Hellbound
"Oi! Looks like Akuma's back." Surasshu said, looking out the window. Usagi had settled the Exwires on another couch across from Mikio, who was asleep again and Konton had stuffed a cloth in his face when she could no longer tolerate his beastly snores.
Kitsune looked out the window and squinted his eyes before letting out a dark chuckle. "Yeah. Looks like he made a new best friend."
Usagi got up and hurried to the door before Rin could call out. "Aw, shit."
When Usagi opened the door, she saw Rin had taken his hoodie off and bundled it up the hide the massive splatter of blood but there were still fresh stains on his jeans and more red was smeared on his face. He quickly handed his hoodie to Usagi and wiped his face before going to give Konton tonight's payment. Rin's sweatshirt was gray so the bloodstains would be visible.
"Damn, Akuma." Konton gave Rin a playful pout. "Don't tell me you fought the Rift-Rafts without us."
"No." Rin handed Konton her backpack and tossed a box of cigarettes to Surasshu, who caught it with ease. "A dog of CK's. Tried to gut me so I guess I'm bringing in a bonus prize tonight."
Konton's eyes lit up at the sight of the bowie knife. "He had good taste. I'll give him that."
Rin turned to look at his brother and friends and he was met with looks of fear from Shiemi, Konekomaru, and Shima while Bon looked ready to explode. Izumo had surprisingly started a conversation with Kagayaki, who was still drunk but not enough to do anything as stupid as Mikio. Yukio appeared to be glaring at the ground and Rin always learned that was never a good sign. Hell, that was an understatement.
"Gotta say," Kitsune purred, watching Rin observe the Exwires. "I like it better when they squirm. Hell, it was better when Surasshu threatened to take their tongues. Skunkhead's got quite a mouth. Tried to go after you when Kagayaki let it slip we were selling DMT."
Skunkhead. Bon. Damn, he was in for it deep now.
"If you ladies are done gossiping, we have to head out." Surasshu withdrew his katana and started spinning it in his hand. "Can't risk missing out on the 'Event'."
"What do we do about them?" Kitsune gestured to the Exwires. Konton scoffed.
"Lock 'em up for all I care." She spit on her knife before cleaning it with a cloth. "Last thing we need is them trying to either stop us or whine to the cops outside Shinjuku."
"I think Akuma should sit this one out." Usagi cut in. Rin turned to glare at the blonde.
"What are you playing at, Usagi?"
"You know these people better than we do." Usagi pointed out. "Besides, you still have a score to settle with them. I also need to meet with Momoko and Kagayaki is too out of it to stand. I can't babysit them."
Rin and Usagi appeared to be communicating with a mental conversation before Rin sighed in defeat.
"Fine."
Usagi nodded and headed out with Kitsune behind her. Surasshu followed but Konton stayed behind to speak.
"If they get us in trouble, it's your head, Akuma." She warned before slamming the door shut. That was when all hell broke loose.
Bon stormed up to Rin and swung his fist towards the dark haired teen's jaw. Rin, knowing from experience when someone took a swing at him, ducked in time and grabbed Bon's wrist before flinging him across the room. Bon landed on the table and the wood split in two from the impact.
"Oi! Easy Akuma!" Kagayaki slurred. "That leaves us with only one table now. Don't think we can fix 'em if 'ya keep breakin' 'em."
Rin ignored her and turned to glare at the rest of the Exwires.
"Look, I know you're more than pissed at me and I'll answer your damned questions now." Rin said, calmly. "But, if you try anything to get the gang into anymore trouble then I'll have no choice. I will need to take measures."
Rin took a seat next to Mikio, who still slept through Bon's attack, and sat back as he faced his brother and friends. Bon got up from the floor and made his way back the Exwires but still kept a death glare on Rin. Rin took a deep breath before starting.
"I first got into the gang when I was eight..."
xxxxxXXXXXxxxxx
Rin glared down at the older boy with pure hatred and disgust as he gripped his now broken nose and stared up at the eight year old in pure terror. Rin gritted his teeth and clenched his bloody fist.
"Y-y-You're a freak!" The older boy staggered to his feet, still gripping his bleeding nose. "What are you? A DEMON?!"
The boy ran off and Rin sniffed before wiping his bloody knuckles on his shirt. He jumped at the sound of clapping and turned to come face to face with a middle aged man standing a few feet away. The man was bald and he had hazel eyes that reminded him of a snake's eyes. He wore a black biker jacket that had spikes on his shoulders, ripped jeans and biker boots. Even though he was young, Rin knew this was someone dangerous.
"Not bad, kid." His voice was deep and raspy. "I heard the rumor's about a 'Demon Child' but actually seeing it with my own eyes just makes it even more fascinating."
"What do you want?" Rin demanded, preparing for another fight. The man let out a chuckle that made Rin feel uneasy. As if he were approaching a venomous snake.
"I don't want much, kid." The man said, lighting a cigarette. "This is your choice to make." The man put the cigarette to his lips and blew out a puff of smoke. "You live in that little monastery, right?"
"Yeah." Rin answered, wearily. "What's it to you?"
"Nothin' really." The man blew out more smoke. "I just heard from around that your home may go bankrupt if your old man doesn't pay all the bills. After all, since he's a priest he only takes offerings from the people around him. Such a shame that they only care about looking after themselves."
Rin remained silent as the man continued to smoke and laugh at his accusing glare.
"You have a brother, right?" The man asked, although it didn't really sound like a question at all. "If your old man doesn't pay those bills you could end up on the street and your poor brother won't be able to finish his schooling and all his dreams will be in shambles."
Rin clenched his fists and looked down at his feet. He knew this man was right. His father wouldn't do anything to help the monastery accept wait for people to give offerings. He hated it. He wouldn't mind dropping out of school but Yukio wouldn't feel the same way. His brother would be more than devastated. It was Yukio's dream to be a doctor and he was picked on mercilessly by the other kids. Just because he was smarter than everyone in his class.
"Which is why I'm going to give you a choice, kid." The man continued. "If you come work for me, I'll give you a month's brother can go and live his simple life and your old man can keep you both fed and under a roof. Or, you can refuse and let your brother live life on the street with you and live off of eating garbage like common rats." The man smirked before continuing to make more smoke rings. "So what's it gonna be, kid?"
Rin breath in deeply and avoided eye contact with the biker as he processed what the man told him. If he just sat around and did nothing like a helpless little kid then his father wouldn't be able to pay the bills and Yukio's dreams would be crushed. He imagined himself and Yukio on the street. Sitting on the sidewalks, picking through garbage cans, sleeping in boxes, and people passing them as if they were invisible. Rin felt a growl forming in his throat. How he hated the people he saw everyday, going around and living normal lives. Rin looked up at the man but kept his stoic expression in place, not wanting to let this man read him so easily.
"What do you want me to do?" He demanded. The man gave him that devious smirk again, knowing that he'd won, and placed his cigarette in an ashtray.
"Smart choice, kid." He said. "What I want is simple. You do exactly as I tell you and you'll be paid for it. I want you to sell these materials I keep in Jarichiku. It's right past where you live, in the slums. As long as you come back with at least fifty yen and keep your mouth shut, I don't give a shit about what you do. Understand?"
Rin gave a firm nod.
"Good. You start tonight." The man handed him a small piece of paper. "Here's my number. Don't let anyone see it and come over at the exact time." The man took Rin's small hand into his more muscular one and gave it a firm shake. "The name's Hebi, kid. Welcome to the Fallen."
xxxxxXXXXXxxxxx
"When I started working for Hebi, he called me Akuma. He gave almost everyone a code name. I got my name when I took down three mobsters that worked for Red Thorns. They were full grown men and three times my height." Rin gave a humorless laugh. "Quite the irony. I was called a demon my whole life and I find out I'm Satan's bastard son. I feel completely foolish for never even questioning my abnormal strength. Even after all that I've done. Hebi was right. No one deserves this name more than I do."
Kagayaki gave a dry giggle. "Daaamn! Talk about love fer 'is brother. Classic."
They all sat in silence before Yukio broke it.
"You joined a gang so we wouldn't have to live in poverty." He whispered so softly that everyone almost didn't hear it. Except Rin. He could listen better with his demon hearing. Rin sighed for probably the hundredth time that night.
"I would take the money I either stole or Hebi paid me with and put it in the charity box." Rin played with a loose string on his shirt as he continued. "Shiro never suspected a thing. And you say cooking is the only skill I have."
Rin gave a pained laugh and leaned back on the couch. "He told me to use my power to help people and I did. But it turns out it was never enough."
"Why didn't you tell us, Rin?" Shiemi was close to tears again. Rin laughed again. But this time, it wasn't humorless or dry. It was dark.
"Well, you could say my brother dearest," Rin gestured to Yukio, who flinched at his brother's sudden cold behavior. "Kept a secret from me for fifteen years, so you could say I'm keeping my fair share of secrets. Yukio and the old man kept the fact that I'm the Devil's spawn a secret my whole life!"
"How could you, Nii-San!" Yukio was yelling now too. "How can you live with yourself?! You going around selling drugs and killing people just because some stranger told you to is just unacceptable! You made our father raise us with blood money! Is money worth more than someone's life? Do you even understand-"
"No. I don't." Rin's voice was colder than ice. "I don't understand how I wanted to be a lapdog to the Vatican. I don't understand why I bothered to save your sorry asses when Amaimon attacked. I don't understand why I forgave any of you when I was shunned. And mostly, I don't even understand why I bothered working just so my brother could live a simple life and stay in school. I don't understand why I would kill for you. I don't get it at all."
With that, Rin stood up and walked out of the warehouse, leaving the Exwires speechless, and ignored Shiemi when she called his name.
xxxxxXXXXXxxxxx
Reika Takata, more commonly known as Konton, stared at the cold, lifeless eyes of a dead mobster's body. A knife was embedded in his heart. it was the bowie knife that Akuma had brought back to the warehouse.
It was supposed to be a brawl. But the leader had decided to take out a knife when he saw that his gang was losing the fist fight, thinking murder was better than the humiliation of losing. Some things never change in this town. The pistols that Kitsune had looted from Akuma's brother had weak bullets. What kind of idiot carried deadly weapons with weak ammunition? They didn't even have the strength to fatally injure their targets. Konton yanked the knife out of the corpse's chest and flicked the bits of gore off the blade before turning to her fellow gang members.
"Loot the bodies." She ordered. "Not like they're gonna need their belongings anytime soon."
Konton searched the mobster she had killed barely a few minutes ago. She reached into his left pant pocket and found nothing. She reached into the other and found a fifty yen coin which she placed in her pocket before continuing to search the corpse.
"HAH!" Surasshu took a pill bottle off of a body that had it's head split open. "Nice!"
"Whatcha find?" Kitsune looted a flask of brandy and some money from the other bodies.
"X, my friend." Surasshu showed him the label 'Ecstacy'. "We'll definitely get some big money for this."
"Are you two done yet?" Konton asked, impatiently. "I would like to get some sleep tonight."
"Yeah, yeah." Surasshu pocketed the bottle of Ecstasy. "Let's go."
All Konton wanted to do was count tonight's payment and actually go to bed for once. She hadn't properly slept for days, always being on alert after being taken down by the Carnage Kings. She still couldn't get the image of her boss out of her head. Hebi, their tough as hell leader, lying on the pavement with a hole in the side of his head. The whole right side of his head had been blackened in blood and bits of brain and tissue spilled onto the pavement. The look in those practically yellow eyes, were dead and unseeing. The intimidating gleam had completely disappeared. His right hand man, Moesashi, had been killed with a single blow from an ax. Konton has seen plenty of gore in her life but never had she seen someone's head become as damaged as Moesashi. Everything above the right cheek had been hacked off. It had been the bloodiest fight Konton had experienced. Never will she forget that sea of carnage on Hone Street or the dismembered bodies of some of the Fallen's best fighters. That night had been as red as her eyes.
The Fallen had been outnumbered and outgunned. The remaining members still don't know what Hebi did that pissed off the Carnage Kings. When he told them that they were going to fight the Carnage Kings, they obeyed him without question. As they should. After the fight, the remaining had lost all their possessions when they fled. While fighting, Konton lost her knife when she threw it into a CK member's neck when Kitsune appeared to be losing the fight. That was when she signaled the retreat. They had ran over a mile back to their previous hideout to burn it down. Including all the materials that belonged to the Fallen and Hebi. Usagi and Kagayaki had been at the Blossom House, trying to earn more money for the gang. Usagi managed to hack into an ATM account and got enough money to buy food for a month. Kagayaki had 'worked' long enough to make at least fifty yen. She had been lucky that day. Not many of the other prostitutes managed to make fifty. Probably because Kagayaki was the youngest streetwalker for the Blossom House. The younger they are, the more attractive, and that means they will make more money. Konton, Surasshu, and Kitsune had fought for Warehouse 31 by killing what kept a gang fighting. The leader. Kitsune had climbed the building and crawled through the vents to find their target. It had been a minor gang. Unlike the Carnage Kings so his task had been easy. Being the stealthiest member of the Fallen, he had climbed the beams of the warehouse and easily jumped his target the same way a carnivorous animal would attack its prey. Instead of claws, he had used a switchblade that Konton looted from a sleeping homeless man.
Throughout the whole time, Mikio had been away 'looking for valuables'.
Kitsune and Surasshu had to restrain Konton from beating the drunkard to death.
Konton stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of a scream. Once she hears someone's voice even once, she'll know what their scream would sound like. Only one word crossed her mind.
Damn!
xxxxxXXXXXxxxxx
Shiemi Moriyama always admired Rin. He was strong, brave, and a true friend. She hated feeling so useless when Rin suffers. He had been through so much in the past year. As if his father dying, being pressured to pass the exorcist exam or die, and defeating the Impure King wasn't enough. He had to carry the burden of being forced to do horrible things in the most feared district of Tokyo, Jarichiku.
At first, Shiemi had never heard of Jarichiku. She didn't even remember seeing it on a map until Usagi explained why when the hacker came to tend to her injured friends.
Usagi explained that Jarichiku was a poor district for many years and was home to the most violent people in Japan. It was feared so terribly that no one who lived outside Jarichiku ever spoke of it. Just saying the name was frightening. The police had either given up or were being blackmailed or bribed into silence. In Jarichiku, if you don't have any use then you will be killed.
Usagi explained that she was a hacker. She would gain unauthorized access to different computer systems to make money. Usagi told her and Konekomaru that the reason Kitsune, Konton, and Surasshu attacked was because they had trespassed on their territory. Usagi warned Shiemi that had she trespassed on some other gang's territory, they most likely would have killed her and her friends. The reason they weren't killed was because Usagi identified Yukio as Rin's brother. As a hacker, she easily found out every gang member's ID and their families as well. Had she not told the three attackers when they were brought in, they would have been interrogated and possibly killed afterwards.
Shiemi had been shocked and terrified at the violence Kitsune and Surasshu displayed. She became even more frightened when she saw Konton holding a knife to Izumo's throat. Shiemi could tell that neither of them would hesitate to hurt anyone. She had been relieved when Usagi showed no signs of dangerous behavior but when the seemingly kind girl explained her situation, she revealed herself as no better than a thief but Shiemi could tell that Usagi wasn't entirely a bad person.
Shiemi refused to betray Rin again. She still couldn't forgive herself for avoiding him after he was revealed as the son of Satan. This was why she ran out of the warehouse after Rin had stormed out. Yukio had followed and refused to let her travel Jarichiku alone. They had been calling Rin for a good ten minutes but there was no sign of the half demon.
"Where could he be, Yuki-chan?" Shiemi asked, softly. Yukio closed clenched his fists and glared at the ground. For someone so smart, he felt very stupid for his outburst. He wasn't really angry with Rin. He was angry with himself and felt guilty that his twin had lived a brutal life on the street just so they wouldn't be forced to live a life on the street. Yukio had promised their father to protect Rin but throughout the whole time, Rin had been paying for an easier life for everyone in the monastery. Yukio had wanted to pay his brother back for protecting him when they were children but he couldn't even do that. For seven years, Rin had protected him from Jarichiku while he lived in ignorance.
"We'll find him, Shiemi." Yukio assured the blonde girl. "He just needs to blow off some steam."
He knew it was false hope. Rin could disappear whenever he wanted and won't be found that easily. Shiemi suddenly froze and Yukio looked at her. She had a horrified expression plastered on her usually cheery face and she had gone completely pale. Yukio's eyes traveled to where Shiemi was looking...and he wished he hadn't.
Yukio had to force the bile back down his throat as he stared at the obscenity in front of him.
"Oh God!"