Yuma stood there frozen, not of fear but of hatred. The man who took his mother stood before him. He had no clue why, but it was likely he was there to kill him. Staring with resolve, he tightened his fists, his blood running hard, his body enhanced to a new level he hadn't reached during his training.
"You." He growled through his gritted teeth.
The man looked at him, his face obscured by the shadow of his hood, and stood silently. The sky behind him grew darker every passing minute. Yuma, annoyed by the lack of action from him, charged at him fast enough to push winds audibly to any bystanders close enough to hear. The man, unfortunately, was faster. Almost instantly, he appeared behind him. Yuma couldn't understand how he was so fast. In his view, he was there one moment, and the next, he was charging into the air. Now he knew exactly how dangerous the man actually was. Turning his head behind, the man stood there with his back facing him.
"You aren't strong enough," he stated, holding back a giggle.
His voice was deep, nearly spent as if he spent his day screaming at the top of his lungs. It wasn't a pleasant voice either, but rather that of someone psychotic and arrogant. To Yuma, it was like he was taunting him not by his words but by merely speaking to him. Turning fully to face, Yuma took on a fighting stance. The man didn't bother to turn and simply looked over his shoulder to look at him. Yuma saw something in the shadow that made his skin crawl. He was smiling. He was smiling so wide he could see his molar teeth.
"You think you could fight me?" He softly chuckled to himself.
Yuma didn't respond, his eyes burning with hatred. The killing intent Yuma exerted could be comparable to a soldier surrounded by his enemies, willing to throw his life to take them with him in death. However, it seemed to just amuse the man. In a matter of seconds, the man was in his face, looking down at him.
"I would torture you slowly before I killed you had I wanted it." He barked out, almost breaking into laughter.
"But no, I won't." He punctuated, suddenly losing the laughing tone.
The next second was a blur to Yuma; he had already found himself slouched on the ground against the wall surrounding a home. He hadn't even seen his hand raised to hit him; no matter how willing he was to throw his life away, he was in no position to even force his foot to drag along the ground. If he wasn't enhancing his body's durability, he knew he would've been killed right there. Looking at the man with blurred vision, he tried to speak but failed. Gather whatever strength he had after being hit so hard, he tried to speak again.
"Wh-who are... You, " he managed to groan out weakly.
The man, satiated by the damage he had done to him, simply smiled wider somehow. Slowly, he took his hood off, revealing himself to Yuma, knowing he really couldn't make him out.
"HA! You're finding out the gap of power between us, and you're still trying to figure me out!" He laughed out, finding his will to take him down funny.
"Fine, I like the tenacity, and I'll humor you..." He took a breath before continuing.
"My name is Killian. Killian Shelby, but to you, your devil incarnate." He concluded with a sickening look on his face.
Yuma tried committing his face to his memory, but his vision made it hard to see it properly. All he could really see was the wide scar that ran from his forehead down to his chin. Just before he lost consciousness, Yuma pushed out one last question.
"Why'd... yo-you kill... my mom.." he asked, clinging to the last of his consciousness.
Killian smiled, instantly appearing in front of him, leaning over his face.
"Because watching people suffer is amazing. I made sure to make her suffer before she died, too" He answered with tremendous joy.
Unfortunately, Yuma didn't hear the answer he wanted; he had already passed out by the time he closed the gap between them.
***
Opening his eyes, Yuma was blinded by the overhead lights. His head was pounding from the ringing of the silence in the room, which was contributing to the headache he was experiencing. Looking around, he found himself lying on a couch. On the coach next to his, Akira sat there scrolling on his phone, waiting for him to wake up.
"What- where am I?" Yuma groaned softly.
Akira glanced up and looked at him plainly.
"Oh, you're awake? You're at my house." He answered flatly, like this wasn't serious enough to warrant any emotion.
Yuma sat up and held his head, his hair flowing between his fingers.
"What happened?" Akira asked, putting his phone down.
"Ran into our mystery man..." Yuma answered weakly, still gathering his bearings.
"I figured, I sensed his residue when I found you."
Akira got up and checked out Yuma, simply eyeballing his current state. While he was checking on the extent of his injuries, Yuma dropped some information that made Akira freeze.
"I found out his name..." Yuma grumbled.
Akira looked at his face, quiet.
"And?" he asked, watching closely.
"Killian Shelby..." Yuma answered quietly.
"Wasn't someone I could even catch up with... His speed was uncanny, like he was teleporting around. He is out of our caliber, even with you," Yuma added on, trying to help Akira understand.
Akira backed up a step and stood there stoically, his arms crossed as he looked at the ground in thought. Yuma looked up at him with a serious glint.
"Akira... this isn't some guy with powers... he's someone beyond us. We need to get stronger." Yuma pressed, urgency lacing his tone.
Akira looked up from the floor to Yuma.
"Well aware. We need to find Aymar and Daya by tomorrow... If he's already boldly approaching you, he's not waiting anymore." Akira stated cold.
"That's the thing. He wasn't there to get us... He was taunting me..." Yuma added.
Akira looked at him, confused by it, unsure what he meant.
"He showed his face to me. I couldn't see it properly, but I saw a scar that ran down the middle of his face... It's wide." Yuma clarified.
Akira didn't say anything and looked at Yuma for a minute before nodding.
"I see... good to know. I can see if I can get the Arrow to pull information on him... but for now, we need to let this rest. After all, Daya and Aymar are out there, and Keisuke and Kae found Naoto, but it's a dead end" Akira said, a sliver of disappointment in his voice.
"Dead end?" Yuma asked, furrowing his brows.
"he's a dead conduit. Just a vessel," Akira elaborated.
"What do you mean?"
"He doesn't have any resonance... having zero is like dying. Almost impossible to grow to one percent if that happens, making him just a vessel." Akira explained.
Yuma looked at him with further confusion.
"Is that even possible?" Yuma wondered.
"Extremely rare, rarer than achieving fifteen percent on an initial contract." Akira answered.
Yuma shook his head softly, immediately regretting it after the headache made him reel in pain. Akira turned around and grabbed his phone, flicking through it clearly looking for something. Yuma looked at him curiously, wondering what exactly he was doing.
"What are you doing?" Yuma voiced his curiosity.
"Calling Keisuke... we need him tomorrow. Unfortunately, I found out Daya and Aymar don't attend our school, so the more we have, the better chance we run into them," Akira answered carefully.
Yuma looked at him, realizing he never knew that; he had assumed all the targets were students. Looking at the ground, he began to wonder how they would even approach the manner of finding them. Hokkaido was large, not to mention how populated the prefectures were. Sapporo had foreigners crawling all over the place, so tagging them that way rendered Kae's tip useless. Getting lost in thought, he hadn't noticed Akira calling out to him.
"Yuma?" He calmly called out.
Looking up from the ground, Yuma looked at Akira, curious why he was calling for him.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"No, sorry... what did you say?"
"You should stay with me for the meantime, your house isn't safe, and right now, alongside the others, my family isn't going to be home." Akira repeated himself with Yuma's attention.
Yuma didn't expect the sudden invitation to be housed at his home, but he wasn't going to reject it. After all, he had the full intention of honoring his vow to never return until he took down Killian. Yuma gave him a simple nod before lying down once more with his arm covering his eyes.
"Yeah... seems like the best move," Yuma muttered quietly.
Akira sighed and turned to leave the room.
"Get some rest, we've got a long day tomorrow," Akira concluded before leaving.
Yuma gave a simple sound as a goodnight before going to sleep.
Fwoosh
Blue flames flashed in his vision.
The burning home that usually followed wasn't there.
That couldn't be a good sign.