CHAPTER 39: 39. I HAVE TO BE USEFUL

With their daggers glinting in their hands, the three goons slithered into the convenience store like wolves circling their prey. They sneered at the sight of Shin and Ayaka, cornered against the wall like trembling vermin. One of them chuckled, the sound thick with cruelty.

"Easy meat," he hissed.

They thought it would be quick, and clean, killing their dead buddy’s daughter and stacking themselves with lots of coins.

They were wrong.

CRACK!

From behind the very door they walked through, Lilian and Yuki erupted behind it like shadows breaking free from the void.

Lilian struck first. She stretched out her arm coiling it around one man’s neck like a serpent, her fingers clawing into his throat. He gagged, eyes bulging as she squeezed the air from his windpipe. Her other hand crushed his wrist, keeping the dagger in his grip useless. His legs flailed, but he was nothing more than a puppet now.

Yuki? Yuki didn’t believe in subtlety.

WHAM!!

Her fist drove into the back of a another thug’s skull with the force of a sledgehammer. His skull cracked. His eyes rolled back, and the floor welcomed his limp body with a sickening THUD.

The last man turned just in time to see Yuki’s eyes blaze like hellfire.

His bladder gave out.

PSSSSHHH—urine soaked his trousers, pooling at his feet.

He tried to step back, but his knees gave way, his body trembling.

CRACK!

Yuki’s head smashed into his face. His nose broke with a wet snap, and he collapsed like a sack of bloodied meat.

In the chaos, Shin slid his dagger free from beneath his shirt. His voice was low, almost gentle.

"Aya... close your eyes."

Ayaka obeyed, her hands over her face as if to block out the world.

Shin moved fast, his heart thudding in his chest. The man in Lilian’s chokehold couldn’t even scream.

TLOF!!

Shin drove his dagger into the man’s chest, slicing between his ribs like a whisper of steel through meat. His mouth opened in a silent wail, but no sound escaped. Lilian held him fast, watching as life fled his eyes.

SHHLUCK!!

Shin yanked the blade free, hot blood spilling over his hand. He didn’t hesitate. He turned to the one who pissed himself. The coward gasped, but it was too late.

CRUNCH!!

Shin rammed the dagger into the man’s mouth—then SMASHED the hilt with his palm.

SKLURCHH!!

The blade split his tongue, throat, and his spine like paper. Blood spewed from the man’s mouth as he convulsed, gurgling on his own torn insides.

But Shin wasn’t finished.

A memory flashed before him. A memory of his grandmother Suzune. The way she died. The way she was left. Torn and butchered into chunks of meat and bone.

No! Not enough! Not even close. The bastards hadn’t suffered the way she did.

A grin twisted in Shin’s face, manic and wild. His haze eyes were now unrecognizable as they had turned feral.

He raised his dagger again—

STAB!

STAB!!

STAB!!!

Over and over, steel met flesh. The man stopped moving after the fifth hit, but Shin didn’t.

SHLUKK.

SCHLATCH.

SPLURT.

The man’s blood spattered across his face, staining his teeth red as he grinned. The sound of torn flesh filled the room like a symphony of carnage. He carved open the man’s cheeks, the dagger splitting the jaw—

CRRKKKHH!!

—until it hung in two bloodied flaps.

Still not done...

He snatched the dead man’s blade and now held two. Then he turned to the last man, the one who had received a head bump from Yuki.

"RRAAAHHH!"

Like a demon unleashed, Shin drove one dagger into the man’s chest, then carved downward to the man’s stomach.

SCHRRRIPPPP!!

Intestines burst free in a hot, steaming heap. They squelched as they hit the floor.

Lilian stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat. The child of the gods she once admired now looked like a beast in rage.

As for Yuki, her mouth was now dry. She had seen death before, but this? Shin was lost in the blood, gone feral. Still stabbing, even when there was no flesh left untouched.

His chest heaved, still stabbing until Yuki stepped forward.

"It’s okay, kiddo! THEY’RE DEAD!!"

Yuki’s hand on his shoulder was like a jolt of lightning that brought him back to reality.

Shin blinked. Slowly, his grip loosening.

He pulled both blades out, the wet SCHLUK echoing in the silence, then stood, covered in gore. His teammates stared. Lilian was pale. Yuki, shocked. But Ayaka... Ayaka was quietly sobbing.

He walked over to her, his blood-soaked hands trembling.

"Open your eyes, Aya," he whispered.

She shook her head, her lips quivering.

"Don’t be afraid... you said I’m your big brother, right?"

She nodded, her small hands still shielding her face.

"Then listen to your big brother. I said open your eyes."

Slowly, her tear-streaked face turned upward. Her eyes fluttered open.

And she screamed.

"ARGHHHH!!"

The scent of iron, the rivers of blood in the room, the mangled corpses—it was too much. It all reminded her of.....

"Master, don’t—" Lilian began.

"Shhh..." Shin silenced her with a glance.

He dropped the daggers on the floor then pulled Ayaka into his arms, blood smearing her dress.

"Don’t cry. I’m here," he whispered. "You want to survive, right? In this broken world?"

The girl nodded shakily.

"Then you’ve got to open your eyes to it. All of it. Or next time... the corpse on the floor might be me. What would you do then?"

She gulped, and for a moment, the whole place was covered in silence before her tear-lidded eyes fluttered open, slow and hesitant. Shin gently picked her up and turned her toward the corpses sprawled across the blood-slick floor.

"I know this might seem cruel," he muttered, voice low. "Showing a kid like you something this gruesome... Especially when you’re already haunted by nightmares. But this is the world we live in now, Aya. You have to get used to it. "

He looked at her, his expression softening.

"I know you’re afraid of blood. But that fear, just like your past—it has to be abandoned. Live for what’s ahead."

Yuki and Lilian remained silent, the weight of his words thick in the air.

Shin set Aya down and stretched out his hand toward her.

"What do you say, Aya? Do you want to survive in this filthy, immoral world with me? Or will you keep hiding in your cocoon of fear, waiting for bastards like these to find you and kill you—just so they can keep living in comfort?"

Aya stared at the ground, silent. It was too much, too fast. Her world was changing faster than her heart could follow. But Shin was all she had now. Her father was gone and even he couldn’t take responsibility of her like how Shin is trying.

She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She didn’t want to burden him.

If she wanted to stay by his side... she had to be strong.

She had to be useful.

Slowly, she raised her trembling hand toward his—

Then her eyes widened when her passive skill showed her two arrows cutting through the air like lightning, heading for them.

Before she could think, before she could even scream—

CRASH!!

Glass shattered as the arrows burst through the window, screaming toward them like death itself. In a desperate mive, Aya shoved Shin to the side hard, and then—

TLOF!!!

The sound of flesh being pierced echoed across the bloodstained room.

TBC