The Darker Side Of Things • [kamigami no asobi]

【PROLOGUE.】

【12:09 AM.】
Hands balled into tight fists, Luca shifted her weight from one sneaker to the other and delivered a nose-crunching punch, feeling the abrupt warmth of blood spritzing onto her knuckles. The roar of the fight echoed all around her, stinging her eardrums as she moved to round-house kick her opponent to the ground.

It was a late night rumble. Gang versus gang. Territory up for grabs, practically begging to be claimed. Luca needed to be merciless.

Her strong, spring-like legs repeatedly kicked the downed male, smashing into his ribs again and again. Her eyes---the colour of mud-sprinkled ice---stared coldly at the adult below her. Just as she raised her foot for the umpteenth time, Luca picked up the sound of shoes crunching behind her, and whirled around.

A metal pipe, stained in the crimson of her fallen comrades, was coming straight towards her. Immediately whipping her arm out, she roughly snatched the pipe right out of the other man's hands before he had the chance to beat down on her with it, and kneed him straight in the stomach. Luca crashed the pipe against the side of his head upon him crumpling to his knees and it snapped to the side with a sickening crack.

The outcome of the battle was obvious before it had even started. Her gang was going to emerge victorious. And infamously leave a heap of bodies in its wake.

With an uncaring swipe, Luca brushed her matted bangs off to the side, smearing blood and sweat across her forehead, and swung the pipe once more.

✖️

The old warehouse was bustling with noise and sick celebration. The putrid scent of alcohol and cigar smoke hung thick in the air, low cheers echoing from cracked windows and people of various ages and genders grinding upon the makeshift dance floor. Luca stood quietly outside, back pressed flat against the bricks, cigarette half-hanging out of her bruised lips as she nursed her injuries.

At the tender age of fifteen, she was already working up the ranks in her gang and was one of the best fighters in the area. Dangerous and unrelenting. A girl with a reputation lower than an earthworm in hiding. Luca wasn't one to be taken lightly. She didn't exactly take others lightly either.

She exhaled deeply, releasing a loose stream of smoke into the air. She was exhausted; limbs achy and hurting, stomach growling like no tomorrow, and eyes darkly-rimmed with bags that she was honesty too young to have.

"Hey baby, yous be lookin' mighty finneee," slurred the voice of a drunk brunette, stumbling half-naked just around the corner from where Luca stood.

"Get the fuck out of here," she said without so much as a blink, letting out another puff of her cigarette. The drunk got the message and made a gruff retreat. Seems as though he didn't have a death wish. Good for him.

Shoving her hands into thrift-store hoodie pockets (that desperately needed a wash), Luca began to walk off, away from the not-so abandoned warehouse and the obnoxious partying currently going on. She didn't know what, but something was calling her. Like, an inner instinct of some kind. It was strange, but she couldn't resist following it.

Soon, she weaved her way through the maze of slummy alleyways and graffitied buildings, following a nonexistent path towards what her gang called the Wasteland. Because it was, a legit wasteland. A dump. Filled with mountains of garbage and piles upon piles of trash.

Trudging through rotting newspaper articles, Luca stopped abruptly in front of a large, extremely rusted statue. Who the statue was exactly, she didn't know. Perhaps some olden-days figurehead of some kind? Luca never went to school, so she was clueless about these sorts of things.

Her eyes stared intently at the statue---it was glowing. Vividly glowing.

"...What the hell..."