“W-What… Who… How!!” I asked as the blood from Kiko’s severed head was all over my hands.

One of the muscular men stood up from their chair coming straight for me “Good one boss, we got her!” He exclaimed in an orotund voice.

He lifted me up from the ground before pushing me so hard, I hit the wall of the bar leaving a dent on it in the process.

“LEAVE KIKO ALONE!!” I roared before running at the man full speed punching him on the stomach consequently, making him puke out blood.

As soon as the other men saw this, they ran straight at me. Swarming kicks and punches on every angle of my body.

“Leave the kid alone would ya. We need him alive y’know?”

I looked up to see it was Ken holding Kiko’s head like a trophy with a long and bloody sword in his left hand the glasses he wore were not on him. He bent down to see me at face level. His grey eyes… they were as deep and as cold as grandpa’s, his smile chaotic, almost demonic looking.

“Y-You killed her?” My voice was brittle but taut, my anger was growing by the second the longer I looked at his face “WHY!!?”

He chuckled before talking “Its business kid. Her boss owed me something,” he explained “He hadn’t paid in a while. Soo, I decided to kill her… as a warning.”

“YOU BASTARD, WHAT THE HELL ARE YO-” before I could complete my sentence, I was knocked out by one of his men.

A few hours later….

I woke up in what seemed to be a cell. I was tied to an iron chair with chains around both my hands and feet that were connected to the walls of the cell. The concrete floor was dry with blood, upside-down skulls and bones hanging from the ceiling. Ken was at the entrance leaning on the iron bar of the cell.

“I’ll try to be as nice as possible mister… Kai… was it?”

“What do you want from me?” I was feeling a plethora of emotions and didn’t know what to express. Fear, anger, despair… I didn’t know what to feel.

“I need information.” Ken replied with a devilish grin.

“I-I-I don’t know anything…”

“For fuck sake kid, just talk and make this easy on yourself.” His tone changed to a more annoyed one.

“I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING DAMNIT.” I roared in frustration.

“I see, playing hard huh?” Ken left me in the cell. After a little bit, he came back with a whip. “This right here kid is an enchanted whip. And I’ll use it on you if you don’t answer my questions.”

“P-Please I-I don’t-”

Ken used the whip on my back before I could say another word. “Don’t waste my time kid, just tell me what I want to hear and you’ll be fine.”

I nodded in agreement. Tears formed in my eyes, there was nothing I could do.

“Good. Now, where is the Hideout?”

“What hideout?” I raised my head puzzled by what he was asking.

“Wrong answer kid.” Ken whipped me again. “Don’t play dumb with me kid, Kiko was an assassin and thief for this group” he raised up a symbol that looked familiar.

‘This symbol was on the floor and closet of her house.’ I thought to myself as I was still processing everything. “Kiko was an assassin!?”

Ken then whipped me again and again until I was bloody allover.

“IM THE ONE ASKING THE QUESTIONS FUCKING BRAT!!!” he threw the whip away in anger, lifted me out of the chair breaking the chains and flung me across the room. He repeatedly stomped on me before kicking my face hard enough that I was knocked out cold.

….

0

I woke up after… I don’t know how long. I was on the floor face to the ground, my entire body in extreme pain. I force myself to look up and saw a different man outside the now locked cell.

“W-W-Where I-Is… he” I asked, my lifeless body still feeling the sting of the enchanted whip, my throat parched from the constant shouting mixed with dehydration. I was suffering.

“I would guess you’re talking about ken? He left…” his voice was modulated, yet toneless.

The man in question was quite large 8 feet if I guessed, he had dark brown hair and whiskers on his chocolate face. He had two different eye colors, a hazel eye in the right one and green in the left. He wore a black long cloak that covered every part of his body besides his legs, with those being and with long nails coming out of them.

“Who… are you?”

“The name’s Raziel boy. Do you know where they went?”

“No…”

Raziel let out a heavy sigh before holding the padlock on the door, squeezing it till it broke. “There, now that you’re free, you can pay me back with your information.”

“Do… whatever you… w-w-w-an…” I fainted.

….

“So… that technique?” Araya said as he began to glow a golden color. “Then I won’t hold back anymore as well.”

Araya teleported above Ryu aiming to cut him in half, the dragon guardian not even moving his head, blocks with his sword before countering almost immediately.

“SHIT!” Araya exclaims as he just barely dodges the blade. He teleports behind Ryu attempting to stab him in the back, but Ryu dodges effortlessly kicking the guardian of the phoenix clan on the chest.

Araya strikes his sword into the ground to stop him from flying backwards any more than he already was. He looked up to see Ryu in front of him about to take off his head, but Araya blocks just in time.

‘He’s stronger now. Is this the power of the technique?’

“It’s so much more than that… Araya.” Ryu said shocking Araya before punching him into a tree, destroying the tree in the process.

Araya was now behind Ryu attempting to attack him, but Ryu of course notices this and hits away the sword proceeding to almost stab Araya

Araya teleports again aiming to do the same thing, Ryu blocks again attempting to stab Araya. They continue this process going faster and faster until…

“GAAK!”

“URRK!”

They stabbed each other in the chest. Blood gushed from their bodies to the floor.as they stared at one another pushing their swords into themselves. Lying down on the floor, they were dying.

‘I win’ they thought in unison closing their eyes before dying.

….

Mariam ran as fast as she could, she knew Araya was going to die. She was bitterly weeping and in the process, tripping on the root of a tree.

“ARAYAAAAAA!!” her voice was high, thick and Wheezy tired from all the running she was doing sad from all the death. She was about to give up, but then looked at me sleeping peacefully.

“I-I have to keep pushing.” She said as she stood up.

Just then, an arrow was shot at her back but she did not waver. She turned around to see the multiple enchanted knives from one source flying at her. She quickly turned her back blocking all the knives from hitting me.

“Her eyes teared up “I’m sorry kai, you’ll have… to do… this on… your… own.” After she said this, she wrote something on the ground, and then kissed me on the fore head very softly as the life in he began to fade.

The entity that threw those knives teleported in front of the corpse holding the baby wearing a dark mask. It turned the dead woman over revealing the new born.

“This is goodbye abominat-” Furoto and Rancour jumped in just in time to stop the masked man, but before they could even attack, he used a smoke bomb to cover his tracks and disappear.

They turned their attention to the baby and corpse.

“M-Mariam…” Rancour said with a wobbly tone.

“Where does the boy go now?” Furoto asked.

“Let him stay with me and my family.”

“No Rancour, you will be too busy. I’ll take care of him.” Furoto said as he lifted the baby from the floor.

“Very well sensei. But what do we call him?”

Furoto looked at the floor where Mariam’s body lied. He saw something written there.

KAI

“So that’s the name? Very well then.”