Chapter 3: Besides Humanhood

Yuuki and I left the building where Alyssa was staying, without an exact direction. We both decided to move across the rooftops, but Yuuki ended up unable to continue soon after, his injuries keeping him in agony. We had to move through the streets and mingle in the crowd, and searched with our eyes for somewhere far away to stay. In the midst of the darkness, a figure prostrated itself on the heights, becoming one with the abyss that sowed the night. The dark silhouette flashed red eyes, which looked at everything at his feet with indifference, standing on the top of a tower, the highest part of the tower lay under his feet, settled down.

–Striver, I'm watching them now–Somehow, it seemed that the figure was communicating with a person through some kind of call.

–Excellent work, #072–a mysterious voice answered him from the other end of the call. It seemed to be in a luxurious, but gloomy place, without light, but not dark, you could barely notice some features of it.

–I'm going to intercept them–he said confidently to the gentleman with whom he was communicating, the same one with the apparent name of Striver.

–It is not necessary, I have Kaid and Ignum behind them.

–Be careful what you do Lance, remember your deal with Mr. Ackerleigh. He won't let you betray your word.

–Yes, they're bringers, trust them, let them do their job, if they fail then, I'll leave the way clear for you.

–Well, so be it–the figure seemed to hang up after saying this and like a shadow, it melted into the darkness of the night.
Meanwhile, Yuuki and I, having found nothing, our steady walk through the crowd revealed a disturbing fact, we noticed a strange phenomenon, the people who were walking with us, all of them, had their heads down, not looking straight ahead. We could not help but feel intimidated and afraid, shivers ran down our spines as we looked at these people whose faces we could not see. We instantly realized that these people were not human, or at least they could not be.

–Stay behind me–I said to Yuuki and approached one of these people, and even though I was terrified, I couldn't lose my cool, not at a time like this. I grabbed one of those people by the head and turned it in my direction so I could see his face, I was terrified with the result. They had no face, only a pale skin with the absence of eyes, mouth, nose, all those facial features that helped to recognize a person, they were nothing more than a thousand entities without identity that wandered in the darkness of the night, macabrely filling the loneliness with their presence. All the people stopped walking and stared at us, even though they had no eyes. Suddenly, everything around us began to tinkle, it was a constant involuntary flickering in the environment, and in the meantime, the darkness only let us see what I think were eyes, I did not remember anything else, but I did feel the creatures approaching us slowly. It didn't take us long to retreat, but, luckily, these creatures disappeared in the middle of nowhere, turning into shadows, in the most mysterious way I could know. When the crowd disappeared, we could better notice where we were, we were in the middle of a crossroads of the gigantic road. We looked around, sensing that we were not alone. Something was undoubtedly hiding in the overwhelming silence that was sweeping the place. It didn't take us long to see what seemed to be our enemy, the same, it was a guy, muscular and he was standing at the end of the road, he didn't move, it seemed that he wanted us to see him. However, we noticed another person, he was on the roof of a building, staring at us, dressed in a peculiar garment that shone in the moonlight, glowing golden features, reminiscent of medieval fantasy games, gold and gold and scarlet ornaments. The shadows cast by the environment fell on both of them and prevented our sight from knowing their faces. I prepared for combat at any moment, but these did not even seem to flinch at our actions, I was forced to force them to speak by asking questions aloud.

–Who are you? What do you want from us?–I asked them, but they ignored my words for a moment, and then answered them haughtily and without changing their posture.

–We have come to warn you, we know what you did to Admiral Radcliff.... Your days of security under the shadows are over, not even in the deepest darkness will you be able to hide from us...–spoke the man on the roof, wielding a halberd of more than two meters high, while he looked at us from his position. I looked at him certainly confused, my gaze could not get away from that man, in an instant I was filled with questions, with his words, he had broken my calm.... I was not afraid, but intrigued, I kept looking at him confused, I could not find an answer to the questions that arose in my head, Who is this guy? How could he know that I was the one who killed that man? Who is he working for? But in the middle of all this intrigue, I heard someone jump so high that it would have caused a crack in the place where he was standing. I left the questions for later, tilting my head towards the place where the sound came from, and I heard the absence of the other guy who accompanied the one with the halberd, and then I heard a softer sound in the building where the other guy was, to see both of them looking at us from the same place, without doing or saying anything more than that, they turned around and disappeared instantly.

–Hey, any idea who they were–asked the guy named Yuuki who accompanied me in the event.

–No, but I know that a specific person is targeting us for some reason–I answered without looking away from my forehead, turning my gaze to the east, following a road route that as I understood, ended in an old bar open 24 hours a day. The boy did not take long to keep up with me, and it was understandable, even I accepted that it was necessary for me to have company in order to survive. It took us a few streets down the road to get to the place. It was the closest place where we could stay. We both entered without attracting much attention, luckily, our arrival did not disturb the disorderly and rowdy atmosphere of the place, those present there simply ignored our entrance to the joint. I approached the bar, trying to appear indifferent, I ordered a drink of which most of the people inside the bar were ingesting.

–Give me a scotch...–I asked the bartender, sitting down in a vacant seat in the place. My knowledge about drinks was something I still remembered from my family, my father was a drink enthusiast and owned his own bar, hence everything I know about them.

–Right away gentleman–he answered me in a somewhat friendly way, without noticing my clothes or my wounds, but I took one last look at the place and the people there, and I realized that it was not unusual for people like me to frequent it, meanwhile, Yuuki was concentrating only on looking at the place, leaning back on the bar.

–Here you go–he returned with the drink in hand, a somewhat large pitcher, and then looked at me, as if waiting for me to do something, I looked at him confused for a few moments, when I remembered that I had forgotten to pay for the drink, so, in a somewhat hasty manner I reached into my pocket pulling out a couple of coins that I usually find lying around in my numerous trips. With these I was able to pay for it. The bartender took the coins and turned his back to me while wiping a crystal glass with a cloth handkerchief.

–(...)–I remained thoughtful, looking at my reflection in the liquid of the decanter, noticing how a couple of oscillations of the drink deformed the reflection of the same... It brought back distant memories of my past that I struggle to forget. I prepared to take the first sip from the mug, without noticing the sadistic look in the bartender's eyes, he was looking at me in a peculiar way, tilting his head just a little, so as not to arouse suspicion. I lifted the mug to taste the drink, when something burst into my proximity in a rowdy manner, disturbing the silence around me, it was a robust man, who abruptly placed his hand on the bar in front of me, causing a small clatter which the bartender ignored, since it seemed to favor him in some way.
–Hey you homeless, get out of my place–said the man, apparently addressing me, so I turned my head hoping to see if this assumption was correct, but not only did I see that he was talking to me, I also noticed the physical appearance of the man. He was quite muscular, around 30 or 40 years old, a tattoo of a heart with an arrow on his right shoulder, as well as a woman's name written on it, which I decided to ignore.

–Didn't you hear him? He said get out of his place scum – more men came with him, armed with bladed weapons such as knives, razors, they seemed to want to threaten me or intimidate me to move from the seat. Apparently, as I was analyzing the situation, I did not answer them in time, making them uncomfortable because of my silence, which soon became part of the atmosphere in the whole place that was looking at us expectantly. The men were about to explode because of my calmness before their words, when Yuuki was forced to interfere to avoid a fight.

–Hey, enough, we will leave your place, we don't want any trouble– he said to the men trying to save our identity, but his words only made them angrier, as they took it as an order to them.

–Are you trying to tell us what to do, brat? –asked annoyed but at the same time somewhat excited one of the companions of the one who seemed to be the boss, he took out his knife and slowly approached Yuuki, it seemed to have the harmless objective of caressing his neck or another part of his body to intimidate him, but, Yuuki didn't take long to react, He immediately saw the advance of the weapon towards his face, he launched a kick at such an enormous speed that it was hard for me to know what kind of attack he had made until I saw his left leg semi-flexed and slightly raised in the air, I had no chance to see the movement of his leg. The kick disarmed the man, leaving the knife spinning in the air to then fall several meters away from us, but this caused great anger in this man and his other friend, who for now only saw something away from this one

–Damn kid... –The anger in this one was quite noticeable, which exploded in anger throwing a punch at Yuuki, who dodged it without any problem, due to his inhuman speed, it was necessary for him to take only one step to the side, leaving the man's arm in front of him, giving the man a punch in the air, but before he could even fix his mistake, Yuuki kicked the arm at a similar speed as the previous kick, but what surprised me most, was that it was a kick with a downward movement, That is, he first raised his foot in the air, and then let it fall on the opponent's arm, it was certainly an object of admiration for the flexibility that this presented, as well as its speed, which I could barely denote thanks to my peculiar eyes, but I imagine that the man did not have the slightest chance to dodge that attack, which ended up breaking the bones of his arm impacting with a total force of 3000 newtons, did not advance much more to touch his arm, but this was completely unusable. At first I thought it was the use of Distortion, a common ability in all Bringers, until I noticed the lack of energy coming out of his body, letting me know that there was no use of it, and as well, Yuuki should be using some other way to increase his speed and strength in this way. At first, my surprise was great. Was this guy really a bringer? I had never bothered to notice it before, but his eyes were common, but there was no time to keep digging into this problem, the whole bar had been stirred up by Yuuki's action, the other men started to move in his direction, but my partner, without losing his cool, just raised both hands and placed them on the floor, Yuuki positioned himself in a way that reminded me of a boxer, he even began to make short jumps on the spot, so small that it was barely noticeable how he rose from the ground. The men, one by one, tried to punch him in the face, but, this was not easy for them either, since Yuuki was much shorter than them, who were almost two meters tall, and Yuuki was only a meter and a little more than half, and taking advantage of his short stature, he easily doubled the speed of his opponents, easily doubled the speed of his opponents and to the first one, he punched him in the abdomen, which left without a breath of air the big and muscular ruffian, who fell lying on the floor, as well as his comrade, to whom Yuuki had hit another kick directly in the chin shortly after knocking out his partner. The whole bar lost its temper, it became a complete chaos. The head of the ruffians, quickly rushed towards me, seeking to hurt me with his blade, although needless to say, this movement was in vain, I stopped his hand with relative ease, holding him by the wrist, and lifting his body in the air and then just throwing him towards a nearby wall, making the blow leave the ruffian fainted. But I overdid it, at that moment, everyone could tell it was a Bringer, we were no longer safe, and they did not hesitate to become defensive when they noticed it, as did the bartender, who as soon as he found out, took out a bolt-action rifle from under the bar, and pointed it straight at my head with it.

–We do not allow monsters here, bratt–The man seemed confident, even though the entire population knew that no common firearm could harm the bringers. It was when I looked at the side of the gun, there was the logo of the company "Human X-odus" the man was carrying a gun of a Slayer, so I could not let my guard down even for a moment in front of him.

–Hey Truman, what are you doing with that–I heard a masculine and somewhat worn voice address the bartender, it seemed that an older man had entered the scene, I turned and managed to spot a man, apparently about 40 years old, stocky and of great size, I would dare to say that he had a height of two meters. He had his eyes covered by sunglasses, long blond hair and a short beard, he was wearing a long trench coat that covered most of his clothes.

–Carver, what are you doing here, have you already forgotten that you are not allowed to enter the bar–said the bartender to the man, but he kept pointing at me with no intention of lowering his gun.

–Well, you're not following the rules either, or else what are you doing with a state-issued gun? You know it's illegal–the man answered confidently, even though it was obvious that he was at a disadvantage, since the other man was the one with the gun.

–That's none of your business. I still don't know where you got the courage to show up in this place again, but I assure you it will be the last thing you do...–Each man in the bar, including the bartender, took out a different firearm, from revolvers to submachine guns, all kinds of illegal weapons, with which they pointed them at the older man who had just entered, and each one prepared to shoot. The ruffian I had shot before, as soon as he stood up, put the barrel of his Colt to my temple.

–If you move... I'll blow your head off...–the man said to me in whispers, between gasps because he still had not fully recovered, he looked at me angrily, with his body sweating, you could see his effort to stand and fight, but you could also see his determination, he had no intention of backing down.

–Guys... You know how this will end... –He brought a cigarette to his lips, and with a lighter, set fire to its tip, in the middle of such a situation, even I would be nervous about so many guns pointing at me, but the man only looked up, letting out a slight cloud of smoke from his mouth, he quickly took his free hand to his belt, He quickly took his free hand to his belt, which he unbuckled and threw into the air, carrying in his belt a large number of grenades, carrying large amounts of tear gas, and likewise, everyone left their attention fixed on the grenades that the man threw, and did not even realize that he had already defused two Berbers, He had already unloaded two Berett, weapons that he apparently had in his pockets, and with these, he shot at each of the grenades, which immediately released the gas, which spread throughout the place, it did not take long to fill it, and everyone fell victim to it, they were forced to drop their weapons, and began to wrinkle their eyes with their hands, some looking for the man in the curtain of smoke, but it was in vain, the effect of the gas almost did not let them see, and because of this, the man went, one by one, shooting them all, but few died from his shots, most of them died from the gas. The shots could be heard all around, one moment you heard one to the left, and in another instant you heard another shot to the right, moving in unpredictable ways, it did not take long to reach our position, this one shot the ruffian who before was aiming straight at my forehead. As he was literally next to me, I could notice how the bullet penetrated through his skull, letting out those small fragments of it as well as a small amount of blood, he fell back to the bar, lifeless. I heard some footsteps approaching, along with some shots that ended the lives of those who were still on the floor writhing in pain. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped, and the gas began to accumulate in a small point, as it seemed that a small device was absorbing all of it, a little by little, for the man, with his device. Soon the environment was free of the gas, the first thing I did was to look around me. Everything was full of corpses of the ruffians, all had died, except for the bartender, and there was the man, standing in front of us, looking at us while keeping the barrels of his guns raised, with a smile, and that cigarette in his mouth. I looked to my left and saw Yuuki, whole and without any scratches or affections from the gas, he looked back at me, somewhat worried, as was I, about what might happen. As soon as we became aware of the event, we turned our eyes and saw in front of us, how the man was pointing his Berett at the bartender, and he himself was pointing his rifle at his opponent, with his finger caressing the trigger, ready to shoot at any moment.

–Damn you... You ended up killing everyone in the bar.... But you left these two freaks alive, I'm still surprised your gas didn't hurt them at all.

–Come on old man Truman, you know none of them threatened me why should I murder them too? Tch... I guess you must know what's next, don't you?

–If you just try to shoot Carver, I'll–Without the old bartender being able to finish his sentence, there was a sudden clatter, and a spot of blood was seen to sprout on his shirt, right on his chest.

–That's your problem, you talk too much...–replied the man, surprisingly holding one of his guns in his hand, whose barrel gave off a slight amount of smoke, and the bartender's body fell on his own bar. That was when the man removed the cigarette from his mouth and threw it to the ground, then crushed it with his boots.

–So, guys, I need you to come with me...–At first we were not sure about going with him, but then, we were caught by surprise when he removed the glasses from his eyes, showing them both painted in a purple and magenta color, we realized that the old man who had just killed all those people with such ease, was nothing more or less than a Bringer.

Chapter end