Fresh Off the Boat (Young Hunter)

Hunter wipes his wet eyes with the back of his sleeve as the cargo ship stops to unload, the creaking of the rudders piercing his ears and he cups his hands over them to dim the pain. It is dark within the bottom, and the only light that shines in is though the holes that would leak and keep the floor of the hold eternally wet. This made for an extremely wet, cold, and miserable trip. The muffled voices of the Russian sailors making their way below deck slowly become louder as the terrified Hunter clutches his backpack for dear life and begins to tremble, the tears already flowing once again. If they are to catch him, he will be deported back to Russia and have to deal with two strikes against his right to live. The footsteps are at the closest, and the voices loudest when the beam of a flashlight scans the cargo, stopping abruptly when it passes over the boxes that were pried open with a knife. Both of the sailors curse and move in to inspect the stolen food, and this gives Hunter the opportunity to escape. He does his best to stand slowly with the aid of the cold steel wall and flips his butterfly knife open.

The sailors could be none the wiser as Hunter stays true to his eventual nickname of 'Snake' by slithering silently to his two targets, Eto vsego lishʹ dva bolʹshe lyudyeĭ, kogo eto volnuet, yesli oni umirayut? (Translation: It's just two more people, who cares if they die?) he asks himself as he raises the knife slowly above the brain stem of the larger sailor. The fear of being caught no longer scares him as he jabs the knife right into the man, killing him instantly. The second sailor steps back to scream, but all he can manage is a squeak as Hunter tackles him to the ground and stabs him multiple times before he eventually dies. Killing a man in real life is much different than the movies. Most men pass out when they see their own finger chopped off, and all people can barely utter a single word as they are beaten or stabbed to death, for the shock of the situation is too much to process. As for these two, they are but the first in many bites from the Snake.

Once Hunter breaks out from the adrenaline of his fight or flight situation, he gathers his pack and shines the flashlight on himself. Blood stains his hands clothes, while the corpses just marinate in their own gore. "Well... Rest in peace you two." He says with a slight chuckle, his accent twisting the vowels with a mix of his own gravely voice.

Hunter looks his left to his right in the dark room and spies a door with a rusted handle. After pulling and kicking at it for a couple of minutes it opens, the sunlight blinding him. Luckily he and his bloody mess are not spotted and he charges through the shipyard, being seen but not pursued. If he is, well... He'll just kill them, too.

"What an interesting boy . . . heartless and with a strange, hmmm how should i say, Desire to kill anything in his path." The Shinigami turns away from the edge as she stops watching the boy. "And since it is SO boring up here . . . I'll just 'accidentally' drop the one thing this deranged little boy needs." She lifted her right hand and looked at her Death Note with longing. "Well my sweet its time you have a new owner . . . for a while at least."

She appears a little ways away from the creeping boy and without making a sound she places the death Note in plain site of the boy, hoping to catch his attention. "With one touch you'll be the owner and i will be fully entertained as your human mind over flows with power . . . hahaha"

Hunter gasps and skids to a halt when a book falls right in front of him. He takes a few steps back and kicks it over with the toe of his boot, the cover written in Japanese, "What the hell?" He says and bends over to pick it up. When he flips through the pages, he notices that they are all blank, "I guess it's just a composition book." But instead of just tossing it aside, he slides it into his pack and places the knife back into his pocket before retreating into an abandoned warehouse.

"And so the game begins . . . and I Ayama Yoru am lucky enough to be part of it. Hum . . i think its time to introduce myself to the boy." And without a second thought she follows the boy into the warehouse with a grim smile on her face. She comes up behind him and watches as he stares at the book in wonderment, still not making a sound she opens the book for him smiling once more as he stares at her arm, which he can clearly see.

Hunter whirls around quickly with a fist ready to strike, but he stops once he sees that it is a person, seemingly the same age as him. "Don't sneak.... Up on people like... That?" he says, tripping over the English words. After a week of hiding an a boat, he lost some of his people skills, "Who are you?"

She smiles innocently and walks to the front of him kneeling in front of him. "I am Ayama Yoru, its nice to meet you, but not nice to almost hit me. Oh and i forgot to mention, i am the past owner of that Death Note in your hands." She looks back up at the boy her black eyes glittering with mischief as she remembers the fun times shes had with that book. "So ive told you who i am now its your turn, who are you."

Hunter blinks a couple of times as the kneeling figure and says, "My name is... Hunter Kieff." and once the formalities are out of the way "What is a Death Note?" he asks curiously, his heterochromic eyes scan the instructions, but he is unable to read them.

~This is working perfectly . . keep him interested.~
"Well its only the most clean way to kill a person." She grabs at his clothes as if saying that he wouldnt have to ruin more of them. "All you need is a name and to know what they look like to kill them. You would write the name and picture their face and you can even write the cause of death, but if you dont they'll just die froma simple heartattack."

Hunter nods and folds his arms, his eyes closed, "But... If I don't know the persons name, what happens then? This piece of paper would be completely useless to me!" He almost shouts, "What good is a magic piece of paper if I don't know my targets name?"

She smiles once more at the boy and stands up straight. "Well thats easy all you have to do is make a deal with me, i give you Shinigami eyes which tell you the persons name for half of your natural life span. With the Shinigami eyes you will be able to see anyones name."

Hunter shakes his head and says, "Why... Would I do something like that?" He says slowly, "I could die tomorrow and that would be half a day." Hunter paces around once more and takes a seat on a box, "But then again... I have nothing to lose... I'm at rock bottom..."

She watches him pace back and forth, as a weird emotion overflows her : pity, pity for the boy because he was right he was at rock bottom. "Well . . . i COULD tell you how long your life span is if you want . . ."

Hunter lifts his eyes to her direction and says quietly, "Sure... Why not? It will give me a time limit, and the means to get them done."

"Hmmmm if you so wish, you will live another 40 years. And if you take the eyes you wont live until your 56 you will live until your 36. Now do we have a deal or not?"
She stares at him with hungry, wild eyes waiting for the boy to make the mistake she wants him to make so badly.

Hunter begins chuckling quietly, but this slowly molds into hysterical laughter, "Y-you expect me to do something that stupid?!" (Sounds like: Yo espect me tu do samthing thot stupid?) He says between fits of laughter. But when he finishes laughing he stares at her with one of his most serious expressions, "The closer you are to the bottom, the higher you are able to fly... And I don't want my wings to be clipped before I get there."

Her eyes steal over and she cant contain herself any longer, her black bat-like wings emerge and her eyes go completely black, her fists shaking in anger.
"Well if you wont agree to the deal then how will you know the people's name? Huh? You wont thats how!"

Hunter continues to stare at her and smiles wryly, "You seem... To care very much about this deal." he says, his arms resting on the crates next to him, "Why is this? Do you get something out of my near crippling loss?"

She turns her back on him her bat wings spreading out around her. "Well of course i get something out of the deal. I get your life, thats how us Shinigami stay alive, by killing you pathetic humans, and in the end i get all of your life this deal will just make your life shorter and make it easier to kill other people, along with shortening your life."

Hunter scoffs and drums his fingers on the cover of the Death Note, "If I'm so pathetic, then using some magic piece of paper would only make me seem more so, no?" He says, "It would make it look like I can't do things on my own."

He stands and tosses the book aside, clearly uninterested, "If you want to take someones lifespan so badly, do it yourself... For I am no ones pawn in a twisted game of chess, I want to become the one who calls the shots, the one who lets the King think that he's more important than I am."

She turns slowly to stare at her old Death Note, and she cant believe what she is about to say. "Well since i have nothnig better to do, i could kill the people for you, as long as you claim me as your Shinigami. No shortening of your life and the people you want dead will still die and you will never get caught, because your the only one who can see me."

He smiles and folds his arms, "Now... That is a deal that I am willing to make. But I would like to kill some of them myself every once in a while. It would be boring and against my nature to let you do all of the work."

"Then its a deal? Good, i need you to give me the Death Note back and always keep a piece a paper on you at all times. without it you wont remember any of this or me at all." She holds out her hand for the notebook her black eyes like obsidian.

Hunter squats and lifts the book from the floor, tearing a page out for himself and tosses it over to her, "A pleasure doing business with you, Yoru..." He says, folding the paper and placing it in his back pocket, "What do we do now?"

She catches the book with her right hand easily, and she walks up right next to him looking around protectively a weird looking pen in her hand. "Well you go out in the world, you do what you would normaly do, but now you know you wont ever get hurt." She smiles at the boy and takes another look around.

Hunter nods and drops his elbow into one of the crates, luckily enough for him there are fresh clothes within them, "This is good..." He mutters as he rummages through the crate, finding two pairs of black jeans, a second pair of combat boots, socks, undergarments, and a spare hoodie, "Excuse me for a second."

Hunter climbs to the top of a stack of crates and notices an air vent. He smiles to himself and scrambles to the inside, deciding to change clothes in there. After the fresh clothes are put on, he stuffs them into his pack and jumps down, falling twenty feet onto another stack of crates, shattering them, "Ah... Damn that hurt..."