The stage is set in the middle of a deserted road.
Two guys stand, facing each other.
One with a chokutō, the other with a dagger.
The fighting began.
Adam rushed towards Evan, doing an downward slash across his stomach.
Evan nimbly avoided and did a slash across Adam's face.
"Tch."
"An opening!"
After avoiding Evan's slash, Adam rushed to thrust his dagger into his stomach.
Predicting this would happen, Evan rolled forward towards Adam and went underneath him.
Adam landed on the ground and faced Evan.
"Why are so persistent on avoiding?! Let me murder you so I can have Vanessa's hand in marriage!"
"Vanessa won't marry you. She will marry who she sees fit. Murdering me will satisfy her grudge, not obtain her love."
"Damn you!"
Evan rushed towards Adam at a blinding speed and thrusted his chokutō into Adam's heart.
Adam brought his dagger to directly catch the chokutō.
Secretly, Adam pulled a throwing knife from his back hip and threw it at Evan's stomach.
Evan didn't expect this and fell to the ground in pain.
Adam crouched down over Evan and stabbed his dagger into his stomach, further reinforcing the blade already there.
"Gaaagh... Vanessa..."
Evan's phone received a message as he uttered these words.
Adam reached into Evan's pocket and pulled out his phone.
On it said, "You disappoint me. Leave this world. I can't marry a pitiful loser."
Adam showed this message to Evan.
Seeing it, Evan said, "That... woman... do...me...a...favor...would ya? Murder... Ms. Evergreen with my blade...for...revenge..."
"I can't say I won't do that. But if she sends anyone against my friends, she'll be knocking at Death's door."
Lying the dead Evan on the ground, Adam picked up the chokutō and put it in the sheath he got from Evan's dead body.
"I better get home."
It was Monday.
Adam slept throughout Sunday because it was boring.
Adam slept in his clothes so he went to take a shower.
He took off his clothes and put them in the clothes bin next to him.
"Who will target me next?" Adam was thinking to himself in the shower.
After he finished, he noticed Tyler wasn't there.
"Well, we don't have to walk together all the time."
There was a reason why Tyler wasn't there.
Adam dried himself off and put on his regular clothes.
He slung his bag around his shoulder and put it on.
It was his book bag.
Adam put on his shoes and walked off.
Adam saw Tyler hanging out with a group of girls instead of Eve.
Being confused, Adam saw a supremely handsome dude flirting with Angela and Eve.
Looking behind him, the handsome dude ran off after seeing Adam.
Adam started walking over to his bus stop instead of checking on Angela.
He thought it would trigger a (purely metaphorical) flag.
Tyler quickly noticed Adam walking off, so he ran over and grabbed Adam's collar.
Adam didn't bother to break lose, but was still brought over to the two girls.
Eve started whispering to Angela.
"See? He's a bad boyfriend, hang out with the handsome dude."
"'K. You too."
Adam looked confused because he could hear them.
Angela walked over to Adam and said, "Why did you scare off my new boyfriend?"
Adam smirked.
"He just saw me, I didn't threaten him. I was planning on walking past."
Angela gave a quick punch to Adam's face, but missed.
"That was a warning shot, stay away from me forever."
Getting out of his battle position he said, "Fine, I'll leave your life forever."
Adam started walking away.
Noticing the chokutō, Eve asked, "Wait, did Adam always have a chokutō slung to his hip?"
Angela noticed his chokutō as well with Eve.
Eve gave a punch to Tyler's back and said, "You too. Stay out of my life."
"Wha-What?"
"I'm not repeating!"
Tyler quickly scrambled off.
"Adam! Help me bro!"
Adam looked behind him and saw Tyler scrambling over.
"Hmm?"
"Eve... Eve dumped me."
"Sucks to be you."
"Hey wait! You got dumped too!"
"So? I didn't care."
"That was your first girlfriend."
"Hmph."
They quickly reached the bus stop.
At both schools, rumors were flying.
"Did you hear about the argument between the two Devils?"
"I heard about a handsome guy coming to the Devil's bus stop."
At the corner seat, Angela was sitting.
"Rumors fly, but in this case it's correct."
Eve sat down with her lunch.
"Well, it was true."
"I still dumped my first boyfriend, but what is this feeling? I feel an ache in my heart."
Taking a bit from her food, Eve said, "*Nom* It's probably heartbreak."
"Hmph."
Angela stubbornly bit into her sandwich.
Adam was sitting in the middle of class, waiting for the teacher.
Rumors weren't being sent about the Devils because only Adam and Tyler saw it.
Instead, everyone was talking about the mysterious handsome guy who flirted with all the girls from both schools.
"An impressive feat. But I won't consider it an opponent to be reckoned."
"I make my move after school, I won't be stopped by love now. I will destroy the Evergreen family."
Adam was thinking to himself.
Adam was planning an attack on the Evergreen mansion.
It had thirteen floors.
Twelve opponents then Vanessa Evergreen.
Then, the teacher finally came in.
Sitting through class, looking bored, Adam started playing with an eraser.
Flicking the eraser up, it seemed time slowed.
Or rather, it actually did slow down.
Grabbing the eraser and sitting back down, he saw the teacher gawking at him.
Adam was finally back on the bus.
"Bro, I heard about the rumors of you moving super fast during class."
"..."
Adam stayed quiet throughout the bus trip.
Looking bored, Tyler pulled out his phone and deleted Eve off his contacts.
Adam also pulled out his phone and deleted Angela.
"If I stay out of her life, she stays away from mine."
The bus ride was very silent.
At 7:00, Adam put a few erasers in his pocket and slung his sword to his waist.
He put on a few black clothes and walked out the door.
He was wearing a black hoodie with a black bandanna. He also wore a black shirt and pants with newly bought black shoes.
He jumped from tree to tree towards the Evergreen mansion.
Nearing the mansion, he dropped in front of the main gate.
Walking forward, he saw his first opponent.
Time-lost Avenger VS. The Heartbroken
Angela.
He saw her.
"I thought I told you to leave my life!"
"This is my personal feud with the Evergreen family."
"I was ready for a date with Wallace! I didn't come here to fight!"
"Wait a minute, was this planned?" Adam thought.
"What is his surname?"
"What do you care?"
"Hmph. This is a fight between me and the Evergreens, stay out of it."
"No, make me."
"Fine."
Adam drew his chokutō.
Angela drew her tachi.
Adam rushed towards her and slashed.
Angela brought her samurai sword to block his blade.
"Tch."
Adam jumped back and landed on top of the main gate.
Feeling a hostile gaze on his spine, he jumped upwards.
What he saw was a surprise.
It was Eve holding a slingshot, probably for protection.
She shot it at where Adam was previously.
"I was ready to go on a date with Wallace! Why does Adam show up!"
Eve was complaining.
Seeing an opening, Adam glided towards Angela and knocked her out with the nonlethal part of his blade.
He then picked up and threw a rock at Eve's head to knock her out as well.
Adam was feeling an ache in his heart.
"What is this feeling? Is this...heartbreak?" He thought.
Adam was walking through the front gate.
But before he left, Adam placed two newspaper pieces next to them.
It said, "The Richardsons and the Pearles, bankrupt."
Eve's last name was Pearle, while Angela's was Richardson.
"This became a war as soon as she bankrupted their families." He thought.
The Evergreens planned to make Adam come after them.
His next opponent was a girl from Miashura.
"Hmph this won't take long."
Little did he know, it would take longer than one minute.
VS. The Truth
It may have been an hour or a few minutes before Angela woke up.
Her date with Wallace dropped from her mind.
All that was left was why Adam didn't say anything about hating her.
She felt a piece of rough paper in her hand.
Or rather, it was a folded up newspaper.
It said, "Richardson and Pearle Families, Bankrupt"
Angela kept reading and it said, "Sued by the Evergreen family, they could not disprove the facts the Evergreen family presented and went bankrupt."
Angela threw the paper away and looked at Eve's unconscious body.
"Adam said I have nothing to do with his personal feud. But things just got public."
Angela knew she was walking into a lion's den, but she didn't care.
She wanted to be next to the man she could no longer recognize.
"He's not bound by love, but that doesn't mean he won't listen to reason."
Angela started walking towards the battlefield.
A giant explosion could be heard, rumbling through the air.
Adam was clashing with a Miashura student.
She was apparently a bomb maker or part of a bomb club.
"Dammit... How am I supposed to get near her!?"
She was throwing bombs all across the tiled floor.
The tile wasn't breaking.
"At this rate-"
A giant whirl of wind could be heard.
A mini hurricane.
It blocked Adam's vision, but it cut off the bomb girl's way of attack.
"Now's my chance!"
Adam rushed past the hurricane and threw a rock at the girl's forehead.
The hurricane settled.
At some point during the battle, it started raining.
"I'm guessing you want to talk to me, Angela."
After a few seconds of silence, Angela finally spoke.
"Why are you fighting?"
"Eh?"
"Don't make a girl repeat herself, why are you fighting?"
Adam turned around to the door.
"A dying man's last words got to me."
Angela wondered who the dying man was.
Adam put on his hood and his bandanna.
"He's dead because of me, wasn't even able to get the girl he wanted."
"Even if... Even if he's dead, doesn't mean you should take on the Evergreen family alone! I'll be with you if it means you won't take on the hell family alone!"
Angela was truly reaching out to the boy who was walking into the darkness.
"Hahaha... You don't know when to stop rambling."
Adam chuckled as he drew his sword.
"Then, take me on and show me I don't have to do this alone!"
Angela drew her tachi.
They rushed each other.
They cut, they slashed, they fell.
"Why do you care anymore? You've broken up with me, you've fought me, why do you insist on being next to me when all of that has happened!?"
"I'm not going to be manipulated by the Evergreens anymore. I want to be next to you. Not as a pawn, not as a fighter, but as a lover. That's why I want to be with you!"
They cut once again.
Adam went for an overhead cut against Angela, but she nimbly avoided and it went right past her shoulder.
Angela went for a follow-up slash, but missed.
After a few minutes of cutting and missing, Adam made a crucial mistake.
He went for her heart and Angela deflected it with enough force to disarm him.
She threw away her tachi and tackled Adam.
"I said I want to be next to you, I never want or ever did want to fight you."
Angela was crying.
"I'm...sorry, Angela."
Adam was truly sad.
"If I knew how you felt sooner, this would be different."
Angela had actually fallen for him.
"Even... Even if you want to walk alone, I won't let you shoulder the burden of taking that demon family alone."
"Haha. Then let's go together."
After these words were said, Angela kept crying.
She didn't know how to react.
Adam let her be by his side when this came to it, but she wasn't sure if she was able to take on the hell family.
She stayed still for a few more minutes after thinking about it.
Angela knew that she could be abandoned, Adam would simply be using her as a tool for revenge.
Knowing this, Angela went to pick up her blade and Adam went to pick up his.
They walked into the Evergreen mansion and saw the next opponent.
VS. The Manipulating Man
It was Wallace.
Wallace turned around and saw Angela alongside Adam.
"Angela, what are you doing next to that weirdo?"
After a few seconds of silence, she finally spoke.
"I lost interest in a pretty boy with no power or fame. All you have is women."
"As for me, you took my first lover from me."
Angela blushed after hearing this.
They both drew their swords and looked straight towards Wallace.
Wallace turned and ran.
Adam quickly reached into his left pocket and flicked an eraser up.
Time slowed as he rushed towards Wallace and grabbed his collar.
He walked over to Angela with Wallace in tow, and grabbed the eraser.
Once time returned to normal, Angela looked puzzled.
"Wah, how did you catch me so fast?"
"Ssh, we ask the questions."
Adam strapped Wallace to a nearby chair.
"Let's get down to talking."
"N-Never!"
Angela was staring at the door to the next room when she said, "Adam, we should continue on finding Vanessa."
"Hmph, fine."
"Now's my chance!" Wallace thought.
His eyes grew yellow and he stared straight at Angela's eyes.
They locked and Angela fell into a trance.
"You will knock out this man and untie me."
Angela slowly brought her sword up and tried swinging at Adam's head.
Adam jumped away and knocked Angela out.
He looked straight at Wallace and said, "Don't take my mercy lightly. Usually, I would have murdered you by now."
"Eh?! You knocked out your companion!?"
"No, you knocked out my companion."
"My power doesn't leave one unconscious! It takes control for a small time!"
"You will only by surrounded by women, Wallace. I'll say it again, don't take my mercy lightly."
Adam walked through the door to the next enemy.
Forgotten Bonds VS. An Old Friend
Adam walked through the door to find Vanessa Evergreen there waiting.
"You really came... Why do you fight so much for her and not for me?"
"I died long ago, you saw my grave."
"My little brother attacked the fake that stole my friend's body."
"That may be no lie. Do you want to hear the truth?"
Vanessa nodded.
"Adam Brand suffered a drastic memory loss during a car crash. His parents weren't so lucky, they died in the car crash."
"Why does Adam Brand stand before me, as an enemy instead of my old friend?"
"I suffered memory loss, Adam Brand doesn't know who he is anymore. I don't know who I am or what my personality was like."
"Why are you here fighting?"
"You hurt my new friends, you could have rebuilt our bond. But you chose not to."
"If you know about our bond, why don't you remember me!?"
Adam took a few seconds to think about his response before he said, "Good question, maybe my heart remembered our bond. Surely, my brain doesn't remember."
"DAMMIT! I want my friend back!"
"Reclaim him then, I'm sure he's inside me somewhere."
Vanessa pulled out a simple knife.
Adam pulled out the chokutō.
Their clash was faster than the normal eye could see.
It was a series of white cuts and the sound of metal banging together reverberated throughout the building.
One simple miss could be fatal.
...
...
...
Adam missed.
Vanessa went for the final blow and struck Adam's heart.
Adam fell to the floor, dead.
As she stared at the middle-school boy, who lie dead on the floor she thought, "Is that truly how I wanted this battle to go?"
"ADAM!"
Angela came running through the door and picked Adam up.
"I don't care if you did this to him, but if you could help me, I could save him."
"I... I don't want my childhood friend to die. Please, tell me how to save him."
Even though Vanessa killed him, she would still save his life.
"I need an IV unit and a replacement heart. He's losing blood badly. Do you know his blood type? We can do a transfusion."
"I can get all of that and his blood type is O+ the same as mine."
"I can manipulate his blood to keep him alive."
"Alright, I'll go grab the materials now."
Vanessa scrambled off to grab the materials.
"Dammit, you can't die now! Not after you've gotten this far!"
Inside a deep darkness, Adam lie on the floor.
He heard Angela and Vanessa talking.
He was clearly already dead, but he was also still breathing.
"Then again, I don't remember Tyler at all either. He just said hi to me and I didn't care. He reforged a bond that may have not existed."
He heard a voice throughout the darkness.
It was a woman.
"What is your choice? Do you wish to pursue the past or follow the future, son?"
Apparently it was his mother.
His mother had blue dyed hair. She wore a blue and black dress and her eyes were green.
"I'll pursue the past, no matter how bad my past."
A man's voice appeared, with no silhouette
"If you pursue the past, you can't go back to living a calm life in the future."
"It's not like it was calm anyways, I've been pursued by the past. Now it's my turn to pursue it and learn from it."
"That's my son."
The voice was his father's.
His parents spoke in unison, "To the left you will see parts of your past, to the right you will see nothing and continue to the future."
Unhesitant, Adam walked towards the left.
Cut-up memories came flooding into him and with it, came tons of pain.
It was overwhelming, but Adam stuck to it.
"Aargh!"
He saw visions of a crashed car, lightning coming from his hand, a hill with a single tree, and he saw him protecting a child who looked like a younger Vanessa from bullies.
Then, everything stopped.
He woke from the darkness.
Adam woke up on the hard floor with a IV unit roughly in his right arm.
His heart was beating.
He didn't have the power to get up instead, he looked around.
He saw Angela on his right and Vanessa on his left, both performing a blood transfusion.
"They are both O+ like me, but I should stop them before they put too much blood."
"Guys, I'm awake now. You can stop the blood transfusion."
They immediately stopped and hugged Adam.
He didn't feel any pain from being hugged.
Vanessa started talking.
"You need to get some rest, I'll have the workers get you into a room along with Angela. For now, you sleep."
Adam did as he was told and went to rest.
The next day.
Adam woke to the sound of chirping birds.
He saw Angela and Vanessa resting next to him.
"They were worried sick about me, but didn't I take a blade to the heart?" He thought to himself.
He felt strong enough to get up and somewhere along the night, the IV unit was removed.
Adam put on his clothes and walked out the door.
He saw furniture and a wooden floor. Stairs that descended to the exit and the dining room.
"Where would they put my chokutō?" He said to himself.
He called to one of the workers and said, "Where did you put my blade?"
He answered with, "The chokutō is in lady Vanessa's room, but she is still asleep inside your room, sir."
"Thank you."
Adam walked back inside his room.
He now noticed that the room was decorated with pictures of two children.
One closely resembled Adam and the other looked like the younger Vanessa he saw in his memories.
"These photos are of my early childhood? Hahaha."
Adam chuckled which seemed to wake up the two sleeping girls.
"Nyah, it's morning already?"
"My my, it's morning?"
"Mornin' sleepyheads."
They both looked concerned and sleepy while looking at Adam.
"Hey, Vanessa. Where's my chokutō?"
"It's in my room, I'll go retrieve it for you. I can't let the workers go into my room because my father fears they will sniff my underwear. I don't know what he meant though."
Vanessa walked out the door and went to her room.
"Ok. Angela, what are you going to do from here on?"
"I'll stick by you! No matter what I'll be by your side."
"Then, are you prepared to face hell? I'm going to follow my past and uncover my history. I might not be going to school for a while."
"I said I'll stick next to you so you don't have to face it alone."
"Very well."
Vanessa came back with his chokutō.
"Hey, Vanessa. I'm going to follow my past, so you wait for me when I remember. Okay?"
Vanessa nodded furiously as she said, "Okay, I'll wait for my friend to come back."
Adam and Angela started walking out the door.
A new day, a new dawn.
Fin.
This is not the end of their story, but the next chapter will be slightly mundane since it will focus on the two otaku.
It will be about how they cope with their friends's sudden disappearance.
I didn't separate the fights because I thought each chapter would be short if I split them up.