Chapter 4

Playing with Fire

1 month later

The days after I faced my first grimm weren't spent entirely on training, despite how tempted I was to do so. That victory wasn't acquired using my power alone. My tactics, equipment, and control over the location of the fight was a major contributing factor. If I had to fight Mr. Piggy on the narrow street he first appeared on, using nothing but my own power, I almost certainly would've died.

That's not even considering how I passed out after the fight. I was completely vulnerable, outside, in broad daylight! If there had been a single other grimm present that would've been the end of me. Shit it didn't even have to be a grimm! Any random wild animal could've killed me in that condition if it had the slightest inclination to do so.

The only good thing from exhausting myself to that point was that it ended up with me finally making progress with my Zetsu. As I woke up with my aura utterly spent and in the process of recovering I got a better understanding of how it flowed.

It was as if my soul was a massive reservoir of aura with a single outlet for it to escape from which then dispersed into many other significantly smaller channels and from there it flowed into my body so I could actively use it.

The initial opening from the reservoir was powerful. It felt like an open fire hydrant unleashing thousands of gallons of water with extraordinary force. From there it flowed into the channels, which I'm assuming were my aura nodes, these felt more like a bunch of pipes that allowed the aura to both flow through my body and escape through those same nodes.

I realized that since all living things possess aura, that initial opening wasn't fully closed. In all living beings that opening leaked aura into the body, and unlocking someone's aura was merely the act of creating that opening so that their aura could actually flow through them instead of just leaking.

This realization explained so much about aura and the reasons I was struggling with certain aspects of it.

I now had confirmation that my struggles with Ren weren't entirely my fault. When I just used Ten, my aura flowed at a languid pace easily handled by the size and strength of my aura nodes. However, when I used my Ren, I was actively pulling the aura from my reservoir thereby increasing both the volume and pressure of the aura flowing through me. The aura nodes in my young body simply weren't developed or mature enough to handle the full strength of my aura.

While I could still improve, my progress would be slow but it would speed up as I both grew stronger and older.

I had struggled so much with Zetsu in the past because I didn't fully understand how my aura functioned while still trying to shut it off. I had just been focused on closing my aura nodes to prevent it from flowing out, but that always left me feeling like an overfilled balloon on the verge of bursting before inevitably I lost control of my aura nodes causing them to open and expel aura to ease the internal pressure.

That happened because I may have closed my nodes and prevented my aura from flowing out, but I hadn't done anything to the main opening that was pumping aura into the nodes at the same rate. That left my nodes being strained to the breaking point and forcing them back open.

Zetsu, when used correctly, first required that the initial opening be closed either entirely or almost entirely, and THEN closing the nodes to prevent any aura from leaking out. This left all the aura within the body flowing on a closed circuit.

This also explained how Zetsu was used to enhance recovery when used. This would be the case when the initial opening was only closed MOST of the way instead of being closed entirely. This was because once the closed circuit was established the aura would flow within the body and be spent fixing whatever needed to be fixed. In this instance, the reason the initial opening wasn't closed entirely was so that aura would flow into the circuit to replenish the aura at the same rate it was being expended to recover.

This realization came at the perfect moment since it caused me to remember another critical aspect of aura on Remnant, it attracted grimm like moths to a fucking flame! That was made worse by the ridiculous amount of aura I possessed along with being the only person for god knows how many miles. So I was lit up like a fucking bonfire drawing in any and every grimm that could sense it. Due to this I had to start using Zetsu at all times except for when I was training.

That presented me with a new problem. How could I train without painting a massive bullseye on my back? The answer was I couldn't. That only left me with one option. If I couldn't prevent the threats from coming, then I had to be ready to deal with them when they arrived. Which led to its own conundrum. I couldn't fight off the grimm if I didn't get stronger, but I couldn't get stronger if I didn't fight off the grimm.

A real head scratcher. I struggled with that for quite a while, until I remembered a very important fact. There was a fuck ton of fire dust in the village, spread throughout all the stoves I hadn't looted.

And there was no kill like overkill.

Thankfully I had already figured out how to extract the fire dust canisters without blowing myself to kingdom come. That became necessary when my own stove ran out of fuel and needed more.I spent a day gathering up all the fire dust canisters from all the stoves along with any extra canisters people had kept in their homes for heating or whatever.

After setting aside 100 canisters for my own home, I ended up with 300 canisters left to fight the grimm.

I made one more discovery, and it was a rather cool one. Considering the relationship between aura, negative emotions, and grimm. I now had confirmation that I could use the same method Hisoka used at Heavens arena to generate Killing Intent. That's right. One of the coolest things across all of anime, and I now had access to it.

But it didn't stop there. Since grimm were attracted to negative emotions, by flaring my killing intent I could light up a beacon to lure grimm to my current position. Current being the operative word.

All these factors combined gave me a rather interesting idea for dealing with the grimm. It was risky, and it could backfire horribly, but if it worked it could be a game changer.

That's why one day, for the first time since I arrived in this new world, I left the village. I walked deep into the woods with a backpack full of fire dust canisters and extra bullets for my gun. I had Zetsu active until I arrived at a small clearing surrounded by tall trees.

I walked to the exact center of the clearing and flared my Ren as much as I could, all the while packing it full of anger, hate, and malice. I knew it was working because every single bird took off from the trees and flew away from me as quickly as they could manage.

It was awesome.

I kept it up for 10 seconds before activating Zetsu and quickly climbing the tallest tree nearby and hid among the branches. I figured that if the grimm couldn't sense me or see me, then I should be alright. I found a branch that gave me a clear vantage point to the clearing. Then I sat down, and drew my gun with my right hand and pulled a dust canister from my bag with my left. Then all I had to do was wait.

I didn't have to wait long before my target arrived. I spotted an Ursa Major run into the clearing and pause where I had been standing when I flared my killing intent. Fuck that thing was massive. It was easily 10ft tall and covered in jagged bone armor. The claws it had were terrifying, even from this far away I could easily spot them. I had no clue how much it weighed, but considering a polar bear weighed over 900 pounds, this monstrosity had to be at least 1500 pounds with all that armor. While I was hoping for the first grimm to arrive would be something a bit more manageable, I could still work with this. So far, so good. The plan was working.

I moved on to the next step and threw the dust canister at the Ursa Major's head. I aimed at the canister as soon as it left my hand, then right before it was going to hit I pulled the trigger and shot the canister.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

"Motherfucker!" I exclaimed as the force of the explosion nearly knocked me out of the tree. I managed to avoid taking an impromptu tumble and turned my attention back on the clearing.

As the smoke cleared I was shocked to see the Ursa had survived. Granted, it looked like shit but nonetheless it was alive. It had lost most of its armor and looked to have taken massive damage, but it seemed determined to get back up. I didn't want to give it any time to recover so pulled another dust canister from my bag and repeated the process.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

That did the trick. As the smoke cleared I was blessed with the sight of a dead Ursa Major in the process of fading to black smoke.

I now knew that an Ursa Major would take 2 canisters to dispatch. This trip was already paying off. I sat back, reloaded my gun, and waited for the next grimm to arrive.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Huh, It takes four canisters to kill a Deathstalker. Impressive.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

It takes two canisters to kill an Alpha Beowolf. Sounds about right.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

It only takes one canister to kill a Boarbatusk? Fuck, I could've died fighting one of those bastards and that whole situation could've been easily resolved with some explosives!? Ah well, live and learn I guess.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Only one canister is needed to kill a regular Ursa

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Only one canister needed to kill a regular Beowolf, but those fuckers roam in packs so caution is necessary.

3 hours later

By this point no more grimm were showing up, so I guessed I already killed all the ones nearby that had sensed my killing intent. With all my business in the forest concluded, I leapt from the tree and made my way back home.

Now that I knew this strategy would work, I could use it to neutralize most of the grimm before they even made it to the village. All I had to do was return to the clearing maybe once or twice a week and spend the day killing grimm. That should minimize the chances of me running into a grimm within the village.

I would still carry fire dust canisters at all times just in case one did wander into town so I wouldn't be caught off guard. I would have to set up traps within the village to alert me of any grimm wandering through the streets.

The main issue now was the finite amount of fire dust in my possession. Now I just had to become strong enough to ensure that when I eventually did run out of dust, I would be strong enough to kill the grimm on my own.

I just had to make sure I was careful with the development of my training. There was no guarantee that the techniques that were useful to me now as a 10 year old would still be effective when I'm an adult.

I'd find a way to make it work. I had to. Not like I had much of a choice.

That's the chapter, I hope y'all liked it. Seasonal depression and writer's block have been hitting me pretty hard lately so no clue when the next update will be but I'll try to get it out as soon as I can.

As always, be sure to review and let me know your thoughts on the chapter and if you'd like to support me then just lookup DelinquentDream on Pat-r3-0n.

Now to respond to reviews.

Molag Vile: Thanks for reviewing, I hope you continue to enjoy my story.

Raidentensho: Truth be told I just needed a first name that started with the letter "H" and Hector was the one that fit best. And by 'love spot guy' do you mean Lancer from Fate/Zero? Lol I'm well aware of the shit luck the Lancer class is known for I wouldn't curse Hector like that. And the fire dust/ microfracture training won't be done since it's too high risk. Hector doesn't have access to medical care so he can't afford to take unnecessary risks that could result in severe injury. He will be meeting Raven at some point and I have plans for that meeting that I'm sure no one will expect and I don't think any other fanfic author has done before. In regards to his look I haven't decided how I want him to look yet so I'll probably go back and edit earlier chapters to include that once I've made up my mind. I've never seen Troll Hunters so I can't really comment on that although those are decent rules.