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About two weeks after I opened the envelope and came across the cursed land, things – well, life becomes hectic. And I began to fly in and out of the country for a reason that I can’t trust both Dazai nor Miura being under one roof, especially far away from my line of sight.

Maybe I should install some hidden camera around the Kyoto base. What a brilliant idea, Rei! I thought sarcastically. My family is all Yakuza, and if that isn’t enough, they’re all were-creatures as well. So, they’d know if someone’s spying in on them and where to look for them.

We were all having dinner at the Raven Ash's pack house, laughing at a fellow pack member’s joke, enjoying good food – just overall having fun. Until the lively sight before me whirled into a different view. This doesn’t feel like any of the dream or nightmare I’ve been through, this feels real.

I was confused as to why I’m in a pitch-black dark room. I thought there was something in my eyes when I rubbed it a couple of time for any possible residue of dust but found none.

Taking a deep breath, I tried not to panic. Getting up from the floor, I supposed it was, slowly I turned to the light on my right. Walking straight to it, which led me to another dark room with a lit doorway at the corner.

Once I was out of the room. I followed a beautiful floating white orb that guided me to a what felt like 5 minutes’ walk to an abandoned warehouse.

I hesitated to go in the building, but the orb went straight through the wall. Heaving a sigh, I followed it through a small entrance.

As soon as I stepped foot inside, a shrilling scream rippled through the space of the warehouse, crying of a man and a woman echoed again – sending chills down my spine.

Nearing the sound, I hid behind scraps of plywood. My heart stopped beating for a split second as I saw my parents in the middle of the room. 

My mother was stripped of her clothing along with every bit of her dignity, tears stained her bloody and pale face.

I wanted to scream and help her, but I couldn’t move and not even a whisper comes out. I could only cry and hold in the anger that was raging in me.

My father, on the other hand, looked completely broken. I held my breath as I watched him cry, pleading the men around them, who looked familiar to me. When I get a clear view of the men who my father begged to spare my mother’s life, instantly, I felt like buckets of fire ants were being thrown at me.

These were the men I killed on the highway heading to Seoul, trying to save my life. I remember dismembering one of their balls and threw it in a roaring fire.

I am pissed off, furious, heck! I was ready to declare war on anyone. My body shook with anger, and I don’t know how to tame the livid beast in me anymore.

“We’ve done everything to break them, but they won’t cooperate.” The potbelly spokes.

My father spits the blood out, coughing, “You will never have that position. It belongs to Rei, you know it, and so does everyone. No matter what you do to me, even in my death, I will make sure that Rei succeeds the throne and overruled my father’s reign. You are a devil in disguise.”

It was in a split second but also feels like a slow motion when a bullet pierced in between my father’s eyes. The sound echoed after my father’s, now, the lifeless body falls on the ground.

Not a second wasted, my mother’s loud scream filled the entire place again. She was no longer the sobbing mess of a woman I saw earlier, instead, I saw fire in her eyes as she stares back at the culprit who had his back facing me. The mastermind my grandparents, now me, looking for all these times.

“You won’t get away with this. The moment Rei finds you, she is going to have your head. You will be beheaded and burned alive for betraying your own blood. Don’t you think for a second that she’s going to rest! Once she becomes the Oyabun, she will end you and your wickedness.”

That was my mother’s last words when she too was shot between her eyes, her body collapsed beside my father, facing one another. They died together, fighting for me.

“If they won’t cooperate, just kill them. Easy as that.” The culprit spoke “Now, clean this mess up. I have to fly back, and figure out something else to get what I want.”

Just as the man face my direction, I felt as if time had stopped as I take a long look at this monster before me. My breath ragged, suddenly, I have the biggest urge to spill his gut and blood and end him by torching him alive. I don’t need to behead him. I’ll just torture him like how he had made my parents suffered in their last moments.

He is going to pay, with blood.

Suddenly, I was jerked back to reality. There I stood in the middle of the abandoned warehouse in my vision, drenched by the rain, shivering as the cold wind nipped on my body.

Carefully, a pair of warm arms circled around me, comforting me in his embrace. He turns me around to face him with a worried look in his eyes.

I didn’t need it, I don’t want him to worry. I want him to encourage me even more to end this thing that has been going on for too long. I stare at him dead-set in the eyes, with determination filling up in my body “I know who killed my parents!”

•••••••••••••••••••

I never told him who was the cause of my pain and suffering. Because the second we both returned to the pack house, which was already filled with worried and anxious people, I received a phone call from Dazai, sounding frantic and distress “Rei! Rei!”

And with obvious that the entire room had heard the conversation, they all turned quiet. “Woah! Slow down! What’s going on?”

“The Mamushi clan are attacking us!”

I frowned “What? What do you mean?”

“Get here now!”

Ending the phone call, I excuse myself from the living room, to change into dry and more comfortable clothes. But before I leave, Mark’s parents gave me a hug and some encouragement “Stay safe, we’ll always be here for you when you need us.”

“Thank you,” was all I said.

As I get ready to leave, I spot Mark getting ready as well. “What are you doing? If you’re thinking of going with me, then, no.”

“I should be wherever you’re going.” He said.

I shook my head “No! Thi