Chapter 1: Broken
The rain never stopped falling, did it?
It was suffocating…the feeling was crushing me.
I was sinking…crushed by the water as I drowned…
The female gasped as she shot up from her bed, her sweat rolled down her forehead. Her long white hair was tangled as her emerald eyes changed back to their original amber color, wide with fear.
Her hands automatically went to clutch her head with her hand as her eyes trembled.
"Why does that dream keep happening?…even after 12 years." She asked herself as images from her past went though her head for a moment.
She then scoffed as she threw her blanket on the floor. She got off the bed as she walked in the bathroom.
She walked over to the sink and grabbed its edge as she looked directly into the mirror. "Isn't it enough" she asked angrily as she glared of to the side, "that I have this cursed tattoo as a constant reminder of that choice I made to…" her eyes closed as her sentence trailed off. She hoped, somehow, her reflection would give an answer back.
Her eyes opened slightly, "but…I guess" Her eyes soften, "what's done is done. Nobody can change what has happen." She let go of the sinks edge and undressed to take her morning shower.
/Meeting room/
"GOOOOOOOOD MORNNIIIING! EVERYONE!" a black haired female shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth. She wore a red head band over forehead that made her long bangs go to the sides of her face.
She also wore a black jacket with a red skirt that stops at the middle of her thighs. Under her skirt, she wore tight black shorts. She wore black boots that go up to just below her knees. She has brown eyes and is wearing a high ponytail. Her hair length stops at the back of her neck. She is a half Daímonas, a 20 year old, and her stigma is across her forehead covered by her head band.
She lowered her hands and looked around the meeting room to find Xun, Arlette, and their Commander already seated at their spots.
The meeting room only contains a long table that has 4 chairs on each side and one slightly larger chair at the front of the table. The room also contains a sky light and windows with a view of the outside garden the Commander keeps with her many plants and white roses. The walls and floor are covered with white marble. The walls also have vines going across them, spouting some flowers here and there.
"There are only three of us here, Hana. I suggest you lower you voice. It's 5:00 A.M. in the morning." Xun said with her arms behind her head as she slightly tilted her chair back.
Xun looked slightly off to the side of her Commander who had her arms crossed over her stomach and her sword resting on the table. 'She had that dream again.' Xun could notice how distant her eyes were, but to most of the others the Commander had that same serious look on her face. She was here when this organization got started so she knows her Commander a little better than the rest.
"Why were called her so early, Xun-sempai? We just arrived here at midnight. That was 5 hours ago!" Arlette whined. Her eyes drooped a little and leaned to her head to the right. 'She is still apathetic when she's about to drop dead from exhaustion!' Xun thought angrily in her mind as she glared at her kouhai.
"Because," the Commander suddenly spoke, "I have unexpected information from the JANITORS on the Fallen Daímonas you two brought back that you might like to know." The Commander stared into Arlette's eyes as she spoke. Arlette responded by just starring at her. "Thank you for your kind explanation Commander." Arlette said with a little more energy in her voice.
'Arlette is probably the only one in the group who is not affected at all from the Commander's stare in the morning.' Hana then realized something. 'Commander HATES getting up very early in the morning. This MUST be very important to have her get up and gather everyone at this hour.'
Hana sat down in the 2nd chair on the left side of the table facing Xun, who is on in the 2nd chair on the right side. Arlette was standing behind Xun and the Commander sat in the front of the table.
Arlette looked at the sky light. 'Another hour of waiting before everyone else is here.'
/1 hour and 30 minutes later/
"You're late, Shun." Commander suddenly stated. She looked up to glare at 'Shun'.
Shun has short, dark brown spiky hair with brown eyes. He is known to show up late no matter what but never gives up at whatever promise he makes to another. He wears a grey scarf around his neck and brown jacket (that is ALWAYS open). His jacket is open to reveal his white shirt. Lastly, he wears long, tan pants. He is a Human but comes from the Ninja family. Currently an 19 year old.
Everyone was now looking at the man crawling upside-down on the ceiling. He is now sweating a little from the Commander's glare.
"Eh…" Shun put on a nervous smile as he looked at her angry face, "Y-you see…there was a cat that needed-" but Shun didn't finish for he saw the vines on the wall were quickly heading towards him. 'Shoot.' he thought. He jumped from the wall in an attempt to escape the vines that were now being controlled by his 'beloved' Commander. He caught a glimpse of her now dark green eyes.
"*smirk* Got ya, Shun-kun." Commander said in an overly creepy voice.
Shun gulped. "I…" but he was frozen. She usually threw rocks at his head for being late but this (he is hanging upside with the vines wrapped wrapping his legs together) is bad.
'Shun…'
Shun looked to around but only to realize it was Inaya.
Inaya has long dark purple hair and light purple eyes. Her hair is always down with her bangs just above eyes. Her clothes are gypsy-like but in a cloak-like version. The cloak has a hood she sometimes wears to hide her face when she feels embarrassed. The hood blocks her eyes but shows her nose and mouth which helps limit her Daímonas powers. Her powers have to do with sight but she only wears it when she goes on missions or when she comes close to others outside this group. She doesn't use a weapon because of personal reasons.
She also can send messages into others minds but she can't read minds. This ability comes from her human mother. It helps since she can't speak. Inaya is a half-Daímonas, 17 years old, and her stigma is across her neck, like a choker.
'Use your katana!' Inaya said in his mind. Shun slapped himself in his mind for forgetting HIS sword but the Commander, with her piercing glare, can cause his brain to freeze at times.
Shun grasped his katana at his side and slashed the vines tying his legs together.
He flipped in the air and landed gracefully on the ground…but only to be greeted by a HARD fist-sized rock being thrown at his head. Shun quickly, more like 20 seconds of holding his head and kneeling on the ground, recovered and took his place in his seat to the left of the Commander in the 4th chair on the left side on the table.
Inaya looked took a slight glance at Shun who was still placing a hand on his forehead. She quickly looked away and resumed her attention to the Commander.
Trying to hide a small blush on her cheeks from him.
"Since everyone-"Commander looked towards Shun who flinched a little "is here then we can continue calling out the names of the present people." Commander looked to Inaya.
"Captain Inaya of the Medical division."
"Captain Daichi of the Intelligence & Investigation division."
Daichi is like Commander but even more serious and distant…covered by happy personality which involves hugging ALL the girls in the organization…except Xun who hits him if he merely touches her (actually applies to all men), Arlette who seems to not even notice him hugging her, and Mizuko…let's not talk about it. He likes to go his own way for most of the things he does. When he shows some sort of concern or caring emotion he seems like his mean self. Only when you pay close attention you can see through his harshness. He can't seem to show he care properly like a normal person…scratch that. This group is full of NOT normal people.
Complicated man.
He has short black hair and ocean-blue eyes covered by his glasses. His clothes consist of a blue long sleeve shirt and long, grey cargo pants. A tattoo of a lightning bolt is on the side of his neck, along with a necklace he is wearing with a sliver circle on it. His weapon is a normal bow and arrow until his Daímonas powers kick in. His powers deal with lightning. Daichi is a full Daímonas, 27 years old, and his stigma is on his lower right arm.
"Captain Shun of the Strategies and Tactics division." Shun replied as he glared a little at Commander who didn't acknowledge his existence.
"Captain Sayuri of the Science/Research division."
Sayuri is the nerd of the group (A.K.A. Genius of the group). Her powers involve technology. She can literally transfer her soul through the computer network to retrieve information, plant viruses, by pass high-level security sites, ect ect. She can also send messages to the others by their headsets or laptops. She could fix technology-based items and alter them by hardly doing a thing! She is a great engineer/mechanic. Overall, she is SMART.
Sayuri is looks like a 23 year old girl but is actually 32 years old (oldest in the group and loves to read romance novels). She has shoulder length, light brown hair and light orange eyes. She often wears an orange crop top with a little of her stomach, which bears her stigma, showing and white capris. She carries no weapon since she stays at the base and doesn't want to fight at all. If she has to, she could always use the gun Hana gave her for her birthday.
"Captain Xun of the Combat division. "
We know about Xun. She loves fighting, blood, and torture (helps Daichi at times to interrogate criminals). She can be nice…ish at times but she has a good heart. She is a full blooded Daímonas and she can manipulate liquids, like moving the blood in another Daímonas body super fast until they exploded (she does that a lot). Although, she can't lift the liquids into mid air. She also has a quick temper.
Xun has short red hair and golden eyes. She wears, what looks like, a red and black version of the Chinese monks clothing. Her polearm could be seen across her back in its retracted condition (1 meter). Xun is a full-blooded Daímonas and looks like a 14 year old with the actual age of 24 years. Due to her short size (commented by Arlette), she looks like a teenager when she's suppose to look like a 24 year old. Her stigma is across her upper left arm.
"Captain Hana of the Weapons division. "
Hana is the energetic person in the group. Always optimistic but can put up an extraordinary fight with all the weapons she uses but her main weapons are daggers. Her power deals with the wind/air, which was a big help with developing all her weapon-based moves. Note that every time she gets really angry she tends to make the oxygen level decrease 10 feet around her.
"Captain Raz of the Tracking division."
Raz could be described as quiet kind of guy. He doesn't speak out even though Hana keeps telling him to. His main problem, as Hana describes, is that he "Let others step over him". Even though he has these flaws he makes a great captain. When he does take charge, he can as great as Commander as Mizuko.
He has short, dirty blond hair and storm colored eyes. He always wears a black mask that covers his mouth and nose (Shun made a comment that Raz could pass as looking like a Ninja with his mask). He wears a light blue t-shirt with a white long sleeve shirt underneath. His weapon is a retractable 6 foot metal staff (now 1 foot) hanging off to the side of his blue pants.
Raz is a half-Daímonas with amplified smelling abilities. He just needs to take a whiff and he'll be able to track a Daímonas, human, or anything/anyone else down. He nicknamed 'Doggy' by Kasumi. Currently a 20 year old. His stigma is across both his shoulders
"Captain Dave of the Security Division."
Dave has short, black hair and white eyes that are covered by black sunglasses. His clothes are a black jacket (with a grey shirt inside) and black jeans. He is 29 year old human.
Dave is blind but that doesn't disable him that much. He is a human but with monstrous strength and accuracy through his blade. Dave uses a sword like Commander, Shun, and Arlette but his is a cane sword. His cane sword is equipped with a special kind of technology Sayuri developed that transfers the vibrations, from when he taps his cane on the ground, and projects an outlined picture of his surrounding to his brain. Sayuri planted a chip inside his brain to where the information the cane receives could give him an image of his surroundings.
"Trainee Arlette. Under supervision of Captain Xun until…..zzz." Arlette's body fell to the floor but nobody seemed to notice/made a move to help her. Xun sighed angrily as she got up and lifted her by the collar to put her back in her room.
Arlette is an apathetic, emotionless 'brat' -(description by Xun). She can display a few emotions like happiness and tiredness but very little at a time. She can also be very blunt and verbally attacks others. Xun, to this very day, questions the Commander of choosing herself to watch over the 'brat'. Commander just waves it off saying something like, "It will help with your temper."
Arlette has short, white hair (just above her shoulders) and pale lavender eyes. She clothes are a modified/'cooler', courtesy of Xun, version of nun clothes. She doesn't wear the head piece, to let you know. Her curved, body length sword could be seen strapped across her back.
She is a half-Daímonas with the power of freezing matter. When given permission, she could shatter her frozen captive. Currently 16 years old and her stigma is across her lower right leg.
"Commander Mizuko Tsukishiro."
Mizuko is the Commander of the group (a.k.a. the leader). She formed this group 10 years ago when she was 17. She is now 27 years old. She has long white hair with bangs the come just above her amber eyes. Her stigma is across her left shoulder.
Her clothing is a modified green/brown kimono. The dress is split into two parts. Her top is sleeveless with the sleeves starting at her biceps and ending at the end of her fingertips. The bottom, with a golden dragon design, is cut on the sides revealing her tight black pants that end at her knees. Her body length sword could be seen strapped across her back.
Her powers allow her to control and communicate to plants at her will.
Mizuko stood up and signaled the others to follow, "Now, to discuss about the Daímonas Arlette and Xun found."
These people are part of the group called the 'Aνεμοδαρμένος' (meaning Adrift and pronounced: Anemodarménos). Each Captain is an elite fighter and they each specialize in a skill that made up the divisions in the 'Aνεμοδαρμένος'.
Each with secret pasts that only a few know lived their lives while keeping their Daímonas abilityasecret but another small war caused them to reveal their identity. Each had to go into hiding but Mizuko recruited them on her journey to form her group of vigilantes.
Each human and Daímonas in the group joined by choice. They trained with their own weapons that best suited them in combat along with their Daímonas powers and became stronger.
Right now they are ranked in the Black Book as #4. They are on the good side but are labeled to be on the bad side. Their main job is to capture Fallen Daímonas/Criminals and kill them if necessary. They also take missions from the government and the locals too, like tracking down a missing person or to take part in a battle coming up. Missions are taken on the three basic conditions:
If paid well.
They didn't need to hide it anymore since they become a powerful and well know group of fighters and protectors of the common people. Fighting outside the law.
Won't accept it if there isn't an 51% success rate.
The job won't involve killing innocent people.
There are other conditions too but are to be told another time.
Each member wears a silver bracelet on their right or left wrist as proof of being a member and a captain. The silver bracelet is flat with a rose design in the middle and designs of vines with thorns covering the rest of the bracelet. The bracelet is made with a special indestructible metal and tech (courtesy of Sayuri) that could expend and shrink depending on what the owner wants.
The bracelet has many other features:
An identification card.
Can survive extreme temperatures (not expanding/decreasing in extreme temperatures).
A communication device (communicating with the other members wearing the bracelet).
Water-proof (a 'duh' for Sayuri to make).
Memory card for storing personal/stolen documents or messages.
A homing signal could be sent out find their way back.
Recharges by sunlight ^-^ -Environmentally friendly.
Each bracelet is slightly different from the each other and could only belong to one person. Sayuri would demonic aura if someone lost their silver bracelet because of the long work she puts into making just ONE of them. Quote, "I will hunt you down and use you as target practice." She said that to Daichi when he lost his. Turn out he left his on the book shelf.
Mizuko lead the group to level 19 of the base.
The captured Area are floors B18-B21. Level B-21 is where all the Fallen Daímonas are held. Level 18 is where the human Criminals are held and Level 19 is where the Daímonas criminals are held. There is an empty floor between B-21 and B-19 is because of the HIGH danger level the Fallen Daímonas emit. If they where to get loose the next floor would instantly kill them.
Fallen Daímonas are 3 times as more powerful than the regular Daímonas and their stigma disapear. They still maintain the body of their body but with white skin and red blood vessels spreading across the surface of the skin. The eyes change color every few seconds and they still have the same hair color/style when they were unchanged. Regular full-blooded Daímonas are change to a Fallen One by one of the two factors.
The first one is keeping their powers active (not 'turning them off') passed their limit point. The second one is when one is a human trying a Daímonas power.
The good thing about the Fallen Daímonas is that their reaction time is reduced by 50% and their smarts too but they are still highly dangerous. No matter how damaged up they get they keep attacking until you can somehow damage the body into an unrecognizable state.
Normally, when going after a Fallen Daímonas, Mizuko sends out one Rank 1 member of the combat division and an experienced member of the tracking division. Since this Fallen one was, in what the mission briefing said, 'fast and active for 5 years', Mizuko sent out her Captain of the combat division, Xun, and the 'rookie officer', Arlette, to capture it because of the fear of it gaining new abilities and becoming smarter.
Fallen Daímonas, if not dealt with for a while, could have their reaction time and smarts back to their original states. The scariest part is that they could receive new powers due to the mutation of the changing. These types of Daímonas receive one of the captains…or captain and rookie in this case.
Mizuko stopped and faced a black glass wall and pressed on a series of numbers on the keypad next to it. The turned to face the others, "Look here." And the black glass wall revealed a small boy with messy black hair and tattered clothes. "help me…" the boy spoke softly before changing into an adult sized Fallen Daímonas.
Everyone was shocked at the scene before them. The Fallen One crawled on the walls and attacked the glass wall that didn't break at all. He went into a 'Crazy' state and started to attack the walls around him and even using his powers (fire and wind) to make some damage.
(Note: The walls didn't crumble or break. Courtesy of Sayuri Tech.)
After a few moments the Fallen calmed down and turned into a small boy again. The boy started to cry and crawled into a far corner away from the group.
"Not possible…" Xun said. "Once an ADULT Fallen changes, it can't revert to a human form of a CHILD. Powers like morphing are one of the 'OB (Out of Boundary)' Powers even if he is a Fallen." Her voice and face looked frustrated and confused.
"Mizuko-sama." Arlette just joined the group and stood behind Xun. "Isn't that the one Xun 'supposedly' killed?" Everyone now looked at the Commander who gave a nod.
"Yes. The JANITORS received the bloody, destroyed body to find it reconstruct itself to a small boy." Mizuko looked toward the small boy who was still crying and her face softened.
"After a minute or so, reported by a surviving JANITOR, the boy morphed and turned into a Fallen Daímonas. The boy killed 5 of them and was found crying on the ground." She pressed a few buttons on the keyboard to return the clear glass to its former black state.
"Later, a Rank 1 officer took the boy this level and locked him in" she put a hand on the black glass wall, "this room."
'Mizuko-Chan…do not be sad' Inaya said into Mizuko's mind. Mizuko always had a soft spot for little kids.
"So what now?" Daichi questioned but was answered by a rock to being thrown to his head. He was able to dodge it.
Mizuko's bangs hid her eyes.
"He said his name was Kaito. Kaito Sato." Daichi tilted his head in confusion.
"No doubt about it…he looks just like him." She looked up to make eyes contact with the rest of the group. Some long lost emotion appeared in her eyes but Daichi couldn't make it out.
"He is the son of Mokoto Sato. My stupid crush before I joined this group."
TBC…
Next time: Chapter 2 The Killing
Preview:
"Tch, couldn't commander pick a better/much less boring mission for us to go on?"
"The way you swung your modified polearm seemed like you wanted to kill me."
"Xun! Arlette! Wai…Wha..WHAT HAPPENED!"
"*sigh*" 'Your too young to understand the reason why at the moment.'
"I LOVE seeing blood."
"it's your fault Kasumi is here."