A Sad Truth [[Just me and Omen for now, PM me to join]]

Akihiko Tsukytera was walking down the streets of New York, in the Bronx. He had just come home from his job as a jazz musician at an old-timey club called "Swing on the Rhythm" His feet crunching against the cold snow on the ground, he pulled up his scarf and rubbed his hands together. It was a wintery evening in the city, the mood was depressing, snow falling like bits of forgotten dreams.

Throwing his coat on the couch, Akihiko sat down and turned on the small TV in his dingy apartment. He had to remember to clean the place out sometime, seeing as it was extremely filthy and the furniture was ripped up everywhere. He saw a news report on the TV about some old house where a serial killer had massacred some kids. The man had not yet been caught, and the police had nothing to go on but a note, written in blood, that said "This is the sad truth" stabbed to the wall with a knife smeared with blood. Akihiko took these reports with a sort-of disappointment. He had lost his faith in humanity a long time ago, even before he had arrived in New York. He sighed, dropping his illusion and appearing as a fox tailed Japanese man. He sighed after a long day not having much success with tips at his job. He washed his face, brushed his teeth and walked out of his apartment, back in his illusory form as a human. "God, what an incompetent race, the police here can't even handle a deranged old man murdering children, guess I better head down there and check the place out" thought Akihiko to himself.

He walked down the street, seeing the old abandoned house in the distance. The snow-laden roof had a chimney puffing out smoke. "Hmm, thought this place was abandoned" thought Akihiko to himself. Opening the door of the house he saw some of the marked up police tape, some blood, and a few of the murder tools lying on a table. For some reason one of the tools was floating, making a cutting motion in the air. "What in Amaterasu's name?" exclaimed Akihiko as he pulled out his sword prepared for any sort of "haunting"

As Omen was waiting for the elevator to bring him up to his floor in the building, his mind drifted back to his little adventures in L.A. He had left New York to follow up on a lead in a case, but stayed there a good deal longer than he planned to. His time there was not something he was going to think back on in particularly fond light, well except for that one night. But none of that mattered now, as he was back in New York, his home. Ok, so it wasn't the funnest experience in the world, now that I'm back in the city I know and love, things should get better. He thought to himself, only let out a small burst of laughter. Yeah, that'll happen. It was the largest city in the world, full of villains, heroes and god else knows what else. He honestly found it hard to believe that many of those who lived here actually wanted to. You can't go a day without some trully horrific and / or terrifying incident occuring within the city, which only meant far more work for him and the other heroes residing here. The elevator finally stopped with a steriotypical 'Ding' and the doors slid open. Stepping out into the hall, he looked around and paused for a moment. He actually had to try and remember which apartment was his. Superhuman intellect he may have, but the unimportant trivial stuff, like where he lived, always seemed to slip through the cracks.

Finally remembering his apartment number, he took his key out from his pocket and unlocked his door. Pushing the door open he took a look around, his basic apartment looking the exact same way he had left from when he last saw it. Dust had collected on just about everything, miscellaneous objects lay scattered across the floor and on the bed. A few steps inside and he kicked his door closed carelessly, removing his hat and peeling his mask from his face. He hung the hat on the hanger on the door, but threw the mask onto the bed. Moving to the centre of the room, he took a seat in the chair infront of the television where he had then started to search around for the remote, which he did find, but to his minor annoyance had appeared to be covered in some old chinese food grease. Omen leaned back and flipped on the T.V "Ahhh, now for some well deserved relaxation...", before he even had a chance to start flipping through the channels a news report had already started. It was something about a serial killer. "Nothing new there..." Omen said dejectedly, but then it had gone on to say that the perpetrator had been targeting kids.

"Yep, relaxation time over." He said, turning off the television and standing up. A quick retrevial of his mask, hat, ammo and his trusty blade and he was out the door. Now much of the time, Omen never bothered with trival cases of homicide no matter the victims considering he was far from some superman figure out to save everyone, not to mention that the police force weren't incompetent idiots, but when the police had no leads he felt that he had to take a shot at it. Once outside, Omen immediately stuffed his gloved hands into his coat pockets to help deal with the cold and started walking. Finding the building he was looking for wasn't hard, but something was off. Smoke was coming out of the chimney, which had prompted Omen to raise an eyebrow, not that it was visible under the mask. Looking to the ground, there was some clear footprints leading to the house. "Fresh, and none are leading away...Someone's definately inside." He gathered, looking back to the building he made his way inside.

The scene that met him wasn't exactly one that he had expected. The first thing he noticed was a man holding a sword, preparing for whatever danger he thought might come his way and then, infront of him, was a young boy holding a shark object, probably one of the killer's tools, slicing at the air. Quietly, Omen slowly made his way across the room, hugging the wall. He kept a safe distance from the man, but kept his eyes on the kid. He made sure to stay out of the man's line of sight, it was best not to announce himself until he was out of slicing distance. From entering the room he had made the correct assumtion that whoever the man was, he didn't know what was going on and couldn't see the kid, but instead only saw the object he held. The kid looked out of it, like he was in his own little world, just randomly cutting. Not that odd actually, the dead all had different levels of coping, and a child often struggled with it more than adults, especially considering what he was put through. Deciding to alert the room to his presence, Omen spoke up. "Hey, do you mind putting down the pointy object please? You could hurt someone with that you know."

"What the fuck!" exclaimed Akihiko as he saw a man in what looked like some sort-of vigilante costume talking to whatever that floating knife thing was. This made Akihiko realize that this "thing" was probably a ghost, damn he missed it when he was at full-power with ALL of his godly abilities. He used to be able to send these sort-of things to peace. Turning around, Akihiko took in the strange man's appearance. He was wearing what looked like a cowboy hat, had a gun and a knife, and his face was covered by a pair of goggles. The man appeared to be speaking to the ghost, telling it to stop waving around the scalpel. Akihiko saw something taped to the underside of the dining room table, which he was standing next to. Leaning over to pick it up he saw it was another note. It read, "WhY HEllo ThEre, iF You FoUNd THiS ThEn YoU MuST HaVE SeEN ThE GhoST, I wiLL GiVe YoU a CLue, BeEtLes aNd NeeDLes, Up iN ThE aiR, cHeck UnDeR tHerE, HAvE FuN......" Akihiko had no idea what the note meant, but he knew this killer was not some run-of-the-mill psycho, he had something to do with ghosts, and Akihiko's best bet to find him was to ask this stranger. "So, you can see ghosts then, what's the kid saying?" Akihiko asked.

While Omen hadn't moved an inch at the man's outburst, inwardly he was on edge. Depending on what he did next, Omen was ready for any aggressive or violent actions he may take. He had to remember that this guy had a sword and was at a murder scene, he could have been anyone or anything for all he knew. Although in all likelyhood he was there to investigate, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious. The dead kid standing there just continued cutting the air, a blank look on his face. Omen's eyes focused on the man who appeared to be more interested in whatever he had found under the table, which while he wasn't certain, it looked to be a note. His eyebrows furrowed as he began to concentrate on why the hell the police hadn't found it when they searched the area. Were they just blindly incompetent or was it just a foolish mistake by one individual? From the look the stranger was giving the page it seemed like he was confused by it. What he said next though had quickly brought out Omen's curiousity. Not only did he accurately assume that what he was seeing was a ghost, but the strangely casual manner in which he stated this fact had got him thinking. It was apparent he had some experience in this field and he was more curious as to what the kid hd to say than anything.

"He hasn't said anything." Omen spoke up after a short silence. His head turned to face the child who was mindlessly slicing. He exhaled heavily and tried to come up with a way of talking to him. OK, so this one's a little messed up, I've dealt with worse. He thought, reasuring himself. Taking a step forward he bent down so he was eye level with him. "Hey there." No answer. "Hello?" Again the child stayed silent, which Omen responded to by waving his hand infront of his face. "Heelllloo?" He said once again, drawing out the word almost comically, but was met once again with silence. This time, Omen reached over, grabbing the scalpel, and lowered the object down before drawing it from the boy's almost incoporeal grip. The child's head tilted to the side, now facing him.

"OK, so now I got your attention. So...umm Kid, do you know where you are? What your name is?" The child stayed quiet for moment before speaking up. "I...I just wanna go home..." The child's voice was meek and frightened, it was clear that he wasn't entirely clear on what had happened to him and didn't know what was going on. Shit, it's hard enough consoling live victims, let alone dead children. After a second or two of thought he answered again. "I know ya do kid, I know ya do. How about you just tell me anything you know, then I'll help you, deal?" His head nodded hesitantly, showing he understood and was going to help. A look of thought was clear on his face, and he soon spoke again. "There...was a man. He was nice...he told me to go with him." He paused and while Omen could have asked more about the man, he wasn't about to press him. "But then, he got mean and then he..." The silence here made it clear that he was talking about when he died, but Omen wasn't sure if he understood that. "There was this big house...the really big one, the pointy one." The child added suddenly, which had peaked his interest. "What about this house?" Omen asked, hoping to recieve more detailed information, but having got no answer, and the depressed face he gave showed that he didn't know anything else. "Thanks kid, you've been really helpful, now I'm going to help you out. Just close your eyes." The child stared back quietly before complying. A frown formed under his mask as Omen reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun, Virtue. Without hesitation he stood up, placed the gun infront of the child's head and pulled the trigger. The phantom shot blasted out, disapating the spirit before him.

Putting his weapon back into his coat, he looked over the still unnamed man in the room with him. He didn't bother to check his reaction to what Omen just did, he knew that from anyone elses perspective he was talking to himself and had just shot an imaginary child, but didn't have time to worry about his opinion. "So, who are you? I'm not going to be sharing anything with a man who's name I don't even know." It was best to stay cautious until he was certain of this guy's intentions.

"Well, you can call me Akihiko, and if your a hero, I'm no shining example of morals. I'm not a villain either, so I don't go around slaughtering people all the time, don't worry. But I hate these kinds of scummy serial killers." he replied to this guy's question. He realized that this guy was definitely a psychic, something that Akihiko used to be able to do in his full power was see ghosts. He had lost this old ability, and it was nice meeting someone who was not freaked out by ghosts.

"Well then fellow, I suggest you tell me your name, so we can get down to business and solve this puzzle here, I hope to take this serial killer down real quick." Akihiko said loudly as he stowed his sword, picked up the note, and his case. "Oh, also good job sending that kid back home... I appreciate that..."