Grayton swung with his right hand, successfully lodging the baton's L-shaped handle in the spirit's skull before it even managed to stand back up properly. It released yet another guttural scream as the metal handle shattered through its skull, staggering the beast.

"It's surprisingly brittle and susceptible to physical attacks... But those muscles suggest some sort of explosive power." Grayton analyzed as he delivered a swift front kick, completely knocking the beast to the ground, all the while pulling on the stuck baton, dislodging it from its skull. "I should focus on blocking and dodging instead of landing a good hit."

Grayton flicked the baton in his right hand into the air and caught it, switching his grip to that of a Tonfa baton to maximize defense. He winced as his hand came into contact with the grime and blood on the handle.

"Ugh, that's filthy."

Suddenly, a brilliant idea appeared in Grayton's mind. He kicked down a nearby trash can and positioned it in front of the spirit before turning and sprinting in the opposite direction.

"Judging by the shape of its leg muscles and the wounds on the corpse, its preferred method of hunting is probably by leaping and tackling its prey before trapping them with its teeth." Grayton panted as he ran through the straight alleyway. "In that case, I'll use its instincts against it!"

Grayton heard the noise of metal crinkling behind him, most likely produced by the beast crushing the fallen trash can under its feet.

"First warning." Grayton braced himself, not even bothering to check behind him.

A moment later, the sound of metal grinding on the floor and violently clanking rang throughout the hallway. The spirit had lunged, and the force of the movement flung the trash can backwards as he expected.

"That's the leap; down!" As soon as Grayton heard the noise, he stopped in his tracks and leaned backwards, allowing himself to fall backward. He stopped his fall with his left hand before his head hit the ground.

Less than a second later, Grayton saw the spirit's deathly figure soar inches above him, its scythe-like arms outstretched toward where he had been running. Had he moved too late, he would have definitely been impaled by the claws and pinned to the ground. The creature shrieked as it realised it missed its target, still in mid-air.

"Too close..." Grayton scolded himself before smirking anyway. "But that was cool!"

The new perspective combined with the short distance allowed him to notice another thing about the spirit. Hidden inside its hip bone was some sort of throbbing, transparent, sac filled with a glowing yellow liquid. Extending from the sac were veins that were mostly localised around the sack, but there were a few thin strands that extended to the legs and up the neck. Grayton quickly assumed that it was the spirit's core.

He stood back up as the beast crashed to the ground and shattered some of its claws in the process. He approached the staggered spirit, a spark of excitement lighting up in his eyes, but before he could land another hit, the beast thrashed his right claw backwards, its abnormal joints working together to swing in a 270-degree arc while its other arm was on the ground, supporting its awkward posture.

Caught off guard by the creature's flexibility, Grayton was just barely able to block the swing by forming a cross-shaped guard on his right using the two batons. Still, the sheer momentum from the swing was able to shift his center of mass, forcing him to take a step to the left to avoid tipping over.

However, despite blocking the attack, he was still caught under the hook of the beast's claws.

"Focus." Grayton returned to his blank, serious demeanor, fully knowing that if the alleyway didn't restrict the spirit's range of movement, he would have definitely been flung into the ground. "This thing can and will turn me into minced meat, given the opportunity."

With the creature's back still facing him and both of his arms occupied with pushing back the appendage that was still attempting to dig its shattered claws into him, the two entered a tense stalemate. He huffed and puffed, but the beast was too powerful to simply shake off, and the awkward position meant that the creature couldn't overpower him either.

"I need to end this quickly." Grayton grunted. As far as he knew, the spirit had more stamina than him. "It's such a shame that I can't experiment much further, but..."

Grayton manifested a tennis ball-sized portal inside the monster's hip bone with a wicked smile on his face.

"This whole thing has been way out of my league." Grayton thought, sending a bolt straight towards the spirit's bulging core. "I should be grateful just for not receiving any serious injuries."

The core exploded immediately after it came into contact with the bolt, sending the glowing, gelatinous liquid splattering into the creature's legs and floor. The impact had also disintegrated the bottom half of the creature's hip bone, which effectively amputated both of its legs.

The legless beast fell to the ground, instinctively letting go of Grayton to break its own fall. For a moment, the spirit simply sat on the cold, hard concrete, staring into the sky with its empty eye sockets, as if it hadn't yet processed what had happened to it. When it did, it roared.

The beast screamed and yelled as it thrashed around with its remaining limbs in a rage-fueled fury. Despite all its efforts, all it took to avoid the dying creatures' onslaught was a few steps backward by Grayton. And just moments later, the beast's howls transformed from those of rage and vitriol to those of desperation and terror as it realised that it was impossible to catch the prey in front of it, and even if it did, the feat would do nothing to stop its oncoming demise.

Grayton watched as the spirit thrashed around on the floor, scraping at the old brick walls. Even as it was violently lashing out, he could see that the monster was slowly withering away. What little flesh the beast had was getting dryer by the second, and small fractures were starting to form all over its skeletal structure.

"So ghosts have cores that supply them with some sort of lifeblood..." Grayton mentally noted. "Fascinating. Next time I encounter one of these, I'll need to take a sample."

As more and more time passed, the beast grew weaker and weaker. Its howl, which had previously emanated with pride and guttural rage, now sounded more like a shrill, desperate plea in Grayton's ears. Eventually, it stopped moving. Grayton's cold eyes met with its empty eye sockets as it looked up to see him.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I can't save you." Grayton stated expressionlessly. "Not that I would, even if I could."

Of course, the spirit couldn't understand him and shortly returned to its death throes, which were getting more high-pitched by the second. Concluding that there wasn't anything else to find out, Grayton pointed a finger gun at the decaying spirit, eager to silence its incessant screeching.

"Let's see... What's a cool one-liner?" Grayton paused in front of the beast. His hesitation allowed the beast to screech once more. However, this time, the grating sound somehow sounded familiar. Indeed, the creature's dying shrieks have become so high-pitched that they sounded like the screams of a little girl.

"Huh...? -Urgh!" Grayton gripped his head as a vision entered his mind, along with the sensation of a severe headache.

In a blink of an eye, he was no longer in the backstreet alleyway. Instead, he found himself in front of the familiar hospital bed again. He still couldn't seem to make out who the person on the bed was or why he felt such hatred for them.

"This again...." Grayton thought. He tried to look around and get a closer look at the blurry figure on the bed, but he quickly learned that his body refused to move. The best he could do was look around with his eyes, which gave him no new information. "White tiles, white walls, white ceiling... Where am I? The attack happened in an amusement park; this... this looks more like a lab."

Suddenly, a pair of extremely dry lips appeared on the face of the blurry figure, and before he could think of anything else, it started to scream. It was unlike anything Grayton had ever heard before; it was a cacophony of screams overlapping over each other that were much louder than what any normal human could produce, and guttural enough to confuse it with a wild beast.

The deafening sound echoed throughout the room, assaulting Grayton's ears from every direction. For the first time since this memory started, his body finally obeyed his command. It felt unreasonably heavy to move them, but Grayton managed to lift his hands to cover his ears. However, it did nothing to block out the horrendous noise.

He clenched his ears with all of his feeble strength and even folded them twice, but the screams only kept growing louder and louder. He quickly realised that this wasn't a normal sound. With every consecutive scream, parts of his psyche was eroding.

But what could he do? The screams were overwhelming; they were louder than he could shout, louder than he could think! But just as suddenly as she started, the blurry figure stopped shrieking, and Grayton found himself back in the alleyway, the immobilized monster still pathetically decaying in front of him.

"W-what the hell was that? A memory?" Grayton panted; he dropped his batons, making a clattering noise on the ground. Grayton stumbled a few steps to the right and leaned against the brick wall, his body breaking into a cold sweat. "But when was that? Who was that girl? How did I-"

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

"Grrr-Rak!" A violent growl interrupted his thoughts.

"Shut. Up!"

Grayton immediately lashed out, conjuring all 4 portals at maximum size. The poor creature attempted to let out one last squeal as it was enveloped by golden light, but was immediately cut off as its head was the first thing to vaporize.

"The last thing I want to hear right now is more desperate wails." Grayton thought. He slowly sank to a kneeling position as he lost all the strength in his legs. He sat there for a few minutes, dripping with sweat and breathing heavily, before he was able to properly calm down.

"It hurts... To try and remember." Grayton gritted his teeth. He picked himself back up and slowly staggered towards his original destination. "Oh right, my bag."

He turned around and bent down to pick up his blue sling bag. Even the simple act required much more effort than he would like to admit.

"C'mon, this is just pathetic." Grayton thought. He stopped trudging towards the end of the alleyway and sat down, his back leaning against the wall. "Get a grip."

After a few deep breaths, he eventually stopped sweating and deemed himself ready to continue. He stood back up and started to walk again. His legs still felt unsteady and quivered whenever he exerted just a little bit of strength, but it was good enough to pass off as normal to the unattentive bystanders.

"It's just a memory, it shouldn't affect me this much." Grayton chanted in his head as he exited the alleyway, immediately spotting the restaurant beside him.

The door leading into the establishment was uncharacteristically small, considering the actual size of the restaurant. Above the door was a bright yellow neon sign that read "Fishy Fish Dish" with a comically big glowing arrow that pointed at the door.

"I don't actually remember, but the first time I saw this, I apparently laughed so loud that dad had to press his hand on my mouth to stop me." Grayton chuckled at the sight as he opened the door. As soon as he did, he was immediately greeted by the noise of dozens of people talking and laughing over each other. "It's been quite a while, hasn't it?"

The inside of the restaurant was exactly how you would imagine a stereotypical fish and chip restaurant. It was a huge room filled with several arrays of tables and chairs, most of them filled with patrons talking and laughing. On the white plaster walls were a group of frames of black and white photos which depicted many old men holding up giant fish that they presumably caught. Below them were labels where the name, date, and relation to the restaurant were written.

"Still as busy as always." A nostalgic smile settled on Grayton's face.

At the other end of the restaurant was a humongously long counter, separating a dozen cash registers and a whole kitchen from the rest of the building. Grayton slowly made his way toward the counter, periodically stopping and changing directions to avoid the waiters and seated customers.

He took his time walking through the busy building. Using this as an opportunity to take a break and steady himself further before reaching the counter. He walked with a slight smile on his face, blissfully unaware of the fact that there were unknown spectators to his fight with the spirit...

----------------------------------------

???, 3 minutes ago

Grayton stopped his sprint abruptly and leaned backwards to avoid the beast's lunge. Had Grayton paid any attention to the sky beyond the beast, he would have noticed 2 witches sitting on floating brooms, watching the brawl. Alas, his focus was understandably centered on the murderous beast in front of him, leaving little headspace for anything else.

Both of the witches were wearing the same dark purple dress with varying motifs.

"Hooh, I thought he was going to run away." The first witch commented despite having both of her eyes closed and sitting sideways on her broom. She wore two pink, star-shaped earrings and a butterfly-shaped golden hair clip on her blue, pastel-wavy hair. Her voice was that of a high-pitched, cutesy-esque idol, and her dress was decorated with a purple snapdragon motif. "He's pretty impressive, don't you think?"

"I don't think you should sit like that, Miranda; you'll fall off your broom." The second witch meekly replied. She wore an oversized witch hat over her head, and had long bangs that obscured both of her eyes.

"Whaaat? I'm totally fine! See?" The witch called Miranda leaned back further with her eyes still closed, as if to prove a point. "I've been riding for longer than you have, Keyla. I've been around the block."

"You're only a year and a half older than me, though..." Keyla thought.

"..." Keyla stared at her with a concerned expression until her gaze was suddenly drawn to the sound of a wet impact from the scuffle under them, which was a product of Grayton bursting the spirit's core with his concussive bolt. "That magic of his... I don't think I've seen or heard anything like it before..."

Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise, before returning to her cheerful smile. "Well, if someone as studious as you doesn't recognise it, then this must be a new type of magic, right?"

"Y-you overestimate my knowledge." The other witch hurriedly answered, waving her hands in a dismissal motion. "It could just be a different variation of an already known magic."

"You wanna bet on that?" Miranda giggled. "I mean, look at him! He's obviously a greenhorn, but he's not even chanting! And those projectiles of his... There isn't anything aside from divine enchantments that has the same effect on the Undyings. Though his is considerably less... impactful."

"Hmm." Keyla wordlessly agreed, still keeping a close watch on the fight. "We should p-probably report this quickly to the elders. His reckless use of magic in broad daylight will eventually cause problems."

Miranda sighed. "Sure~ If you wanna play goody two shoes that's the way to go, but..." A playful smirk crawled across her face. "Don't you have aaanything else planned?"

"What are you implying?" Keyla asked, looking up to face her friend.

"Sheesh, do I gotta spell out everything?" Miranda dropped her pitch down a few octaves and slowed down her speech, giving it a more mature yet sinister feel. Her expression quickly followed suit; she finally opened her eyes, revealing a pair of sharp eyes with a pattern of 3 pink, glowing flower petals surrounding her ebony pupils. "I'm talking about getting a thrall for yourself, of course."

"O-oh, that." Keyla sheepishly responded. "Do I have to get one now?"

"Well, not now now, but you'll have to get one pretty soon." Miranda explained, turning to look at Grayton. "No other witch will take you seriously before you have one..."

Miranda adjusted her broom's angle and rose slightly above Keyla to look at her without moving her head.

"Besides, you can force how he got that magic out of him before you turn him into a mindless thrall. Even if it's something you can't replicate, you'll still be able to command him to use it to your advantage." Miranda continued. "This is nothing short of a jackpot for people lower on the hierarchy like you. And I say that not because I think little of you, but because I care about you as a friend."

"I know... You make a good point." Keyla reluctantly agreed, twirling a lock of her own hair. "It's just... I-I don't think now is a good time."

"Ah, I see~ You want to wait until he gets stronger before you claim him, huh?" Miranda cooed, returning to her usual demeanor. She mistook Keyla's hesitation for ambition, and Keyla was all too happy to not correct her. "Alright then, I'll try to hide him from the elder's eyes as long as I can but..."

Miranda's broom drifted closer to Keyla.

"If I do this, I'm sure you know what happens to both of us if the mages from Aegis get to him before you do, don't you?"

"Y-yes." Keyla hesitantly replied. "If he joins their faction, the elders will probably figure out that you've been keeping them in the dark, and we'll be-"

"Excommunicated, at best." Miranda interrupted, her overly merry tone clashing with the bleak topic of conversation. "Hee-hee, Don't worry, though. I'll help you with your plan, just as long as you know that."

Keyla nodded, feeling a sinking feeling in her gut.

"Just as long as you know that." Miranda repeated.

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Grayton, Present

"2 kromer for a big portion, huh? Not bad..." Grayton thought as he looked at the menu plastered on top of the counter.

"I'll take 2 large-sized fish and chips for takeout, please." Grayton politely smiled once he reached the front of the counter.

"Very well, sir; however, I must inform you that there will be an additional fee of 2 lots for takeout." The worker behind the counter replied in an equally formal manner. He was an Asian man with tan skin, wearing the restaurant's green, button-up uniform.

"That's... a bit uptight for a restaurant like this." Grayton thought as he nodded, handing over a couple paper bills to the worker before stepping aside to let the next person in line order.

While he waited, Grayton observed the clerk and saw that he talked a lot more casually with certain customers, and even mimicked a perfect Jamaican accent when serving another.

"I see, so that's why he talked like that." Grayton chuckled, gaining a newfound respect for the clerk. "They better give him a raise."

Not even 15 minutes later, his food arrived on the counter inside a plastic bag, which he quickly took away. Grayton made his way toward the exit, walking in long strides now that his body had fully recovered. When he returned to the street, he paused for a moment.

"From here, Vincent's house is..." Grayton scratched his head, looking around before turning to face the sidewalk. "There."

Grayton thought about a lot of things while walking. He tried to come up with a few theories about the memory he saw, but those thoughts were overpowered by how thrilled he felt, discovering magic. He didn't know why the ghosts existed or what they really were, or if there were any other people who possessed supernatural abilities, or much of anything, really. But that was exactly why he was so excited.

"It's like entering a brand new world!" Grayton thought, a wide smile on his face as he walked. "There's so many things to learn and discover; how cool is that?"

Grayton suddenly passed by a seemingly homeless person wearing shabby and tattered clothing while deep in thought. Turning around to take a better look at the person, he saw that it was an old man with grey, oily hair. At that moment, he considered giving the man a portion of the food he bought.

He quickly decided that the man needed it more than he did and called out to the beggar, handing him the still-hot fish and chips inside a package. Grayton watched as the man's demeanor instantly lit up and started thanking him. Seeing how happy that simple act made the man more than justified the loss of food in his mind.

Grayton walked away with a warm smile on his face, but it quickly faded.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing this stuff cause of genuine kindness or simply for my own satisfaction..."

"Do good only when you can afford to..." Grayton pondered. That was the rule his past self set for himself before the amnesia. And those words apparently had such a powerful impact on his past self that they were included as one of the few core memories that carried over. This, along with his lack of friends, made Grayton conclude that, as weird as it may sound, his past child self was a cold and calculating person.

Throughout his life, he didn't dare break this one rule, as Grayton wanted to respect his past self's wishes. But whenever he did do a random act of kindness, he felt this sensation of freedom, in a way, like he was his own person instead of just what remains of 'Grayton Laurentius'. Which is why for the past few years, he had been religiously performing acts of goodwill and charity when he could, simply to feel that sensation more frequently, or so he thought.

"Which is ridiculous when you think about it, because I am Grayton Laurentius." He thought, shaking his head as he failed yet again, to rationalize this behaviour of his. He sighed dejectedly. "At the end of the day, I'm just another terrible person, aren't I? Simply doing whatever to please myself. Only difference is just that I'm more fortunate than others..."

Before he knew it, Grayton found himself in front of a familiar house, which temporarily cleared his mind of his bleak thoughts. Vincent's house was a simple, average suburban house with 3 forward-facing windows resting on bright, whitewashed walls.

Next to the garage were a cluster of granite steps leading into an oakwood door, which Grayton stood in front of.

"I wonder how he'll react to this." Grayton smirked, knocking on the door.