Mark and his Ma reach home. He drops what he carries before untying his shoelace. After that, he takes off all of the items that are in the plastic bag. He inspects all of the items that they bought today.
"Looks like I'm ready for Monday." He mutters as he looks at the school supplies on the floor.
"That's good to know Mark." His Ma replies, on her way to her bedroom.
"I'll put this in my bag now."
Mark rushes to his bedroom, where he sees his new, unused bag still hanging in the corner of the room. The bag was a gift from one of his aunts a month ago, as a "back-to-school" thing.
"Thanks, Aunt, I appreciate your help." He says to himself as he grabs the bag, then he dashes back to the living room.
He neatly packs the newly bought school supplies into his bag. As he placed half of the notebooks, he realized something.
"I forgot to name them."
Mark brings out the notebooks that he put into his bag, then he grabs a marker from a pen container and returns. On the floor, he slowly and carefully labels the notebooks. After labeling, he slides the notebooks into the bag, as well as the remaining school supplies.
His Ma enters the living room, smiling at her son.
"How's the school supplies, Mark?" His Ma asks, still grinning.
"These are amazing! Thank you, Ma!" He beamed.
After packing up, he goes back to his bedroom, along with the filled bag.
"Ma, I'll stay in my bedroom for a while." He leans his body out of the room.
"Go ahead, Mark." She replies.
He enters his room fully. As he drops his bag on the shelf below the study desk, he immediately picks up an electric guitar that he has located at the side of the desk.
He sits on his bed, as he tunes his guitar, then he warms up by playing random notes in several scales. Despite him playing what seemed like random notes, the melody sounds majestic.
After playing the notes, he starts playing chords, experimenting with interesting chords on the fly.
After playing several chords, he sets up his guitar, so that he can finally hear the genuine electric guitar sounds.
So far, he only has an amplifier, followed by a pedal board that's basically an all-in-one, and lastly, his guitar.
He selects a clean tone from the presets available. Then he starts playing the same warm-up routine, but only half the time.
He starts playing the guitar, making melodic licks, each note emphasizing emotion, at least according to him. He then starts tapping the upper half of the string with his left hand, and the lower half with his right hand, making a lick.
Right after he finishes the lick, his eyes widen, amazed by the sound of it.
"Damn. That's a lick..."
He looks away for a second, processing what happened.
"That's a lick! Lemme record that!"
He sets up a phone stand, locks his phone in place, then hits record after a second of pausing, ensuring the position of the camera.
He lunges forward, positioning himself in front of the camera with his guitar while sitting on the bed.
"I wish this gets recorded." He mutters.
Despite the worry, the phone is playing perfectly alright, and his own guitar is also in frame.
He starts playing the lick that he played earlier. He finished the lick with no surface-level errors, but he tried to listen to the song on his phone.
"Damn, the notes are not aligned properly. I should definitely use a metronome."
He opens a metronome app on his phone, then he makes the metronome play. He then starts another video, and he positions himself in front of the camera.
As the video plays, the metronome can be heard loudly from his position. He starts to play again. The metronome definitely helped with his timing, as the lick becomes satisfying to listen to, unlike the last take.
After the lick, he ends the video, as well as the metronome. He watches the video, and it sounds perfect for him, as well as the video capturing his play perfectly and in frame. A shiver ran down his spine, followed by goosebumps. A few moments later, the shiver fades, and he gains back his senses.
"There's no way people won't love that lick."
He edits the video a little bit, then he uploads it to MeTube. After uploading, he looks at his MeTube channel. It's named "KuroGuitars", with 4xx subscribers, as well as each video gaining 200 views at minimum, and his most viral video yet has amassed over 1.6 thousand views. He smiles as he looks at his success.
"It's not a lot, but at least I started somewhere."
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
Flashback. 2 years ago.
It's Christmas Day, and the family gathers around the dinner table. Mark, his Ma, and his Pa are seen happily enjoying dinner.
"So Mark, I've noticed that you've been playing the guitar for a while." His Pa says what he observed.
"Yeah, Pa. In fact, I was playing Christmas carols around town, which made it possible for me to buy a gift for both you and Ma." Mark replies.
"Aww. That's sweet of you Mark."
"Thanks, Ma."
"Why don't you play the guitar in front of us?"
"No problem Pa, I will give you a warm presentation."
After they eat dinner, and clean up the table. Mark gets his acoustic guitar, and he sits on the couch. The lights dim out, as if they highlight the warmness of a happy Christmas home.
"Can I play now?" Mark asks.
"Go ahead Mark, we're always ready to listen." His Ma replies.
While his Ma is happily waiting, his Pa is nowhere to be seen, but he doesn't mind.
He strums the first chord of the Christmas song, the atmosphere lights up with warmth, and the jolliness spreads as each strum is played.
After a while, the chorus hits, his Pa appears, with a large box handled with his two arms.
His smile grows more as he looks at the present being brought down to the floor near him. He doesn't know what it is, yet he's excited about it. Despite his excitement, he controlled it until the end of the song, seamlessly playing it throughout.
"Pa, what's that?" Mark asks.
"It's something that I wanted to buy for you. For the longest time, I've always seen that you are interested in a certain thing. And due to that, I decided to give it to you." His Pa replies.
"Come on Pa, you're being vague again!"
At this point, Mark doesn't have any idea what's in the box, even the slightest speculation of what it is.
"If you want to know, just open it." His Pa replies again.
Mark puts his guitar somewhere safe. After that, he rips the box's colorful wrap carefully, not trying to cause a mess. He also doesn't want to carry it, since it will tell him what it is right away, speculatively.
After ripping it for a while, he finds a two-piece box, it's plain brown, yet he can just open the box by pulling the upper section, and he does.
And after removing the extra wraps, a white Stratocaster greets him. His emotions got suppressed for a while as he lifted up the guitar.
"Wait... Is this really mine?" He asks audibly.
"Yes Mark, that's yours." His Pa said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He bows slightly towards his Pa.
"Pa, Ma, thank you!"
He raises his back straight, then he plays the Christmas song on the guitar, but due to his excitement, the play felt awkward, but everyone is still smiling, so it doesn't matter.
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
"Ah, back when this guitar was gifted to me, one of the happiest days of my life," Kuro speaks on the back of his breath.
He goes to the home page of MeTube, one of the thumbnails in his feed caught his attention; it's a video with the face of a familiar person on it. The video is titled: "Where is this culprit?".
"Ah, Akko, I miss him even to this day."
AkkoGuitars, also known as Akko, was a well-respected composer, well-known for being a multi-genre musician. He touched every genre, with seemingly no bias towards a single genre. But his loyal fans know that he has a deep love towards Rock music, sometimes integrating the guitar into genres that don't have such an instrument, yet he seemingly blends it smoothly.
Four years ago, Akko was exposed, revealing that he was a criminal involved in numerous illegal activities. Without apologizing, he leaves his trace on the internet. Many forgot what happened until shocking news broke through a year later. The company Darklight Defenses shuts down. Everyone immediately speculates that both Akko did the destruction of the company, and the company is the reason for the disappearance of Akko. Due to the rumors and due to how negative an image Darklight has had for the entire time, a lot of people beg Akko to come back, yet he doesn't, even to this day.
Mark watches the video anyway. The video first talks about the history of Akko, then what he did, and where he is now, which is just a theory, making Mark furious.
"What a master clickbaiter." He sighs as he puts his phone away.
He keeps playing his guitar to kill time until the sky fades to dusk.
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
It's almost midnight, his Ma is asleep, and his Pa hasn't come home yet. Mark quietly leaves the house, as it's time for Devil Hunting.
As he opens the door, the haunting feeling starts to appear. The feeling that one day, he will disappear. Everyone he knows, everyone he loves, will suddenly ask: "Where is he?"
A cold sensation presses down on his shoulders, but despite that, he has no choice but to leave. He has to leave because the Devils are menaces, and he doesn't want the world to suffer. And as the only person who can see Devils, and know about them, he has a responsibility that he carried from his birth.
He clenches his fist. No matter what happens, he can't afford to stop. And so, with determination, he finally left.
He sprints through the forest, and the trees start blurring as he steps side to side.
"It's downtown time!"
He keeps up the pace of his inhuman speed while dodging all the trees that come towards him. After a while, he reaches the downtown district.
The road is quiet with no one around. Tier 1 Devils can be seen walking around, as well as a few Tier 2 Devils, which are like Tier 1 Devils, but can control multiple people.
His presence alerts the crowd. Although the Devils rattled like they're scared, they still all charge towards him.
Kuro summons his odachi, then he swings his blade swiftly from left to right, slicing through the horde with no effort. After a while, the horde dissipates, barely giving Mark any challenge at all.
"That warm-up is amazing, what's next?"
As he takes a few steps, a Tier 3 Devil appears, its mouth opens widely, probably enough to fit a car. The mouth releases spikes that extend and bend like rubber, hurling towards Mark. Mark quickly steps aside, deflecting a spike in the process. He then lunges forward, swinging his blade. The blade gets deflected by a spike, and due to the recoil, it gives him a chance to attack differently. Due to the number of weapons the Devil has, he realizes that his strategy is not working, so he backs off.
As he backs off, many Tier 1 Devils approach him, forcing him to flee for a moment. While on the loose, he slashes some Devils, as well as sometimes grabbing them, collecting their remains immediately to be used as a part of his mana pool. While all that is happening, Mark also has to avoid the spikes that the Tier 3 Devil fires at him. The spikes slither through the cracks on the floors and ceilings, before bursting in multiple directions. Mark has to move a lot; move across buildings, jumping and dropping from storey to storey.
Mark reaches an open area—a well-known park. He's surrounded by Tier 1 Devils, as well as a few Tier 2 Devils, but out of them all, one of them stands out; the Tier 3 Devil.
As he finished posing, he charged at the Tier 3 Devil, and all of them charged back at once. The Tier 3 summons its spikes from its mouth, which makes it more difficult. For every slash, he also has to launch himself to the side to avoid such attacks.
After a while, the number of Devils in the area starts to dwindle, giving him the chance to start attacking the Tier 3 Devil.
He charged at the Devil, and the Devil yawned wide open, retaliating with a flurry of spikes that travel like javelins. As he moves forward at blistering speeds, he avoids and slices the spikes that come to him. After the travel, he lands his sword deep into the Devil. The Devil screams with an eerie, disturbing sound.
The sound staggered him, for just a moment, the Devil capitalized on it. The Devil opens its mouth full 180 degrees in an instant, throwing spikes everywhere. He tries to dodge the volley, moving side to side, going farther from where the Devil is.
After a while, the Devil stops throwing spikes, and he immediately stops after that. A sharp pain suddenly stabbed his side. He inspects it, and the side of his abdomen is bleeding with glowing, purple liquid.
Without giving a breather, the Devil approaches him instantly, its exaggeratedly open mouth is filled with small spikes that look like a bunch of small holes which are currently facing him. The side of its body is filled with extending, bending spikes.
The Devil swings a few of its spikes towards him, but he immediately disappears. He appears behind it, then lunges immediately, but it gets blocked, the sword gets tangled by the spikes, forcing him to leave it by jumping upward. The spikes chase him to the top, but before they can all reach, the sword glows, then it explodes in a burst of purple energy, breaking all of the spikes.
He immediately replaces his sword, then he drops downward, where the Devil is conveniently located. Before it can even replace its spikes, he lands his sword on its body one more time. Spikes immediately follow up, summoning from the inside of its body. He throws the Devil horizontally with his sword. Spikes appear from its back, which deal a lot of damage to the Devil. And soon enough, the Devil disappears, with its remains left behind after the dust settles.
He approaches the remains, then he inspects them, which shows the following:
***
[Porcupine]
+ (Active) Summons spikes around your body.
- Increased vulnerability to all damages. Applies both to the physical and spiritual realm.
***
"This is garbage!" Mark exclaims.
First of all, the pro is hardly useful, as he has never been overwhelmed by a large quantity of Devils, even if all of them are Tier 2s chasing his tail. And he's worried that the ability is not useful past Tier 3.
But even if he makes use of it, the cons are simply not worth it. Despite Cut Through having a debuff, that debuff is only specific, unlike Porcupine, which not only includes cuts to be more lethal, but also other types of damage.
After a short thought, he immediately sent it to his mana pool. Due to it being a Tier 3, it increased his pool by a satisfying amount.
After embracing the boost of his mana pool, he decides to leave the scene. The damage starts to repair itself.
No matter if the Devil's remains end up as ability or mana, he still has to collect them. This is because Mark's mana pool does not regenerate. Despite his mana pool being potentially limitless, he still has to exterminate Devils to regain his lost mana.
"I need to rest a little, I'm tired." He exclaims, sighing afterwards.
For a moment, his surroundings become silent, and he finds it unusual, maybe because the other Devils are not here yet.