Prologue

Kaidin had a very strange relation ship with his parents and mentor. Oh, they loved him, but they were also his instructors, in more ways than one. That meant that he was home schooled, in more ways than one. While public school kids got taught the basics, Kaidin's lessons were a little to the extreme.

Not to mention the fact that they lived twenty miles from the closest neighbor. A lot of the people that lived in a town about twenty-five miles away asked them why they would want to cut themselves off like this. They would just tell them they liked it that way and to mind their own fuckin' business. Well, his parents had used kinder words, but that was what Kaidin wanted to tell them.

He didn't like nosey people.

Do not get him wrong, Kaidin loved his father with all of his heart-but he could also admit that his father could be a cold-hearted bastard when it came to branding the fighting, tracking, hunting and killing drills through his son's head. His Dad was an Army Ranger for fifteen years and damn proud of it. He was also very damn proud that he could pass his skills onto Kaidin.

He had taught Kaidin more ways to kill a person with a dagger and crude knives chipped from stone than the boy had thought humanly possible. His Father made him go through so many repetitions that it became reflex and instinct. He said starting it was easy, it was the turning it off that was hard. He had taught the boy to track through the woods as silently as the calm wind. He taught him what tracks were what, and how you could tell how old they were. Kaidin took in these lessons like he was a sponge; just soaking them all in. He basically taught Kaidin how to be a survival-ist.

Then came the real fun, at least for Kaidin. Guns, God, how he loved his guns. His father had bought him six different types of hand guns and five different types of rifles, both foreign and domestic. Kaidin took to them like a proverbial duck to water. Of course he had to start out with the .22 pistol since he was so small. However, when he got older, nobody was a better shot than him, not even his father, and he was supposed to be the best. He started out shooting his father on the lighter weapons when he was seven.

Kaidin's skills training started when he was four.

His mother was a different sort of person-more gentle. However, she was also the smartest one of them all put together. She seemed to live for knowledge. Any type of knowledge. She started his training at four as well. She taught him the basics first: Reading, writing, Arithmetic and Spelling. After he turned eight though, things began to change in the teaching style his mother was using. Sara started teaching him multiple languages, computer programming, Computer Science, Biology, Wold History, Calculus and Philosophy. Not to mention meditation and Tai Chi so that he could center himself and focus better.

There was also another reason she taught him this, though.

Tenshi was different. He was a killer, and he wasn't one bit ashamed of it. He told Kaidin one day that he had assassinated 107 targets. His former occupation was one of the Masters of The Black Dragon Society, a group of professional assassins. They were the best-and out of that best, Tenshi was in a league all to his own. He set records.

He was the one that got Kaidin fascinated in the ninja sword. Kaidin thought that it was th bast thing he ever owned. It was titanium with silver laced through it and acid edged, along with a dragon etched along the blade. When it was made, a six year old Kaidin asked why the silver had been laced through it. All he got for his troubles were a mysterious look and a, "You'll find out later."

Since he was so small the sword also helped him build his arm muscles up quicker. Until he could fully control the sword, Tenshi made him a wooden one to go through the drills and kata with, until he was strong enough for the real blade. The killing blade, because that's what the etched Dragon on it meant to The Black Dragon Society.

Kaidin had only seen his mother truly and utterly furious with Tenshi on one occasion. It was on his tenth birthday. He remembered that day with fondness and pain. Fondness because Tenshi was so proud of him, and pain because his mother screamed for over an hour for what Tenshi did.

Tenshi was a proud man. He was even prouder to have Kaidin as his Apprentice. So he followed the Code of the Black Dragon Society and marked him as a member with a tattoo on his arm. The tattoo was a black dragon with blood red eyes, clutching a sword in his mouth. Under the tattoo were the words, "Death comes in the Dark." They were written in his home language of China. However, under those words were another tattoo.

They were two crossed ninja swords in an X pattern with the moon behind them. They were Tenshi's personal symbol. Any member of the Black Dragon Society would know that he was Tenshi's Apprentice. After he graduated from learning from Tenshi at sixteen, the Chinese symbol of master would be tattooed under all the tattoos.

He still couldn't believe how furious his usually quiet mother had got.

Tenshi just didn't teach him the sword though, he taught him many more things. He even made him read. The old china man made him read dozens of books on the Art of War and Stealth. However, it did not just stop there. No, he taught him arts that were considered the deadliest Martial Sciences in the wold until the boy was black and blue. The best thing that Tenshi loved about Kaidin, was that the more he taught him, the more the boy seemed to want to learn.

Kaidin had always wondered why they went through so much trouble to train him.

He got his wish on his eleventh birthday. Later, he wished he hadn't.

Kaidin's Father called a family meeting and the boy could tell by the adults' faces that what ever this was about was severely important-and since he was included, it was probably something to do with him. Since he hadn't done anything wrong since th tattoo, he wasn't that worried he warranted something for discipline. He wasn't worried about corporal punishment. If he were in trouble, they would just triple his physical training until he was exhausted.

The four people that sat around the dining room table looked solemn. Kaidin didn't know what they were so serious about, but it was affecting him as a byproduct. He really couldn't see what the problem was. They were acting like what they were about to tell him was a major catastrophe.

His father was the one that started it off. "I'm sure you have been wonder why we have been spending so much time and money training you, besides you being our son, that is?"