"If you curl up because of fear, you won't be able to do anything. The more courage you put into things, the more happiness you'll get out of them."

The cold was starting to chill on his bones. As the night settled in, the young man kept on walking forward in the forest, his coat blowing along with the wind and doing very little to protect him from the low temperatures.

There was no sight of the home he had stormed off from in anger a mere hour ago, looking to burn up his frustration by wrecking up the forest a little bit. At some point, he must have gone too deep into it, not to mention the trees he had taken down and caused a change in scenery around him, leaving him at a loss about the way back home.

"Damn this forest. Damn this day," he muttered to himself, clutching his staff closer to his person.

The wind was making the trees whistle and the fallen branches and logs crunched under his steps. The moon rose up above him, bathing everything in its faint light; rather than relief, the pale silvery light only gave him an eerie feeling, it made everything look… unearthly?

Suddenly, the beautifully painted illustrations from his books weren't so great anymore. It was different looking at it on pages from the safety of his room, and now that he was standing in one of them, like the little girl looking for her grandma's house. It felt surreal.

The thought did nothing to distract him from the feeling of being watched.

'Don't think about it. Don't think about it or else they will come,' he tried to remember the words every single grown up had drilled into children's heads from the moment they were old enough to walk:

Girls and boys come out to play
The moon doth shine as bright as day
Leave your supper, and leave your sleep
And join your playfellows in the forest.

Come with a whoop, and come with a call
Come with a good will or not at all

What came next? He really needed the distraction right now. 'Come with good will or not at all,' he repeated to himself. If that was true, he was doomed from the moment he entered the forest.

How he wished he hadn't noticed the glowing eyes following his every movement. He stopped cold on his feet, the chill on his spine paralyzing him with fear.

'This can't be happening.'

The moment he heard another crushing branch that definitely did not belong to his own steps, he made a run for it, the cold wind felt like needles on his face but he refused to look behind, the growling sounds closing on him were all the confirmation he needed and it just made him run faster.

He reached a clearing, out of breath, but he couldn't stop. He knew this place; he wasn't far away. If only his legs hadn't felt like burning, he could have run faster.

And then he saw them.

Beowolves, all stepping out from behind the trees surrounding the clearing. He didn't want to look at them. He felt like he would be sick, his insides churning, sweat trickling down his neck. His vision became blurry. 'Don't cry,' he chanted in his head.

Before he could blink away the tears, there it was right in front of him.

Glowing red eyes piercing through him; a white mask and black fur; spikes protruding from its body. In spite of himself, he felt entranced by the beast. Time seemed to slow down and he couldn't tear his sight away from the Beowolf in front of him. Still in a daze, he saw an arm stretching above its body and the claws aiming at him.

….

He felt his arms weighting down above him, hands clutching tightly on his staff. A black arm stopped by it with its claws inches to his face.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the other arm coming up at him and without thinking about it, let the blade out and pierced it until he was met with resistance.

Then it slashed from the arm through to the lower half of its body, which fell into the ground like a smoky trunk, along with the other half.

His breath held.

Something was rushing through him like a wildfire and it felt good, really good.

The rest of the Beowolves came all together at him but the dizziness was long gone, giddiness taking its place; he could do this.

The first one had its head slashed and blown to bits by a bullet.

He rushed right to the next and jumped using its head for impulse, the other one chasing him crashed with the former.

Two consecutive gashes later, and it hit the ground.

He jumped on top of the next one and embedded the blade on its back as far as it could go and fired another bullet.

The resulting blast sent him up in the air.

Against his instincts, he closed his eyes. One second, two more and then he would hit the ground… leaving him to their mercy.

A moment of realization hit him. He was aware of the air, of the force onto his body, oh his body position amongst all of it, and what needed to be done, in order to land safely…sort of.

He forced his body to spin and grabbing tightly his weapon; he concentrated all the force of the falling into the twin-tip of the blade and charged to the nearest Beowolf.

Now there he was with his staff stuck to the back of a Beowolf running wildly and him grabbing tightly to it.

'Yes!' he wanted to scream when he successfully grabbed the spikes below his hands and managed to remove the blade as well. The beast was trashing around, no doubt trying to get him off his back. Yuya was undeterred and continued to grab hold of it, now able to wrap his legs around it.

The thought of just chopping off its head was tempting, but looking around and seeing the others hurrying to them gave him a better idea.

He adjusted himself to a higher point and grabbed onto the bigger spike and was now mounting it. The Beowolf just looked plain confused while he tested if he could maneuver its movements from there. This was going to be fun.

The Grimms were now charging at him, no doubt prioritizing killing a human over their kin, not that he was surprised. With his staff in one hand, he readied for the onslaught.

Maneuver was a stretch of what was happening; the Beowolf was doing nothing but running around, trying to escape from the others, but his added weight and wound hindered its speed and movements and was easily being attacked by the pack.

Every time one of them got close enough to try to grab him he was delighted to slash it and fire some Dust bullets to their mouths.

After a while it was a blur for him.

*Slash*

Another head down, and couple extremities too.

'Fire.'

Another one hit the ground.

He was starting to like the feeling of the wind on his face; it was exhilarating.

The last remaining Grimm seemed to be purposely keeping up with the one Yuya was mounting, and then it jumped on top of them.

For a flashing moment, he just stared at the mass of black fur coming at him, but he stepped up and slashed it in half before it could touch him.

The Grimm veered and had him stumble and land on its back face first.

He tried to grab hold of the spikes again, but the Beowolf chose that moment to raise its body and growl. He was sent rolling on the ground before he could grab a hold.

He looked around for his weapon, and found it…

….right behind the feet of the Beowolf; no chance to reach it.

'Crap' he saw the Grimm charging at him.

He wished for his energy high back, for his mind to come up with something, anything to dodge this, but fear once again got a grip of him. He couldn't move. He…

'I'm going to die here,' he thought, shutting his eyes...

*BLAST*

*thump*

….

….

….

'What?' He slowly opened his eyes to find the Beowulf at his feet, slowly dissolving in black smoke.

"Are you alright kid?" he looked past the body and saw a man in his early thirties holding a cannon over his shoulder.

He was alive? He was alive! Speechless and frozen in place, Yuya was openly gaping at the man. He saw another figure coming towards them, and was relieved to find that it was a human.

"Yuya!" The voice belonged to his father. "Are you hurt?" He saw him rush to him past the officer, and forced him to stand up, scrutinizing every part of him.

"Dad…" his voice broke and he felt tears rolling on his face."I'm sorry…I didn't…" what could he say? That he was sorry he had almost gotten himself killed? All because he had been angry at him earlier? He felt disgusted with himself just thinking about it.

"It's ok Yuya. You're fine now," his dad attempted, but he could see him tremble; he could hear the heartbreak behind his shallowly reassuring voice. No, it wasn't ok.

But he couldn't say anything else as the officer approached them, holding his staff, and started telling something to his Dad. He tuned it out, and let himself be carried on his father's back, slowly drifting off to sleep.

A million thank yous to AnimeGirl 144 for the beta reading!

Well there you go, this is it for the first "trailer" for this AU, a few notes:

- This takes places roughly 2 and half years prior the main story, so Yuya's display doesn't really reflect his current abilities

- Also his weapon is still a simple staff with blades, he only upgraded it after mastering his semblance.

All the trailers are gonna be moving from this point forward and until the current time-line