' a shade of what i feel '

━━━━━

The youth breathes in the fresh air as gunshots continue to resound throughout the sea of corpses, as bullets zoomed to and fro, as smoke rises and bodies begin to decay. It isn't the most comfortable place to be in, but it was better than the hell hole in which she was abandoned to rot. The youth wanted a choice, she had no need for salvation. At least when the time comes that she becomes one of those bodies that litter the floor, she died following the path she had chosen for herself.

The cycle isn't exactly endearing but her life doesn't perish in this cycle so she does her best to maintain this.

Until one day. Seventh man she has worked under to survive. The mobster who was every bit as calculating as his smile. The youth cannot find a way, a reason to get rid of him so she remains. He uses fear and wills his subject to do his bidding, but the youth is not afraid.

Fear will learn to fear her and so she must be impervious to fear now.

Four months, twenty days, three hours, five minutes, twenty seconds and counting. The longest she has been in service of an evil man— they are all evil.

"Hey!" one of her cohorts call, as she sits in one of the fusty, velvet couches in the living room, polishing the surface of her most favored dagger. She's learned to wield a gun now, but most of the people around her don't really give a shit about that since they're more partial to using their quirks.

The youth thinks that those will be their downfall but she doesn't say a word. She never does, thinking that these people are beneath her and they would die if they went through the same hell she did.

"What do you want?" she asks, eyes the same blood red and the bearer a heartless murderer. A marionette who would destroy anything that stood in her way to victory, a warrior.

"We've got a new mission," he said. "Fujiwara's already been briefed but the boss wants to tell you something first. And oh, I heard that there was some kid just your age so you'll probably babysit."

At the end part of the statement, her normally placid face turned to that of annoyance. She definitely did not want to babysit and giving her an assignment like that would be uncharacteristic and moronic of the boss. And he was anything but.

The room was the same per usual and even after months, the furniture and embellishments were the same. The glass she had broken by tossing a dead body the first time she came here had been replaced, adjusted to a finer calibre even. The boss was sitting in that black swivel chair of his, browsing through files propped on his bare mahogany table.

Only the fresh scent of the jasmines spilling on the porcelain flower vase filled the room and when her presence was noticed, the older man placed the file and beckoned her to come closer.

"Betrayal, murder," the man began in that eery voice of him that would have scared the boogeyman. "Your specialty lies on the two of that. And of course, it is what I need you to do."

He tossed a file enclosed in a brown folder at her and she caught it with ease, peering up above the folder to see the malignant smile of the man.

"These are basic information of some members," she said and browsed through the papers.. "Do you want me to kill them?"

The question was straight to the point but it didn't unnerve any of the personages in the room. The boss, for all his eery disquiet demeanor, nodded and began playing with the petals of the jasmine flower inside the porcelain vase.

"I've already made preparations," the boss said. "As of now, they are all in the team I've ordered to retrieve a shipment of some products a rival company stole in one of our ports. You are part of the team along with the newcomers, a ten year old girl and another one eighteen years of age. Spare the newcomers and kill the rest."

"I understand."

The man raised one perfect eyebrow. "You're not going to ask why?" he asked.

She shrugged, toying with the dagger sheathed on her waist and tapping the  heel of the leather boots she bought just recently on the polished marble floor. "The eradication of workers stem from two reasons. Inefficiency or betrayal. I believe I'm not paid to acquaint myself with both."

The boss laughed, the same dramatic, deep and dark laugh that almost made the youth roll her eyes.

Heart pounding under her ribcage, she walked out of the office. Holding the handle of the dagger as if it was a beast that needed to be pampered, the youth masked a ghost of a smile. Her favorite part was soon to come. Making commoners bleed underneath her boots.

Moments spent in idleness were moments left to thought. And so, standing in the doorway, leaning against one of the pillars of the wooden frame, she watched her soon to be victims come up to her with a smile. She pondered on what methods she had to devise in order to properly eviscerate them from existence. To give them a taste of oblivion and have them drown in it forevermore.

Maybe she'd just slit their throats one by one to make it quick. But that would become too... boring. She had murdered too much that one time she had gotten exhausted of the whole ordeal and craved rest. Rest? Rest? She wanted to vomit at the ludicrous thought.

But now, counting ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen victims, she had to find a way to make this more worthy of a performance set by the queen. She was the artist, them the canvas, her dagger the brush and their blood the paint. She would create the most beautiful masterpiece.

Four corners of the elevator, two footsteps towards the exit and they rode a truck that moved at one hundred eighty kilometers per hour and the youth thought that it would may be easier if she just toppled the bus over. It was distasteful and without passion so she changed her mind, sank back to her seat and watched the two wipers clear the hundreds and thousands of raindrops splattering on the windshield.

"You want some water, kid?" one of the men said, holding a water bottle in front of her. "You look like you need it."

"I don't."

"It really is strange," the man commented soon after. "You look like you're just the same age as my daughter, but you even act older than me."

Her eyes are half lidded when she looks at him, red irises oozing with disinterest.

The youth never bothered replying, but the man pushed on. How chatty for a killer, she thought. "Of course Hanako, my daughter is sweet and shy, so that must be it. But I guess my daughter's friendlier. I'll actually treat her to some fried chicken after this job."

The youth didn't care.

He'll end up dead like the rest of them anyway.

Fourteen minutes and twenty seven seconds pass, fourteen minutes and twenty seven seconds of silence and only the brief rustle of the newspaper and the sound of the raindrops plummeting on the roof of the truck occupied their hearing.

Twenty one footsteps to reach the back door and five attempts until the door was successfully destroyed and twelve guards were shot, five in the chest, six in the throat and the most fortunate in the forehead the moment they set foot inside the compound.

Millions of snapshots were covered by her eyes and as thousands of moments passed her, an incredible idea popped into her brain. The stairs circled until it reached the uppermost floor where the file was being kept and using her short stature, the youth managed to crawl through the debris and use the handles as stepping stones. Her soon to be dead companions had wasted the building, using their explosive quirks to slice apart doors and melt/blow up/ shatter/ burn/ blow away/ freeze everything they came across. The one who could fly managed to retrieve the file first and she tossed it to one of the newcomers, the younger one with freckles splayed all over her tiny body.

The group separated into two when it was time to leave and by then, the youth set her plan into motion. She pulled Fujiwara the leader first and doing her best impersonation of a wounded, helpless, weak little girl told him that Satoshi from the other group was planning to kill him and had told the other members of his plan.

The youth told him she wanted to prove her loyalty to him so she told. Fujiwara thanked her and she moved to tell Riko next. Basically the same story with another name from the other side and everyone was in on it except the newcomers and the youth had bailed.

When the two separated group neared each other, she ran her fingertips on one of her cohorts' back and counted. Six minutes, exactly six minutes, three hundred sixty seconds and when she began seeing the shadows and silhouettes, she watched as the ones on her side began drawing guns and mustering their quirks.

She pulled the younger newcomer towards her, ordering the girl of ten years of age to hide behind a table and when she touched the wrists and counted more years to come, she ordered her to wait. When eyes met, the bloodbath began.

The youth took her special seat next to the crouching ten year old girl, on a chartreuse divan while she watched smoke, gunpowder and other whatnots meld with the air. The screams, the blood, the suffering. All of it.

When it was over, the last man to remain was Fujiwara— the man must have really been a competent and powerful leader to be able to survive, but his broken shoulder and shaking jaw just made him an easier target. If she remembered correctly, his quirk was the ability to memorize things easily and retain them for a particular period of time. It was practically useless when he was under the mercy of her. Queen with carnage on her veins.

She moved to clap, one two three four claps to celebrate his naivety and gullibility. Six footsteps were taken until she neared his kneeling form and in five four three two one, he was no more. Just a corpse with a dagger pressed on his chest.

And with that, the painting was finished. The canvas was now full of varying shades of burgundy and red, the paintbrush glinting against the natural beams of sunlight and the paint, beautifully splattered on the already filthy floor.

One two three four five and the youth grinned, licking her lower lip and enjoying the beauty of it all.

Then six seven eight nine and the piercing shriek of the girl she left to hide behind a table echoed throughout the room.

Ten and there was a figure near the now collapsed girl, the file in its hands.

Eleven twelve and she was two footsteps in front of the youth, eyes the same color as hers but lighter and more beautiful and more dangerous.

Thirteen fourteen and the thing/ creature/ monster/ entity— boy did a mock bow at her.

Fifteen sixteen, "A queen," he said.

Seventeen and she drew her dagger. Eighteen and she lunged at him with the ferocity of a lion.

Nineteen, he captured her wrists and twenty flung her against the wall.

Twenty seconds and she was defeated.

"Who—?"

He was outrageously beautiful.

She wanted him dead.

Seconds meshed and turned into minutes, coalesced into painful hours and with every full clockwise rotation of the shorter hand of the clock, a day had passed. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. The youth awoke with a start and murder in her heart.

It was dark, the room where she curently lay. The only source of illumination a single candle whose flames danced in the dark. Gathering her bearings, the youth hauled herself to a sitting position and searched for her dagger.

She didn't find it.

"I'm not foolish enough to arm you with that dagger of yours," a soft, fluid voice stated from somewhere and when the lamplight next to the bed where the youth lay on flickered open, the face she had last seen greeted her.

One two and she had moved to wrap her fingers on his neck and wring him to his death.

Unfortunately, her wrists were immediately pinned to the sides and the most beautiful face in the entire universe was only one two three four centimeters apart from hers.

"You're arrogant," he said and she thrashed under his grip, attempting to use her knee or her foot but they were pressed by a single foot and perhaps she was in the most compromising position she was in the entire life.

The youth did not flush because of mortification, her face was covered with red because of fury. She spat at him but the saliva was merely droplets and he cleared it with ease.

"Arrogant and uncouth," the boy said.

"Fuck you, let me go," she ordered and tried to thrash against his grip to no avail.

"You think you're an artist, a queen when you're just a murderer with no purpose at the age of ten," he said and she hated how calm he was. How he acted as if he was stating undeniable facts. She loathed him. She was powerful and she would only have peace if his corpse lay at her feet.

"I'm eleven," she seethed, eyes burning with fury.

"Same difference," he murmured. "I'll let you go and then follow me."

"You don't expect me to do that," the youth muttered with vehemence. She loathed the feeling crawling up her back. That helplessness she had at the beginning of her path. She had made a mistake. This she was beyond all doubt. Mistakes in judgment. Mistakes that needed to be rectified and she could only do that if she managed to murder this boy on top of her.

"I don't," he said, his grip on her feet loosening. "But if you don't obey, I'll crush all two hundred six bones in your body and carry you."

The threat was real and for the first time in a long time in her entire existence, she felt fear. He would do it. He would. He could.

She swallowed bile.

"L—Liar," she said. "Only adult humans have two hundred and six bones. I'm just twelve."

He got off her, stood at the side of her bed and watched her haul herself to a sitting position. Like a king poised to wait for the mistake the fool was to create. "Now you're just lying, you just said you're eleven."

She would be no fool. She would conquer this, like all the trials that befell her.

"Eleven, or twelve or even sixty thousand five hundred and forty four, it won't make a difference once I kill you."

"Good luck in trying," he said.

"I don't just try you evil incarnate," she said, grins. "I succeed."

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E N D  O F  C H A P T E R
— s e r e n d i p i t y

□ hi, so here's my precious baby boy. his faceclaim is in the media. akise aru so freaking pretty. and did.i mention i have a thing for white haired characters. so yeah, the plot is going smoothly i guess. one girl's trying to develop her friendships, the other's becoming a full fledged killer.