SCREEEECH!
The tires of a Toyota car screeched against the hard ground, and it sped down the road. It ignored traffic rules, stop signs, and even traffic lights.
The man in the car held the steering wheel tightly, his hands trembled, his eyes wavered, and sweat dripped down his body like he just finished running a marathon.
Even his breathing was heavy.
He glanced at his side view mirror, and he saw a motorcycle cycle speeding down the road, hot on his trail.
"Damn! Damn!! Damn!!!" He stomped on the accelerator, and the car's engine roared, disappearing into the night like a blur.
But the motorcycle caught to him easily, and in the blink of an eye, it was side by side with the car.
"You won't catch me that easily bounty hunter!" He pulled out his gun from his holster, aimed it at the motorcycle out the window, and unloaded its magazine.
The man driving the motorcycle leaned his body and skillfully maneuvered the bike around the speeding car. Without slowing down, he aimed for a rising ledge ahead, the tires hit it hard before the motorcycle soared upward, carrying him high into the sky.
He drew his guns from the holsters strapped to his legs, and the metal gleamed under the moonlight as he raised them. With steady hands, he aimed down at the car below and pulled the triggers, unleashing several rapid shots that echoed through the air.
The bullets pierced the tires, bursting them with loud pops that echoed on the road. The car shook and rocked as the driver lost control, swerving forward in a rough skid.
A moment later, it tipped over and flipped onto its side, crashing hard against the ground. It rolled down the street again and again. It's metal body screeching and glass shattering until it finally slowed to a broken stop.
The man on the bike landed beside the wrecked car, the tires screeching as he pressed the brakes. He leaned forward, steadying the motorcycle until it slowed and came to a complete stop.
"Hmph." He scoffed, and threw his legs over the bike. "That landing was a bit rough."
"Hm?" Before he could completely detest his poor landing skills, the man in the car crawled out through the broken windows.
He was injured, but not so much that he'd need medical attention.
The man sighed dramatically and put his gun back in it's holster, then he walked towards him.
"Huh?" The man in the car stuttered as the bounty hunter came into view, then his eyes went wide as the moonlight cast a glow on the bounty hunter's face. "A kid?"
He turned to his left, then immediately to his right, searching for the unknown. "Where's the bounty hunter that took me down?" He asked immediately, refusing to believe that he was bested by a mere kid.
"You're looking at him." The kid replied coldly, then raised his firearm at the man.
"Impossible..." He refused to believe a kid brought him down. "I was taken down by a mere kid? Impossible! Unless..." His eyes widened in shock, then he realized who the person standing in front of him was.
"Y-You're!"
BANG!
The boy pulled the trigger, and a bullet shot right through the man's skull with a splat, and he dropped dead to the ground.
Without a care for the life he had taken, the boy reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and made a call.
"It's done. Make the required transaction as promised." As he cut the transmission line, sirens filled the air, and it became his signal to leave.
He climbed his motorcycle, and with the loud roar of his engine, he disappeared into the night.
An hour passed since the murder, and the boy arrived at a large mansion that stretched endlessly across the valleys. It was a large mansion that was built atop a cliff that rose above a large vegetative grounds.
Just below the cliff, a forest of trees stretched endlessly into the distance, and the night crickets had already begun their anti melodic tune.
"Welcome back master Sai, your father has been awaiting your return." As the boy — Sai, pulled off his helmet, a congregation of butlers all dressed in a $1000 suit lined up in front of the mansion's entrance door.
They left a space wide enough for Sai to pass through.
"Father's been waiting for me?" He placed his helmet into the bike's side mirror, then walked past the butler who followed immediately behind him.
One by one, the congregation of butlers followed suite, forming two straight lines behind him as they made their way into the mansion.
"This way master Sai." The head butler led him into the large dining room of the mansion, and Sai found his father — a 40 year old man with a neatly packed white hair, a carefully trimmed white beards, and dressed in a sleek black shirt, seated at the far end of the table that stretched 10 meters across the room.
Also, several children all around his age and women sat by the sides of the table. They were all one big family.
"Sai." He picked up his napkin, and gently tapped his mouth with it. "You're back." He said.
Sai sat down after a gesture from his father, and the butlers lined up at the two sides of the table. "I hear you've been waiting for me."
"Well, after the confirmed transaction made thirty minutes ago, there was no longer a doubt needless to say. But I want to know, how was it?" His father dropped his cutlery, and focused all his attention at his story like it was his most prized possession.
"I took the the Russian mafia as requested, but the mafia leader managed to snatch a car and get away from me. But I chased him down and killed him."
"I see." A smile curled up his father's lips. "As the heir to the family's business, your growth is outstanding, behold! The one who is to stand above all! The one who will lead the Matasuragis in all it's glory! My very own son, Sai!"
A loud applause erupted in the dining room, his siblings all cheered for him, because just like their father said, he was the successor they all acknowledged.
As the cheers went on, a pair of eyes peeked in through the door, and it went wide as it saw Sai.
Those set of eyes belonged to the youngest son of the Matasuragi family — Kazuki Matasuragi.
"Thank you father, I'm just trying to do what's best for the business." Sai stood to his feet, feeling a bit tired. "But that last mission took a lot out of me, with your permission, can I skip dinner for the night."
"Of course." His father acknowledged his request.
With a nod, he walked out of the room and headed to his bedroom.
"Congrats Big Brother." A voice said behind him.
"Huh?" Sai turned around, and to his greatest surprise, it was his step brother, Kazuki Matasuragi.
"What the hell are you doing here? And who gave you the right to speak to me?" This was what Sai felt like saying to his own brother. He considered him a burden. He was a bounty hunter of low standards, and his skills pale in comparison to his.
"What is it?" He asked with a rude tone in his voice.
"I just wanted to congratulate you brother." Kazuki said, feeling the annoyance rising in his voice.
"Your efforts to congratulate me are commendable, but I do not need them from you." He said disdainfully.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kazuki asked.
"It means your congrats is irrelevant to him." A voice came from behind them, and they turned to see their father standing behind them both.
"He needs nothing someone as useless as yourself." He disgraced his own son.
Their father never considered Kazuki a true son of his ever since he figured out he did not inherit the Matasuragi's traits from him. Ever since he regarded him as an unplanned event.
"The Matasuragi family is unfortunate to have someone like you born into it, now we have to live with the shame." He added.
"And why?" Kazuki asked, he was fed up having heard the same thing over and over again.
"Sure I didn't inherit our family's skills and so what!? No matter how hard I try you still fail to see what I've managed to accomplish even without those talents. I've worked my way up to where I am today and you still fail to acknowledge my efforts father!" He shouted with teary eyes.
SLAP!
His father struck him with a swift backhand, sending him crashing into the wall and showing just how strong he was.
"Who do you think you are to raise your voice at me? Who do you think you are to judge me?" He became furious.
"If you cannot learn discipline, I'll teach it to you." His father approached him as he fell to his knees, spitting out saliva from the impact with the wall.
"Father, are you certain you want to waste your time on the likes of him? Today's supposed to be a celebration of my accomplishments, let's not allow him to spoil it." Sai words immediately stopped his father from carrying out his plans.
"Your right, it would be a waste of my time." His father turned the other way and both of them left the hall.
One by one, his siblings and stepmothers came out of the dining room after hearing the commotion, and they immediately gave a disgusted look at him.
"He's causing another scene."
"He doesn't have to show how useless he is every single day."
"Come on Sarah, it's a bad omen to be near him."
Their words didn't reach him. This was the last straw. He was broken, beaten and left for scrap. His father's enhanced strength knocked out at least three tooth from his mouth, his eyes were bruised and he could barely see.
Deep beneath his clothing, scar tissues of unimaginable length and size scattered across his body, and he barely felt any strength left in him.
In a world where individual strength was everything, Sai was the strongest bounty hunter. But Kazuki? He wasn't exactly the worst bounty hunter, but compared to his other siblings — he was the weakest amongst all.
His father's observational skills, athleticism, peak human conditioning, his raw natural talents for fighting and most importantly — his battle IQ.
While his other siblings from different mothers inherited at least one or two of this genes, Kazuki inherited none. And no matter how hard he trained his body, how hard he increased his perception, there were heights he couldn't obtain.
And because of it, his father discarded the thoughts of him as a son. He resented his mother who died an untimely death, detested Kazuki, and referred to him as a waste of reproduction.
His eyes wavered, tears rolled down his cheeks as all he had ever hoped for was his father's love, his acknowledgement. But he wasn't going to take this anymore, with his mother gone he had no else. And the only ones he could refer to as a family maltreated him in the worst way possible.
He returned to his room — a tiny space that wasn't enough to be even called a storage unit. He sat on his bed, eyes glued to the ceiling.
「In a world where bounty hunters were at the top of their game, there were hunters who were at the pinnacle of bounty hunting.
And one of those hunters was the legend of the Matasuragi family— The Dreaded Hunter Barou, the founder of the Matasuragis.
For decades, he trained his offsprings, taught them everything he knew and passed down all his knowledge, hoping to create another legend until one day, a prodigy was born.
My brother — Sai.
A year after his birth, the first toy he picked up on his own was a fucking knife, and in that moment, his father knew there was something special about him. He dedicated his life to training him, despite all the wives he married and kids he birthed.
Sai was the best amongst them all, his name translated, literally meant the strongest, and truly he was, and nd he was also my most favorite sibling.
But me? I wasn't particularly the weakest bounty hunter in history, but in my family, I was the one who didn't inherit any of my father's talents. But even without my father's acknowledgement, my life was still a bit cheerful.
Till one day...
My mother died.
Her death changed everything, Sai became cold... Distant. I had to drop out of school because Mom was the only one who bothered to develop ny future, and now that she's dead, everything changed. Not anymore.」
He stood to his feet, wiped the tears off his face and glared at the little storage box at the corner of the room. "Not again, it all ends today."