Chapter 24 | The Childish Demon and memories.

Hiroshi and the demon stood meters away from each other. The demon only smiled and stood still, mocking Hiroshi with funny faces.

Hiroshi stood still, with a serious expression readying his Axe. Hiroshi wanted to create minimal damage as possible. Unlike the Prime District, he was in a town where people occupied buildings, not outdoors in the fields.

"Cmon! Cmon!" The demon laughed. "Let's play! Let's play! Let's play!"

Hiroshi launched toward the demon, winding up his Axe for an attack. He aimed towards the neck and slashed through, separating the demon's head from its body. However, blood did not spill out from the injury, instead, Hiroshi could see veins pumping up the sliced neck He immediately jumped back to his original position, waiting for what the demon was going to do next.

Finally, the demon regenerated its head from his neck. And continued laughing. Hiroshi couldn't seem but feel surprised at the regenerating demon. He knew it was going to be difficult to kill it.

"Good Try! Good Try!" The demon laughed. "Hey! Hey! Try again! Try again!"

Hiroshi launched toward the demon again, although this time he swung his Axe in a circular pattern attempting to amputate as many limbs as possible. He sliced through half of his torso and his right arm and the left leg. Hiroshi quickly jumped back meters away to see if it had worked. But like before, the demon regenerated its limbs again.

"Nice! Nice!" The demon laughed. "It's my turn! It's my turn!"

The demon leaped towards Hiroshi, swinging towards his face for an incoming punch. Hiroshi quickly evaded the attack, but the Demon was persistent and kept swinging its arms toward Hiroshi.

Hiroshi and the Demons body are both lined up parallel to each other, Hiroshi however, wasn't expecting a limb to rise from the demon's chest, uppercutting him in the chin.

Hiroshi stumbled back meters away from the demon. The punch did hurt leaving a mark on his chin, but it wasn't too serious. Hiroshi noted that the demon could generate extra limbs, so it was best to keep a good distance away from its arms reach.

"Good job me! Good job me!" The demon laughed. "Let's go again! Let's go again!"

Hiroshi readied up the flames of his Axe. Despite this demon's unique abilities, its attacks were still weak. Hiroshi leaped towards the demon, swinging his Axe with full strength towards the demon's left arm. He cut through and prepared to amputate the next arm, disabling the demon. But the demon regenerated another arm, hitting Hiroshi in the jaw, temporarily putting him on a cooldown from attacking.

"HA! HA! HA!" The demon laughed with crazed eyes. "YOU FELL FOR MY TRAP!"

The demon proceeded to regenerate a dozen of limbs in front of Hiroshi, barraging him simultaneously in the face. Hiroshi could feel his face becoming numb to the pain. But he tried his best to ignore it, he clenched his Axe harder, erupting it with flames.

"No! You fell for MY trap! Hiroshi" thought. Hiroshi passed the flames off of his Axe onto the Demon, engulfing it in flames. The demon stopped hitting Hiroshi and fell to its knees crying from pain.

"NO! NO! NO!" The demon cried out. "THIS- THis- this... can't... be... happeni-"

The demon burned to ashes, not leaving a trace behind. However, Hiroshi was saddened that he couldn't have gotten a syringe full of demon blood. He felt disappointed and turned around heading out of the alleyway.

Steven and Shak sat down on a bench alongside the puppy. They both were silent for moments until Steven brought up a topic.

"So, what's the ability of your sword?"

"Huh? My sword?" Shak said. "Well, it can kill an enemy in one attack."

"WOAH!" Steven exclaimed. "THAT'S LIKE, SO OVERPOWERED!"

"Yes, but besides that, it doesn't give me any boosts or abilities," Shak stated. "It doesn't even grant me amplified healing or the boosts that you get."

"Oh, I see," Steven said. "So besides that, you're just a regular human being."

"That's right," Shak stated. "I spent my whole childhood training alone; I wasn't granted shortcuts like you."

"Well, truth is," Steven said. "I never wanted to become a swordsman."

"Huh, so why do you wield that sword?" Shak asked.

"It accidentally granted me ownership of it after my father died Infront of me," Steven stated. "And I've been forced to live an irregular life ever since."

"My older brother died a long time ago; I was only four," Shak said staring at the night sky. "I had to fend for myself since I had no living relatives other than his children."

"I guess life is unfair to all," Steven said. "My mother was killed by demons, and my-"

Steven held his head with a pained face. His head was in extreme pain, as unknown memories were being forced into his head, they were all fuzzy and blurred which Steven could not recognize.

Shak held Steven trying to calm him down. "Calm down kiddo, relax, relax."

Steven's pain faded away and he began hyperventilating. He could feel like he was going to vomit. Finally, he calmed down.

"I'm sorry I just- I was going to say something but then my body reacted in a violent way like it was trying to suppress something." Steven stated.

"I'm guessing you have a suppressed memory." Shak said. "You were about to say something that was a suppressed memory, maybe it slipped out of your tongue, and you weren't even aware you were going to say it."

"I have bad nightmares sometimes," Steven said. "But I can never remember what those bad nightmares are, but I do know it's the same nightmare about the same thing that did happen, but I can't remember about it and I can only remember during the nightmare."

"I see," Shak said. "It might have to do with trauma."

"Just don't think about it too hard." Shak added getting off the bench.

"Right," Steven said getting off as the puppy got off too.

"Alright, let's go." Shak said as they both continued walking down the sidewalk.