How long had he been walking? A man made his way through the dense forest dressed head to toe in black clothing. He slowed to a halt, resting a gloved hand on the nearest tree, while his breathing came in labored gasps. A white porcelain mask, depicting only a thin red smile and a purple lightning bolt over the right eye, covered his face. He had been on mission, sent to execute one who had betrayed the gods. His very existence brought the end of life everyday, but on special occasions like this, he had to make house calls.
On Earth his identity was known, the mask had come to symbolize that a village would be suffering a lose, whether that meant him running through their fields to kill a crop, or exacting the premature deaths of people foolish enough to cross a god, the stories held strong all throughout the land. With the mask he was known as Thanatos the death god, but his human persona was Keisuke Hotaro. A simple man who no one noticed, the one that hung back in the shadows and let the world go by him. Taking off the mask made him invisible, and he preferred it that way.
Reaching for his mask the man discarded it, the moment it hit the ground it shattered, dissolving into the earth and returning to the underworld. Keisuke had a mop of dark hair that clung to his face from the perspiration and humidity. His eyes were nearly as dark as his hair, but they were flat, no life shown in them. He trekked on forward, searching for the sounds of running water amongst the busy life of the forest. It was easy to locate water, this mountain was so humid it would be nearly impossible to get away from the substance, not that he minded much, water was one of the few things in nature that didn’t wilt under his touch.
It took only minutes to find a shallow pool to clean his face in. Kneeling on the rocks that bordered it he began stripping off his top layers of clothing. First the gloves, then the large black coat, then the shirt, and finally another tank top under that. Kei threw the clothing in a pile next to him, revealing in the feeling of the damp rocks soaking through the knees of his pants and he peered into the pool. Small aquatic life darted all around the miniature ecosystem. Tadpoles, small fish, varying degrees of underwater plant life. He took caution as he dipped his hands into the pool, luckily though fish were not adventurous, all the tiny creatures darting away as soon as his hands hit the water. He smiled, splashing the water across his sticky cheeks as he recalled why he was so deep in the woods.
Hera had called for the destruction of an entire bloodline. He had no knowledge of the great wrong they had committed, but he never questioned the gods, he could not risk losing their favor, especially of the ill-tempered Hera. When he had gotten to the village he had just finished taking out the family when he had been discovered. The people of the village rioted, the bounty on his head made him desirable to capture despite the risk of being touched by him. He had escaped, barely, but the villagers had proved persistent, and he had run for more hours than he could have counted. Of course Hera would pick a village miles away from any doorways back to the underworld, and he was still a few hours away from the door he had come from.
Keisuke’s head shot up when he heard something, looking up he saw the fiery tail of a phoenix flying above, it screeched before landing somewhere not too far from where he was. Excited, the man hurriedly stood up, only grapping his coat as he rushed after the rare beast. The phoenix was a creature of incredible beauty and power, he had never seen one before, but the stories had made him curious. As he ran the coat he grabbed protected his arms from touching any plant life, but the occasional spare leave or twig brushed his chest, killing entire bushes and trees that could have been hundreds of years old. He winced at the thought, but continued on, a phoenix was something special. The guilt from sacrificing the innocent was still there, but even Kei thought he deserved some forms of joy once in awhile.
When he reached the clearing someone had apparently beaten him to the bird, and it looked as though he was trying to win over its trust. He took a step forward, out from the shadows, but the moment he made his appearance caught the bird’s attention. Startled, it flared up, flapping its wings and spreading a swell of flames with it in an attempt to get away from the two of them. In its fiery panic, however; the dry brush above the bird caught, bursting into flames and the bird, cornered by a man on one side and a wall of fire on the other shot forward, straight into Kei’s bare chest.
“Oh no, no please no.” He begged helplessly as he watched the as the bird panicked, flapping frantically in his arms. He knew what was coming, and in a flash, so did the bird. It paused for a moment to look up at him, its eyes held the life of a thousand generations while his looked flat and empty, and it sparked up into a pile of ash in his arms. “No, no, no. I just- I just wanted to see something good… but I killed it.”