“The hell are you doing here, Kuzuma?”, “You know, just checking on you.”, he replied with a smirk on his face. “I thought you were trying to kill me? Is this some kind of enemy to lovers shit?”, I mockingly asked. “I am the only one who’s allowed to kill you. That’s what the boss said. So I was sent to make sure you’re alive.”.

“Then why isn’t he coming here by himself? And just kills me now? Is he too afraid of me perhaps?”, I nervously asked. “He is doing something at the moment. He sadly can’t come here by himself.”.

I just stared at him before slowly walking away again. As I turned around, he appeared in front of me again. “Where do you think you’re going?”, Kuzuma said. “Home. Where else am I supposed to go?”, I replied, slightly pissed off.

“You better get rid of that attitude. I’ll follow you. If you contact anyone, I’ll personally kill him.”, he explained. Here I am. Sitting in the living room of my Grandma’s house eating popcorn with a random dude while watching Scary Movie.

He wasn’t even eating any popcorn or watching the movie at all. He was just observing me the whole movie. “Can you like, not stare at me all the time? That’s creepy as fuck dude..”, I exclaimed. No reply. He just kept staring at me.

“Ok Kuzuma... I get that you’re loyal to your boss and all, but at least tell me why you’re following me or who he is.”, I nervously asked.

“We have this little hideout we call ´Der Generator´. It is impossible to find by normal means, since it’s mostly underground. He is there most of the time, doing some random research or trying to complete his ultimate goal.”, he calmly explained.

Ultimate goal? The hell did he mean by that? We, or I, continued to watch the movie, as the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.”, Kuzuma announced. He came back after a couple of minutes with two Pizzas in his hand.

“I thought I’ll get you one too if we’re already waiting for my boss.”, he told me. “Hey Kuzuma… You uh, wanna go shopping later?”, I nervously asked. “Hey, if you pay me enough money, I’ll babysit you every day.”, he replied.

So here we are, wandering through the streets, going from shop to shop buying useless things and a ton of food. Could this possibly be the start of a friendship? Nah, I better not tell Kuzuma or even dare ask him. But if he doesn’t kill me, I think we’d make a good team.

“Hey Kuzuma, about that necklace of yours.. After I defeated you once. I may or may not have looked inside it. Who's the girl in the picture?”, “My sister. She is the reason I started all this. No more talking about it, alright?”, he replied. I wanted to know more.

His sister looked awfully similar to Hana, which made me want to know even more. How did his sister start all this? Whos Kuzuma’s Boss? And why the hell is he hiding like a rat? We kept walking through the streets and eating food every now and then.

Kuzuma even had to throw up after eating sushi! Overall, it was a pretty funny day, compared to the funeral earlier. At least he didn’t try to kill me this time I guess. As we were walking back home, we heard a crowd of screaming people run towards us.

“A Monster!”, “He’s gonna kill all of us!”, “Run for your life!”.

Those are the things we heard the most. I started to get worried, but Kuzuma tried to stay cool and all. Keeping that stern look and all. We ran towards where the crowd came from and all we saw was a normal guy.

I mean, he did look like he was having a stroke or an epileptic attack, but he didn’t look like a monster to me… Ok maybe kind of, but nothing specific.

“So he finally tested it? Why now?”, Kuzuma worriedly mumbled to himself. “Did what?”, I nervously asked him. The guy slowly pulled out a syringe from his back. It wasn’t just an ordinary syringe, it looked like some noble one with all these golden accents.

White foam started to come out of his mouth like he had rabies or some shit. He bent over and his whole body started to deform. His body became all bulky and a black-ish tone in color with light green bioluminescent patterns across its entire body.

His maw is filled with teeth, with the two back fangs appearing almost tusk-like. Inside his jaw, was a second smaller jaw like some Xenomorph shit. His head was aligned with short horn-like frills, with 2 sets of whiskers on his cheek on each side.

His legs were short and muscular, probably perfect to balance his weight. Each foot had 4 claw-like toes with one of them curving upwards a bit. His arms were long, with “hands” at the end of them.

He had an extra, larger pair of arms as well. He also grew a medium-sized tail with spikes on the top, which is weird. I’m just hoping he grew this tail new and it wasn’t already an existing limb of his…

He was screaming the entire time during his “transformation”. It was definitely nightmare fuel. Straight outta some Alien or Saw movie. “So uh Kuzuma? What the hell are we supposed to do now? Don’t think he wants the sushi you threw up earlier y’know.”.

Kuzuma didn’t even look at me. He was focused on the creature. He looked like he was trying to find out why exactly it was here. And who did that. “You know, if we’re already fighting this thing, we could also give it a cool name. What do you think about Abyssclaw? or Dreadface? Both sound pretty badass if you ask me.”, I nervously asked.

“Will you shut up for one second? I’m trying to focus and find out about his weak points.”, Kuzuma replied. Wannabe-tough guy, am I right? Who needs some stupid strategies when you can just go hack and slash style! Spray and pray! Like in some 90s slasher movie, just run at your victim and slice it wide open!

I ran towards the Dreadface as I jumped up and prepared a Flame Punch. Not gonna lie, Dreadface does sound pretty badass. As I was about to punch it, it caught me mid-air using one of his large arms and threw me at a building.

The Dreadface started running towards Kuzuma, who effortlessly dodged his tackle. Seriously, how does such a lazy guy move at such high speeds? I mean, to me it’s pretty ironic. The Dreadface stood up on his hind legs and started shooting acid towards Kuzuma.

Kuzuma started to move at inhumane speeds, dodging the acid bullets and acid lake created by the monster. He jumped up and sliced his entire belly open, from tail to throat. Safe to say, he only got more angry from there on.

He spewed out even more acid, but this time not in small bullets but more like a constant beam. Like these compressed thin water beams that cut through anything. Except that this one wasn’t thin.

I slowly stood up again and hobbled towards the thing. I put my hand in front of me and tried to summon my arc again. “Show yourself! Or something…”, I shouted. To my surprise, it showed itself without embarrassing me unnecessarily.

I feel like our relationship is finally growing. My arc and I began to run towards the Dreadface to hit it with that dual-combo you always see in those Anime. We landed a couple hits, and even some critical hits here and there. It was somehow just focused on Kuzuma, like it wanted him gone.

Either because Kuzuma is way stronger than me or it was some personal matter. Nonetheless, I kept attacking it over and over again with my arc helping and supporting me. “Let me try something new! Watch this, K!”, I shouted, jumping up into the air and kicking in front of me in a wide arc-like shape, shooting a small fire projectile formed like a halfmoon.

“Flame Manipulation: Melting Halfmoon Arc!”. I feel like each time I summon my arc and use it in a fight, our relationship just grows stronger, and so do I. My attack hit the Dreadface right into his mouth, knocking him onto his back.

Kuzuma quickly jumped up and stabbed his heart. “Ichiken! Now! Attack his heart!”, he screamed. I leaped into the air and stomped onto the wound Kuzuma created. “Flame Manipulation: Bone Burning Hellfire!”.

A gigantic Flame Pillar erupted from the floor beneath my foot and the Monster’s body, melting his entire torso. His body slowly started to fade away and reveal a naked, molten human inside him.

He looked like he had some kind of blight on him. His jaw was completely dislocated and rearranged. He had bubbles all over him and he was walking on all 4. “More! I need more! Give me more!” were the only words he was able to speak.

If you can even call that speaking in the first place. He ran past me and Kuzuma into some strange dark alley, probably hoping to find more of his weird serum.

“So uh… We just leave him be, I guess?”, “Yeah, the police are probably gonna find him and take care of him. Now that we’re done with your Dreadface… I gotta admit it’s a cool name Ichiken.”, “Yeah, right?”

“Whatever! Focus! Now that we’re done, we should finish our business here too, right?”, he explained, with a cold and serious tone. He slowly unsheathed his sword and entered a fighting stance.

He was a completely new man. Changed. Something in him snapped or something.

“Ready for round 2, dipshit?”, he mockingly shouted. I entered a stance as well, my arc standing next to me and waiting eagerly to beat him up. “At least I’m prepared this time, right?”, I replied, clenching my fists and engulfing them in flames.