In the wake of the Summit War, a yōkai hunter negotiates a pact between her clan and the Heart Pirates. The alliance is fragile from the start, but things are complicated further when her tenuous relationship with the Surgeon of Death takes an unexp...
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Horiki opened his grasp over the guard's face, letting the body crash to the ground at his feet with a decisive thud. Tossing aside the final emptied fuel jug he bore in his other hand, the man stretched his back with all the carefreeness of an amateur gymnast having completed a circuit, then leaned his weight over the railing to admire his work. From his perch atop this uppermost walkway, he had a clear vantage of the warehouse. The ground floor was massive, sprawling outwards to accommodate rows upon rows of freight containers stacked atop one another, casting gargantuan shadows which eclipsed the aisles in between. The lights sparked and sputtered sporadically overhead, only managing to cast flickering snapshots of the bullet holes riddling the walls, the puddles of blood and spilt fuel gleaming from the floor in undulating ribbons.
"I was hoping he'd have stationed one or two of his officers here," Horiki mused aloud, a note of petulance bleeding into his voice. "But nope. Looks like I've run out of playmates again."
With a small sigh, he toed the lifeless lump at his feet before casting a cursory glance over his shoulder at the heap of bodies piled behind him.
"Boring.... so boring! And this time, it isn't like I can expect Vergo-san to drop a call... Even that fisherman chap would've been something. Hmph."
Horiki clicked his tongue in annoyance, before firmly grasping the railing and vaulting over the edge. He sprung easily off the nearest stack of cargo containers, before dropping noiselessly to one of the aisles on ground level.
"Might as well get this over with then."
He continued to mutter to himself as he proceeded down the darkened passage, footsteps ringing crisp and lethal against worn cement. All around him were littered human bodies in various states of physical devastation - some already rendered stiff and motionless, some begging and moaning and whimpering in their dying throes, some groping about with blind and stilted motions in search of weapons that had long been felled, the same crude tools which had failed them so spectacularly in the preceding onslaught.
Overhead, the lights continued to gutter, sparks raining down in bursts of spontaneity as the damaged bulbs continued to flare out, one by one. Paying no heed, Horiki maintained a meandering pace down the aisle, humming a mindless tune beneath his breath as he followed the gasoline trail towards the front entrance.
He paused in his tracks, tilting his head as a noisy clatter sounded from the darkness to his right. A humanoid shape presently groped its way out from the shadows, shoulders trembling violently with every raspy breath it drew in. The colors of the attire hanging off that skeletal husk were difficult to perceive through the darkness, but it was evident by the hard helmet he wore that he was - soon to be had been, Horiki reflected - one of the warehouse workers who'd been caught up in the slaughter. His spine had clearly been broken, if the way the entire lower half of his body dragged uselessly behind him served as any indication. Only a single bloodshot eye glinted past skeins of matted hair drooping over the worker's brow, an angry red hollow nestled in the spot where the other should have been.
