Chapter 4
"How on earth could this have happened…" Haine thought, eyes transfixed at the gruesome scene before her.
The friendly villagers who had greeted her as she returned home from school not so long ago were all laying before her, disemboweled and in pieces, seemingly bound by tree branches and roots. Haine forced herself to open her eyes and looked around. The Kobayashi family, Hyuuga family and Takashi family who had aided the Amamiya family in putting out the kitchen fire were all dead, as like the rest of the villagers were, lifeless and cruelly disassembled and dissected.
The abrupt appearance of this gory scene had perhaps numbed her senses and prevented the full impact of it from being registered in her head because as Haine walked through the village, passing by one body after another, not a single tear spilled out of her eyes. At that point in time, all she could think about was that this had to be a bad dream…
But what about her parents then? Were Kyousuke and Juuri still alive? Whoever killed the villagers may have the slightest chance of not having actually gone to the furthest end of the village where her house was…Fear gripped Haine like never before, her heart was hammering against her chest and her hands and legs became icy cold. With much difficulty, she took a deep breath and raced towards the end of the village, determined to face the horrible truth of whether Kyousuke and Juuri were still alive.
"It would take a person with uncommon skill to massacre a whole village within a day and escape alive…" thought Haine. "Was the murderer really a human being…No..it can't be… Even the killing methods implemented were way too inhumane. Even if it were a human being, it must have been an unfathomable being in human skin…"
Amidst her logical deductions and frustration of her inability to comprehend, she had entered her own house even before she had realized it herself, passing through the front door and looking at every single corner of the house in hope of searching for her parents. Yet at the same time, a huge part of her would rather prefer not to be able to find them instead as that would confirm that they were present at home when the massacre of the village had occurred…which also meant that by now, they would most likely be no longer among the living…
At last, she found them…
There they are, lying on the kitchen floor next to a pot of plant, covered in branches and roots just like how the rest of the villagers had been. Both of them were covered in their own blood, with slashes all over their body and limbs torn off from their body cavity. Haine crumbled onto the floor…
"Why? Why did this have to happen?" she wondered, and as revelation hit her, tears were spilling from her eyes and splashing down on her lap. Her eyes burned and hurt, but not as much as her heart did…
"Hh..aai…nee…Hai..ne…."
She heard a faint voice calling her name, immediately lifted her head up and saw her father's eyes open with immense difficulty, his only intact hand reaching towards her desperately…
"Dad! What happened here?" as Haine tried her best to keep her voice calm, she forcefully wiped her eyes dry and held onto her father's hand as tightly as she could.
"Two men raided our houses..raided the whole village…apparently our village was a sacrifice by the government to test out their latest weapons…I guess rural folks are really worth less than nothing compared to the city folks…They won't ever sacrifice the city people as test subjects of course… That man…he wasn't human…"And as Kyousuke struggled to catch his voice, he went into violent fits of bloody coughs.
"I'll take you to the city hospital Dad! So please…please don't die…you are the only family I have…" and as she spoke, her tears were renewed and once again splashing more uncontrollably than ever before as she struggled to find her own voice now.
"Lis..Listen to me Haine…There is something we have been keeping from you all these while so please listen very carefully…Your mother and I…We are not your biological parents…"
Haine, not quite noticing that she herself is now covered in Kyousuke's blood, continued to stare at him, apparently at a complete loss for words…
"Over 15 years ago a woman by the name of Kamiya Hazuki left you on our doorstep…she is your true mother and is most probably still out there somewhere…find her and acknowledge her…there is no parent who doesn't love a child after all.." then he smiled slightly, before saying, "we were…livin..g..ex..am..ple..s……." and then his voice died off.
"No Dad! Dad! Please wake up! I'll find her..the person called Kamiya Hazuki…I will definitely find her..I will do whatever you say so please…don't die..you and Mum are the only family I have!"
Haine kept crying and crying for what seemed like hours, not noticing her surroundings and not realizing that two extremely dangerous men are right behind her at this very instant…
"What is this? You actually left someone here alive? How very inadequate of you, Kisuke. As your brother I am thoroughly ashamed…"
A man who looks roughly about 27 years old, with greasy black hair, a tall, straight nose and angular eyes spoke to another guy standing beside him. The other guy looked just slightly over 20 years old and was a whole head taller than his brother.
"My apologies Sousuke…I didn't expect to find another one alive in this filthy hut. Must have been hiding in the cupboard and missed her…I will finish her off now…" and immediately after saying that, the bigger build of the two took a large axe and raised it above Haine's head…
"Stop Kisuke…" Sousuke grabbed hold of his younger brother's hand. "I am afraid that would be too wasteful…"
"What do you mean?" asked Kisuke, genuinely confused. He looked down at Haine, who stared from Kisuke to Sousuke and Sousuke to Kisuke, wondering who will be the one to deal the final blow to her.
"Look at her," and as Sousuke said so, he grabbed hold of Haine's face and pulled it closer to his… "Quite a pretty little thing don't you think? Would be a little wasteful if we don't have fun with her for a while…"
"I don't think you should do that Sousuke…we kill people because they are orders from the government…Any methods of killing we implement are just our preferences but at least nto against orders…Doing anything else may lead to trouble for us… We should just…" But before he could finish his sentence, Kisuke looked down at his chest area where his heart is located, apparently shocked; a branch which extended from the pot of plant wrapped around Kyousuke and Juuri was sticking out through his chest, impaling his heart and casting a death sentence upon him.
"He can manipulate plants?" Haine thought to herself, extremely bewildered by the scene in front of her. "and he killed his own comrade just like that, even though they were brothers…"
As Kisuke collapsed onto the ground in a pool of his own blood, the words of what Kyousuke had said before he died were ringing in Haine's head, "apparently our village was a sacrifice by the government to test out their latest weapons…"
"You are the weapon…" Haine said to Sousuke very quietly. Sousuke shifted his gaze from Kisuke to Haine, looking at her…his face unreadable… "You are the government's new weapon…a fighting device…You just manipulated the plant and killed your brother with it…In fact…that's how you have killed everyone in the village so easily…By making use of the trees around and binding them with the branches and roots while your brother uses his axe to kill all the villagers…"
"Seems like I underestimated you young lady…You are actually pretty intelligent…on top of having a nice face…" and as Sousuke said that, he licked his lips. "Sorry for the late introduction, I am Hiou Sousuke while this guy here…" Sousuke gave Kisuke's dead body a slight kick, "he is my brother Hiou Kisuke but as you can see he is already dead so there is actually no practical need to introduce him… Well serves him right for talking shit all the time, pisses me off…I would rather kill him off and get all the good killing jobs myself…" An insane grin spread across Sousuke's face.
"You're mad…You are totally…SICK…in the head…You would kill your own brother so casually and kill everyone in the village like it's some sort of sport…You are really inhuman!" Haine continued to stare at Sousuke, determined not to betray any sign of fear or weakness.
"Perhaps…I have stopped being a human a long time ago…literally I mean, not just my actions but ever since 5 years ago I have stopped aging you see…It all happened on a stormy night when that son of a bitch who was riding on a motorcycle refused to brake and crashed right into me and it was then that I felt it…the true meaning of death. I was somewhere in limbo and told myself I can't die yet…I have to kill that filthy maggot who knocked me down…and guess what I came back to life…I was still covered in blood on the road but my wounds were miraculously gone. The journey back from death has granted me new power as well…as you can see…" and as he said so, Sousuke pointed at a branch of the pot of plant, made a twirling action with his finger and wrapped the branch around Kisuke's head and forcefully detached it away from the body.
"I can control plants…Of course there may be others out there who possess other kinds of abilities…But not all can do it though…According to the highly classified information of the government, 3 conditions are required to gain this kind of power. First, is of course a death experience. Second, the immensely strong will to live. Third and the most important of all which explains why less than 1 percent of the world's population can ever stand a chance to gain these abilities, is that somewhere along your gene pool there must be the gene present.."
Without warning, Sousuke abruptly grabbed Haine by the neck and pushed her against the wall. "I am sure you know why I can tell you all these without restraint…it's because after I have fun with your body, I am going to kill you and spill your insides…" And after saying that, he grabbed Haine's shirt and ripped a portion of it off, in the process leaving behind a violent scratch on her shoulder. Then, he bent over and started licking her neck…
"No please stop it! Stop it you pervert!" And as Haine struggled helplessly, a sudden instinctive impulse ran through her mind… Plunging her hands into her pocket and pulling out the pen which Keitaro had returned her earlier on during the festival, she ejected the pen tip and with a swift but rough movement, she had slashed Sousuke across his face, leaving one side of his face covered in blood and bleeding profusely.
"You stupid bitch!" he shouted and as he did, he threw her roughly to the floor, fracturing her left arm. Haine gasped in pain and held tightly onto her left arm.
Placing a hand over his bleeding side of his face and licking his blood covered hand, he stood back up to his full height and stamped brutally onto Haine's left arm. Haine screamed in pain as Sousuke proceeded to grab her by the hair and throwing her aside right beside the pot of plant…
"I originally wanted to treat you gently, let you feel the pleasure of violation before sweetly ending off your life in an artistic manner…but not anymore…you are one of the few people to have dared to hurt me so bad ever since I gained this power…you shall regret it even in hell..."
And as Haine opened her eyes slightly to register what's going on, feeling extremely nauseous and dizzy, Sousuke made a few movements with his fingers and all light was gone from Haine's eyes…The plant had impaled her heart, her lungs and her stomach simultaneously…