Chapter 17: Releasing the Darkness

Shu smiled, humming the tune Dan used to play at his flute to call Shu whenever he is lost within the crowd. Shu closed his mother's eyes and removed the knives stabbed to his mother's flesh and then next on Dan's. Shu kept singing the tune and wiped the blood and semen on her mother's thighs with a very warm cloth his mother used to wrap her son against with when he was little. As very gentle as Shu could, he wiped their faces and stroked their hair lovingly, bringing the newly bought thick blanket to cover the bodies of the two people he loved the most as he smiled dearly at them. Shu sang it for hours, humming and smiling at his seat just beside the bed, staring at his mother and friend that now lay soundly at the soft mattress. As he hummed and held their hand, he smiled and sang an eternal lullaby to his family until the night came.

He had finally hit his breaking point.

He felt blank, functioning with one goal in his mind.

Just like how calm it was before the storm, before the rage pours on, he smiles for the last time, and gently kisses the foreheads of the two people he loved the most.

"Sleep lots. Mom, Dan." As he closed the bedroom's door, all the chains of kindness has all been broken and forgotten. He picked up his black cloak and pulled the hood on top of his head, and when he walked out and stepped outside his warm home, he had tasted the feeling of the cold hurricane surging in inside him.

The rain continued to pour down from the heavens, and the hunt of Shu at the moonless night began.

"Let me take over.." Said a voice inside his head.

"Let me take over, Shu..." It spoke again.

The rocks crunched under his boot as he walked, not even blinking while the huge raindrops kept hitting at his face.

"One by one."

"One, by one, by one, by one. Everyone shall despair with me." He muttered under his breath, not showing one emotion on his face.

Shu stopped walking and turned his head to a small house lighted orange inside, smelling an unforgettable scent of a person inside it. His breath hitched and a cloud of mist mixed within the air as he exhaled. He halted in front of a certain wooden door, not even squinting the water that crawled inside his eyes from the rain. He raised his arm and knocked with weight on his fist three times.

The person inside seemed to be aware of someone's presence outside their door. The dry wood inside the little house creaked, after some times he heard the locks click and the chains jingled, a slight opening of the door hinted Shu's amethyst eyes to glow because of the light coming inside the stranger's place.

The man behind the door gasped, nearly dropping the lantern he held tightly from the face he saw. A very face so mundane yet having serious eyes looked at him, the whole person stood behind the door with a wet dripping cloak on and a very ghastly cold and pale face. The man shivered at the coldness of the wind outside the door.

To reveal who he was, this man was Shu's neighbour, the passerby he loathed for not raising even a finger to help Mayumi defend herself from the rotten hearted people who assaulted her, the man who even laughed at his circumstances and neglected to help Shu.

"G-good evening?" Greeted the man with a unsure face, thunder striking forth. So confused why this youth showed up in front of his door wearing an expressionless face, standing quietly while watching his movements.

"...."

The unsure man opened his door widely, not wanting to be seen by his neighbors for not taking in someone at this terrible weather, then he asks awkwardly. "Um.. do you want to come inside? The rain— oh." Before he even finished his sentence, Shu had already passed the man and walked inside his home, not even taking off his dripping cloak, leaving annoying drops of water at the floor.

With his chin up, he looked around slowly.

Normal, a bit dusty, but warm from fire like house. Shu roamed his eyes even more, scanning everything from the wooden floor to the leaking roof.

The man stared at the wandering boy who was eerily standing on one spot of the house, giving off bone chilling sensations not from the wind outside, but because of the atmosphere inside. "Is there something i can do—"

Shu cracked his neck and looked at a small person sitting frozen at the dinner table, a dish of bean soup in front of her chest. A little girl. The little girl stared back at the man looking at her with a dull expression giving her that something was not right about this man. Losing the staring contest, the little girl looked at her father.

"... Hey hey.. you're scaring my daughter. What do you want?!" Although the fire was present inside the man's house, the temperature inside had became even thrice colder than the downpour outside.

"Understand my pain." Said Shu.

The man blinked. "What?"

Shu raised his arm in mid air and pointed it at the little girl who started screaming at the wave of his fingers. "AAACK!!! PAPA!!!!" The girl cried out loudly, falling off the chair and helplessly trying to rip something off her throat, choking like she couldn't breath, it was a strange sight, like something that wasn't there was gripping her throat tightly.

Shu turned around and faced the panicked fac man who was trying to rush to his daughter. "I want you to understand my pain. The pain, i have, feels like im in the deepest depths of hell. The bitter and the maddening feelings, my broken heart couldn't even start to describe the despaired screams i have."

It was a terrifying sight, it was like this young man could freely manipulate the air as he wished. Just like when he does it while busking, he slowly tries to form his palm into a fist, the reaction of the little girl seemed to be accurate at the movements his fingers were making."AAAAAAAAA!!" The grip getting tighter, the girl wriggled around and gasped for air, uncontrollable tears formed at her eyes and her entire face started to change color.

"YUKA! YUKA!" Struggled her father, yet as if getting restricted to step in further, the wind around the man restrained him from running to help his daughter.

Shu raised his finger, the girl levitating up the floor, tears were seen as she choked helplessly mid air in front of her father pale faced father. "Watch your daughter die."

"Stop! Stop! STOP! What's happening?! My daughter! What are you doing to her?! Yuka!!"

"Just like how you watched my mother be drowned by her own pleas of help and died."

"P-PA- PAPA!!!"

"YUKA! YOU FUCKER! LET HER DOWN!" The man tried to attack the hooded man, but to no avail, he miserably failed.

Shu smiled with his teeth. "Why? This way, she's closer to the sky. Even closer to the heavens? You should be at least a little grateful for me, letting her have the chance to be closer to.." then he glanced his eyes to the small erected temple at the corner of the house. "..your god."

"STOP IT! SHE'LL DIE!"

"Ho?" Scoffed Shu.

"Give it up." He added.

"You wont win against me."

The man started to violently shake off the strange thing that was keeping him in place. "LET HER DOWN! SHE CAN'T BREATHE!" Like a small animal in the edge of its death, wriggling to get out of death's door, she tried to keep fighting for air that was being taken away from her.

"FUCK! YUKA! YUKA!"

"STOP!- HELP! HELP!! HELP US!"

"No one will hear you from this rain. Even if you scream, flip your lungs out, no one will come to help you. Not even the gods sitting around your room could help you when i have your most treasured possession life, dancing around my palm."

"Ho? You think I'll let you?"

"Earlier!!! Earlier! Im sorry!! is this what this is for?! Im very sorry okay!! Its just that people like us dont really have the chance to—"

"When you heard my mother screaming, did you help her?"

"I wish maybe you could've thought that what if it was your daughter that was being raped by multiple men on countless of times? That it was your precious daughter that suffered and died from a stab wound on her small teeny tiny little belly? What if it was i, the one that was passing by, who blocked your voice out and i ridiculed your cries of help?"

"Your forced apologies, would never work against me. Even if you chant a prayer of apology, you can't take back the lives I've lost because of your dawdling. And you can't take back the ones that im taking from you."

"GHAAA!! P-P PAPA!!!!!!!! ACKK!!-" When Shu's anger rose, the power that holds the girl up in the air seemed to tighten a bit more, her head was so red she looks like she would faint anytime.

"You did not listen when i was begging you to save my late mother by at least having those men pay for their sins rightfully in jail. Yet you gave in instead to your cowardice of losing, losing the justice one deserves, losing to your sins, losing your pride, and losing your face for standing up against the ridiculous law of the 'higher' rankers if you didn't win. You're too selfish."

"Its like setting a sinner to rid those who sinned."

"For the greater good."

"Trust not the human beings, trust in the laws of god."

"This is to torture your heart. For giving away the life i treasure for your selfish ways."

"Please! Mister! Please! I'll do anything you say! Just let my daughter down!"

After a long silence torn between hatred to the man and careful thinking, he spoke. "I only have two things that i have in mind."

"What.. what are those two?!"

"First, you will die, second she will come with you to the next world."

The man's face grew an expression of anger. "WHAT?! I SAID I-"

"ACK AHHHH!!!!!!!" Shu nearly closed his palm to a fist, the weak little girl's neck almost snapping goodbye.

"Are you complaining? Im not done with my conditions." Shu pierced the man's thighs that quickly made him scream and bled, red liquid flowing down at the floor. It felt like it was a cut of a dagger, a dagger made of nothing. A blade so thin and ridiculously sharp. Still, he couldn't see anything. It was like a sharp whip of the wind.

The man gripped his bleeding wound at the floor, trying to compose his words while looking at the relaxed looking young man. "Please.. spare my daughter.. She has nothing to do with this."

"She has."

Puzzled as ever, the man couldn't think of something that involves her daughter with the sad incident. "What?"

"She's your daughter." Shu added, walking over the man's body and looked down. "A cold, heartless, and evil man. Nothing will come out good out of a person like you. Either she is a good person being raised by a fucking coward and pathetic old man like you."

The daughter amazingly still fought after how long she had been in the air being choked, making Shu amazed at her will to live. "Aaah!!!! Ahhh!!! Help!! He- eughhhaa!!!-" wriggled the little girl who kept crying, snot coming out of her nose.

"But still, im not that of an evil person to rob a child's life. I still have a bit of heart stored." Shu scoffed and brought down his arm. "Very well then. I'll spare her."

The man sighed heavily, "T-thank you! Thank you very much! Im-"

"-But that doesn't mean you're safe." Butted in Shu, making the man's face pale again.

"Wh-what?"

The little girl was finally down sitting at the floor, wanting to catch her breath. "P-papa?"

The wind started to move messily inside the small house, it was like something bad was going to happen behind the smile of Shu. "Get away from here!" Yelled the father to his little girl, hesitating but decided to crawl, stand and run away.

Shu hummed a familiar song and restricted the movements of the girl who tried to run, making her fall off her balance. "No you don't."

"AAHH!!!!! AHH ACK-- IT HURTS PAPA!!"

"I've chained your heart." Shu walked over to the little girl who now gripped her chest.

The man wanted to crawl to her. "What?! What did you do to her?!"

"I dont know but, frankly, I've placed a curse your daughter." Said Shu.

"If she doesn't obey my orders, the strings strangling her heart will tighten. Eventually, if she keeps running away, disobeying, she'll have her heart crushed inside her chest."

"What?!!!"

Feeling like every word Shu just said was true, the girl looked at her father and then cried and cried. "Papa!!! Im scared!!!"

"Oh, lucky for her, she wont die a bloody death. Just a bit of chest pains and difficulty to breathe, and then suddenly die, haha."

"You dare to laugh!!!! You evil!! You!!!!-"

"-Oh don't curse me. I'll curse you back. Heh."

"And aren't you the one who's the spawn of evil here?" Shu asked the man.

"WHAT?!"

"Im just doing god's work."

Shu began to be filled with hate. As if hearing his mother's screams of agony and pain right beside his ear. He finally decided to kill off the man. "Now. Watch your father closely."

"PLEASE! DON'T KILL HIM!" Shu stopped in his tracks.

"How bright." He said.

The girl crawled despite her throat and limbs being in so much pain. She reached her father's bleeding body and hugged it. "MY DAD! SPARE MY DAD! IM SORRY! IM SO SORRY FOR WHAT MY DAD DID! DON'T KILL MY DAD! I STILL HAVE DREAMS TO FULFILL WITH HIM! PLEASE BROTHER! HAVE MERCY ON HIM! PLEASE FORGIVE MY FATHER! IM BEGGING YOU!"

a splitting image of young Shu and Yuka glitched in his eyes. Doubt started to grow as he remembered the dream Shu promised Mayumi of. 'Damn.'

"Kid." Called Shu.

"H-huh?" As nervous as she was to exchange words with a man like him, she still stood for it.

"I don't want to put an end to someone's dreams." Shu gritted his teeth and sighed.

"I want you to spend your life taking care of my mother and brother's graves."

"What?-" both the father and daughter asked.

He looked at the floor. "You and your father will carry a curse chain around your heart, and it is permanent. I order both of you to bury the body of my mother and friend at the highest hill of this land. Always protect and care for my late family's grave, every two days, provide them beautiful flowers on their graves and clean it daily until you die and pass the duty to your children who also will carry the chain curse. Simply disobey my orders, you will eventually die. Do you understand?"

A long wave of silence occurred till the little girl spoke. "H-huh?... You.... spare my father?.."

"Obey or I will pierce your heart, and tear it to pieces." Shu warned her, making both of the gasp in fear.

He turned around. Walked across the room and sealed the door shut stepping outside the orange lighted house, the rain concealing the tear he shed. 'Go and fulfill your dream.'

*

"We have a loose rapist on the run!!" Yelled Jirobu within the streets, people who had their ears perked with the sudden news stopped from walking and heads to Jirobu's spot to feed their curiousity.

Jirobu started, "The man named Shu, raped the woman who cared and housed him, he raped his own mother and stabbed her after this cruel man used the poor lady! And then brutally killed his own friend who accidentally witnessed the crime! How evil he was! Killing his own friend who treated him like a brother just so he could come clean! Shu is a demon! He's a rapist! He's an evil being!

Shu is a monster!!"