Black Stained Winter: Chapter 10 - "Skirmish Above The City"

“Ugh,” a man’s grunt can be heard under the moonlight. Two day has passed since he fought with his contract and lost. Yes, he hate to admit it but he lost. He, a trained assassin, lost in a battle to a barehanded homeless man.

He slowly lifts his head and look around. He’s still there. He’s still in the park where he fought the homeless man. He’s still in his trademark white hooded jacket from that day. In fact, he hadn’t got the chance to change. Right after he managed to escaped, he passed out. Luckily for him, he fell in a secluded part of the park thus no one found him.

The assassin stands slowly and leans his back to the nearest tree. His body hurts all over. Everytime he breaths, he feels pain on his chest. He slowly run his hands on his chest. A sudden sharp pain tells him that his ribs are broken. The punch from the Hobo must’ve been so powerful to be able to broke his ribs easily.

He pushes himself away from the tree using his right hand when suddenly pain strikes his arm. It looks like his right arm is slightly fractured. He tries to move his arm around and decided the damage isn’t too bad unless it takes some strain.

After feeling that he’ll be able to walk for some distance, he goes through the shrubs into the concrete pathway that connected to the main street. As he walks, he rummages his pocket and found some money in it. He needs those to get something to eat for he hasn’t eat anything for two days. 

The night is still young and the street is still filled with commuting people. The road is busy with cars going in both directions stopping only when the traffic lights turn red. The assassin in white walks among the crowds, eyes scouring trying to find place to eat.

He walks his legs toward the first place that catch his attention. A well-known fast food chain. He walks through the automatic door and get into the line. The place is crowded and noisy. No wonder, it’s dinner time. People look toward him as he enter the place with slight annoyance. It seems they’re not comfortable with his appearance covered in dirt and some hints of blood here and there.

“Hey, how are you? Bad day?” The young guy manning the register politely asks as soon as the assassin comes to the counter.

“Yeah, something like that,” his answer come out sounds tired.

The cashier catches the hints and decided to not engage this customer with idle chit chat, “So, dine in or take away?”

The hungry man looks over his shoulder. He prefers to eat in the crowds, blending it. The crowds provide passive defense. He’d looks less suspicious in the middle of people and harder to find. But, in this particular time, that is not the case. With his battered looks and  messed up appearance complete with dirt and blood, he would stand out instead. People attentions will be drawn to him and make it more easier to find him.

“Yeah, I don’t think dine in would be a good idea,” he signalling the cashier to his appearance.

“Um, yeah, I agree with you on that. So, what’s the order then?”

He orders two biggest burgers the place has and a pack of fries. He pays it and as soon as the order’s ready he grabs it and walks through the exit. As soon as he exit the building, he opens his brown paper bag and grabs a burger. Without wasting any moment he opens the paper wrap and chow the burger down. He’s so hungry and the taste of food on his mouth is exhilarating.

The man keeps eating down his burger and finishes right in front of an old hotel. It’s the place where he stays in this city. The hotel looks run-down and slightly dirty with walls covered in graffiti. The street where it is located is dimly lit. Some homeless people can be found resting in the dark alleys. This area perhaps what’s considered as the slum of the city.

The assassin enters his room in the top floor of that old hotel and locks the door behind him. His body feels heavy and really need a nice rest. But, before that he need to get cleaned and satisfy his growling stomach first. 

He puts the paper bag on the table near the window and reaches inside to grabs a handful of fries. Some pieces of fries fallout from his hand as he shove them into his mouth. Feeling bad wasting food, he bends down to picks the fries.

*crash*

Out of nowhere, something flies in really fast from outside the room through the window and barely misses the assassin’s head. It penetrates and leave a small hole and cracks on the window. The assassin instinctively ducks and hide below the window. He looks at the floor and founds a bullet stuck on the wooden floor.

Black Stained Winter: Chapter 9a - "Spearman's Sisters"

Author's Note: This chapter 9 was written in mistake and thus is non-canon to the story since it is located in a wrong timeline. You can read the correct and canon chapter 9 here. For more information what's wrong with this exact chapter, you could read about it here. This chapter is still online for the sake of completion.

When he opens the door to his room, Ren sees a pair of woman boots still lined up tidily inside near the wall. That’s mean that his older sister is still there.

“Ren, is that you?” A nice and gentle voice of a woman comes from inside the room.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Ren removes his boots, puts it near the wall tidily besides his sister’s boots, and proceed to enter the room. 

Inside, washing her hands on the sink is a pretty woman in a light blue sweater and gray skinny jeans. Her slightly wavy dark brown hair is tied up in a ponytail, showing off her white neck. Her face is framed with her bangs that fall down to the both side of her face. A white framed oval glasses add a refined feels to her looks. She’s Elizabeth, Ren’s older sister.

Ren walks to the bedside and looks at the unconscious young woman. She looks much better than when he left this morning. He was thrown out from his own room by his sister when she decided that she needed to remove the wounded girl clothes to treat her wounds.

“Ren!” Elizabeth looks surprised when she turn her head to Ren as he come in. She sees a long slice wound on Ren’s abdomen. Not just that, there’s also several light wounds here and there. She quickly turns off the faucet and approaches Ren. “What happened this time?” She squats to take a closer look of the wound. Her face shows concern.

“Come on, Elie. This is not that bad.”

“Not that bad? This cut is quite deep. A little deeper and you’d be bringing your insides back home in your bag.”

“Yeah, I was lucky I guess.”

“There’s no such thing as lucky when you run headfirst into stuff that could kill you,” Elie stands and walks to get her bag on the small table, “You sit tight there. I’ll treat it in a moment.”

“Thanks, but I can treat this on my own.”

“Shush! Hear your sister, will you? Or you want me to slap that wound of you and leave you bleeding here to death?”

“Ugh… Alright, alright,” Ren complies to his sister’s order after he briefly recalls the grisly moment when he refused to be treated by her. He walks to the window and sits under it. Elie then sits in front of him with her bag full of medical equipment.

Black Stained Winter: Chapter 8 - "Impasse"

The sun is reaching its peak, yet it still feels somewhat chill thanks to the winter breeze. It was just last night that Ren met the infamous Hobo and fight a demon. It was just last night that he brought an injured demon girl back to his place to treat her injuries. And it was just this morning that he met the city mayor face to face for the first time. And now, he’s here. Someplace just outside the city. Located in the hill and surrounded by curtains of trees. Sweat flowing down through his forehead, blood dripping from his right arm, and breath are rushing in and out of his lungs. His hand gripping his spear tightly, his legs are tense, ready to react in a moment notice, his eyes focused at the enemy in front of him. A man in a black suit of armor.

It’s been a while now since Ren and this man battled, but it looks like a winner is yet to be determined. Both men are strong; both men are skilled. Every strikes are almost always readable and every hits are countered. The previously normal landscape is now filled with loose rocks and craters from the intense battle between these two men.

And now, they both stand at a distance from each other, eyes locked to the opponent before them while still catching their breath. This battle is exhausting for them; they never fight anyone with equal strength before. Now they need to be careful with their movement. The first one who makes a mistake will be the first one to kiss the ground.

Then, at the same time, both armed men dashed forward. The armored man slashes horizontally and create an invisible blade that moves forward in high speed. Yet, Ren’s reaction is faster. He jumps over the invisible blade and follows with a strong thrust with his spear toward the armored man. For a split moment Ren’s jade colored spear acts as if it increases in length and in almost an instant almost hit its target.

The man does a quick sidestep to avoids getting impaled and manages to dodge the elongated spear. But, it’s not actually increases in length. Ren’s attack is simply traverse way longer than the tip of his spear and leaving greenish trail in its wake. To the untrained eyes, this looks as if the spear itself getting longer and hit the ground before instantly revert back to its original length.

The man himself is barely dodge the attack. The attack was so fast that it still scratch his shoulder. But that doesn’t hinder his movement. Right after the dodge, he jumps up toward Ren and do an upward slash with his sword.

Black Stained Winter: Chapter 7 - "Emptiness"

With enough force, Ren pushes the armored man’s sword with his spear and swiftly delivers a quick kick to his abdomen. The man thrown backward several meters but still able to keep his balance to avoid falling down.

“I can handle this, Rick,” Ren tells Rick when he sees Rick is about to enter fighting stance, “Just go inside and get Tama out.” Rick looks hesitant at first but soon break out from his stance and runs straight toward the door where the armored man came out. 

“Not so fast!” The man raises his arms over his head with his blade facing forward parallel to the ground. With tremendous speed he swings it hard toward the path where Rick will be in a few moment. The armored man is far from Rick, yet his slashing sword creates an invisible blade that move towards his target in a great speed. This invisible blade is powerful enough to leave the earth scarred in its wake.

Rick notices the trail created by the invisible blade and abruptly trying to stop. He was running too fast that it is hard to suddenly stop. It is remarkable how the man able to calculate Rick’s speed and the speed of his sword slash; the invisible blade passes Rick only mere several centimeters in front of him just right when he’s able to stop. If he failed to stop in time his fate would be similar to the now splitted rows of trees.

“That was way too close to be comfortable.”

“I won’t let you two go any further,” the armored man enters a ready stance, facing sideways to Ren with his sword being held low pointing to the ground with his right hand concealed behind his body.