Sound Proof
By Epsilon

Chapter 1
Eco

Silence was walking a dirt path enjoying the sun on his magnificent silver and black fur. He flicked his five bushy tails as he walked. With his eyes closed, head tilted to the sky, he moved. He then stopped, opened his eyes and put on a serious expression. He looked into the trees that surround him. He listened for any movement, his palm on the handle of a katana.

An arrow shot past his cheek. He jumped into a tree and landed silently, perfectly balanced on a large branch. He now had taken his blade out, the sunlight reflecting on the cool metal onto his fur. He looked down the path. He saw a man with a wooden long bow perched on a tree branch, and he loosed another arrow. This one grazed his leg, cutting straight through his jeans. A crimson liquid began to soak his pant leg. "Damn!" he muttered as he quickly found a protected area of the tree.

He sheathed his blade and knelt down to look at the wound. He ripped the pant leg open. Blood covered his hands. "Not that deep," he said to himself. He ripped the rest of the cloth off and used it as a dressing for the wound.

He got up and pulled his katana out once more. He sighed and jumped from the tree. Without missing a beat, he dashed toward the man in the tree. Another arrow flew by, barely missing his head. He leaped up and cut the branch the marksman was sitting on.

The sniper fell to the ground, breaking his bow and some bones. "Gah!" he bellowed with agony, but when he looked up to see Silence right over him, his blade to his throat, the sniper was dumbstruck, and he couldn't say anything.

Finally Silence talked, "I have one question."

The marksman, knowing he had lost, listened to Silence's inquiry.

"Why?" he asked simply. "Why are you people so biased? Why do you hate us so? Why do you drive us to hate ourselves?"

At first, the marksman couldn't find words. Then he asked a question of his own. "You - you like being like that?" the sniper shot back.

Silence smiled. "I know most blood mutants hate their transformation. However, I, personally, like my transformation. Why shouldn't I? It gives me advanced abilities, abilities that regular humans don't have. Is that why you hate us so; because we are somehow better than humans? Is it because of how we look? Please inform on me how you feel. Do you kill blood mutants like me because you think it's the right thing to do? Do you think you are putting use out of our misery?" The sniper was speechless. Silence looked at a chain around the man's neck. He raised his katana.

"Oh please don't kill me! Please!" the sniper cried out.

Silence smiled once more. He slashed the chain off the man without harming him. The chain was connected to a cross. It flew to the ground. "Thou shalt not kill," Silence said as he sheathed his blade and continued on his path.

Silence continued to walk. He could hear the man behind him being helped by others. Silence didn't like killing people; he tries to spare as many lives as he can. But if someone is threatened and there is no other way, he tries not to think of that scenario.

"Hay!" a feminine voice said. Silence looked over his shoulder to see a blood mutant racing toward him. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. She was kitsune-blooded as he was. She had reddish-brown fur and a large streak of white down the center of her body. Her hair was long and was the same color as her fur was, and her eyes were pale blue. She finally caught up with him. "Why did you do that?" she managed to say with shortness of breath.

"Do what?" Silence replied.

"With that Hunter, why did you spare him?" she said as though it were obvious.

"Why, should not I have? I saw no reason to."

She looked at him with a quizzical look. "Well yes if some one were SHOOTING at you, why shouldn't you kill them?"

Silence looked at her harder. "Why, you would have?"

"Hell yes, if someone were shooting at me!! I wouldn't see there and chat with them!"

Silence looked deeper into this girl. "…are you stalking me?"

"WH-what, no of course not, how could you suggest that?!"

"Hum, maybe because you knew that I was being attacked by a Hunter, spared him, and had talked to him. How could you know those things?" Silence gave the girl a sarcastic smile.

"Well, I was passing by!" she responded awkwardly.

"Really?" Silence said doubtfully.

"Yes." she replied confident.

"Hum." He turned and continued to walk the path.

"Ha-Hay! Where are you going?!"

"To Haven!" Silence yelled back.

"Haven, I thought Haven was hidden; no one knows where it is except people who have been there!"

"Yes, but I know where it is," he shot back.

"Well," she looked down.

Silenced stopped walking and turned around. There was a long pause.

She looked back to Silence. "The day I was blooded, my village was being raided by bandits. They killed my family." She paused. "They also killed my pet kitsune." Silence looked at her in surprise, but let her continue. "I remember pleading to my mother and father and brother, 'Wake up!' I screamed, 'wake up! Please, mommy, daddy, wake up!' I continued on. I was seven, only seven, and had my family ripped from me. I walked over to my brother. He was the worst off; his body mutilated." As she continued tears began to fall from her eyes. "Then I walked over to my pet kitsune. 'No, not you too,' I said. She had a gash on her chest; she was still alive, but dying. I held her in my arms until she passed. The blood covered my clothes." She stopped and looked down as more tears fell to the ground.

Silence couldn't say anything to comfort her lost family. He tried anyway. "I'm sorry, so sorry," he said in a soft tone.

She looked back up with an angry face. "That's why I hate Hunters, and humans alike!" Her tears continued to fall.

Silence walled over to the young kitsune girl. He put his hand on her shoulder. She looked down, and then fell to the ground weeping. "Why, why do they hate us so, what did we do to them?"

Silence suddenly got it. She was always a blood mutant, always a kitsune, that's why they attacked her village. They weren't bandits. "They were Hunters, not bandits." The kitsune girl looked back up. Tears flooded her eyes. Now Silence was sure of it. Silence looked down the path from which he came. "That's the question I asked that sniper back there, he didn't have an answer." He looked back to the girl. "What is your name?"

The kitsune-blooded girl looked up. "My, name…" She looked down again. She still didn't answer.

Silence could tell she was not secure with him yet. He sighed and said, "My name is Silence. Silence the Moonlight Kitsune, as most people know me as."

She looked up quickly. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood up. Silence followed. "I'm," she paused thinking herself over. "I'm Eco." She pulled out a compound bow and put out her hand. "Pleased to meet you Silence." She smiled with the most wonderful face.

"Silence and Eco, coincidence?" he muttered under his breath. He shook her hand then asked, "Would you like to come to Haven with me?"

"What, really, you'd do that?" Eco said with some hope in her voice. "Yes, yes I would." She looked at her four-toed clawed feet and flicked her single fox-like tail. "Thank you."

He smiled and turned down the path. "Well, let's go, Eco!"

"Oh, right!" she chimed in. The two of them were off to Haven. In front of them lay a large town. How would this town except them?