Demon's Protégé

Revenge

There was once a flower that just recently bloomed that summer when a dragonfly suddenly approached it, buzzing into the scene as it circled all around its petals and stayed. Soon, the wind blows in the air and across the fields, a wolf appears. The wolf immediately sees the dragonfly from the distance and was momentarily captured by its appearance. As it walked down over the swaying grasses on the ground, he soon notices the flower and stopped.

It was a beautiful flower… And the wolf was immediately entranced. Pausing beside the yellow object of his attention, the wolf decidedly sat and yawned with its tail touching the ground.

The day had stayed for a while, and so was the wolf. It was such a meaningful moment, for the three of them.

The flower, the dragonfly, and the wolf. Under the heat of the noon sun, the feeling was peaceful. And it was such a great day to make it remarkable.

Once upon a time—this is how it should have started. Just like a simple fairytale.

Once upon a time, in a busy district in Tokyo, Aoi Chiba had met a gentleman named Hiroto Matsunaga. It was a meeting that changed them both. And soon, the two eventually fell in love and became lovers. After two years of dating, Hiroto finally popped the question and Aoi Chiba immediately said yes. And it was a happy ending.

It could have been just like that and it would have been much easier to say that everything had gone normally as it should have. The entire story could have ended in a much lighter note but it didn’t.

And instead of having the “they lived happily ever after” ending, nothing of that sort had even happened. Then a year passed on, Aoi had now become a hostess. Hiroto is no longer with her… Or should we say, was never going to be with her anymore.

The smoke.

Perfume.

Liquor.

And s*x.

This is now the world of reality. In a shady club somewhere in the darkest parts of Shinjuku area, the heavy Sakura-scented room at the end of a hallway has been filled up with women of pleasure coming in and out of the door, with their hushed voices surrounding the air like chattering crickets. Soon, a woman walked out of the chamber in a tight red halter dress and with her supple cleavage showing out for the world to see. Her name is Belle. Formerly Aoi Chiba.

She is one of the most fairly sought-after hostess in Club Paradox, one of the highly-exclusive underground Cabaret club in the red-light district of Shinjuku, Tokyo. A kind of place that gives pleasure to men in an indecently personal level that had been hidden in the shrewd knowing of the people and only the ones inside would even know about it. Aoi Chiba had been working in the area for five years, earning her the eponymous name "Belle" (she was previously given the stage name “Eri” when she started the job) to the regulars, which had been deviated from a direct French counterfeit of her birth name that was given to her by her wealthiest client in the club—a well-known dangerous leader of one of the most infamous Mafia groups from the Western Europe.

Aoi Chiba had never really dreamt of her life to end up working her way around the dirty industry of Japan's nightlife scene. She actually used to work as an editorial assistant in a small publishing house in Hokkaido and soon moved out of the place after a year when she got an offer for a high-paying job as a copywriter in a newspaper company in Minato City, Tokyo. After a couple of years, she had soon met a man named Hiroto Matsunaga, a rich entrepreneur whom she had come across while doing a field report for a story she had been given and eventually ended up dating him after a few months of getting acquainted.

Hiroto was not the typical rich man at first look, seemingly as he was actually brought up in a world of luxury and frivolous lifestyle. His family belonged to the wealthy class. His father is a president of a big gaming enterprise in Japan while his mother used to be a well-known local theatre actress but resigned after giving birth to Hiroto’s eldest brother. Yet despite of having such a grandeur descent, Hiroto was a humble man who can easily take great pleasure from enjoying simple and small things in life and that was the reason why Aoi did not have a hard time falling for him. Their relationship went through an easy process, as normal couples do. They go on dates, they fight over small things, and they will make up right away and have s*x then go back to being like young lovesick teenagers again.

It was just that simple. And after months of being like that and still were in love, Hiroto proposed to Aoi with a big diamond ring and she immediately said yes.

It was a happy, hefty two years of sharing their love together.

Until that night.

It somehow still felt like a dream. A bad dream that had brought Aoi Chiba to this kind of life she ended up in the present. She had already decided to put it all behind her as soon as she had realized that she could never live in the past anymore. The death of Hiroto was the biggest change she had experienced and since then, her course went way worse than she had ever imagined. Now at twenty-eight, miserably alone and living like a mindless woman in the middle of the lusty world of s*x and liquor, Aoi Chiba became a woman of no feelings.

She masked everything behind her sultry bravado, hindering the doubts and pain of her guilt and resentment towards the untimely death of her lover. However, it all made sense now as she was about to meet the very thing she had pursued the moment she walked into the black doors of Club Paradox, offering herself to be a part of it.

She will kill the person who had mercilessly snatched away the only reason of Aoi to live in peace in this world.

Tonight, will be the night.