Hayate had been laying in Taro’s bed the entire time, a total of 6 hours had passed. In that time he had cried a lot and had come to a few conclusions on what he wanted to do after this, the first one was to create extravagant graves for his mother, father and the members of AOH.

He also wanted to find anything related to Hollow, he needed a computer too, if they were stil even available by now. However this dream was shattered when suddenly, noises came from outside the room. They were from the living room. People talking, some sort of commotion. “What’s going on out there?” Hayate said to himself.

He stood up from the bed, putting his hand on his head to help focus his eyesight. He walked over to the door and the door opened.

The sight infront of Hayate made him angrier than he had ever been in a while. Two men, wearing what seemed like some sort of armour in black, standing infront of the unconscious bodies of his friend, his only friend who was still alive. They didn’t seem to be guests at all.

All sorts of thoughts ran through Hayate’s head at that moment. Thoughts of hatred, anger, fear and everything in between. Who were these guys and what the hell were they doing to taro?!

Hayate’s fists clenched at his side, his teeth gritting together tightly. He was tempted to just grab them both and throw them across the room, but he wasn’t sure what exactly was happening yet so he held back.

“What the fuck do you guys think you’ are doing to my friend!” Hayate said, barely keeping himself from screaming. His voice was loud, it echoed throughout the whole house.

The two men then turned to look at him, and to his surprise, they actually stepped back a bit, as if they were intimidated by him.

One of them pulled out a handgun and shot at him, it was the same type of dart that was on taro’s neck. However, before it could even reach him, it stopped in mid air and fell to the ground, the dart had completely stopped as if it hit some sort of invisible barrier.

The men’s faces looked shocked as they just stared at the dart lying on the floor. It took them a second to recover and one of them spoke, “What the hell was that??” He asked his companion.

“I don’t fucking know.”

This confirmed Hayate’s suspicions, these men were definitely not here with good intentions.

Hayate used [Dominate] on one of the men and asked again, “Why are you guys here?”.

The man’s eyes glowed red for a second and he spoke. “We are with the black snake gang. We were tasked taking this old man with us as payment for forgiving all debts that ken Nishihara’ owed us.”

The other guy was clearly confused as to what was going on, Why was his comrade answering this 7ft tall giant’s question like a puppet on strings?

Hayate heard the man’s answer and a thought came to his mind. Ken Nishihara, the same last name as taro. A relative or something? That could surely be dealt with later. What mattered right now was that they were here to take taro. It wasn’t going to happen, over his dead body.

Hayate began to shout. “YOU BASTARDS! YOU STEP INTO MY FRIEND’S HOUSE! ATTACK HIM! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL RIP OUT YOUR SPINES!”

His shouting echoed through the hall, and a couple of the neighbours might have heard it. It was a loud, booming and angry scream of a man who was enraged beyond belief.

The two men took a step back. They definitely weren’t used to this sort of behaviour. Most people usually just submitted to them, even the big, strong, muscular guys that could probably tear them to pieces with thier fists if they didn’t have their exoskeleton’s on. But this guy...he was different.

Hayate raised his hand and casted a spell at one of the men, [Banishment: To hades]

[Banishment to hades] is a 4th tier spell. When you cast this spell on a creature, it is surrounded by a cacophony of whispers as you attempt to send it to a dark region between stars infested with unknown horrors. The target must resist with a counter spell or be banished to the far realms.

While in the far realms, the creature is blinded and incapacitated. In there they will receive 20 Hp of cold damage, 20 Hp of acid damage and 20 Hp of necrotic damage each turn. If the creature resisted it with their dexterity, they will only recive 10 hp of damage. When the spell ends, the target appears back where they were taken from, or if they are dead, only their body appears turned inside out.

The man who was casted the spell on suddenly felt a cacophony of whispers in his ears. The whispers were coming from all directions, he could hear it in his left ear,right ear, above him, below him, in front of him, behind him and everywhere in-between. The whispers were not coherent words, rather the sounds they made were incomprehensible, they didn’t even sound like they spoke any human language. But what he did understand was that they were cold, almost taunting.

Some spoke in a language he had never heard before, it sounded ancient, the kind of language one would hear in the ancient Egyptian tombs, or the language that the gods would speak before humans. While hearing those voices the man felt that something was wrong, something was happening to him. He was losing control of his body, as if some invisible force was pulling him away from his body. He tried to move but he couldn’t, his limbs didn’t move an inch and suddenly everything went dark. He was in the far realms.

Now in the far realms, the man could see nothing but darkness everywhere, the place was pitch black. No, it was pitch black. He has been blinded.

When his vision got blinded, he felt a wave of despair overtake him. He could see nothing but pure darkness in all directions, he tried to move but felt himself floating in mid-air. But this wasn’t the only effect of the spell, for the man was now feeling a constant burning sensation all over his body, as if he was being continuously dipped in acid and then pulled out again.

No, it wasn’t just that. His body was rotting and melting too. The places where he had rotted away were freezing instantly.

He was feeling the pain of melting flesh, the pain from the acid, the pain from freezing and the pain of rotting all at the same time. He was going through all of the pain as if he was in hell. As if this place was designed to only torture souls, to pull them out of their body for only a moment and put them back in, only to do the process 10,000 times over and over again. Each time more painful than the last.

He felt it all for an eternity. He was in constant agony for what felt like an eternity.

The pain was becoming too much to bear. If he had anything left to throw up, he would have vomited it all already, he wanted to scream, to cry out for help but he couldn’t. No words would come out of his mouth, he was silenced too. He couldn’t do anything but sit there, in eternal pain.

He felt like he was passing out and could any second now, however, if even if he could, the spell wouldn’t let him.

Not now, not ever. He would feel the same amount of pain over and over again, each time more agonizing than the last. As if he was the soul in limbo that no one wanted, the lost one, literal hell.

How much time had passed, hours? Days? Thousands of years? It didn’t matter.

Time was almost irrelevant here.

Back at present time, outside of the Far Realms, only 5 seconds had passed by. Hayate ended the spell and the man came back..or atleast most of his body did. The man’s body was deformed and distorted, almost melted into a pile of mush on the ground. It was a horrific sight but it was not that different or less horrible than the sound the man was making, which sounded as if he was choking on his own blood all while gargling in pain. His body was in a shape which could have been called human at best and alien at least. His skin was burned, rotten and frozen at the same time, it was black like charcoal and grey at the same time. One of the man’s eyes was hanging out from it’s socket and half of his lower jaw was non-existent.

The pain was too much, the man was dead. It was surprising that he even held out for such a long time. Now his body was just an empty shell, a shell that was once human, but now just a hollow corpse. His soul forever trapped back in the far realms.

The man standing at the doorway was frozen in horror, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Not a second ago his comrade was alive and now he was dead. Who wouldn’t be? He was basically melted, his body wasn’t even human anymore.

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He was at a loss for words, he couldn’t even keep composure as he almost fell down to his knees. But then his emotional suppressor kicked in. It was a type of implant which made it so you wouldn’t feel any fear or hesitation.

It was like the emotions were shut off from the body, the man just suddenly got up and stood straight, his face looked completely calm and unfazed. This was the effect of the suppressor implant.

Meanwhile, Hayate looked at the corpse on the floor. He had done it. He had actually killed someone. Ever since he had gotten transported into the future, he had tried always tried to use his powers to prevent deaths, but now he had done it. It was no accident, not a mistake but something he himself had caused.

It was a moment of horror for Hayate. Even if this person was a bad person, he was still a person, he had a family, friends, a life. He probably had a wife, a child and many other things. Hayate didn’t know, but now he was taking all of those things away from this person.

Yet all of this passed through his mind as fast as lightning as he didn’t know what to feel.

He didn’t know what he should’ve felt at this moment, maybe sadness, anger, confusion but no. Instead, he felt a strange calmness come over him as if he was feeling nothing.

Perhaps this was just a coping mechanism, a way for him to deal with the shock of what he had done.

Hayate was snapped out of his thoughts by a sudden punch to the face. It didn’t hurt, not at all, simply because the one who had punched him was far too weak to even harm him.

Hayate barely registered the punch, feeling no pain from it. It was as if a child had punched him, but in reality, it was another man, a huge muscular human wearing military grade exoskeleton with cyber enhancements to his body. But in front of Hayate, he was like a child, no. He was just a ant to him. And ants don’t hit hard.

Hayate thought about activating his ring. The one he wore on his left ring finger. It had an effect that made sure he would not receive any kind of physical damage unless struck by someone with a level of 40 or above. However, he usually kept it disabled, as it made things a bit boring. But now, he was starting to think activating it might not be a bad idea.

The ring had several other effects: it granted the wearer a 15% resistance to any magical attack and boosted their dexterity by 5 points. It also allowed them to absorb any spell from the 6th to 7th tier once a day and any spell below that tier three times a day.

As soon as he thought about activating the ring’s effect, the man’ was about to punch him again but his fist was stopped just before it reached him, as if hitting a brick wall.

The man’s face looked surprised. He thought for sure that his punch would have connected with Hayate’s face. But instead, it stopped right before he could do so. The man tried to force his arm forward but he couldn’t move no matter how hard he tried.

Hayate spoke once again, his voice neutral with a hint of anger in it: “You should probably stop while you still have that arm intact.”

The man pulled his hand away and asked Hayate in a neutral tone, “What kind of tech are you using? A force field? Or something else?”

Hayate was surprised by the man’s question. It seemed that he had some brain instead of only brawn, and he was talking like a normal human.

Hayate decided to play along with the man’s suspicions. It would be foolish to tell him the truth, that it was magic. Instead, he replied, “It’s a new tech that’s still in experimentation. A defense system that protects the wearer from any physical attacks.”

The man seemed to have a look of understanding on his face as if he believed Hayate’s explanation. It seemed like this sort of tech maybe really was in its experimental stages.

“and where did you get it from?” The man asked.

Hayate was prepared for this question, he had a ready answer in place. “Oh, that’s a secret. Maybe I’ll tell you if tell me what exactly you plan to do with my friend over here whom you had shot unconscious.”

The man frowned after hearing Hayate’s reply. He was hoping for a more direct answer, but it seemed like Hayate wasn’t going to give him one without giving something in return.

After a few seconds, the man sighed and spoke. “We are sent by and with the black snake gang. There was some trouble going on and this old man’s grandson owed several millions of yen that he couldn’t pay back. The guy sold his grandpa to us, in exchange for clearing his debt and giving him additional money. This old guy here will be send to a lab to be experimented on. Hope that satisfies your curiosity.”

It was the truth: they were part of the third largest criminal group in Neo-tokyo, the Black Snakes. The gang had a total of 2000 members across Japan, with 400 in Neo-tokyo. Enforcer’s were a group trained with advanced cybernetic enhancements, and there were only 30 in total. Armed to the teeth, each enforcer could take on 20 or more unarmed civilians. He was the third most powerful Enforcer in the group. There were two other squad leaders, and then the group’s overall leader, a man who had so many cybernetic implants that it was almost hard to recognize him as human.

Most of the time, they didn’t need to engage in physical combat, simply because their intimidating appearance was enough to install fear in their targets.

Hayate nodded in understanding as he had already heard the information and just wanted a more clear answer. The man confirmed everything and then some additional information, Hayate listened carefully and thought to himself, “ Black snakes huh... Seems like they’re a gang of some sort. I’ll have to deal with them later”

The man saw Hayate’s nod and took it as a sign that the conversation is over. He didn’t say another word.

There was a few seconds of silence, neither of the two spoke at them moment, it was just silence as they both stood, looking at each other.

“I would like to know your name before you die,” Hayate said to the man.

“what?” The man was surprised by Hayate’s statement that he was going to kill him, he was confused as to why he wanted to know his name. But he spoke anyway. “It’s Max Johnson, I’m not Japanese.”

“well max, it’s a pleasure meeting you,” Hayate said. His tone was casual, as if he didn’t just say that he would kill the man in front of him just a moment ago. “Shame we had to meet under these circumstances though.”

Max was a bit confused as to why Hayate sounded so nonchalant despite the fact that he had just threatened his life a moment ago. But nonetheless, he answered. “Dosent matter, it’s either do or die.”

“well that is very true... greetings end here, it’s basic human courtesy to know the one who’s existence you’ll remove.”

Then Hayate threw an extremely soft punch on the man’s chest. The man’s armour shattered the moment his fist impacted, sending it flying to the other side of the room while the man collapsed to the ground.

Max never stood a chance. Hayate’s punch had been too powerful for the man to even withstand, let alone survive.

The armour could protect him from bullets and even knives to a certain extent but against Hayate’s punch it shatter like glass.

The force of the punch was so high that Manx’s ribcage had broken, sending pieces of his bones into his organs, and his heartbeat had completely stopped.

Max dropped to the ground, his body limp and lifeless.

He was dead before he even hit the floor.

Max’s eyes wide open as if he had died in surprise.

Once again, another life had been taken by Hayate.

That makes two direct kills and eight indirect ones.

That makes the total to ten in a single day.

It was a horrifying number for someone who had never killed before in the past and most of them had not even been threats to his life, in fact they weren’t threats at all.

They were just weak, too far below him that he had not needed to kill them, he should have incapacitated them and spared they’re lives.

He shouldn’t have killed them and just left, but instead, he had killed them and was not even sad or angry or anything.

Maybe it was because he was no longer purely human. Hayate wondered why he didn’t feel guilt after killing them. Perhaps, it was because he was no longer simply human. His body was that a demon and his mind a human. But he wasn’t a pure human.

Hayate knocked himself out of it, he looked at his friend’s unconscious body.

He put his hand on his chest and felt a faint but steady thumping. He was still breathing, which was good. Then looked over at the other room where he saw a girl unconscious there too. As far as he knew, that was Taro’s granddaughter, and she too was breathing. Hayate took a deep breath and then picked his friends unconscious body up.

Hayate laid his friend on the couch, making sure he was comfortable. He took a few moments to look around the wrecked house.

It was in a mess due to the fight, the walls were broken, the furniture was lying broken at various places.

Hayate walked over to the dead body of the man whom he had just killed. However, to his surprise, someone was lying on the doorway, holding onto their hands as if they was in pain.

Hayate felt a bit of shock at sight of this person. He hadn’t noticed him until now. The man looked to be a normal civilian, not having any weapons or wearing the armour the gangsters were wearing. Hayate slowly approached the man, making sure to keep his guard up, in case it was a trap. Hayate knelt down and took a good look at the person on the floor. They seemed to have a broken hand, he tried to think of how he missed them before, maybe he had been too tired or distracted.

Hayate spoke in a calm and serious tone. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The wounded man looked up at Hayate, he seemed to be shocked by Hayate’s appearance. From his pov he probably had seen how Hayate killed all those men before so Hayate couldn’t blame me.

The man answered, “i..im..ken..ken Nishihara’.”

As soon as the man replied his name, Hayate’s thoughts suddenly went back to the conversation he had earlier with the men. Hayate felt a flash of anger shoot through his mind.

This must be ken Nishihara, the grandson of his friend taro.

So this was who he had been looking for?

Hayate didn’t know what would have happened to his friend had he not shown up here today. What sort of cruel stuff must have been done to his only friend.

Hayate spoke again, “So, you’re the grandson of my friend? The one who decided to sell him out to the black snake gang?”

The wounded man looked up at him and nodded. He was afraid, Hayate could see that but he couldn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him right now. How could he betray his own grandfather?

“Why?” Hayate asked him, still looking down at ken. “Why did you do it? Are you that ungrateful?”

Ken shouted back at Hayate, “Who the hell are you and what’s it to you? It’s my Grandfather, I’ll do whatever I want with him!”

Hayate had expected this sort of response from him. He didn’t expect Ken to be any good in the first place, after all only someone with no moral ethics would sell their grandpa out. Hayate’s face contorted in disgust.

Hayate stood up and dragged ken into the house and shut the door behind him. It closed automatically behind them. Hayate didn’t want to talk to ken even a second longer, the more he will talk the harder it will get to keep his composure. In truth, Hayate wanted to beat ken up but that would probably kill him so he refrained from doing it since this man, however disgusting was his friend’s grandson.

“now first things first,” Hayate said to himself, as he looked around the ruined house.

He had three things to do. First, get rid of the bodies. Then summon a monster to protect his friend in case more of those gangsters came in and finally heal his friend.

But first the bodies, Hayate couldn’t leave them out there.