8 7: Serenity

'Dearest Serenity,

I hope that you find this letter before you open your file, but I know that will most likely not be the case.'

I stood outside my room with a sledge hammer, Naya had jumped onto the bed to watch me carefully.

'I want you to know that your mother and I loved you with all our hearts. We made some mistakes with keeping this information from you and hiding the fact I was doing some illegal things to keep you hidden away from the world.'

I walked up the the walk-in closet first and raised the hammer before hitting it as hard as I could through the wall, a gaping hole all that was left as I pulled away and prepared to swing again.

'We know nothing of the whereabouts of your twin sister, Kitiara, but we do know that if you had remained where you were, you would have been just as loved if not more than we did. I did everything in my power to keep you safe, my shadow.'

I only stopped once the whole wall was broken in and destroyed before walking into the bedroom and preparing to hit the floor boards.

'As I write this, you're only nine and curled up in your mother's lap, like a kitten. Yours and your mother's soft snores are the only noise in the room with me. When you find this, I may be long gone. You had told me what my future held for me once the Underground found out about my betrayal and my stealing of their money so you had enough to last you your whole life in comfort.'

Tears started spilling down my cheeks as I hit a loose board and it bounced back up slightly, revealing a hidden compartment.

'I also know that you won't want to keep yourself hidden from the people who murdered us either. I know you'll find them and fight. All I ask, my little shadow'

I pried the floor boards up and pulled out the locked chest and grabbed the key necklace my father had given me for my tenth birthday all those years ago.

'Is that you never confuse justice with revenge. What you feel now is the sense of revenge, not justice. You want them to pay with their blood and to kill them all like they did us. That's not justice, that is revenge.'

The box held about fifty bundles of one hundred dollar bills. Each had to have held at least one hundred thousand dollars each.

'I have hidden a box full of enough money for you to complete your mission. I know you've probably done exactly what we didn't want you to do and went outside by now, so you know exactly what the world feels for people like you, I want you to stay safe and remember all you trained for. Remember that you are a shadow on the wall, hidden and yet right in front of someone.'

I sunk back and let the tears flow freely again. I had hoped it wasn't true. That somehow he was joking. This just proved that he wasn't.

'Me and Okaasan* love you dearly. Shadow, you will be the strongest person the world has ever seen by the time you're done with them all. Show them who they messed with. Show them that your love and compassion can take them all down. You are good, never let anyone tell you that you're evil. Not even yourself.

With all my love and support,

Dad'

I let a scream tear free and felt Naya nuzzle herself up next to me to bring me comfort. But I think at this moment we both knew there would be no comfort until they were all gone. Until every last one of them were gone.

I wiped away my tears and stood up, pulling my hair down and letting the shadow puppets form around me, giving them the orders to pack any clothes, food, or money I would need.

This was war. And I'd always wanted to prove I could take the devil down.

A demon lord would have to do for now.

~~~~

I parked as close as I could to Grace and Daniella's apartment. They were always warm and welcoming to me coming to visit and help out with making clothes for the new boutique shop that would be opening up again soon. The work on the burnt remains were almost completely redone and it had only been about a month.

"Dani, I'm here, and I brought an oversized puppy with sharp teeth!" I called into the apartment as I stepped in with Naya on my heels. The smell of freshly baked cake wafted through the air and I heard a call back from the kitchen.

"In here, Serenity!"

I moved as stealthily as I could around the racks of clothes, careful not to ruin any or knock them onto the dirty floor.

Both girls were holding a beautiful cake with my name on the top. Two candles were lit up on top in the shape of twos.

They started singing as I laughed at them. A genuine laugh that I only let out when I was around them.

They stopped and Daniella held the cake up to my face so I could blow out the candles.

"Yay! What did you wish for, Miss Serenity?" Grace asked as I lifted her up to hug her and swing her around.

"I wished that we could be the bestest friends forever," I said, only for Grace to giggle as she jumped down and scampered off to her room, saying something about getting a present. Naya followed behind the running girl with a little yip.

"So, what's up?" Daniella asks me as her daughter runs out of the room.

"Why do you immediately assume something's up?" I asked, a slight laugh to my voice.

"You brought Naya. You've never done that before."

I sighed as I steeled my features and began talking. "I'm about to leave to go after some very bad people. They're the ones who orphaned me."

"You seriously gonna do this, Serenity? You've told me that they're pretty dangerous and they can hurt you through your shadows very easily."

"I know, Dani, but I need to get closure for this. They know about me and sent someone after me before, nothing is stopping them from coming after me again. I refuse to lose any more of my family to this man."

"Who even are they?" Dani asked, turning to get some plates out of the cabinet.

"All I know is the Demon Lord of the Underground," I said and jumped as one of the plates hit the ground and shattered as Daniella turned around and gripped my shoulders. By no means was she a big girl. She was just three years older than me at twenty three with Grace being a carbon copy of her at three years old. Her hair was dark brown, only a few shades lighter than my pitch black. Her skin reminded me of melted chocolate and her eyes were dark and always seemed to stare into my soul. Her hair was fluffed up today. She was only about two inches taller than me and her lips were thick on her face. She was slightly chubby with a cropped red sweat shirt on and a matching pair of red sweat pants that were only one or two shades darker. She had on some hightop black converse on.

"Girl, that's the leader of one of the biggest gangs in the world. How do you plan on doing this without gettin' yourself killed?" There was slight humor in her tone, but I could tell she was dead serious.

"Actually, I don't have any plan yet. I was hoping that you could help me create some disguises so no one recognizes me while I work. They know my face and my hair, they won't expect me to change everything and pursue them more than they're pursuing me."

"I found your present, Miss Serenity!" Grace said, coming back into the room with a box that seemed a little heavy for her wrapped in black paper with stars dotting the whole thing. Naya came in and licked Grace on the cheek and gained a giggle from her. Welp, there's someone else who has called head over heels for this little girl. Her hair was straight today and she had on a red dress that matched her mama. I peeked back and did my best to hide the mess as Daniella worked to clean it up.

I carefully unwrapped it to find a Macbook laptop inside. A case with the same pattern as the paper was on top of the box.

"No, no, no, I can't accept this. It's way too expensive!" I said, trying to hand it back.

"Too expensive? Girl, you literally paid for a better boutique to be build downtown in that old spot with two floors! This is the least I can do to pay you back," Daniella said as she came up behind me and placed her chin on my shoulder. "Plus, it's your birthday gift, you have to accept it."

I spent another few minutes trying to get Dani to take it back before I finally yielded to Grace's puppy eyes and set it next to my bag I had thrown on my chair in the living room before Dani shoved me onto a small platform in the middle of the room.

"We're gonna start with your measurements, trying to make you these is gonna take a few days at most, but I think I have an idea for the outfit you'll face people as a meta in," she said, muttering as she took multiple different measurements, some of which made a slight blush come to my cheeks.

I had never been pampered and cared for like Dani and Grace took care of me. Dani made me clothes all the time, but she had never taken my measurements before.

Grace and Naya ran off during a fit of giggles and a yip.

I let her do her thing as she immediately grabbed a notebook to start sketching and writing down little notes and sat down to watch her work. Daniella had a small mumble as she spoke to herself and worked on whatever sketches she came up with for this wardrobe of disguises for a suicide mission that she knew was gonna end up getting me killed. But I was ready.

I am tired, so tired of people like us getting pushed down because of the groups of bad ones. Tired of being spit at and glared at for being different. Tired of being treated like I'm a ticking time bomb. Tired of mothers moving their children to their other sides as if I would hurt them as I walked past even from far away.

Hours past before I walked through the door of my house and Naya happily trotted inside. I felt completely drained as I stepped silently into the office. I had put up a board with pictures of the people from each of my father's files. Ever person he was ever involved with was here, littered on the walls with red string connecting them to people.

I took my bag and new laptop into the office with me and dropped it into the leather chair in the corner. I looked at the picture of me and my sister I had pinned to my board.

I smiled and touched her on the photo. "Happy birthday, Kitiara." Pieces if me wonder that if wherever she is, if she knew about me too and who we were born as. Wonders if she celebrates the same birthday I do and if she loves scarlet red as much as I do. Wonders if she had a good life and got parents as caring and loving as mine, ones who paid attention to her all the time and supported her with whatever powers she had grown. A piece of me missed her and hoped that one day I could see her again, this time where I would remember her face.

I looked at everything I had on the board so far. Pictures of my birth parents and my caretakers were up with strings attaching them together then to us.

An image of the Demon Lord was in the center with pictures attached to my parents and Amy Akiyama.

I sighed as I started sticking the pictures from the rest of the files onto my board and immediately stringing them to the Demon Lord.

The only things I had learned so far was that my birth mother was a meta and was somehow connected to the Demon Lord. How they were connected, I had no idea.

Then all that remained was Benjiro Akiyama who was only connected by Amy's point.

I smiled before touching the pictures of my birth parents. I looked like a perfect mix. Then I looked at my Momma and Dad. I kissed my fingers and placed them on their pictures.

I stepped back and stared at my board again and felt the exhaustion of the past few days hit me before I walked out to the couch covered in in the blankets I had been sleeping under for days and slid under. I needed to fix all the damage I had caused to my room.

Naya jumped up from wherever she had run off to once we got home. There was some sticky blood on her snout, making me think that she had been out hunting. She immediately snuggled up into my side and sighed as she closed her eyes. I ran my fingers through her fur and felt my body start getting heavy.

I don't remember falling asleep, but I woke up with a start as my phone rang out loudly from the office, where I must have left it last night. I groaned and rolled over and snuggled back into Naya, hoping that whoever had called would take the hint and politely go away.

Silence only lasted a few minutes before the shrill sound rang again. I groaned out loud again as I walked to retrieve my phone in the darkness of the house. I picked it up and saw Daniella's picture before answering the phone.

"Girl, you're not gonna believe this, but your wardrobe is complete." Daniella's normal excitement did nothing to ease the grouchiness from being woken up so early.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked the time. Five AM.

"I was over there literally twelve hours ago, how did you finish that fast? And why are you awake at five in the morning?!" I asked, letting my head hit the desk.

"Doesn't matter. Get over here by eight, you have to start today. I just have that feeling," she said, causing my body to wake completely now.

"I'll be there in an hour. Do not go anywhere."

I threw my phone onto the couch, causing Naya to jump up and growl, anticipating an attack before she saw me.

"Time to get up, pretty girl," I said, picking up a shirt and pair of jeans from the living room that had somehow ended up there from one of the few days I'd been sleeping in here. "Daniella had a premonition. We have to leave today."

*Okaasan - mother or mom in Japanese