--- [Lucas’s perspective]

The first round ended so quickly.

It wasn’t even a fight…

Now it’s already my turn…

“Now then, the fighters for the second round, Lucas and Vaman, may get ready.” – Leanne

There’s nothing for me to prepare for, I just need to do what I do best…

Fight.

“Good luck.” – Alex

“Thanks.” – Lucas

I jump down into the arena, and Vaman does the same.

“Alright, it seems both fighters are ready. Let the second match begin!” – Leanne

---

People first started noticing that something was different about me when I was still a small child.

When the other kids learned to crawl, I would walk.

When the others walked, I would run.

It was like I was one stage of development in front of everyone else.

By the time the other children could run, I was on a different level entirely…

While playing, when the other kids would try to touch me, I would instinctively move away.

Even if it was something simple like trying to hold my hand, I would always retract.

I didn’t mean anything by it, I just did it.

But that’s not how they saw it…

They thought I didn’t like them, that I didn’t want to play with them, or that I was too good for them.

None of that was true.

This led to me losing more and more of my friends over time.

One time, a group of kids wanted to pick on me by throwing stones at me.

As they continued to throw the rocks, they eventually noticed something…

I was standing there crying, but none of them were hitting me.

It’s not like their aim was bad, I was just instinctively avoiding every single rock.

Every, single, one…

This just creeped them out further, and the distance between me and my peers grew.

In my mind I was just like any other kid, but that couldn’t be further from the truth…

I felt so lost.

Why doesn’t people like me?

What did I do wrong?

Those kinds of thoughts filled my mind, and was all I could think about.

From that point onwards, my parents finally tried to figure out what was ‘wrong’ with me.

Turns out the reason why I was doing the things I was doing, was because I have three separate rare conditions that interact with each other in a weird way.

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I have unnatural levels of awareness over my body, I have hyperactive reflexes, and I have unheard-of levels of spatial awareness.

The combination of those three is what resulted in me being me.

My awareness over my own body allows me to move it in ways that other can’t.

The most noticeable thing is how precise my movements are.

I can move my body exactly how much I need to for a given task.

No more, no less.

Like for most people, if you make a fist, it’s incredibly hard, if not impossible, to fully extend your ring finger, without also moving your other fingers.

Other people also struggle with changing their tongue into certain shapes.

Even something like your hands shaking a little bit when you try to hold it perfectly still.

Whatever it may be, it’s not a problem for me.

I have absolute control over my body.

My hyperactive reflexes would make me react even when I didn’t mean to.

So, when someone tried to grab my hand, my body would interpret this as a threat, and instinctively retract it.

I don’t mean to do it, it just happens.

Fighting these instincts is almost impossible for me.

Letting someone touch me, feels like putting your hand on a hot stove, and not pulling it back.

Your body just reacts.

The third thing that was ‘special’ about me, was my spatial awareness.

I am always aware of exactly where my body is in space, and its relation to everything else around me.

Most people could make a decent estimate of how big the distance is between two objects; I know exactly how big is.

If someone throws a ball, most people could get a pretty decent estimate of where it will land.

I know exactly where it will land, how many times it will bounce, and how far it will roll.

All down to the millimeter…

The combination of these three conditions is what allowed me to avoid all those rocks that were thrown at me.

I was perfectly aware of every single stone that was flying towards me.

I knew exactly how close they were, and how long it would take for them to hit me.

I could move my body in any way possible that could allow me to dodge them.

But…

That alone would not have been enough.

I was standing there crying, wondering why they were being so mean to me.

I wasn’t trying to dodge at all, I was just standing there.

This is where my reflexes came in.

Even if I didn’t try to dodge, I would automatically do it.

It’s a perfect defense.

Nowadays I tend to just call it ‘perfect muscle control’.

The only way to land an attack on me is if it’s physically impossible for me to avoid it, or if I have no way of knowing it’s coming.

After learning what was ‘wrong’ with me, my parents decided to send me to therapy.

I needed to learn to control my reflexes.

It took years and years of hard work, but eventually I learned to somewhat control it.

When I say it’s like leaving your hand on a hot stove, I’m not lying.

Not pulling my hand away when someone tries to touch, it physically hurts.

It’s pure agony.

But I learned to cope with it, so that I could live a relatively normal life.

By the time I was 12 years old, most people would see me as a normal kid.

For the first time in many years, I finally had friends.

My life had gotten significantly better compared to how it was when I was little.

Or…

At least that’s what I told myself…

When I became a little older, my parents would make me work.

I needed to start earning some money for the family.

I tried working in the shop that my parents owned for a while, but my performance was so bad my own parents fired me…

I tried working some other places too, but nothing really worked out for me.

It was all because I was suppressing my reflexes.

It hurts…

It really, really hurts.

When I just went to school, I would at least have half a day to rest and recover.

Having to suppress them at school, only to then also suppress them at work, was just too much.

I couldn’t concentrate during class, but more importantly, I could barely even function properly at work.

Even the most basic tasks became these monumental challenges that I had to put my all into to overcome…

There was a professor that I was somewhat close with, and I opened up to him about my issues.

It turns out he was an ex-hunter.

He had worked as a hunter for many years in his younger days, he even reached E-rank!

The reason he stopped as because he had seen one too many of his close friends meet an early end, it was too much for him.

It was like something clicked in my mind.

I knew that I could never be a productive member of society doing normal jobs.

Being a hunter was different though…

It was a place where not only would I not have to suppress myself all the time.

I could let loose, and truly be myself for once.

Never being touched, and by extension, never being hit, is just a positive in this field of work.

It was a place where I could not only function…

I could thrive!

This was the only thing I could ever see myself doing, no matter how dangerous the job might be.

The professor was hesitant at first to teach me BDM, but eventually I convinced him.

I would try even harder in school, and as a reward for getting good grades, he would teach me more.

This started when I was 15, and by the time I was 20, I had finally become an F-rank hunter.

Five more years have passed since then, and I’m now trying to become an E-rank hunter, the same rank my professor once was…

This is the one place where I can be the best, where I can live to the fullest, and where I can be myself.

I won’t let anyone get in my way.