1 - Jackal Versus Everyone / Dog Hunt

[SEPTEMBER 26TH, CALIFORNIA, 11:00AM]

The dazzling sun observed all that happened on earth. The events in Tokyo, and the political tension in America, all of them received the sun’s gentle warmth. However, one soul in particular was a bit too close to the sun. In a good way, of course - the story of Icarus wouldn’t repeat itself with a soul like that.

A soul that shone so dark, it was capable of eclipsing the sun itself...

With little time left for the elections, both Dyeman and Sheller tried their hardest to sway the public opinion to their side. Dyeman employed the ‘soulfuls are as human as us’ tactic, playing on the population’s empathy and understanding. Sheller, on the other hand, used a ‘they’re uncontrollable and will kill us’ type of statement to spearhead his campaign. In the complicated demographic theatre of America, both sides were evenly matched - though, Sheller was picking up the pace.

However, one way a party could gain an advantage was by killing the soul that danced under the sun. The side that did so would be able to boast that they killed an extremely dangerous terrorist, and would thus be almost guaranteed victory. Sheller’s soulless troops were only now getting acclimatized to the extreme difficulty of hunting soulfuls. Dyeman, though, had Kaito’s support. And the support of Kaito meant the full involvement of his strongest combat unit...

“Under the direct orders of the Heisei division, surrender immediately.” Jian said, pointing a finger gun at the shadow soulful. Behind her were two of her comrades, Zawadski and Kenji. The captain-commander Zervos of the division stood a few meters further in front of her, and the wildcard, Yuuka, stood at the very back.

“No, next question please?” Jackal said, ignorantly. He sat down on the roof of a small one-floor store, wielding his sables, while his hunters were on the road. It gave him a sense of superiority. The entire area had been evacuated beforehand, assuring that Dyeman’s reputation doesn’t take any unnecessary hits.

“Jackal, you understand the situation better than anyone.” Zervos said, taking a step forward. “The balance between soulfuls and the soulless must be maintained. If you truly care about yourself or your-”

“Oh come on, quit yapping, softie.” Jackal barked back, interrupting the captain. “I don’t care about any of that stuff. I can sustain myself just fine.”

“Then would you be content with every soulful being murdered and tortured?” Zawadski asked.

“Listen man, it ain’t gonna work on him! Let’s just fight him!” Kenji said, grinning in anticipation.

“See? The meathead gets it.” Jackal smiled. “I truly don’t care about any of this political stuff. If something bothers me, I have every right to kill it. Who’s gonna stop me?”

“You’re making a very-”

“If Sheller sends his dogs after me, I’ll kill them. And later, I’ll kill Sheller. And Dyeman. And every single piece of filth that tries to hinder me.” Jackal interrupted the captain again. A small pool of shadows started to form beneath him, and slowly dripped down from the roof. The Heisei’s fighters took notice and stepped back.

“You’re trying to challenge me with all your petty political bullshit, telling me I need to die just so the world can remain a shitty place. Honestly, who the hell do you take me for? A sentimental weakling that will throw his life away for the sake of some guys in dark suits?”

“For a life I don’t even belong to?!”

“My name is Jackal Kagerr.”

Jackal’s own body became covered in shadows. He looked as if he was melting into them. The soul that only knew the song of a free breath could not imagine or comprehend a chained world.

“I am the soul who lives free!”

Jackal immediately dissipated into the shadows. The Heisei was overtaken by confusion, and even fear. They were, without any doubt, the most effective and capable combat unit within the GSC. And yet, there were still challenges that put them against the ropes and forced them to evolve. A soulful of Jackal’s caliber would be no exception.

He popped out of Zervos’s shadow and swung a miniature shadow blade, carving a deep wound in his back! Zervos retaliated, and the all-on-one attack began immediately. Zawadski and Kenji pushed in, while Yuuka and Jian remained on the back lines.

Kenji summoned his weapon, a large kusarigama the rope of which could extend seemingly infinitely. He threw its blade at Jackal, who dodged. Zawadski, at the same time, rushed at Jackal and landed a powerful right overhand on his face. Jackal struck back, piercing Zawadski’s heart with a quick shadow blade, but after acknowledging that course of actions Zawadski decided to change his approach. He attacked from a different angle, landing a flurry of kicks and strikes and knocking Jackal back.

Zervos, the captain himself, charged in. He was losing blood rather rapidly, the blade appeared to have struck one of his kidneys. But he continued the assault. Jackal mustered up the shadows in the environment and used them to jump up into the air and attempt to hide behind one of the taller buildings nearby.

“Manipulation of shadows...just as we were promised.” Jian said, concentrating her aim.

“Yuuka, listen to me carefully.” Jian explained. “You need to flee.”

“Why? I can kill him instantly...” Yuuka said, disappointed.

“He’ll sense it or figure it out, and escape it, or use it to kill one of us.” Jian said. “I’m sorry, but you have to flee right now. Your acclamation cannot be used in a fight like this, it’s too dangerous.”

“Awh, okey...” She said, slowly walking away. Jian, at the same time, took aim. In a few seconds, the building behind which Jackal was trying to hide, was destroyed - split in half from the point of impact.

Jackal, had he not decided to quickly hide behind cover, would also receive an attack just as powerful. He plunged back into the shadows, while the tentacles he conjured started to wreak havoc on the environment.

“The sniper is annoying...but something’s off.”

“I’ll need to pour my soul prowess into my brain to see if there’s any foul play. The short guy doesn’t fight well or strong, but his combat decisions feel flawless.”

He popped back up from the shadows, throwing a circular shadowy slash. The road was getting destroyed, and buildings were getting torn apart like they’re nothing. He charged towards Zervos again, but was set back in place, and attacked by Zawadski.

“Huh?”

“Ah, I see...what a pain in the ass of a trick.”

He conjured a large black axe and swung it at Zawadski, shoving its blade deep into his skull and killing him. Now that his axe was gone again, and Zawadski was standing in front of him, he decided to flee instead of engaging again, evading his counterattack. He surrounded himself with shadows and charged at Zervos, but this time, he was intercepted by Kenji.

“They’re using the guy who can somehow reset positions...or something...to keep me in place. Their sniper is their win condition.”

As Kenji and Jackal exchanged gazes, they both grinned. Kenji unsummoned his weapon and started throwing punch after punch, all of which Jackal blocked and evaded. When it was Jackal’s turn to attack, he weaved to the side and conjured a pair of knives, slashing Kenji’s skins. Jackal already started to transform the blades into a different weapon, but a powerful force knocked him away, slamming him into a nearby building. On Jackal’s torso, a heavy wound emerged.

“Kenji, you’re fighting too recklessly!” Jian exclaimed, rushing at them. “Stay with the group, don’t engage up close!”

“Recklessness is what I live for!” Kenji yelled back, rather ignorantly. He charged at Jackal at incredible speeds, throwing the blade at him. Jackal conjured up his shadows and formed a sphere which trapped both of them inside.

“My soul expression makes my weapon faster, and the faster it is, the more powerful it can cut through things.” Kenji thought, engaging Jackal at full throttle. His voltage was upped to the maximum. He swung his kusarigama like a madman, and Jackal not only appreciated but also responded to that energy. They fought behind the building, both of them utilizing their abilities to the maximum. “Eventually, it’ll get fast enough to cut him.”

“If I get him, I’ll be promoted to the main Heisei spearhead for sure!”

“Somebody, please knock some sense into that guy before he gets himself killed.” Zawadski sighed. “Jian, get Yuuka here.”

“I sent Yuuka back.” Jian replied. She aimed and fired another powerful shot at where she thought Jackal would be. Judging by the shadowy goo creeping out of that place, her reading was right.

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“What? Why?!” Zawadski asked.

“She made the right call, Zawadski.” Zervos said, wrapping around a piece of torn fabric around his wound. “Yuuka would either get us killed, or get herself killed.”

“In that case we-” Jian’s sentence was interrupted by a large building collapsing completely - not just breaking down, but getting dismantled into many pieces by Kenji’s blade. It wasn’t an attack to show off or to destroy a hiding victim, but a last ditch effort. As the dust settled, a disappointing and horrifying spectacle began to unfold.

“Did Kenji go in by himself?!” Zawadski exclaimed. Jian fired off a shot that removed the debris blocking the way. What they saw was Jackal mutilating and destroying Kenji’s body with a shadow-made chainsaw. He looked so damn excited doing it.

“Kenji!” Zervos yelled. He started to charge in, but Zawadski held him back.

“Captain, not now.” Zawadski said. “Something’s off.”

“So what if something’s off?!” Jian said, taking aim.

The area darkened. The pool of shadows leaking from Jackal’s feet enlarged, soon capturing most of the space around him. It all flowed right back to him. Shadow manipulation extracted and utilized the shadows in the environment and imbued them with soul prowess. With Jackal’s unstoppable imagination and bloodthirst, a power like that is disastrously strong.

A gigantic shadow dragon emerged from the ground, and Jackal rode it. He felt absolutely exhilarated. His crimson eyes shone beneath the sunlight, he was in pure ecstasy.

Jackal never knew his family. He was a ‘mistake’, dropped off at one of the houses in a rather dangerous neighborhood. There, he was raised around violent people. Gang members, drug traffickers, pimps, all types of human scum surrounded him - but they never influenced him too much aside from having him run small errands. All he had to his name was a trench coat - one that he stole from a dead body.

But he had no figure in his life to tell him to be scared of murder. Nobody taught him that killing is bad. He grew up amongst people who did everything that they wanted, with whatever method was deemed necessary. He lived on spare food, played cards with them, learnt to fight, and slowly became more and more reckless and relentless. He was taught not to trust anyone and to only live for himself.

What he never understood was the principle of restriction. Even as a young kid who was self-taught, he questioned the idea of freedom and what it meant. Most importantly, he hated the concept of his free life being taken away. He saw the men and women surrounding him be arrested, he didn’t understand the reason, he couldn’t understand the reason, but he detested it. He saw his comrades give in to a calm life and spend their years working a normal job, and taunted them for wasting their soul on a corporation that treats them like slaves, only to be forgotten.

At around the age of 6, he killed someone for the first time. It was some no-name thug that tried to rob the place. He took a knife and stabbed him in the stomach. In that black and oversized trench coat, the boy with messy hair and a deadly innocent look took another human being’s life. He was referred to as a freak capable of killing, but was celebrated due to his loyalty. He didn’t require much maintenance either. He was once referred to as a jackal.

He was referred to as a jackal, compared to an animal. He had no name. Upon hearing that word for the first time, he took it for himself and made it his own name. The kid in a trench coat granted himself a name, and promised to himself that no matter what happens, he would choose death over betraying himself. And once the global soul event took place, he was granted a devilishly potent power.

The boy in the old trench coat, known as Jackal, began to write a play. He wielded the instruments of terror and destruction that would amaze the audience. But the lyrics were only for himself. Just like his name, he took them all for himself. Riding on a shadowy dragon’s back, fending off the strongest soulful combat unit...

He remembered the lyrics that sang absolute freedom.

The mighty dragon howled with pride. A second later, it was almost completely destroyed. Jian’s shot killed it in one go. Jackal conjured the remnants of its carcass and charged at his enemies, with a barrage of tentacles, spikes and makeshift blades raining down.

“I guess I’ll have to take the sniper down first.”

He charged at Jian, who evaded the advance elegantly. She fired off smaller shots, attempting to catch Jackal off guard, but failed to do so. Jackal was constantly hopping in and out of shadow puddles, and trying to land an attack in between. That’s why Jian decided to strike the ground instead. It quickly collapsed, and the two fell down to the sewers beneath.

As Zawadski and Zervos rushed to help her, they were caught off guard by...Jackal? No, it wasn’t him directly - rather, it was a pair of autonomous shadows that looked like humans. They bore swords and wielded no hesitation to kill.

“What the hell is this?” Zawadski exclaimed, punching a hole through one of the shadows’ guts. The other one fell victim to Zervos’ fierce strikes.

“Shadow...clones?” Zervos replied. “This is bad. If he can conjure up an army, he’ll be borderline impossible to contain.”

“Then he would’ve done it already. It means these things take a lot of focus.” Zawadski said, sprinting to the crater. “Come on!”

Jackal engaged Jian in close range, trying to utilize his shadow-infused combat style to his best advantage. Jian dodged his many attacks, trying to aim and land a clean shot, but her hand to hand combat wasn’t weak either.

Jackal jumped at her, swinging shadowy elbow blades like a madman. Upon realizing that he missed, he conjured them into a spear and chucked at Jian. She dodged, but the remnants of the shadow formed a pair of sharp blades that pierced her arm.

“He’s still this sturdy despite taking a shot from me?”

“No, that’s not it.”

Jian paid closer attention to the wound as Jackal attempted to close the distance once more.

“He’s using the shadows to substitute his missing body parts and wounds until he has time to regenerate them?!”

Jian fired a single quick shot at Jackal’s foot and dashed back. Her own arm was bleeding pretty badly. Jackal’s wound was almost immediately substituted by a shadowy mix, and he pushed forward. But instead of playing it defensively, Jian fought back. She grabbed Jackal by his clothes and threw him down, and before the latter got up, he was tossed in the air. A follow up shot knocked him out of the pit.

“Captain!” Jian exclaimed after the attack.

Zervos was already in position, and with one swift motion he cut off Jackal’s right hand. A follow up kick threw right towards Zawadski, who punched him into the wall of a nearby brick building. A moment later, albeit aware of the strange power, Jackal fell victim to it once again. He appeared in the same place where he lost his arm, except this time, Jian, who escaped the sewers, was staring him in the eyes.

The devastating shot knocked him through the poor brick building and into the wall of one behind it. The right side of his torso was heavily damaged, his hand was missing, and his legs looked destroyed. All of this had no effect on his willpower.

He slipped out of Zawadski’s shadow and sliced his arm off with a shadow blade. Just as the positions were reset, he preemptively increased the length of his blade and swung it circularly. His prediction was correct.

“This cheap shit won’t work on me anymore.” He said, smirking after seeing Zawadski get knocked back with a deep slashing wound on his chest. The long blade transformed itself into a hand that grabbed him, slammed him into Zervos, and threw him into the roof of a large skyscraper in the distance. Zervos tried to attack, but was quickly intercepted by a shadow clone appearing right behind him, emerging from his own shadow and stabbing him in the stomach.

“He’s too damn unpredictable...”

“I shouldn’t have made the call. Maybe if Yuuka was here, we could’ve won...!”

Jian attempted to fire again, but Jackal quickly conjured a black wall between them. Behind it, Zervos was fighting for his life.

“I can’t target him! There’s no line of sight!!”

Jian rushed over to go around the wall, but the black surface transformed and surrounded her - turning into a pair of blades that attempted to pierce her. One of them pierced her leg, rendering her almost immobile for a few moments.

Zervos himself was outclassed, simply because Jackal’s versatility with his shadow manipulation was stupidly strong. The wound in his kidney and now his stomach forced his momentum to slow down, and thus, be intercepted. After exchanging blows, Jackal caught him off guard with a massive uppercut that knocked him out of the battlefield.

Feeling almost enlightened, Jackal knocked Jian away and further destroyed the city terrain that surrounded them. Jian prepared to aim, and Jackal, now confident in his victory, charged in...

[KRRRT]

“My orders were to stay hidden and engage only in critical situations.”

“He looks hurt. His shadows are covering up his wounds, meaning I’ll disable them and make his body crumble.”

The bright blade pierced Jackal’s chest. Unveiling his cloak of invisibility, the last elemental, Ichigo Sadamitsu, joined the battlefield.

“And who...the hell...are you?” Jackal asked, turning around. There was a buildup of blood on his lips.

“What the fuck?”

“I can’t conjure any shadows in his direction?!”

Ichigo slashed through Jackal’s torso, and immediately dodged to the side. Jian’s powerful shot knocked him through an array of buildings, leaving him heavily injured.

“I’ll take care of the rest. I was right, I’m his natural enemy.” Ichigo said.

“You won’t be able to defeat him by yourself.” Jian said, but she struggled to take a step forward.

“Please, regroup with them and treat your wounds, Lieutenant.” Ichigo said. “I’ve brought extra assistance.”

“What?” Jian was confused.

“I asked permission from Mr. Kamiki, and he likely contacted Captain Zervos about it. I asked if we could have the assistance of Sakuto Hitori. Please forgive me for not letting you know.”

“It’s fine. You did the right thing.” Jian said, stumbling away. “As long as HQ is aware and no other missions are being compromised.”

“Sakuto Hitori?”

“I’ve heard a lot about him.”

“I’ll stick around for a bit. I’m curious as to how he operates. He’s technically a Heisei member, after all...”

...

“What a pain in the ass...”

Jackal slowly got up, conjuring his shadows in an attempt to mend his wounds. He also attempted to regenerate his missing hand, but that’s a task that requires far more concentration for him. For now, replacing it with a shadow is just fine.

“To think that Diego’s lackey ended up as Heisei’s lackey...once a dog, always a dog.”

“But it doesn’t matter.”

“His light is imbued with soul prowess, and it apparently nullifies my shadows, but if I’m careful enough, I can piece him up and destroy him. The trickster is gone, the captain is probably dead, the meathead is definitely dead, and the sniper is wounded pretty badly. It’s just him left.”

“And if it’s a one on one, I won’t lose-”

He felt a familiar soul presence approach him, and surely enough, it would attack him.