Shadow of an Idol

Chapter 1: Home is Where Kindness is.

Ten years ago

2002, Japan.

'How... How did all this happen?' A six-year-old Yoru thought as she laid motionlessly in the alleyway she landed in. 'It... It all happened so fast...'

The girl's ears rang with a shrill screech and beside searing pain emanating from her stomach, everything felt numb to the violet-haired girl. She felt dizzy and her vision spun, the tall apartment buildings that towered over the small child twisted and warped as the child's eye started to unfocus.

Her chest felt heavy, almost as if a large weight was pressed onto it. The six-year-old tried to breathe, but every breath she took was never enough. Her body craved oxygen, but the blood leaking from her stomach was depriving precious ozone from her system.

As the violet-eyed juvenile laid motionless on the bloodied ground, she heard rapid footsteps approaching from her right. The juvenile weakly turned her neck to look at the source of the noise.

Her eyes spied a tall, long-haired man wearing an all-black three piece suit sprinting full speed toward her. Yoru couldn't quite make out his face as her eyelids became heavier and heavier and the violet-haired girl found it more and more difficult to keep herself awake.

"Please..." The six-year-old begged in a weak whisper, unsure if someone was actually there or the man was an illusion her dying mind conjured to give her a semblance of hope. "Save me..."

After expending the rest of her energy begging the man to help her, Yoru closed her eyes and fell unconscious.

______________________________________________

John Wick was pissed; no, it was more accurate to say he's furious. While many things could incur the veteran hitman anger, it's rare for him to be so enraged. When he found the child bleeding out in that alleyway with a small fruit knife sticking out of her stomach, he immediately ran to her, his every instinct screamed at him to help the small juvenile despite a thought in the back of his mind saying it could be a trap.

But, the assassin couldn't leave the girl there. Not when she used up the remains of her energy to beg him to save her only moments before she blacked out from blood loss.

The soviet delicately scooped the girl's unconscious body into his arms and pressed his right palm on her stomach wound, applying pressure and minimizing further blood loss as he ran to the nearest back-alley doctor, Miyaki.

'Come on.' John thought to himself, his feet harshly pounding on the gray concrete sidewalk. 'Please, just hold on for a little longer, little girl. I will save you, and that's a promise.'

As the hitman dodged and weaved between civilians and cars, he reminisced about his early childhood as a homeless boy on the streets of El Sauzal, California. Back when he was a simple street urchin committing petty crimes instead of the internationally revered hitman and enforcer he is today.

John also remembered the day he developed a hatred for those who committed wanton destruction and disregarded innocent lives. He was only ten back then, a child much like the girl he's holding in his arms right now. While he was far from completely innocent, there was a certain naivety to him in his early adolescence. But that naivety was torn away from him the day he crossed the three bills.

It was a cool autumn day in 1974 when he stole a couple grand from the three caucasian assassins, and it was also a cool autumn day when he lost his first family. His agility was what saved his life twenty-six years ago; he was too quick and nimble for the three hitmen to catch. He was able to dodge and weave between the assassins' bullets and frustrated at their inability to kill a simple street rat, the three bills opened fire upon every civilian they could lay their eyes upon. John saw his friends and innocent civilians die from gunfire and the home he knew for all his life was blasted into smithereens from an RPG.