Chapter 104: First Blood

The day Diana avoided had finally come; they found a group that was after their lives. Well, they were only after Ciaran's life, but she was an inconvenient tag-along.

A group of nine people was resting by a fire, with a file with his name and known abilities in the hands of what appeared to be their leader.

The man was two meters and thirty centimeters tall (7ft. 6) and was built wide and muscular. He was the only Rank Four of the group, but six Rank Threes were armed to the teeth.

They had all kinds of nasty stuff on them, poison, acid, bombs, and even aphrodisiacs.

"Look Diana, we found loot piñatas." He laughed, and the woman glared at him.

She was very worried about the boy, not because they could hurt him, but because she wouldn't always be able to protect him, and he had to learn to kill.

It was very hard for her the first time, and she wanted to make it as easy as possible for him. She found the worst group possible. All of the members were drug addicts, and by their tattoos, they had spent a lot of time in the Emoire's prisons.

"I will handle the seven, you deal with the Rank Twos. And Rony, don't hesitate." She said seriously.

She blinked. Unlike the animals, humans had a much weaker perception, so even the Rank Four didn't notice anything, until her warglaive decapitated one of the Rank Threes.

She said, nothing and just engulfed her body in Moonlight, heading for her next target. The Rank Four was strong and tenacious, but he was slow, much too slow to protect them if they weren't near him.

"Spread out, she can't kill us all." One of the survivors screamed in terror, and he fled.

The big man cursed his stupidity but the rest of his little group ran. Her hunt had begun.

The two weakest members of that group ran together. They figured the woman would go after their Boss or the others. Their bounties were low, and someone like her didn't need to claim their miserable little lives.

They were right, she didn't want to harm them, she wanted her partner to sharpen his resolve on them.

He followed them for five minutes, not because he couldn't attack them before, but because he didn't want the Rank Threes to intervene. If they did, things could get messy, and the boy liked his plans executed to perfection.

When he judged they were far enough away, he send his wind out through his katar, as he had found out, doing it this way, increased his piercing damage by a lot.

The boy expected the man to feel his attack and dodge, resulting in his injury, and lessening the burden Ciaran would have in fighting two people. But he has misjudged. All this time, he had only seen Rank Twos when he had barely awakened his magic.

After that, his experience came from what Diana told him a Rank Two was capable of, and she based that on herself. He greatly overestimated the two criminals in front of him. The projectile hit the man in the back of his skull and blew apart his face. His nose was gone and his eyes were nailed to a tree.

His teeth had been blown away and were now raining down on the trees.

Ciaran froze. He thought it would feel the same as when he hunted a beast, but it didn't. Slowly, the realization hit him, and it hit him hard.

'I killed. The man is, the man is dead.' He couldn't go further than that.

His partner was badly startled by the scene.

He fell down scared for his own life, and then he saw it. A man dressed in white and green was standing in a tree, watching him. He couldn't feel anything from the man, and he couldn't even see his eyes, because the monster wore a mask.

He wanted to run, but before he could even stand up, the masked man was upon him, but rather than attacking him, he was examining his dead partner.

"Dead in one shot. No defense, and no means of evasion. Either he had focused all his attention in other areas, and severely neglected his survival, or he was just garbage." A rough, unpleasant voice sounded behind the mask.

The now paralyzed by fear criminal thought the man was apathetically examining his kill, but he couldn't be more wrong.

Ciaran was channeling his Wind straight into his lungs, so he wouldn't hyperventilate. He was examining the kill because his mind couldn't comprehend what he had just done.

He sounded cold and cynical because he was applying the calming effects of the Mist along with having Ice whisper in his ear that this wasn't a big deal.

He wasn't ignoring the other man, he had just forgotten about his existence, as he was contemplating the consequences of his own actions.

"Fuck you! You think you scare me you punk, let's see if you can fight so well in the open as well." After several minutes had passed the fear of the other man had turned to anger, and his anger into hate.

He charged at the boy pretending to be a man, and stoked at his stomach, surprised he could get a hit in.

The boy bounced back and hit a tree.

"HAHAHAHA. SO YOU REALLY ARE NOTHING WITHOUT YOUR TRICKS. COME AND DIE." He laughed hysterically, as the boy calmly stood back up.

Thanks to his armor, he barely felt that punch, but he had now registered the other man.

He shifted next to him and used his control of Water to tell the prisoner's blood to freeze.

The man wasn't a mage and was an Earth Warrior, so he had no defense against that.

The boy couldn't hold him for long, but he didn't have to. He used his wind and broke all four of the man's limbs, forcing him onto his knees.

"AHHHHHHH" The man screamed as he regained control of his body. He thought the masked figure in front of him was weak, but now he was at his mercy.

"Please, I have a wife and two boys. I don't want to die, I just wanted a lighter sentence. Please have mercy." He pleaded, tears running down his eyes, but all he saw was the cold, lifeless mask staring back at him.

Before he could continue bleeding he felt one of the katars slowly piercing his throat. As he felt his life slipping by he finally noticed. The man was shaking, and his hand was trembling. The kill was slow and messy, not because in front of the prisoner stood a ruthless sadist, but because the person under the mask was an amateur, who was uncomfortable with taking a life.

The prisoner would laugh at the irony, but he no longer had vocal cords.

Ciaran decided to make full use of the opportunity Diana had given him and didn't use his elements to finish the job, he just pushed the katar as deep as he could and then grabbed the man's head with his free hand and started slicing.

The prisoner died a slow and agonizing death, and with each tear Ciaran shed, he became number and number.

After he was done he used the moisture in the air to clean himself up and then used his Wind to get rid of the smell.

He slowly made his way to his partner.

She was waiting for him, her silver armor painted red. Unlike him, she didn't have convenient cleaning tools, so she always had to rely on him in the aftermath of a hunt.

He scrubbed her armor with his Water coated hands. She had seen him do it remotely, but she understood he needed the physical tough right now.

After he was done, they left and headed to their base, a small cave dug up to the side of a mountain. Many Hunters had used much the same strategy for shelter, so they didn't stand out at all.

"How did it go, did they give you any trouble?" He asked, his voice monotone.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I hunted them down one by one. The big man took a bit to finish, but other than that, it was much simpler than my regular solo hunts." She answered him truthfully.

He remained quiet for a while. Then sealed the entrance of the cave, so they could finally take off their armor.

It was a bit awkward to undress in front of someone in such close proximity, but they had gotten used to it.

Once the mask was off Ciaran stopped. As he cleaned himself with soap water every day his armor was probably the cleanest thing in this whole place. Diana had to get rid of her whole plate tho, as she couldn't sleep in it.

As they lay next to each other, he finally had enough courage to ask the question that was eating him from the inside.

"Does it, does it ever get easier?" He asked, his true, boyish voice trembling.

"No." She said.

Ciaran closed his eyes in peace, thankful for the lie.