(Minoru/Benjamin POV without his past life memories)
"bang," "boom," "shatter," Ahhh!!! * A person goes flying through a window and lands in a scorpion, knocked unconscious, blood leaking from his skull*
"Weak, you are supposed to be yakuza. How can you be so pathetically weak? I have not even used my crowbars yet. You guys are just street worms using the name of the yakuza to frighten people into giving you money, but still, you managed to rob them of 200 thousand yen. Impressive"
a figure emerges from the shadows, surrounded by a total of ten thugs knocked unconscious in a puddle of their blood.
*The figure walks toward the last thug, who barely retains consciousness. He can see a man wearing a ski mask twirling around two crowbars with cold eyes glaring at him*
"Please, man, you got the money already. Leave us the fuck alone already."
"Sure, I have the money, but you still have not been taught a lesson."
a wicked smile spread underneath the mask-wearing figure's face, prompting cold chills to run down the thug's back.
"Noo!!!"
for over 10 minutes of torture, the thug was yelling for god to save him from this brutal demon up until he lost consciousness.
"Tch still not enough even with these thugs; I still suffered some minor injuries. This needs to be better. I can do better. How can I become the eminence of the shadows sustaining injuries by weaklings?"
"I NEED MORE POWER."
hmm
"step." "step," "step,"
"There are others." I raise a brow and disappear into the shadows, waiting for them to enter.
"Hey, keep that bitch quiet. She's giving me a headache."
"Why aren't you the one carrying this bitch? Huh, military man, you think I'm your slave."
"No, you are lower than a slave; you are a rat."
"The fuck you say muscle head? I'll kill you right now!."
"Just try it, you rat-face piece of shit. Watch how easy I break you!."
as they argued, I noticed the rat-faced delinquent carrying a girl. She looked familiar, ah.
*flashback*
this morning, when I was putting my shoes into my locker, I exchanged words with her. Was the named NPC Nishimura-san the school idol, or was it an actress? I can't recall anyway, so that's who she is. Why do they want her? I'm curious, but more power overcomes my curiosity. Let's wrap this up and call it a day. I still need to discover magic; I'm close to losing my mind. Hehe, I'll unlock it today. I know I can yosh. Now I'm excited (smiles sinisterly)
*I start unzipping my gym bag to retrieve my mask and crowbars*
'let's spook them first'
*I toss a piece of glass at the area where I tied up those thugs, wanting to see how they react*
"glass shatters,"
"what the fuck was that" Both of their voices overlap each other
"Hey, look over there. Isn't that your delinquent friends tied up over there?"
"so you finally noticed it took you clowns long enough. I thought I was dealing with idiots, though I still think that."
The duo quickly looked behind them, one of them pulling out a gun and aiming at me. That would be the military man.
"huh, you're the one beating up my crew now that you've shown yourself. Prepare to die, bastard die!"
"Hey, stupid ass, don't go rushing him, tch fucking idiot."
*rat face charges at me, swinging his butterfly knife around and trying to cut me, but in my eyes, it is nothing half-assed swings with no purpose truly pathetic*
"enough. you're not the one I desire to fight, so scram."
*I swung my crowbar at his hand, wielding the knife, and knocked it out of his hands. I then cracked him in the jaw with my other crowbar, rocking him for enough time for me to move around him and German suplex him onto the concrete floor, knocking him unconscious*
"Now it's just you and me, soldier. What do you say want to dance?"(smiles)
"Sure, let's see what you got, brat." *The soldier tosses his gun to the side and pulls out an army knife*
"I enjoy killing people like you, brat. Blood tastes the best from rookies like you come!."
*soldier swiped his combat knife at my neck, hoping for a quick kill, but unfortunately for him, I had predicted that he would do that, so I was preparing to parry him, but to my surprise, he did something unexpected: he released his combat knife and caught it in his other hand then proceeded to swing towards my armpit thanks to my quick reaction time I was just barely able to evade sustaining a scratch near my rib*
"quite the reflexes you have, brat, but you're still a greenhorn."
"yeah, you're right about that. This is my first time facing a soldier, and as I expected, it's challenging, and I realize I still need more power." I clench the crowbars and glare at my enemy
"Let's end this."
"whoosh," "ding," "crack,"
"ah!!!"
*I disappeared and appeared in front of the soldier, swinging my crowbar right at the joint of his left knee, breaking it, while my other hand swung and dislocated his right shoulder, causing him to drop his knife*
"you like to kidnap women right now. Look at you, filth, struggling to get to his gun out of peer fear. Just know that the fear you are feeling is the same fear you put into the many people you harmed. Now repent,"
*I walked toward him while whistling cocking back my arm and striking him upside his face knocking out some teeth and putting him to sleep*
"it's over now. You can quit pretending to be asleep, little girl."
*I walk over to Nishimura, cut off her restraints, and turned to leave*
"try not to get kidnapped again Nishimura," I say before grabbing my stuff and leaving. Once I was far away, I took off my ski mask.
"This ain't good enough. I need more power to be the eminence in the shadows."
"hmm"
"honk," "honk,"
"well shit"
...
I am trying to remember how it started. It's what I always wanted to be, like how everyone dreams of being a hero when they're a kid. That is what I wanted to be, but what made me different from other kids was that my passion was far from a temporary phase. It kept burning deep, deep inside my heart. The flame never extinguished. It kept driving me forward. I did everything I could to master every skill I needed to strengthen. At school, I was the stubbornly ordinary, never conspicuous, utterly harmless background character A, but I gave everything to my training behind the mask.
As everyone around me grew up and forgot about the heroes they dreamed of becoming, I started to feel a little- just a very little - sentimental. I kept working for the day I knew would come, but the time has come for me to face reality. None of this is going to mean anything. The world is overflowing with martial arts, and I can learn all of them, but I'll never get the overwhelming power you hear about in all the stories. The best I can do is bust a few delinquent heads if, for example, I am surrounded by fully armed soldiers. That would be it for me. If I become the strongest martial artist in the world, I'll likely be able to rough them up. But then what? What if a nuclear missile fell from the sky? I can tone my muscles, I can hone my mind, I can polish my skills all I want, but if a nuclear bomb hits, all I can do is evaporate. That's what it is to be human. I have to overcome those limits. The being I want to be would not evaporate in a nuclear explosion; compromise is not an option. I was blessed with a new life and world and was given...Magic with this new power at my disposal...there is but one summit I aim to reach this time. I'm going to make it. I would give up everything to get there, no, I will give up everything! If that is what it takes to get there, that's how badly I want it. I don't want to be the hero; I don't want to be the last boss. I want to be the one in the story who operates from the shadows, showing everyone their greatness: the eminence in the shadows!