"Mark, wake up! It's almost school time!" An unknown woman's voice can be heard. He is still not waking up.
He tries to open his eyes, yet it doesn't open.
"Ma, it's still Saturday!" He says, rolling to the side of the bed.
"We are buying school supplies Mark, did you forget?"
Despite Mark only rolling half of his body, he rolls to the side of his bed, landing on his back.
From the fall to the sudden hardness of the surface, his eyes snap open. He got up and left the bedroom to find his Ma watching TV.
"We are going out, you better take a bath and eat now."
Mark takes a bath in their bathroom. After a moment, he leaves the bathroom, refreshed. He changes his clothes to his strolling wear: a Brown polo and blue jeans. Not too fancy, but enough to be respectable in a venue like that.
Mark goes to the dining table. Soon, he realizes that there are no viands.
"I already ate the remaining viand. You can cook some eggs if you want to." His Ma says, as his eyes tell her he's confused.
Mark cooks some eggs, enough to get him a sufficient breakfast.
He sits at the table, with a plate filled with rice and egg. Right as he sits down, he realizes something, so he looks at the refrigerator.
"Ma, can I reheat those viands in the ref?" Mark asks, looking at her Ma.
"Yeah. Go ahead, Mark."
He reheats a soup, his favourite dish. After reheating, he put the food on his plate, he then started eating right away.
"You still have the list, right?"
"Yeah, it's on top of my side table."
"Good, just in case."
"I wonder what type of notebook I should buy? I want the one that has sections."
"Don't! Those books don't have a lot of space!"
"But Ma, I only need a notebook."
"Just trust me, okay Mark?"
Despite being the type of kid who does not use his notebook often, he is forced to buy multiple notebooks, which will end up blank at the end of the school year.
Mark ate his food slowly, savouring it, the fluffiness of the egg pierced through the tactile senses of his teeth. Although it is not high-quality, it still tastes amazing for his simplistic taste buds. He finishes his preparation by brushing his teeth and putting on his shoes.
He sits in front of the TV, as he waits for his mother to prepare. He switches it to a news channel. He noticed that it's talking about a fire outbreak that happened last night.
As the broadcast progresses, little creatures appear, one is lying on the broadcaster's shoulder. It's a black creature, its face looks like the dread faces of a hundred men combined, yet it doesn't bother the broadcaster at all.
"Ah, Devils on my broadcast, what a time to be alive."
Mark mutters to himself, as he observes the creatures' behaviour.
"Although they are Tier 1 Devils, they will definitely cause trouble." He mutters again.
One of the creatures straight up changed the narrative of what he said to a very irrelevant and immature topic.
"That one, everyone saw it, isn't it?" Mark asks himself.
The Devils laugh, it sounds distorted and eerie, gradually getting louder over time.
After a while, her Ma enters the living room, with a slightly fancy attire.
"The news is getting stranger day by day, isn't it?" His Ma says.
His heart skips a beat, but he soon realizes that he's the only one who can see those beings.
"Looks like I'm not insane. I'd better get something at night." He says in his mind.
"Yeah, it doesn't give them a good look, isn't it?" He replies to his Ma.
The TV screen displays eerie imagery before his Ma shuts it off with a remote.
"Mark, we're leaving."
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
After travelling for a while, they are now in a mall. Mark brings out his list he got from his enrollment. It lists the following:
口 — Black Ball pen
口 — Red Ball pen
口 — Pencil
口 — Notebooks
口 — Bond Paper
口 — Compass
口 — Scientific Calculator
...
"Ma, can I get a bag?" Mark asks.
"We have some big bags at home, we're not buying that." His Ma refuses, as she looks away.
"Okay."
He replies and moves on as if nothing had happened.
Instead of sighing, like every other kid his age, he accepts it; his mood didn't change at all, in fact, he stays normal and calm.
They enter a massive bookstore, filled with books that target a wide range of audiences, as well as school supplies for kids going to school. One of their targets here is to buy a scientific calculator.
Mark approaches the clerk at the counter.
"Excuse me, sir, do you sell scientific calculators?"
"Yes, we do. What type are you looking for?" The clerk replies.
His brain starts to overheat metaphorically as he tries to contemplate what the clerk has said.
"T—Type? These things have a type?" Mark asks.
"Yes, there are several types. Any ideas where you want to use it?"
"Okay. I want one that suits my strand. Do you have a scientific calculator for STEM?"
"Yes, we have that. For engineering, right?"
"Well, not really, but that's probably what I'm looking for."
The clerk starts gathering calculators for him to select, placing it one-by-one in front of him. The clerk steps back, revealing the calculators he has.
"These are our calculators, feel free to choose."
He looks at the calculators. After looking for a while, he selects the fanciest one to him.
"I like this one." Mark points to the calculator he likes to pick. "I would also like to test it out."
He unboxes the calculator, turns it on, and tries doing some basic calculations to test it. The calculator works with no surface-level issues.
After testing, he puts it back in the box.
"It's working fine, I would like to buy it."
"Okay, that would be ₱2,___. Please proceed to the cashier."
He walks straight to the cashier after he picks up the calculator. He and his Ma paid the cashier the appropriate amount before they received the calculator, which was packaged in a big plastic cellophane.
They continue to finish the shopping list, checking each box one by one. A few minutes later, they bought all the school supplies he needed, which were all located in the same store.
"Mark, let's eat somewhere," His Ma asks.
"Sure, I know a place you'll like."
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
After walking for a while, they decide to eat in a Japanese restaurant, not because it's a Japanese restaurant, but because it's his favourite. For every chance he can get, he will recommend the restaurant to anyone with him.
He slurps his noodles with passion, as he tastes the complex flavors of the soup seeping into the smooth-textured noodles.
"So Mark, what are your expectations?" His Ma asks, with a rice bowl in front of her.
"I will get friends, as well as have a good time," Mark replies.
"What else?"
"Nice environment, nice teachers, nice things."
They both chuckle, as they chow down on their food.
"Do you have any friends who are going to enroll in that school?"
"No, I don't think so." Mark nods down, his voice lowers, so does his mood. His shoulders slump.
"Well, don't worry, you'll get friends along the way."
"Yeah, I wish."
"By the way Mark, do you know what schools your friends attend?" His Ma asks, looking at his empty eyes.
"No. It's probably somewhere I don't know."
"I mean, they are your friends, so why don't you know?"
"Because I didn't ask? Also, if a friend asks the same thing, I will not answer either."
They pause for a moment. Mark seems to realize his tone, so he calms himself down.
"Sorry for my language, Ma." He drops his head, staring at his noodles.
"It's okay, no need to worry."
"Well, I will miss my old school and stuff, but sometimes, I just let go all of a sudden."
"Well, all I can remember is when a building in your school suddenly collapsed. When the news struck, I thought one of them was you."
"Well, that building is far from my classroom. At least I'm still alive, that's what matters Ma."
They both hug each other. Instead of love, he felt the tension and worry radiate. He feels the same way too, for a different reason. Sorrow buries him like a coffin, imagining people caught in the disaster. It aches his heart, perhaps even in a literal sense.
They let go of each other. At the moment, he's absorbing the thought, it was the negative energy that burdens his Ma, it's strong, making him feel the painful sting too. He tries to resist it as at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, at least both of them feel comfortable now.
As the negative energy orbits him, it reminds him of the day, the day when her Ma felt this amount of worry that he's carrying right now.
As the negative energy orbits him... it drags him back to the source of her deepest fear. Six months ago..
As the negative energy orbits around him, it reminds him of the day when his Ma worried the most so far in his life, which happened 6 months ago.
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
Flashback, 6 months ago. During the daytime, when everyone is in school, he saw a portion of a 3-storey building collapse. Fortunately, people only suffered minor injuries, but it forced the school to dismiss everyone.
The same day at night, Mark returned, entering the site of the collapsed building. He realized the building is impossible to collapse that way, let alone accidentally. The building is perfectly cut from itself, only leaving a public school classroom-wide portion to collapse. After venturing for a while, he saw a dark, shadowy figure hiding in the shadows of the building. Mark follows it.
The shadowy figure leads him to a classroom. Public schools in the Philippines have large rooms to accommodate massive numbers of students, but he's afraid that they're not big enough.
Mark examines the figure. It's a devil, it has arms, yet its size is changing, but it stays relatively small. Mark's tongue clicks.
"Tier 3. Can you believe it?" The aura that he's sensing from the Devil screams "Tier 3" for him, making him disappointed.
"How can you total such a building?"
He stops theorizing, as it's too much of a headache to handle. He points his right arm downward. An odachi (long katana) appears from a purple glow. The Devil readies itself too.
Mark straight up feels disappointed, as he only fought Tier 3s his entire life. His face looked pale, as his interest began to fade, but he had no choice, since this was a life-or-death situation he jumped into anyway, plus Tier 3s are a cakewalk for him.
The fight ensues, they both charge each other, as they meet, his sword and the Devil's claws clash together, before they push each other off after a few seconds.
For a few minutes, the building flashes with purple streaks, as they move around the building, fighting each other off. They both balance the fight in both ranged and melee combat, alternating to determine which one is dominant in their position.
Later on, a purple beam flashes, pointing towards the sky for a few seconds. They continue fighting, even going outside the building for a few seconds before going in again.
After a while, he finds an opening from the Devil, to which he jabs his sword. The impact sent them crashing through multiple walls before the momentum faded. The Devil swings its claws, Mark steps back for a moment, before he lunges his sword deep into the Devil once again.
He then swings his sword upward, launching the Devil due to the force of the swing, and it gets sent straight to the top. Volleys of slashes come after, gradually speeding up over time. At the peak of the launch, Mark appears on top of it, ready to swing his sword downward. He then swings it, as he sends the Devil back down again with him. Flurries of slashes rain down on the Devil's back for the entire descent. They hit the floor, and dust fogs the entire area.
The dust settles Mark can be seen holding a glowing, purple orb in his left hand, inspecting it, as well as a text that reads the following:
***
[Cut Pierce]
+ Gives the ability to cut through all materials with no effort, from real-life materials to hard materials present in certain Devils.
- Cuts or other open wound injuries will be worse (either spiritual or physical).
***
He finds the ability to be useful, so he keeps it as an ability. He raises his left arm sideways, then he clenches his fist, tensing his arm. His arm glows purple for a second as he collects the ability. He feels a mix of hot and cold sensations crawling from his arm throughout his body.
Mark leaves the scene with happiness and excitement that he thought to be impure, like fast food, it tastes good, but restaurant-quality foods are better and healthier in some cases.
As he leaves the scene, the damage he caused to the building mends itself like nothing happened.
—·—·—·—·—·—·—
The flashback ends. He sees his mother finish eating, as he's done with himself.
On Monday, it would be his first day of school as a Grade 11 Senior High School student. He wonders what lies ahead, both his personal life and his secret life.
His goals are simple: Be an honor student, and get the ability known as the "Truthseeker". Being an honor student is easy for him, but that can't be said for the latter, as he believes that ability is exclusive to stronger Devils, maybe the ones in Tier 4.
He analyzes the fight that he had. He began to think that the Devil he fought back then is not responsible for the destruction of the building, as the devil can't cause such damage. But at the same time, he also thinks that it's the one responsible, but it took a while to total it.
As his Ma paid the waiter, he was still lost in thought, analyzing all of the fights he had so far, trying to find a trace of the real culprit.
"Mark, let's go." His Ma calls him.
He wakes up with a slight shake, before standing up.
"What were you dreaming?" His Ma asks, seemingly worried.
"Nothing. Just thinking about school life." Mark replies shakily.
As they leave the restaurant, he strikes up a conversation.
"Ma. I've never seen Pa this entire week. Do you know where he is?"
"Sorry, Mark. Your Pa goes from place to place. I have no idea where he is, plus he doesn't even answer my calls."
"I mean, he still loves us right?"
"Yeah..." Mark leans his head away. "I think he misses us too."
They leave the restaurant, then the mall, bringing the school supplies that he needs when the school starts. On the way out, Mark feels sadness, a tangled mess from the burden of his Ma to the disappearance of his Pa. At first, it doesn't seem to be manageable, yet he still has to fight it off, as for him, it's a sign of weakness.
// Bonus Info: About Devil's Tiers
Tier 1 - Devils that cannot alter the physical world, and they are only capable of tempting their victims to do evil in a minimal degree, or giving their victims negative thoughts. Devils in this level don't pose a threat to any Devil Hunter, even in large quantities.
Tier 2 - Devils that can straight up alter their victims' minds, usually altering their realities to cause casualties to anyone near them, or to simply make the victim miserable. It can be a minor threat to any Devil Hunter, but it's manageable, as long as they don't group up.
Tier 3 - Devils that can slightly alter the physical world. Although they can cause minor harm to people and the environment, they are capable of taking a person's life by using what's around them, but they primarily exist to cause slight disturbances to their victims' daily activities. Devils starting this level are taken seriously by any Devil Hunter.
Tier 4 - Devils that can cause casualties in the physical world equal to a large-scale natural disaster. They exist solely to destroy everything in their path with ease, without expecting any compensation or satisfaction. Devil Hunters in this tier are considered to be in the "High Ranks".