Life Hunter

He rushed where Arima was and checked his pulse. He sighed in relief when he found out that he was alive. But he was also deeply perturbed by everything. Who could possibly do this to Arima who was basically a superhuman? He was even more confused when he noticed that an Eion explosion occurred here, directly in front of Arima"s chest.

Jin gritted his teeth when he looked one more time at Tieria and Scatha before calling hastily the other members of the squad.

When they arrived, Jin had given first cares to Arima by bandaging and disinfecting his wounds. When Haze arrived with Moria, he immediately called a hospital they partly owned and told them to prepare a room for them.

While everyone was carrying Arima in the car, Moria received a call. When he heard what the other side had to say, his eyes narrowed, and his expression turned ugly. He crushed his phone as he looked at Scatha"s body.

"What the h.e.l.l happened?!" He shouted and everyone was shocked as they rarely even saw Moria getting irritated.

The squad later learned that the Walker orphanage had been attacked by a single person and that hundreds of children had been killed. Only a hundred people survived, most of them were the staff that managed to hide with the younger children in the bunker.

When they got out, the old headmistress, Jane, immediately called Moria to inform him that the person who did that was Scatha. Because the latter was deceased, Moria couldn"t ask for an answer and had to wait for Arima to wake up. Be he still prepared for her funeral along with Tieria and even Rocky.

In the hospital, after Arima was brought there, a team of surgeons and doctors worked to help him. But what those doctors found when they looked at Arima"s state was nature-defying.

Arima"s body was healing so quickly that it wasn"t human. The surgeons also found a pair of Eion stones incrusted, literally, on Arima"s heart. They scanned his body and found out that Arima"s entire body was being filled with Eion energy.

But that energy was also slowly leaving his body but while it was doing that, Arima"s body endured an unbelievable upgrade.

"Don"t tell this to anyone else, understood?" Haze obviously instructed to the doctors who diagnosed him, when he learned what had happened with Arima"s body "But you would be welcome in our company. Call this number if you feel like it" Haze handed a card to the doctors with a "smile". Since he teamed up with Arima, he always dealt with this kind of thing, so he was getting used to it.

The doctors also received the message that they should join that company if they don"t want to be a possible target of surveillance.

"Let"s bring him back. I don"t want him to wake up in a hospital" Haze said to the soldiers who were in the corridors of the hospital. The patients there were relieved when they left as they felt like the place had been invaded by the police or something.

Arima woke up two days later in the company"s main quarters. The moment he opened his eyes, his expression suffered multiple changes until he barely managed to stabilize by covering his face with his hand.

He stayed like that for a minute until someone entered the room. The nurse was about to go toward Arima but stopped when she saw the latter with his hand on his face. When Arima moved his head to look at her, she yelped and fell on the ground.

"What is it?!" Haze entered the room when he heard the nurse"s voice and also froze when he saw Arima. He already had sat down on his bed and his upper body was covered with bandages. He was staring in empty s.p.a.ce with sharp and deadly eyes. He seemed to wish the death of anyone who would be in front of him.

"…Come, get out" Haze spoke to the nurse and helped her to stand. She glanced at Arima one more time before leaving hastily the room "I will come back" Haze added but Arima didn"t even react. Haze just nodded and left the room.

Arima only stood up after ten minutes. He looked at his bandages and tore them. He stared at the huge and strange scar he had on his chest.

He gritted his teeth and shouted as he kicked his bed. The thing immediately snapped and broke the gla.s.s of the room leading to the outside. Arima looked at the broken gla.s.s for a moment. This place was twenty meters high.

Arima hesitated but shook his head and even got mad at himself for thinking about that. Arima looked around the room and sighed. Some of the killing intent in his eyes disappeared, but the anger didn"t weaken at all.

He started to get dressed and he stopped moving when he spotted his coat on the chair. He took it and saw the hole in it, covered in dried blood.

He stared at it with calm eyes and then folded it and brought it with him as he left the room. When he stepped out of the room, Jin, Haze, and Moria were here to see him. The three of them felt relieved when they saw his eyes but at the same time, they were anxious about what was going to happen from now on.

"Haze, can you get this repaired?" Arima threw the coat at Haze and requested. The latter nodded as he caught the coat. He then looked back at Arima; his voice a lot colder than before.

"Sir…Moria, was a funeral prepared? I think that you would have done it" Arima inquired.

"I did, it"s ready. We had planned to begin when you wake up" Moria answered and threw him a card with the emplacement of the funeral.

"Let"s start now then" Arima said and went to the elevator without any other comment. The three soldiers looked at each other and followed him.

"Wait" When Arima was about to press the b.u.t.ton of the elevator, Moria called him "I want to know, what happened?" He asked and Arima trembled.

"You can"t stay silent now. Tell me. Scatha slaughtered most of the children in the orphanage. I need an explanation for that" Moria sternly said with great anger behind his words. But when Arima looked back at him, he suddenly felt like his own anger was nothing.

"I don"t f.u.c.king know what happened. Here"s your answer" Arima responded and pressed the b.u.t.ton of the elevator. The doors closed and he went to the parking alone.

He walked toward a bike and mounted it before turning it on with his digital imprint. At the same time, the gate of the parking opened and Arima immediately left.

A few seconds after, Moria, Jin, and Haze came out of the elevator. They watched as the gate closed and went for another car to follow Arima.

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When Arima entered the funeral hall, all of the people in it turned silent. In there, there were people both from the squad and Scatha"s family that Arima met a few times.

Arima didn"t even talk to them and just sat at the front. With a wide view of the two coffins, and even a small one for Rocky. When Arima sat down, he just closed his eyes. No one went to him for five minutes and during that time, Moria, Jin, and Haze stepped in and walked to the front too.

Moria talked to everyone and said that the funeral will begin soon. He then called everyone to announce it. He didn"t call a priest, no one here was a believer and religion wasn"t what most of the people here needed.

Among the people who arrived, there were the people of the orphanage. It was Jane who arrived at the front and she tried to stop one of her subordinates. But she failed to do so as the woman went toward Arima.

"You! How dare you conduct the funeral of a criminal like her!?" She shouted with tears flowing down her cheeks and Arima"s entire body tensed.

"Stop, Helia!" Jane grabbed her shoulder "It wasn"t even Arimane who set this funeral…" She tried to calm her.

Arima stood up just after and opened his eyes to look at Helia "I don"t care about what you think. I"m here to honor my mother. What do you want anyway? Act like a savage and mutilate her body? Leave now" Arima spoke slowly and coldly.

Helia trembled in fear and Jane had to drag her to make her leave "…Sorry, Arimane" Jane said to Arima and left the place with everyone else.

After that incident, the funeral went normally. Scatha"s relatives still made a speech in her memory and even Arima spoke up at the end, but everyone was overly tensed and stressed by Arima"s mood that they couldn"t focus on what he was saying.

The bodies were not buried but cremated and Arima stayed until the end. He only left the hall when there was no one left.

"Hey" As Arima was leaving in the night, Haze called him from behind. When Arima turned around, he caught an object Haze threw at him. He looked at it and saw it was Tieria"s dog tag "Look behind" Haze said and Arima flipped over the tag. On the other side, there was Scatha"s information.

Arima clenched it in hand and hung it on his chain with his own tag "Thanks" He thanked Haze and turned around "Let"s go, we have some work. Also, I want you to use as many resources as you can to investigate a name; Karaskan"

Haze just followed Arima and didn"t question him as he immediately noted down the name. He supposed it had something to do with what happened the day before.

Arima"s eyes flashed coldly "I"m finished being low-key and forgiving. It"s time to change things" He declared and Haze looked at Arima"s back. He then raised his head to admire the stars and wondered what would happen from now on.

********************************************

In the Time Garden, tears were falling in the pond"s water. Lilis tried to hold back but even like that she couldn"t help but shed tears. She was the G.o.ddess of Worldly Emotions, normally, things like that shouldn"t do that much effect to her.

But for some reason, she couldn"t stop her tears. She was close to Arima, she considered him as a friend and maybe even more, she perfectly felt the emotions he could have experienced that day. His mother annihilated everything around him and then killed herself just after. How wicked could this be?

What destroyed Arima mentally was the fact that he loved Tieria but also loved the one who killed her. When he witnessed Scatha kill herself, he couldn"t bear the shock anymore and he changed forever.

As Lilis was slowly getting her calm, the Time Garden started to act strangely "Hahahaha" The dark laughter resounded once more but this time it started to talk and stopped laughing "It"s the birth of The Wicked One" The voice announced and laughed again.

Just after that, the images on the pond started to appear one after another and directly entered Lilis"s conscience.