9 The Distant Past

_________ POV Ashton__________(Flashback Time)

Seeing this old man reminds me of our first meeting... It was while I was still in my home, the Dark Continent.

As said before, the Dark Continent was peaceful to me. It was homely, filled with friendly and intelligent beasts of every kind. But that changed when the expeditions started happening.

I witnessed the wildlife growing angrier and angrier with humanity. They came, they took. And they left 'them' behind.

The first expedition was the largest by far. A thousand people, of which only seven ever returned to their countries. The rest became food for wildlife.

The second expedition was even worse. Only two people managing to survive it.

In the third, a country sent it's army to explore the continent. Only resulting in the death of most soldiers. 11 People miraculously survived the ordeal.

With each expedition, the animals grew madder. They stopped speaking to me, they stopped recognizing me. Their intelligence was slowly seeped away by their rage.

Every expedition only came to steal. It was the only thing that interested the intruding humans.

By the fourth expedition. The animals were also violent to me. There were also new threats on the Continent. Things spawned by the presence of humans. "Calamities" is what humanity has come to call them.

They were what caused the most damage to humans in the first expeditions. Their presence further enraged the wildlife.

The fourth expedition was where I had first met Netero. He and two others were the only people to make it further inland to meet me. By that time the wildlife was extremely violent and aggressive.

The very smell of a human was enough to make them show murderous intent.

The three of them were strong. But they could only survive when the ones I called my family were growing mad. Every beast in the Dark Continent is powerful.

Netero himself was a strange person. He had come to this place to 'find a great opponent', but he can barely survive. His Hatsu is strong, but he can barely use it.

Countless beings that can kill him quickly are scattered around that Continent.

They were lucky they didn't go further inland to the beast that taught me how to use Nen... I once called it my Teacher. But it became aggressive like the rest...

The group they came with was also here to collect something. The humans called it the 'Trinity Elixir', but they didn't even make it that far.

Their presence gave birth to a new Calamity. It proceeded to kill all but the three of them. Who only barely escaped.

My meeting with them was not exactly friendly. The old man was a lot younger at that time too. I remember the other two as well. Linne was one of them, she is still alive. Although she is looking quite dead by now.

What can you expect from people, they usually aren't meant to live for over a century. In retrospect, I should be a lot older than most of them. But I still look in my twenties. So I will never stop considering myself 26.

There was also Zigg Zoldyck. The one that taught me a few tricks

I left the Dark Continent with the three of them. I protected them and showed them the way to certain places.

In a sense, they owe me their lives.

At first, I wanted to kill them. But I realised that I couldn't call the Dark Continent my home anymore. It was no longer a welcoming place.

I decided to let them take me to human lands. With determination in my mind.

My only goal? To get rid of humanity. The calamities were certainly slacking off. Only sitting around and waiting for humans to further defile my home was foolish.

I needed to do something if I wanted to return to my peaceful life. The humans would only keep coming if I just let them be. They needed to be wiped off of the face of the earth.

Upon reaching the human world, I instantly became interested in science. My curious nature led me to the darkest parts of humanity.

But I also found traces of hope in the madness. Only found in a few people across the world, a strong desire to better the world around them and help others.

After witnessing both the bad and the good. My naive goal was somewhat altered.

I no longer wished to bring ruin to the world with my own hands.

I decided to take a different approach, focusing my time and talent on a single evolutionary part.

Nuclear Bombs. Weapons of mass destruction created by the bloodshed of war. At first, they were used by a single nation to dominate the others.

But the rest followed their example quickly, with every country building its own.

I will dedicate all of my efforts to improving this weapon. Only I know the amount of time that I spent in that well-lit laboratory.

My only company being my thoughts. Some may call me insane, others may call me obsessed, but I call myself driven.

Netero is one of the few people that know of my past. He also knows of my desire.

To the rest of the world, I was just an unnamed stowaway that was unfortunate enough to wind up in the expedition to the Dark Continent.

I faded into obscurity and disappeared from the public eye almost instantly. But Netero was always paying attention to my actions.

Me finding interest in the ants shouldn't come as a surprise to the old man.

_________ POV Narration__________

And Ashton was completely right. Netero didn't find his presence all that surprising.

Some confusion was present, but this was an outcome the senile old man was expecting.

He had thought of this after hearing of him not helping Kite. Or 'Peacing out right before conflict happens' as the scientist liked to call it.

He had a habit of not engaging in battles in which he wasn't attacked directly.

It went to the point where Netero thought it was a condition of his explosive Hatsu.

And he was right. The condition for living beings to be inflicted by the parasitic explosion was for them to attack first.

Their attack doesn't even need to land. As long as the user feels like someone physically threatened him the one that initiated the conflict would become a target for Ashton's Hatsu.

It was a strange condition to have, but it strengthened the Hatsu by a large margin.

It was also filled with loopholes. Just like any other good Hatsu condition.

Netero being aware of Ashton's Hatsu wasn't going to help him a lot. But the old man had a brilliant idea.

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Hope you liked the character's backstory! I put a bit of thought into it.

Same for the condition, I really liked thinking of things like that.

Remember, this was only how things went from his perspective. More on his time spent in the human world will be told later. Same for his Hatsu.

Patre.on is here--->