"Jin, I got something fer ya," Jubei turned to the now young man. Years have passed by training with Jubei, harnessing the power of Yukianesa and seithr. Today was the final day. The day that Jin would complete his training and set forth on the path to defeat Yuki Terumi at all cost. Jubei took him to the ruins of the church that was burned down long ago by Terumi. The final location for his training, Jubei had said. The cat rubbed the back of his head for a moment and added, "Well, I myself don't, but Rachel does."
Rachel Alucard. Jin sneered at the thought of the vampire. Though she saved his life and was eternally grateful for her, he just could not stand how the woman treated him.
"Oh, don't sneer like that Mr. Hero. It's such an unbecoming look for you." Almost as if she was summoned just from hearing her name alone, Rachel appeared with a gust of wind. With her were her two servants, Nago and Gii. Jin rolled his eyes, his hopes of not seeing those two again dashed. He found them utterly annoying, especially Gii.
"Ah, speak of the devil! Was wonderin' where you were," Jubei laughed.
"Forgive my tardiness, but Valkenhayn was taking ages to repair these clothes. They were quite terribly worn when we found them," Rachel explained as she walked up to Jin and stretched out her arms. As Jin looked at the clothing in her hands Jubei walked up to him and smiled.
"These clothes were worn by a great hero before you, Hakumen of the Six Heroes," Jubei explained. Jin's eyes brightened up at the sound of his hero's name. Out of all of the Six Heroes, the one that Jin looked up to the most was Hakumen, the owner of the Susano'o Unit, who had unparalleled strength. "He wore these clothes before he put on the Susano'o Unit. Ya remind me of him in his younger years, so I'm passin' these down to you. Take good care of 'em, Jin. It's yours now."
Jin nodded his head as he took the clothing from Rachel's hands, mumbling a thank you to her for bringing them on this day.
"Oh? Was there something that you wanted to say to me, Mr. Hero?" asked Rachel, with a smug expression on her face. "You can always speak up. It would do you well."
"I said thank you, Vampire," Jin scowled.
"That's much better. You're quite welcome. It is the least I could do to make you look at least presentable while you're searching for that swine Terumi," Rachel smiled.
"Yeah, so be grateful!" Gii yelled. Jin's eye twitched at the sound of that annoying rascal's voice.
"Shut it, before you get what's coming to you," Jin warned. He did not want to deal with those... things... while he was about to set out on his journey.
"Now, you know what to do, right?" Jubei asked. He had explained long ago what Jin should be doing while he was looking for Terumi, but just wanted to make sure that Jin still remembered his secondary objective.
Jin nodded his head, reassuring Jubei that he wouldn't forget. Jubei told him about the testing of the 12th Prime Field Device at Ibukido, and the terrible horror that it brought, destroying the land around it. It's not out of the question to assume that the same thing would happen in the other Hierarchical Cities where Cauldrons are being used to smelt a PFD. While Jin searches for Terumi, he promised Jubei that he would destroy the PFDs within the Cauldron and prevent something like Ibukido from ever happening again. It wasn't out of the question to assume that Terumi was associated with the smelting either, so if he destroys the Cauldrons, he would most likely find Terumi. That was all Jin needed to hear.
After bidding goodbye to the two who trained him for this very day, Jin walked off into the night with determined eyes. He silently vowed that he would find Terumi, and that he would get revenge for his brother and sister. He gripped Yukianesa tightly in his hand.
"This place looks dead," Jin sighed. The only thing that accompanied the young man in the dead of night was the wind, blowing his sleeves around wildly. The ninth Hierarchical City, Akitsu-Ko was a simple looking, but quite large town. This was the nearest Hierarchical City to Jin from the remains of the church. He would find the Cauldron, destroy it, and then get out. His mission was as simple as that.
But... he couldn't shake the lingering feeling that something was going to go wrong. Perhaps it was anxiety from this being his first real "mission" outside of his training. Perhaps just looking at how dark and empty Akitsu-Ko was had him shaken. Jin didn't know himself.
It was 11:00 PM. Though normally everyone would be in their homes sleeping or winding down by now, Jin thought that it was weird that he wasn't seeing at least one single person running through the streets. He continued to take steps through the dull and lifeless town, that unnerving feeling still lingering in the back of his mind. Until, he found what he was looking for.
A looming building much taller than the others in Akitsu-Ko stood out to Jin as his destination. The "Library". They are better known as the "Novis Orbis Librarium", an organization that controls the present world. Most that know of it would call it the "Librarium" or "NOL" for short. The rule of the NOL is based mainly around controlling Ars Magus and policing the Hierarchical Cities. Those who join the NOL are sent into an academy and are trained to become a part of the Praetorian Guard. It wasn't a necessarily bad sounding thing. In fact, what the officers of the NOL are supposed to do is to keep order in the world. However, the entire organization is corrupt. Jin sneered just thinking about them.
"Halt, you're trespassing on NOL ground! Go back now!" Jin snapped out of his thoughts, as he heard the man in the uniform yell at him. With a scowl on his face, Jin summoned Yukianesa from thin air.
An accompanying officer squinted his eyes as he looked at Jin, a confused look on his face. He turned to his friend and then back to Jin, asking, "Hold on a second... that uniform... who are you? You're not in the NOL..."
"NOL?" Jin looked confounded. "Don't you dare associate me with those scum!"
A quick flick of the wrist, and a wave of ice blasted the two officers in front of the gate, knocking them down alongside the doors. A confident smile appeared on Jin's face and stayed until he realized that he had just made a very loud noise using Yukianesa like that and the other officers that are inside of the Library would most likely be approaching. That confident smile turned into slight panic as he ran through the doors, not caring about anything else. There, he was met with multiple guards, each equipped with a different type of weapon. Jin's eyes widened as he counted the guards in the room. Hundreds of NOL officers were surrounding him slowly, letting him know that he had no where to run.
Even if he could though, he wouldn't. The initial shock faded away, and Jin once again grew confidence. "You've made a big mistake," he said as a chilly breeze filled the room.
Four of the guards charged right at him, weapons drawn. Jin stabbed Yukianesa into the ground and caused a large pillar of ice to shoot up beneath their feet, sending them flying into the air. They crashed into the ceiling, several bones broken in their bodies from the impact. More men jumped on Jin this time, each easily dealt with by Yukianesa's ice.
Jin shoved his shoulder into one of the guards, producing a lion's face with ice. The force from the blow sent him barreling into his comrades, knocking out plenty of them instantly.
As more and more approached, Jin danced beautifully with his blade, creating a flurry of swipes that cut down the opposition as they approached him. Jin created a platform of ice and slammed it into more officers running at him, knocking them all to the ground.
Just as Jin was preparing to finish the rest of the guards off, the sound of gunfire filled the room. Instinctively, he slammed Yukianesa into the floor again and created a wall of ice that protected him from the oncoming bullets aimed at his head. As more and more bullets were fired into the wall of ice with the idea to break it with enough force, Jin poured more magical energy into the wall, strengthening it further. He took the time to run around to the side of the wall and fire projectiles made out of ice at the men that were shooting at him, each of the blades collided effortlessly with their targets, stopping the rain of bullets from continuing on any further.
Jin dismissed the ice wall and ran up a nearby staircase, nearly slipping on the marble floor due to the ice beginning to cover it from the sheer presence of Yukianesa alone. He had to get to the Cauldron, but he didn't know where exactly it was. The remaining guards began to join him on the second floor, ordering him to stop where he is so that they can apprehend him. Jin laughed at the notion that they would tell him to stop after he's wiped out most of their forces already, and used Yukianesa to create more ice on the floor for them to slip on.
"You bastard!" one of the guards yelled as Jin approached. He had to take them down too or else they would go off and try to get backup, and that was something that Jin just didn't want to happen. He was tired enough after having to deal with the rest of the NOL officers in the Library.
"Tell me where I can find the Cauldron," Jin demanded, kneeling down in front of the guard on the floor.
Coughing up blood, the guard pointed toward the elevator to Jin's right, saying, "You can find it by going down that elevator..."
His expression unchanging, Jin got up and turned away, raising his arm to command the ice to surround the remaining guards, trapping them in the ice and freezing them.
Jin turned to look over the railing at the guards that were on the lower floor. A disgusting sight of bloodshed met him, unnerving him to his very core. He did this. He did this, and he knows it. He could feel something getting stuck in his throat as he stared at one of the men that had been viciously slashed open by him, blood caking the floor. The pristine marble of the first floor had been stained red.
Three hundred men.
He counted each and every one of them.
He slaughtered, maimed, and killed three hundred men tonight.
Trying to shake the realization of what he had done off, Jin moved toward the elevator to go down to see the Cauldron. He knew that if he continued down this path he would be killing people, but the true gravity of the fact had never hit him until just now. Now that he's finally tasted first blood, he knows full and well what he's doing.
It was cold. Colder than the part of the Library that was ravaged by him. Even Jin felt himself shivering just a little bit.
A glowing red light shined from below. Moving toward it, Jin prepared himself for anything. He didn't know if anyone was going to be jumping out at him here or not. He wanted to be prepared for the worst possible scenario.
The platform that he was standing on ended at the red light. Looking down below, Jin saw machinery inside of what looked like a gateway into another dimension. This was his target. The Cauldron. He would destroy it and then leave immediately, off to the next Hierarchical City.
He lifted Yukianesa into the air and held it by the sheathe. Ice formed around it to make it shaped like a bow. Pointing the bow of ice down, he aimed for the center of the Cauldron and shot an arrow of ice down into it. The Cauldron is instantly destroyed by the arrow, falling down into the abyss below.
His job now done, Jin turned back to the elevator. Before he could move his legs, a voice stopped him.
"My oh my... that was much more simple than you thought, wasn't it Mr. Hero?"
"Vampire..." Jin grit his teeth as Rachel appeared before him.
"Don't look so sullen Jin, as I have said before it is unbecoming of you. I haven't seen you for months and this is how you greet me?" Rachel asked, feigning being offended that Jin would dare to treat her like this.
"What are you here for, Rachel Alucard?" Jin returned. "You never come see me unless it's something that only benefits you."
"Come now. You are always in my mind. I care for my possessions, after all," Rachel laughed smugly, amused at the disgusted face Jin made. He raised his hand and was about to say something, but decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and rolled his eyes instead. "Northwest. That is where you should be headed. The Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi."
Without another word, Rachel disappeared, leaving Jin alone to ponder why she would want him to go to Kagutsuchi. It couldn't hurt to go there, considering that it was a Hierarchical City, but does Rachel have something specific in mind for him?
Shaking his doubts, Jin proceeded up the elevator, and silently walked past the fallen men in the Library. He moved through the town silently, taking note that the air was starting to feel strange.
With Akitsu-Ko behind him, Jin turned northwest. The 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi waited for him.
A faint knocking on the door grabbed the attention of the person sitting in the chair at the NOL Headquarters.
"Come in."
The person already knew who was at the door. The Lieutenant.
"Um... Major... I've come to give you a report on Akitsu-Ko..." a small, blonde girl approached the desk. Cold malevolent eyes stared daggers into her.
She was used to that.
"Proceed," she was told. It had been a week since the occurrence. Someone had trespassed the Library and had slaughtered all of the officers there. It was as if Death himself had wandered in. Not only that, but the Cauldron was destroyed as well. A result of that being the weather control of the city going haywire. It now snowed constantly in Akitsu-Ko.
The blonde nodded her head and moved closer to the desk. She put the papers in her arms down onto it and sat down.
"The person described to be the culprit doesn't have a portrait, but we do know some features. He wears an NOL uniform, has blonde hair, and green eyes. He also is in the possession of a katana that utilizes ice powers," the girl explained. "He's now an SS-Class Criminal. Most refer to him as the "Grim Reaper". They also say that he's heading towards Kagutsuchi now as we speak. It's possibly his next target..."
"Kagutsuchi, huh...?" her commanding officer asked.
"Um... Major... what are you going to do...?"
"...I'm going to meet with our dear 'Grim Reaper' and deal with him myself, of course."
Getting up out of the chair, the Major grabbed a sword and left, laughing maniacally.
The Lieutenant simply stared at her commanding officer as the door shut in front of her, baffled at the weird behavior. Then it hit her. A week ago when the names of those who had fallen were sent to all of the heads of the Duodecim...
"...The Major's family was included in that..."