Chapter 2

When Gin awoke he found himself lying in a small clearing in the forest. For a moment he wondered if he had simply dreamed everything that happened. Then he remembered that dead men don't dream. He picked himself up immediately noticing the change to himself.

"Damn when she said she was giving me a chance to start over I didn't think she'd be so literal." He said with a frown. His body seemed to have reverted back to what he would guess was age 12. "Im even smaller than little Toshiro." He said with a small chuckle.

Gin looked up at the sky and noticed it was late afternoon. It was going to be getting dark pretty soon and it was already pretty chilly. Gin wasn't afraid of the dark but he was a bit allergic to freezing to death. With that in mind, he picked up Shinso and started walking. He had no clue where he was going but he decided to embrace the mindset that he'd survived off for most of his life. 'Fuck it'. And he started walking in a random direction.

At the Fairy Tail Guildhall

"Master we'd like to go on this mission." A young blue-haired girl said enthusiastically.

"Alright let me take a look at it." The short old man said taking the request paper. The request was a straight forward job from the magic council to drive out a group of bandits from an abandoned church about 10 miles north of Hargeon. The only problem was it was an A-ranked mission because there were apparently at least 2 known dark mages with the group, both with considerable bounties on there heads. "I'm sorry Levy but you and your team aren't ready to take this level of the job." He said causing the young girl to pout.

"But master how are we ever suppose to get stronger as a team if you never let us take on harder missions?" She said with slight anger in her voice.

Makarov sighed. This wasn't new for him. He'd had this conversation with Natsu at least a hundred times. "Levy this isn't about whether or not you're strong enough. It's just that you're not ready. I have no doubt you and your team could complete this mission but what would be the point of completing it if one your team got killed along the way. The men you'd be fighting are evil men who would have absolutely no problem with killing a group of children if they felt at all threatened." Even worse was what they would do with poor Levy if they got their sick hands on her. The very idea of one of his children being put through that made his blood burn.

"Master what if I went with them on the job?" An armored redhead asked as she made her way over to the group. "As an S-class mage, I'm qualified to take that mission alone so if I accompany team Shadow Gear then there shouldn't be a problem right?"

Makarov sighed knowing she was right. Levy and her team were now staring at him expectantly. "Very well Erza if you go with them then it's fine. It will be your responsibility to keep them safe. Do you understand?"

"Of course master." She said with a smile.

"Yes, our first A-ranked mission!" Team Shadow Gear cheered.

Back with Gin

Gin had been walking for about 2 hours and the sun had just finished setting. Up ahead in a large clearing, he could see what appeared to be a large abandoned church. As he made his way to the church he notices the unmistakable presence of people inside the church. 8 to be exacted. All of them had above-average power levels for humans but with the exception of 2 none were even strong enough to qualify for the shinigami academy. The 2 who piqued his interest had about the same power level as the average academy graduate.

Once he got to the door he knocked a heard the laughter stop from inside. After a few moments, the door was opened by a rather large man with a knife. He was looking down on Gin with an angry look on his face. "Yo Tama who is it? Rune knights?" one of the men behind him asked. It didn't take a genius to figure out that these men were outlaws.

"I may as well try to be civil" Gin thought to himself. "Hello I was wondering if you gentlemen would allow me to spend the night in this church here, I promise you won't even notice me." Gin said with his usual grin. The man simply stared at him before slamming the door shut.

He began walking back towards the group of men. "So who was it?" One of the men asked the man who was now known as Tama. "Just some creepy brat asking to stay the night here." He was about to sit back down when he stopped. "Yo Tama what's wrong ma..." He stopped talking when he noticed the blade protruding from the man's chest "OH FUCK." He yelled getting everybody's attention.

A few seconds earlier

Gin just stood there. "Well, now that was just plain rude. However, am I suppose to deal with such ill-mannered men?" He said as his grin grew wider. He took a few steps back before unsheathing Shinso and thrusting it towards the door. "Shoot to kill, Shinso" He shouted as the blade extended forward piercing through the door. After a moment he heard cursing from inside and retracted the blade.

He stepped forwards and opened the door and saw all the men inside grabbing their weapons. "My my, it seems I've made a bit of a mess." Gin said keeping up his grin while looking at the body of 'Tama' on the floor. "Sorry about that."

With that, all the men charged. As the first swung at Gin he simply disappeared then reappeared behind the men. Soon after 2 of the men started spewing blood from their necks. "3 down 5 to go." He said as he thrust Shinso towards them again. The men were all able to dodge the attack except one man who was impaled through the gut. "You little shit!" One of them yelled before spitting a large amount of green liquid at Gin. Gin merely sidestepped and watched as the stone floor he was just standing on dissolved.

"Interesting that must be the magic she mentioned." He said enthusiastically. This was the first time he'd seen an example of the magic first hand. "A little nasty for my taste but still cool." He said taunting the man. Gin lifted his hand and pointed it towards the men. "Hado 31 Shakkaho." He declared as a red ball of fire shot from his hand. The 2 stronger men were able to dodge in time however the explosion completely enveloped the other 2.

"Who are you? What do you want from us?" The acid man spat with a mixture of hate and fear.

"Me? Im just a kid looking for a place to stay the night."

"And your first response to being rejected was to kill everyone?!" The other yelled with rage.

"Well normally no but when I noticed what kind of men you were I thought I'd do the world a favor and just get rid of you." Gin said so casually it shook the men to their core. "I'll tell you what. If you can tell me one positive effect you've had on another person in the past week I'll let you live."

The 2 men just looked at each other nervously. They were terrified of this kid who just killed 6 people in less than a minute. After a moment they turned back towards Gin and fired off a volley of acid and lightning. "That's what I thought." Gin flash stepped behind the 2 men killing one instantly with a stab to the spine. Just as the acid man was about to react Gin placed Shinso at the man's gut and forced it in.

The man fell to his knees choking on his own blood. "What are you?" He managed you get out between the coughs.

Gin knelt down next to the man and said. "Im just a snake who only knows how to hurt people." Then the man just dropped.

Gin looked around the church and saw a large pile of old hues in the corner. He made his way towards the stepping over the bodies in the way. 'Well, I guess its as good a place as any'. He laid down on one of the hues and quickly fell asleep.