Age of Darkness (26 page)

***

Keimaro had his black cloak wrapped tightly
around his body as he felt his particles reform at the top of the bell tower. A
gust of wind rushed into his face, blowing his spiky black hair back. His eyes
squinted as the breeze blew against his face, and he saw the lights of the city
focusing on the stage in the distance. He turned to see that Yuri, Yata, and
Lena had placed their white masks on their faces, making them look like ghosts
and clowns. Each mask was different. Yata’s had a simple line running across
the entire white mask with black lines that looked like bars coming down the
face. Yuri’s had a bright grin that seemed almost creepily happy. Lena’s mask
was the only one that had a color besides black and white; a small red flower
upon the forehead made her seem a bit more feminine. However, her mask had no
mouth with only a hole at the nose.

Keimaro’s mask was gripped tightly in his
hand. Instead of being pale white like the rest of their masks, it was silver.
The eyes stretched a bit like a ghost’s, and the mouth was merely a single
black line that went across the entire mask and thickened into a curved smile
at the end. He looked at his fellow assassins and saw that the masks seemed to
attach to their bodies and morph together with their cloaks, making their skin
look black as night. His hands were covered with black gloves, and his dark
cape flapped in the wind behind him. Not a single bit of humanity could be seen
just from looking at him.

He lifted the mask to his face and felt it
attach. He gasped as the mask latched itself to his face like a leech, small
lines of black veins sprouting from the mask and inserting themselves into his
flesh, traveling along his skin to meet with the cloak and transforming his
entire neck into a black color until not a single inch of skin was exposed. He
heard his breathing echoing and realized there was no problem with breathing or
seeing. It was as if the mask had become one with him. What an interesting
contraption.

“
The operation begins now
,” Yuri
said, his voice distorted so that he wouldn’t sound like himself. Rather, he
sounded monotonic with a new, extremely deep voice that resonated. “
Kei, get
on the zip line and make sure to hit the target nice and hard. We wouldn’t want
any survivors. Lena, ring the bell when Kei hits the target. Let’s begin.”

Keimaro grabbed onto the zip line and
pushed off of the bell tower, his heart cleansed of fear. Right now, his mind
was only focused on the mission at hand. His hair blew backward as he rushed
forward through the air. His heavy breathing sounded as if a massive hollow
helmet had been clamped over his head, echoing in his ears as he zoomed down
toward the stage below. The crowds gasped as they saw him flying through the
air on the skinny line. Originally, he would’ve thought that a line this skinny
would’ve broken, but now he had no doubts that Lena truly had some effective
contraptions at her disposal. His iris morphed from its dark brown into a
demonic red, and he saw that the politicians had already stopped their speech
and were beginning to get off of the stage.

“
You’re not getting away,
” Keimaro’s
robotic, echoing voice snarled as he kicked outward to give himself momentum.
He swung back and came forward once more, a burst of flame emitting from his
feet as he released his grip on the zip line, falling into open air.

Lena, Yuri, and Yata watched him,
incredulous. “
Is he going to survive a fall that big
?” Lena asked in
awe.

“
Yeah. Remember, he isn’t human
,”
Yuri said, beginning to attach his own zip line. “
Let’s go.
”

***

Aika watched as the cloaked, ghost-like
figure leapt down from the line with flames sending him flying through the air
like jets to propel him forward. To her amazement, his body came downward at
incredible speed before any of the politicians were even able to leap off of
the stage. An immense explosion erupted from the stage. Flames roared upward in
a pillar that flew off toward the clouds, spreading outward as scorching fire
flew off in all directions, catching onto the roofs of several buildings. Dust
flew up into the air in an enormous cloud, but she could already see the
mysterious intruder’s silhouette emerging from the cloud, slowly standing.

“What on earth is this?” General Mundo
yelled, his hands gripping the bars of the balcony, his knuckles white with shock.
His face was red with frustration, and Aika could see a vein bulging from his
forehead. “Riflemen! Load your weapons and prepare to fire!”

Aika watched as three other black figures
dressed in similar cloaks flew down the invisible line and landed beside the
first figure, bringing their total to four. In her eyes, they all looked like
ghosts with white masks wearing those ominous black cloaks. Were they even
human? She had heard the first figure yell before he had hit the stage, and his
voice definitely wasn’t human. Not to mention the fact that an ordinary human
would never survive a fall from that high.

Madam Dyrus gripped her shoulder and urged
her to follow the escorts to flee the area. “Princess, we must evacuate! It is
much too dangerous! Those are assassins—and inhuman ones at that! They’ll have
our heads before—”

“
I don’t suggest you run,
” a voice
from the dust spoke. The cloud began to clear, exposing all four of the cloaked
figures to the crowd, who had been panicking but had calmed down slightly when
they realized that the assassins weren’t yet posing a threat to innocents.

Aika’s eyes widened when she saw scattered
bodies all over the stage—deformed, burned corpses that were red with raw
flesh. Blood was splattered across the shattered wood. The stage itself had
collapsed and was nothing but destroyed debris scattered across the area with
all of the bodies of the politicians lying alongside several civilian and guard
casualties. The first figure that had leapt was the one talking. He stood in
the middle with the rest of his comrades behind him.

“And who are you?” the king demanded,
standing up suddenly with all of the rifles of his guards trained on the four cloaked
figures. “One false movement and you will be pumped with enough lead to supply an
army. Choose your next moves carefully, terrorists.”

The ghostly figure chuckled, his voice
mechanical and dark. He cocked his head to the side as he looked at the king
with his glowing red eyes. “
My name is Keimaro Hayashi. You have taken something
from me, milord—my honor, my family, my home, and my happiness. You have made
my life a living hell. That is why, in the last year, I made a final decision.
That I would come here and kill you along with every single person in this
empire. I’ll take everything from you as you have taken everything from me.
With the burning flames of my hatred,
” he growled as he lifted a hand. Roaring
flames snarled up, catching on his hand and swirling in a vortex around his
forearm that blew the black sleeves of his cloak ever so slightly, “
I will
destroy you, king. However, worry not. You will have several weeks before I
decide to come for you, for I’ll leave you alive to watch your empire crumble.
”

Aika watched as her father shifted
nervously and nearly dropped his scepter, staring at Keimaro with shock and
newfound fear. That was Keimaro Hayashi? She looked back at the figure. He had
obtained some type of odd magical power as well … and he wanted revenge for the
Bakaara massacre. Her heart thumped rapidly as she watched him. She wondered if
Yata was also amongst those ghosts that stood behind him, lingering silently.

“Making such bold threats, do you think so
highly of yourself?” the king boomed, his voice echoing as he stood up from his
throne. “You are only a single demon boy with a small band of rogues. You hide
in the shadows, but even a demon cannot conceal himself in darkness for
eternity against the army of Faar. We will find you and annihilate you before
you are even able to make a single step toward your goal. Do you not remember?
Your entire clan was condemned to die. Are you really willing to bring your
friends into this conflict with you? Are you so selfish and set on your revenge
that you would drag your allies down with you for your sick goals? I enjoyed killing
your family, Keimaro Hayashi, and it’s time for you to die as well. There’s no
place in our world for a monster like you.”

***

Keimaro’s eyes glowed even brighter as
anger swirled within him, causing his fists to shake at his sides. He felt a
hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off as smoke began to rise from his body.
He stared at the king as his father’s image flashed into his mind. He
remembered vividly what his father had said to him.

He had been sitting beside his father’s bed
when he had passed from the heart attack. That was something out of Keimaro’s
control. He remembered the constant look of exhaustion on his father’s face. “Kill
them all,” he’d said. “Make sure that Faar pays for what they’ve done to us.
Our lives were lost from the moment that they invaded. We are dead men that
roam the earth. We are ghosts that haunt the terrible men that have brought
pain to our past lives. Avenge me, Keimaro. Be the one to thrust the blade into
the man’s blackened heart.”

A monster, huh?
He looked around at the eyes of the soldiers that had locked onto
him. His Shokugan eyes could see that their entire bodies were shaking with fear.
It was as if they saw a creature before them, a demon, a monster, rather than a
human. Keimaro’s eyes flickered to the citizens, who were staring at him with
widened eyes as well. Some were whispering together, words that couldn’t be
identified. But he knew that look in their eyes. He recognized it. Fear.
Hatred. All of it crammed together to create the look that they wore—and how
had it come to this? How had it come to him, becoming the villain?

Keimaro stared at his hands, which shook
before his face. Was it because he had killed murderers? Perhaps that took away
his humanity. Maybe he should’ve given up on this entire thought of revenge
from the very beginning if it would’ve at least helped him keep his purity.
No,
he thought,
it’s not because of my actions. It’s not because of anything
that I’ve ever done. It’s because of my family. It’s because of these eyes. It’s
because I am a member of the Hayashi clan. They all judge me to be some type of
monster based on the stereotypes that they have heard in legends and stories.
They supported the Hayashi clan massacre. Every last one of them.

He recalled his mother’s smiling face, her
long, black, flowing hair with her bright grin every time he had arrived home
from school. He recalled her smile fading as it turned to worry every time he
came home with a bruise, and he pictured the way she had comforted him and
always been there for him. She was the person he had loved most in this world.
They
took her from me!

Keimaro yelled as a pillar of flame burst
up from his body and into the dark night sky. It smashed through the inky clouds,
exploding in a streak of light flying across the sky in all directions. He rushed
forward in the direction of the king. He slammed his hand into the bottom of his
sheath, his blade popping into the air. He gripped the hilt and whirled it as
he sprinted forward. The crowds of people panicked and screamed as they
separated, leaving only the soldiers in his way.

Everyone is responsible.

His sword came down, each time taking yet
another life. Blood sprayed into the night air as Keimaro spun around, swinging
his sword harder and harder against his opponents. The soldiers couldn’t
withstand his relentless assault and all lay dead at his feet within moments.
There was a crack as bullets began to fly at him from all directions, the
riflemen finally letting loose. The projectile lead balls spiraled through the
air as they soared toward him.
Kill every last one of them.
He raised
his hands, and a wave of flames flew into the air, melting the bullets as soon
as they reached the wall from the intensity of the fire’s heat.
That is your
sole purpose for existence.

***

Aika stared in shock as Keimaro tore
through the line of Royal Guards as if they were nothing. The flames that he
had shown off were definitely no type of ordinary magic. That pillar of flames alone
showed he had incredible amounts of power. She blinked as she felt herself
being lifted up by guards, who escorted her away hurriedly. She struggled,
pulling away from one of the guards. She wanted to see him, up close. She didn’t
know why, but after all of these years, something just drew her toward him. “Father!”
she exclaimed, but her voice was swallowed by the sound of roaring flames.

A huge wall of flames sprang into existence
in front of the balcony, a wave of heat smashing into her. She winced, covering
her eyes from the brightness of the fire, and stared when she saw the flames
separating into a perfect doorway. Keimaro flew forward and stepped gracefully
onto the marble railing of the balcony.
How is that possible?
Her eyes
were wide as she stood there, her mouth gaping open, incredulous.
We’re at
least five stories above the ground!

Keimaro’s cloak blew from a swift breeze as
time seemed to slow. He stood there on the balcony with them, seemingly
completely relaxed despite his burst of adrenaline only a moment earlier. The
boy’s eyes flashed as he flipped off of the railing, slamming his heel into the
back of General Mundo’s head. With a crack, the man’s skull slammed hard into the
ground, leaving him unconscious. General Mundo had led Faar’s armies into
battle dozens—maybe hundreds—of times and had been always victorious. Yet, here
he was, being defeated so easily. It seemed to take hardly any effort for
Keimaro because he stepped over the unconscious body with his sword unsheathed
as he whirled it. He advanced on Aika’s father, the king sinking back into his
throne, his face pale.