Arc 2 Chapter 8- Fighting For My Life!

Kyosuke looked at the beast with his sword drawn, he wasn’t hurting at all and felt his time was ready to shine, he wanted to end this beast once and for all. Kyosuke finally got a good look at the monster, it had a dog’s body, but its face had no eyes and only a mouth that opened up to reveal nothing but teeth, a true monster.

“That thing is scary as hell, I need to make sure it doesn’t get a bite out of me, or else I’m really dead!”

Kyosuke charged the beast and tried swinging the sword at it, the monster had no eyes but was somehow able to dodge Kyosuke’s attack.

“How the hell?!”

The beast swung its tail at Kyosuke and struck him, its tail had little tiny spikes that detached from its tail. The spikes got stuck in Kyosuke’s arm as he jumped back, it wasn’t too much pain but it still hurt. He looked at the wound and noticed a purple residue.

-That’s not good, in video games that color usually means it’s poison.

With the sword in Kyosuke’s hand and his other keeping himself balanced, Kyosuke used his mouth to take the little needles out. He looked back up at the creature and realized it was confused about where he went. Kyosuke had an idea so he grabbed a loose stone on the ground and threw it near the monster. Like Kyosuke thought, the monster rushed towards the stone, biting at the air.

Kyosuke now had a huge advantage, as long as you either kept off the ground or was sneaky enough, he could easily kill the monster.

“RIGHT HERE!”

Kyosuke quickly used Adtonitus to appear feet away. The monster rushed towards the sound Kyosuke made and began searching the area, this gave Kyosuke enough time to jump into the air and silently stab the monster. Black blood splashed against Kyosuke as he stabbed the creature in the back, it began screeching in the air, and Kyosuke could do nothing but step back. The blood that was on Kyosuke’s face began to start sizzling, he was burning his skin so he got some dirt from the ground and threw it onto his face, it caused most of the liquid acid to soak into the dirt and began eating away at that instead.

“Holy crap, this creature is a walking trap, it’s almost like its goal is to die!”

The creature fell to the ground and a putrid smell came about, it filled the room almost instantly. It wasn’t the smell of death but more like a scent, an animal puts out to call upon others nearby.

“Please don’t tell me…”

Kyosuke jumped at the sound of screeching in the distance. He looked around for an exit before looking at the stairs, he tried running up them but they became slippery like before, he fell multiple times before rolling onto his stomach. Kyosuke punched the ground with anger before getting up, defeated.

“Dammit, I need to figure out a way to get the hell out of here!”

He continued looking around before noticing the walls covered with more goo, it dawned on him something weird was going on. It’s almost like the house was… Alive. The floors, walls, water, and the weird displacement of each piece of appliance in the house was almost a sure sign that this place was either an illusion or itself a monster.

The noise stopped, the warm air filled to cold. Kyosuke sensed danger nearby, he looked up, down, left, right, frantically looking for where it would pound from. An explosion from the floor erupted causing Kyosuke to fly so far into the air he went above the house. He could see around him, fog for hundreds of miles, and finally, the house, except, the house wasn’t still, it was moving.

“T-that’s not a house, houses can’t move, that THING is clearly a monster. How the hell did all of this happen? Ken only left the house half an hour ago. There’s no way in that time I was eaten by this monster and taken all the way out here.”

Kyosuke started falling, the force, if he hit the ground, would be so powerful that it would smash him like a pancake. Kyosuke imagined what would happen if he hit the ground and lived, the pain he’d feel.

-Alight, shit, think, think, THINK!

Kyosuke thought back to what Ken was saying, how the power he controlled was his, and if he wanted to make use of it as his, Kyosuke needed to learn to wield the power and not back down.

In his head he started to think, calming his body down, allowing the world to go in some sort of slow-motion, Kyosuke thought back on how to use the power. Anger, pain, sadness, all ways to activate the power, Kyosuke looked at the sword in his hand, he looked at his foot and knew exactly what to do. With all his force, he jammed the sword into his foot, not all the way through but enough to cause pain, the incantations on the sword began to glow and Kyosuke began to change, horns grew out of his head, his body changed, dark wings came out of him. The fight was on.

-SHIT I CAN STILL CONTROL MY DAMN SELF!

Kyosuke could still feel himself inside the power, even with the power taking full control over his body, he was still able to have self-control. As he was falling he noticed dozens of those creatures that took him so long to kill before. Kyosuke went from a free fall into a full force dive into the ground, a giant explosion knocked back three of the creatures, slamming them into trees at a speed so intense it made them explode into a pool of blood and guts. He caught a skull from mid-air before crushing it in his hand.

“THIS DAMN HOUSE, CAUSING SO MANY PROBLEMS FOR ME! SCREW IT, IT’S GOING STRAIGHT TO HELLL!”

Kyosuke grabbed the sword with two hands, the writing on the sword started to glow brighter than before, as he began to swing the sword, the words were slowly drained of the glowing letters, and instead pushed them out into the real world. A bright light came out of the sword and went twenty feet straight into the house, the power of the sword mixed with the glowing properties, melted it straight in half with no problem at all.

“HEH, THAT’S ALL?”

Kyosuke turned around to face the monsters before the world went silent and a giant explosion erupted behind him. The house was in flames and giant chunks of blood raining down on him, just as he thought, the house was nothing more than a monster, trapping him inside of his belly.

“I can’t even scream at that, that’s just plain gross. Eww, that shit gives me the jitters.”

The power Kyosuke was in control slowly lost its grip on him, he was still able to use the power but he no longer had the same rage as before. Kyosuke looked down at his foot to notice it was healed up, his powers truly gave him the will to live.

He looked over at all the monsters that stood still, they were listening to any sudden sound. Kyosuke started to crunch leaves as he walked towards them, he raised his sword to his side, smirked, and closed his eyes. Kyosuke thought about all of the moves he could use but decided it was time to use his own move, he thought about fire coursing through his veins, ice coming out of his mouth, earth between his feet, and lighting in the clouds above him. His sword started to glow again, the incantations on the sword began to shake. Kyosuke started to laugh.

“ADTIONTIUS!”

Kyosuke in a flash went straight into the middle of the creatures, he stabbed the ground, electrocuting all of the enemies, causing them to stagger. He rushed them and cut them down one by one, with every monster he killed, it added to the power of the sword. He turned around to notice more coming, he cut his finger with the blade, and using the blood on the sword he swung it towards the beasts, causing a giant wall of dark red fire to rush into them, when it was other they were nothing but black husks.

“THIS IS SO FUN! THIS SWORD… IT’S SO POWERFUL, IT USES THE POWER I GET FROM KILLING THINGS, AND MAKES IT STRONGER OVER TIME, THE MORE I KILL, THE MORE POWER I GET!”

Kyosuke was filled with passion to kill these beasts, they took his life once, so he’d take them tenfold. The final few monsters started to cower in fear and ran off, Kyosuke was starting to look exhausted, he was panting and finally took a seat to regenerate some energy.

“That sure- takes a lot- out of you. I do wonder why they started to run away like that, the power I’m using is slowly decreasing so I’m relying solely on my sword right now. I bet if a few dozen more came they could take me out.”

*THUMP… THUMP*

Kyosuke turned around slowly in horror to see a giant foot smash mere inches from his face. He saw a toenail on the foot so he knew it had to be humanoid. Kyosuke looked up to see a human, but this human was different, it was over twenty feet tall, it towered over the land and caused death and destruction everywhere it went.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THA-”

The foot began to rise so Kyosuke used Adtonitus to get out of there, it smashed the place Kyosuke was once sitting. The giant man looked down at Kyosuke, he started to bend over to reach down before Kyosuke knew it was life or death. He dodged the hand trying to grab him before he jumped on his arm.

“Kill or be killed they say!”

Kyosuke dug the sword into the giant’s arm and began running up his arm, it didn’t go all the way through the arm but it cut down to the bone. Blood rushed down the arm like a river and the pool of blood at the bottom was enough to land safely in. Kyosuke made it up to the shoulder of the giant, he could tell with the loss of blood that the man wasn’t all the way there. He looked at Kyosuke with glossy eyes that told a story, a sad one, one that asked for death. Kyosuke looked back at the man before taking his sword out, he walked over to the neck of the giant before realizing that death to most creatures meant a release from hell, one that Kyosuke sadly would never get to achieve, he had to live through every death and live with the agony that he felt every day.

“Goodbye, I know deep down you’ve wanted this for a long time, you just needed the right person.”

Kyosuke jumped off the giant before using Stricks, something that Ken taught Kyosuke in order to steal change out of the gutters, ken was always a cheap bastard. He stuck to the monster before using it to propel himself forward straight into his throat, an instant cut. The monster began falling, Kyosuke used Adtonitus to get himself to the body where he rode him down.

The battle had been won, Kyosuke had won his first battle against some of the hardest enemies he had ever faced, he fell to the ground, tired from the fight. The power drained from him but with his training, he was able to stay conscious. He sat there looking around when he noticed a group of kids out in the distance, they sat there staring at Kyosuke, he thought he saw happiness on their face, but he couldn’t be sure. Before Kyosuke could get up to go to them, they started to walk into the fog, they vanished in seconds. Kyosuke sat back down defeated, the only people he could get in contact with left him.

“This is shit. What do I do now? This place is clearly nowhere near where I was before, this is just a pile of balls!”

Kyosuke slowly closed his eyes, he yawned from his hard-fought battle. Slowly he fell asleep.

***

Shuffling in the room beside him, Kyosuke got up, he walked over to where his “parents” were sleeping.

“What’s going on?”

Matt looked at Kyosuke and threw a mean kick towards Kyosuke, the kick landed so hard that Kyosuke flew straight out of the room. He got up and stormed towards the door and started hitting on it.

“What the heck was that for! Come on guys you can’t just kick me!”

Kyosuke was different than the last time he was seen on the streets. He wasn’t as formal, still nice, just not formal. He was more natural in the way he spoke to Matt and Bre, they were no longer strangers but friends. Kyosuke was in Acrayma for a year at this point, today was his tenth birthday according to Acrayma’s calendar. Matt and Bre had taught Kyosuke how to read and write and by the time he turned ten, he was fluent in reading the language. Kyosuke didn’t go to school but he did attend free public magic lessons for kids. He learned an easy to creature fire move called Soluion which allowed him to create a small fire.

“KYOSUKE! WE’LL GET YOU ICE CREAM TOMORROW, JUST LEAVE US ALONE FOR TONIGHT OKAY?!”

Matt screamed to Kyosuke and he finally gave up, he walked back to his room where he sat reading, he found a book on the use of powerful magic spells, the book was at a shop Kyosuke regularly visited, he finally saved up enough Dekadrachm to buy the book, it took him the whole year but he was only one page in and it already taught him a skill that could wipe out a small army. The spell was called Nucularm, it used all of the magic from the user to create an explosion so big that it could kill thousands.

“I’d never need to use this one, but it’s still nice to learn, maybe I’ll go out into the country and try it sometime.”

Kyosuke was deep into the book before he started to hear creaking outside the house, he got up and looked out of the window before seeing a man, a man he couldn’t see, standing right outside his window. Kyosuke fell back to the floor and crawled to the wall while still facing the window.

The fall from Kyosuke caused Matt and Bre to rush into the room.

“Kyosuke? What are you doing on the floor? What was that loud noise just now?”

Matt looked down at Kyosuke who was pointing at the window, his small hand was shaking. They looked over at the window and began walking towards it.

“NO DO-”

Before Kyosuke could finish his sentence, an explosion ripped through the room, Bre flew back into the wall, her head smacking against it, brain matter flew all over Matt and Kyosuke. Filled with rage, Matt rushed the man but was stabbed by some sort of syringe before getting a hit on him, it caused him to stagger before slowly he grew, one foot, two feet, three feet. Matt had no clue what was going on so he ran, running leaving Kyosuke behind. The footsteps went from quiet to big huge thumps.

*THUMP, THUMP*

Kyosuke looked in horror at the man before he started to introduce himself.

“HELLO CHILD I’M KIERAN BLAKELY. You have NO clue who I am, but I know who YOU are!”

The man began to hug himself tightly as if congratulating himself on finding the missing child.

“Wh-why would you do that?”

Kyosuke stared at Bre with no emotion, he no longer showed emotion as nothing mattered anymore, he lost his life once then he lost everything that mattered in his life.

“I’ll be taking you away young man, don’t try to fight it or else I’ll kill you.”

The man skipped over to Kyosuke and picked him up by the arm, Kyosuke reached towards the book before Kieran noticed.

“Oh? A book? Well, I guess it can’t be that harmful right? Here, take it brat.”

Kieran gave the book to Kyosuke, he tried opening it but couldn’t find the strength to. He gave up on everything and allowed himself to be taken by the man who killed his only family in Acrayma. -Why go on living, why continue to fight, why stay good.