KNY Fanfic: Priceless Smile

Chapter 19: Creek of the Dead

     Kazumi's out on a mission once again. This time, she's sent to a certain city to investigate and eliminate whoever's responsible for the missing people there. It's already sunset by the time she arrived at the city. She walked around to observe the people for a while before she managed to to talk with an old man for information.

"Excuse me sir, may I have a word with you?" Kazumi respectively asked.

"Yes of course, what is it?"

"I've heard about some people missing here at this city lately, I just wanna ask if you have any idea about it?"

"Oh.... well you can ask whatever you want, I'll try my best to answer them."

The two decided to talk about it at the old man's home. By the time they arrived, Kazumi didn't see anyone inside. She also noticed how dusty the place is.

"I'm sorry if my place is dirty. I'm so old that I don't have time to clean up." The old man said as the two of them sat down.

"It's alright sir, it doesn't bother me at all." Kazumi replied.

"With your smile, you seem to be a very kind one. What's your name?" The old man asked.

"I'm Kazumi, you can call me Kazu to shorten it." She introduced herself.

"I'm Satoshi, I'm all alone here at my home now and of course, dying as you can see." The old man said lifting both his arms to his side chuckling at his self.
"My family already left this old man here all alone in his home."

"That's really sad for you then Satoshi-san."

"Well anyway, it's getting dark. You might as well wanna know what you want to ask."

"You're right, then Satoshi-san, please tell me everything that you know."

"Alright, as you know already there are a lot of people who has gone missing in this city. Perhaps I should tell you, this is not the first time I've seen someone like you." Satoshi brought out a pipe and started to light it up.
"You children call yourselves slayers right? Demon Slayers to be precise."

"You're right Satoshi-san."

"It has almost been five months since I first heard of the news about the missing people around, they say it always happen every night and...." he blew out a puff of smoke.
".... the missing people are never found."

He took some time to pause for a while. He puffed out some smoke again from his pipe.

"As several days pass by, more and more people went missing. The authorities even gave up on looking for them or their remains if ever they're dead or alive. Many people has lost their love ones and was never found.... and I even noticed one thing. The slayers I've seen before never showed up again, it's as if they disappeared so suddenly like those people here in the city."

"Do you know any certain location to where the missing people were always seen before they get missing?"

"No.... no one has a clue to where the victims might be taken. The investigators always end up finding nothing.... not even a single clue."

"That'll be really hard then. Seems like this predator got a lot of tricks."

"You seem to be pretty calm at something like this.... aren't you even scared for a girl like you?"

Kazumi stared at Satoshi for a second before giving him a closed eye smile.

"So Satoshi-san.... you know that I'm a girl?" Kazumi pointed her index finger to herself.

"Yes of course, it seems like you're often mistaken to as a boy since you're asking me that. They are such a fool then." Satoshi scoffed a little.

"Well.... this is just who I am. I'm always calm and also, putting our lives on the line is one of the things required as a slayer. We don't have any idea if we could ever see another sunrise." Kazumi simply but calmly replied.