Age of Darkness

by Brandon Chen

  His eyes darted around, looking for some type of an exit. A stairway led downward to the lower floor, but that would provide no escape. Without a doubt, soldiers down there were probably coming up already. When you can’t find an opening, make one. His father’s words echoed in his mind, and his eyes snapped open as he lifted himself up. He spun around, roaring flames generating around him as he grunted, punching out at the wall across the room. A massive ball of concentrated flame obliterated the entire wall, sending a wave of dust flying around him. His body melted into the dust cloud, and he sprinted forward through the opening and leapt through the wall into open air. His arms waved as he broke through the cloud of smoke, flying in the direction of another balcony that was lower and seemed right behind the building.

  Keimaro winced as he landed, absorbing the full shock of the fall. He sucked in a deep breath as he heard the yelling of soldiers all around him. He pushed forward, his hair blowing into his eyes as he rushed through a glass door. Glittering shards rained down around him, some cutting his skin, but he didn’t care. His heart was pounding rapidly, and he just wanted to escape. He knew that he was leaving behind a large trail, but the intention was to move so fast that they wouldn’t be able to follow. He sprinted through a room where a couple lay on their bed. He sighed at the woman’s scream but didn’t bother to look in her direction because he was already throwing himself through their open window across the room.

  His breath caught in his lungs as he found open air and watched as the floor flew up to meet him. His boots smashed into the ground, and he gasped, wincing as he fell to one knee. He knew that his body was much stronger than an ordinary human’s so that he could endure higher falls. Nevertheless, the shock from so many falls had taken a toll on him. He felt a sharp pain, as if a dagger were being driven into the side of his ankle. He glanced up from the paved ground and saw that people were all around him, staring at him, incredulous and shocked. The guards were probably close by. To make matters worse, the woman who had been in the bed had run to the window and began to scream and point at him like some type of alarm.

  Keimaro glanced over his shoulder and glared at her with his demonic eyes, feeling a sudden need to hurl a ball of flame at her home and obliterate the entire structure altogether. When he looked at her, her voice caught on her lips and died almost immediately. Her face paled, and she took several steps back from the window until she completely disappeared from view, surely scared for her life.

  The boy tried to examine his surroundings, remembering what Yuri had told him about using his environment to his advantage to escape any situation. There was an alleyway, but he didn’t know where the hell that led. He could already hear the yelling of guards and the clanking of chainmail and armor nearby. He didn’t have much time, and the alley was the only place that could provide a possible escape. He was in plain sight, standing in the middle of the street. He sprinted forward, ignoring the pain that split through his ankle, and ran into the shadows of the alleyway.

  Unfortunately, a squad of guards was there, coming toward him. He slowed to a stop as soon as he saw the guards running down the alley and grunted, turning to flee back the way he’d come. But more guards had already closed off the exit and were slowly advancing on him with their swords held in front of them defensively.

  Keimaro gulped, examining the situation. He was completely trapped between two armed forces. He could kill them all, but that would take time and more soldiers would come. He didn’t want to have to kill every single soldier that came at him. He just wanted to escape. He sucked in a deep breath and turned back to the alley, running full speed at the soldiers, not bothering to unsheathe his weapon. The guards blinked in surprise as he ran at them, not sure what the boy was up to. They prepared themselves and held their ground.

  “This better work,” Keimaro muttered under his breath as he took a single step onto the narrow wall of the alleyway. He released a continuous jet of flame behind him, propelling him forward along the wall. His feet were placed accordingly as he grunted, growing accustomed to the speed. Elated, he realized he was running on the wall. It was working! He grinned stupidly as he flew over the confused squad of guards and landed gracefully on the ground behind them, flying at incredible speed, leaving only smoke in his trail.

  Keimaro staggered out of the alleyway into another open road, knowing that he had to get out of the common area. But he was in a city—it was practically impossible to escape! He had to find somewhere to hide. People surrounded him in the street; he had to distract them somehow so that he could hide. He slammed his palms together, creating a huge explosion of flames that erupted into the air. Civilians scattered in all directions, screaming in fear as a huge cloud of smoke swallowed the area. When the smoke cleared, Keimaro was gone. The guards poured out of the alleyway into an empty street.

  ***

  Keimaro had broken into a random house and locked the door behind him, finding a frightened elderly couple. Actually they weren’t frightened. As Keimaro looked closely, they looked quite calm actually in comparison to the other civilians. The woman was holding a pan and was staring at him as if she were looking at a ghost. The elderly man was sitting in a rocking chair, looking in his direction through his squinted eyes. But, neither of them made a sound.

  “I…,” Keimaro began, but wasn’t particularly sure what to say at all. Nothing he could say could really excuse his being dressed up like a marauder. He scratched the back of his neck and reached into his pocket, pulling a few coins out and placing them on the table. “Look, if you just shelter me for a few hours, I promise I’ll make it worth your while. I just—”

  “It’s okay, Keimaro Hayashi,” the old woman said with a reassuring smile.

  Keimaro blinked, heat rising to his face. How did they know who he was? They clearly hadn’t been at the speech. His name couldn’t have circulated so quickly either. He could silence them both right now and seek refuge in this house in solitude. His hand was twitching at his side, his eyes widening.

  What are these thoughts that I’m having? I can’t kill bystanders. I would never stoop so low. Two innocent elderly in their own home … I can’t do that! I would be just as bad as the Faar soldiers who broke into my home and killed my mother. His hand relaxed at his side, and he gulped, reaching up and taking off his mask. The mask detached from his skin at his touch, and he held it in his hand, sucking in fresh air as he looked over the two elderly. “How do you know my name?”

  “Because of me,” a boy said, descending a set of winding wooden stairs that led down from the upper floors. He seemed to be several years older than Keimaro with a head of curly brown hair that shined as he raised an eyebrow, smiling playfully at the assassin. He was wearing tattered clothing that was torn to the point where it looked like they had been lacerated by a bear. He scratched the back of his neck with a chuckle. “Where are my manners? My name is Edward, and I’m the one who’s somewhat overseeing the mission. In fact, it’s lucky that you are here because we need to discuss the many flaws that occurred during your….” A whirring sound filled the air as a bright blue glow shined from upstairs. “Ah, it looks like they’re coming to scold you themselves.”

  Gavin and Aladdin descended down the stairs behind Edward, having teleported from Zylon’s mansion. Aladdin had a rather nervous look on his face, while Gavin’s was smug. “You almost—”

  “Yeah,” Keimaro said with a sigh as he shook his head. “I got it. I messed up. I lost control.” His hands were shaking at his sides, and he closed his eyes. He had wanted to tear the king apart at that moment. What was this feeling that he was having? It was overcoming all of his common sense! He shouldn’t have bolted forward so suddenly or allowed himself to be provoked like that. “Who’s that?” he said, pointing over his shoulder at Edward.

  “He’s one of the assassins who will be helping us in our operations. You’re only too lucky that you waltzed straight into his house by chance,” Gavin muttered. “Aladdin, take him back to the mansion.
I’ll make sure to try to calm things down outside.” Keimaro realized that Gavin was wearing his guard uniform. He intended to pose as a soldier and control the crowd or lead the guards away. “Edward, we can use that teleporting pad upstairs?”

  “It’s a small one, but yeah.”

  “Send Keimaro and Aladdin back.”

  “What?” Keimaro snapped. “We are done with the mission?”

  “It was a success, as far as I’m concerned. You scared the crap out of the people and made quite a scene. Far more of a scene than I could’ve imagined because you almost killed the king,” Gavin said, glancing at Keimaro from the corner of his eye as he took a step forward toward the door, adjusting the iron helmet upon his head.

  Gavin exhaled. “However, you would have cost your friends their lives if they didn’t escape. You put too much faith in them, assuming that they would be able to escape. What if the Bount organization appeared and captured one of them? With everyone on the run and everything all chaotic, no one would even notice that someone had been captured until we all arrived at the mansion to do a head count,” Gavin said, pausing. “You have to take these factors into consideration. You created too much risk. I just hope that everyone gets back safely. That’s all.”

  “You’re saying … I could’ve gotten someone killed?”

  “Yes!” Gavin growled, turning to face Keimaro now, clearly annoyed. “You completely lost control out there today! It just shows us how much self-control you actually have. You left the plan and almost got everyone—”

  “And you’re the one to lecture me? The person who wanted to go down into that stupid laboratory only to have Noah captured?” Keimaro yelled, his eyes dark and filled with anger. “He could be dead as well for all we know!”

  Gavin’s eyes were wide, and his lips were quivering as if he wanted to cry. His hands were shivering at his side. He broke eye contact and moved to the door, throwing it open and standing in the doorway for a moment. “At least I admit my faults, whereas you believe that you did nothing wrong,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  Keimaro stared at the door for a moment, his heart pounding against his chest. Why am I rejecting the fact that I messed up? I know I messed up. He turned to Aladdin, who shrugged and began to follow Edward up the stairs. He turned to the elderly couple in the house and bowed his head lightly before he followed them back up the stairway. At the top of the stairs was a small room with a bed pushed to the side and a blue platform placed in the very center. It was small, much smaller than the one that was installed at the mansion, but it could still fit two people. Probably.

  Aladdin was waiting on it, and Keimaro stepped onto it reluctantly. He feared the moment that he would arrive back at the mansion. By now, no doubt the entire crew of assassins knew his mistakes. It was inevitable. Information flowed so freely in the mansion. He closed his eyes as he felt his skin tingling once more and sighed. What was going through my mind back then?

  Outsider

  Keimaro was practically dragged off of the platform the very moment he arrived in the mansion. Crowds of young assassins were watching the spectacle as two strong, burly men threw Keimaro at the feet of Yuri, who stood tall over the boy. He grunted, annoyed at the fact that he was being looked down on. He tried to push himself to his feet, but Yuri put his foot on Keimaro’s back, forcing him back down onto his knees. There was silence as Yuri held his hand up into the air. Keimaro could see Yata standing there in the front lines of the crowd, doing nothing. At the sight of the doubt in his friend’s eyes, Keimaro looked away.

  “You’re so obsessed with your revenge that you left us, your comrades, to die,” Yuri snarled, lifting his foot from Keimaro’s back. “I knew Z should’ve left you out of this. You are an untamed beast from the wild, consumed by evil, and you have no compassion. I’ve seen men like you. In fact, I used to be like you. Always craving that revenge. You always want that man dead, the one person who took everything from you. It’s all you can think about, right? Even in your dreams, it haunts you—”

  “Stop talking like you know what you’re saying!” Keimaro yelled, his voice silencing Yuri’s in an instant. It boomed through the crowd, causing assassins to shift nervously. His eyes were glowing bright red as he pushed himself to a standing position in front of Yuri. “My entire life has been dedicated to revenge since the very moment my mother perished! My life is void of meaning without my vengeance. I intend to avenge my father, my mother, and my little sister. The fact that you think you understand me is pathetic!”

  He turned to the crowd, roaring, “Do you even understand what it’s like? To lose everyone and everything that you’ve ever known in a single instant? To see your own mother skewered by a blade as your house burns. To watch your little sister be kidnapped while you lay there with broken bones, powerless to do anything?” He turned back to Yuri and jammed a finger into the werewolf’s chest. “I joined this organization to obtain my revenge. Don’t think that there’s any other reason.”

  Yuri raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? I thought that you came here because you believed and hoped that perhaps there was a sliver of a chance that your little sister was alive.”

  “She isn’t.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “We do!” Keimaro snarled. “Do you truly believe that she survived even a single year with those Bounts? No, the king himself confirmed it. He knew about Mai, meaning that the Bounts turned her over to the empire. Those experiments that they were performing in the underground lab used Hayashi DNA and transplants. My sister was used as a test subject. A lab rat. At this point her fate is quite obvious to me. She’s dead.” he choked.

  “So, you’ll do the selfish thing and abandon the mission, leaving us to die,” Yuri said. “Unlike you, we cannot create walls of fire that generate enough heat to melt bullets. Once the volley of projectiles comes at us, we are dead. In an instant, all of us could’ve been lying on the ground in a heap of bodies. And then you would’ve been next. I don’t think you understand that yet. I do believe that every human has self-control,” he said. “Even I, at times, feel weak when I am provoked. I feel a tugging sensation that makes me want to lose my humanity and become a beast. I want to succumb to my instinct. But my mind is better. I know when to make the right choices. Today, you didn’t make the right choice. Admit your mistake.”

  “I won’t admit anything, you damn werewolf.”

  The crowd gasped, and Yuri’s face darkened. He whipped his fist around and slammed it solidly into Keimaro’s face before the boy could even react. With a loud crack, Keimaro flew backward, smacking against the platform painfully. He grabbed his face, screaming in agony as blood streamed from his nose. His eyes glared through the cracks of his fingers, red as his blood.

  But in a single moment, Keimaro’s hostility drained from him, and he lowered his hands, allowing the blood to freely stream down his face. He stared in shock at Yuri.

  Yuri had tears in his eyes, and his fist was shaking, his knuckles covered with a fresh coat of Keimaro’s blood. He was panting, his breath heavy, and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He was about to rush in and attack Keimaro again, but Yata and Aladdin leapt forward, restraining him. “Lena is gone because of you! Where the hell do you think she is?” he roared, struggling against the metallic Yata and Aladdin, his eyes red with fury. “And you won’t even admit your fault!”

  Keimaro hadn’t noticed her absence, and he hated himself for that. His heart was pounding as he scanned the crowd, hoping that he would prove Yuri wrong and find Lena there. But she wasn’t. This couldn’t be. She couldn’t be gone. His hands were shaking, and his lips were quivering with shock. I know the other assassins look at you as an outsider, but it shouldn’t matter! After all, you have us as your friends. They’ll come to know you as one soon. Her words echoed through his head, and he slowly pushed himself to his feet.

  Yuri limped forward, sobbing silently. Keimaro could’ve never imagined the strong and independent leader cr
ying. Yet here he was.

  “It’s my fault,” Keimaro said quietly, and Yuri stopped crying almost immediately. “Lena was captured, wasn’t she? It’s my fault that it happened. And I’ll get her back. Whatever condition she comes back in, you can apply to me ten-fold,” he said, his eyes filled with confidence. What am I doing? Why do I care about any of these people? Aren’t they just tools to get my revenge? I shouldn’t make a promise like that. But his expression didn’t change, and Yuri exhaled deeply.

  “If she’s dead—”

  “She won’t be,” Keimaro said. “I’ll save her and—”

  “You won’t be doing anything of the sort.” Z’s words echoed through the mansion as he walked forward, his footsteps echoing loudly in the dead silence. His hands were crossed behind his back as the crowds of assassins separated, clearing a pathway for him. He tilted his head back as his eyes flickered from Yata and Yuri to Keimaro. “And what do you think you’re doing? The mission was indeed a success.”

  “Lena was captured,” Keimaro said, turning to Z. “I wouldn’t call that a success.”

  “And you intend to save her?”

  “Of course,” he growled.

  “I forbid you to do so,” Z said. “The key around your neck is the most important object in the entire world right now. If you go after her and it falls into the hands of the enemy, the world will be doomed because you decided to go out there. Leave the key here; then you may go and risk your life if you wish.”

  “I’m not doing that,” Keimaro said simply. “I’m going to go and save Lena and Noah. It’s peculiar that you’re so concentrated on your goals that you don’t even care about your own subordinates. You don’t even seem to care about the capture of your own son. You give me no reason to trust you with this,” he said, reaching up and feeling the cool metal of the key that pressed against his chest. “Not to mention, I don’t work for you. I don’t have to listen to anything you say. We are only working toward a mutual goal.”