Guardian of the Derelict Night

*PLEASE READ THE DESCRIPTION FIRST*

"The street was pitch black. The path was thin and narrow. There was no escape from this ghastly atmosphere. As steps were taken forward to see what lurks about, a sudden dead end was met. She turns her head back...and nothing was there. She starts trekking back but she senses something dripping on her. She slowly looks up and...ABOVE HER WAS-"
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
"Ungph!" Kido's blow hits me in the chest.
"Why the hell would there be a thing above her out of nowhere!? I-I-I don't want to finish hearing about this!" Kido screams as I rub my broken chest.
"But wait, it just got exciting!" I say with emphasis.
"Sh-sh-sh-shut your trap!" She facepalms me onto the table.
"K-Kano San are you a-alright?" Worries a panicking Mary.
"He's clearly fine! See! Still functioning!" She flails my arms about.
"Kukukukukuh, I didn't think Kido would be scared by such things!" I laugh in pain.
She looks away in disgust.

"Now now, let's talk about something less scary." Seto interrupts the fiery scene.
"Ah, well, I was just thinking about going to the convenience store to buy some stuff." I propose.
"Wait, what are you buying?" Kido asks grumpily.
"Some snacks: crisps; juice; sweets; and biscuits." I list.
"I don't trust you with the sweets. Last time you got me those disgusting chilli gummies. They tasted vile! You know I hate them but you tricked me into eating seven of those in one go!" She protests.
"I thought they were good." I argue.
Then I realize Kido clenching my shirt with a dark face.
"Actually they made me feel sick." I rapidly switch my view.
"Anyone else coming?" Kido asks Seto and Mary.
"S-sorry, I h-have to sew a p-patch onto my d-dress." Mary quivers to the guest room.
"Nope, I have to prepare some stuff for a part-time. And I need to make sure Mary doesn't hurt herself." Seto smiles with passion.
Kido impatiently opens the door and I tell Seto that "We won't be too long" as he waves at us.

"If we hurry it to the convenience store, we won't need to worry about...things." Kido shivers.
"You mean, 'If YOU hurry' up you won't be as paranoid?" I laugh as I pick up the pace.
Kido chases me in anger and I run away before being obliterated by her.
We lose our breath, make an abrupt halt just to catch our breaths, and carry on making our journey.
"We haven't been out together like this in a long time." Kido softens.
I nod my head in agreement with an eerie smile on my face accompanied by a silent snigger.
"What's funny?" Kido glares.
"N-nothing." My snigger dies.
She looks down at me but let's it go.

We head on the long winded road just to get to the convenience store. The streets are mainly empty and only a rare occasion of a bright light would appear here and there. The only people visible on the streets looked unfortunately homeless or dressed as cheap thugs. Although it may seem bad in one's eyes, the City's night time regulars have barely changed.
Theft; murder; rape; all sorts of crime show the dark side of this City. This City is still in need of change and nothing's being done to change it.
It's not fair.

"Kano? Something wrong?" Kido wonders.

But we shouldn't be startled by their existence. After all, their eyes can't meet ours.

"Nothing. It's just that I almost forgot how this City hasn't changed much." I state.
"It's quiet isn't it?" Kido notices.
"Too quiet..." I add on.
"Kyaah!" Kido freaks.
She gazes into an alleyway that almost appears out of nowhere. In a way, it seems to be that the alleyway I described is almost identical to the one right here.
"The story's made up! I'm amazed you're still shell shocked by it!" I laugh hysterically.
"Who cares about your opinion!?" She tears up.
I try comforting her so that we can be on our way as the night's getting close to a new day. Although she's still paranoid of the case, luckily she's still able to walk.
"Will you be okay?" I giggle.
She flusters in silence as she overcomes the thought.

As we carry on walking, a group of small kids are spotted by a derelict park. "What do you think they're doing?" Kido becomes nosy.
"Don't know. They shouldn't be out so late." I state.
As we spy and eavesdrop the kids, one kid caught my eyes. This boy seemed to be an outcast to the group. He seemed to be bruised and looks intimidated. Although he was in the circle, it seemed he was different to everyone else. This reminded me of what happened many years ago in my childhood...
"Kano, let's go." Kido interrupts my train of thoughts.
"Oh, right." I continue walking.
Another strange mystery has been spotted. In front of a pharmacy parks a truck with the back door open and the driver at the side smoking, waiting for something. We observe the situation and large boxes of unknown items seemed to be placed in the truck.
"Lets not get involved in this." Kido rushes.
With that, we head off again for we are almost there.

After ten minutes of climbing and sweating, the convenience store has been reached.
"Finally!" I exclaim as the air-conditioner soothes my soul.
"Time to buy stuff." Kido explores.
There is a variety of different snacks to choose from, it is literally a rainbow of choices. Kido picked some sweet food for herself, found some magazines of yaoi for Mary, and hamster food for Seto's hamster (as expected of leader). I was able to somehow sneak in those chilli gummies into the trolley without Kido noticing and without her consent.
A lot of items are bought and the bag of food could last a week of midnight snacks.
"Thank you for shopping here!" The cashier bids us farewell.
I pick up all the shopping bags as Kido takes out her iPod to change the song she's listening to and we make our way back.
"Those bags look heavy." Kido realizes.
"Wanna try holding them?" I challenge her.
"Sure." She accepts.
I give her the heavy-load and she weighs them with her flimsy arms, "It's actually quite heavy..."
I agree by nodding and she continues, "I don't think I can carry this so why don't you take it all ba-"
"Kyaaaaaaah!" I see her scream as she runs frantically with the shopping.
"Wait up!" I call for her as I see her silhouette chasing the dark.
I sigh as I investigate the cause of her departure.
*Drip...drip*
I hear water drops as though it were laughing at someone. I look up to see where the water came from and turns out it was just a water pipe...
"Kukukuh, as expected of leader." I snigger as the water drops fall faster.
"But now I have to look for her seeing as we didn't take our phones out." I think in agony.
I search for her down every road available. "I haven't been out on my own in the dark for a while. This place hasn't changed much. Will it ever change?" I grief as I head back into the lonely night.

Not even a star was visible.

I notice the pharmacy that we looked at before. The truck seems to be missing but the guy inside looks like he just won the lottery. His
smirk is horrifying to stare at.
Even so, I'm not the one to say such things seeing that I smirk like that at times.
Some blocks later, I hear sobbing. It wasn't a ghost but it sounded like a kid's depression. Having Kido put second to my priority list, I look around for the kid who cries.
The lights are still destroyed and the sound of crying is still nowhere to be found. But now the problem is, where am I?
I lose sense of my direction as the roads are unrecognisable. This road is empty and the kid who cries is still within reach.
Kids from before are just around the corner though. They seem loud and disrespectful.
The kids quickly vanish into the abyss on the other side of the road. Where they were going didn't interest me, I just want to find the kid whose life could be at stake now.
A quick turn of the conjunction and I notice the boy I stared at a while ago creeping across the road.
"Kano, there you are!" I hear an abrupt Kido shout.
I ran to meet my two targets and a loud horn of a truck is heard.
"Get out of the way!" A man screams as the individual boy stares at
the incoming truck.

If I don't do anything that boy will die!
I sprint towards the fragile boy and catch him into my arms. I make a leap to safety and we flash away from the irritant light of the truck. I spin in the air as the truck grazes my arm and speeds away from the scene.
Our bodies roll against the rough ground and Kido runs towards us in panic. "Are you alright!?" She worries.
"My arm is grazed. Other than that I think I'm fine." I tell her in relief.
She starts to cry. "Don't scare me like that again!" She weakly flings the shopping at me with her face down as soft tears pound the ground.
"I'm sorry." I giggle as she slowly looks up.
"Is the kid still alive?" She notices whilst wiping her tears.
I check for the boy's pulse and it was found. I pick Kido up with my functional hand. Then I put the fainted boy on my back and piggy back him using only one arm.
Again, we try attempting to go back to the headquarters.
"I would have thought you'd still be scared of the water drop and not stop your marathon." I become curious.
"Somehow I managed to stop it when realizing some bad business was happening." She starts.
"Tell me all of it." I pester Kido.

"Even with my screaming, I was able to sense something going wrong. I saw a few shady men placed next to the suspicious truck we saw earlier. I eavesdropped two men chatting about some kind of import into this City. There were guns, drugs, and grenades in the boxes. That was until one of their men bumped into me from behind. My concealment ability was of no use anymore." She adds.
"So how are you still here now?" I wonder in fascination.
"The guy who bumped into me became shocked and so I had to work with impulse. I grab hold of his arm and threw him to the ground as the other men watch him groan. The men start crowding and made a quick advance to corner me to the wall. 'So what do we have here?' One of the stupid men asks me as though I was a little girl. I spit on his shoe and they all glare at me. 'How dare you!' He clenched his teeth whilst approaching me with his fist up. That's when I elbowed his mouth and he was sent flying to his deathbed. The other three try flattening me but I used the shopping to pound them to the ground as I kick two of them to death. One was crawling away in fear whereas the others were on the verge of life and death. 'D-d-d-don't come near me!' The other one cries in fear. I infiltrated him and beat him up with a shoe to his disturbing face. There was a driver in the truck and escaped in panic. I had no idea he was there." She concludes.
"That sounded...exciting?" I applaud, in fear of becoming one of those men who experienced such pain.
"And you bought chilli gummies again..." She despairs.
My body tenses up in hopes that she doesn't send me to my deathbed.
"I've used them up so don't worry about dying tonight." She eyes me as though I was prey.
"I asked the one on the floor questions like 'Where do these items come from?', 'Why are you doing this?', 'Who do you work for?' and he wouldn't answer. So I picked him up and forced his body onto the wall. That was when a packet of sweets fell out of the shopping bag, the chilli gummies. I instantly knew that you brought it but I used it to my advantage. He shrieks as he sees the devilish packet and I notice his fear for it. I decided to open the packet of gummies and shove them through his throat. 'Tell me now or I will shove hamster food down your throat!' I start opening the hamster food as he chokes and finds out how to breathe again." She stops.

"Then what?" I ask impatiently.
"He tells me in his croaky voice that 'The information is on my phone!' With that I drag him down and beat up his once pretty face. I find the phone in his pocket and I look at all the information."
"He has no lock on his phone?" I ask amused.
She nods. "I found everything related to this on his phone and decide to call the police as I sent the information across to their department. Then I left to hunt you down." She ends.
"So who did they work for?" I wonder.
"You'll find out tomorrow." She keeps hidden.

Without realizing, we make it back to the headquarters. Kido opens the door and we can finally relax again. Mary and Seto are sat on the sofa, sleeping with their heads close together listening to music through headphones.
I snigger and take the boy on my back to the guest room where there is a bed. I come back out with Seto's phone and take commemoration shots of the two making them his wallpaper.
"I'll go check up on the kid." She passes by whilst holding a tray of medical products.
"Oh yeah, you might wanna come in here as well! I have to treat your arm too!" She shouts from the guest room.
I walk into the room and I find out her hair is tied back. Although she looks manly from what a lot of people say, she's still cute.

She treats the boy's cuts and wounds as I sit beside her watching her do her fancy work.
"Kido, you're like a housewife." I giggle.
"If you carry on this way, I'll make your experience more painful to the one I gave you when I slammed your face to the table." She smiles at me with a sadistic tone.
I freak and stay silent.
She finishes fixing up the boy and lays the quilt over him.
"You're next." She sighs as she can't be asked to heal me.
She applies cream onto my cuts and bandages them until they are tight. "That should fix it." She pats on the cuts.
"Thank you Madam." I reply as though we lived in a rich house.
She shakes her head as she sighs from my tardiness.
"You should go sleep, it's been a long night." She sends me.
I tell her goodnight and make my way to the living room. Luckily the sofa still had space on it, but it was next to Seto. I sit down uncomfortably and end up taking a nap.

Morning came up again and no one was awake yet, in my mind. I remember having a weird dream with Kido in it. We went out for a date and I asked her whether she wanted coffee or not at my place. But then she got shot by some random sniper and died an awkward death.
I stretch a little and finally notice I was touching a person in my half awake state. My eyes flash open and Mary's eyes can be seen above me.
"Ya-ya-ya-ya..." She stares.
"Yaoi!" She blurts out as Seto stretches and turns to face me. Our eyes meet each other in surprise.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" We both scream in unison.
"What happened!?" Kido breaks through the guest room door with her tangled hair.
Mary rapidly replies "Ya-ya-ya-ya-"
"Yakisoba!" I shout in attempts to make the scene less awkward.
Everyone stayed as they are and an awkward silence leaked in.
Kido takes out a phone and snaps a picture of our embarrassing revelation. "Damn! She took a picture of us!" I panic whilst standing up.
"But it's not like we really have something going on there." Seto laughs.
Mary blushes as she admires such a scene.
"Although I went out to get snacks, I brought breakfast as well." Kido notifies.
"I also found a magazine for Mary and hamster food for Hanao." She adds.
They both tell her thanks and we set up breakfast.
"Ahhhh C-Ciel's face has been c-creased on the c-cover of the magazine." Mary sighs whilst looking at the cover for an issue of "FUJOSHI+".
"The hamster food has been opened!" Seto realises.
"Oh, that's my bad. Sorry about that." Kido apologises.
"I had to beat up some men and so this happened to some of the stuff in the bags." She adds whilst the other two look at her blankly in shock.
"Oh yeah, we should check the news." I remember.

I find the remote to the TV and I turn over to the news channel.
"...reported that four men have been found beaten up at the scene and had connections to the case, making them arrested of suspicious acts. A getaway truck has been spotted and police have arrested the man for having illegal goods on his truck. Also, a man in a pharmacy has been arrested too for supplying these goods. Further information is yet to be confirmed about where the goods came from and their motiv-"
"That sounds bad. Glad they were caught!" Seto cheers.
"I think that was the work of Kido." I guess.
Mary and Seto turn their shocked faces to Kido who became blank in appearance.
"That was me." Kido responds.
They both gasp in shock to realize our leader is that much of a hero.
I hear moaning from the guest room. I make my way in as the others talk about yesterdays scandal. I walk across the newly laid futon, that Kido most likely slept on, and sit beside the boy who just woke up.
"Where am I?" I hear him talk for the first time.
"You're in a safe place." I smile to the boy who had a rough night.
"All I remember was being dragged around by some bullies at school and I think they beat me up. I saw a truck and..." The boy tries remembering.
I was about to ask him why he was bullied but I thought I'd save it for another day as it'd seem horrible to ask some random kid about such personal stuff.
"I saved you from being run over." I tell him as I rub my bandages.
The boy makes a silent gasp and shows his gratitude by saying "Thank you for saving me."
"What's your name?" I ask out of curiosity.
"My name's Hibiya." The boy in the blue shirt introduces himself.
"My name's Kano, nice to meet you." I greet the boy with a handshake.

Theft; murder; rape; all sorts of crime show the dark side of this City.
But there has to be people within this prejudiced City to show light to the never-ending darkness.
In the end, I'm fighting off the City's sins as a guardian of the night.