Prologue

The silence of nothing but rain filled Rutherford's ears. The constant tapping of the water slapping the muddy ground, and his broken soul, or at least, as more broken then it already was. The noise of the rain was soft, but it was booming loudly in his pounding head. It was only in a matter of seconds that it all happened, but he still couldn't rewind the moment in his mind without thinking about what he should've done instead of giving into the hidden fear inside him that he thought he buried.

It was early evening in a park, cloudy and gloomy. Rutherford found himself confronted by someone: A girl. She was angry with him, and then there was the fired shot. They were spotted. The two bolted into the woods and tried to stay low as possible.
After pushing her away and taking a few hits, he hit the ground pretending to be dead. She was fooled, but he reassured her that he was still alive by showing her the bullet-proof vest he had underneath his coat.
The silence didn't last long as more shots were fired, and their cover was blown.
The two ran off. Rutherford pushed her back into the wilderness to be hidden. He told her to stay there until she couldn't see him, and then carefully run back home without being seen, whether it was hers of even his apartment it didn't matter really. As long as she was away from what was happening and was safe. That's what only seemed to matter at the time. Trying to argue, she said otherwise but he coldly interrupted her and said, "Just do it!" in a frustrated and flustered tone.
Off in a flash, he left her there confused and frightened. He knew this was for her safety. It had to be done.
He led his hunter around in circles, blocks, and through many obstacles of the city, and it was still chasing him relentlessly. He soon reached a dead end. No where to run, but he still tried to climb as fast as he could as he found a nearby ladder. Rooftop to rooftop, he leaped, found the nearest place to hide and left his hunter to search. After it left, Rutherford crept out only to be spotted again. Again the charade continued, only to find that this hunter had called backup. Running from place to place, trying to analyze each and everything these stupid hunters were thinking, he had to keep running for his life or else he'd be killed. But whatever he tried to get away, they were two steps ahead of him whenever he thought he was the one making those two steps ahead. Back to the shrouded woods again, he found himself cornered.
That's when it happened. The countless shots that she took left Rutherford in a daze. He couldn't believe that the unimaginable had happened right before his eyes. In that instant, he tried to take down the hunter by pure physical force, only to find that she had yet again bended reality. The hunter was shot three times in the back and was finished. She wasted the rest of the bullets on the backup hunters, who were down in less then a minute. She did that while lying there, completely unable to make a single harsh movement, or even stand. She saved his life. She really was a defender that Kiyotaka chose.

Rutherford decided to sit there for a while longer, since no one wouldn't care what he was doing or where he was. So he stayed there holding the mess he had made in his arms. He refused to look down at her motionless body. It would only make him regret even more of the mistake he made. What made it hurt even more was that he could've prevented it all… but it was her decision to confront him about something else he didn't bother thinking about until she mentioned it. But it was also his idea to recruit her as a Defender and allow her in on the secrets of the Blade Children.
Now, there he was, a pathetic wreck sitting in the rain, gunshot holes in his coat, his sunglasses on the ground covered in mud, and his blue eyes filled with many tears that he held back effortlessly. It soon became harder and harder to keep them back the longer he stayed there.

It seemed to be about an hour, or so he assumed. He decided to just leave and let the proper authorities come to investigate what had happened. Rutherford even called the police, detective office, everything. It wasn't until then he noticed his voice was just a little taut, and shaky. There was no way he could feel this kind of emotion, at least, for someone else whom he had only known for about a year, so he thought. It wasn't like she really meant something to him… was it?

Even then it always looked like she was always with him. She knew the others like him, but there was something different to her. She was unlike any person Rutherford could possibly encounter, and yet at the same time she beat him down to a point where he actually had to think what she was saying.
She was gone now… and things were going to get harder. A lot harder. It was as if the fate of the Blade Children suddenly became the burden of a lifetime and made the world crash down on Rutherford's shoulders. It was now going to be a lifetime that was just beginning to get much more tedious and difficult than what it used to be.