YEAR: 2011

Eve could barely open her eyes, there was an intense ringing going off in her head, she tried to stand but her knees were weak and her arms felt heavy, most of her body was splintered with shrapnel. She could barely think straight just trying to remember what just happened until she saw what was before her.

The house was blown to bits, debris covered the road and showered the neighbouring houses, it was a miracle she was even alive but as she gathered her thoughts, it dawned upon Eve that if she managed to survive there was a chance Kosuke and Izumi were as well, she frantically started moving rubble and she managed to find them.

Both of the boys surprisingly weren’t harmed too badly as their futons managed to shield them from a generous amount of shrapnel, however the blast managed to knock them both out. As Eve started to move them she heard movement from behind, with no weapons or cover she adopted a stance hoping that whoever was there wasn’t hostile

“Show yourself! NOW!”

All she heard was a male voice string of incoherent swears and curses that became much more clear as Eve’s mind cleared up a little

“SHIT FUCK TWAT ON A CUNT ASS FUCKING UGHHHHH”

Eve managed to recognise Kaito’s voice and began moving towards him only to be met with a shocking view, his previously injured leg was now completely detached from the rest of his body while plenty of his other leg and lower torso had been shredded by the shrapnel.

“Kaito!”

Eve was worried and tried to get closer to him but he raised his arm signalling her to arm herself and hide. As much as she wanted to protest, Eve followed his instructions and looked for their weapons safe and retrieved two hand cannons and two regular pistols, tossing one of each to Kaito before picking up both of the boys and moving herself to find a suitable hiding spot. She ran a little uphill and hid herself and the boys in the heavy shrubbery that was across the road in front of where the house used to be.

Eve had to watch as Kaito lay on the ground surrounded by rubble, she wanted to go to him but she could barely move her body anymore as the adrenaline began to wear off. The intense pain from the explosion and shrapnel stuck in her body began to sink in and she nearly passed out again simply from the pain but she barely managed to pull herself together, even making a gag from her clothing to stop any noises leaking out.

Kaito laid his body down among the debris, trying to conceal himself as much as he could knowing who was bound to approach the location, he immediately prepared the hand cannon and pistol that Eve tossed to him and waited as silently as he could however he was continuously bleeding and knew he wouldn’t live for more than 10 minutes at most before he died of blood loss.

Five minutes seemed to pass by incredibly slowly, Kaito was still motionless however his skin began to turn pale, heart beating out of his chest, he started to see double and felt dizzy enough to vomit his entire stomach out, but he managed to persevere keeping his consciousness from slipping away.

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3 more minutes passed by and no one had approached yet, Kaito was barely conscious at this point and he couldn’t move anymore, he was still as motionless as before but now it was because he was unable to move anything, his beating heart had slowed to a turtles pace and his breathing had become shallow and ragged

He was about to close his eyes and go to rest among the rubble and fire thinking that the perpetrators weren’t going to show up anymore, but the moment he had hope it was shattered almost instantly, as he saw a somewhat familiar figure approaching him

“Oh wow you survived that? I guess you’re not as bad as I remember!”

The figure spoke in a cheery but cynical tone and as Kaito’s eyes laid upon the figure it revealed a young man who looked less than 20 years old with dirty blonde hair and amber eyes however Kaito didn’t show any anger purely because of the amount of blood he lost

“Hey… haven’t seen you in a while, how long’s it been? 1, 2 years?”

Kaito let out a slight chuckle trying to ease himself of the rage boiling inside

“Yeah that sounds about right, I wonder if you remember my name?”

“Oh yeah it was Dick or something right?”

“Well it’s Nick but close enough, although everyone’s calling me Butcher now.”

“Ah that’s right, how’ve you been Nick?”

“Pretty good honestly, my scar’s finally stopped aching after seeing you like this. You do remember this pretty thing don’t you?”

Nick crouched down to Kaito and lifted up the hair covering his left ear to reveal a nasty scar

“It was pretty rude to do that to me with my own knife y’know?”

“Sorry I would’ve used a gun if I knew how much of a pain in the ass you were gonna be.”

Nick let out a small chuckle at Kaito’s remark

“Well it was good catching up and you’ll be dead soon anyway so no need to bring out my cleaver but I assume your family is alive since there weren’t any bodies so I’ll go hunting now, see ya!”

As this reached Kaito’s ears the rage inside him spilled over and something more powerful than adrenaline filled his body allowing movement that should be impossible in his current state

“YOU BASTARD!”

Kaito managed to lunge at Nick with his one leg knocking both of them to the ground, almost immediately Kaito raised his arms and began a flurry of animalistic blows onto Nick's body, each strike was filled with pure killing intent.

Eve could only watch as the situation unfolded in front of her eyes, both blood and tears were streaming down her face as she struggled to hold herself back, she clenched her fist hard enough that her nails cut into her palm.

As Kaito somehow continued his flurry of blows upon Nick, the speed and weight behind each blow gradually began to deteriorate as his burst of energy slowly wore off and he could no longer control his limbs once again, collapsing on top of Nick’s body where he went back to laboured breathing along with panting from exhaustion

“Pretty impressive stamina for an old man but it’s too bad… for you of course, now me? I wore this fancy new bullet proof suit, it’s pretty neat and it’s got great shock absorption too, now if you excuse me I’ll resume my hunt.”

Despite his body shutting down, Kaito grabbed at Nick’s ankles doing his best to try restrict his movement as much as possible

“Wow you never give up huh?”

“I won’t let you… you… bastard.”

Nick’s patience finally snaps and pulls something from his back, a large cleaver

“Alright I’ve had enough of this.”

In one swift motion he brings down his weapon and Kosuke opens his eyes.