"Oh! No way, you are not fighting the Japanese Yakuza, Jin," Lucian said in worry.
They were on the 17th floor of an under-construction building completely covered by glass windows. And on the ground floor, next to the gate of the lift, was a lifeless body; its head hung from the wall, its face open, hot red blood from its open mouth falling onto the ground, even making the land red for more than one layer inside the ground.
KIRA!
The blazing, sharp katanas of all the guards shone with such an intimidating glare that Lucian's legs started shaking.
"Your parents are very unlucky, boys," one guard, who had a tattoo of a scorpion stretching from his neck to his bald head, said, walking near them.
"They are so unlucky they won't be able to see the dead bodies of their middle schoolers," the man said, coming close to Jin's face.
[YING SHA | Age: 32 | Security Head | THE EXECUTIONER]
"May I know the name of my..." Jin was interrupted.
"The name of your killer is YING SHA," another guard, bearing the same tattoo in the same place but with a katana on his shoulder, said.
"Chinese? How is a Chinese a Japanese criminal?" Jin asked.
"Shut up! Jin, please. Say sorry. We are apologizing, sir. Please, sir, let us go," Lucian shouted in fear, seeing 16 deadly assassins in the hallway.
"By the way, regarding my question which you interrupted, what was the name of the person I am killing today?" A small smirk rose on Jin's face as he ignored Lucian.
Click-FSSH!
Ying lit his cigarette, took a drag, and turned.
"I am giving you 5 minutes; kill them and burn their bodies," Ying said as he closed his eyes.
[Ying's Thoughts]
I absolutely hate killing children, but these oversmart children, they always die. If it were 12 years ago, I would have recruited him, just like them.
[Ying's Flashback]
THAK!
Ying slammed his legs on the ground to salute his senior.
"Ying, come inside my cabin," Ying's senior ordered him.
"Yes, sir." Ying instantly went in after his senior.
"I heard about your parents and sister. I am sorry, but can you tell me the whole thing that happened?" Ying's senior asked with worry.
"I was fast asleep in my bed when I heard a gunshot on my porch," Ying stopped.
The warm sunlight spilling across his face through the half-open window seemed to linger for a moment—then slowly turned. The golden light faded into a cold, pale white.
The window was no longer the same, nor was the room.
The warmth of the sun had become the cold light of the moon, falling across his face from the window of an old wooden house.
And then—
BANG!
Ying's eyes opened wide upon hearing the gunshot.
CREAK!
Ying moved calmly towards the porch, taking every step with caution, looking outside his room into the hallway. Before he could take another step, his foot touched a hand; suddenly, his sole felt the warmth of blood.
"Papa," Ying said in a low voice with tears falling.
"Mama," he mumbled as he saw his mother's dead body in the arms of his father's dead body.
KREEAK!
A person in black clothes licked his hand, which was covered in Ying's parents' blood. He entered the room, after which the sound of his sister shouting came; she was dead by morning.
"Ying... Ying, please stop. You may need some rest to overcome this trauma. Go home," his senior comforted him and gave him approval for rest.
"Thank you, sir," Ying said with a straight face, and left.
"Why are you in such a hurry to send him away, sir?" a trainee soldier asked.
"So he can end this as fast as possible," the senior said, sitting down.
"What do you mean?" the trainee asked.
"Those four people in black clothes were Japanese, trafficking 16 children. They are madmen, but I know a person who is madder than them, and they killed his family." The senior lit his cigarette.
"Do you mean Ying isn't the victim here?" the trainee asked with curiosity.
"He surely is, but he isn't the one suffering the same fate as them," the senior said, taking a drag.
[Cut]
[Black screen]
"But did I tell you why he is The Executioner?" the senior's voice came from behind the black screen.
"Why?" the trainee asked.
"There is no better butcher in... the... whole... world."
CLINK!
On a butchering table covered with blood, Ying's hand came across a knife bigger than any other knife, sharp enough to cut concrete. His every step made contact with transparent bags hung by ropes in the air; inside of them were dead bodies soaked in blood.
NRH-! NGH! NGH-! NGH!
All four people in black clothes, the killers of his family, were kneeling in front of him, covered in their own blood. Fingers were missing, skin on their forearms was missing, and one eyeball was missing.
"Where were they, sir?" the trainee asked, terrified.
"He fed them their own organs," the senior said with disgust.
BLEGH-!
The trainee instantly vomited.
Kneeling down to the eye level of all four was The Executioner himself, Ying.
"You must be thinking why I kept you alive for all these days," Ying said as he grabbed the hair of one of them.
"'Cause I kill a person three times." Ying raised his knife.
FWOOM!
Ying swung the knife and cut off one man's non-dominant hand.
"Mentally." Ying raised his knife again.
SHING!
This time, Ying aimed for the dominant hand.
"Physically." Ying prepared for the final attack on one of them.
SHRAK!
Ying dropped the knife, picked a body up in the air, and physically tore the neck apart from the torso.
"Spiritually," Ying said as he looked towards the other three.
"So what happened with those children?"
"They were Japanese, you know," the senior said.
"And the people Ying killed also were," the trainee said, understanding everything.
"Ying will now be dragged from China directly to the brutal world of Japan," the senior said, taking a drag.
"Do you think he and all those 16 children will survive?" the trainee asked.
"I don't know, but if they do, they will definitely become criminals. I place this responsibility on you. If they survive, catch them. No one other than Mo Zhan can catch them," the senior said, putting a hand on Mo's shoulder.
[Flashback End]
KUDD!
Ying's eyes opened as a very wet bag was thrown at his head.
The bag contained 16 heads of Ying's trained assassins, and as the bag hit the bald head of Ying, his head became wet from the blood of the 16 heads now scattered on the ground.
"Hey! Lucian, are you alive?" Jin asked, touching the completely still Lucian's forehead.
"Hey!" Ying said, his face dark.
A big shadow completely blocked the light for the kneeling Jin.
"Move aside, you are blocking my light," Jin said in a lazy tone.
"Tell me... how did you kill them, and what weapon did you use?" Ying said, opening his shirt and seeing Jin without a single scratch.
"How I killed them is a long story," Jin giggled, covering his face. "But the weapon I used is..." Jin raised his hand.
Plik...
A single drop of blood fell from his hand off a bloody pencil.
"A pencil? You killed all of them with a literal pencil?" Ying said in extreme shock.
KCHK! GRAAAM!
Ying grabbed Jin's head, which was not even half of his hand, lifted him up, and slammed his head directly into a wall.
"Huh!" Ying's face became completely shocked as he lifted his hand.
'Cause his hand held nothing, but his shoulder did. Jin was standing on them; his weight was like that of a mosquito or a fly.
Jin squatted on his shoulder and whispered in Ying's ear,
"Still wanna know how?" Jin mocked Ying.
BAM! FWOOSH!
As Ying moved his leg to directly break Jin's ribs, Jin launched himself from Ying's shoulder.
TIK!
Jin flipped mid-air; he launched the blood-covered nib of his pencil directly into Ying's right eye.
"Ahhh!" Ying shouted.
ZIIIP!
Jin, with a near-instant burst of movement, snatched the cigarette packet and lighter from Ying's pocket before he could react. He spun 360 degrees and then moonwalked his way over to Lucian's still body.
[Jin's thoughts]
Lucian is not dead; he definitely isn't. He is just in shock as he saw me killing all of them with a pencil, and this is what I think happened 'cause I don't know his part of the story yet.
KLIK-TCHK!
Jin pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit the lighter, but didn't light the cigarette.
SHRAK!
An instantaneous slash from a butcher knife cut his cigarette in half.
"What, uncle? I wasn't going to smoke that either; it was for this loser to wake up and stop me," Jin said in disappointment as the cigarette in his mouth dropped.
"Now, from this moment on, you won't be facing Ying; you will be facing The Executioner," Ying said, pointing his butcher knife directly at Jin.
"Hey! Toma, I think the situation is getting out of hand for me," Jin said to Lucian's body.
But then he suddenly dropped to his knees and picked up a finger he had cut off earlier.
"Ooh! This one has the perfect nail size," Jin said, pointing the finger directly at Ying.
Ying viewed this as disrespect to his dead child and the foolishness of Jin fighting with a severed finger—a finger with a big nail—against a butcher knife and a tank like him.
In the next moment, Ying felt his body parts falling, all cut with perfect precision just by a ring finger with a big nail. His first step wasn't even complete.
"It was just a thought of mine," Ying mumbled to himself.
[Ying's Thoughts]
Who is this boy? A soldier? No, he is less than 12, yet he possesses such an aura and an overwhelming genius for making anything his weapon. At this point, I feel more like a child than this boy.
"Before I kill you, let me tell you, the security system has been activated. My company's biggest tyrants will be here anytime, and each of them is 10 times stronger than me," Ying threatened Jin.
"Your company's name is THE NINTH HOUSE, right?" Jin asked.
"Yes, so now you know even if you defeat me, you can't defeat them," Ying said with a smirk.
"Nahh! They are humans. You know my company's name. It doesn't have humans, although my brother and I are at the top of it in the first year, yet..." Jin teased Ying.
"Huh! What is the name of your company?" Ying asked in shock.
"Leave it, you won't understand. I said there are no humans, but to grant your last wish, its name is Shinkai," Jin smiled.
KSHRAK!
Jin launched himself into the air, and with a swing of the big nail, he threw an air slash directly at Ying.
Ying, dodging it, thought:
*Air slash? How can a person in the real world unleash an air slash? It is not possible.*
FWOOSH-! KRRSH!
Jin appeared behind Ying. He cut his back diagonally, leaving a wound that wouldn't recover.
CRK! FWOASH-! THK! THK!
Jin broke the pencil from earlier, vanished, and then reappeared in front of Ying, piercing both of his legs in place with the two pieces of the pencil.
WHAM!
Jin used a spin-wheel kick, delivering a jaw-breaking strike directly to Ying's chin, and sent him flying.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Ying blew through three walls consecutively until every bone in his body broke.
"Ah! Jin, you should have been gentle. He is a normal person, not an arcanist," Jin said to himself.
But then Jin's smile suddenly dropped; his face became serious for a second.
"But there is something different. My body moved on its own, attacking him as if he were much stronger than that," Jin said.
WHUMPH-KRAASH!
From the smoke, a figure was emerging. It threw a small stone at the wall on the side, and that wall broke. Before Jin could react, the smoke reached his face, and an arm from behind the smoke suddenly grabbed Jin's collar.
"Oh God! Uncle, I didn't hit you that hard," Jin spoke.
The moment Jin spoke, he found himself in the air.
DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
Ying smashed Jin repeatedly from side to side into the floor.
THWACK!
Ying didn't use a single martial art to kick Jin; rather, he kicked Jin like a wild animal, sending him flying.
"Out of everyone I have fought all these years, there is no one like you 'cause they are human!" Ying shouted towards the direction Jin went.
"But they weren't like me either," Ying said, pointing his weapon.
"Executioner - First sentence," Ying said, activating his power.
"Out of all the rookies I have seen in all these years, you are the dumbest of them all," Jin said, pointing the big nail on the severed finger, which was now covered in Jin's flux and cyan in colour.