The sign of the Black Star, those born under it were sure to attract misfortune through their lives. If you were to look it up on the Internet or ask any astrologian about it, you would be unable to find out anything. For the concept of the Black Star belonged to a small cult who lived in a secluded base high up in the Japanese mountains. It was there, on that cursed night that Alice was born. In their calendar the day she was born on symbolized death, misfortune and darkness itself. Although the teachings of this specific cult forbade its members to discriminate among one another, there were still rumors and talks behind closed doors about how a child of the devil had been born that day. Growing up, none of the other children dared interact with Alice, their families were simply too scared of her reputation. This mere coincidence caused her family's standing that had been quite high in the cult before to plummet, and although they tried to raise her with love as their teachings said they found it hard if not impossible to do so. Yet even if the adults wanted to avoid her the children were not that sparing, she was after all the black sheep of the compound and crude mockery was part of her everyday life from the age of three to nine.

Perhaps, the one who believed she was cursed the most was nobody but Alice herself. For misfortune seemed to follow her wherever she went, And the few instances of kindness being shown toward her was promptly punished by the web of fate. The child born under the sign of the Black Star really did live a life of misfortune, not possessing the mental maturity to understand her torment, there were few days that she didn't want it all to end. The young girl dreamt of a dragon swooping in from the sky and burning everything to the ground, and as fate would have it that dream was more than just the imagination of a small girl. For that night the entire compound burned to the ground in a freak accident, everybody inside died, everybody except for Alice. When the firefighters arrived at the scene it was already far too late, they assumed that there had been no survivors and immediately brought doctors to declare the bodies dead. Yet as they scavenged to rubble for more bodies a small girl with jet black hair was found. Miraculously enough, she was still breathing somehow and the ambulances that had been sent out immediately tried their best to assure her survival. The young girl herself remembered little from that day, her most vivid memory being that of waking up in a white hospital room.

After that horrible event, Alice was placed in a government run orphanage. She kept to herself, claiming that anyone that got involved with her would be struck by a curse of misfortune. Even when she was supposedly able to start all over the curse of darkness still haunted Alice, rumors began spreading once again. About how she had been the sole survivor of that incident in the mountains, about how she was a cursed child. Once again Alice was delegated to an existence of isolation, when even the kids that she slept and ate with refused to talk to her. But Alice didn't see her misery as pointless, she thought that she deserved it after all she had been the one who caused that fire. She had been the one we wanted it to happen, and alas her silent prayer had been answered. All the pain that followed was his punishment for her selfish thoughts. Alice sincerely believed that she herself should have died that day along with her family.

The cool November winds brushed against Alice's hair and face, from where she was standing it was most likely 20 or 30 meters to the payment below. If she jumped from his height she would surely die and that was exactly what Alice wanted. Her selfish desire to live yet another day was what caused all those innocent homeless people to die. It had been her curse that had ended their lives, the eternally haunting curse of death that wouldn't let go of her no matter how much she wriggled and struggled. The tall building she stood on was surrounded by multiple shorter ones, each ranging between eight and twelve meters in height. Alice took a step towards the edge, looking down she could see the occasional car down below, but there were no pedestrians. It made sense since she had chosen to end her own life on a Sunday. She thought about Oda, she didn't want him to be struck by the eternal misfortune that haunted her as well. Just as she was going to plunge into the cold heart of the abyss, however, she could hear a light voice calling out to her from behind.

Spinning around, Alice saw a tanned woman, maybe twenty years old or so. She was around the same height as Alice and wore a gray hoodie. “Finally found you!” She said in a casual voice, as she took another step towards Alice. The door to the small stairway that had led here could be seen open, revealing that the woman had gotten up here the same way as Alice. Alice had never once seen this woman before in her entire life, killing herself when someone was speaking with her was not something she wanted to do, and as such Alice stepped away from the edge and towards the mysterious woman. “Who… are you?” In response to this the strange female would only giggle, her white hair fluttering in the wind as she began approaching Alice. “You can call me Maru-Maru, I am here because I want to be a good person.” There was no sign of hesitation in her voice, whatever the woman wanted she was confident that she could get it. “Ten days ago, I came across a camp filled with livestock. But as I feasted there was someone missing from that camp, that someone was you. That is why I'm here, I want to be thorough in my actions.” Alice had a hard time grasping what she was saying at first but eventually it dawned on her that this strange girl was claiming that she had been the one to massacre and cannibalize Alice's former friends.

“What do you want with me?” Truth be told Alice was horrified out of her mind at this very moment, yet she managed to muster the strength to ask one simple question. “Isn't that obvious? I'm going to eat you just like everybody else!” There was no hint of malice in her voice, when Maru-Maru responded she did it with an earnest and cheerful tone. It was like this was the most natural thing in the world for her.

To die in such a horrible way terrified Alice, as she felt her heart racing in her chest. Alice ran towards the staircase leading down into the building. Fortunately for her the elevator was right at the top floor and she could easily get inside of it, smashing the button that caused the door to close before making the entire thing head down to the ground floor. All in all it couldn't have been more than 20 seconds since Alice began sprinting, but the moment she pushed herself out of the apartment building she could see the woman standing with a devilish smile on her face waiting for her outside. All known laws of physics would have said that it was impossible, but the tanned girl didn't seem to care in the slightest. Besides the two of them the street was completely empty and the first thing Alice did when she saw her was to start sprinting in the other direction. There was nobody, nothing but her own two legs that could save her from the danger that was now chasing her down. For every passing second she could feel the looming threat behind her grow ever closer, in a desperate attempt to chase her pursuer off Alice ran into a nearby alleyway.

Even as she made a lot of noise as she ran, Alice's brain that was working overtime due to all the adrenaline in her body, she could hear the footsteps of her pursuer perfectly. It sounded like she was no longer running and was in fact allowing Alice to put some distance between the two of them. Alice thought that she was going to get away for a moment, that was until she came across a dead end with the blood red bricks that made up the wall in front of her almost laughing in her face. She quickly turned around and tried to look for an alternative way out but it was already too late, Maru-Maru was slowly but steadily approaching her from the other end of the alley. Not knowing what to do in this situation, Alice did the only thing that she could do, she put her hands to her head and screamed her lungs out.

Jonathan thought that he had heard enough screams for a lifetime, but apparently that wasn't the case as his smoking was interrupted by a high pitch noise. The idea was to go to a karaoke bar and interact with some of the locals, but it was clear that Jonathan wasn't cut out for this kind of stuff. Although he considered himself anything but a hero, there was still something that drew him to that loud noise, call it boredom or what you would have it. Within less than a minute he was in a small backstreet alley, the few rays of the sun that managed to shine down here were reflected on the metal trash bins and at the very end of the alleyway, two women could be seen. The first one was a pale girl hunched over, the second one was a tanned girl standing over the first who was now looking straight at Jonathan. Without warning the standing girl would open her lips and utter something very strange, “160,000 calories.” It was so out of place that it caught Jonathan off guard, ignoring her strange remark the muscular man would take a few steps closer so he was now roughly five meters away from the two girls.

Truth be told Jonathan just wanted to save someone's day, but from the looks of things it seemed like the two women had only had a fight between each other. Probably something that he should stay out of, yet, even if that was how things looked it felt much differently. It was hard to describe really, like a creeping sensation slowly moving up and down his spine, the tanned girl wearing a gray hoodie seemed out of place, she seemed dangerous. Having survived many encounters with death, Jonathan gained what could only be described as a sort of sixth sense for danger. That sense of this was now going haywire, yet the man chalked it up to merely being his imagination. “Sorry if i'm interrupting you but there seemed to be something wrong and I just wanted to check if everything was alright with you tw-” Before he could finish speaking the tanned girl spoke up once again and interrupted him; “Shut up, I'll deal with you when I'm finished with this girl.” Jonathan was caught off guard by this comment because he was not used to being shut down by people, he had a very intimidating physique yet this small girl ignored all that and treated him like he was just a nobody. This along with the fact that the black haired girl seemed horrified of her, caused Jonathan to act against the tanned woman by approaching her.

The instant he stepped within arms reach of the white haired girl, she would simply slap him in the chest lightly. However what should have been a light slap by all means carried enough force to send the grown man flying into a nearby wall. As he could feel his back hit against the brick wall, the world went black before his eyes for a moment before Jonathan was able to grasp onto his consciousness again. Alice was frozen with horror upon seeing the girl's superhuman strength, the moment she knocked that man into the wall any hope Alice had of ever escaping her was vaporized. Disheartened, she simply slumped to the ground and started sobbing uncontrollably. “Now then, what part should I start with? I usually start with eating the legs first, but maybe going for the arms first instead would be a nice change of pace?” Normally Jonathan didn't consider himself the sort to hit a lady, but this white haired girl was simply more like a monster than a woman. What she said didn't really help her case either, and as such Jonathan mustered all the strength that he had left in his body to stand up, looks like his sixth sense had been right after all. Using all his physical might, Jonathan delivered a left hook right to the girl's chin. Upon contact a loud smack resonated through the alleyway, back in the military he had been known for his great physique and around the base he was known as ‘The Strongman’ for a reason.

Despite that, at most, his punch had managed to push her head back one or two centimeters, with no visible damage, Maru-Maru made Jonathan's attack look like little more than a bad joke. “Didn't I say that I would deal with you later, are you deaf?” The sheer menace that those words carried was enough to cause Jonathan's entire body to freeze. With another slap the man was sent flying several meters high up in the air, he was sure to have died if not for a few trash bags that managed to lessen the impact when he hit the ground and saved him from a broken spine. Upon seeing this display of superhuman might, Alice crawled further back into the alley, desperate to get away from this monster. But the white haired girl knew that she had her prey cornered, and took her time when she walked towards Alice.

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The shadows inside the dark alley seemed to twist and contort as Alice desperately tried to move backwards. It was not long until Maru-Maru had her cornered, leaning in towards the black haired girl until she could smell her breath. At that instant the primordial fear that Alice was feeling overwhelmed all her senses and the only thing she could think about was to get away from this monstrous girl. At the same time, a pitch black object would appear in the space between the two women, neither of them knowing why. Maru-Maru would lean closer to the black object, intrigued by its sudden appearance. The next moment the black object would fly through the monstrous girl at inhuman speed, the force it carried was enough to send her flying and caused the few windows mounted towards the alley to shake with the shockwave it created. Jonathan was just barely able to see the tanned girl get sent flying before the last straws of consciousness slipped from him, the confused expression on her face before she disappeared in the distance being the last thing that he saw.

Alice didn't dare stand up for several minutes, the limp body that lay in a pile of trash didnt move, perhaps he was even dead. Alice didn't dare to touch him, Instead she simply made her way out of the alleyway and ran as far away as possible. She ran until she thought that her legs were going to cave in and then she ran some more. Not until she was certain that she had lost any trace of that monstrous girl dared Alice head back towards Oda's apartment. She felt bad for that man that had been left in that alley but realized that it was too late to turn back now. As she pressed the keys into the lock of the apartment door, she felt a wave of guilt wash over her; the desire to take her own life had been selfish towards Oda. Aside from Alice that man had no one else in his life, but even if it was selfish Alice just wanted to get rid of all the guilt she was feeling. But now she was feeling even more guilty than ever, it was horrible, like her entire life was just an entire downward spiral without any end in sight.

But as she headed into the apartment, it became glaringly obvious that Oda wasn't there anymore. Even when she checked every nook and cranny she didn't find him, although Alice was worried about him she told herself that he would most likely return in just a few hours and that's why she chose to wait for his return. Getting comfortable, she picked up a book of manga that had been locked up at the police station as evidence until recently and began reading through its black and white pages. Little did she know that Oda was out there and looking for her at this very moment, for unlike him she rarely left the apartment and even more rarely without leaving some kind of note or explanation as to why. For that reason, the instant he came home from the city hall where he had made sure that the city wasn't ignoring his request to get into rehabilitation, Oda got worried when he found out that Alice wasn't there anymore. Not having her own cell phone, there was no reliable way for him to contact her and after some pondering he decided to go outside and search for her himself.

That was how he had found himself in this current situation, the young man who stared him down seemed to be a good two or three years younger than Oda himself. Additionally, he was quite a bit shorter which didn't make him seem that intimidating, although Oda was smarter than to judge people solely based on their appearance. “Look, quite frankly I don't trust you, hell you don't even know her name. Just stop bothering me about it already!” He was beginning to get irritated, for some reason this guy didn't stop to bother Oda about where Alice was. Although to him she wasn't Alice, she was just the black haired girl that had been staying with Oda. The younger man's light blue hair was neatly trimmed and remained completely still In the blowing wind unlike Odas. For the last couple of minutes he had been trying to get her location from Oda, but even if he wanted to give that information away he wouldn't be able to, since the blonde man himself had no idea where she was. From what little info he had been told, he had been able to figure out that a friend of whoever this was was looking for Alice and the man he was now speaking to was only interested in finding his friend. “Look I don't want anything bad to happen to this girl of yours, I am simply looking for my friend that is all.” That felt like a lie, although he could not be sure about it, this man seemed to know a tad bit too much about Alice’s personal life to just be looking for his friend.

Oda was really beginning to get irritated at this guy now, he was so stubborn that it started to get really annoying. “Just beat it. Even if I did know anything I would sure as hell not tell it to you, you damn weirdo!” Upon uttering those last three words it became clear that he was offended by them as the man's face contorted into a grimace. “Hey, I have been trying to be reasonable so far, but if you don't want to cooperate that is fine with me.” The light haired man's words were now seeped in malice. They were all alone in the otherwise quiet neighborhood, countless villas with green backyards surrounding them. Oda considered knocking on someone's door and asking for help, but eventually decided that it wasn't a good idea. Just as the blonde man opened his mouth again, instead of the words that he intended to speak, a loud pitched shriek came out instead. Looking down Oda saw his own disfigured leg, it looked almost like it had been broken in half and was twisted in an unnatural V-shape. The pain filled his mind as he fell to the ground, unable to stand up with his now broken leg. There had been no sign of moment, or if there were any they had been far too quick for him to perceive.

The light haired man took a step forward, now towering over him. Oda could do little but look at him from below as tears slowly began filling his eyes. “Should have just listened to begin with. Now then, do you feel a bit more cooperative perhaps?” He crouched down so his head was not far from the wounded man’s. Oda's entire body was shaking from the shock, another pain filled scream emanated from his lips, the pain that coursed through his veins prevented him from acting. But since Oda didn't know where Alice was himself all he could do was to say the same thing over and over again, hoping that someone would come and save him from this terrible situation while he stated that he didn't have the slightest idea where Alice was time and time again. Eventually it seemed like his words managed to get through and the terrifying man stood up and looked around, a slight sigh escaping his lips. It appeared like he was believing Oda now, walking away from the man crying on the ground. Mere minutes after the strange guy disappeared, a pair of high school girls noticed the blonde man that had now passed out from the pain lying on the concrete. They quickly rushed over to make sure he was alright, and decided to call an ambulance when they noticed just how badly he had been hurt.

Even after a week had passed, the police still had no idea who the strange guy that attacked Oda was. He didn't blame them since he knew the investigation about the homeless massacre had put a lot of strain on the police department. He had been staying in a shared room in the hospital with another guy, although there was room for up to four people here only two spots were used. The other guy was some kind of tourist from America, from the few conversations they have had Oda learned that he had once fought in Vietnam. Apparently the man was beaten pretty badly by someone when he tried to protect a girl from her attacker in an alleyway, but for some reason he refused to give out any information about his attacker. The both of them were escorted in and out of the room for police interrogations about what had happened, both of their attackers had left nothing but cold trails for the investigators, or that was what Oda Believed after hearing some investigators speak to each other in the hallway outside.

Oda looked over at the man next to him for what must have been the tenth time in these last five minutes, although he himself was hurt quite badly by the guy who attacked him. That guy was hurt way worse with several broken ribs and damaged organs. The fact that Jonathan had recovered in such a short amount of time that he could be released within just a few days was amazing, the same could more or less be said for Oda himself although he was going to have to use crutches for the foreseeable future. “Hey, are you awake?” Oda said almost immediately after he heard some rustling from the bed next to him, although his room partner wasn't that easy to talk to, being a foreigner and all, it was still better than being all alone. “Give me some time to wake up lad, I have barely opened my eyes…” were the words that emanated from the other bed before a set of grunts that signaled the fact that Jonathan was trying to lie up in his bed could be heard. From the looks of it, although he could still function with his wounds he was in a lot of pain.

As Oda looked down on his green blanket for a moment, he noticed that Jonathan had managed to produce a book from somewhere when he looked back at him. Alice was still nowhere to be seen, he had tried to get the police open a missing persons report but it was clear that they had more important stuff to deal with. Nevertheless they assured him that everything would be alright, it would just take some time for them to find her. Still, he wasn't sure about that, a string of mysterious disappearances had begun to plague Pandemonium and with just how much stuff had started happening lately the investigation into them had been delayed. The blonde reached down from his bed, grabbing a newspaper from a nearby chair. There was no television in this room and although he could move around the hospital he preferred not to, so this was his way of getting the latest news instead. Apparently, a new bakery was opening just five minutes from where Oda lived, he considered going to check it out, if he managed to find Alice again he could perhaps even get her some sweets.

He looked at the clock that hung on the wall on the other side of the room, in half an hour a nurse would come and serve the two men breakfast. The nurse who delivered the food varied from day to day, but Oda hoped that the pretty young nurse with hazel brown hair would be the one today, he had grown quite fond of her during both his first and second stay in the hospital as she always went out of her way to make sure he was alright. Oda wanted to speak with her again, he wanted to impress her. He tried to get up from his bed and stand upright, however, without his crutches as support the pain quickly became too much to bear and he dropped back down again instantly. “Should have listened to the nurse kid.” Jonathan said as she saw what Oda was trying to do. “Yeah…” Was the short response he gave in return. “I'm starving for some good old American breakfast, all they serve in this place is just watered down rice and porridge!” Jonathan was very good at complaining, during the last few days he had probably complained about everything between heaven and earth at least once. Although it became apparent after some time that he didn't actually hate the things he complained about, it was just the man's strange way of making conversation. Oda looked at the clock once again, fifteen minutes had passed so they would be eating breakfast soon, he relayed this information to Jonathan who promptly complained about waking up so early in response.

Tapping footsteps could be heard as the sneakers of the tan girl hit the soft carpet within the penthouse suite, she was here to visit a friend of hers and had

came here without any kind of warning or announcement, for manners and common sense was distant to the woman named Maru-Maru. With just another seven or eight steps she was just a meter away from the blonde man who sat peacefully on a sofa, reading a book about flowers. Without even turning around his smooth voice inquired the woman about why she had come to visit him. Seeing that the man she was speaking to wasn't going to turn around and face her, Maru-Maru did the same, turning around and facing away from the sofa. Her eyes immediately fixated on a painting on the other side of the room, it was a detailed painting displaying a fruit bowl. “Well you see, I encountered a girl the other day, it wasn't anything unusual. Just a brief chase before I had her cornered, but then something new happened.” The mention of something new caused the man to close this book, although he didn't turn around it became clear that he was now paying more attention than before to what she had to say.

Noticing that the man was now paying more attention to her, Maru-Maru took the opportunity and continued speaking. “When I tried to eat her, something black was created between us. Maybe it was a spear or an arrow? It sent me flying and because of that I lost track of her. What do you think that could have been?” The man she spoke to remained quiet for a moment before he answered her question with another one. “That black thing, did it hurt you?” Even though they were facing away from each other, Maru-Maru nodded her head and the sitting man managed to understand what she was implying. “In that case it's probably someone like us, someone with that special power.” There simply existed no other explanation, even a high-caliber rifle round to the face wouldn't hinder the monstrous woman, only someone with the same power that she wielded would be able to stop her.

“There are more people than us?” She said, referring to the special power the two of them possessed. “Indeed, although the number is very small. You must have been quite lucky to meet someone like that.” Inside the white haired girl's head one thought after another was forming, first she thought about how lucky she was to meet someone like Alice, then she realized how unlucky she was to lose track of someone like Alice, then she wondered how someone like Alice would taste like, then she became more curious and from there it simply snowballed out of control. “I see, in that case I think I'm going to eat her. I wonder if she would taste any different from everybody else.” The blonde man once again opened his book and began reading, “If you don't mind waiting I have a certain pest that I want to get rid of.” two seconds passed before she responded to him “Don't be silly, you know that I hate waiting.” and after uttering those words in her eternally cheerful voice, Maru-Maru left the penthouse suit, leaving the reading man all alone.