Chapter 44

The campus looked beautiful that day. Akane had never used to notice it before, just how gorgeous her school would become surrounded by cherry blossom trees in full bloom. As she walked side by side with her boyfriend, all Akane could think about at that moment was how the rows of trees almost seemed to form aisles, littering the procession in front of them with petals gently blown from the branches above. She could almost hear music.

Destiny was being written, their future together laid out before her as clear as day.

"Everything alright?" her boyfriend inquired.

Akane turned her gaze up towards Caleb and smiled at him before nodding.

"It is." She came to a stop. "But Caleb... there's something I want to ask of you."

He stopped as well and raised a brow at her. "What's up?"

Akane turned her gaze away, her cheeks glowing red. "We've been seeing each other for a while now. And...I think it's time."

"Time for what?"

She slowly cast her eyes back onto him, her heart pounding in her ears.

"Today, once the bell for dismissal rings, I want you to meet me behind the cherry blossom tree in the central courtyard. You know the one."

Caleb was slightly stunned. He felt his heart skip a beat.

"You're already my forever, darling." She smiled at him, her cheeks glowing like the petals that surrounded the entrance. "Now it's time for us to cement our destiny."

He frowned at that. "You mean it isn't already?"

Rather than respond, Akane kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll see you after school."

~~

The classroom felt especially quiet that day. Then again, Caleb's mind felt about a million miles away at that moment. This didn't make sense. Why was he so tense? They were literally just kissing under a tree. It wasn't a blood pact or even a legal ceremony. It was just a simple kiss under an old tree.

A promise for the future...

This was incredibly important to Akane. Maybe he didn't get it, but that didn't mean it wasn't still important to their relationship all the same. Truthfully, this line of thinking scared him a little. He was changing so much so fast. Three months ago, he never would have given much thought to something so childish.

What was she doing to him?

He was thinking about her instead of revenge. His rage, his bloodlust, all seemed to be a distant echo from what it once was. This feeling that had permanently taken up residence in his heart, this sense of inner peace, was not something he was accustomed to. It made him anxious, uncertain.

Yet, at the same time, Caleb was legitimately happy. Akane was not the end of his dreams. He refused to believe that. Rather, she was the beginning of an entirely new dream. One in which they forged their own path, their own destiny, together forever. As the soon-to-be God of this world, their eternity truly would be cemented in stone.

And it all began with this, a promise made under the fabled cherry blossom tree.

"Its fate..." He chuckled to himself. The words sounded ridiculous, yet he forced himself to say them regardless. "It's genuinely fate."

The door to the classroom opened, and all conversations stopped. A woman Caleb had never seen before in his life stepped in. She had short brown hair and was carrying a large book in hand.

"Good morning, everyone," she declared in a bright, chipper voice before placing the book down on the teacher's desk.

The class devolved into quiet confused murmuring. A student raised their hand.

"Uhhh, Miss? I think you may be in the wrong class. This is Ohara-Sensei's homeroom."

She shook her head assuredly. "Ohara-Sensei is sick. I'm subbing in."

A knowing grin formed over Caleb's lips as she narrowed her eyes directly at him. Ohara-Sensei never called in sick. He'd sooner swallow a live eel than sully his perfect record. Whoever this woman was, she was not a teacher at this school.

At that moment, the PA system clicked on.

"Attention, all students. This is an emergency announcement. A bomb threat has just been made to the school."

The room devolved into nervous chatter. Caleb, meanwhile, discreetly sent a text message.

"In a calm and orderly fashion, please make your way to the front entrance. Do not run in the halls. Follow all teacher and faculty instructions as you calmly exit the building."

Everyone stood from their desks and briskly made their way out of the classroom. Everyone save for Caleb, who remained quietly seated, silently grinning at the woman staring hatefully down at him.

Silence fell over the room as only the two of them remained.

"It's a curious thing...." Caleb slowly relaxed back in his seat and folded his arms. "...that you would choose to attack me here of all places."

She said nothing.

"But that look in your eyes speaks volumes," he continued, as relaxed as ever. "If I had to guess, you're not terribly concerned with the repercussions of this rather ballsy maneuver, are you, Hunter?"

The Hunter opened her book and pulled out a Glock 43, aiming it directly at him.

"I'll give you this much," the woman spoke in perfect English. "It's good you sat still. Had you tried to run, there would have likely been collateral damage."

He chuckled at that. "I sat still because you don't scare me. If my survival depended on their blood being spilled, I'd do it myself without batting an eyelash."

"Am I supposed to be surprised, monster?"

"Don't try to take the moral high ground here," Caleb insisted, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "It's unbecoming of someone like you."

She laughed at him and shook her head. "You cultists are all the same. So completely unbothered by the lives you ruin. Well, as you're about to learn, Blood Sorcerer, humanity has a breaking point. And you reached mine the night you killed my husband and son."

His grin widened, and he leaned forward in his seat. "Ahhh, so that's it. I take it you must be Ryuji's mother then?"

She cocked back on the hammer of her gun and approached him. "Haruki Taiso. That's the name of your executioner. Let it seep into your mind before I put a bullet through it."

"So this really is all for revenge then?" He sighed and rolled his eyes in disappointment. "How boring."

"You're not getting away this time. It's the middle of the day," she insisted confidently. "My associates have this entire building on lockdown, and very soon, we'll be dragging your corpse to an incinerator."

He seemed to toss the idea around in his head for a moment before nodding. "Well, I'll admit. It does appear you've got me pretty dead to rights this time." That knowing grin of his returned. "However, there's one minor detail about your husband and son's deaths that I think you might want to know about before you shoot me. See...I wasn't the one who actually killed them."

Haruki lowered her gun.

"There was someone else with me that night. Someone just as dangerous as I am. She was the one who killed all those Hunters."

"Who?" she demanded.

"Me."

Haruki turned and was blasted in the face with fire retardant powder, blinding her. Akane kicked the gun out of her hand, which went sliding across the floor towards Caleb, before swinging at her adversaries head with the fire extinguisher in her hands. Haruki ducked the first blow, dodged away from the second, and delivered a spinning back kick that knocked the extinguisher away from Akane.

They engaged each other directly in close-quarters combat, punching and kicking whilst blocking one another's attacks. Akane eventually got the upper hand and sent her opponent flying through a set of desks. She grabbed a chair intent on smashing it over Haruki's head, who responded with a grounded sidekick to the gut that sent Akane tumbling back.

"Akane!" Caleb slid the gun across the floor to her. She picked it up and took aim, where it was promptly kicked out of her hand.

Haruki descended upon her, and they tousled. Caleb took her back and tried to choke her out, but she responded by smashing him in the face with the back of her head, breaking his nose. Disoriented, he lurched back, after which she rolled off Akane and made a mad crawl for the gun. Akane grabbed her by the leg and pulled her away at the last second. Haruki retaliated by kicking her away, sending her back to the floor.

Caleb ran for the gun, picked it up, and took aim. Haruki was on her feet well before he could get a shot off. She chopped him in the neck with the side of her hand before grabbing his wrist, bending the gun ninety degrees, and hitting the catch release to dump the mag. She then twisted his arm and fired the round still in the chamber at Akane, forcing her to dive to the floor moments before the gun went off.

Haruki then knocked the empty gun from his hand and hit him with a series of lightning-quick jabs in the gut, liver, and heart before sending him merrily tumbling over the teacher's desk and onto the floor with a spinning roundhouse kick to the jaw, knocking him out cold in the process. Akane tackled her from behind, Pinning Haruki against the desk, who countered with an elbow.

The Hunter grabbed a pair of scissors off the desk and swung for Akane's throat. She avoided the attack and the one following it before stopping Haruki's wrist and using her own momentum to send Haruki careening onto the floor. As she attempted to right herself onto her feet, Akane roundhouse kicked the scissors out of her hands, then front kicked her in the chin, sending her reeling back against the window to the classroom, before knocking Haruki completely through the glass and into the hallway with a jump back kick.

Akane quickly grabbed the Glock off the ground, located the mag, placed it back in the gun, checked to make sure she had a round in the chamber before running out the door and taking aim at Haruki.

Only she wasn't there. Akane quietly cursed under her breath before tucking the gun away in the belt of her skirt and running over to check on Caleb, who was slowly coming to.

"You alright?"

He was still loopy as he attempted to prop himself up on the desk, spitting out a clot of blood onto the table.

"I'm not built for this bullshit.""

She chuckled at him before offering a shoulder. "Lucky for you, darling, I am."

"So get this. We're being hunted by Ryuji's mother," Caleb insisted as they made their way out of the classroom.

"Yeah, that's who I thought that was," she admitted before bracing against the far wall and peeking out the window into the central courtyard. "Unfortunately, it looks like she brought friends."

Caleb poked his head up to see what she was looking at. It was nothing good. There were five Hunters in the courtyard, all armed to the teeth.

"AR-15s," Akane observed. "And it looks like a couple of Benelli M4s as well."

"This is way more ordinance than last time. I'm almost flattered."

Akane narrowed her eyes as she watched Haruki come running out of the building towards her men. They exchanged a few words, after which she pointed at the window where they were. Both Caleb and Akane ducked simultaneously.

"We need to move."