Shion walked down the dark and creepy sewer tunnel, listening to the murky sloshes of the black water bellow him to his left. He was positive he saw Nezumi go this way.
A squeak got him to look down.
"Hamlet!?" Shion muttered quietly. "What are you doing here?"
The rat wriggled its nose. Shion shook his head, wondering for the umpteenth time if these rats were really robots.
"Please don't go to Nezumi and tell him that I'm following." Shion asked the rat. Whether or not the rat understood, it stayed. Hamlet climbed up Shion's pants and shirt until he was sitting snuggly on Shion's shoulder.
Shion smiled. He continued his walk until he saw light at the end of the tunnel. He ran towards it, eager to get out of the smelly pits of the sewer.
At last he emerged from the tunnel. Shion took in a deep breath of fresh air. Only seconds after calming down did he realize how loud he was. He turned to see if Nezumi was anywhere near him. He wasn't.
Shion sighed in relief at not getting caught, but then a new realization struck him. He lost Nezumi. How was he going to find out about all this stuff now? Where was he supposed to go?
"Hamlet, can you help me follow Nezumi?" Shion tried asking the rat in a whisper. Hamlet jumped down and started scurrying off.
"Wait up!" Shion spoke in a louder whisper. At least he had a lead. He then looked around from the bushes in the shadow at the trade route that Nezumi had gone to.
Nezumi, what is this place? What has you so worked up about it?
.
.
.
Memories are a hard thing to push back. Nezumi pushed them back as hard as he could as he snuck passed the dome-like structure which housed the arena for slave battles. How many kids like himself had he been pitted up against and killed? No! Don't think about that.
Too late. The memories of the arena filled his mind and he began to feel blood sticking to his hands and chest and face. Not his blood, but others. Their dying breaths next to his ears and fading eyes capturing all of his attention.
Shit. Nezumi punched the ground, driving the phantoms away. He needed to find the girl from the photo and fast. He shook his head and continued shifting through the shadows. Mayu. He had thought she was dead. There was no way they could have kept her alive. What reason would they have to keep her? He had to find out the truth behind all of this.
He stopped. He jumped back into the dark corner of the cement building he was walking next to and flashed his cloak to cover him, it's grey outer sheets camouflaging with the cold cement. Like this, he stare out at the person coming around the corner, and the moment that he saw that face, he paled.
A bald-headed man walked down the dark alleyway, taking the same uninhabited pathways around buildings that Nezumi was. Six bodyguards walked at pace behind him and in front. The man had snake scales tattooed on his bald head, reflecting in the flickering neon lights that were the only source of light in this joint. The moment his head faced Nezumi's general direction, he knew who it was immediately. Nezumi nearly choked down his cries of hatred.
A burn scar on the man's left eye, and a vertical cut below it shown eerily in the blue light of the broken neon sign. His natural eye color was determined by his right eye, which was a piercing gold hue. However, the left eye stared blankly, the pupil was a milky pale white, proving the blindness of the eye. The burned scar tissue framed the eye socket, and dripped down two inches from the corner of his eye furthest from his wide nose.
Noboru Nori. Nezumi shivered. What luck he must have to nearly run into the man at the top of the slave trading corporation. A man he knew would not hesitate to torture him slowly. There are far worse things than death. That man knows them all.
The mission came back to his mind, and he inwardly cursed as he realized the chance of the moment. The easiest way to find Mayu, was to follow Noboru. He slowly and silently breathed out and followed them after they passed him for about ten meters.
Fuck my life…