chapter 1 hope

A seventeen-year-old dark-skinned young man woke up feeling like he had one of the best sleeps ever, not because he did, but because of the excitement and adrenaline rushing through him. The young man knew today he could finally start what he wanted to do.

The young man, known as Banbutsu no Aruji Kage, had moved away from his family, who had not been so good to him; he had been the middle child of triplets, having an older twin brother, Ryuu Kage, and a younger twin sister, Miyako Kage, yet the boy did not live with them nor were they close.

Currently, the boy had just come out of the bath after taking a shower. He walked out and started to dress, getting a glimpse of his body in the process, showing his well-toned and built body. He smirked as he took a second to admire his hard work before continuing to dress.

Seconds later, the boy came out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He put on a simple yet somewhat expensive-looking black shirt and pants, put on his sunglasses, slung a bag on his back, and made his way out, now ready to go meet up with a certain someone whom he had been close to and exited to start what they had been planning for a very long time.

The man closed the door and put the key in the flower pot next to the door before he fixed his shoes properly. And so the young man started to walk, essentially taking a small stroll as he did.

'It's about time. I have been waiting for long enough. Let's get this started!' the young man thought to himself as he continued to head to the train station.

As he entered the train, he looked around and saw that the train was nearly full, as he expected, as he knew that this was work hour and so everyone was going to be out to make their way to wherever they worked.

The young man simply went in until he saw a young woman around his age. The girl had short pink hair done in a bob cut, reaching down her neck, nearly to her shoulders, darkish brown eyes. She wore a short, skin-tight, dark green suit, making it possible for people to see that.

The girl looked up and smiled at him before waving him over. As the man did and walked over to her with a calm and pleased look on his face.

"Hello there. You are looking good today. What's the occasion?" the young man spoke, looking curiously at his newest girlfriend, Delara, a seventeen-year-old young woman whom he had started dating. Till now, they had started dating after she had moved from the United States to come to Japan and had ended up in his class, and they had started talking as friends, thanks to him offering to help her find her way around school and the city, which she had accepted. And so, they had walked around town, where they were confronted by a group of three older guys who had wanted to rob them. And so, Banbutsu had ended up fighting them and beaten them up, thanks to him being quite the martial artist and athletic person who was skilled with many weapons, unknown to his family and most people in his life.

In the end, Banbutsu had broken both the arms of one of them, the ribs of another, as well as giving him a concussion, and broken the spine of the last after stepping on his back. And so, after this day, they had become great friends, and Delara had started to grow a crush on him. After six months of knowing each other, she had confessed to him, and so they had started to date each other soon afterward.

After this, their lives quickly changed as they grew closer and closer, and she eventually found out about his family and other things in his life, such as how he did not get along well with his family, well, all including his mother and siblings. And after finding out, she had stayed with him and understood that. And so, they continued. In doing so, the next thing she did was make arrangements for him to meet her own family, which had gone rather well, and he had quickly become part of the family, although they were not married or engaged yet.

Breaking out of his thoughts, the young woman smiled at him before gesturing for him to sit down next to her, which he proceeded to do.

"Don't tell me you forgot about today, did you?"

"No, I remember that today's the day of the big reveal," the man smiled, imagining how great this day would be.

"Great! Now, just to get our last day of work in order, and we can get this day started!"

The bus stopped at their stop rather quickly as they got off, holding hands and going into a massive building.

Walking into an elevator, the two made their way to the fifteenth floor, arriving, walking out, and making their way to their office. They took their seats and started working, only talking every once in a while as they focused on finishing their work.

Hours passed until lunchtime came, and so they went on to go get something to eat from a vending machine. After putting the money in the machine and picking the food as it fell for them to have, someone came through the door into the room and slammed their hand on the machine, catching the other workers who were around's attention.

Looking up, Banbutsu saw Tyrone, his CEO, and someone who he thought belonged on the street more than in an office, let alone as a CEO. The man was standing at five feet nine, with a professional suit that did not match his gangster look of the dark-skinned man with the many tattoos, piercings, chains, a small trimmed beard, sunglasses on, and a long slit-like cut scar on his cheek.

The thug-looking CEO sneered down at Banbutsu with a disgusted look on his face.

"Hey there, Kage failure. You know what to do, don't you?" the CEO spoke, looking smugly and reaching his hand out as if expecting to get something.

"Oh?" looking at his CEO with a surprised look on his face, Banbutsu took the food he had gotten from the vending machine and opened it before taking a big bite in front of the CEO and started chewing.

Ever since Banbutsu had started to work here, he had had to buy and give his boss food, thanks to him threatening to fire him or get a group of his friends to beat him up and such.

Unknown to the abusive CEO, however, Banbutsu had never truly been scared of him. No, he simply had decided to stay in this company to keep others like his siblings from attacking him, and so, using the cover of being suppressed and abused by his CEO, he had been able to get away with working on many things without them seeing him do so.

And so, over the years of working for this company and his projects, Banbutsu was now ready to leave, break out of those chains, and reveal himself. And so, when his CEO had gotten mad enough to try to punch him and rush towards him, he had smirked to himself as he had grabbed onto his hand before he had made his hand go to his left, making his hand smash into the vending machine, smashing the glass and breaking the food that was in the machine.

Grabbing his hand in pain, Tyrone screamed as he saw that the metallic springs and glass had gotten into his fist, making him start to bleed from it and feel great pain.

"What's the matter? Does it hurt?" Banbutsu smirked widely and psychopathic as he cracked his knuckles before opening his palm and palming Tyrone's face and smashed his head into the vending machine, smashing up and clogging the buttons.

After finishing smashing his face into the machine, Banbutsu sighed before letting go of Tyrone's face, letting him slip and fall down, nearly unconscious from the beating he had just gotten, all until the vending machine started to malfunction and spray out many open drinks onto him from being smashed open.

"Well, that was more than overdue," Delara said as she put her bag on her shoulder and walked next to Banbutsu as they walked away, making their way out of the room and building.

"Oh, I already had submitted my paperwork to quit. Yay! Yay! Yay!" the last thing the CEO, Tyrone, was able to hear before passing out from the pain were those cold words followed by many loud cheers as he sank into the arms of unconsciousness. The cheers did not stop when he did, however, and were heard through the building as the two left.

After having left the building and going out for a long time, the two made their way into a bar area, where they ended up getting a few shots and got picked up a bit later.

Making their way into the back of the car, the two of them started to make out quite a bit before things got more heated. They arrived at their destination, causing them to stop as the bodyguards around the mentions bowed, and the big electric gate opened, letting the car in.

The two quickly fixed their slightly ruffled clothes before getting out of the car, where they were greeted by three people. The first was a darkish brown-eyed girl wearing a small schoolgirl-like mini skirt and a short mini shirt, which barely hid her well-developed body for her age. With a red ribbon on top, her long pink hair was tied in a ponytail, and she had a pair of big headphones that had a white teddy bear designed on it with two crosses for eyes.

Behind the girl stood two people: a woman to the left with red hair that only reached her shoulders, wearing a long red and white dress, in contrast to the man on the girl's right. This man seemed to be slightly older, with white hair and a black professional suit. He had no wrinkles and would be described as handsome by most, with a well-trimmed beard. However, his eyes told another story, as unlike his handsome and calm appearance, he seemed to be someone who had seen quite a lot of unspeakable things and done equally as much, if not more.

The two lovers walked hand in hand towards the small family of three and quickly traded small greetings.

"Hello, daughter, son!" the woman said as she smiled. This was Kazumi Kurumu, the mother of both Delara and the youngest of one year difference, Michi Kaiya.

"Hello," they replied, walking into the house. This was not their first time coming here together, and certainly would not be their last, as they continued to make their way towards the familiar hallways.

"So, son, how did your plan go to get out of that company?" the white-haired man asked, putting a hand on Banbutsu's shoulder. This was Yasushi Masaru, the two sister's father and a businessman.

"Yep, everything went as planned, and I even got some payback in the end," Banbutsu said, smiling at the elderly man as they went and arrived at their destinations.

Arriving at the dining room, they quickly sat at the table and started to chat about what had happened earlier that day and what would be happening and such moving forward.

"So, then now that you got out of that job, you can start your company. Once you get everyone together, it would be too late for them to stop your plans and the company, and in the end, you would have one of the biggest worldwide companies and certainly the fastest rising one," the elderly man spoke, sounding impressed as he remembered the young man's plans.

"Yep, exactly. So, what do you think about the details of what I've been working on, dad?" the young man said, leaning back as food and drinks were placed in front of him, pouring himself some wine.

The elderly man smiled as he got up and raised his own glass filled with wine. "To my future son-in-law's success for now and many years to come!"

"CHEERS!" The family cheered, as they started to eat and drink, occasionally throwing in comments from the others as the elderly man went over the details of what had happened and so on.

By the end, it had already become nighttime, and everyone was quite tired and drunk in a few cases.

After finishing their meal and excusing themselves, Delara led Banbutsu out of the dining area and upstairs into her own room. Once inside, she quickly closed the door and jumped onto him, starting to make out passionately. However, something seemed to catch Banbutsu's attention – the seeming touch of sadness behind her actions. Assuming it was simply because she wouldn't be seeing her workmates anymore, he didn't stop her and pushed her down onto the bed after taking his shirt off.

A few minutes later, Banbutsu broke the kiss as Delara took her shirt off. Not long after, they intensely kissed and made out, taking off their clothes.

Minutes later, Banbutsu was standing behind Delara with her bent over the bed, her face down in the bed sheet. Banbutsu slowly shoved his dick into her wet pussy, like he had done so many times before. As he did this, he briefly remembered when he had taken her first time, but he didn't dwell on it as he started to fuck her like he had done so many times before.

It had been many hours since they had started, and they had only finished after five hours of nonstop fucking.

Delara had been drained and completely worn out to the point that she had literally passed out. Meanwhile, Banbutsu sat down with a smile on his face as he leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling.

'She really went all out tonight, huh? But then again, it's to be expected since we're starting tomorrow.'

Chuckling slightly as he thought about what was to come, Banbutsu went to sleep, unaware that this would be his last night of sleep in this world for a long time to come.

Waking up the next morning, Banbutsu sighed, feeling unnaturally stiff and tired, almost as if he were heating up quite a bit, and his body sweated quite a bit, with a tight feeling in his chest.

Sitting up, Banbutsu brought a hand to his mouth as he coughed violently for a good half minute before he gasped heavily, catching his breath. Looking down at his hand, his eyes widened.

"Blood," as those words came to mind, seeing the blood from his coughing, he had gotten quite worried. However, he quickly shook his head and pulled the blanket covering his lower half, showing the naked Delara, who seemed to be sleeping. However, it was not peacefully, as she had been sweating quite a bit, her skin was red and flushed, and she was breathing heavily.

"Delara," Banbutsu spoke in a worried tone as he quickly got up, stumbling back a few steps until he hit his back against the door. Opening the door, he went out to get help.

As soon as Banbutsu left the room, the bed shook, and the blankets fell off, revealing Delara's figure to be panting even more.

Running down the long hallway, Banbutsu's eyes started to become bloodshot red as the strain of him running and exerting himself so much while poisoned started to show, yet he did not stop, only continuing to move more and more, making the poison not only spread faster but also making it harder to fight against the poison.

"Masaru-san, Miss Kurumu, Kaiya, anyone!" Banbutsu screamed in a strained voice as he continued to stumble down the hall ever so slowly.

Arriving at the door leading to the backyard, Banbutsu groaned as he exerted himself, pushing against the massive white doors.

As the doors opened, Banbutsu stumbled down, nearly falling on his face but catching himself as he used his arms to support himself before he raised his head to see the family standing there, all except Kaiya.

The family stood there, looking as peaceful as ever, if not more. There, Masaru and Kurumu stood, both having a hand on the shoulders of Delera, who was now in a wheelchair, all watching the peaceful scene of a small waterfall making a small lake with many birds, trees, and other plants and animals surrounding it.

'What is this? What's going on here? How is she here? Why aren't they worried about her being in such a condition? What happened?' a million questions went through Banbutsu's mind as he stared confusedly at this scene.

"Oh, my Banbutsu dear, what has happened to you?" Kurumu spoke as she saw Banbutsu's state, looking very shocked. She removed her hand from her daughter's shoulder and brought it to her mouth, covering it.

Both Kurumu and Masaru ran over with worried looks on their faces as Kurumu knelt down beside him to give him a hand. Banbutsu, still being rather confused, started to speak, telling them how he had woken up and had been in this rather poor state of being, thanks to him being poisoned. As he spoke, however, thanks to him being rather confused, disoriented, distracted, his senses had been dulled out, thanks to the poison, and having a great amount of trust in those people, he did not react when he felt Kurumu's hand go to his back to help him up.

Not even a second later, his eyes widened, and he forced himself to jump back as he felt himself get stabbed in the back, with his blood now rushing faster once more, thanks to the adrenaline rushing through him, the poison spread more, making blood start to leak out of his nose. As he turned around to look at what stabbed him, he saw a small golden dagger sticking out of his back, but as he did so, he watched as a small drop of blood spill out from his nose and hit the dagger and seemed to sizzle a bit as it made contact.

Not able to stop himself, he hit the wall, making the knife go into his back deeper and deeper, causing him to cough up some blood. However, he was forced to lean down as a man covered from head to toe in black cloth used a katana to try to cut off his head.

Dodging the attack, Banbutsu once again stumbled forward with his head leaned down before straightening out and slamming a fist in the back of the man's head.

Having been a long-time master of many martial arts, boxing styles, fighting styles, and techniques all over the world, Banbutsu had been quite a strong and hard person to beat.

Having quickly realized that he could not function at full capacity due to his senses being quite dulled, he decided to risk it and use a particular technique, the "Zui Quan," also known as "Drunken Fist." It is a fighting style that imitates the movements of a drunken person, exhibiting seemingly uncoordinated, flowing movements that can appear as if the person is swaying, similar to someone who is intoxicated.

Jumping out of the trees were nine people, covered from head to toe in similar black cloths. However, they had major differences, such as some having much larger chests, indicating that they were females, and carrying many different weapons, such as fighting knives, kunai, bows and arrows, spears, nunchucks, batons, and much more.

As the new arrivals came in, they formed a circle around Banbutsu and the first man, allowing the family to retreat behind them. The assassins watched as the two exchanged blows, although it seemed more as if Banbutsu was dodging by throwing himself around, tripping, and performing weird uncoordinated movements, almost like a drunk person flinging themselves around. Yet, as the assassins attacked him, each blow was dodged, blocked, or countered with more ridiculous moves than the previous ones.

"What the? Did the poison given to him make him drunk, or is he getting drunk off his own blood?" one of the newly arriving assassins whispered, breaking the one next to them from their shocked state.

The assassin quickly pulled on their bow and arrow, launching it forward. As Banbutsu, who had been lying on his back with the assassin with the sword trying to slash his face, Banbutsu quickly caught the sword with his feets before looking, he saw new assassins before seeing the arrow coming for his leg. He let go of the sword, making the first assassin who had been trying to push the sword down come down and get hit in the shoulder by the arrow, delivering a fatal blow. However, much to the assassins' annoyance, Banbutsu had been able to alter the sword's trajectory before letting it go, making it miss him by an inch.

Seeing this happen and the screams of the assassin caused his companions to break out of their shocked state and charge forward. However, they were blown back when Banbutsu kicked the first assassin up as hard as he could, causing him to be sent up and hit his companions.

The man rolled over, still holding onto his wounds, as he tried to get back up, only for Delara to come in her wheelchair and stop him and start treating his wounds.

Bloodied, beaten, stabbed, hurt, and in pain, his body would no longer respond as well as it should, and he knew he would not survive this. However, he was satisfied to at least die fighting, as he had already taken out nine of the assassins, and only one was left: a woman with a scar on her neck. She seemed to be especially strange, for she did not panic even after seeing all her comrades taken down, nor had she jumped in to help. She had no weapons and only decided to move once there was no one else.

Clapping her hands as she walked closer, she complimented him, "You're quite the handsome fellow, even in such a state. You're still a catch, but it's a shame. If we had known about you from the start, we would have recruited you. You would have been a great asset to the team, but alas, it's quite a shame that it had to come to this." Raising her left hand, it suddenly started to move unnaturally, almost as if trying to stretch, before it happened.

The cloth on her hand ripped and burst as a long black metallic blade came shooting out.

"Well, if you give me the antidote and save me, then maybe I'll consider joining," Banbutsu said with a hollow chuckle, smirking mockingly at her, almost as if telling her that he didn't care.

She smiled as she shot forwards, slashing down at him, with him using a kunai to try to stop her attack after having taken it from the defeated assassins, despite having broken both of his arms.

"Argh," Banbutsu let out a scream from the surprising situation as he looked down to see that the entire right side of his body had been cut off from the shoulder down all the way to the feet, completely cutting the bone in his feet in half, leaving him with the inner thigh and only the thumb on his feet.

Somehow, jumping back followed by a fall, Banbutsu watched as the right side of his body stayed there and somehow did not fall. As this happened, he stood back up, only for it to happen again. The woman appeared behind him, with not just one but both her arms now being swords, and using both swords, she stabbed straight into his back, coming out of his chest. As he tried to grab the swords, the poison kicked in again, stopping him from even reaching the swords.

The woman let out a smirk as she slashed both her sword arms, making a massive, clean, X-like shape cut, causing Banbutsu to cough up some more blood.

"Well then… seems this is it… well, you better hope wherever I end up can hold me because if not, haha," he let out a cold yet funnily hollow chuckle as he raised his head to see the now-broken glass roof of the greenhouse garden and saw some rain start to come pouring down. Taking a second to open his mouth and taste some rainwater, he chuckled again.

'Man, when was the last time I drank rainwater? It must have been a long time ago. Oh yeah, it was back then when I was eight years old when me and them used to…'

"I'll be back with a vengeance, and when I do, even they will fall, and this will end so that I can achieve my dream once and for all. Tell them that I will be coming for them, even if it takes me years. I will have my dream, and there is nothing they can say or do to stop me. They will be crushed."

Turning his head back, Banbutsu smirked before suddenly spitting in her face, causing her eyes to widen in fear. She suddenly pulled her arms out of Banbutsu, making him fall to his shaky leg and other half-leg.

Screaming and grabbing her head after making her hands go back to normal, the woman screamed in pain as her face burned from the poisonous, acid-like blood on her skin, making it go red and burn.

After she had managed to get rid of it, thanks to one of her subordinates waking up and throwing water at her face, this would have been a death sentence for said subordinate under any other circumstances, but this one was an exception.

Growling, she angrily grabbed the katana of the subordinate who had woken up first, being the man who had also attacked first. She stomped her way towards Banbutsu and...

Slash, slash, slash. The many slashes rang out, followed by curses as she screamed and raged for being not only looked down on by him but also disrespected, spit on, and damaged. In the end, she won the battle, but he had not only the last word, but he would also be in her head and on her face, thanks to the scar as a mark of shame.

Looking up, the woman frowned as she saw it: Banbutsu looking her straight in the eyes with his dead eyes. But they did not seem entirely hollow, not sad; they seemed to her mocking, almost as if she had lost. But anyone could have seen this, thanks to the massive smirk that had been left on his face.

And so Banbutsu no Aruji Kage, member of the Kage family, famous master of all fighting styles, martial arts techniques, and all kinds of other skills, a man who had a bright future ahead in many ways, died not to see said future. Murdered by the hands of assassins and a backstabbing family and lover whom he should not have trusted, yet throughout the poison, backstabbing, betrayal, beatdown, beaten and broken body with over one hundred and sixty slash and stab wounds in total, and a deadly poison which could have killed many people in less time than they could even realize, the man known as Banbutsu no Aruji Kage died standing up on his feet, smirking in the face of his murderer as he promised them death.