It was like any normal day. I was walking with my dad along a nice park after he got out of work, just like we always do. The sky was getting dark, we were going home on foot, it was a few minutes of walking after all.

My dad was always smiling whenever he was with me or my mom, but I knew he became serious when working. He was a police officer, always protecting innocent lives, putting himself in danger to protect who couldn’t protect themselves. He was my hero.

I was 5 at the time, didn’t knew the world that well, but that didn’t matter, what did matter was that my dad was with me.

The streets, once full of life and sounds, was silent, only a few handful of people walking and a car one in a while passing by. We walked these streets for years, what could possibly go wrong?

I'll tell you what could go wrong, everything. It started small, the small quantity of people walking on the streets started to get smaller and smaller. Soon there was no one on the street but a single man, walking towards us. My dad stopped me and got in front of me, protecting me from whoever was coming to us.

A few moments later and this man stops in front of us, he was using fancy clothes, the kind of clothes you would see a rich guy wearing on TV. Not just the clothes, he was using a pair of golden and black sunglasses, the very air he was emitting smelled like an eccentric rich man from a soap opera.

“Officer Pietro, what a coincidence to find you here, walking on this street”

The man said, taking his sunglasses off, looking straight to my dad's face.

“excuse-me, do I know you?”

My dad asked the unknown man while he got in front of me. The man laughs a little.

“No, no, we don’t know each other personally, but I do know you and your little investigation on my business”

“Business? You are saying you’re the head of the organized crime I’ve being investigating for the last couple months?“

The man gives a shrug before answering.

“Who knows? Maybe I am, maybe I am not. I’m here to give you a warning, don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong”

“and if I refuse?”

The man gives a small laugh before putting his hand on his back and pulls a gun pointing at my dad. I gasp at the scene, but my dad keeps staring into the man’s eyes.

“Well, if you refuse, I’ll just have to….”

He then points the gun at me. my legs are shaking and I’m hugging my dad’s leg with all my strength. I’m frozen in place.

“…pull the trigger, and if even then you still refuse…”

The man laughs again.

“…I’ll need to pull the trigger at a person living in…hmmm, what was the address? Alamar Street number 52?”

“Bastard!”

My dad shout but that only makes the man laughs even more.

“Yes! Please! Shout more. I love hearing people in face of despair”

“Tsk. Maniac”

My dad said with a low voice, but he heard. His face lost all of his expressions, only a cold gaze could be seen coming from him.

“You know what I hate more than people full of themselves? People who judge others without anything to stand on. They think they know about the person they’re talking about and even worse, they think they have the right to judge them. Now, I’ll give you a lesson to learn and a warning. Do not come after us”

The next moments felt like time was in slow-motion. His finger pulled the trigger and at the same time, my dad dashed to throw his gun away. But he wasn’t fast enough to stop him from shooting. The bullet went through his chest and came out of his lower back, missing me for a centimeter. My dad lost his strength immediately and was falling on the shooter, but he kicked my dad back, falling right in front of me.

“Tsk. Stupid cop”

I stood there in shock, my mind wasn’t working, the only thing I could see was my dad lying on the ground and blood, a lot of blood. In that moment, everything that existed for me was my dad’s corpse and blood. I don’t know when the other man left, I don’t even know how long I’ve been there, I only know that I suddenly woke up on my bed.

*****

Zenshin entered the dream of the young one. Seeing the unknown scenery caused the Kitsune to look around, a little lost. While looking around he noticed the smell.

“Trauma, why did it had to be a trauma? Those are the worst types of dreams to enter. Yes, yes, I know I should be a guardian of the dream realm, but you know how much a pain in the ass traumas are? they’re stronger than normal dreams, and depending on how strong it is, it can even cause soul damage, yes, soul damage! And that’s not for just the traumatized person, it’s for anybody who’s in the trauma dream, myself included! Aaaaand I’m talking to myself again. Sigh”

He looked around. He was in a forest it looked like, but there was some sort of stone road and weird benches along it.

“What a strange place, so this is his world of origin? Sniff sniff. Found him, at least is easy to track someone inside of a trauma, it’ll be the only one not smelling like trauma. Hmm, it looks like he’s around 200 meters that way. I must say, this is a pretty big trauma, most are just 6 meters’ radius. Very well, better get going, I can’t afford to waste time here, this is one of the strongest trauma I’ve se…. oh no. I totally forgot, now it makes sense why this trauma’s so strong, it’s not just the trauma, it’s the mind corruption skill. I can almost feel it, running inside of everything here. Now I really need to be fast”

With that, the Kitsune began to run in the direction he felt the young one. He was fast, arriving at his destination in just seven seconds. There he saw a human boy, a human lying on the ground with blood around him, and another human, with something made of metal on his hand. The scene told him that metal thing was some form of weapon and he immediately became wary of it, walking slowly to the boy.

The ground behind the man broke and tendrils made out of static came out of it and stuck the man, but unlike the other time the static didn’t consumed him, he absorbed it into himself. Seeing that made Zenshin enter in battle mode, his focus was all round him and the man, who is now twitching around.

He then begins to laugh in a broken voice, Zenshin couldn’t describe it, but if it were Marcos who heard it, he would describe as a voice coming from a broken radio.

“Look at what he got here…”

The guy locked his gaze on Zenshin and the boy, who is just looking at the corpse near him.

“…A poor little fox and my host, I must thank him, for I’ve gained intelligence”

“Aren’t you a skill that destroys intelligence? What you’ve just said does not make any sense!”

The Kitsune shout.

“Heh heh heh, yes, you’re completely right, I shouldn’t have any kind of intelligence, it’s completely opposite of myself, but I did, I’ve overcame the skill system!”

“That’s impossible! the system is everything and is in everything, you can’t just do something that is contradictory with the system itself. You’re saying you overcame the universe itself?!”

“Exactly that, my little foxy! Now, I just need to complete my mission”

“And what is your mission?”

The man gave Zenshin a grin.

“Total control of his body, of course! I still need to corrode his mind until there’s nothing left, then, I’ll assume control of his body, just like I would have normally”

“I won’t allow it”

“Oh, little fox, I think you misunderstood something here…”

The man points his weapon to Zenshin.

“I haven’t asked for your permission”

The sound of the gun being shot echoed through the dream. Zenshin was already wary of that metal thing, so when the man pointed it at his direction, blue flames shot out of Zenshin’s body and made a wall of fire between the man and he and the boy. The bullet sped through the air and hit the flames, but instead of coming out of the other side, it completely disappeared.

“Oh, looks like you’ve got some nice tricks”

“If you kept being that ball of corruption, I wouldn’t be able to do it, but now that you’ve assumed a “physical” form, it’ll be as easy as transitioning from the spiritual realm to the mortal realm. Now, “thing”, be burned by the [Oblivion Flames]!”

Blue fireballs shoot out from the flame wall, roaming directly at the personification of the [Instincts Overdrive] skill.

He shot his gun more times, but each time a bullet hit a fireball, it would be disintegrated by it.

“Tsk”

He leaps backwards, hoping to escape them, but they kept going, aiming at him, he tried to dodge them by moving to the side, but he was not fast enough, one of them hit his hand, and it is disintegrated by it.

“Those are some really nasty fireballs you’ve got there, I see I won’t be able to push through my plan today, so I’ll say goodbye for today and I’ll come back another day”

The fireballs made a U-turn and charged right at him, but he just waved his hand to Zenshin and disappeared by entering the ground itself.

Zenshin felt his presence fading away and gave a sigh of relieve. Just as he was turning towards the boy, a woman appeared, but there was something strange about her, it was just a silhouette of a woman, there were no facial features, there were no features at all. She came and hugged the boy, who stayed there, motionless. If Zenshin were to guess, he would guess the woman is the boy’s mother, and her lack of features is given by the state the boy is in right now.

Dispersing the blue flames, Zenshin looked at the boy for a few moments more.

“You know, kid? This just became way more interesting and a huge pain in the ass. Sigh. Guess I’ll stay with you until you wake up, in case that “thing” comes back”