shiny and unusual yellow eyes were set right in front of her, not even paying attention to her surroundings. A lit cigarette was hanging from her mouth, the smoke coming from it in a very visible cloud. She was dressed in casual clothes: Red crystal earrings, a pink hoodie underneath a black leather jacket, black jeans, and black boots. She seemed to be in her early 30s.
The red-headed woman did the same thing the boy had done before her, and stood beside him, right before the line that signalled a dangerous zone for the time in which the train would arrive.
Paying no more mind to these two new people, Mayu stood without making a noise. But even then, a sound did finally break the uneasy silence that had formed when she had first gotten here. It was the sound of a gun being shot.
Snapping her head in the direction of the other two people so fast she almost got whiplash, Mayu saw as the boy collapsed to the ground, blood sipping from his head onto it. A steaming handgun was being held in the red-headed womans hand, having released a bullet so recently. Her yellow gaze continued to stare up ahead, into the abyss. The arm holding the weapon raised to the level in which the boys head had been previously, still pointing in that direction.
Mayu's eyes widened in fear. "Wh-What in...?", she whispered, afraid the woman would notice her. As she found herself to be frozen in the stop, the girl watched as the red-headed woman changed the direction of her arm to that of a vertical way, now pointing at the dead boys face.
To Mayu's utter horror, the handgun shot again. And again and again and again. A total of twenty-seven bullets were fired before the woman lifted the weapon and put it in a, up to that point unseen, fold on the side of her belt. Crimson red liquid had splashed everywhere in the vicinity of the now massacred body, including the boots and pants leg of the murderer. Her hand in itself was now coated in blood, but her yellow eyes never left the empty space in front of her.
Having witnessed enough, Mayu didn't wait for the woman to cause anymore damage to the disfigured corpse, and as quietly, yet as fast as possible, she went out the other pair of stairs, on the other side of the station, away from the terrible scene.
But, as Mayu left, she failed to notice a pair of shiny yellow eyes looking her way.
The girl had never had such a long, or terrifying, day. What a horrible birthday it had turned out to be. Who was that woman? Why had she suddenly killed that boy? She was curious, but she would have had to be completely insane to go back and ask her that. Besides, as long as the walk had been, Mayu had finally reached home.
Opening the door in a hurry, for fear and adrenaline had yet to leave her body, Mayu croaked a hurried greeting to her aunt, and, after closing the door just as fast and taking off her shoes, ran up the steps to her room.
"There are still no leads as to who caused the Massacre of Matsutori Center, but police officials assure-", the reporter was cut off as the TV went dead. Leaving the remote back on the desk beside her, Yoshida Cho took the steaming cup of herbal tea, and raised it to her lips.
She took a small sip, her black sphere earrings swaying from one side to the other, her black neck-lengthed hair neatly cut and unmoving, just as the butterfly pin that sat on it. For a woman in the middle of her 40s, Cho had a rather odd sense of fashion. A green and red scarf covered the collar of her dark green four-buttoned coat, and her legs, clad in white silk pants, were crossed one over the other as she sat on the sofa of her living room. Opening her blue eyes, slightly darker than those of her niece, the woman once more let the cup rest on the tiny plate sitting on the side desk.
"The shadows are closing in", Cho muttered, a slight frown upon her lips.
Laying on her bed in fetal position, Mayu thought of the horrors she had witnessed. That woman... Why destroy a body so terribly one wouldn't be able to recognize it? Had she hated that boy so much? The now 16 year old clearly remembered the fear running through her veins during the horrendous act. Twenty-seven bullets. Why, God darnit, had she counted them? Because she was scared, and it was the only thing she could concentrate on at that point in time.
She couldn't reminisce a time in which she had been more terrified. Except for... Well, that was in the past. She had to let go of the memory of that night someday. The night in which her house had burnt down, with both her parents still inside. She had been merely 6 years old. Afraid is something that didn't even begin to cover what she had felt that night. But it had been 10 years ago, and the past should stay in the past.
"Mayu! Would you mind going out for some sugar? I need it to finish your birthday cake!", her thoughts were brought to an end as her aunts words cut through the heavy air in her room.
"Um... Sure, aunt Cho! I'll go immediately!", Mayu replied. Might as well think about something happy like her sixteenth birthday, instead of painful memories and the images of this afternoon.
With one last shudder, the girl changed clothes, shading her school uniform in favor of her favourite outfit: A black, long-sleeved t-shirt underneath a pink zip-up hoodie, and a pair of simple blue jeans.
Ready to go, Mayu threw a "I'll be back soon!", at her aunt, put on her pink synthetic fur boots, and left out the door to the streets of Higeki.
"Excuse me, have you seen a girl with long black hair, blue eyes, and a hairpin in the form of two red spheres?"
The owner of the closing store, with the broom with which he had been cleaning the floor tiles still in his hands, looked at the woman with curious brown eyes.
"Uh, yeah, she bought some sugar a little while ago, and then went away."
"Could you please tell me in which direction she departed?"
"Um, sure. She went that way", the man pointed to the street directly to the north of the store.
"Thank you very much", and with that, the woman left, following the same path as the girl had earlier, taking the cigarette out of her mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke before putting it back in its place.
As he saw the woman leave, the man wondered about the peculiar combination of such bright red hair with a pair of those shiny yellow eyes.
Mayu walked calmly back home. The small journey to the store really had made her forget about what had happened earlier, and the thought of the cake she would eat once arriving home helped to distract her from thinking it again.
As the girl concentrated on joyful images, she suddenly felt that something was wrong once more. Mayu ceased her walking, listening to her surroundings in fear once again.
But, unlike last time, she did hear something this time. A sound she had heard earlier already. A sound she would never forget for the rest of her life. It was the sound of a gun being shot.
Quickly, Mayu ducked to the ground, hearing the sound of something soaring through the air above her. Looking in the direction of the object, she saw the hole a bullet would leave behind in the middle of a commercial sign standing not far from her own position.
Mayu snapped her head in the direction from which the bullet had come, and met the gaze of emotionless yellow eyes. Her own blue depths widened in realization. It was her! The woman from earlier in the train station! Her bright red hair was just as before, and the cigarette, still lit, continued to hang from her mouth. Her clothes hadn't changed, only now she didn't sport blood on her hand or lower half. How had she cleaned herself so fast? Was she... Used to killing people?
"I finally found you", the woman spoke for the first time in front of her. Her voice contained no other feeling than that of childish joy, as though this was some kind of game.
"F-Found... Me?", Mayu croaked, shock evident in her tone.
"Why yes! Haha! You wasted my entire day, you know. Such a pity we have to end this here, but well, one can't always get what they want", the woman spoke, and lifted her handgun once again. Her finger quickly pulled the trigger.
"Gyaaaah!", Mayu threw herself to the side, avoiding the second bullet.
"You're fast! Impressive. But that doesn't mean you'll survive tonight", the gun shot again.
Mayu jumped to the other side of the street, falling off the sidewalk and evading the third bullet. Her concentration on that one, however, drowned out the noise the gun made. It was too late when the fourth bullet reached her.
"Ahhhhh!", Mayu screamed in pain, taking her hand to her shoulder. Lifting it again, she observed the blood flowing out from the wound the shot had caused.
"Hahaha! It seems you're not skilled enough to efficiently distribute your attention. Two bullets at a time, then, will be enough", the woman laughed, pressing the trigger of her handgun twice.
Mayu ducked the first bullet, but the second one reached her leg.
"Agh! Ah!", Mayu felt the pain in her leg, watching as a delicate stream of blood flowed down from it to the ground.
"It's over, darling. Now, I'm aiming for your head", the red-headed woman said again, positioning the snout in the direction of Mayu's eyes.
'Damnit! If I don't do something, I'm done for!', the girl thought in fear and frustration.
"And now: Game Over", her finger pressed the trigger again, and immediately a second time.
As Mayu watched the two bullets coming her way, she could only think of how sad it was that she would be leaving her aunt Cho behind, alone. How sad it was that she would perish on her sixteenth birthday. How sad it was that, after promising the memory of her parents she would live on for them, 10 years later, she was breaking that oath.
With that, she closed her eyes, awaiting the impact of her death.
Which never came.
Mayu opened her eyes, amazed at what she saw. She had jumped three feet in the air!
"Wh-What?", she exclaimed, perplexed. Reaching the ground once again, she noticed that her shoulder and leg had suddenly stopped bleeding, in fact: the wounds were no longer there! Looking at the floor, Mayu saw two bullet caskets lying beneath her. Were those the ones that had reached her?
"H-How? How could you...?", the woman's expression had changed, and for the first time, Mayu saw those emotionless yellow eyes filled with something. Shock.
'I don't... How did I do that?', her thoughts were going on a rampage. There was no logical explanation for what had just happened.
"You pest", the woman exclaimed. "You insist on bringing me trouble", with a fast movement, the now enraged woman lifted the handgun and pulled the trigger numerous times.
Without even trying, Mayu evaded the barrage of bullets in three swift movements.
"Wow!", she didn't understand. What was up with her?
"It's enough! Witnesses are a needless nuisance. I'll finish you now!", the woman pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. "Eh?", shocked, the still lit cigarette fell from her lips and onto the ground.
"What's wrong? Ran out of bullets? He!", Mayu didn't know what was happening, but she felt incredibly powerful. Being a little cocky wouldn't hurt.
"So annoying", the tone of the woman's voice changed again. This time, it sounded tired. "Guess I'll have to do this the hard way", and, with no warning, the redhead took out a knife from her back pocket, and ran at Mayu.
"Eh?", the girl was not prepared for that! Getting ready to evade the woman, Mayu suddenly felt an excruciating pain in her head. So much it was, it forced her to kneel over.
"Huh?", the woman stopped in her way. What was happening? She could feel a strong presence coming from this girl. Could it be... What she had been looking for? "Hmph", putting the knife back in her pocket, the woman started walking away.
"Wh-Where are you going?", Mayu screamed.
"I'm leaving, I got bored. But we'll meet again, Yoshida Mayu. Be sure of that. Kobayashi Kira has seen something... Very interesting in you. Hahahahaha!", and with that, the woman, Kobayashi Kira, walked through the dark streets of Higeki, until Mayu could no longer see her.
"Agh!", struggling with the pain in her head, Mayu stood back up. She picked up the bag of sugar, which she had dropped during the encounter with Kira, and slowly walked back home.
It was only some steps from the door that she realized that Kira had called her by name.
Barely managing to open the door, Mayu entered her aunts house.
"Agh!", a great wave of pain went through her head, and, unconsciously, she dropped the bag of sugar again.
Closing the door with her foot, Mayu barely managed to take her shoes off before a terrible pain coursed her head.
"Gyaaaaah!", Mayu fell to the floor, holding her head.
"Well, well, well... It seems my time as a free-loader is over. Nice to meet you, Mayu."
Mayu closed her eyes. That voice... It was inside her mind...
To Be Continued...