Zodiac Girls

The Pursuers

It was a good morning in Yorken City, a city not too big nor too small. Not a popular tourist spot, but a good getaway area for people who wish live vacation to the fullest. Of course, that was not all it was to it in this peaceful city.

In one building- in one school, an all-girl’s school at that- a group of female students gathered at the track and field area of their school, watching a soccer game being played between their school’s soccer team and another school’s soccer team. The game was currently tied, three to three, with the ball on their school’s team.

“Go, Rain!”

“You got this! Last score!”

“Shoot it!”

Rain- currently wearing their school's standard white and red soccer uniform- dashed as fast as she could with the ball at her feet, nearing the opposing team’s goal, as the opposing players all ran in attempt to catch up to her or at least block her way. Sadly for them, Rain saw through their movements and slipped past them all, continuing on to their goalie. The goalie glared back at her, far from willing to let the girl get this last shot in. As Rain raised her leg to kick the ball in, the goalie prepared herself to stop it, and a couple of recovering soccer players on the opposing team’s side went to assist in blocking her. Rain kicked, but not to shoot the ball in, as it was more of a hard pass to Sherry, who headbutted it into the goal.

The sound of a whistle blowing was then heard, signaling the end of the game.

“Time up! The winner of this soccer game is Luminoir Academy!” a referee announced.

The players of Luminoir Academy and their audience cheered for their victory, with some of the members rushing towards Rain.

“Yes, Rain! We did it~!” one of them said.

“That was an awesome pass, Rain!” Sherry exclaimed.

“You were the one who made that shot,” Rain told her.

“She couldn’t have made it without your pass,” another teammate pointed out.

Rain only chuckled in slight embarrassment at the compliments. This was not the first time she had received such love from her teammates and their fans, but it still made her feel quite embarrassed. She was just not used to all this good attention, after all. Rain then shuddered upon feeling something sinister watching her and turned to the source, only to see nothing.

“Hm? What’s wrong, Rain?” Sherry asked.

“… Nothing. Just an imagination,” she assured, turning back to her teammates.

As much as she hoped it was just an imagination, Rain knew it was far from it, but there was no way she can just tell the truth to these people. After all, compared to them, she was different.

******

Day turned to late at night. In Luminoir Academy’s dormitory, while all the girls were asleep, Rain was the only one who remained awake. More than just awake, as she was packing some necessities in a duffle bag. Out of the uniform she wore, the girl now had on a green shirt with a black hoodie over it, dark blue knee-length shorts, and black and white sneakers. After she had finished packing, she turned back to the letter she had written and placed on her desk with a saddened look. The letter… that expressed her apologies and her farewells.

“… I’m sorry,” she muttered out, opening her window.

The girl had resided in a room on the fourth floor of the dorm. Under normal circumstances, jumping off from such a height may as well be suicide. But for Rain? She would not even get hurt jumping from such a height. Carefully sitting on the edge, she closed her window shut and jumped down, smoothly landing on her feet. Taking a few steps forward, she looked back to her dorm.

“Three months... The longest and most peaceful stay I ever had,” she said with a sad smile, before running into the woods nearby, away from the dorm.

As she ran, from a distance, a figure watched the whole thing occur.

******

A bit into Rain’s run, the girl sensed something coming at her and leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding a knife from hitting her. Rain skidded to a stop, and looked up to see more sharp objects making way to her. She ducked one, and dodge rolled away from the rest, looking up to see two masked figures dressed in black landing in front of her.

“Did you really think you would be off our radar for long?” one figure spoke in a deep male voice.

“Why can’t you people just leave me alone?!” Rain demanded. “I just want to live a normal life!”

“You are anything but normal,” said a figure with a high-pitched female voice. “If anything, you are but an abomination, a failure as a human, a monster. Beings like you don’t deserve to stand on this earth.”

Rain did not want to believe a single word she said, and ran deeper into the woods.

“You won’t escape us!” the male exclaimed, as the two figures took out weapons from their person and pursued her.

Rain ran as fast as she could, away from her pursuers. They who had been after her ever since she first found out the truth about herself, that she was not like any other person out there. She sensed more sharp objects being hurled at her, and avoided them to the best of her abilities. At some point, a smoke bomb was tossed in the mix of knives, and covered the surrounding area in heavy smoke, much to her surprise, as she stopped and covered her mouth and nose from the gas. She sensed more sharp objects coming, and instinctively moved away from them. Acting upon instinct like so, with her vision blinded, Rain eventually found herself with her back against a tree. Next she knew, she was pinned to the tree, and the smoke started to clear.

The two figures landed before her once more, watching as Rain tried to free herself.

“It’s futile, even if you tried to use your powers. Those weapons are enchanted with our leader’s spell to make your abilities useless. Just give yourself up,” the male advised.

“No way!” Rain refused.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter anyway. Now be silent, or we will make you,” the girl warned, taking out another knife.

“She already gave you her answer,” came a voice, surprising the trio, as the pursuers looked around their surroundings.

“Who’s there?!” the man questioned.

Rather than an answer, something rushed on by at high speed and knocked the two down. Rain was puzzled with what happened, and saw the blur move past her, removing all the objects that had her pinned to the tree, and disappeared into the woods.

“s**t! Another one?!” the man gasped, as he and his companion got back up and prepared more of their knives.

“Those knives are useless,” the voice said, as the blur came and struck the pair once more. More than struck them, as it left a bad scratch- nay, a cut on them both, and they fell to the ground in pain. “How weak. This is the sort of people that organization has? Or did they send you two, thinking it was only her in the area?”

“Damn it… Who’s there?! Where are you?!” the male demanded.

“Does it matter?” As soon as the voice asked that, the blur returned and jabbed a knife straight through his heart from behind, causing his body to go limp, and hit the ground dead. The blur returned and stood right above him, looking down at the dead victim. “You’re dead.”

Rain and the female pursuer looked at the scene, eyes wide in shock at what had occurred. The former then looked up at her savior, whose appearance was concealed into the night from the clouds blocking the moon, though she was able to make out a hoodie and sweats from the figure. The savior turned to the female pursuer, who flinched upon eye contact. Rather than ending her as quickly as they did to her comrade, the savior approached and grabbed her by her masked face.

“Carving the message onto your body or cutting you to pieces. Which do you prefer?” they asked, sending a menacing chill down the pair’s spine.

“N-No! Wait, please!” the female pursuer pleaded, holding the hand that was lifting her up, as her real voice started coming through from the voice changer in her mask, which was starting to break from the savior’s grip.

“Cutting you to pieces, I see. True, it will leave a bigger impact, and a clearer message than a written one.” Just as they said that, the savior plunged a knife into the enemy’s arm, and dragged it down, leaving a deep gash as the girl let out a scream in horrifying pain.

“Wait! What are you doing?!” Rain shouted in question.

“These people will never leave you be unless if you make it clear that you want to be left alone,” her savior told her. “You’re clearly still fresh on this mess. You best learn from this if you know what’s good for you.” Next Rain and the female foe knew, the savior drove her knife into the injured arm once more, the enemy letting out another painful, bloodcurdling scream, as this time, the woman had completely cut her arm clean off.

The sight of this was just too gruesome for Rain, as she felt her stomach act up, and vomited in disgust. Her action made her supposed savior let out a sigh.

“As I thought, she truly is fresh,” they muttered. “And you people… You tried to take her to that damn leader of yours?”

“W-Wait, please… I was just following orders!” the enemy exclaimed.

“You didn’t seem to be ‘just following orders’ when you and your friend were chasing after Freshie there. Especially when you claimed her to be someone who does not deserve to stand on this Earth.” Those words baffled the pursuer and Rain. Had this girl been watching everything this whole time? “It seems you’ve said your last words,” they then said, dropping the foe, with the broken mask falling to the ground. “Well, I'm feeling generous, so I will give you a chance to say one more piece. So do tell... Dead or alive. When do you want me to cut you to pieces?”