We seek the truth when we’re at our lowest and seek a comforting lie when we’re at our happiest– Senseless

In a dark room, the only source of light was an old TV. "The city… such a beautiful place, isn’t it?" a man with short blonde hair and a wide, eerie smile said through the screen, his voice slightly distorted. "With its high glistening glass skyscrapers, futuristic automobiles in all different shapes and sizes, and occasional robots in front of stores advertising products and services, it’s quite remarkable how far humanity has advanced in only a matter of a hundred years." The rather spine-chilling anchor showcased many picturesque stock photos to accompany his speech.

"Oh, were there other things worth noting? Well, I guess it would be careless not to include the more minor changes that so happen to appear alongside humanity's improvements, such as the beat-up city streets littered with dirty homeless people who can't get a job no matter how much they try, or some who even have jobs but still can’t afford housing due to inflation."

The anchor continued smiling… and smiling.

"Ah, what else doesn’t seem too important? Perhaps the crimes that go unreported and get no news coverage if they don’t fit a specific narrative the government wants. Of course not, that’s not important at all. Perhaps the astounding spike in illegal drug usage such as Meth, Fentanyl, Cocaine, LSD, and many more?"

Abhorrent photos of overdosed victims' sprawled out bodies were displayed as if they meant nothing at all. "Want more? Well, okay then, how about the underground human and monster trafficking that the news acts like doesn’t exist? HAHAHA LOOK AT ALL THOSE CHILDREN GETTING KIDNAPPED!" With his hand covering his face, the anchor laughed comically, only for his cackles to be distorted by the old TV.

"Can't forget about the rising suicide rates– What? Oh, you don’t understand why I’m showing you this? Of course, you don’t! You don’t understand anything, do you?! You’re all brainwashed into thinking single-mindedly. You’re sheep. You’re all sheep! You never once stepped back and wondered why things are like this. Each and every single one of you has just accepted it!"

Laughing like a maniac, the screen began dripping red with blood while the voice grew deep and demonic. "Monsters? Are monsters truly the danger? Did they cause any of this? OPEN YOUR EYES! OPEN THEM! WE ARE THE TRUE MONSTERS–Bzzzzzzzzzzzz."

The screen went static…

#

The day had become dark, and in the crowded Tokyo metropolitan area, the collective screams of innocent people were heard. Some cried for help, and some were cut short by the sound of snapping bones reverberating from building to building. It was an unlucky day to be alive.

Civilians going about their day had red alerts on their smartphones, stating the rough coordinates and a threat level of an incident that occurred close by.

"Oh, great, another monster attack," scoffed a teenage brunette girl with rather revealing clothes. Clearly, she seemed annoyed that her texting session with her boyfriend had been disturbed so rudely. "I swear, what the hell does a gold-ranked threat even mean—" At that moment, the girl accidentally bumped into a stranger, causing her phone to slip out of her hands and crack on the asphalt.

She gulped in dismay and quickly checked her phone to see if it was broken, and not so surprisingly, it was. Without even seeing the stranger who had bumped into her, she exclaimed, "What the fuck, man? Watch where you’re going next—" her voice trailed off once she eyed the stranger, "...time."

With a large black trench coat and brown fedora, the tall man had a Starbucks coffee in his hand, slowly drinking it almost ominously. Perhaps his intimidating aura was due to his stature, but the sudden change of attitude in the girl was instantaneous. She swallowed her other remarks almost as soon as they were about to leave her mouth. "Oh…" the tall man said in a sonorous voice. He bent his head down, revealing the features underneath the large hat. "Pardon me."

The girl stayed stationary and bewildered long after the man passed her to continue walking. The only thing she could think of was his wild emerald eyes—the eyes of a hunter.

...

And so Asashi calmly continued sipping his coffee, humming a tune from a famous boy band from Korea. In his current mood, no one would guess that he was about to risk his life yet again. Perhaps he had grown used to it, who knows, and even he admitted that it almost felt therapeutic. Sirens from ambulances and AOK vans were getting louder and louder the closer he got to the danger, followed by screams of bystanders and high-pitched squeals of creatures he’d grown far too familiar with.

He had grown detached from all these agitating sounds. Human screams were as common as waking up to birds singing, and the crunching sound of bones were just like the crackling grease when he fried sunny-side-up eggs on his stove. Even when so many things were happening simultaneously, Asashi just couldn’t find it within him to care. The only thought present in his mind was— I just had a strong coffee at night, didn’t I? Hmm, that’s going to cause some trouble for my insomnia. Man, I still have to be present for the second challenge too. Such a pain in the ass. Asashi yawned and came to a halt.

There they were... in all their mighty glory. Salamacers.

At least a dozen were slithering and scaling on the city buildings. With a length of about five feet, these salamander-like monsters were smooth, slimy, and orange-red. Coupled with six grotesque limbs, they also had sticky webbed feet, allowing them to swiftly climb walls, or in this case, buildings. Their two blunt grey eyes and creepy thin mouth caused havoc... a lot of havoc.

Just their size and ability to climb were threats worthy of a high bronze rank, but unfortunately, their danger didn’t stop there. In front of Asashi, green goo covered the road, buildings, cars, and even innocent civilians who screamed in pain as their flesh started sinking into their bones and wilting away.

Green Acid… Asashi realized.

The lime-colored substance that Salamacers produced and spewed from their mouths was essentially acid, capable of melting even strong alloys such as steel and brick. One could easily imagine the result when faced with more fragile materials, such as human flesh. Their sneaky, keen combat skills and terrifying acid ability, on top of the fact that they moved in groups, made the combined threat level a Gold Rank minus.

"Move! Move! Move!" a Knight adorned with a silver-ranked badge ordered his troops as they began flocking out of the vans with an array of Sense weapons. The low-ranking Knights opened fire at the monsters from various angles. Their guns glowed with different colors as beams of energy shot out of them, but sadly, even when shots connected, they ended up doing nothing. That was because the Salamacers' skin produced a layer of bodily fluid that also happened to be the same one, granting them the ability to scale walls.

Asashi wasn’t so sure of its science, but he guessed it acted like a hydraulic fluid that could naturally neutralize fire. And since Sense Bullets were basically a condensed form of energy—similar to fire—the hydraulic fluid easily resisted its effects. In other words, it was a natural fluid created by Salamacers that also repelled their weapons.

But not all... Asashi quickly realized that.

Realizing their assault wasn’t doing anything, the troops pushed back in fear. Even with special helmets and their uniforms made from synthetic materials that repelled even acid, the danger of being torn apart by the monster's jaws was just as alarming.

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Unfortunately, there was an overconfident Knight in the group who continued firing his gun no matter the damage being dealt. Grunting with exhilaration and exhaustion, the young knight blasted a Salamacer a few feet away, and although the bold attack stunned the monster momentarily, the inexperienced Knight foolishly took that as a sign of victory.

"Did you see that?" the knight shouted to his withdrawn comrades. "I did i—"

"Kurt! Get back! Our guns don’t work on them!" the group commander roared against the sirens. The young Knight looked back, puzzled, not fully hearing his words.

"Huh? What did you say?"

The silver-ranked commander gritted his teeth behind his steel helmet. "I SAID FALL BACK!"

"Wha? But, why would I fall bac—"

Too late...

Asashi sighed and unsheathed his sword.

Everything happened in a blink of an eye...

Before the foolish Knight could return his attention to the danger, his hand was completely gone. The sound of blood dripping was the only dreadful reminder that the incident had occurred.

Kurt glanced at his now severed hand in disbelief, almost trying to comprehend if he was hallucinating or not. Just a mere second ago, his hand was there pulling the trigger of the gun, and the next, it had just vanished. His muscle tissue was ragged and torn, like someone attempted to cut his hand with a serrated knife but failed, and the dark scarlet liquid was leaking out of his veins and vessels, creating tiny puddles next to his boots.

Then the pain kicked in...

"What? F-uck! Fuck me! Fuck! Shit Arghh!" his body kowtowed on the floor, either from shock or from blood loss. The only thing Kurt was capable of doing was screaming in pain, like a helpless wounded deer. Closing his eyes, he hoped everything was just a harrowing dream. But the more the pain pulsated, the more apparent the answer became.

"Aghh shit, it hurts! HELP! PLEASE ANYONE!!!" He couldn’t defend himself, not with the excruciating pain. In fact, where was his gun? The realization dawned on the boy quicker than he had wanted.

The same monster who had bitten him...

He didn’t dare open his eyes, not with the brutal reality of knowing a dozen monsters were waiting to chow down on the rest of his body. He gave up before the fight even started. How could he have been so stupid? So weak? So—

Curling up into a ball, his hand and the other decapitated half covered his tears of agony. The stress and burning pain in his hand had got to him, the only solution he came up with was to whisper out a cowardly plea.

"I-I don’t wanna die..." he sobbed, smelling the iron stench of his own blood as it dripped into his helmet.

"I DON’T WANNA DI—"

"Just shut up already..."

Then, someone spoke back.

...

Kurt slowly opened his eyes, only to find—

"Next time, don’t go in so rash. First time on the battlefield, huh?" Asashi mused. He slashed his sword in empty air to release the blood stuck on it.

Kurt blinked wordlessly. The Salamacer who had attacked him... was already dead.

Asashi tossed the decapitated lizard-like head of the monster as its body grew limp and toppled to the ground.

As I thought, the monsters can't deflect blades like they do with bullets, Asashi thought. He gripped his custom-made Sense-Katana and admired it, remembering all those battles he had used it in. With its signature curved blade and shimmering grey-black metal from the Damascus steel, it was his main weapon of choice. One that remembered the taste of hundreds of different monsters and people alike. Just like Asashi, his sword wore the weight of his sins along with it. The beautiful and magnificent sword that had once been was now tainted by the blood of people he couldn’t even remember the faces of.

The sword alone knew him more than any other person on the planet did. Because his sword was an echo of himself. Monster after monster, human after human, skull after skull, it remembered the feelings of digging into his opponents. The day he had chosen it, his soul had been split into two. One that bore a human appearance and one that only knew the concept of killing. A slave to killing.

Asashi felt it come alive as he poured energy into it. A small buzzing sensation erupted from the sword's handle, one that he had felt thousands of times when feeding it his power. A green light hue zigzagged across the sword's blade as it fully activated.

Come on… it’s time for another battle. He clenched his katana, seeing his own tired reflection on it. Some might call him crazy or schizophrenic, but he heard his sword respond, not in ordinary audible words, but a feeling, a distant echo—a distant plea for help.

I know… Asashi understood those soft cries. I’m tired, too.

But he had to—They had to. They had a duty to protect innocent lives, and no matter how cold and dull Asashi became over the years, no matter how meaningless the concept of human life had become, he wouldn’t abandon it, no matter what.

This is… my atonement.

“Thank the gods! Asashi is here!” A knight from the retreated group recognized him, breathing in relief. “There were no high-ranked knights close by, so we were forced to engage. But now, since he’s here, we're saved!”

“Are you an idiot?!” The commander bellowed at him. “We're not leaving everything up to one Knight? That’s madness! I called a supply truck with Sense Swords, we’re re-engaging right when we get the new weapons—”

“Hmph…” Asashi couldn’t help but find that funny. “That won't be necessary,” he replied, perhaps a bit too arrogantly, because it obviously ticked off the commander.

“There is no time for your condescending attitude. I'm the commander of this group, and I order you to protect our team until we prepare for an attack!”

Asashi knew that was impossible. More Salamacers were coming out of the sewers and dark alleys, presumably attracted by all the commotion and blood from their own species. If Asashi listened to the commander and waited for the monsters to attack while attempting to defend the Knights, he would be overwhelmed by them and succumb to defeat. He had to be the one to attack and chip off the numbers separately in order to secure a victory. That was the only way…

“How about instead,” Asashi started, lifting the wounded young Knight who had lost his hand from the Salamacer and carrying him to the Knight corps, “you give him some medical treatment while I clean up here? Thanks.” Setting down Kurt who went unconscious from blood loss, the commander gave him an infuriated gaze. He could see his angry narrowed brows and wrinkles from the two eyes holes in his helmet.

“Don’t get cocky, who do you think you are? You don’t even have any gear on. What if the Acid hits you? You’ll be melted alive!” The commander growled, attempting some gotcha moment.

Apparently, he didn’t know Asashi that well. Turning his back on the infuriated Knight, he didn’t respond.

After all, actions spoke louder than words.

“Wait, what are you doing? Wait I sai—”

Asashi jolted into the battlefield, completely exposed and unfazed. On the glass windows of a building, a Salamacer spat out Green Goo, seeing as a tall human was coming after it. With a bucket full of the green substance impending in his direction, Asashi swiftly dodged the attack like a paintball game. The asphalt gave a dying sizzle and split as the acid made contact. Unfortunately, as fast as Asashi was, a bit of acid splattered his black coat, instantly forming a small hole.

“Aww…” Asashi was genuinely distraught, “I just got this new coat yesterday. How unfortunate.” He made eye contact with the slithering monster on the structure, readying his sword. “How unfortunate… that you got on my bad side.”

That was a lie.

In truth, no matter which side the monster was on, albeit good or bad, Asashi would have killed it regardless. Asashi felt strength flow through his legs as he propelled himself into the air, scaling the ten-story building like an eagle. Arriving mere inches away from the monster's blunt face, Asashi's muscles tensed as he gripped the handle of his sword and brought it above his head, poised and ready for a clean and powerful slash. The monster could only stare at him, frozen in confusion on how a human could be so agile. At that moment, Asashi saw those two oval black eyes change.

They changed ever so slightly before Asashi took the life out of them.

Helplessness.

He almost hesitated for a moment, but that moment wouldn’t be enough to change the outcome.

His sword sliced the monster directly in half…

Its brain and organs now split into two perfect halves, they gurgled and oozed with blood as the body came plummeting to the concrete floor, making a disquieting bloody mess.

Gravity doing its work, he fell ten stories and landed on the asphalt with a loud boom, creating an impact crater due to his immense strength. He breathed out calmly, trying to catch his breath a little before moving on to the next monster. But as he was trotting away, an intestine of the Salamacer he had slain suddenly squished underneath his boot.

Looking down, he made no effort to make a disgusting expression or an annoyed groan that the guts of a vile creature now ruined his favorite pair of shoes. His reaction was quite different, or perhaps it wasn’t one at all, but simply a sudden realization that entered his mind.

“We’re all made from blood and flesh. It doesn’t really make a difference if you’re human or a monster when your guts are tangled and mismatched on the ground,” he said, picking up the intestine and feeling the blood and heat emanating from its slippery flesh. Perhaps it was an inhuman way of looking at things, but without human intelligence, they were no different from the monsters who caused havoc on the streets.

The only thing that separated them was their emotions. The ability to feel guilt when you do something wrong. The ability to feel sad over the smallest thing. The ability to feel joy over something so trivial as getting ice cream from your parents, and the ability of love and compassion. If someone were void of all those things, would they still really be human? Or would they be considered a monster?

It was funny. There was a time when he viewed himself as a monster, a time before he met his wife and raised a child–a time when he thought he was void of all human attachments. But that was a long time ago. Although he looked back on his mistakes and frowned, he realized that feeling guilt was a gift.

It was a reminder that he hadn’t become a monster just yet.