Inside a large, golden home…
The dark silhouettes of a man and woman were lying on the living room floor, blood pooling from underneath them. The blinds on the windows were closed, and all but one was shut tight. The man looked to his wife, his voice barely a whisper.
"Hinata…I'm sorry…"
As both of them closed their eyes, the door suddenly burst open, and Hikari horrifically watched the gruesome scene before her.
"Mom! Dad!"
She immediately rushed over to them, kneeling down and placing a hand on both of them. A pink light coursed through their bodies, and their eyes thrust open. Hikari's dad sat up.
"Hikari?"
Just then, Hikaru and Hana burst in, hugging their parents. Hikari joined in, tears streaming down her face.
"Are you both alright?" she asked, worried.
Her father, Hayato, coughed a few times. "Much better, thanks to you, dear. Your powers have grown much stronger, haven't they?"
She nodded. "That's not important right now, can you two stand?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Alright, Hana, Hikaru, help me get them onto the couch."
While the kids helped their parents onto the couch, Marachii, Luca, and Saori watched from the doorway.
"What a nice family," Marachii remarked. "I wish mine was still whole."
"Yeah," Luca agreed. "Kinda sucks."
Saori silently nodded.
Hinata noticed the three in the doorway. "You brought friends, Hikari?"
She jumped, almost as if she was just noticing them for the first time. "Oh, right! These are my squadmates, Saori, Luca, and Marachii."
"Really?" Hinata asked. "Where are the rest of them? No General Fujii?"
"They're still at the Masquerade."
Hana grabbed her mother's arm, looking at the ripped sleeve of her dress. "Mom? What happened? Why are your clothes all ripped?"
Hinata rubbed her head. "I remember now…a group of people…they were wearing robes, they came in and attacked. They were looking for someone called the 'Destroyer…'"
"Destroyer?" Hikari wondered.
Hinata sat up. "Come, how about we tell you over lunch? We rarely get you back home these days, and we wouldn't want your friends here to feel unwelcome, would we?"
"Well, erm, that's not necessary—-" Marachii stammered.
Saori walked into the home. "Yay! Food!"
Not long after, they were seeded at the dining table, with the Hisatomi family sitting across from them. Hinata wrapped up her story as she set plates down in front of everyone.
"And then, they left. I guess they thought we were dead, because they didn't even bother to check us or anything. I don't think they were targeting us specifically."
"Could it have been me they were after?" Hikari asked.
Hayato shook his head. "Whatever they were describing, it didn't seem like a person. It seemed like a force of evil, terror, demonic, even. Besides, our sweet little Hikari couldn't hurt a fly!"
Hikari's face turned red. Luca barely managed to hold in a laugh. "That's very true. Even when she's fighting, she can barely land a scratch."
Hikari got up from the table and grabbed Luca by his hair.
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."
"You take that back!"
While her family chuckled, Marachii looked at his plate, thinking. "Could they mean Dachii? No. Dachii isn't evil. What could they be after? Cloaked figures? Is it Zharians?"
When things had calmed back down, Hayato addressed Marachii. "Marachii, yes?"
Marachii looked up, almost dazed. "Yes, sir?"
"Give my thanks to your brother. I won't forget what he did for my children, back in that arena."
"Right, will do."
"He's gotten famous in these past six months," Hinata noted. "I've never seen such national interest in a human before. Not even General Morino, rest his soul."
"Yeah," Marachii nervously laughed. "So I've heard."
As they started eating, Hikari put her fork down. "Mom, Dad. I think you should come back with us to the Masquerade. It's clearly not safe here, even if your attackers aren't after you. If I wasn't here to heal you guys…"
Hayato gave her head a pat. "Always so concerned, dear. But we didn't receive an invitation to the Masquerade, and thus, we cannot show our faces."
"But you've got royal blood! And you're in danger! They'll let you in, I know they will!"
Hayato sighed. "It's just the rules."
Hikari got up and grabbed the arms of both her parents. "You're both coming, invite or no, got it?"
She looked at her brother and sister. "That goes for you too!"
"Woah," Marachii whispered to Luca. "I've never seen her so assertive before."
"Hang around Akari too much, you'll start turning into her," Luca replied. "Gosh, I hope I don't."
Hinata softly smiled. "Well, if you insist. Besides, it would be good to see our oldest again, wouldn't it, dear?"
Hayato coughed. "Himeka! Yeah, it would be a pleasure!"
Hinata suspiciously eyed him before shaking her head. "Don't tell me you're still mad she missed your birthday party, are you?"
"No! Yes! Maybe?"
"She's a General, dear. That means she's out and about all the time. Didn't you enjoy the nice flowers she sent you?"
He looked over at the flowers stationed over the fireplace in the living room. "Well…I suppose."
Marachii took in the galore of the home. "You, um, have a nice place, you guys."
"I love the gold and glitter!" Saori added.
"The floor's pretty nice," Luca said. "Could really fall asleep on it."
Hikari shrugged. "It's not all that."
"What she means to say is thank you," Hayato interrupted. "We take pride in it."
Once the plates were clean, Hinata collected them. "Alright. Just allow us to change and clean up, and we'll come with you to the castle."
A weird beeping sound started going off on everyone's watch.
"Is that normal?" Marachii asked.
"Not usually," Hayato answered. "That sound is only made when a public broadcast is occurring."
He swiped on his watch and clicked a glowing red button, and sure enough, a holographic video popped up on the screen, showing Dachii's face.
"Aww, crap," Marachii thought. "This can't be good."
"GET READY FOR THE HUNT!" an announcer yelled, as the video flickered between various attendees.
"Five teams will try to capture the prize, one will try to protect it. Who's gonna come out on top in this ultra-thrilling, death-defying, brand-new hunter game, debuting on the Royal Masquerade's 501st anniversary!"
The camera shifted back to Dachii, who was wearing his Squad S-1 uniform. "And the prize itself, none other than Dachii Jones!"
"The hell?" Hikari blurted out. "Are they crazy? Who introduced this? They've never had these types of entertainment before!"
"As per rules, combat is allowed, but no killing or maiming, folks. The grounds of the game must stay within the nation's boundaries, and teams have a total of four hours to capture Dachii, which means you'll have to use this special containment unit to trap him."
The feed cut to a small blue laser container, which was thrown to the ground and turned into a large blue laser cage. "Each team gets one."
"As for the Hunted? Keep your prize safe for four hours, and you win! Easy enough. And the Queen has a special prize for whoever can win the event. Good luck! And now, we'll get back to you shortly with our teams!"
"Well," Luca remarked. "This should be interesting."
Everyone looked at him.
"A national manhunt?" Hayato muttered. "The Royal Family is doing a complete revamp of the Masquerade this year, but why? For what?"
"I don't know," Hikari replied. "But if Dachii gets hurt, there's gonna be issues. He's already not himself, so why thrust him in a game like this?"
Hinata clasped her hands together. "Well, dear, let's get ready. Maybe we'll catch a glimpse of this firsthand!"
And then they went upstairs.
Meanwhile, in the Ball Room…
Xar had guests lined up in front of the Generals, and as he stood in front of them, he began reading off a card. "No need to worry. Those of you who will be playing have already been selected into a team. Every General and their Vice-General will be on the same team. Look at the board."
A holographic board containing the names of the various teams and their members popped up above, which read:
Hunter Team A: Naito Kei, Yūsuke Sasaki, Akihiro Matsuda, Genji Ishikawa, Soutaro Sugimoto, Yuuto Aizawa
Hunter Team B: Kumagai Shinjii, Ken Kojima, Umeda Atsushi, Shogo Takagi, Daigo Tsuchiya, King Malkrith
Hunter Team C: Nakada Kiku, Oyakawa Teika, Mei Kaneshiro, Eri Kinoshita, Prince Alarax, Princess Throme
Hunter Team D: Himeka Hisatomi, Kanai Mitsukuni, Orc Leader Vashka, Mina Oshima, Reika Shimizu, Tsubasa Izanagi
Hunter Team S: Kenshi Fujii, Aoki Amasani, Tsugumi Izanagi, Arata Takahiro, Yoritomo Yamaguchi
Fujii pumped his fist up. "Nice! No strangers on my team!"
"Woah," Himeka stated. "I get an orc? That's so cool! And scary!"
"Hmm," Nakada thought. "It seems I'll have to work with our old enemies for the time being. Hopefully, Alarax's anger can be managed, lest it cost us a win."
Shinjii smirked. "Monster King on my Squad? Nice!"
Naito closed her eyes. "I see myself losing this. As is the fate of life."
Xar then pointed to Dachii. "Dachii will be with General Kaneko Toru. Which means, General Toru's team is the Hunted!"
"Great," Dachii thought. "HE'LL be my captain."
Toru gave him a death stare from atop the stage, while Noriko nervously trembled behind him, whispering in his ear. "Sir, it's great to have the privilege of having Dachii on our team and all, but are you sure we shouldn't ask to be one of the Hunters? I mean, just look at those lineups we have to go against—-!"
"Quiet. We don't back down from any challenge. It's a sign of weakness."
Dachii looked up at the board. "So many familiar names. Tsugumi, Arata, Mina, Umeda, wait…who the hell is that Tsubasa guy? A relative of Tsugumi?"
He shrugged. "Whatever."
"And now, for team Hunted!"
A list of names popped up on the board.
Hunted Team: Kaneko Toru, Noriko Takahashi, Tetsuya Izanagi, Nishiyama Kimura, Dachii Jones
"Tetsuya and Nishiyama are on my team…" Dachii thought. "Huh, look at that. Only five members. Not rigged at all."
Noriko noticed it too. "We're missing a member!"
Toru waved her off. "So is General Fujii's team. We'll manage."
"Everyone, please gather around your assigned General," Xar announced.
As they did, Akari took the mic. "Wait a second. I just noticed one team is down a member."
Toru and Fujii lifted an eyebrow.
"I want to play too," she demanded.
Noriko sighed, relieved. "Yes! With the Princess on our team, maybe we'll stand a chance—-!"
"I'm joining my General's team. Team S!"
"Or not," Toru stated.
She walked over and stood near Fujii, but not before walking past Dachii and giving him a quick hug.
"Good luck."
"Thanks," he said, halfheartedly.
Minutes later, teams were gathered in various corners of the room. Fujii's team was stretching, looking around at each other.
"Look at you guys!" Fujii cheered. "With this squad, no way we'll lose to these other mediocre clubs!"
Aoki and Tsugumi studied each other.
"Aoki," Tsugumi stated.
"Tsugumi," Aoki replied.
And with a nod, they both turned away from each other. Arata cracked his knuckles. "This will be easy. I'm already the strongest in this club, these women know it well!"
He pointed to Tsugumi, who rolled her eyes. "Don't you, Izanagi?"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Aoki walked up to Akari. "Why did you come here? You could have joined any other squad, hell, you could have just sat out like your brother. Why did you make the effort to come on our team?"
"Because," Akari said. "I want to win."
"Hmph."
Yoritomo put a hand on Fujii's shoulder. "Well, old pal, it seems your team could use some work in the chemistry department!"
Fujii nodded. "But each of them is strong! Chemistry matters, but not as much when you have RAW strength!"
"Heh, never change, pal."
Meanwhile, in his corner, Toru was brutally drilling Dachii.
"Listen, the job is to not get captured. You will do everything in your power to ensure that job is upheld, got it? Whatever trauma, whatever pain, whatever regrets you hold, best drop them now. Out in that field, one mistake will cost you dearly, and your opponents don't care. Understand?"
Dachii's cold expression didn't change. "I understand."
"Good."
Noriko nervously twiddled her thumbs. "Dachii! Long time no see! We made a good team last time, right?"
"I suppose."
Toru scoffed. "Where are the other weaklings?"
As soon as he said that, Nishiyama basically jumped onto Dachii, hugging him. "Dachii! It's great to be on your team! Did you miss me?"
"Hi, Nishiyama."
And then he got a playful punch to his shoulder. "Well, look who it is?"
"Tetsuya."
Tetsuya gave him a slap on the back. "Nice to see ya, man! Been a while since that arena, hasn't it?"
"Yep."
"Wait, only five members? What in the sabotage is this?"
"It's not sabotage," Dachii remarked. "Just another stupid test."
He noticed Fujii's team, and all the other teams looking at him.
"Cut the small talk," Toru interrupted. "We're prey. They're predators. Each of you better fight like your life depends on it."
His strict eyes locked in on all of them. "Do that, and we'll win."
"Yes, sir!" everyone but Dachii exclaimed.
Xar stepped over to one of the walls. "I will open the walls now. Dachii, you and your team get a ten-minute head-start. Don't waste it."
With the press of a button on his watch, the back wall opened, leading out into the open city. Dachii's team lined up one by one on the edge of the room.
"3…"
Dachii's team all took a deep breath.
"2…"
Dachii turned around to see the thousands of eyes on him, and then he turned back to face the outside.
"1…"
Toru leaned into Dachii's face. "I hope you're ready."
"THE HUNT BEGINS!"
—-