I returned to school after a week of absence. It felt strange putting on my uniform, stepping out my door, all without Koryn there to greet me. I had to wake myself up, make my own food, and walk to school alone, something I hadn’t done in a long time.

“Aidan Crow.” Tsukihi greeted me at the gate. She titled her head, confused. “You’re here early.”

“Don’t get to excited.” I quipped, much like I used to tease her. “Disappointed you can’t fine me this time?”

She sighed.

“Actually, you owe about seventy alms for missing a week.”

I jumped backwards. So much money…

“Relax.” She said. “I had it waved. You had a good reason for missing school. Losing someone you care about is… traumatic.”

My mind flashed to the image of Koryn in that demon’s jaws. I felt like I was going to puke, but I steeled myself, forcing myself to look forward.

“Well, this has been fun, really has. But I have class to get to.” I said, beginning to walk away.

“I hope you kept up with your studies over the week.” Tsukihi said as I walked away.

“Why?” I turned towards her.

“Today are midterms.” She said.

Needless to say, it was without a doubt, a disaster. I don’t need to go into detail to how horrifically I failed on that day. Test after test, and I had no idea what I was doing. If my score wasn’t already zero, if I was at Tsukihi’s one hundred, I’d find myself closing in on my current score. So badly did I suffer, I worried this was the end of my Demon hunting career. Luckily enough, this school doesn’t look too favorably on drop outs, so instead I was stuck with remedial classes after school, and summer school during the summer. Of course, this was hell in itself, but the dream wasn’t dead just yet.

The weekend went by fairly quietly. Haru still slept on my couch, and ate my food, despite the fact that he refused to train me. I tolerated him to the best of my ability.

“Hey kid.” Haru said on Monday morning. “We’re out of eggs.”

The area around my couch was a disaster. Wrappers of food and piles of beer cans were beginning to stack up. Perverted magazines, which I had absolutely no idea where they came from and refuse to admit anything resembling ownership off, were strewn brazenly across the couch and coffee table. Haru didn’t even sit on the couch, instead he curled on the floor by it, watching TV and drinking… in the morning.

I had seen old pictures of this man. He had a stern look on his cleanly shaven face. His hair short and neat. His Demon Corps uniform primed and pressed, Black troop coat hanging behind him. By his side he had worn his Divine Arm, a katana with an engraved hilt. That picture was basically the Tsukihi if she were a grown man. The complete opposite of the man here now, hair disheveled, beard growing on his face, his clothes wrinkled and stained.

“Go buy some yourself you drunk hobo!” I yelled at him, swinging my bag over my shoulder. With my bad arm I could only wear one strap. It was making my shoulders lop-sided.

“No cash.” He said, raising his hand above his head and rubbing his fingers.

“Go back to the Demon Corps! I bet they’d pay you in the millions.”

“No can do. Told you Kid, I’m dead.” He smiled, opening another can of beer.

“Where the hell did you get all this beer then…” I sighed. “Fine. I’ll buy some on my way back from school. I’m going to be late though. I failed my midterms, so I have remedial classes till 5.”

“You failed your midterms? That’s gotta be a huge drop in your score.” He said.

“Doesn’t matter anyway. Im a zero.”

“A zero? Jeez you really suck.”

“Thank you Kurahara Haru. I appreciate that.”

“It’s what I’m here for.” He grinned.

I walked to school, made fun of Tsukihi again as usual, drawing out her cute angry face. Afterwards, classes went as they usually did, but this time I tried to pay a little attention. After school was over, atleast for everyone else, I went to my first remedial class. There were about six of us there.

“Allright, listen up here you stupid people.” The teacher growled. “You’re here because you don’t have what it takes to kill demons. Im here to whip you in shape, or have you die trying.” He went on and on.

I ignored him, looking around the room. All deliquents that I had a vague sense of familiarity with. People with scores of thirty or below tend to have knowledge of each other. There was only one face I didn’t recognize. Towards the back, a girl sat. She had short brown hair, and shy green eyes. She wore a hoodie, which she wore with the hood up. When she noticed me staring at her, she panicked, darting her eyes away quickly.

“And worse of all is you, Mister Crow!” The teacher yelled, slamming his hands on my desk. “A zero? Zero, are you kidding me? A demon would chew you up and spit you out.”

“Already kinda did.” I said, pointing at my arm.

“You’re a lucky one. Very few survive an encounter with one of those things.” He said, before moving on.

I don’t know if I could call surviving that lucky. In fact, why did I survive that at all? Koryn had a decently high score. With a little more training, she could’ve been a decent Demon Hunter. Not like me, someone who had no potential at all.

Throughout the remedial class, I could feel the girl in the back’s eyes drilling into the back of my head. She was staring at me, but everything I turned back, she would dart her eyes away, or pretending that she was playing with her pencil, or something like that.

After class was over, I left for the store. It was already dark out when I emerged with a carton of eggs. The night was quiet and cool, the sounds of crickets echoing in the park I usually walked through on my way home.

My arm suddenly felt very hot, my blood boiling throughout my body. A hiss echoed through the air. Out from behind a tree emerged a lizard demon, eyes filled with bloodlust.