So he found it quite surprising that Anna, a beautiful, shapely, powerful swordswoman chose to ask him for friendship.
"Are we enemies?" Steve asked, he was quite surprised with the calmness of his voice
"No… But I want to be your friend Steve, like friends that look after each other's backs. After observing you these past few days, I couldn't help but fall for your kindness and selflessness in rescuing people without even caring about your own welfare" She replied
"Okayy… Thanks" Steve chuckled after saying this, it was a chuckle of relief. He was just happy that things would end on a good note. "It's fine with me"
"Okay Stevie, I look forward to spending time with you" She said with a bright smile and bowed her head gently to Steve
"S..s..ste..vie?" He froze as he heard the fond name that his parents used to call him before they passed away.
"I can call you Stevie right?"
"Yeah…"
Her smile broadened and she turned and skipped away, back to the dorms.
"…yes you can" Steve finally said as his heart felt so heavy from the nostalgia he felt from been called Stevie.
He plopped on the ground and sat there for a long time as memories of his parents flooded his memories.
Sixteen years ago….
"Ha ha ha ha"
A four year old child was seen laughing while running around in the park with his hands outstretched as if he was an aeroplane.
"Mommy, Daddy look! I'm an aeroplane. Vroom! Vroom!"
"Ha ha ha ha" His parents laughed simultaneously at his childish imagination.
"He's such an adorable child isn't he?" Madison asked, a beautiful smile on her lips.
"Yes…yes he is. And he looks so much like you" Alex replied as he held a strand of Madison's long jet black hair that fell on her face and tucked it behind her ears while looking into her light brown eyes with it's long lashes that fluttered adorably as she blinked.
"Oh God, you're so beautiful"
"That's you saying this for the one millionth time today" She said to him with a broader and prettier smile on her face.
"I can't seem to get used to your beauty, even though it has been four years since we got married… Are you sure you're not an angel?" He asked goofily
"Stop messing around!" She said and slapped him softly on his cheeks.
He held the hand that she used to slap him and pulled her closer to him till their faces were just inches apart from each other as they sat down on the bench in the park.
"I think I'm the luckiest man alive to be blessed with an angel for a wife and an amazing son like Stevie"
"Aw…stop being such a softie Alexander Heracles" She whispered as she felt Alex's hands grab her waist and squeeze it as their lips touched ever so softly…
"Naughty!!"
They jerked out of their reverie as they saw Steve standing in front of them with a baseball in his hands.
"KIEE!!" Madison shrieked in surprise and the two lovers disentangled from each other's embrace.
"You scared me son. Oh Stevie my boy has broken my heart" She said and put her hands to her chest as if she was suffering from a chest ailment.
"No! No! Sowie mommy Stevie will never scare Mommy again" Steve screamed as he jumped on his mother's laps and held her neck with his two small hands.
"He he" She giggled from the tickles of his small hands on her neck as she hugged Steve closer to her body. "I know son. I know"
Two strong hands held them and brought them together in a loving family embrace as father, mother and child laughed joyously and happily in the park.
(T/N: This was before Madison died and Alex turned into a total d!ckhead)
16 years later….
Steve was disoriented and out of breath when he arrived at their apartment. He briefly paused outside the door to catch his breath before barging into their living room.
When Grandpa Matt said that his father was wounded, Steve thought that it would be just a stab wound and some bruises at worst but the sight he saw made his eyes watery. Alex was a bleeding mess, half of his face was ripped off and his left arm was missing, his clothes were soaked with his blood and had already formed a small pool of blood on the floor where he lay.
Alex was at the brink of death because of the gravity of his injuries, it was a miracle that he had stayed alive for so long, it was probably because he wanted to speak to his son before he gave up.
Steve stood rooted at the door as he saw the terminal state his father was in, his heart softened instantly and it seemed like he had forgotten whatever grudge they had. The room was dark but Steve could see the tears in Grandpa Matt's eyes,
"He has been asking about you since he came back like this, he refused to go to the hospital, he has already lost so much blood" Grandpa Matt said in a choky voice laden with sadness.
Steve walked slowly towards his father's half dead body and knelt before it,
the tears dropped freely from his eyes
"Dad…dad…please don't die…. I'm sorry I wasn't a good son, please stay, don't leave me like mum did, please dad…please"
Steve couldn't even make out his father's facial features from the disfigured face but he was sure he heard his father's heartbreaking final words clearly,
"No son…. don't apologize[coughs]…I should be the one apologizing for….abandoning my duty to you as a father, [coughs], I… don't have much time left but…I just want you to know…that though…I may have acted like I never cared about you[coughs]…though I may have…neglected your needs, i have never[coughs]…never neglected you in my heart…I hope that one day you'll be able to find it in your big, kind heart to forgive me…Stevie, I…love..you..son".
He suddenly started coughing and shaking violently, his blood sprayed all over Steve's body but he didn't care, he gripped his father tightly and cried out his eyes, suddenly Alex's right hand jerked up and with his last energy, he used two of his fingers to hit Steve's forehead, neck and chest before his heart stopped beating and he finally lay still.
Present Day….
Tears dropped from Steve's eyes as he remembered his dead parents.
"If Mom hadn't died then dad wouldn't have become distant, if Ebun hadn't decided to be a d!ck then dad would still be alive today. We could have been one big happy family if it wasn't for these worthless fiends. I swear I will kill them! All of them!" He said to himself as he punched a nearby tree repeatedly with his bare hand.
"I will kill them" He sobbed and stopped punching slowly as he placed his head on the trunk and knelt before it, his knuckles were bruised and blood trickled down his hands.
"Impressive conviction"
Steve didn't need to look at the speaker, he knew who it was from the smooth sounding calm voice.
"I have a feeling that you're stalking me a lot nowadays"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. You have one of the most impressive growth speed amongst all the other contestants so I've decided to watch you train"
"Can you help me train?" There was a rise in Steve's tone as if he was expectant
"No. It's against the rules for an official to train a contestant because it puts others at a disadvantage. It makes the contests unfair" Joaquin replied
"This contest has been unfair since the beginning" Steve said, somehow he was aware that officials weren't meant to train contestants personally but he couldn't help but be disappointed when Joaquin said it.
There was silence between them for some time before Steve spoke up, "Tell me about Lloyd Ronan and the blood katana"
If Joaquin was taken aback by Steve's request, he did a perfect job of not showing it.
"I see…. Let's go sit somewhere first"
....
Steve decided to sit down at his cultivation spot in the forest and cultivate while he listened to Joaquin and Joaquin sat down on an upturned piece of rock that was beside Steve's cultivation spot.
"I cannot tell the story of Lloyd Ronan without telling the story of his master, a former grand master of the council, Tsukahara Kojiro who was also the one who wielded the fiend Slayer in your grandfather's generation.
Kojiro's original sword was the blood katana which was given to him by the council due to his exceptional swordsmanship but after defeating the fiends, he dropped the Fiend slayer with the council and went into isolation in the north with the blood katana....