I was lifted into the air only to be slammed against the concrete flooring of the roof. I stood face-to-face with another of my attackers. He basked in the rays of the moon's green-and-white sky. His hand extended, the scent of blood meeting my nose as his palm bled from a gash in the center. He introduced himself as Seizon, the Blood Ring. His golden irises fell upon me, glaring me down.

My eyes beckoned to the bleeding palm, noticing the red ring wrapped around his index finger; in his confusion and interest, he also looked at it.

He chuckled, low and disturbed, holding his chest with his unbloodied palm.

"I get it! You get jumped by two psycho ladies, and then some guy with a bloody hand holds it out to you like some savior. I'd be skeptical too. Well, I'm not a savior, so let's cut that idea out—I'm just a curious man, is 'all."

There was no animosity in Seizon's presence. Instead, this overwhelming sense of danger was expelled from behind–the pair I left behind–and in front–the man before me. A sense of unease just in those eyes of his, silent killing intent coming from the blood in his palms, passively tempted by a calm smile.

"Yo–" The moment those words left his mouth, I had already decided what to do. I was outside now, not caged or kept within the environment, with the scope of a rifle looking down upon me. I had an opportunity. I used that chance to run, no matter the pain in my arm and body—I got up to my feet and ran.

"Wait! All I said was 'Yo!' You were—" I couldn't hear him as I dashed forward, muted by my footsteps hitting hard against concrete. Perplexed as I ran on without hesitation, the wind pushed past me with a higher feeling of resistance as I pushed through it.

My chest began to beat, and my body kicked itself into further tempo once more as the feeling of danger and the scent of blood suddenly appeared in the air above me. My body kept forcing me to run out of the need for survival as the sound of rapidly drilled concrete was heard behind me, accompanying the scent of blood.

I turned my head. A mistake.

I slowed momentarily to turn, watching as things went slowly to catch up to what was happening. A pellet, no, many pellets of blood, rained down from the skies towards me. The pellets glistened with the night sky, illuminating ever-so-slightly in a linear crimson rain. Each shot dug violently into the ground, cracking the cement. Blood with the impact of a bullet.

A pellet dug into my shoulder. Feet still kicked into speed even with bone cracking in my damaged shoulder. If I slowed down again, the chance of my legs being put out of commission or my head ending up as the target increased drastically.

Chiik.

There was a pounding in my ears. Resentment and regret—both directed at me.

How could I forget?

A metal bullet soared through the air, blood pellets fell from the sky, and another sign of danger. I pulled myself back in reflex, almost completely falling to my feet. The bullet cracked itself into the thick concrete of the roof. Several messy and disgusting squelches were heard, with the back of my legs vulnerable to the pellets. I couldn't count how many bullets tore their way into my calves.

I didn't care; I screamed.

It was a lip-tight, painful, violent scream.

I went to stand, but my legs gave out and dropped me to a crawl. I tried moving on all fours… all-threes?

Boom.

An aftershock shook through the cement flooring of the rooftop, effortlessly cracking and removing what little footing I was given. Milliseconds of freefall turned into what seemed like minutes.

I could land to the ground below.

No.

Unreal neon-lime vines tore through the debris, breaking past it in a beeline toward me. There was nowhere to move in the air. Nowhere to establish footing besides trying to twist in the air.

Time caught up to me. My body was entangled in numerous of the etched vines. When one had caught me by my already broken and shot arm, the others were quick to catch and tangle onto every other part they could. Painted roots all tightening around my body to keep me in place.

Pulling against the veins with an arm already at the risk of tearing itself apart, a leg that had been struck several times. My body was nearly mangled, how it stayed in one piece on the outside was far beyond me.

My Key.

Yeah, the reason I was here. That Key of mine as I was held in the air. Perfectly held in place for another bullet. The signals of danger were like internal sirens, but they dimmed. My body acted, giving in. That burst of adrenaline was coming down, crashing in acceptance.

No.

I don’t want to.

I spazzed. Moving wildly, slamming the ends of my limbs against the roots with every bit of might I could. I didn’t want to just blindly accept this. What about Jung? What about the cafe that was turned into a battlefield? What about me?

I heard the shot of a bullet, but my body continued to move blindly. I didn’t want to greet my fate with open eyes, and instead continued throwing myself. A feeling which came to the surface, pumping more fuel into my veins and stress into my muscles.

I want to live.

I want to survive.

I need to fight.

Primal emotions turned into known feelings,

The bubbling anger. Frustration. Fury.

Blood.

What was that… a memory?

My eyes opened to the now profound scent of it. A wall of coagulated blood, a liquid scab, floated in the air just inches from the side of my head. It made disgusting squelches as it continued to change its shape.

Where was the bullet?

The scab turned to liquid and splat against the floor. In a glance, I saw two bullets within the blood, both non-metallic.

I was saved? I thought, the strand of thought immediately left me puzzled. That was before the sense of danger came from one of the bullets from the pair. Here it comes. My body registered, watching as the puddle of blood exploded into splats against my skin. It wasn’t like those bullets of blood that rained down, but more like someone slapping water onto my skin. It wasn’t and didn’t taste like it.

Stolen story; please report.

The roots of the tattoo had been cut by blades of red, spewing green ink from each of the severed vines to further dirty the rooftop and my body. It didn’t taste good either.

Another line of warm-liquid blood wrapped around my ankle. The golden-eyed man had interrupted. Was the memory of blood just him…? I couldn’t tell.

I would’ve been grateful, if it wasn’t for me flying through the air once more by my leg. He wrapped me in a bundle of the iron-smelling liquid; he held me like luggage. Another line of blood moved from the gash in his arms and shot out violently toward the streets. His body pulled forward, the line of blood reeling him in like a grapple.

“Seizo!” The curly woman called out, having rode on the back of a large multicolored butterfly. “What’re you doing! This isn’t the plan! Get back here!” She called out to the Blood Ring, shouting at him as he swung and she flew.

He exchanged only a glance. The line of the grapple weakened for just a moment as he suddenly halted in the air. If it weren’t for the close contact, I may not have been able to feel the motion of his blood coming to a crawl within his body. Only to hear it accelerate out from his back. A shot of red blitzed Curls, tearing into the butterfly in a single shot and wrapping around her like a cocoon in the same action.

The rush of his blood came once more, the line of blood growing stronger with another breath. “Sorry! I need ’ta do this! Got some second thoughts! Will get you something nice!”

In the run I had managed to cross two rooftops, I only realized after being slammed onto my back for around the third time this night into the alley next to Jung’s cafe. I wasn’t released from my bundle either, and using one hand and a damaged leg would’ve done more to harm me.

Seizon’s heavy breath brought my eyes to him. Turning his head and clenching his hands. “Ah, okay. Now we can talk. No more funny business from you and I won’t do anything. That fair? I think that’s fair. Yeah, that’s fair.” He squatted down to face me.

“How?” I asked, looking up to the Blood Ring. “How is this fair?!” I shouted, clenching my teeth tight. “You framed Mr. Jung, then came after me, destroyed my place of work! You might’ve even tried to kill me!” I spat the words out, that prior irritation started to boil.

He hummed, a hand on his chin and then extended his free arm. Smack. He slapped me; that sound lingered in both the alley and my ears.

“Sure. The fuck did you do about it though? Run?” A serious frown turned into a mocking smile. A hand had then fallen to my shoulder. “You ran, and let your boss take the fall even though you knew. Didn’t you? You’ve been active for a year and longer, all that time, and why didn’t you? I know, I get it. There were some casualties.” I sharply raised my head only to see him whistle.

“Casualties in reputation.” Ass. “I’m not a personal fan of all this but, did what I did. You could’ve saved us and him the time. He looked at his sleeve, pulling it back to reveal his watch. “Seven fifty-five. Imagine that.” He chuckled once again, too casually speaking with me as I was held down. Like him, like Richter.

It was infuriating: get the advantage, and they begin to speak down to me. I didn’t like it. Not. One. Bit.

“You could’ve just called me out… not just wait to make a game out of it. To ruin Mr. Jung’s—!”

“Lies. Cap. You’re making a fool out of yourself.” He berated, flicking his finger against my head. “Y’see the shit that we had to go through just in one night? I needed to get you all tangled up just so I could talk with ya’ bud. You’re springy. Stubborn, even worse. Imagine trying to catch you in a populated area? If it wasn’t for that superhuman strength, I might’ve coined you as a precog. Nah, maybe a better human. Damn, got off track again—oh yeah, trying to catch runaway a mouse like you would’ve been all types of fucked. So, we improvised, because that’s what we learned was the only way to keep you in a good position.” He waved his hand around in front of my eyes, trying to distract me maybe, or make sure I was still paying attention following that long-winded explanation. It was all shitty. It was just a bunch of excuses.

“Shut up.” I spat. “I didn’t need to run, I did a service. I put another Key in prison! Isn’t that enough!?” I shouted, but Seizon had just pushed me back against the wall with a finger. “I used my Key, so what?! Does it matter!? I helped people! That’s the point!” I exploded. The energy returned to my body; an exaggerated feeling of adrenaline as the bundles tightly wrapped around me began to pull against my skin and stretch.

◉◉◉

Infuriating. This whole thing was just sad.

Seizon couldn’t care enough to look at the boy properly. Through those irises of his, he saw a low pale yellow that surrounded him. An odd phenomenon, but something that didn’t matter much.

He was disappointed. Something about the teenager he believed to be interesting, his Key could have been of use as he was informed. However, now looking at it, there wasn’t much on the surface nor beneath it that his eyes could tell.

Yet, all things were meant to be proven wrong.

Seizon watched carefully as the air around them quickly shifted.

An attempt to find the boy endearing had sharply changed. Seizon took a breath of air for the first time out of an almost primal desire to strike as a blade of blood manifested into his bleeding palm without his say-so.

He watched as it seemed his target grew a fraction bigger than before, freckles peering across his skin along with a darker pigment to his skin slowly arise. That pale-yellow became a darker black and radiated forward towards his direction.

Regression? The thought crossed Seizon’s mind. No, he’d seen it before. This wasn’t that. Something different.

The man chuckled, his hand twitching at the notice of something interesting. “Hey. We have the same blood type.”

As soon as the strength came to Noah, Seizon watched as the boy lost control over his movements. He watched the pitiful movements as the urge to struggle and fight didn’t match with his body. The growth in musculature had been restricted by the feeling of his blood fighting from inside of him.

Seizon could detect his heart still beating, he allowed that at the very least, while every other vessel transporting the red plasma came to a slow and steady halt under his control.

Then, he made that boiling feeling of rage he could feel from Noah became ever-more literal. The feeling of his own blood boiling within his own flesh, burning under his skin. The feeling of select vessels bursting only to clot themselves nearly instantly.

He watched that his strength and will to fight, in relation to the pain, had quickly subsided.

◉◉◉

My head crashed against the alley’s floor. Spitting out saliva and blood on the ground. Seizon tapped the back of my head, still chuckling.

“I try to speak with you, and you nearly regress. That’s why registering matters. Kids these days.” There was something in his voice, I couldn’t tell what it was. “You’re so stubborn to live, that you nearly changed on me. Fuck man.” I could feel him looking down at me, still tapping my head as the sensation of boiling blood remained in my consciousness no matter the stress.

“Say, you remember the day you got your Key?” He asked, his voice oddly calm despite the circumstances. If I was going crazy, it felt like he was being nice.

Though he was up to something, I couldn’t. It was natural for us to not remember. Even when I tried…

█████

It ached.

“No, I don’t.” I murmured, spitting out the lingering spit.

“Thank goodness, you’re a normie.” He let out the heaviest sigh, patting my head once again against my will. “Hey, you already fucked up. Majorly. Come to the Black Ring Organization.” He hummed a bit, only then could I feel the warmth of the blood from his palm trickling down my face.

“You… you want me to…”

“Yep! Join the Black Ring. You’re fucked anyways—but hey! Imagine this ya’ lil’ narcy. You didn’t like this little mission we had to do, right? So why not actually try to do something about it. No one will listen to your word if you’re some jailed up Key, but they might listen to a person who actually works their way up. No more hitting some random thug and expecting nothing to happen. Hey, you also won’t have us fucking you over. Now, would you rather rot away in some jail cell, or possibly serve all the people you want to your heart’s content as part of something that actually matters? Choose one, and hint, only one actually does something!” He paraded the idea, holding out a black bracelet.

I stared it down, then up at Seizon. That was supposed to go on my finger?

∎∎∎

The other two members of the Black Ring arrived into the alleyway, looking to Seizon as he stood above my still breathing and conscious body. The black bracelet Seizon gave me had shrunk into a ring around my finger. Fitting perfectly.

“Red,” Ponytail sneered, glaring at him. “You…”

“I got another ring guys!” He cheered, holding his hands out to show me off. “Welcome to the hell! Rookie Ring.”

[October 12th, 2022 : 8:01 PM]

Noah joins the Black Ring Organization.