It was bright in the morning. Ax Glazier, who is currently residing inside Leon Scarlet's body, was still not comfortable on moving with his new body. After all, he had spent a thousand years inside the absolute nothingness, absolute void, without moving.
Ax was walking on the sidewalks towards the school where Leon was schooled at as it was the beginning of the week. Monday. The morning breeze was bashing on his face. Fresh air keeps going up his nostrils. His face bright with positive energy.
The day before, when Ax said that he wanted to continue schooling as usual by Monday, Leon's mom, Lisa, didn't allow him to do so with a strict warning. After all, he just exited a hospital ward and his left hand was still in a cast due to his insane behaviour. Who knows what kind of stupidity would her son do again. Because of that, it took him quite some times to beg.
The reason he wanted to go to school was not because he wanted to learn the subjects in school. And absolutely not mathematic. But instead, he just wanted to take a walk outside, breathing in some fresh air. Lisa didn't let him to do so. Therefore, he made up a good excuse to go outside. He also have the urge to experience the normal life of Leon's and also to adapt himself with Leon's body.
And then, he arrived in front of the school. He smirked as he looked at the big building. The school bell has rung for the first time for the day. It was the sign that tells everyone the class time for the day has started. Every students were rushing to their classes.
Ax sat at Leon's seat, put down his bag beside the table. Then he laid both hands on the table. Ready to lay down his head too.
"Heyo, Leon!" A teenager shouted, called out for Leon from across the classroom.
Ax tilted his head to his right, saw a familiar face from Leon's memories. The teenager is Leon's closest friend. His name is Eric Stone. A seventeen year-old boy who was born into a golden spoon family. A child of a wealthy businessman.
"Oh, it's you." Ax greeted him back.
"How're ya doing? After spending a whole week in a ward, must be boring as hell" He said.
"Well, what can I do? It served me right." He shrugged.
"Who told you to do a stupid and dangerous act like that? It really got you good." He giggles.
An old man walked into the classrom with some files and a laptop on his hand. As he reached the teacher's table, he put down his things and started pulled out a file. "Alright. Time to check the attendance. Billy." He read the first name out loud.
"Here." A student replied.
"Claire."
"Here." And so on.
...
At the school cafeteria, Ax was just got his foods and took a seat, was just staring at it with face of disgust. The food he got looks like a slime made out of waste water. The smell it emitted made him slightly nauseous.
'What the fuck is this...? It's nasty. No wonder the foods here is free. And there is not many people here too...' His eyes wander around the cafeteria.
There were only three other people besides him. A nerd looking girl with big and round glasses. Her hair was tied to the back. She looked emotionless like a robot. Even the foods didn't seems to bother her. Then, a girl with a cream-coloured sweater. Her hair is black and was cut short. She have a beautiful face but she was also giving off bad vibes around her. Her eyes were purple and she got a really cold gaze. Lastly, a boy with teeth as sharp as sharks. He was eating the tough meat slab which likely to be made out of wood from the cafeteria like a shark eating it's prey.
'That bastard, Eric... No wonder he rejected my invitation to the cafeteria. He knew about this...!'
Ten minutes ago, "Huh? Cafeteria?" Eric looked at Ax with pale smile. "Haha, sorry, bud. I would like to go with you but I need to go somewhere else. Bye." His face and voice were were telling lies. As soon he finished his sentence, he quickly ran away before Ax managed to catch him.
'Now I don't have enough time to go get another food other than here. Ah damn... What's wrong with this school...' He grumbled.
The bell has rung again, the break time was over. Ax was still walking down the hallway while patting his empty belly as the others has gone to their classrooms. He could not force himself to eat the suspicious gooey from the cafeteria.
He didn't what he expected to see as he was walking, but that was when he saw the short haired girl from the cafeteria earlier entering a cleaner's store room. A question appeared inside his head. Why would a student enters a storage room where cleaners keep their cleaning tools? Because of the lingering question, he could not help but wanted to check it out. A dirty thought appeared inside his head. Thinking that
He silently and quickly approached the store room. Reaches out for the doorknob, quickly turned it and pulled the door open. But she was not there. There were only brooms, mops and some other tools that are use by the cleaner to do their cleaning job. It was like she disappeared just like that.
The room was sized about two meters per square. There were not many cleaning tools inside, so there is nothing to cover a body with. And even if there was something big enough to hide someone, why would she be hiding there anyway?
He stood still for a while. Keep staring inside the room in front of him. A suspicion arose in his mind about it. He lifted his right hand to the the front and waved at the blank space. He could feel that the space in front of him was distorted as there was something like wave and invisible force that could not be seen by naked eyes.
'The space here... Was teared. She opened a rift.' He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The gurl turned out to be not a normal human.
"Hey you, the student right there." The voice startled him and almost made him jumped. A male teacher called him from across the hallway. "What are you doing there? Go back to you class now." He demanded.
"Uh... A moment to pick up my cents please." A stupid lie. Obviously.
"Hurry up. If I still see you wandering around, you'll get your punishment."
"Okay." Ax threw a salute at him. But as the teacher turned around, he clenched his fist but let the middle finger straight up, pointing at the teacher.
He then closed the store door. Heading back to his classroom.
. . .
The bell has rung for the last time for the day, telling all that the school session has over for the day.
Ax was walking home alone. As he was walking without doing anything for so far, his stupid self got bored. He ought to get home early so that he can continue sleeping. Therefore, he thought of going through a shortcut that Leon had been keeping in his head for a very long time but not even once have he gone through it.
The shortcut was an alley that was full of street thugs and drug addicts. In another words, unlawful street. Even polices would not dare to go through it without a SWAT team. But never in Leon's life has he heard about police sending SWAT team to raid the place.
It was not that Leon was scared of the thugs. It just that with his unearthly strength, he afraid that he would kill somebody accidentally due to his craziness. After all, though crazy, Leon's personality is completely different from Ax.
Ax was someone who would always kill or destroy anything he want and everything he hates. But Leon was the opposite. He loves the nature and the life around him. Almost all kind of life from animals to human. Both of them were just like black and white, yin and yang. But that doesn't stop him from eating meat. He's not a vegan. Moreover, he is almost carnivore.
Aside from being a cold-hearted killer machine, Ax is also someone who would always being cautious about things that he will be face on. So... He decided to go through the alley. Why? It was because he is crazy when it comes to fighting. With his absurd strength, of course he wants to use it in fighting and not just wasting it doing nothing. Plus Leon's craziness, now he is a fighting maniac.
With his barefaced and casted left hand, he walked into the alley casually.
Names, curse words, doodles, explicit drawings and even magic circles were all over the walls and the dumpsters there. Smokes from cigarettes and burning weeds were filling up the air of the alley. The alley literally got fogged by the smokes. Some thugs were eyeing on him as he was walking passed by them. They were like predators who were eyeing on their prey. Soon after, they began their move and approaching him with clear evil intent. Ax saw them by the corner of his eyes. They were trying to surround him from all sides. Six people— no, seven people. Including one who was approaching him from the front. He smirked. Then, a smirk turned into a peaceful smile. He started to humming peacefully.
"Oh, look at him. He looked happy to be with us." One guy pointed his index finger at him. "But to be here, you need to pay up, kid." He was rubbing his index and middle finger against his thumb, indicating that he wants money.
Ax chuckled. "Ah, what to do? I don't have any money with me right now~" He said with a smile carved on his face.
"Then, donate your organ to us. That'll catch a high price." He brought out a pocket knife and spins it around.
"That's not butterfly. So..." In a couple of seconds, Ax hand was in front of the guy's face. "Don't do that if you don't want to lose your fingers." He whispered to his ear before he grabbed the guy's face and slammed his head to the ground. The ground cracked a little and blood were coming out of the back of his head. "But it's not like I care if you lose you fingers though~"
'But still... I should've held back. I was too excited. This guy might be dead...' Ax pulled his hand and threw his excitement away. Then he glanced around. The others were scared and froze on their own feet. Too shocked to move.
Then, someone moved and quickly grabbed a metal pipe beside him. He leapt towards Ax in fear and hope to beat the monster in front of him in one go. A long yell was released at the top of his lungs to steel up his will.
Ax turns his head and raised his left foot. As he turned around,he also swings his left foot from the side and bowed his upper body then hit the guy's head from his left with his heel. The guy was thrown away along the direction he was kicked to. Then, He continue. Ax jumped towards another guy. His body bent a little as his right leg was brought out to the front, pointing out his kneecap. Hit the guy's face straight to the nose. Blood was spurting out from his nostrils. As his right foot touched the ground, he leapt towards another guy and jumped. His right leg was outstretched to the front. Flying kick, hit another nose. The guy was thrown some feet back. Ax landed on both feet soon after. Suddenly, his shadows were moving like shaking water. It split and became strings of shadows. Each of them strike toward each of the remaining thugs at once. Then, his shadow connected to the remaining thugs. With how dim the light in the alley was, the shadows were not clearly visible for them. How the table have turned. The so-called prey was now fighting back against the predators and the predators could only cowering in fear.
The residents of the alley and the passerby were scattering around and running away in fear from there. Panicking. But the other four thugs were just standing still where they were. Froze on their feet. It was not that they did not intend to run away. They wanted to run. Their heads full of thought to run away, escape from the highschool kid. Their hearts were pumping so fast. Adrenalines were rushing through their veins. Their bodies were ready to move away, to escape from there. But there were something that were holding them down. It was the strings of shadows that connected them to Ax.
As one of them glanced at the other one besides him, he realized that there were some hands holding him down by his shadow. He looked at the others. Also the same. That was when he knew that his shadow was also the same. The mysterious shadow hands were holding their movement. That was why they cannot move. Shivers were running down their spines by the sight of it.
Ax gave them a sinister smile. "I wonder why don't you guys run? You guys are quite brave for staying here. Hahah. The others have gone away from this alley already~" He said sarcastically. Chuckles escaped his mouthq. "Anyway, you guys are done for." His eyes was like that of a real predator. A laughing predator.
In that moment, they could feel it. The one that was in front of them was not a human. But a monster— no, even worse than that. A demon who kills without mercy– demon who plays with it's prey for fun.
After some moments of beating up, all of them were down. Bloods were running out from their heads. Some were beaten half-dead or even almost died. And some already lost their pulse. In another word, died.
'This is kinda bad... I tried to myself held back but the excitement after not fighting for thousands of years has made my blood boiled like crazy. So, I forgot to held back... I'm sorry, Leon.' Head bowed.
He stared at the corpses and half-deads for a long moment. His right hand on his waist. Thinking of what to do to the corpses. Then, a light bulb lit up over his head. An idea formed in his head.
'I got fire element recently. So, let's just burn them to ashes.' He lit up a flame on his right hand. Then, swung his hand over the corpses. Throwing the flames to the pile of corpses. But the yelling of some who were still alive surprised him. 'Oh, shit. Some of them are stil alive.' Some arm sized nails were manifested with darkness element. All of it flew to their heads at once including those who already dead to ensure that they all died already.
Soon after, the fire spreads all over the cold bodies, burning every inches of them. The alley was slowly getting hot because of the heat of the burning corpses. Black smoke were covering the alley and soon coming out from the top of the alley.
Ax snapped his fingers. "Done. Easy." His face satisfied.
Time goes by, moon has rose up onto the dark sky and night has come. The alley has already been emptied but polices sirens were all around the alley.
Polices cars were just arrived outside the alley. An ununiformed police came out from a police car with his partner. He then approached an old lady who seemed to be the one to called the police.
"Mister, this is the alley." The elderly woman said to the police. "In the afternoon, many people ran away from the alley. They looked scared. Then after some minutes, black smokes began to come out. It brought an awful odor." She waving her hand in front of her own face.
The detective seems to sniffing on the odor. 'Not gasoline... Maybe we need the firefighter to check it first we can go in.'
"Detective Miller, what are you doing there? Open up the way for the firefighters." Another ununiformed police said.
"Ah, sorry." He stepped aside.
The firefighers were carrying their big water hose.
"Please be aware of your surroundings. You're going to make people's work harder." That guy said.
"Sorry, captain. It will not happen again." Miller said as he stroking the back of his head. Detective Robert Miller. Twenty- seven years old.