Kenji packed quickly.
Ro's enchanted lantern, a small knife and 3 smoke bombs he made years ago.
Takahiro stood frozen behind him.
"Kenji... you can't be serious."
No response.
Kenji kept moving. When he was ready, he didn't head for the door. He opened Ray and Anna's back window. The one that faced the forest.
Unseen from the village. Before he could jump, Takahiro grabbed his arm.
"Think about this. This is insane."
Kenji looked at him, irritation bare in his eyes.
Once again no response, he pulled free and leapt
---------
He moved low and fast, until he reached the barrier. He looked at the then veil normally invisible but now visible.
He hesitated something in his mind, made him stop a bit. But he ignored it, and stepped through.
It felt like passing through a thin veil of cold water, he shivered.
Behind him, the village was gone. Invisible.
He tested it, he tried pushing his hand back through. A violent repelling force shoved him away.
Invisible, and there's no turning back now. The barrier kept things out, not in.
He turned to leave, when.
"Kenji!"
Golden hair burst through the barrier, Takahiro stumbled out beside him.
Kenji stared. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Dumbass, it's dangerous go back."
"Even more of a reason why i should come, if i can't stop you." He looked at Kenji straight in the eyes "I will join you."
Kenji looked into those kind, bright emerald eyes. Annoyance and anger growing slightly, he wasn't about to bring someone else with him. He didn't understand why it just felt annoying.
"Besides remember, a party faces danger together."
Kenji froze, that line. From his father's diary.
The one he once told Takahiro when he was still young and scared.
Kenji clicked his tongue.
"... Dammit, Taka. Let's hurry."
They ran.
-------------------
When they were far enough away, Kenji pulled out the lantern and flipped the switch beneath it.
Blue ghostly fire bloomed to life, Kenji made Taka put his hand on the lantern.
Takahiro's breath caught.
Little blue wisps flickered around them. One darted forward along the ground. then paused, then darted again.
"What's that?" Taka asked.
"Don't know," Kenji answered while following behind it.
"What is it doing?"
"Tracking." Kenji answered.
"Where is it going?"
"To find the bastards." He answered his voice colder this time.
Takahiro kept silent and they followed the wisp.
----------------
After a while, they reached a hill.
At the top, both boys froze, the island looked wrong. Where the other villages should have been, there was nothing.
Just uninterrupted forest, their own defensive barriers activated. At sea, flashes of light, and something flying.
On the coast, massive foreign ships docked.
Takahiro felt his stomach drop, Kenji didn't stop moving. The wisp moved downhill.
"Kenji," Takahiro whispered. "What if there are more of them?..."
"Then use your sword," He said indifferently, as if that didn't concern him. "There is why you brought it, right?" He asked without looking back.
Takahiro looked down at his katana sheathed at his hip, he looked back at Kenji. Kenji was calm, too calm.
Kenji on the other in his mind, it was spiraling. The grip on the lantern tightening.
The torment continued silently, Jaxon's body shifted. First it was just Jaxon, then Ro, then Selena, then Anna, then Ray.
It twisted.
Over.
And over.
And over.
Again, and again, and again, and again. They all looked at him, not at the night sky, but at him accusing him silently, asking him silently.
Kenji could feel it that something inside him, wasn't right. Like something had cracked. The crack felt wrong, abnormal. Whenever he tried focusing on it, the images overwhelmed the abnormal feeling.
He end up not caring about it, a single thought was constant instead. Ever growing, never changing.
I have to kill those bastards!
-----------------
Elsewhere
Ro wiped blood from his jaw.
A blade whistled past his neck. He stepped inside the attacker's guard, Hashi flaring through his arms, and unleashed a brutal flurry of strikes.
Bones shattered, he grabbed the man's face, pulling it down and drove his knee upward. Burring it into the man's face, with full force.
The body dropped.
Ro released a breathe, scanned the area with a grim look.
Corpses everywhere, bodies upon bodies upon bodies. Blood drowning the earth beneath them, limbs away from bodies, and bodies missing limbs. Like a doll that had lost it parts and forever unfinished.
Ro had only contributed a fraction to this carnage, he had come to scout the ships.
Who the hell did this? It can't be the old man. He thought.
He had seen kill Ray kill before, and he did it cleanly.
But this..... This was cruelty.
Every corpse showed signs of it, and none of them got a messy killing. From the expressions of those fortunate to even have their faces still intact, they had the expression of pain or horror on them.
That sent a chill down his spine.
As he was lost he though.
BANG!!
A thunderous crack split the air.
Pain exploded in his chest.
He staggered.
BANG!
Another impact.
BANG!
Then another.
His Hashi wavered, leaving his body.
His knees hit the ground.
"Well, that confirms it," a voice drawled. "We are being hunted."
Ro tried to lift his head, but couldn't.
"You're not the one that's after us, clearly" the man continued. "Too clean, too weak. Intermediate rank at best. But that makes you merchandise at least."
A boot struck Ro's face, darkness swallowed him.
The man sighed, looking at the carnage around them.
"They said this job would be easy."
He clicked his tongue.
"What a mess."