The man in front of us points his finger to the Loathsome Midnight behind us. My father turns to look at him. He still has his sword drawn like before, but now he’s taken a fighting stance as if to challenge my father to battle.

My father looks again to the man who’s blocking our path. He doesn’t draw his sword. He simply stands by observing us with his arms crossed. It would seem that there are rules to the way that the Loathsome Midnights murder people. Perhaps, they always give their victims a chance to fight back.

“Fuu, I’m going to put you down.”

“Okay.”

My father sets me down. Being chased by murderers in the dark of night is not a good scenario to be in after suffering from an anxiety attack. I feel strong enough to stand, but too faint to fight. I step off to the side and press my back against the brown apartment building that lined the right side of the alley. I don’t know if anyone inside sees us. But even if they did, they wouldn’t come out to help us unless they were a trained magistrate. Ironically, the magistrates who are supposed to patrol the city to keep our residents safe are rarely around when you need them. This isn’t because they’re indifferent or useless. It’s because there’s simply not enough of them to watch over the entire city. The magistrates are as underpaid and ill-equipped as the teachers at Promise High School. For this reason, they don’t have a lot of new recruits beating at their door, eager to join their ranks. As such, there’s not enough of them to guard the city, so innocents like us end up the easy victims of gangs like the Shenrong Butchers or the Loathsome Midnights.

The streets are dead silent. Only the howl of the wind and the glow of the streetlights alarms my senses. In the wake of this mute deadzone, my father faces our attacker and reaches for the mask hidden underneath the chest of his kimono. This means that he plans to fight to the death.

One of the secrets of the Hiko-style of martial arts is to wear an enchanted mask in battle. The mask serves three purposes. The first is to intimidate the opponent. The second is to facilitate entering into a warrior state of mind, as the mask is only worn for actual combat and never for practice. This results in conditioning the subconscious mind. It’s sort of like being able to put on an alternative personality with that personality being a battle-hardened warrior. The third purpose of the mask is the power that it gives to its wearers as per its magical affixes. My father, mother, and I all have different types of masks with different magical properties. My father’s mask is called The Face of the Ogre. It’s a red Shikami demon mask that amplifies his physical strength and defense, and gives him a chance to land extra powerful blows. Its formal tag reads:

Given Name: Face of the Ogre

Technical Name: Savage Shikami Mask of Brawn

Prefix: Double Damage, Superior Grade: Savage – 9% Chance Double Damage with Any Offensive Attack or Spell

Suffix: Physical Stats, High Grade: of Brawn – +23% Physical Strength, +23% Physical Defense

After my father puts on his mask, he draws his katana. He takes a middle stance and slowly steps towards his opponent. I watch with a pit in my stomach. My father is in a life or death battle with a heartless serial killer. I want to scream out loud, but my voice wouldn’t come out even if I tried. All I can do is believe in my father and watch the master of the Hiko-style of martial arts put his skills to good use.

The Loathsome Midnight loses patience with my father’s small steps and attacks first. He dashes to my father and cleaves his sword for his head. In response, my father blocks high and then parries with a lunge for the killer’s heart. Demonstrating his skill, the man parries well with a twist and throws out a spinning wheel kick for my father’s head. Adroitly, he ducks the kick and slashes his sword upwards while in a kneeling position. The killer is fast enough to recover from the kick and block my father’s attack. The shade from his straw hat prevents me from seeing his eyes, but I do manage to see that my father’s last attack causes the killer to smile. It would seem that he enjoys fighting for the sake of fighting. He probably even prefers it when his victims fight back.

The killer hops back and my father resets in a centered fighting stance. It’s unusual for an attacker to break the chain of aggression like the man just did. I wonder what he’s up to.

To answer my question, the man channels mana into his left hand and then fires a black bolt of magic at my father. I’ve never seen a magic spell colored black and electric purple before, but upon seeing it I know immediately what it is. –Death Magic.

“Dad!” I scream.

Reacting quickly, my father pushes off the ground in a mighty leap and sails over the black bolt with a summersault. The other Loathsome Midnight who stands aside watching has to dodge his own ally’s attack. It would have served him right if the spell had hit him.

My father comes down from his flip with a crushing slash of his sword. The killer blocks it perfectly, yet my father’s attack was only a ruse. He crouches and spins twice in quick succession and then blasts forward with a slash angled slightly upwards. The killer’s mouth drops and his belly splits. His legs and upper body separate and fall on top of one another in a bloody pile. My father slinks the blood off his sword and then twists around. I rush to get behind him.

Now all that’s left is to defeat the second Loathsome Midnight and we can finally go home. Or at least I wish, but things are never that easy. Out of nowhere, a new Loathsome Midnight appears in front of the other one. This new entry is completely different from the other two. Instead of wearing a straw hat, he wears a deer skull with tall antlers and green kabuki lion hair hanging from its sides. Likewise, his clothing is not a dark green kimono like what the other two men wear, but rather it’s a priest’s black frock coat.

The Midnight who’s still standing rushes to the side of the new man to speak to him. “Kagemaru Shisai our brother has fallen!”

I raise my eyebrows at this new revelation. The title shisai, which the man used to address Kagemaru, means “priest.” Granted, nobody knows much about the Loathsome Midnights, but I definitely didn’t expect them to have a priest. And judging from Kagemaru’s appearance, he’s anything but the holy type.

Nonetheless, he replies, “I will say a prayer for him.”

My father and I watch puzzled as the two men approach the body of their fallen comrade. We step back to give them space as we were previously standing near the corpse ourselves. When the two men reach him, the ordinary Midnight bows his head for prayer. The priest begins convulsing wildly and babbling some incomprehensible language.

“Huyahuyahuyahu,” he mumbles while shaking out of control.

“Oookay,” I hum.

“Fuu, let’s go,” my father suggests.

We leave the bizarre scene and flee for our house. Luckily, we encounter no further Midnights along the way. Once we get inside, my mother flies into the front room to greet us. She’s overjoyed to see me, yet when she notices my father wearing his red Shikami mask, she freezes in place.

He removes the mask. “Don’t worry Kasumi. We’re fine now. Fuu had an attack at the dojo and then we ran into the Loathsome Midnights on the way home.”

My mother now comes to me and gives me a hug. “My Fuu. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine mom.”

She turns her attention to my father. “Were you hurt Kenji?”

“The man I fought was a skilled swordsman, but no, I’m not hurt.”

My mother pulls away from him holding her hand to her head as if she had a headache. “This is awful. We already have so many problems without madmen roaming the streets at night.”

“I know,” says my father. “I’ll report this to the magistrates in the morning. I’ll see if we can’t get some more patrols stationed around here.”

My mother turns to me again. “Fuu, you mustn’t have your anxiety attacks while you’re out. I know that you want to help with the money, but if teaching at the dojo is too much stress for you, then we can cancel the junior class.”

“No!” I say more forcefully than I intended. “I’m sorry mom, but I don’t want to stop the class. I had a panic attack because the leader of the Shenrong Butchers showed up at the dojo wanting to recruit my students. Some of them seemed interested and I felt powerless to persuade them to stay away from gang influence. But watching dad fight the Loathsome Midnights made me realize something. If I want to defend the Hanabira, then I must be prepared to kill like dad.”

My harsh words alarm my parents. “Fuu!” my father shouts, “That’s not something I want to hear you say!”

I look at him sternly. “But why not dad? You say it all the time. It’s the 15th and final principle of the Hiko-style of martial arts. ‘If you must draw your sword, then destroy your opponent quickly, without hesitation, and without remorse.’”

My father looks to the ground with a frown. He knows that I’m right.

I continue, “I will try to keep the peace, but if anyone ever hurts those whom I love, I will kill them.”