Night time fell on the dark city of Dahlia, the streets were silent and the silence was only broken by the sounds of stray animals. Shura was waiting in a alleyway for some form of message from a client. He took the job earlier that day in the nearly deserted Inn. Not many folks in town just yet. Being the new face in town has made rumors go around pretty rapidly. He guessed that people weren’t used to seeing new faces. Something about the place gave Shura a constant sense of impending doom. He tried not to let it settle in so he could do some jobs in town until Chi met up with him. For the moment he was just a sketchy looking individual standing outside in the darkness. The sounds of someone walking by broke his thoughts and caused him to look around the corner. A man in black came walking down the street on the side of the alley Shura was standing in. No words were shared just a note placed on a box that sat next to the dumpster Shura was across from. He knew not to strike up a conversation or pry into the note left for him. He stood off from the wall and grabbed the message before walking the opposite direction.

He pulled the note out and it had some address on the paper. Some of the information was unclear or in another language. He was able to make out the address, and ‘Kill everyone.’ Rocket science would have not been required to figure out what exactly needed to be done. Find the address and wipe everyone out inside. Common sense dictated he needed to not get caught so he made sure to keep his hood up to cast a shadow over his mask. With leather gloves on he would leave no fingerprints behind. The large blade on his back was wrapped up in bandages for the moment. No one needed to be able to make out the large object fully until it was too late.

While walking down the street Shura realized that this was going to be harder than he expected. Between the shoddy writing and it being night time the addresses were hard to make out. He was walking in the right direction because the numbers were climbing upward. It took about twenty minutes before Shura found himself in the residential district. ‘Where in the hell is this place?’ he thought while scanning each house. Another ten minutes passed and he found himself at the end of the district. There was one house that stood out, looked decrepit and deserted. He looked down at the note again and part of the writing matched the address on the old mail box. Saying nothing Shura crumpled up the note and placed it in his pocket. He looked around to see if anyone was looking or peeping out their houses. He was only welcomed by the sounds of silence and no prying eyes. He shrugged in response then pressed onto the wooden steps of the house. Each step creaked with movement. He slowed his movement down to minimize sound all together.

After getting up the stairs the curtains obstructed any view through the front windows. He pushed on the door hoping this would have been easy. Hoping the door would have just opened up and he waltz right in. Of course that wasn’t the case. He tried to open the windows on either side of the door but no dice. ‘Ya know for such a shitty looking house it’s locked up pretty tight.’

600/1000

Shura walked around the back of the house to see if the back had been left unlocked. He turned the doorknob slightly to find out that it was locked. ‘Shit, know what fuck this.’ he thought taking his right elbow and slamming it through glass on the back door. He froze for a moment to see nothing have moved nor reacted. The place had to have been somewhat deserted. He reached in through the broken glass and unlocked the door. He carefully opened, entered and closed to minimize any sound created. He was in the danger zone now. He waited to see if he heard anything, nothing upstairs or anything of that nature. He stepped over the broken glass to keep from making crunching noises. Shura was in the kitchen, and it wasn’t pleasant. The smell of rotting food filled his nostrils, making him gag. The kitchen was a mess, mold was on the curtains. He pushed through the smell and began to search around the house. There had to be someone here. The note did say ‘Kill Everyone’ meaning there were multiple targets in the house. First he had to confirm that the house wasn’t deserted.

Walking through the living room, cobwebs and dust clung to everything. Seems like not a whole lot had been used. But something was a bit off. Part of the hallway seemed like it has had movement in it because it wasn’t as dirty as the rest of the living room. There was a closet between the kitchen and the living room. Footprints had been left on the ground from someone coming through here recently. The footprints stop at the closet and that seemed a bit off. Shura placed his right hand on his weapon and slowly moved up to the door. He pulled it open with his left quickly and braced himself as if someone was gonna jump out. Instead there was nothing, just a empty closet. That was the thing that stood out, it was clean compared to the rest of the place. That was unnatural, there was something up with this closet. Shura got closer to the back of the closet because he heard voices. The back of the closet was false. He snapped his finger creating a flame at the end of his finger tip. He scanned the back of the wall for some sort of handle with his left hand while he moved his right finger around as a source of light.

He pushed on it and it slowly opened. The voices became a bit more clear as the door opened. There wasn’t just one, multiple people had to be present. Shura took a deep breath, and walked down the stairs. His footsteps caused the voices to stop. He took a deep breath and closed the door behind him while walking down the stairs. There was a large area, a meeting room where ten people sat around a round table talking about something. Shura didn’t care what they were conversing about. He was here to do a job and nothing else. “Oh did I interrupt something?”

Shura walked down to see the that the place was furnished. Swords crossed on the wall, torches nice furniture and candles. It looked like a different place compared to the house above. Clearly the house was a cover for something more sinister. The area had a gothic era kind of feel to it. Shura dragged his hand across the wall the people were starting to stand up. “Excuse me but who are you?” The man at the head of the table stood up while asking this. They were all in brown robes to create some level of mysterious organization.


“No need to say my name.” Shura was eye balling the swords on the walls. He plucked one to feel it’s weight. “Oh wow these are real?”

“You didn’t answer my question intruder.” The man became bold and walked around the table approaching Shura. With no warning Shura jammed the sword into the man walking up to him. Blood gushed out of the wound and the people at the table all stood up from their chairs.

“Oops.”

The man wanted to say something but Shura pulled the blade from his chest. The man’s body fell backwards onto the ground while he gasped for air. “Don’t bother screaming I closed the door, no one will hear you.” Shura pulled the other sword from the wall and went to town on the remaining members. There was only one way out and Shura blocked the entrance. After the harrowing ordeal of murdering ten people without the use of magic Shura was left covered in blood. He tossed the weapons on the ground and went back up the stairs to slip out the back.

1396/1000