Chapter two: The Hunt.

"Please, man!"

"Nah." Haru shook his head to the sides, feeling like he had somehow fucked up with the way he had decided to handle this spirit.

"Oh, come on! Teach me!" The same perverted spirit he had managed to escape from the last time was now pestering him relentlessly, without pause. 

The spirit had followed him the moment he took a single step inside the school, asking him again and again about the technique he had used to 'vanish'.

"Like I said, I'd rather not." Haru repeated, a tired sigh escaping his lips when he got another wave of weird looks from the students near him. 

Yeah, he was not about to make some new friends from the looks of it. Not like he cared much about it though.

Haru rested his back against a tree, intending to make good use of the minutes he had left from the short break.

"Go pester someone else." Haru muttered with his eyes still closed, despite the fact the ghost had grown quiet he could still sense him. "I have no business with a perverted spirit like you, go spy on some school girls and leave me alone."  

"Asshole." 

It's not like he could even teach him such a thing, that high-speed technique was most likely unique to him, he guessed.

"..." Haru remained silent, a sigh of relief escaping his lips when he sensed the presence of the ghost vanish. "He's given up at last, that's good."

The bell rang, signaling for all students that the break time was over. Haru however did not even flinch, still resting on that same tree as he relaxed against it, his mind thinking about what he would do after school. 

'That shithead ruined the mood…' He trailed off, his mind searching for any sort of excuse to tempt him to skip class. 

His stomach roared in response to his thoughts, almost as if asking him to fill it with whatever food he could get.

'That's true…' He thought, standing up from the dirt and dusting off his school uniform. 'I overslept and didn't get to eat much.'

When thinking about how to get rid of both his hunger and boredom, one location came to his mind.

'I could do some hunting…' He added as if to reinforce his thoughts; his heart began beating faster in response. It had been a while since he had allowed himself to go wild against 'them'.

It took him no longer than a handful of seconds of pondering about it to come to a decision, the easiest decision of his life.

"It's decided, then…" His smirk turned predatory for a split second. "Unagiya Shop, it is."

Haru did a quick check up of his surroundings, he looked behind him, left and right, but he found no one around the area, most students having rushed to their classes.

The same green light from before began oozing out of his shoes, a circle of that pale light surrounded him for an instant before he, much like before, disappeared.

[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]

Travelling at inhumane speeds is a sensation difficult to describe, it gets disorienting enough as it is, but when one adds manipulation of souls on top of it, it becomes all the more difficult.

The serotonin rush one gets from it though, that is unmatched, I can vouch for that. I smirked, rushing through street after street too fast for a human to see, right until I reached my destination. 

I came to a fast but still controlled stop right in front of a two storey building, a staircase outside of it leading me directly to the second floor. 

There, right next to the entrance a sign I had read one too many times before welcome me, written in a bright yellow colour: 

[Unagi Shop: Cheap! Fast! Reliable! We'll take on anything, from cat-sitting to finding missing people!]

'Three seconds.' I checked the time on my phone and smiled at what I saw. I had covered around three or so kilometers in that amount of time, not bad, not bad at all.

"..."

Having supernatural powers does come useful from time to time, that's for sure. Right, I forgot to mention that, didn't I?

I am a bit of a freak; born able to see spirits, to feel souls and, might I add, to manipulate them. That's what I did back there.

Most humans assume souls are limited to living beings, but that's not true. Rocks, objects, the ground itself, you name it, it has a soul. 

What I did back there was, in essence, to manipulate the souls of whatever was around my feet and it allowed me to accelerate way past what should have been possible. 

I knocked on the door, waiting for a response as I tried to somewhat fix my hair, the force of the wind had managed to mess it up even more so than usual. 

"Ah, a client…!" I smiled at the faint sounds I managed to catch from outside the shop, how I missed this place. "Welcome to Unagi Sh…"

The moment the door opened, the sight of a beautiful woman greeted me; a tall, curvaceous and fair-skinned woman with raven hair tied on a ponytail to her side.

She was wearing a white shirt with pink sleeves, tight black pants and rubber boots. I sure wasn't about to complain about that.

"Yo." I waved at her, doing my absolute best to look somewhat decent. "Missed me?"

Yeah, I'm into older women. How could you tell? 

"Oh… Haru-chan, it's been a while." Ikumi blinked, looking somewhat taken aback by my presence. "Shouldn't you be in high-school right now?"

"I should, but nevermind that, let's talk inside." I replied, waving off her concerns. Ikumi stared at me for a moment, but soon enough managed to come to a decision and showed me in.

Both of us walked inside the shop, finding ourselves in an average looking office with a comfortable couch inside.

I was quick to sit down on it, that tree back in school was far from the ideal resting spot after all. 

"Man, I missed this…" I muttered, laying on the couch like it was my own personal bed. "Can't wait for summer vacations, I wanna work here again."

Back in summer I had helped her out with the requests I found interesting, she was short on staff around the store after all, plus the odd jobs here had been perfect for me. I am quite the problem solver after all.    

"You sure don't change…" I heard Ikumi mutter, and I glanced towards her just in time to watch her sit on her chair. "You here to skip high-school and sleep on my couch while I work?"

"Hm… Sounds like a plan." I mused, picturing the scene in my mind, I sat up just a little so I could make eye contact with her. "It ain't exactly the ideal date, but I'm sure we can work something out."

"You…!" I managed to dodge a flying book at the last second, the book missing me by mere inches. "Again with these jokes!? You should try flirting with a girl who isn't over twice your age!"

Ikumi bared her teeth at me, an annoyed look in her face as I gave her a smug smile in return. 

"No date, then?" Again, I dodged a book at the last second. Right when I was about to give her another smirk, a pile of papers hit me straight in the face.

"No date!" I heard Ikumi yell back at me as I tried not to drown in the sea of papers all over me. "Tch… You are already here anyway, so I might as well put you to work." 

"Hm?" I stood up at last, the mountain of papers spreading all across the wooden table next to the couch. "These are all requests…?"

I scanned the papers scattered around the table, each one of them describing all kinds of different requests and jobs. 

"You collecting these or what?" I asked, half expecting her to throw another book at me. However, she did not.

"It's been… Hard." Ikumi said in reply, pointing with her chin towards the door leading to her house. "I would like to do some more, but I have a son to take care of; I barely have time as things are right now." 

"Yeah, I can see that." I muttered back at her, reading through the papers in search of anything unusual. "There's nothing too interesting though…"

"... Oh?" I paused, my gaze settling on a specific request. 

"What is it?" Ikumi leaned closer to me, peaking over my shoulder at the paper I had just picked up. "Found something interesting?"

"Yeah… I believe so."

 [Ghost scares away construction workers. Get rid of it!] 

I read the title out loud for her and I had to admit, the job sounded exactly like what I needed.  

I am not one to ask unnecessary questions but it is rather interesting that whoever issued this request was somehow aware of the fact spirits existed in the first place.

'I don't think it's one of those monsters, but…' I thought, memorizing the request's details as I made up my mind. 'If anything, it should prove entertaining.' 

"I'm taking this one." I told her, storing the paper as I stood up from the couch. "You call them and tell them we are taking the job, I'll be back soon."

"You sure…? Whatever, if that's what you want…" Ikumi said, no doubt thinking this one was but another of those prank requests that make us waste time. "Take care, Haru-chan."

"Will do." I waved at her and left through the front door, closing the door as I left the building. 

"Now then…" I trailed off, looking through the details. "Mashiba's second district, is it?"

[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]

"Let's see…" I looked up towards the one building around the area that looked somewhere between abandoned and under construction. "It fits the description, should be around here…"

The building itself looked like a half-done factory, which to be fair was most likely what the place was.

I walked inside without giving it too much thought, the entrance wasn't even blocked so it's not like I wasn't supposed to go in.

'The ceiling isn't even finished…' I noted, even from the ground level there were still some rays of sun illuminating the inside of the building.

It was right then and there that I felt it, the spirit who no doubt was responsible for scaring some of the construction workers. 

"Ah, he's here." I looked up as I felt its presence. I had been sensing it for a while now but it was difficult to pinpoint its precise location. 

It's not unheard of for spirits to attempt and hide from me, so that was probably what was happening here. 

The same green light gathered below me as it illuminated the building even further, I looked up towards the very top of the three store building and smiled. 

Without hesitation, I jumped. 

Landing on top of the third floor, I arrived right below the incomplete ceiling on the rather unstable looking floor and began scanning my surroundings.

'It should be somewhere around here…' It was then that I was able to spot it, a grieving spirit with a long chain coming out of his chest.

The chain itself was tied around one of the columns, holding him down and making him incapable of moving more than a few inches.

It was a man, he looked to be around his mid-fifties, tall and strong looking for someone his age.

'Oh…? It's one of those.' I realized; it had not been the first time I had met one of these spirits. 

This kind of spirit is bound to a place that used to carry some sort of emotional weight when they used to be alive.

'Gotcha.' I thought, satisfied. 

The spirit was chained down to one of the walls still under construction, weeping and sobbing, quite the fragile emotional state for a ghost.

I walked closer to the spirit, close enough to make him able to spot me but not so much as to be within touching distance.

"Huh." I pursed my lips, my gaze locked onto the small black hole in the middle of the spirit's chest. "That's interesting."

The chain itself was attached to the hole and it still remained somewhat incomplete, it looked almost like a half moon. 

I knelt near the man, somewhat fascinated by the sight of how his skin seemed to be peeling off near the incomplete hole.

"It's a bit unusual but…" I muttered, this was the first case I had seen of this nature, most of the spirits of this kind I had encountered had almost fully developed holes in them.  

"Y-You… You are t-talking to m-me?" I heard the spirit ask, his voice hesitating mid-sentence as if too scared to hear the answer. 

"No." I replied, not even blinking as the spirit began fighting against his bindings in a desperate attempt to escape from the chains. "I'm not talking to you." 

"W-What…? S-Still, t-that was a response.. You c-can see me t-then." The spirit rationalized, hope filling his orbs for an instant as he signaled to his chains. "P-Please take this off!"

"Hm… You want me to get this out?" I asked him, my hand reaching to the spot where his chain connected with the black hole. 

The spirit winced the moment I made contact with the chain, it was clear that specific spot was more than a little painful to him.

"N-No… Don't touch that!" The spirit raised his voice, agitated as he was fast to correct himself. "U-Untie m-me, that's what I meant!"

"And why should I do that?" I pulled harder on his chain, the frail skin connected to the hole began peeling off as I applied even more force. "You are of no use to me like that… You need to transform, so hurry up and become a monster." 

The spirit began screaming in pain, and I couldn't help but smirk at the sight of the dark hole becoming bigger and bigger.

"You would have turned into one of these things regardless… Yes, this is mercy" I added, almost as an afterthought.  "I am helping here, shortening the suffering to no more than a handful of seconds."

This weak spirit was of no use to me, not as he was right now. I needed him to turn, to turn into one of those mindless monsters and fight me. 

"Sorry." I apologized, though my tone made little to hide the fact I was far from feeling any sort of regret. "It's a bad habit of mine, you see? To fight man-devouring beasts that thirst on souls…" 

"You don't even understand how much fun that is." I yanked the chain once again, this time with enough force to tear all the skin around his hole off.

"GRAAAAAAAAAH." The spirit screamed, no, it roared, its voice having turned animalistic right at the end of its desperate howl. 

I watched in fascination as the spirit's human skin began cracking, threatening to break down into pieces much like a damaged porcelain doll. 

Cracking, roaring and convulsing like it had lost its mind, the spirit began to shine as an orange light enveloped it.

Then it vanished, leaving nothing but its howls echoing as the light swallowed him. It didn't faze me though, this was part of the process, the last part of the process in fact.

"..." I glanced upwards, feeling a spike of energy above me as I looked towards the very top of the building.

There, a demonic-like beast glanced at me with its bright orange orbs the size of dinner plates, standing on four limbs, it had brown skin and a white mask covering its face. 

"Hm… Yeah, this will do." I said to it, though I was almost certain the thing could no longer comprehend me. "You have some nice 'presence' there. I'll be taking it, all of it."

The monster growled at me, and I did nothing but smirk in return, time was ticking after all, I wanted to make it home before I got scolded.

"I am on a tight schedule, you see." I offered the monster the widest, most childish, innocent smile I could muster. "I don't wanna make her wait too much, she's quite a moody woman."

End of chapter two.