Dormant Memories [1]

"Sierra Alden, what are you doing here?"

"...!"

The girl surrounded by thugs suddenly flinched, hearing the grave voice of the man who was the root cause behind her misery for the last few days.

As she turned her head in the direction his deep voice had come from, her grayish-blue eyes widened, seeing the manifestation of her recent nightmares standing a few steps behind one of the thugs – his fists clenched tightly as he stared back at her with a seemingly cold gaze.

"Da...D-Damien...?"

Sierra stuttered out his name, bewildered as well as afraid to see him suddenly appear in front of her. But unexpectedly, she also felt a sense of relief washing over her at this moment, seeing his tall figure menacingly looming over the half-drunk thugs.

'No, why am I feeling relieved? This bastard is just as bad as these guys!'

Her heart still trembled whenever she thought back on the terrible things he did to her three days ago. It was absolutely unforgivable!

And now, when she had finally made up her mind to slowly fix all the mistakes she had committed back then....this had to happen.

But hey, now that he was here, at least these thugs won't bother her anymore, right?

'...If nothing else, he should do at least this much to atone for what he did to me!'

At first, the half-drunk thugs were a little startled to see a stranger silently lurking behind them. But when they saw that their prey apparently knew this stranger, their joyful moods immediately soured.

"Huuuh? Now who the hell are you, big guy? Have we ever met before...?"

"...Don't tell me it's a wannabe Hero interrupting us again? 'Cause I'm getting really tired of those bullshit preachers, man."

Saying that, one of the thugs suddenly pulled out a knife out of his pocket, waving it around like a madman as he stepped closer to the intruder.

"Now lookie here, you shithead. I've had a reaaally bad day today, and I reaaaally wanted some warm pussy to cheer me up for tomorrow. So can you kindly just turn around and get the fuck out of here? 'Cause I'm in no mood to play around right now, yeah?"

The cold look in Damien's eyes intensified as he silently followed the movement of the knife with his eyes, before looking at the tearful girl trembling at their back, who was staring back at him with a despairing expression.

"Hmm..."

With a humming sound, he visibly agonized over something, before finally coming to a decision after a few moments of tense silence.

Taking a deep breath, he then looked at the thug in front of him with a cynical expression, completely ignoring the knife still twirling in his hand.

"...She's my woman. Get lost!"

*Clink-!*

"What...what did you just say? ...Your woman?"

It was so unexpected that the thug forgot to keep the knife spinning. His eyelids twitched as he finally began to hold the knife properly in his hand.

All the other thugs were also baffled by this idiot's guts, silently looking at each other to see if they heard him right.

'Damn. Looks like we're gonna have a spectator tonight...'

Knowing the strange taste of their fellow brother, they suddenly felt a little pity for this Heroic fool. After all, he was more or less guaranteed to be traumatized by the next morning.

'Oh no, why didn't he just call the police? Does he really want to die? Saying something like that to someone with a knife...?!'

Even the tearful Sierra, who was despairing because of the suddenly taken out knife, was taken aback by his behavior, quickly growing pale from thinking about the bloody outcome of Damien's idiotic reply.

However, the perpetrator of all this seemed strangely calm and collected, as if he didn't just seal his fate with those brave yet foolish words.

"Fuckin' hell. Okay, hotshot. If she's your girl, you can have the privilege of watching it live while we take her to paradise in a minute. Hah!"

The knife wielding thug suddenly thrust out the blade, aiming to stab it into Damien's liver and immobilize him in one go.

"Look out!!!"

A terrified scream unconsciously burst out of Sierra's mouth. 

In the end, no matter how detestable this Damien might be to her, she didn't really wish for his death either. Not to mention that right now, he was actually standing up for her.

Unfortunately, however, her scream held no real power over the blade.

Within the blink of an eye, the sharp end of the knife silently cut through the air, appearing right in front of the unguarded Damien's belly area, causing the thug wielding it to crack an evil smile.

– Catch!

...However, the bloody scene everyone was expecting in the next moment, did not occur at all. 

Instead, the man they all thought was dead meat for provoking a guy with a knife was still standing there without a scratch, one of his hands clutching onto the knife-wielder's hand and stopping it right before it could penetrate his skin.

"Huh...?"

The captured thug's expression was strange. He seemed to struggle desperately in order to free his hand from Damien's grasp, but this meddling person's grip didn't seem to loosen for a single moment.

'Dammit. What the hell is this guy?!'

The look on this thug's face soon turned grave, realizing that no matter what he did, he wasn't able to free his knife from this man's grip at all. 

"...Then, eat this!"

With a desperate light flashing in his eyes, he then attempted to throw a straight punch at this guy's irritatingly handsome face, even if only to distract him and free his weapon from this man's hold.

*Srrrk-!*

However, with a slight turn of his body, Damien easily dodged the punch aiming for his face, before quickly moving to the side of this thug while still keeping the knife within his grasp. 

"Hmph!"

Then, sweeping with his leg, Damien swiftly broke the half-drunk thug's balance, causing him to lose his footing and fall down on the ground without being able to offer any resistance.

"Urgh–!"

Taking advantage of his position, Damien immediately snatched the knife out of the thug's hands, before fiercely driving it through his opponent's unprotected thighs.

"Arrrghhh!!!"

A pained scream suddenly tore through the silent night, and a steady stream of warm blood spurted out of the deep wound.

"...What just happened?"

Everything seemed to have happened within the blink of an eye. 

None of the thugs were able to react before their fellow brother was already lying on the ground, groaning in pain as a stream of blood slowly leaked out of his wound.

"Fuck, that guy took down our brother! Quickly take him out, otherwise our Franky is gonna die!"

"Hey, wait! He's got Franky's blade now!"

Without sparing those panicking thugs a glance, Damien shakily pulled the bloodied knife out of the groaning thug. 

He then gave its rough handle a few tight squeezes, as if he wanted to confirm whether it was the real deal or not.

"Hah."

He then stared back at the vigilant thugs, a manic grin slowly spreading across his face.

"...Hey, your brother here is going to bleed to death if you don't get him stitched up soon enough. So why aren't you lot getting lost already? Or perhaps, you guys actually don't want to save him? Want me to seal the deal for him right now...?"

That seemed to have finally woken up the group of drunken thugs.

'Oh, shit. This guy was a damn psycho all along!'

With a wary look in their eyes, they quickly scuttled away from him like frightened squirrels, not forgetting to take their groaning injured member along with them.

The bloodied knife remained in Damien's hand all this time, sharply reminding them of the consequences of rashly going against this evidently 'insane' bastard.

When they finally disappeared from his view, the manic grin on Damien's face also died down slowly, replaced by a tired one instead.

"...Haah. Shit, I can't believe I lived through that."

Muttering something unintelligible under his breath, he looked back, spotting the person he had done all these 'insane' stuff to rescue, quietly standing in place. 

Her shocked eyes were still stuck to the bloody knife in his hand, trembling with an untold level of apprehension.

All this while, she thought that the Damien she knew only looked like a gangster. 

But now, she knew...

And as a result, the image she had of Damien in her mind was slowly but surely becoming increasingly scarier.

"Oh, right..."

Noticing that Sierra was visibly uncomfortable with all the blood, Damien quickly threw it away in the nearby dumpster, before grabbing her cold hand and pulling her along with him.

"Let's get going quickly before those guys call their reinforcements."

"Ah, w-wait...wait!"

He paid no attention to her weak protests though. 

Right now, there were far more important thoughts swirling inside his head that he needed to address before doing anything else.