Blood Moon: CH 6

Chapter 6

"-The Shadow Corps were wiped out about a year ago."

 

Then who are they chasing after?

An impostor?

But who are capable enough to replicate them? The weaponry, the attack style and pattern?

 

 

"Wiped out? What do you mean?"

The graveness of that truth is not something to be questioned, yet he couldn't help but to do exactly that. Such a rare thing to see the usually easy-going man wearing a tight expression like that.

"Exactly how it sounds. I don't know the details myself, but that's what was reported. Apparently, the entire unit got into an 'accident'. No one survived."

Accident? What kind of accident can wipe out an entire unit of highly trained assassins?

"As expected, nothing is made clear eh? How typical of the High Council." Now even Needle starts to have wrinkles in his forehead. "Just now I thought we might be getting some answers but now the mystery got even more complicated."

 

 

Even more questions needed answering. They're really aren't going anywhere at this point.

Unconsciously, he had been chain-smoking under the tree in the dark. The numbers of vampires had gone down significantly since the start of the case. Hence now he's left standing in the dark with his incessant thoughts.

It's eerily quiet tonight. Looking around, nothing seems to be out of place. Considering how he's now at the outskirts of their territory, it is strange to be this quiet. Narrowing his eyes at a random point in the dark, 'Something doesn't feel right'.

Not even a split second later, a loud noise came from somewhere down the road.

 

 

*

 

 

He dashed ahead to where the sound came. It's dark, and there's thick smoke enveloping the surrounding area making it harder to see.

Did a bomb explode?

As expected, he got there alone. It's quite far away from the church so it'll be long before anyone notices. Thankfully, a gust of wind blows past, pushing the smoke away. Slowly, it reveals the site of incident. Rubbles everywhere, it looks like the aftermath of a war. Judging from the size of the remaining building and patterns etched on the pieces scattered around, it was probably an abandoned mansion.

 

What happened?

Within the mess he can see shadows moving fast towards where he is.

Vampires!

Pulling out his gun, he almost had no time to properly aim before shooting. This speed isn't normal. Still, his bullets hit their targets without a fail.

One, two, three, fo-

Shit-

The fourth one slipped away as he was going to pull the trigger. Faint sounds from behind him had him ducking just in time to avoid the attack. Rolling out of the way, he repositioned the barrel towards the escaped target and shot it square in the head. Having nailed the fourth one, the air stilled. That's all?

 

Alarms still blaring loud in his ears, high on adrenaline rush.

 

Sensing that there's no more of them outside, he turns around and make his way to the main body of the fallen structure. There's no way of knowing what goes on inside without directly taking a look. Taking care of not being detected by the enemy, he stealthily moves in between the rubbles. As he thought, there are more of them inside.

Behind the loud shrieks of the vampires he can hear a distinct metallic sound. The sounds of blade against solid surfaces.

There in the dark shadows, there's something else cutting them down.

Can it be-

The moon remained hidden behind the clouds. The most he could make out is the bright sparks flying from when the weapon made contact with the creatures.

A flash at the corner of his eyes, followed by a familiar shriek.

Kh-

The attack missed him by a hairline, directly hitting the wall he was hiding behind. The wall is shattered by the impact; the following explosion produced a loud sound similar to what he heard earlier. So that was it.

 

Even so, this level of power is abnormal for low level vampires. What the hell is going on here?

 

Soon enough the sounds of gunshots mix in with the chaos.

The heat of battle passed over like a violent thunderstorm, leaving destruction and silence in its wake.

His breath came out in a cloud of white mist in the cold night air. Vampire remains scattered on the ground in between the rubbles and discarded shells. That should be the last of them..-

Rustling sound can be heard from behind him.

-Or not.

He turns around to face the lone figure standing atop a fallen ceiling piece.  A faint silhouette outlining the figure in the dim lighting. Tall, probably male, and together with that an unidentifiable pain stung in his chest. Opting to ignore it, he points his gun towards the figure.

 

"The vampires are all gone. The only threat left here is you. From how things look, you've been hunting them since a while ago. Care to make yourself clear?"

 

He prefers to shoot first and talk later, but that couldn't be done right now. They need answers, and someone would get annoyed if he ends up not-so accidentally injuring them too bad. A full minute passed and the figure remained silent. Though there's no sign of them moving away too. Unnerved by the silence, he decided to move in closer.

Alarmed by his sudden movement, the figure backed away slightly. Unwilling to lose the target Mikage ceased his advance.

 

 

 

"..Please, don't come any closer."

 

The whisper that had just barely reached him, that voice-

 

As if it's been waiting for the right time, at last the thick cloud overhead passes the moon, letting it's light to fall onto the ground again. Bathed in the bright moonlight, the truth finally made itself clear.

 

And it's something, someone all too painfully familiar.

 

The tall, lean figure. The slightly pale skin. The dark, tousled hair. Green eyes-

 

 

"-Murasame..Ryo..?"