Ano threw his backpack against the wall of his room, and vaulted onto his bed face-first. With Club Rush finally over, he could take a breather and relax- not that he was doing a whole lot of advertising all week in particular. The good news was, he had three new club members, and now his club was safe: the two boys he'd met on the first day of Club Rush, Emanuel and Ken, as well as Ken's sister, Dory. Despite his success at keeping his club afloat, Ano still wished he was able to get more people to join his club- maybe even a cute girl or two for him to impress with his anime knowledge.

"Yeah, fat chance," Ano said to himself as he rolled over to stare up at his ceiling. Above him, a poster of Jake Allister, the man once called The Infinite Menace, hung weakly. This poster was at least ten years old by this point- it was a limited-run poster that Ano was able to get when his parents took him to a convention when he was young.

Ano rolled into a sit at his bedside, and glanced around his room. Painted black at his request once he turned twelve, the room was cluttered with a variety of weight-training equipment on racks and littered about the floor. The walls were decorated with a collection of posters of his favorite metal bands, none of them nearly as old as his Jake Allister poster. Ano glanced at his desk, and the thick layer of dust that coated it; Ano never did his homework, letting the extra credit he earned from slaying Feeders carry him through his classes since he was in middle school. Ano looked to the foot of his bed, where his pair of sabers lie. Ever since he was a kid, he wanted to use a single sword- just like Jake- and charge brazenly into every fight, unafraid of death. Now that he's gotten older- and into more anime- he's come around on the idea of wielding a pair of swords instead. If only he could convince his parents to buy him katanas.

Ano threw himself up out of bed, and checked his clock. In about two hours, he'd need to get started on his practice, but that gave him two hours to do as he pleased. He walked over to his bookshelf, and pulled out the manga edition of "Reconciliation: Blood Feud," a series he'd gotten as an anime, so much so that he went out and bought the manga. He laid down on his bed, and let himself get wrapped up in the latest chapters.

Two and a half hours later, Ano closed the book and set it back in his bookshelf. He calmly walked over to his closet- spotting the clock on his way over, and turning that calm stride into a panicked run. If his dad found out he was slacking, he was dead.

Ano hopped over the fence into Narancia Park, where his first assignment of the night was located. He calmly walked to the center of the park, and sat down on one of the benches, which lay beneath a large awning. He pulled out his phone, and reached into his pocket for a small package of something else- only to be stopped by the voice of a child from behind him.

"Can you h-h-help me find my mom?" it asked in a sobbing voice that had an odd cadence to it, like a wind-up toy reaching the end of its life. The child was a young girl, dressed in a tattered black one-piece dress, with dark brown hair (or maybe black? It was hard to tell in the darkness) tied into a pair of pigtails.

"Sure, sure," Ano smiled to himself as he got up and knelt down next to the child. "What's she look like?"

"She- she- she- looks... like..."

"Aww, don't cry little freak. Just tell me where your momma is and I'll send you right on to her."

"She looks like a corpse!" A guttural voice echoed as her head ripped away from her body. The long, segmented body of a centipede rose out of her body, as her head rose up nearly two meters, still connected to her body by the centipede.

The centipede lunged down to bite Ano, but found itself being pulled in the other direction. Better question: where was its prey? It felt a sharp tug on its centipede neck, as it looked down to see a trail of blue light, carrying it by the throat. At last, the motion of the throat being pulled caught up with the rest of the head, as it was violently jerked backwards and trailed behind Ano. Ano let a wicked smile fall on his face as he slammed the part of the centipede's body that he'd grabbed into a post behind it, and watched with glee as the centipede spiraled around the post, coiling up around it, carried by the force by which he pulled it. With a satisfying crunch, the child's head crashed into the post, and fell limp by its body. The child's body began to thrash wildly as the Feeder attempted to free itself from the post, but was cut short- literally, by a bright slash of blue light, cleaving it clean in half.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Don't need a Mod to do that, do I?" Ano chuckled to himself as he spun his saber in his hand, watching the body crumble into ash. Ano looked down at the post, and caught sight of something. He knelt down, and felt the deep cut in it from his attack. Ano glanced quickly around him, seeing nobody around. "Wasn't me," he said with a smile as he sheathed his saber.

"W-w-what did you do-" a figure emerged from above Ano, on top of the awning that covered the benches, "to my daughter?!"

A massive centipede dropped down right next to Emanuel. It unfurled itself, revealing the upped torso of a woman at its head. But by the time it had uncoiled itself into its full five meters of length, Ano was already nowhere to be found, only a shimmering trail of blue light disappearing behind the Feeder.

"You know," Ano mocked as he grabbed the rear end of the centipede, "the problem with you big Feeders-" Ano's muscles tensed as Organion flowed through them, and the Feeder turned around and faced its would-be prey with horror as its body began to rise up off of the ground. "-is that you're just a big target!"

With shocking power, Ano spun the Feeder around himself, its body trailing outwards, its head colliding with each of the four posts that held up the awning, colliding last with the post Ano had damaged. Ano released the Feeder as it smashed into the post, letting its body crumple in a pile around it, as the post came down and crashed into the body of the Feeder below. Ano brushed the falling awning out of his way as it fluttered down, letting another sinister grin fall over his face. He unsheathed both of his sabers, and walked towards the Feeder, which now lay collapsed under the mass of the post. The upped body attempted to rise up, dazed from the repeated blows to the head, but was swiftly impaled back into the ground by one of Ano's swords. Ano grabbed the woman's head by the hair, pulling her up off the ground and taking the sword out of the concrete below with her. With one swift motion, he decapitated the woman, smiling down at her as she burst into ash, coating him.

"And now he won't be able to smell this," Ano smiled to himself. He reached back into his pocket, and pulled out the package he was reaching for earlier- a small pack of cigarettes. Ano pulled out a lighter, and lit his smoke, taking a deep puff of it.

Ano got home late that night, taking his time after completing his three assignments.

"Where have you been?" his father asked the moment he stepped through the door. Ano's father, Leonardo Esposito, was a superficially less of a man than his son- he was shorter, less muscular, and bore fewer scars. Despite that, there was a certain aura to the man that demanded respect, an aura that few could explain but anyone could attest to. Unlike his son, Leonardo's hair was black, but his eyes were still the same shade of light green as Ano.

"I was doing my assignments, father." Ano replied monotonously. He'd expected this conversation, but that made it no less unpleasant.

"Attitude, Tiziano."

"Sorry," Ano said, trying to fake as much respect in his voice as he could.

"Now, you were out until nine at night. Don't you have schoolwork to do?"

"It's done already."

"Is it now? I head you giggling in your room at those comics- you aren't lying to me, are you?"

"Of course not, I finished all my work at school."

"And came home right after school?"

"I did it during class."

"Instead of paying attention?"

"We were covering review material."

"Review material? Two weeks into the semester and you're reviewing?"

"We have a quiz coming up."

Leonardo stared up at his son, knowing he was most likely lying but having no way of proving it. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from making the insinuation.

"So, what did you review?"

"Polar capacity in homeroom. We also have a quiz in math, we're covering trigonometry."

Leonardo raised an eyebrow to his son.

"So what are the three trigonometric functions?"

"Sine, cosine, tangent."

"And what is sine of ninety degrees?"

"One."

Leonardo relaxed himself a little.

"All right, go upstairs. You need to be asleep by ten."

Ano nodded, and started to head up the stairs.

"Ano," his father called out behind him.

"Yes, father?"

"This had better not become a habit."

Ano nodded, and went up to his room.