Prologue
Silence casts its grip on the turbulent air up high above the city. Gushes of cold air blow across the top of the scaffolding of the high rise, spinning and dancing through and around the steel skeletal frame of the unfinished skyscraper.
A matrix of metal beams streak the structure with lines of shadows. Dark rain clouds hang over from high above, creating a darken world where only the quiet hum of city traffic can be heard, along with the hoot of pigeons nesting in the shadows.
Then, a clank of metal on metal disturbs the silence. A figure walks out from the shadow of a steel column within the skeletal beams. In her right hand, she drags along a long metal blade. The pigeons intensify their hoots as she walks the span of a narrow steel beam. Her steps are well place and confident, paying no attention to fact that she is fifty storeys from the ground below. She stops at the middle of the span, her eyes focus in front of her.
Another figure emerges in front of her from the shadows. Blue red eyes glow out from it’s face like the moonlight though slits. On it’s pale face, a elaborate tattoo glows with the same eeriness. The figure smirks with zeal at her counterpart, her tattoos flaring up in a fit of fury.
“Ah, Yuki! How nice to see you up here. Where’s your friend…dead already?”
“Enough playing around Mena. It ends here, I‘m gonna kill you for what you‘ve done.” Yuki raises her blade and props it forward. Mena laughs out.
“Oh really?” Mena sneers. “And what did a poor girl like me do, to deserve to die?”
“Shut up…”
“Are you really gonna kill me? After all we went through…those years of high school, me and you, best of friends?”
The memories hit Yuki, her heart begins to drop. “….no…you’re not her…”
“…You’re not Mena. She died when you took her body. You’re just...a dead face!”
Yuki runs across the steel beam with her blade leading. She wails out as she makes a slash at Mena.
“Die!!!”
Her blade misses as Mena strafes out of the way. Her body glides across her left and lands on a steel beam ten yards away. She gives Yuki a mocking grin.
“Yet you still call me by her name. Why is that? While I am different from the Mena you once knew…she is still inside this body and I am still her. Can you really kill me knowing that?”
“Shut up!” Yuki runs across the beam connecting to Mena’s side. Her blade thrusts forward at a maddening speed. Mena leans away just in time to dodge the lethal tip. The blade hits the steel column in front, penetrating through the metal with incredible force.
“Too slow!”
Mena raises her leg and delivers a smashing kick. Yuki flies through the air, her body falling through the gap of the steel beam grid. At the last moment, her right hand grabs a hold of a ledge, saving her from a nasty drop. Her body dangles from the steel beam like a lantern in the wind.
“Eh..!”
Pain courses through her pelvis where she was kicked. The blow had fracture her bones.
Yuki looks down. The concrete pavement stares back at her from 400 feet down. She gasps at the view and turns away.
Yuki tries to pull herself up, catching the ledge with her other hand. Her muscles tense and she struggles against the pain of her injury. She inches her way up and manages to secure both arms on the steel beam. Yet, her body is too traumatize to pull the rest of itself up to safety.
Fear seizes her mind as she looks up to see Mena walking towards her. In Mena’s hand is none other then her own sword. The tattooed demon tress skips across the row of beams until stopping on Yuki’s right. She looks down with a malicious grimace at her doomed foe.
“Looks like I won’t be the one dying tonight. Seriously Yuki, did you really think that you could had killed me?”
“…Mena…you killed Mena…and Jo...”
“Save your breath Yuki. Even if you are a Blood Rose, we both know that you will never hurt anyone or anything. You’re a pathetic weakling, like all those that you swore to protect. A little Miss Sunshine who couldn’t fail a exam or miss a charity event for her life. You think carrying this fucking sword will change that?!?”
Mena raises the blade above her head, her eyes glaring with the lust to kill.
“You are weak, and those you love will be prey on by me and my kind. You couldn’t protect your delicious brother, and you won’t be able to protect your parents, or your friends,…or Toji for that matter. And I will take my time with them, don‘t you worry. Especially with Toji… I will enjoy feeding on him when the time comes…!”
“You stay away from him!”
“Shut up and die…”
The edge of the blade sweeps downwards in a gentle curve towards Yuki‘s neck. Yuki closes shut her eye in horror.
I’m gonna die…no…I can’t die…not yet…
A deafening scream resonates in the night, and the pigeons scatter from their perches in fright.
