Starting Out [1]

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I was out in the forest once again—and was sat on a nearby rock. I took a deep breathe and ignited a candle-like ghostly flame through my fingers. Unlike before, instead of only focusing on one finger—I've begun to kindle a flame upon two fingers. It is far more demanding, as it depletes my energy reserves faster, and also requires much more concentration.

Nevertheless, I can feel my power increasing slightly faster than before, it's been two weeks and I've found myself becoming much more impatient. Doing the same thing over and over again is already mind-numbing enough, but over this past year I've also endured the lack of results, enough is enough.

I had an assortment of leaves next to me, I was using my left hand to constantly put leaves infront of my flames, whilst my right hand maintained the fire itself. Normally when I've burned a certain amount of leaves I can feel a distinct soreness throughout my body, as if it's sending me a warning signal to stop.

From now on, I'm going to start ignoring that pain, it may be foolish considering I might end up doing some serious damage to my body, although I have a pretty good hunch of what that soreness really is.

When you exercise—normally you're body will get sore eventually, like muscle fatigue, I used to work out when I was still in High School, and the feeling I get when I push my limits feels exactly the same. For this last year I've been hesitant to go the extra mile, I wanted to be cautious—as I have no idea how [Flame Shake] truly works, perhaps I might end up literally burning myself to death, who knows.

But now I'm simply going to take the risk—if the pain worsens and really begins to put up some red flags, I'll just stop, the best I can hope for is that I don't end up becoming a cripple or perhaps worse.

*Rustle* *Rustle*

Suddenly something caught my attention—I heard a rustling sound within the nearby vegetation, there was something inside the bushes—although I was rather skeptical as to what it was, I didn't know much about wildlife, my only sense of relief came from the fact that the bush was rather small, and considering I couldn't see anything poking out from it, whatever was inside couldn't be much larger either.

And then I saw it.

Out from the bush popped a critter with a stout body, short legs and flat feet. The creature was gray with black and white markings—it had a bushy striped tail and a mask-like band of fur under it's eyes, it kind of looked like a miniature bear.

It was a raccoon.

A painfully obvious feature caused me to widen my eyes in shock, the little thing was foaming from the mouth, it's fur was disheveled, and it was posed towards me in a clearly aggressive manner.

The fucker had Rabies—and I wasn't dumb enough to think that it wouldn't try to eat me alive, it was so puny in size, yet incredibly intimidating. There were claw-marks all over it's feet and face, and un-tended wounds and patches of blood scattered over it's body.

This guys clearly already gone off on presumably other animals, Rabies spread from animal-animal through saliva, I learned that in school when we had a similar problem—there were a lot of raccoons in our neighborhood, and there were reports of some of them being rabid, although I had never met one myself.

That meant there was a risk of other animals in the area being infected as well—I was never coming back here again.

I was scared beyond belief—I had a Sacred Gear but this thing just terrified me to the bone, I had never been in a fight before let alone violence as a whole, I didn't have that battle instinct to attack this guy, furthermore my flames were so puny, what could they do against it?

I bolted.

I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction, straight towards where the orphanage would be, it was dark as hell, the only saving grace was the dim light that protruded off the moon, but it really wasn't that helpful. Hell, even on the way here I tripped on at least five branches.

The only reason I was able to see the raccoon in the first place was because of how bright my fire illuminated—despite it's menial stature.

However there was yet another problem—I had the body of a nine-year old, and an extremely malnourished one, I couldn't outrun it, the flight response didn't work.

Furthermore, I came to realize how stupid I was, why was I even bothering to go back to the orphanage? We were practically in the middle of nowhere, and how are a bunch of kids and a granny going to deal with a rabies infested mini-bear?

Beads of sweat gushing down my forehead, I stopped in my tracks and turned around—I could see the little demon bolting towards me, only three meters separating us. Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I shot pebble like darts of fire at the little shit.

My flames could end up causing a wildfire to ignite, but there's no way I'm prioritizing the safety of the forest over my own.

Normally my control was incredibly precise, but out of sheer panic I was shooting like a maniac.

"Screeech!"

A lucky shot managed to hit the fucker in the face, it continued to growl at me but seemed to be temporarily stunned, this was my opportunity. It was too busy scratching at the distinct burn on it's face like a maniac to prioritize attacking me.

Again and again I conjured more and more pellets and slung them at the creature, it was far easier to hit now that it wasn't moving—it continued to howl and groan in pain as I attacked it, despite it's lack of movement, it was still staring at me with the crazed look in it's eye, holy crap this was scary.

Finally the threat seemed to be neutralized, it was slumped on it's side, and just twitched every now and then, I planned to go up to it and just smash it's head with a rock or something to put it out of it's misery, but frankly I didn't want to be anywhere near the thing.

Plus, it lived like an animal, so it can die like one, it's not a human—I have no obligation to put it down humanely, especially not after the fear-inducing frenzy it tried to unleash upon me.

Then the after effects sank in, my legs wobbled violently me, causing me to drop to the floor, my back keeled over.

And then it happened.

I regurgitated a putrid filth of liquid from my throat—I had vomited.

The adrenaline had worn off, and the true reality of the situation had kicked in, looking at the half-dead corpse writhe around and twitch robotically was nauseating.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand—and slowly stood up, my legs still trembling ever so slightly.

This was the last time I was coming to this forest—well at the very least this side of it, furthermore I would stick slightly closer to orphanage, but still not close enough that anyone would notice the obvious white flame signing amongst the dark.

But then a slightly more pleasant feeling encompassed me, and a familiar one nonetheless.

I conjured a flame with my finger once again, and I smiled in glee.

My flame had grown, before it was roughly around three-four centimeters, but now it was an outstanding ten, although why did this happen?

The answer was obvious.

It's basic knowledge amongst readers that a Sacred Gear evolves to it's users will, and I suppose this "fight" had tempered mine, and subsequently—tempered my flames. Now the sense of dread I had for this area of the forest was replaced by a sense of greed.

Sure this place was dangerous, but if I fight more of these buggers, wont that allow me to grow much faster? Maybe sooner or later the effects wouldn't be so outstanding, but progress was progress, and the only thing more important than my life to me, was my beloved Beer-chan. I will stop at nothing to achieve our reunion.

Although for now, my mind and body were both exhausted—I desperately needed rest, and so I made my way back to the orphanage.

---

The following day I was greeted by the annoying pestering of one of the kids—weren't my eyes supposed to scare them off? Do your job will you.

"Koen, Koen! Something's wrong with Tomura!" I woke up and saw a petite girl with black hair and brown eyes looming over me, with an extremely worried expression on her face. Her name was Masaki if I remember correctly.

"What are you talking about brat?" I swear if their pulling some sort of prank on me—I'm going to tear them a new one.

"Just come look!" I grew slightly skeptical—she seemed to have a genuine sense of worry on her face, and as I got up I saw the rest of the kids looking at me the same way.

"What is it?" I questioned.

She abruptly grabbed my hand and brought me towards the logging area in the room besides mine, each room had four beds and there was roughly eight kids in Rosemary.

I found myself looking at Tomura laying down in his bed—well his hair was the only reason I could recognize the kid, his skin was ghostly pale, even more so than mine, he had red circles around his eyes, he was sweating like a pig, and sniffling like crazy.

"What's the matter with you brat?" My tone had changed from it's usually haughty demeanor to one of worry, I didn't love these guys as family or anything, but I wasn't so cold hearted I could just watch him like this and do nothing, at least not with a clear consciousnesses.

"...I don't know...I just woke up...like this" his voice was weak and sickly, that usually vibrant smile and overly-energetic nature of his was nowhere to be seen.

"Alright you don't need to say more, I'll go get the granny ok? Sit tight" I stormed my way into the living room and tugged at Hirano's gown, she was laid back resting in her rocking chair, the kids should have alerted her earlier, then again here I am expecting responsibility from a bunch of orphans.

"Hm? What is it Koen-dear?" she lazily said as he looked down at my figure.

"Something's wrong with Tomura" I did my best to imitate a panicked nine-year old, not that I was very good at it considering I'm actually thirty.

"Eh!? Where is he!?" I pointed towards the room where Tomura currently laid, she rushed over there with impressive speed—for a granny that is.

She kneeled over at this bedside, and held her palm ontop of his forehead, she shooed the other kids out of the room and looked at me with a worried expression.

"Koen! Quickly, go grab a bowl of water and towel from the bathroom!" I nodded affirmatively and made my way over there.

Although there was a major problem—the hot water wasn't working as usual, there was no one watching so I ignited a candle-like flame on my index finger and dipped it into the water bowl, heating it up. I rushed over back to the room where Tomura was, making sure not to spill any of the water, although that was slightly difficult considering how heavy the bowl was—for a nine year old that is.

I handed it to her, she nodded and dipped the towel into the bucket, and placed it upon his forehead, I didn't know why, but something inside me didn't want to let this kid die, did I feel some responsibility or perhaps my parental instincts were kicking in towards him? I had no clue, but nonetheless I didn't want him to die.