The Reincarnated Hitman

Hypnos watched the happy moments shared between mother and son until he got bored enough and decided just to break the kid.

After all, that was the reason why he was in Zero’s mind in the first place.

Slowly, he walked towards the two, but before he had the chance to reach them,

BOOM!

An explosion suddenly went off, pulling the Splinters’ attention towards it. Chaos immediately ensued as the crowd noticed flames coming from a certain part of the mall.

"Wh-what was that?" The little Liam asked, panic evident on his face.

"It’s fine, just make sure to hold on to Mommy, okay?" His mother immediately reached down and grabbed Liam’s hand.

"Don’t let go."

"O-okay."

The boy tightly held onto her as they continued moving through the panicking crowd. Everyone was trying to get to the exit as quickly as possible whilst desperately screaming.

His mother pulled him along as they hurried toward the nearest exit.

"Mom, what’s happening?!"

"I don’t know! Just keep running!"

Hypnos followed behind them, completely unaffected by the chaos; his interest in the situation was growing as more time passed.

He simply assumed that this was some sort of Villain attack, and he watched with growing anticipation as the chaos continued.

The two had gotten quite close to the exit when the roof of the mall suddenly gave way, sending rubble crashing down in their path.

Hypnos watched as the woman pulled the young Zero towards her and looked around for another way out.

The other side of the mall seemed to have completely caught fire, judging by the smoke coming from that side.

Strangely though, the flames seemed to actively be moving towards the other side of the mall.

This very much confirmed to Hypnos that the fire was due to an awakened human... a pyro maniac, perhaps.

A man suddenly emerged from the smoke on the other side of the mall.

Hypnos recalled him as the very same man showed on the TV in Zero’s home before they had left for the mall.

His clothes were partially burned, and his hair was singed, but he was laughing like a maniac as he looked down at his hands.

"I was right, I am the Messiah after all," the man said as he continued laughing, "this is a sign of god’s approval."

Both his hands seemed to be on fire, but they were strangely not burning, a never-before-seen phenomenon on Earth.

But Hypnos didn’t know this, so he simply assumed that this was a case of a pyromaniac awakened human.

According to the man, god had appeared to him in the form of a man and granted him this power, so,

"To thank him for this gift," he put his hand down and looked towards the panicking crowd, "you all shall be my sacrifice to him."

The man raised both hands, and the flames around them suddenly intensified before he said, "Burn."

A massive wave of fire was launched from his hands and through the entire mall. People screamed as they desperately tried to escape, and some managed to get out of the way.

Others weren’t so fortunate.

The flames completely swallowed several people, immediately burning them to ash.

Their minds struggled to understand what was going on, but they focused on one thing for now: survival.

They would understand what was going on later, but for now, they needed a way out of this mall.

The man continued laughing blasts after the other, engulfing more and more people in flames.

During all this, Liam’s mother tried her hardest to remain as calm as she could. Her son was already terrified enough, and panicking wouldn’t do anything to help with the present situation.

She looked around and, through the chaos, managed to spot a maintenance corridor near the side of the mall.

It was partially obscured by smoke, but it appeared to lead toward another exit.

"There!" She immediately grabbed Liam’s hand again, "Come on!"

The pyromaniac, meanwhile, laughed as he watched the flames continue engulfing people, "Yes! Yes!"

He raised his arms higher as tears formed in his eyes, "Look at it!"

The fire continued spreading across the mall, burning down even the stores, "Isn’t it beautiful?!"

He then noticed that his precious sacrifices were trying to escape, which just won’t do. After all, god himself had selected them to be burnt by him.

He started launching flames in random directions.

One of said flames exploded directly in Zero and his mother’s path, the shockwave launching the two in the opposite direction.

The kid seemed to be disoriented, and that’s when Hypnos observed something strange. The memories suddenly started distorting, almost as if something was changing them.

There were suddenly more corpses lying around the kid, and his mom seemed a lot worse than she should’ve been from the blast.

"Run, Liam," She said with a small smile on her bloody face, "Mom will catch up to you later."

Hypnos seemed a bit confused, wondering if someone had altered the kid’s memories before him.

Before he could completely understand what was going on, a terrifying pressure suddenly fell on his shoulders.

The Splinters’ attention was pulled towards a certain direction, and he immediately noticed a man walking towards the two.

The man looked completely obscured by the smoke rising within the mall, but Hypnos could tell that he had a hand on his chin.

"For someone who just gained a Factor, our little pyromaniac did a pretty good job," the man muttered, looking around, "but this is not traumatic enough, so let’s alter it a bit."

Hypnos, on the other hand, didn’t dare move an inch, as his instincts went off in alarm.

He was certain that he would die if that man noticed him, which should’ve been impossible since this was only a memory.

He watched as the man slowly walked towards the two with a blade forming in his hand.

"This should be enough," the man muttered as he raised the blade.

He stopped beside the woman and looked down at her for a moment before glancing toward the young Liam.

The boy was still too disoriented to understand what was happening; his mother, on the other hand, immediately noticed the stranger behind her.

"I’m sure this would be a lot less painful than burning to death," the man said, and without hesitation, drove the blade straight through her back.

"Now then, for the final touch," he then leaned forward, his face seemingly identical to the pyromaniac’s as he said, "Hello there, little one."

Hypnos watched as the man used the back of his blade to knock the kid out before he stood up straight and turned to the pyromaniac.

"Well, that’s it for your first act," the man spoke again before snapping and the flames that the pyromaniac wielded suddenly disappeared.

The pyromaniac seemed a bit confused as he looked down at his hands, but his eyes suddenly rolled back, and he completely blacked out.

"Though it’s a bit messy," the man muttered, "that should be enough to set him on track."

The next second, something Hypnos thought impossible, suddenly happened. The man from the Zero’s memories suddenly turned towards him and said with a smile,

"You’re not supposed to be here."

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