Chapter : 53 Friend’s departure

"You," Anthony gasped, stumbling backward as he saw the purple-haired woman. "Who are you?"

"..."

Receiving no response from the deadly woman armed with a large pair of scissors, he instinctively reached for his weapon, not daring to remove his gaze from her.

SHINGG!

But just as his fingers grazed the revolver, her hand became a blur, causing the scissors to vanish and reappear in the wall behind him.

"!!!!!!!!"

A quiet shriek escaped Anthony's mouth as he felt stinging pain because of the sharp metallic edges of the blades cutting ever so slightly into his neck, drawing blood.

Although Anthony's long beard had been cut off, his greatest fear was being stuck against the wall, sandwiched between two lethal scissor blades. 

He knew he couldn't make a move without risking a fatal neck injury, causing an overwhelming sense of horror at the thought of coming into contact with death.

Anthony thanked his lucky stars that he was close to the wall, otherwise his neck would have been cleanly severed by now. 

What he didn't realise was that the woman had deliberately thrown ahead to position Anthony near the wall, capturing him without killing him, though only for a few minutes.

Anthony remained pinned to the wall, terror etched on his face as the scissors' blades held him inches from death.

Sweat breaking out on his bloody face, Anthony watched as the purple-haired woman moved steadily toward the girl in the chair. 

The woman dragged the old man by his hair, indifferent to his painful grunts as he tried to crawl and avoid the shards of glass that cut into his arms.

When she was a step away from the girl, the woman kicked the old man, sending him crashing near the lifeless girl's feet. 

"Arghhhh!!!!", The old man screamed in pain with a hoarse voice because of constant abuse on his vocal muscles, but the brown-haired girl, seeing her ragged father on the ground, did not react.

Sheele stood silently for a few minutes, watching the girl, but seeing no response from her, she didn't utter a word but simply took out a knife from the belt that was attached to her thigh.

Anthony saw the knife, but he was confused. It didn't seem like a weapon that a combatant would ever use, instead it looked like a regular kitchen knife that could be found in any household.

Sheele then clutched the old man's dirty white hair again, bringing his face near the girl's lifeless eyes, and then she slowly placed the kitchen knife near the old man's throat.

The bruised and bloodied old man feeling something sharp near his neck immediately screamed, "MIKA, HELP ME! TELL THIS CRAZY WOMAN TO STOP! SHE WILL KILL ME! PLEASE, HELP YOUR FATHER, MIKA!"

"..." There was no response from the lifeless Mika, but the old man still persisted, shouting.

"HELP ME, PLEASE! I WILL NEVER GAMBLE AGAIN, I PROMISE! I WILL FOREVER ATONE FOR MY SINS, MY CHILD–GUHH," the old man shouted desperately, tears and snot running down his face. 

SHIK!

But his cries came to a sudden halt as Sheele slit his throat in front of his daughter.

Anthony watched in horror as splatters of blood landed on the faces of both women, but the most eerie thing was that neither of them reacted. 

He could somehow understand the light brown-haired girl's indifference, as he had already broken her. But how could the purple-haired woman not show a single ounce of disgust upon getting blood splattered on her face? 

Even he, who had killed countless people, would be disgusted or feel a little nauseated if a single drop of blood landed on his face.

THUD

Sheele then tossed the old man's lifeless corpse aside, near Mika's feet and used the back of her palm to remove the bloodstains splattered on her face.

She then knelt in front of Mika and took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood off the lifeless girl's expressionless face.

"I am sorry, Mika," Sheele said softly as she finished her task. She continued, "Sorry for letting you see this gruesome sight." 

After a slight pause, she added, "But you know, Mika, this is who I am… and probably will be till my death." 

Sheele stated what she wanted to say to her first friend without an ounce of guilt or shame because she knew what she was.

Since uncovering her knack for killing, she had long forsaken any aspirations of a mundane life because she recognized her mastery in the art of death.

Getting no response from Mika, Sheele showed a bitter smile as she continued holding up the bloodied knife to her friend. "Quite an irony, isn't it, Mika? This knife was the first thing that drove me into this dark world of assassination."

This simple household knife was the first weapon Sheele had used to take a life. She didn't discard it because it held significant importance to her and now, wielding this same weapon, she had killed her friend's father in front of her.

But it was okay.

Sheele knew her friend was now just an empty shell of her former self and would feel nothing even after seeing such a gruesome sight so killing the person who was responsible in front of her was okay because she was taking revenge for her friend in front of her eyes.

But Sheele knew killing everyone who had led to Mika's demise would not bring her back.

She knew she could never interact with her friend again as Mika can never feel any emotions. She can never laugh with her nor be afraid of her. But still… but still she wanted to talk to her after so many years.

Using Bane as an excuse, Sheele wanted to meet her friend for the last time to say goodbye, even if her friend did not accept her, but now, that simple wish of hers could not be fulfilled.

Sheele looked into the lifeless eyes of her friend and said slowly, "Thank you, Mika, for being with me during the darkest hours of my life, when I had no desire to live."

"....."

Sheele continued, "Thank you for listening to me, thank you for laughing with me, thank you for letting me know that it is okay for me to be… different."

After saying this, she hugged her friend for the last time, then after separating from her, looked at her lifeless face once more. 

However, in her mental imagery, she witnessed her friend's beaming smile from years past, only for it to abruptly vanish and be replaced by her friend's motionless face, evoking the sensation of someone mercilessly crushing her heart.

So, she stood up slowly and walked behind Mika and placed one hand on Mika's head and used the other to slit her friend's throat, ending her miserable life.

Removing her hand from Mika's head, Sheele then gently closed her friend's eyes. 

Seele didn't cry, she didn't even let out a single tear as a remorse for her friend's death, similar to the time when she was told by the thugs that her parents were killed.

She then looked at her bloodied knife and let out a low chuckle. "It seems you were right Mika."

Tap, tap.

Hearing footsteps, Sheele looked up and saw a petite masked figure in a dark coat.

After standing still for a minute, Bane asked, "Is it over?"

"....Yeah, she won't suffer anymore," Sheele answered slowly.

Bane calmly nodded, showing no signs of being bothered by Sheele's act of killing her friend, understanding that it was a necessary release from a miserable existence.

He then shifted his gaze to Anthony, who was pinned between Sheele's deadly Teigu. "Want me to take care of this guy?"

Anthony hearing this began to struggle but his struggle only made his situation worse as the sharp blades dug deeper in his neck which made him scream.

After hearing Anthony's scream, Sheele's gaze shifted towards him and then to the various torture tools in the room, suggesting that the man had used them on Mika repeatedly for months to inflict pain. 

Unfamiliar emotions surged within her as sheele answered coldly, "No, I will take care of him myself." She paused and then asked Bane, "Do you have any poison that can amplify pain?"

Bane didn't answer verbally as he simply took out a red vial from his spatial storage, along with a cigarette and lighter for himself, and tossed the vial to Sheele, who caught it with one hand in midair.

"If you make this guy consume the content inside that vial, each cut you will make on his skin will make him feel like several bullet ants are drilling into his cuts," he explained to which Sheele only nodded.

"You can take your time. I'll take care of the boss," Bane said, watching as Sheele slowly made her way toward Anthony.

He didn't wait as he turned around, listening to the sound of screams behind him.

'Now, time to clear some of my debt,' he thought, while trying to light up his cigarette on his way.

Bane had already gotten Lin Shai's location after he and Sheele searched Mika's house, ensuring Mika's father wasn't lying again. 

And during the search, Sheele had found a diary and a map beneath Mika's pillo.

Leaving the diary on the map marked important locations in the lower district, including the pub owner's name whom Bane was searching.

While Bane could have found Lin Shai himself, it would have taken time he didn't have, which was why he sought Sheele's help. 

And now that he had the information, and with Mika gone, he decided to take care of the remaining trash for Sheele, but he suspects that there was more to this situation that he could only uncover by confronting the main culprit.

As he passed through the brothel's corridors, he saw lavish furnitures alongside the dead bodies on the ground which he and Sheele had killed after entering the brothel. 

Paying no attention to the corpses, he pressed on to the second story where the brothel owner likely stayed.

When he reached the second floor, he walked towards a massive black door that was being guarded by four muscular men in black suits who aimed their guns at him.

As he neared them, Bane asked, "Hey, do you have a lighter?" He even tried to use his lighter in front of them, but it didn't work. "As you can see, mine's not working."

The burly men were flabbergasted at the madman asking for a lighter in such a situation, but they composed themselves and shook their heads, indicating they didn't have one.

"Che, and you call yourselves gangsters," Bane scoffed. "Then I'll just ask your boss," He said as he walked past them.

While the guards remained perplexed and dumbfounded, they refrained from shooting and discreetly followed him to the room as he unlocked the door.

The reason they didn't shoot the person in front of them was because they have been ordered to not shoot assailants.

Bane approached the desk and sat in the chair placed in front of it and once he was comfortably seated, he asked the seated sharp-looking man in a white suit, who was likely the boss, "Hey, do you have a lighter?"