Benimaru doesn't stop running until he returns to the sidewalk just outside his and Felicia's new flat complex. Once he reaches the building's front entrance, he stops to rest leaning over with his hands on his knees and panting like a dog. Several beads of hot sweat roll down his face, and his eyes are so wide that they're practically bulging out of his head. Normally, he has a leveled head, but now, his thoughts are spiraling with the same question, over and over again.
"What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?!" he repeats to himself.
His breathing is ecstatic, and his heartbeat is pounding inside his chest. He feels as though his blood is in a race to get through his veins, and he hasn't had a panic attack this bad in a couple of years.
Running from the past isn't easy for anyone, but Benimaru never thought his would have caught up to him so quickly. Ever since he escaped his previous line of work, he has hoped to have put it all behind him, never have to think about it or hear from his old benefactors again. He really doesn't want to return to that place.
"Two whole years… two whole years," he says. That's how long it's been since he left the old business back in his homeland. Then he realizes something crucial, "Two whole years, and it takes Kinoshita to decide to contact me just now?!"
Benimaru has known Kinoshita for his ruthlessness and his brutal skills, but most of all, his manipulative nature. He also has his ways for getting information on all his employees quicker than anyone else on Earth. Benimaru doesn't believe it would actually take him these past two years to figure out where he's gone this whole time, so why did he wait to contact him till today?
Then an image of Felicia's smiling face along with her family standing in front of their rural cottage from when he first met them pops into Benimaru's mind. This is enough to remind him that he has a choice in all of this. He doesn't have to abide by Kinoshita's orders anymore, and he takes deep breaths until his heartrate and breathing return to normal. He lets out a big sigh of relief and straightens up his posture.
The boy looks at his cellphone again and checks the time. Nine twenty-six A.M., and now that he's back at the flat, he figures this is a perfect chance to get some house chores done while Felicia is at school.
But as he is about to enter the front entrance into the lobby, the atmosphere becomes incredibly cold and eerie. A chill runs up his spine, and he stops right in his tracks, just as he reaches for the doorknob.
Something's not right here, he thinks inside his mind. He turns around to face the street and starts looking in all directions, trying to pinpoint where the source is.
Suddenly, there's the sound of a child's laughter. Giggling at first, but then it turns into full-on cackling like a maniac.
It's coming from above his head. When he looks up, something small and with a palish pink color whooshes passed his view from right to left, too fast to be seen by the naked eye. Fortunately, he sees it, and his eyes follow it to where it lands, which is perched atop a telephone pole at least fifteen feet up.
What he sees is something not of this normal world.
It looks like a small impish creature straight out of Hell. Beady, red glowing eyes and a long pointy nose on the center of its face. Its mouth reveals many sharp pointed teeth, and it's smiling ear to ear. Its ears are long and pointed, too, and its body has pink wrinkly skin and looks as though it's emaciated. It's crouching on top of the telephone pole; its long bony fingers curled around its knees.
It stares right back at Benimaru, looking right into his soul to learn all his deepest secrets and darkest desires. They are not at all pretty.
They are both practically in a staring contest. Neither of them is moving. Or speaking. Or blinking. At one point, Benimaru forgets that he needs to breathe.
A few minutes pass until the hellish creature starts laughing again. Laughing at Benimaru. For it has learned what it needs about him, and then it scurries off across the telephone wires stretched out along the city streets. The direction it's heading in is familiar to Benimaru, but he can't quite pinpoint it until the creature is a little further out of sight.
But then it hits him like a ton of bricks. It is heading toward Felicia's school.
Damn it! Is that thing going after Felicia? Benimaru thinks to himself as he starts darting off along the sidewalks again to chase the imp creature.
Whatever it is, the creature does not seem to mind the sparks of electricity surging through the wires its running across on all fours. Its claws on the ends of each of its limbs are almost cutting the wires. As it does so, it keeps a consistent lead on Benimaru. His feet are getting sore, but he pushes onward.
After a few blocks, the creature turns left and into a darkened sketchy alleyway, to which Benimaru continues his pursuit. He takes his eyes off of the creature for just one second to make sure he doesn't bump into anything on his way into the alley and thus the creature seems to vanish. Looking up and all around the iron fire escapes and the broken windows along the sides of the buildings, he soon hears a clanking noise that sounds like metal being bent and twisted and it's getting closer from above.
Out of the blue, a dented metal garbage can appears in his view while still looking up, and it is falling from the sky straight down upon him. Benimaru fortunately dodges out of the way in time before the garbage can would've hit him, and it crashes to the concrete ground with a clanking thud and smelly trash contents spilling at his feet.
That's when an empty soda can is thrown from the side at him. Then a banana peel is thrown at him. And next a crumpled up ball of used napkins.
Benimaru looks around frantically in the direction of which the trash is being thrown from. As soon as he sees the specific spot of which a rotten apple core is being thrown at him, he stretches out his left hand and activates his own magic in it. His hand begins to glow a bright orange to indicate power flowing through it, and at a distance, his hand begins searching for something to grab onto.
He soon finds what he is looking for, and the fingers on his hand still glowing curl as though he is grasping onto something very tightly. Then he lifts his arm up, and simultaneously the imp creature emerges up from hiding within a pile of garbage bags on the ground. A ring of the same orange light on Benimaru's hand is embraced around the creature's torso with its legs beating and flailing around trying to break free. It drops another piece of trash as its two to three foot tall body is being held up in the air.
In a fit of rage, Benimaru pulls back his arm briefly and then violently extends it again, resulting in the creature still in his magical telekinetic grip to slam hard into the wall behind it. It stops squirming for a moment, and Benimaru seizes this opportunity to pull the creature toward him. Soon they are face-to-face, and Benimaru gets a better look at the imp's features.
The creature's nostrils are huge, and its reddish purple skinny is all wrinkly like an elderly person's. The sclera in its eyes are all yellow and it has only black cat slit pupils in their centers. The corners of it mouth are very far apart from each other, and its ears are tiny but pointed.
"What are you doing here?" Benimaru decides to ask after a minute or so. "The city isn't exactly your kind's usual hunting grounds."
In a malicious demonic voice, the creature replies, "Nevers enough feeds ins zhe countryside-zes. Plentys of big scores ins zhe big citys."
Benimaru stares suspiciously at it for a moment before saying, "You know, for a demon, you're a terrible liar."
"Tis nots a lies," the imp creature disputes in vain. Benimaru's scolding glare gets harsher. "Tis nots a lies!" the creature says again.
"I saw you heading towards the school," Benimaru says. "You'd better tell me the truth. Now." His magical telekinetic grip on the creature gets tighter as his curls the fingers on his glowing hand even further. The creature's eyes begin to bulge out of their sockets and its tongue sticks out on instinct from being crushed.
As it gags and chokes for sweet air, the imp eventually states its case, "I's has strict orders from's zhe master's: the Limoxberg's fledgling mage-zes musts never returns home-zes," all in a nervous tone, as though it knows it is wrong to follow through with these demands.
Benimaru notices this and asks, "Who is this master of yours?"
But instead of answering, the creature's neck extends and grows upward with magic and then bends it forward so that its head dips down toward Benimaru's glowing hand. It opens its mouth wide revealing many sharp pointed teeth the color of a tainted gold, and its upper jaw bites down hard on Benimaru's glowing hand in the fleshy part between his thumb and index finger. As a result, Benimaru releases his magically telekinetic grip on the imp and shakes off its teeth's hold on his hand, sending the creature flying off toward the exit of the alleyway.
He winces in pain for a moment as his hand bleeds a lot, and he realizes that the imp has taken a chunk of flesh out of his hand with it. As this happens, the creature scurries out of the alley and gets away from him.
Having no more time to grimace the pain, Benimaru resumes chasing after the creature, but as soon as he exits the alley, he loses sight of it. Luckily, he knows its destination. However, he fears he cannot make it there in time on foot.
Ripping off a strip of cloth from the bottom hem of his long black coat and wrapping it around his open wound, he starts jogging in the direction of Charterton Valley High School from where he is now, all the while looking for a faster mode of transportation. He eventually finds one when he spots a motorbike with the engine still running and its owner nowhere in sight.
Surely I can borrow it for a while, right? Benimaru thinks to himself. This is an emergency, after all.
So he hops onto the motorbike, revs the engine, pulls out of the parking spot, and rides down the street passing cars left and right. As he speeds up, all he can think of is how much he needs to get there before something bad happens and that his job depends on it.