This is the longest chapter I've written for the story so far and I am sorry if there are any mistakes in it. I had the usual help for it and an author named Western White Tiger. Thank you for putting up with the slow updates and review.
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"You lost your powers?" Kitixen asked. "But why are you able to make clones of yourself now?"
"I don't know." Ian mumbled. "I was fighting this girl with a rare Teigu and then I tried turning into my wind clone but only human clones came out."
"Should we wait until you have your clones can turn into elements again?" Kitixen asked.
"It's not important right now. All I want is to find the rest of the members so we can become a guild again."
"You shouldn't look for them in this condition." Kitixen thought for a second. "I know an abandoned barn where we can lay low until your Teigu is working again."
"Teigu's can never be repaired after being broken." Ian told her. "Besides, my Teigu is inside my body. If anything is wrong with my Teigu it's because something is happening to me. You know you look really pretty. Is it something you did with your hair?"
"Are you telling me I'm beautiful?" She smiled. "Where did you find your Teigu again?"
"I found it in a village called Ruspolo. It's where I spent most of my childhood."
"This may be a hunch but maybe going there can fix your Teigu."
"You are so smart and beautiful...that's why I love you." Ian smiled. "What the hell?!"
"I'm not here to fight you." The red headed bandit stated tugging his bandana down from his face. "I came because I wanted to join you."
You are a stupid child. You can't just walk up to me and expect me to take you in as my assassin pupil. Assassins aren't trained, either you join as a lethal killer or you don't become an assassin at all."
"I don't know, Ian. With your Teigu defecting on you and my Teigu only having a limited amount of power...can we really afford to be picky?"
"We still have our pride to think about, Kitixen. If he can't handle me when I'm not even using my Teigu, then what chance does he stand against real assassins?"
"Please," The redhead begged. "I have a fiancée I'm supporting."
"Do you hear that, Ian? He has a fiancée he's trying to support. If you and I were getting married, wouldn't you do anything to support me?"
"We are not in love and I wouldn't support you even if we were. As for you..."
"Please don't leave me like this, I beg you."
"Don't you have any pride? Real assassins never kneel and they never beg. The only time they kneel is when their impaled through the chest or stabbed through the legs. If you really want to prove yourself of being a pupil you must fight my comrade Kitixen."
The red-haired man looked at Kitixen. The dark skin lady had a smug smile on her face. The red-haired man looked at with tribulation. His muscles told him she was only a woman, but his brain told him she was an assassin and should be feared as such. The red-haired man gave his weapon to Ian who placed it on the ground. Kitixen took no weapons out because she carried only one weapon, and that weapon was inside her body. She wouldn't use it for using it would mean the red-haired man had won.
"You're scared of me?" Kitixen moved her hand forward and the redhaired man took a step back. She saw the fear in his eyes and giggled. "I'm flattered by this. Don't worry, I won't kill you. We assassins kill...specific kinds of people. Mostly people who are corrupt and people who try to kill us. Since you have no weapon and don't appear to be rich I'll take it easy on you."
"You heard the lady. She will take it easy on you," said Ian. "A word of advice. Brute strength never matched Kitixen's skills, but if you were standing on wet ground you would carry her weight around like a stick."
The red-haired man nodded and then closed his eyes. This fight would only end if he proved his worth. He charged at Kitixen, jumped and tried hitting her with his fist. His master always taught him his right hand was stronger than his left so he would strike there. However, Kitixen jabbed two claws under his arm. The hole was not very deep but it made him cry out in pain.
"I'm sorry," Kitixen apologized. "I was only trying to defend myself and things got out of hand. I'm sorry."
"That was terrible," Ian said. "If you want to be an assassin than your opponents shouldn't be able to do that to you."
"I'm sorry," the red-haired man apologized. "I promise I will try harder."
Ian let him not do anything but rub the hole in his arm. The stupid bastard had no idea how long it would take until that hole could recover. Ian thought he was going to quit, but the man started running towards her again. He threw his punches left, right, and towards the center of her face. All those punches missed Kitixen. The redheaded man kept throwing punches towards her. She stopped them by moving her back hand.
"This is all wrong," she said. "You are trying to use muscle but we know you don't have that much strength. You need to hit faster not harder."
The red-haired man diligently did what Kitixen told him. He tried hitting her faster by thrusting his fists. It worked, he was punching his fists faster towards Kitixen. She still dodged most of his attacks. He finally hit her in the right side of her neck. She jumped up and hit his body with her butt. Her strength in her butt pushed the red-haired man into the ground.
"Assassins win battles that their enemies start by fighting in areas they know they can win," Ian told him. The red-haired man was listening while rubbing the dirt off his face. "Do you have second thoughts about going into our assassin team?"
"No."
The red-haired man was having second thoughts. He was having second thoughts about how he was going to fight Kitixen. Something about what Ian said starting getting to him. He knew Kitixen had weaknesses of her own. Someone that calm and that skinny should have weaknesses. An idea popped up in the man's head.
"A word of advice. Brute strength never matched Kitixen's skills, but if you were standing on wet ground you would carry her weight around like a stick."
Wet ground. This ground was made of dirt not mud. There was no wet moisture on that ground. He saw a footprint in the ground. It was dry yet there was one way he could change that dry footprint into a wet footprint. He rushed towards Kitixen. Kitixen simply smiled and prepared to defend herself. She did prepare herself and so did the red-haired man. He was defending himself against Kitixen. To show Kitixen disrespect he spat on the ground.
"That was not a nice thing to do," Kitixen said. "I don't want to hurt you, but I can't stand people showing me such disrespect."
Kitixen slashed her way into the red-haired man. The red-head kept spitting in the same place he was spitting before. Kitixen ripped through his arms leaving red marks of blood over his hands. The red-haired man kept spitting until his tongue was dry and there were holes in his arms. He was glanced backwards by Kitixen pushing him, but he grabbed her hand and pulled himself towards her. Kitixen growled because she couldn't move her legs. The red-haired man pointed down...she was standing in a puddle of water.
"I know why your friend told me I could lift you easier when you're in water. You can't move in water. Since there wasn't any water here I thought my spit would work."
The redhaired man raised his fist up to punch Kitixen. He didn't want to hurt her, but he had to do it if he wanted to be a part of Ian's team. He almost punched her but Ian stepped in and grabbed his hand.
"That's enough! You've proven to be capable enough of joining us."
The red haired bandit became the third member on Ian and Kitixen's team. He became their assassin. He told them his name was Reid and nothing else. They walked together to the next town, but that town was overrun with bad people. Ian wanted to assassinate every single one of them. What shame he felt for not being able to murder any of them. What his job was as an assassin and loyal member of an assassin boss was to find his leader first and foremost.
Those ideas didn't sit well for the new member.
"Ian..."
"What do you want, new recruit?"
"I want you to kill that man."
"Not out loud, Reid." Kitixen put her hand on Reid's mouth. "No one must know who we are."
Ian saw what Reid wanted him to do. He didn't care about the woman who was abused by the b*** with the nasty demeanor of hurting women. He wanted to kill the man for the simplest reason. He killed people he didn't like. They walked into a dark deserted alley; the perfect place to kill without anyone seeing or saying a word.
It was to his dismay he was too late for the battle. The man was dead and the woman he was with killed him. She had no classification of an assassin. She quivered holding a small knife drenched in blood. What she was doing never happened to assassins, people who were born to be killers. She was sitting and looking at that knife.
"If she's not an assassin why did she kill him?" Ian wondered.
The only thing Ian could guess was she was a prostitute and he's been to her many times, hurting her along the way. Most prostitutes dressed to please men but her clothes weren't provocative enough to be a prostitutes.
"Yeah, the first time is never one you forget."
That kill wasn't her business anyway. She was witnessed. She tried charging at Ian with the knife. She looked more like she wanted to get herself killed. Ian hit her with his backhand. Her stiches hurt like knives cutting in her cheek. When she could talk she made a single demand.
"Please kill me."
Ian knew killing someone because they wanted you to do so was folly. There was only one person who can kill someone because they never had a conscience to begin with. Everyone else had two personalities fighting each other to figure out if they can kill. One was the consequences of actions and the other was pleasure. Ian threw them both away when he became an assassin.
"You're a murderer," Ian said unsheathing his sword. The girl started praying. If she was someone else Ian would be smirking. Today he was going to do something different. "And when people murder someone, they run."
Ian grabbed the girl's hair and yanked on her hair. His fingers were entwined with the strings of her hair; no matter how hard he pulled the hair wouldn't get yanked out. That didn't mean she couldn't feel pain.
The woman couldn't hold back a whimper. Ian's grip was like iron, tugging on her long tresses as though he had the intention of pulling them out of their roots. The woman struggled and moved her arms in wild motions, a futile effect to deter Ian's action. Her flimsy hits did no damage to the man whose body was trained by the years of hardship.
"Ugh, ah! P-pl-please stop. It hurts. It hurts," begged the woman. Tears clouded her vision and she couldn't twist her head around to see her captor's face. In a way, this man was more terrifying than death itself. At present, he could do whatever he desired and she would be powerless to do anything. She was utterly at his mercy.
Ian said nothing, merely continued to yank at her hair. The smell of salt whiffed into his nostrils, a scent that would have made any good-natured man ashamed. But Ian was not a compassionate man, though he wasn't rotten either. After all, to be classified into one of the stereotypical categories of good and bad required emotions and drive. They were the instinctive traits of every human being. Ian, nonetheless, was different; he had given up these sentimental feelings a long time ago… in exchange for something far greater.
"P-pl-please stop!"
Just when the woman could tolerate the pain no more, her captor abruptly slackened his hold, tossing her to the side like a ragged sack. Her back slumped into the brick walls of the alleyway, causing a cry of pain to escape from her lips.
"Did you not hear me?" Ian bent down, one knee grazing the cold floor. Upon reaching eye level, his hand grabbed the woman's chin on a whim. His index finger drawing thin invisible lines across her neck, he pulled her face towards his and studied the fear etched on her countenance.
"I said that when people murder someone, they run." Ian's emotionless voice sent shivers down the woman's spine. His eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze landed on the knife that now lay beside her, the steel glistening coldly on the soil. "If you find yourself facing a strong foe, you don't beg and you don't fight back. You run. Or else you'll die."
Body still trembling from fear and pain, the woman hugged herself with her arms. "Wh-what do you want from me? Can't you just give me an easy death?"
"There is no easy death for you… or for anyone else actually. If you die, you have nothing and if you've killed someone, you carry the stain with you to the afterlife. There is no escape," responded Ian coolly, releasing her chin and standing up. His hand slowly inched towards the hilt of his blade until his fingers closed around it, though he made little movement to pull the sword out. "I suggest you run, before I give you a taste of something far worse than death. Mark my words, it'll be the true form of utter despair."
"A-ah, no… don't!" The woman didn't need to be told twice. Fear spurred her legs to move and she broke into a sprint, dashing away from Ian like a wild madman. Something told her that the man was serious. Never before had she met someone as fearful as him. The man emanated a fear-provoking aura that was enough to make her stomach churn.
Ian stood unmoving until he was certain that the woman was indeed out of sight. He reached down and picked up the knife. He ran a finger down the cutting edge, testing its sharpness.
"A pretty woman like herself shouldn't play with such dangerous toy," he muttered to no one in particular. That said, he turned around and regrouped with his comrades, who were waiting for him in a corner of the busy street. He shouldered his way pass several people and came to a stop beside Reid and Kitixen.
"Ian, you're back! How did it go?" Kitixen asked, a captivating smile curling up her lips. Any other might have been fascinated by her attractive features, but Ian simply ignored her.
"Here." With a small flick of the wrist, the knife that Ian held in his hand somersaulted through the air and landed tip first on the ground in front of Reid.
Reid bent down and wretched the knife out. He arched his head up and looked at Ian quizzically. He kept his gaze on Ian's neck, averting eye contact. Ian's stare unnerved him, the emotionless pits of his eyes held an edge of coldness that was enough to freeze a desert.
"You killed her?" asked Reid.
"That woman was as good as dead anyway. I simply ended her misery."
"How?"
"The process matters little. What's important is that it is done." Ian ran a hand through his brown and blue hair, all the while revealing a half-truth. "In the end, the ground has been dyed crimson."
What Reid didn't know was that Ian had deceived him with a partial lie. In truth, blood was indeed spilled, though it wasn't the woman's. And since they wouldn't stumble upon the woman again, Ian's deceit was as good as the truth. The woman was definitely gone from their lives, a mere stranger of no importance.
"Are you satisfied now Reid? Remember this; we do not normally meddle with someone's affairs. This time was an exception." Ian left it concluded at that point, gesturing Kitixen to follow with a wave of his hand as he resumed his gait. Though his mind was still unsettled about his next destination, his stride was confident and even as he strolled on the street.
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"Ah, yes. Thank you. Please visit again." The shopkeeper politely handed the bag to the customer, a sweet smile on her face. Then to the man who stood in front of her cart, she said, "I'm telling you sir, whatever Teigu are, we don't sell them here. This is a grocery, not a Teigu store."
"But I was told that they would be here," Ian protested, assessing the apple in his hand.
The woman took the fruit from him and wiped it on the sleeve of her tagged dress. "No, there is nothing of that sort. Now, if you would excuse yourself. You're interfering with my business."
Ian spared a glance over his shoulder and noticed that a line of people behind him. He wasn't surprised by the number. After all, the majority of the townspeople seemed to purchase their lunches here and judging from the sun's position and his own protesting stomach, Ian knew that it was probably well past midday. "I was told that they are here. I'm not leaving until I see one."
"You are being unreasonable sir. I can't sell what I don't ha—" The storekeeper never finished her sentence. A piercing cry rung from above and many heads turned to gaze at a bird with feathers as dark as night. With a screech, the crow descended at Kitixen's orders, heading straight for the cart.
The people on the streets ducked as the crow's talon dug into a loaf of bread from the cart before hoisting it into the air.
"Ah! No! Come back here you stinking thief!" Enraged, the storekeeper chased the bird, arms waving in the air in hopes of catching the little burglar. In her haste,
she left her cart full of goods unattended.
His face unreadable, Ian's gaze bore into the back of the lady until she disappeared into the crowd. Having lost sight of her, he shifted his eyes towards the corner of cart, where Reid was secretly taking some portions from the side.
Ian inwardly smirked. Their little plan had worked. Distracted by the bird, the shopkeeper and the customers were too preoccupied to notice Reid's hand that inched back and forth, pilfering items and placing them into a sack.