A Fairy's Tale (Kidd X OC X Killer

Chapter 1: A New Threat

She could hear them.

Their footsteps thundered to and fro, shaking the flimsy wooden floor outside the musty barrel she cowered in. She could could barely breathe as her small, shivering form curled in on itself in the dark, her knees to her chest and her head in her hands. Their search was careless and frantic, a brash din of angry shouts and the crashing of other containers being tipped over and thrown to the floor.

"Tear this place apart, men! Team two never saw her leave, so she's in here for sure!" A gruff voice bellowed.

The trembling girl squeezed her eyes shut. She laid a trembling hand over her mouth to further muffle her silent whimpers. She didn't even know what crime they thought she'd committed, but she would never hurt anyone, ever; her memories may have been out of her reach, but she at least knew that much, believed it down to her bones.

She'd initially gone to them for help, because weren't these men marines? Weren't they supposed to protect the people, to be their shield? Yet when she reached out, all they'd done was attack her. They'd chased her for weeks now, pursuing her relentlessly, never affording her more than mere moments of rest.

Now, she was finally cornered. Now, all she could do was tremble and cry and wait to be discovered and taken away, knowing that she was outnumbered, outmatched, and far too weak to fight back effectively.

She was pulled from her bitter reverie when she sensed sudden commotion upstairs, one that her pursuers were apparently unaware of. The girl focused in on the energies of the marines in the bar above and was shocked to find their numbers quickly dwindling. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she felt their auras being snuffed out, quickly, quietly, one after another, at the hands of just five unknown individuals.

From her Haki, she could sense every single one of the marines in and around the building; a captain and lieutenant waited upstairs with a platoon of forty, while yet another captain lead the search downstairs with the remaining fifteen. The battle upstars, forty marines against five utter monsters, was over in a mere two minutes with barely a sound.

She flinched at the abrupt stream of light that fell into the barrel as the lid was cracked. She looked up and watched with wide, horrified eyes as a rough hand reached in to snag her arm to yank her out. This was it. This was where it all ended for her.

"Captain, I found...!"

Shhhhk.

The foot soldier's excited shout was cut off by a gurgle and a spray of red. An instant later, something she couldn't quite make out flew over the top of her barrel and lodged itself in the far wall with a dull thud. The grip on her arm slackened, and she jerked her arm away as her captor's hand, whoever it belonged to, slipped out of sight and thudded to the floor of the storeroom. She let out a silent gag as she shied away from the red liquid dripping in from the lip of the barrel.

Blood.

It was blood.

All sound ceased outside her hideaway as the marines went still and silent, likely with shock. She held her breath along with them, not daring to hope that whatever had just saved her from being discovered was a good thing.

The first thing to break the silence was a dark, sadistic chuckle. The girl shuddered.

"Well c'mon then, fellas," That wicked voice crooned. "Show us a good time."