CHAPTER 182

In Tristan and Malia's house, the young couple and Boyd were currently having a movie night/marathon.

Looking at the time that was less than an hour to midnight, Boyd informed them that he would be crashing the night rather than stopping the fun to go home.

"I'm more surprised that you actually thought you could go home when you joined us for movie night." Malia said.

All of a sudden, Tristan sat up from where he was reclining and acting as Malia's pillow which caused her to yell angrily at him for the his movement.

"There's something here. I can feel them."

Malia sprung up to her feet and growled threateningly at her surroundings only that she got goosebumps immediately after she did that.

Tristan's vision shifted from his human basic sight to his enhanced sight as he looked around the room, which was when he saw them.

Just before the door were four swirling dark spots.

"… Shadows?"

His eyes hardened while Malia shoved Boyd behind her as four masked figures wearing identical black garbs suddenly appeared in the room.

"Oh God. Are those swords?" Boyd couldn't help but pray that his friends got this because dying like this was not a part of his life plan.

"And who the hell are you guys?" Malia bared her teeth and seeing them not answering, tried mocking them. "Some supernatural cosplaying cult group?"

Tristan however had noticed the oddity of the figures in their house. "Malia, I can't feel ANYTHING from them."

He wasn't feeling anything at all from behind those clothes they wore. No blood, no heartbeat, just the static that represented their presence.

He eyed the four masked figures and slowly unfurled four tails behind him. In response to his actions, the masked figures drew their swords.

"Oh shit! Shit! Shit!" Boyd cursed nervously stepped back. This was a fight between supernatural creatures, a normal human like him had no business here.

The first figure that moved to attack found themselves flying out of the house before they could react.

They were quick-footed but not blindingly fast.

Two of them tried cutting Tristan's blood tail that was aimed for them only to find out that they barely nicked the now solid sanguine appendage.

Tristan grabbed both of them on their faces before speeding out of the house and slamming them into the nearby trees.

"I don't know what you are, but you made a mistake coming here." Tristan said as he glared down at the three masked figures he had thrown outside.

"Stupid." He couldn't help but mutter as he saw two of them trying to flank him from both sides while one came directly to him.

He blocked the flanking duo's swords with his tails and caught the swinging arm of the third one with his right hand and punched his in the face with his blood-encased left fist.

He smashed one of the flanks hard against the ground and froze the other one to a cocoon in his tail but left their frontal section open which he proceeded to punch repeatedly until the cocoon broke and they flew across the field like a windless kite.

"I can't feel any fear or pain from any of you, but I can see it behind those masks. Mere puppets, yet you somehow generate the desire to kill me."

The masked figures stared at him so hard that the mask's eye sockets started glowing a yellowish green color and they gripped their swords hard.

One bravely took a step forward while Tristan took several to close the distance between them with both of his hands covered in blood gauntlets. Though they possessed no emotions, the presence of an overwhelming adversary forced out an instinctual reaction out of the lifeless puppets they were that they took a step back when Tristan suddenly appeared barely an arm's length away.

Before they could understand what just happened, Tristan's tails wrapped around the legs of the first one who moved and froze it before smoothly disarming their blade and driving it through their stomach.

This time the other two staggered back and just stared at Tristan with their glowing eyes before suddenly disappearing like smoke. Even the one he drove a blade through was gone.

Going back to the house, he sighed in relief when he saw that Malia was at least smart enough to limit any damage they would have done to the house.

"Guess you took care of those three since mine literally disappeared into smoke." Malia said to which Tristan nodded. "At least we know they weren't human or alive for that matter."

"I think someone might be controlling them because their normal movement felt a bit too stiff and choreographed." Tristan remarked before adding his last observation of them. "I ran one through with their own sword and I didn't feel or smell anything. It really felt like there was nothing behind those clothes they wore."

"So someone is channeling some serious voodoo and creating an undead ninja death squad." Boyd said plainly in what should have sounded like a joke. "Are we really sure Jennifer is dead?"

"100%. I did not stop drinking her blood until I drank her lifeblood and felt it slide down my throat." Tristan said with certainty. Someone could fake their death with arcane magic or some type of suspended animation play, but one thing they couldn't fake was their lifeblood.

The moment he sucked away someone's lifeblood was the moment that person died permanently and nothing anyone does can save them, instinctively he knew this to be true.

"Who are you texting?"

"Allison. Hashtag; We just got attacked by four shadow ninjas on some Mortal Kombat Lin Kuei type shit." Boyd said as he hit send. Five seconds didn't go by before Allison started calling him.

[Boyd, what the hell was that? Is this some type of joke?]

From her displeased drowsy voice, it was clear that she was about to drift off to sleep when Boyd's 'explanatory' text came through.

"Unfortunately, princess, Boyd isn't fucking with you. Some spooky masked… things just appeared out of thin air with swords. Might wanna strap up since we don't know who or why they are attacking."

The line went silent before sounds of clothes ruffling could be heard, followed by an extremely frustrated sigh.

"Vented enough?" Malia asked knowingly.

[Ugh, for now, yes. I'm slowly starting to genuinely hate this town…. Anyway, what happened to these 'ninjas'? Any idea who sent them?]

"They disappeared after realizing they couldn't win. As for who sent them, we haven't got the faintest idea. All we know is that they aren't people. They are not even alive." Tristan said while shifting one of the longer furniture into its former position.

It wasn't hard imagining Allison rubbing her head in frustration as she listened to what they were saying while struggling to refrain from calling bullshit on everything they said.

[Are they like puppets then?]

"In a way, yes. Just that I couldn't feel anything at all from them; neither emotions nor a speck of life, not even when I stabbed one through."

[This town keeps getting ridiculous as time goes on. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. I'll call my dad to see if he knows something, anything at all. Ughh, great! Another sleepless night.]

The call ended there and the three of them stood there not knowing what to do; to continue their movie marathon or prowl the night in search for smoky trails.

"Well, let's continue." Malia picked up the remote control and resumed the movie they had been watching as she took her seat, reclining against Tristan.

"You guys are either crazy or stupidly confident to just go back to watching movies immediately after fighting those ninjas." Boyd commented even as he took his seat and grabbed a nearby bag of cheese.

"You get used to it after a while."

…..

In a dim lit room, an Asian woman sat on the bed with her eyes closed while muttering something under her breath.

In the next moment however, her eyes shit open and she gasped while swaying feebly on the bed until her husband held her.

"Noriko, are you alright?" Her husband, Ken Yukimura, the new History teacher in Beacon Hills, asked in concern as he held his wife close.

"One of them was killed." She said with a slightly ashen face. "A hundred years of knowledge and power gone like that."

"You can stop at any time." Ken tried consoling her but she stubbornly shook her head.

This was her responsibility and mistake so she needed to clean it up once and for all. "I must kill it this time around."

Ken sighed and held her face tenderly. "A lot of people might die. Especially those children. Can you bear that burden?"

She couldn't bring her eyes to meet his because of the shaky moral ground she stood on. "I must do what I must or else Kira will have to kill it in my stead, and that is a responsibility I don't want to saddle her with."

Ken sighed when he saw that she still remained resolute in her decision. "Fine. But I'll be here with you all the way." Looking at the faintest signs of weakness on his wife's face, his heart tightened. "Was it him that killed one of the them?"

She nodded. "That boy, Tristan Hayes, is stronger that we expected."

"Then why don't we just tell them? They'll understand and we can reduce the number of people that have to die for this." Ken tried pushing once more but his wife remained silent so he decided to try another time.

….

Unaware to both Noriko and Ken, their daughter had unintentionally eavesdropped on some part of their conversation and she was currently wide-eyed with shock in her own room before slowly breaking down in silent sobs.

"No…. N-No…" She shook her head in denial but she couldn't forget what her parents were saying. "My mom and dad… are serial killers."

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