Still dressed in his pink onesie, Asher stepped out of the apartment. The rows and rows of streetlights were dimmed, casting foreboding shadows over the street. He looked down from behind the railing, attempting to get a glimpse of any 'Sweepers' that Mei told him about.
He didn't know what they looked like, but he had a feeling that he would recognize them if he saw one.
The streets were eerily silent, and every window lining the streets was boarded shut. He actually found the empty street to be quite calming, with the silver moonlight shining over the dead, empty road.
Asher took in a deep breath of night air, coughing as he inhaled a bit more smoke than his lungs could handle.
He wasn't searching for Sweepers anymore, but simply enjoying the atmosphere of mystique and darkness.
However, just as he was about to leave, he heard clamoring voices in the alley below him, right next to the apartment. Three people ran out onto the dim streets, their breaths ragged from exertion.
He stared at them judgementally. The man in the middle was the one who killed him hours ago when he first entered the world, though to him it felt so long ago that he had nearly forgotten about it.
Asher could hear their voices even from where he stood, on the third floor of the apartment.
"Pete! You said that Sweepers check that place!" The voice of a young girl echoed across the street. He saw a window furtively open its shutters in the building opposite of his, observing the commotion.
'Sweepers, huh.' It seems like maybe he could see what they were after all.
The trio froze in terror, seeing something lumber from the alleyway. The window across the street hurriedly closed its shutters.
Asher shifted his position, trying to make out what they were looking at.
A humanoid figure, wearing a cyclopean gas mask and strange inky metallic armor, shuffled out into the light. A clear tank filled with blood and flesh was attached to its back, and the thing's mask visor shone with crimson light.
The Sweeper had red-hot meat hooks attached to its arms, causing the air to sizzle with heat around them.
Asher looked at the Sweeper indifferently. He honestly thought it would look scarier than that, but he felt it wasn't even as creepy as the fairies from the Fairy Festival.
Of course, he was only afraid of the fairies because of his experience with them, and not their appearance.
But the three people in the middle of the street apparently thought it looked menacing. They stopped in their tracks, and their eyes became glazed with fear.
The Sweeper stepped lightly towards them in anticipation, but the man in the middle, Pete, stepped up and spread his hands to block the Sweeper's path.
"Aiko, Mangchi, run to that empty basement in Hideout Three. I'll meet you guys there." Pete's voice was grim. He didn't expect to come out of this alive.
But the other two didn't run away, stepping forward instead. Aiko patted his shoulder with the palm of her petite hand.
"It wasn't all your fault. I was the one who chose the place tonight. I should take some responsibility too." As Aiko reassured him, Mangchi flicked the back of Pete's head with his finger, shaking his head silently as he stood behind him.
Such a display amused Asher. Acting so cute. Why couldn't they have done something like that instead of murdering him back then?
He realized they cared so much for their group, as a sort of mental preparation for their minds so they could kill other people without hesitation, only thinking about their own tight-knit clique.
Asher couldn't blame them. Pete said that people like them had to do anything to survive back when Asher confronted him in the morning, and this was probably just another way for them to exist in such a place.
Even so, as the Sweeper walked languidly towards the trio, the three vagabonds couldn't help but shake. Mangchi pulled Pete behind him with his arm, staring at the Sweeper with his knife raised.
The masked creature tilted its head at them, raising his meat hook to slash down.
'Sigh, I can't just leave them be... I want to see how strong a Sweeper is anyway.' Asher rationalized his decision in his mind, jumping off from the third floor. He landed on the asphalt street with a soft thud.
Asher made himself believe that he wanted to test his strength, but in truth, Pete and his friends' performances softened his heart a little. Even though they killed him earlier, a childish hope that they could be reformed still lingered in his mind.
Like a newly born infant, Asher was foolishly pure. He could be molded into something better than his last life.
Not a 'hero', but also not an Impurity waiting to be erased.
Pete and the other two widened their eyes in surprise, and the Sweeper mechanically swiveled its body toward him.
"You're the... A Fixer?" Seeing the boy leap from a height of over two stories made Pete jump to a wild conclusion. He thought back to the child in the alley, who was now dressed in a pink onesie instead of tattered clothes. Asher didn't spare a glance at the man, and prepared to fight the Sweeper, who already began to swing at him.
'[Fairy Queen]!' His pink outfit disappeared, replaced with the greenish-blue armor. He quickly deflected the hook, and the sound of clashing metal rang across the street. He could sense multiple windows opening in the buildings surrounding the street.
Asher swung his club at the face of the Sweeper, but its head did not budge. It stared at the egg lodged in its mask in apathy.
'What the- Ow!' While Asher focused on the thing's face, it stealthily brought out one of its hooks, gouging out the tendons in his right leg, ripping the fleshy cords out and flicking it to the ground. The smell of sizzling flesh permeated the air.
Asher gritted his teeth. At least he could see what one of the summoned fairies looked like, as the egg on top of his weapon cracked open to reveal a bubbly red-headed fairy who immediately flew to the Sweeper with her mouth open. The egg sealed itself afterward, like nothing ever happened.
He glanced behind him. Those three had already disappeared. Asher himself could have escaped if those meat hooks didn't completely slash apart his right leg.
'I have to damage the thing somewhat if I want to walk again.'
Asher took the offensive, shuffling with his limp leg toward the masked thing as the fluttering fairy distracted it.
Instead of aiming at its mask, he swung all over its body, intending to inflict as much damage as he could so his wound would heal from the effect of his weapon.
Although the Sweeper was strong, it wasn't as fast as Asher, who saw its movements clearly. He could dodge all the blows the thing sent at him, other than the first one that took him by surprise.
Asher slowly felt his wound closing up, but the Sweeper didn't look any worse off than before, still swinging its hooks slowly and methodically.
He peered at the tank on the Sweeper's back as it glowed a garish crimson hue. The flesh in the tank was slowly being pumped inside the thing, healing it.
But the tank was emptying too slow, it was still over 80% full.
The fairy he summoned had disappeared, and his wound was completely healed.
He didn't want to bother dealing with the Sweeper anymore; he predicted it would take at least an hour to whittle down the flesh tank on its back.
'It's like a damn cockroach...'
He canceled his transformation, directly climbing up the apartment walls, reaching the third floor of the apartment in a flash.
As he looked from above, he found that the Sweeper seemed to have already lost interest in him. It roamed back into the alley.
He felt that whoever coined the term 'Sweeper' had a great sense for names.
It was as if they 'swept' the roads, cleaning out whoever happened to be walking the streets at night.
Asher appreciated the night air for a bit more, and no other people barged into the dim streetlights to interrupt him this time.
After he finished, he entered Mei's house again, closing the door behind him.
Heading straight to the bedroom, he found Mei still there, sound asleep. He wiggled into the blankets, weary from all the fighting he did earlier.
Soon, he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.