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King of Fighters XI
Shanghai, 3:00AM.
Ash. Last year, for the sake of assembling a team, Crimson had traveled to the Far East and visited a single "person." This person had a slender, knifelike body, clad in Chinese clothes, and long black hair. Though the clothes would indicate that this was a typical woman, they hid supple and well-trained muscles, capable of hardening to steel.
("To know your enemy is to win a thousand battles." Hah, unless you get your information straight, you're as good as dead.)
Her, or rather his, name was Shion. It was a reasonably modern name, but he had grown accustomed to it. Though he had been initially been quite surprised at how humans had propagated, further observation showed that it was not so different from the old patterns. No matter what tools they used or what they built, it ultimately changed nothing.
"Murderer!"
The look of the stores and houses on the street had certainly not changed from ancient times, but the shouts of an angry crowd could be heard. Shanghai was always crowded, but something was going on in front of a large building. The shouting seemed to be coming from a gathering of humans, most of which were festooned with cameras and microphones.
"...Oh, it's a trial of some kind," thought Shion.
The doorway was surrounded with security and a few lawyers as the defendant emerged. His mouth was curled into a rather unnatural shape, and his clouded eyes easily showed him to be the sort of human with no regard for anyone or anything else except for himself.
Shion had seen this man before. There had been stories about him all over television and magazines, regarding his role as a suspect in a serial murder case. He had just been confirmed to have killed eight people indiscriminately, and had been captured during his attempt to kill a ninth.
Among the people standing before the wall of security people, a lone woman stood, shouting with a force that seemed almost otherworldly. "Murderer! Murderer! He deserves to die! Who knows who else he'll go after!" she screamed bitterly.
The verdict had been released today, in fact. Due to a problem with some of his medication, he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and he was to serve thirty years in prison. Still, he was only in his twenties, and he could rejoin society again in his fifties.
The woman was practically begging those around her now. "Please... someone kill him... I beg you... anyone..."
She found Shion's sleeve in her desperate fumbling about. "You could do it! You could kill that bastard! Just make sure he suffers to have some small idea of what he's done to others!"
The woman's hair was dry and unkempt, and her makeup had long since departed with the flood of tears, on top of the untended runny nose. In her eyes, the wild eagerness and maddening grief were quickly melding into outright insanity.
"Back off," Shion said scornfully. "And shut up while you're at it." As he pushed her away, his gaze happened to meet that of the defendant.
Suddenly the man began to laugh.
Shion stopped pushing the woman away, and instead, drew her closer. "Hey," he muttered.
The woman gave a muddled and confused reply, "Wh-what...?"
"You're in luck. Wait right here," he said, and gently pushed her away. Even so, the woman could sense remarkable strength in this strange person. She walked, however unsteadily, back toward the ring of blurred faces and flashing cameras.
Shion looked around and surveyed his surroundings carefully. The building next door was under construction, and a pile of iron pipes was plainly visible. Industrial tools, cutters and sanders. True to reputation, there was no place in Shanghai that was free of congestion.
He nodded in satisfaction. "This should do nicely, I think," he said, picking up an iron pipe and taking it over to the industrial cutter. Sparks flew, and after three seconds, the pipe-turned-spear had a slanted point to it. Lifting the pole in his right hand, he tested it for balance, and found it to be suitable.
No one was even paying him any mind. Their attention was fixed solely on the defendant. The humans' collective hatred for this man was almost palpable, rising up into the sky like smoke.
Shion tilted the spear slightly, gazing upward to the point where the sky met the roof of the building. An airliner passed overhead, and the roar of its engines blocked out all other sound from the air. In that "silence," Shion hurled the makeshift spear into the air.
Cohesive sound returned to the world once more...
"!!"
It had been just a moment too late, and the last vestiges of the brute's scream rang out through the streets. The spear had described a flawless parabola, accurately piercing the man's back at a downward angle. So powerful had been the strike, that the spear had driven itself through his back, into his abdomen, emerged from his right thigh just next to his crotch, and finally embedded itself into the ground. He had been skewered.
As the scream died on his lips, his abdomen gave way, spilling its grisly crimson contents onto the concrete steps of the courthouse.
Though he was stuck like a pig on a spit, and the color was rapidly draining from his face, he appeared to be looking around for Shion. Shion turned to him and made a point of showing his long, flowing hair. In that moment, the man's breathing stopped, and his head and arms went limp, as though he were nothing more than a poorly-made toy.
After a moment of stunned silence, the area suddenly took on the appearance of a beehive, with all the chaos and panic on display. At the rear, one person slipped away unseen. Some ducked and looked around fearfully. Some vomited where they stood at the gruesome sight. The chaos this wrought would not be contained.
"Y-you... murderer...," came a small, shaky voice.
The woman was still at Shion's feet. He fingers shook and her teeth chattered with nervousness and fear. Gradually she came to, and saw his eyes. His heart was not even remotely stirred by this. The eyes were as calm and unconcerned as those of a shark as it fed. They revealed no emotion... not concern, not joy, not even contempt at the scene. The people here meant nothing to him. He had killed simply because it had amused him to do so.
"Y-you're a murderer...," she muttered, now with more strength. In spite of her shock, the woman had gathered up enough strength to call out to the other humans, but they took no notice of her. They had borne witness to an "accident" of spectacular proportions, and were now as dangerous as a flock of birds.
With an expression of complete and utter lack of interest, Shion turned his back on the woman and walked away calmly.
"'Difficult knowledge is always hard to grasp...' Bah. After a thousand years, you'd think these humans might've evolved a little bit."
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