3 Leaving the forest

Shaking the thought away, I focused on my current situation.

'I'm in some forest and I don't know where anything is. Did my family finally dumb me out somewhere?' I thought.

I'm only clothed in shorts and a shirt with no shoes. Well my bandages are still on my arm, but they're wet and dirty. What to do?

'First I need to find someway to make a shelter or find some cave to use.' Thinking this I began jogging around the forest. I didn't know how to make a shelter for myself, so I could only go by what I learned from seventh grade and below.

So after hours of wondering around the forest and taking breaks, I was able to find a cave. It was about sunset already and so I walked inside the cave slowly and cautiously. I didn't know if there were bears or anything inside it.

As I was going along I noticed that the cave wasn't dark. It was like there was some light keeping the place illuminated for me to see. I sat down and hugged my knees to my chest.

"What to do now?" I got a place to sleep, but I'll need food and drinkable water. I don't feel hungry or thirsty right now, but come tomorrow I might be.

With these thoughts in my head I got a bit of a headache. I sighed and put my head to my knees and closed my eyes.

<???>

Feeling weightless I already knew where I was. I opened my eyes and looked at the demonic face in flames.

"Umm, I saw some of your memories." I said with a nervous voice. I didn't know if he wanted to hear about that or not.

"I saw some of yours as well. Truly humans don't change at all still being primitive against their own kind." He said mocking the whole human race.

"So did the spirits." I said.

"Have you come here for something?"

"I wanted to know how to get stronger. With what I have it's enough, but I want to burn the whole town down to ashes!!"

"You'll need to accumulate more of my spirit into your body. Do you know the teachings off Buddha?" He asked.

"I think I've heard a bit about him in class. He was the guy that meditated under a tree till death searching for inner peace right?" I asked.

"He was looking for enlightenment, but that doesn't matter. From this day forward you'll meditate and accumulate my spirit with yours while training. I'll teach you as we go." He said.

I would be getting trained?!?

"Listen, you need to calm down first. Relax your body." He said. I relaxed with my arms spread out along with my legs as I floated around.

"Now breath in and out slowly." He added.

I started taking slow deep breaths and exhaling slow and steady. Then I felt that pain again, but this time it was somewhat tolerable. It didn't change the fact that it felt like I was getting cut open with a hot knife.

My breathing started getting rugged and I could feel my body tensing up. I thought this was my spirit so why does it feel like my real body?

The pain kept increasing around my body till it suddenly stopped. The pain was there but it stopped increasing. I slowly opened my eyes that were closed shut from the pain.

"Once you've calmed down you need to get that energy to move around your body. Practice control.." He said as his voice faded away.

This was a sign that I was waking up. I felt myself getting pulled again as I let myself go back to my body.

…

Opening my eyes I felt…rejuvenated? I didn't feel the pain I felt before and my body felt stronger. The cave was being illuminated by some light that was coming in from the entrance.

Standing up I walked outside of the cave and noticed my eyes didn't hurt from the sun like they usually would. I could also see the smallest specs of dust and dirt as I walked.

The birds chirping, insects making noises, and the vibrant colors of the wild. I could see and hear it all clearly. I looked at my hand and clenched it into a fist.

"This is exactly the kind of power I wanted." I mumbled.

'He said I need to get the energy to move around my body, but how?' I thought. I sat down on a nearby rock with my legs crossed.

I closed my eyes and relaxed my body. I started breathing the same way Akuma told me to before and I felt a little sting in my chest.

The more I focused on my chest the more that sting started to hurt. It felt like a someone had started a fire next to my heart. I grit my teeth as I could already feel sweat coming down my forehead and building up on my back.

'That's the energy.' With that though I focused on trying to move the energy around my body but it wouldn't budge. The pain was starting to get to me so I opened my eyes and stopped trying for a while.

"Why wouldn't it move?" I said as breathed in and out heavily. I don't know how long I've been trying, but it must not have been that long since the sun hasn't seemed to move from how it was before.

'So maybe only like 5 minutes. I should try again.' I closed my eyes, relaxed my body and started the breathing again. There it was, that pain in my chest.

This time I had an idea instead of getting the ball to move around, why not use it as a source and have energy move from the ball around my body?

I focused on that ball of fire and made tendrils of it go through my right arm. It was my dominant arm so I started with it first. While I was happy that this was working the pain I felt was unimaginable.

It felt like all the veins in my right arm were being burned while my bones were constantly being set ablaze. I grit my teeth and closed my eyes tightly, holding back tears.

I made more tendrils come from my chest up to the right side of my face and then I felt a pain in my eye like it was stabbed.

"AHHHHHHH!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I stopped and fell off the rock holding my eye.

I tried calming down and opening my eye as I took my hands off if it and looked at it. My hands had some blood on them, but my eye felt fine now. It was hot but fine.

I wiped my eye and blinked a few times as I breathed in and out. I stood up and looked at my looked at my hand. It looked like my veins were lava while my arm looked normal.

"What about my face?" I mumbled and sprinted only to smash through a tree and fall on my face. It didn't hurt, but it was like I couldn't keep up with my own speed.

"I need to train physically everyone I come back from that prison. Maybe next time I shouldn't accumulate more and master this first." I muttered as I looked at my arm.

This was definitely the best way to go through this. Master what I have and then go for more.

With that I started slowly training myself to get use to my body by hunting whatever was in the wild.

Birds, rabbits, bears (rarely), and some tanuki, bats, masked palm civets and more. I also started doing normal workouts. I haven't gotten more energy from Akuma though, because I'm mastering the use of my arm with this fire for now.

I've made it so that my veins aren't glowing when I'm not using the fire and the pain is there, but tolerable. My arm catches fire when I need it to.

I can do a few moves now.

I can shoot balls of fire that expands in size on contact with something.

Fire-Bolts: The user can launch bolts of energy that expand rapidly on contact with target or when it reaches the chosen place. These bolts are usually compressed force-fields that quickly expand to large sizes: for example a bolt the size of a baseball can expand to become the size of a car.

Fire stream: Discharge large waves of fire from hands.

Fire Beams: Release beams of fire

Fire vision: Emit fire from one's eyes. (Right eye only for now)

This was all done in two weeks. I had nothing to do but train so I was able to get things done, but my body was always under constant pain like I was being set on fire all day.

Whenever I'm going to sleep I talk with Akuma, but lately he's just been giving me some memories of him in combat for me to copy.

That all led up to this moment were I feel that I have good enough mastery over my flames to get more energy, but I don't want to live like this anymore. While this is better than my previous situation, I want normal and cooked food.

I'm too use to being normal, but I've had to push that nervousness and uncomfortable feeling down to live and get stronger.

'I need to find my way back into the city while being undiscovered.' With that thought I sat in the cave and went back to meditate.