Leo stood amongst the sea of bodies of his former comrades, painted head to toe with the crimson blood that was drying on his skin and clothes, his hair matted down as a thin trail of blood went from the middle of his eyes down his nose before drifting off each side of his nose, like a broken river.
"Ah, I thought it'd be you to win," The old man said as he approached Leo, making sure not to get the dead corpses of the children beneath them on his shoes. He noticed Leo's unvoiced question before he smirked.
"I don't' want their weakness spreading onto me, weakness is quite contagious."
"Master," Leo began as he surveyed the room. "Am I a Reaper now?" The old man nodded.
"Yes, you are a Reaper, but now we must add something to your new title. Hmmmm," The old man thought before observing the boy up close. His black eyes sparkled as an idea struck him.
"How about Red? That sounds nice, right? Red Reaper? The Red Reaper, hmmm, it sounds good." He clasped Leo by the shoulder, meeting boy's own scarlet red eyes. "I'll make you my true successor, how does that sound?" Leo looked at the man in front of him, and without any hesitation, he uttered four words.
"When do we begin?"
"Leo! Leo!" Hayden said as he practically hung off of Leo's arm, pointing towards an ice cream shop. "Can we go there? Please? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" He asked rather frantically, as if, if he didn't get the ice, he would just dissolve into dust like a certain spider.
"I thought you didn't like cherries?" Leo teased his younger brother, a small, content smile gracing his rather bruised lips. Hayden's face looked at his brother with a confused look.
"What?" Leo shook his head as he ruffled Hayden's blonde hair, messing up the work Patricia had spent ten minutes on this morning. Hayden adopted a horrified look at what his brother had just done.
"Why?" He whispered, this time making Leo burst out into laughter as he scooped his little brother up and placed him on his shoulders with relative ease, making Hayden grab a handful of his brown hair out of fear, but Leo didn't even flinch, his laughter now descending into small chuckles.
He turned to the right and headed towards the ice-cream shop, much to Hayden's delight. They ordered the ice-cream, Leo getting an ordinary chocolate cone, while Hayden chose to get a double scoop of strawberry and vanilla, something Leo abhorred for the reason of just hating strawberries.
"You wanna lick?" Hayden asked loudly, leaning over Leo's head so his bright blue eyes met Leo's light brown. Leo smiled.
"No thanks, you eat all that up." They were at the rather large mall, the said mall having almost every store or food you could wish for, including, but not limited to: Chinese food, Japanese food, Western European and Eastern European delicacies, and last but not least, American dishes, Hayden's favorite.
Leo preferred Japanese food, always finding ramen to be delicious straight from the source and not in a box, though, he didn't mind that too much either. Of course, he liked other dishes, but the ramen was his number one for the Japanese side of food.
"Leeeeeoooooo," The pair of brothers heard as a voice drawled out Leo's name in a mocking fashion, causing Leo to almost hold his head down. He recognized that voice. The same voice of that guy who made him do his homework.
Flynt.
Leo put on a quick fake smile and turned around, only to see Flynt and two of his friends on either side of him, each having smirks seemingly plastered on their faces.
"Oh, hello Flynt," He said, not stuttering as he lifted Hayden off of his shoulders and placed him on the ground protectively behind him, shielding him from Flynt and his ugly groupies. "What can I help you with?" Flynt's smirk disappeared, replaced with a rather mean look on his face.
"You weren't at school yesterday and I got an F because you had my homework, and we both know that Mr. Huddleston doesn't take late work, so now you owe me." Leo rose an eyebrow at that but didn't comment, only nodding.
"That's fine, I'm sorry about that," Leo said, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand, the other holding his ice-cream. "I was sick yesterday and I didn't want to make anyone else sick," Flynt narrowed his eyes before he smacked the ice-cream out of Leo's hands abruptly, causing the cold chocolate treat to his the marble floor of the mall.
"Bullshit!" He shouted. "You had no excuse and now I'm paying for it!"
'Maybe if you did your own homework and not be a lazy asshole, then maybe you wouldn't get in trouble with your parents,' Leo thought while keeping the dumb, polite smile on his face.
"I'm truly sorry, and I-" Leo began, only to be cut off as Flynt's face was suddenly covered with the melted mix of strawberry and vanilla ice-cream, courtesy of Hayden, who was glaring as much as he could at Flynt.
"You leave my big brother alone!" He shouted, raising his voice as much as he could, drawing attention from the shoppers as they focused on the small group in front of them.
Flynt let out a vicious growl of anger as he lurched forward towards Hayden, intent on teaching the kid some manners, but his arm was intercepted by Leo, whose grip kept increasing as he gripped Flynt's arm.
"Hayden buddy, can you cover your ears? Big brother has to talk with his friend here," Hayden nodded as he covered both ears with his open palms, trying his best not to hear his brother.
"Listen here and listen good," Leo spoke in a dangerous and dark tone, almost completely switching personalities. "I might not be able to fight, but I'm pretty strong, but you know what I'm even better at? Money. I have so much money that I could buy your whole family twenty times over," Leo spoke.
The other two lackeys tried to grab Leo, but he just kicked one, sending him flying before grabbing the other one by the wrist, squeezing so hard until an audible crack sounded throughout the mall, causing many witnesses to flinch.
"I can't fight, we both know this. But I know people who can, for a certain price that is. I have friends, very, very violent friends who will do anything for a certain price," He whispered, his tone still in a low whisper. "A regular hitman only cost ten-thousand bucks ya know? That's pocket change for me, so if I ever, ever see you or your friends come near my little brother like that again," He took a step closer and got in Flynt's ear.
"I'll have you beat so badly you miss every class Mr. Huddleston has for the rest of the year, am I clear?" Flynt could only nod, nearly shaking in his shoes as his eyes expressed pure terror. Leo grinned his usual, stupid grin.
"Great!" He said loudly, letting go of the two boys. "Now, I'm going to buy my little brother some more ice-cream since he wasted it on the likes of you, I'll be going now. See you on Monday!" Leo said as he grabbed Hayden's hand, who sent the boys one last glare before they went back to the ice-cream shop.
"What the hell?" One of Flynt's friends said, wincing as he clutched his wrist. "He broke my wrist just by squeezing it! I thought you said he'd be easy target practice," Flynt, who was frozen still only uttered a few words.
"I thought he was too,"