Chapter 8 – Harassment

The sun was setting in the city now as the light which was shining on each building was decreasing steadily as the darkness began to consume it. The streets were starting to get less and less crowded and the shops were starting to close despite it still being rather early on a weekday. It was currently Thursday 31st November 2030 (Author: Thought I would add a time for reference) and it was a chilly evening. The time was 5:15pm and night was coming fast as it was currently autumn and leading up to winter and the nights were starting to get colder and darker much earlier than usual.

As the darkness was starting to descend onto the city there were 2 figures rushing across the rooftops at high speeds, the speed was incomparable to what a normal human would be capable of especially when jumping from roof to roof. These two figures were Kazuki and Shiroyuki who were rushing towards the main location of the Dragon Palace.

Along the way they met several members of the gang who were causing trouble in the streets by smashing up parked vehicles, breaking store windows and harassing the people who were still on the streets at that time. The main reason there were less people on the street was due to the gangs which were more active during the night-time. In the past many stores would stay open until around 9:00pm rather than closing several hours before that however most shop owners didn’t want to be harassed by the gangs and lose business by having their stores damaged.

As Kazuki and Shiroyuki leapt down onto the street they were seen by the gang members who seemed shaken at the appearance of 2 people leaping down from a high building. The members decided to shrug this off and ignore them as they continued harassing the people on the street.

“N-no please stop I’m o-only in m-middle school p-please let me go”

One of the people being harassed by these gang members was a girl dressed in a uniform that Kazuki seemed familiar with, the uniform was of the middle school department of his school. He was unfamiliar with the girl but was sure that this girl was one of his juniors from his school. Although Kazuki didn’t enjoy playing the hero too much and would let someone else help there wasn’t exactly anyone around to help rescue these people.

Despite Kazuki being lazy and uninterested in the problems of others he wasn’t that much of an asshole to ignore someone being harassed especially a young girl. As the group were continuously harassing the several people they surrounded they suddenly heard a calm voice behind them.

“Haah I’m not into clichés or anything but it just had to be these guys who were harassing the people huh, might as well enjoy it, well then Shiroyuki let me deal with these ones”

“Sure, go ahead there all yours”

The two conversed casually like they were deciding who got the last piece of cake which shocked both the gang members and the people being surrounded. The girl in the uniform of the middle school department in Kazuki’s school looked towards the youth and seemed to recognize him.

Kazuki was quite popular throughout the school for being good looking but having an uninterested attitude with everything. People would always see him sleeping throughout class or he wouldn’t be attending school at all. He had one of the worst attendances in the school with a record of around 40% attendance overall, a lot of this included the times he would disappear during the day or turn up mid-way through class.

There were also a lot of people who had confessed to him during school but Kazuki would always shoot down these people and would act uninterested in the persons feelings which caused a lot of people to see him in a negative light as he wouldn’t take in to consideration the feelings of the person confessing to him.

This girl knew all the rumours and details which were spread around about Kazuki but she wasn’t really concerned about it as she had only seen the youth a few times. She was on good terms with someone to be considered Kazuki’s friend which was Luna. She had known Luna for a few years as their parents were close as they made business deals commonly. She once asked Luna about Kazuki out of curiosity and Luna told her with a sad expression he seemed uninterested in the things around him which included school and relationships whether they be friendship or romantic.

When the girl saw Kazuki approaching the gang members she was quite shocked at how he was calmly approaching them as well as planning to mark them like they were his prey. She turned to the left of the white-haired youth and saw a beautiful girl with blue-hair who seemed to be together with the youth. She recognized this girl as the recent transfer student into the high school department as Shiroyuki. Most people in school were discussing this transfer student as she was a beautiful girl and seemed to have a good personality, however most people were interested in the relationship she had with Kazuki.

The events which took place when Shiroyuki had spread across the school like a virus and people were interested in the relationship between the laziest student in the school and this beautiful foreigner. The people knew that Shiroyuki had called Kazuki her fiancé but no one was sure if this was true or not. The people in the classroom could see that Shiroyuki held strong feelings for Kazuki but were unsure if he reciprocated these feelings.

As she saw Kazuki approaching she felt happy that he was trying to help her but at the same time she wanted to call out and tell him to run however the words were stuck in her throat as she was still frightened in the current situation.

“Oy brat are you trying to play hero or something get the heck outta here before we cripple you”

“Yeah we can let you go if you fuck off now “

The two members who seemed to be leaders responded to Kazuki who was approaching with vulgar tones however they were cautious at the same time. They had seen these two youths behind them jumping down from a pretty high building without getting hurt which caused them to be a bit cautious and despite them emitting killing intent towards the teens they were unaffected by it.

“Yeah brat back off the chief here is bosses right hand man”

“Ahaha you better leave before we decide to chop off your limbs and play with that girl in front of you”

The other lackeys of the man who seemed to be a chief in the gang started throwing curses and threatening Kazuki, however rather than being affected by this Kazuki was happy at the information he just received and suddenly lunged forward towards the leader and gripped his neck.

“Ehh you’re the right-hand man of the Dragon Palace’s boss that’s some good information well then good night”

The chief was suddenly startled at how fast the youth had rushed up and gripped his neck without him even noticing. He was a 48-year-old veteran soldier who had a lot of combat experience and training however he had never seen someone move so fast and catch him off guard in his life.

*CRACK* *CRACK*

The chief’s legs were suddenly shattered by Kazuki as he let out a painful groan and was dropped onto the ground. The other gang members and the people being harassed were shocked at how this youth had shot out so quickly and beaten this big man who was the strongest out of the group. The gang members were shaking at how easily their leader had been defeated by this kid, they knew that the chief was just below the leader in terms of strength which was why he was his right-hand man. Seeing the second strongest member of the gang being thrown away like a doll made them quiver in fear.

Before they could plead with the youth to let them go the youth suddenly shot out again with 2 swords in his hand and rushed towards each gang members and would precisely thrust into their neck and then blood would gush out from their neck, in the space of 3 seconds 2 of the 5 gang members had fallen to the floor while holding their pierced necks. The other 3 gang members realised it was futile to resist and began trying to escape into different directions but this was futile as Kazuki caught up and pierced each one of them before they fell to the floor dead.

The scene was quite brutal as there was a total of 5 dead gang members on the floor with the remaining chief looking over this scene while trying to ignore the pain in his legs, the youth suddenly looked over towards him with an eerily calm face which made him feel genuine fear for the first time in a long time. The youth approached him while wiping the blood on the swords onto the clothing of a dead gang member.

“So, then you’re the chief huh, tell me all of the locations the Dragon Palace occupies in this district”

“W-will y-y-ou let me go i-if I t-tell you”

“Of course, not but I can make your death a whole lot less painful”

The man tried to plead for his life however Kazuki didn’t budge at the man’s pleas for his life as he wasn’t going to spare the man as he wanted to completely get rid of this gang and this man was one of the roots he needed to get rid of.

“F-fine I’ll tell you although I won’t get to live I at least want a painless death”

“Good response so gives me the information you know”

The man began to tell Kazuki all the different locations that the Dragon Palace occupies, this included the safehouses, VIP’s and the location of the leader of the gang. The location given to him was different than the one he got from the one he received from the previous lackey which meant that the lower ranking members were given wrong information.

“Well thanks for the information now I will do my part of the deal”

The youth replied towards the man then swung his sword and beheaded the man and then walked to towards Shiroyuki however before that a voice called out to him which he was unfamiliar with.

“H-hey Kazuki-san w-where are you going?”

This was the middle school girl who seemed to recognize Kazuki she called out to the youth who seemed to be leaving the people who were being harassed. This group of people were still in daze at the youth who had so easily gotten rid of these gang members.

“Ah you’re that girl from the middle school department huh, you’re probably the main reason I helped this bunch out so what’s your name”

“E-eh m-my name is Sarah Steele a 3rd Year Middle School student”

“Ahh okay then Sarah you better get going I have things to do so see you later”

The youth then replied with a smile towards the girl and then set off in the opposite direction as he slowly left the sight of the group who were still in a daze. The girl on the other hand was in quite a panic at what the youth had just said to her

‘D-did he just call me by my first n-name as soon as we met and he a-also smiled at me’

The girl was feeling quite embarrassed but at the same time happy at how the youth had called her so casually by her name and smiled at her. She had heard that Kazuki wasn’t really interested in any relationships but why would he smile at her and act so familiar.

‘Well i-it wouldn’t hurt to try and get c-closer to him h-he did save me i-it’s not like a l-l-love at first sight cliché right’

As the girl was trying to reassure herself about her feelings elsewhere in the city 2 people were travelling around causing mayhem across the district.

End of Chapter 8