-BEYOND THE HORIZON-

A Monster Like Me

It's owner approached.

"Wait, let me rephrase that, you're an idiot!" She remarked ruefully, her arms crossed across her chest. It was the redhead Yukira, and usually she enjoyed watching him display his uncanny stupidity in full action but this was too much even for her to bear. The preposterousness of it all almost sent her into a gale of laughter. Surely, life can't be this cruel towards her having him for a partner. "Do you want to die? You just wanna unalive yourself?"

"Uh, how long were you standing there?" He asked, genuinely surprised.

"Long enough to see you try to walk the plank," She replied with a hint of sarcasm in her tone then sighed irritably, shaking her head from side to side. "Listen to me, okay? If you're going to die, if you want too at least, do it with some dignity you got left in you. Go out in a blaze of glory. Die in battle or something! Don't go taking the easy way out and doing this and taking the easy way, you're only going to make the city look even dirtier. And who's gonna end up having to clean up after you, me? Seriously... It makes things hella more difficult for me when I have a total idiot for a partner! Humph! Talk about your body being all over the place." she pouted, looking away from him as he got up to his feet.

"Haha, very funny."

"What? You think I was joking?"

"How about the mission? Any progress as of late?"

"Oh, see, the mission. Oh, so now you remember the mission?" she said in a loud voice, which promptly made him cringe, of course. "Well, while you were here dawdling your time over with death, I happen to stumble on some clues in one of the many many books at the library." She responded promptly, turning around with her back facing the boy. "I'll bring it over to your place after school, tomorrow. Shouldn't be too much of a problem." She said morosely then began walking away.

"Yeah. And wait, dawdling?" Orenji followed behind her with the words. "Hey, I wasn't dawdling!"

"Oh, yeah? Then what were you doing back there?"

"I was... I was, uh," he said slowly, "I was just... Shut up, Yukira!" he snickered, defiantly.

"Heh," she chuckled a little, "when it comes right down it... to being real stupid I mean, you never cease to disappoint, Orenji." she confessed.

**********

The Alleyway was straight like that of a drinking straw and almost as narrow. Someone had used it as a joke to him once that it wasn't a place to go waltzing right in after a big meal, but Kiel, for the life of him, could not remember who it was. He did however know it was someone he was close too once, someone he cared about, but he just couldn't remember and even when he tried, all he could see, all he could get, was a vague face.

In the dim light that oozed through a narrow gap in the alley, two of the bullies held their tortured victim, with the victim's face bent downwards as bruises lay across it and the rest of his entire body. Only now, more were about to be dealt on him. The boy had been beaten, battered.

And now, he was about to be broken, literally.

"Hey, I always forget, how many bones are in the human body?!" One of the two bullies holding him dared ask with a grin.

"I don't know," A familiar voice replied him, crunching his knuckles. "Let's count--" closing in, he threw a right hook at the boy but before a connection could be made, a tightly clenched fist from out of nowhere caught his face instead.