Holding a spear of pure white flame in his hand, Hiro looked down at his opponent, who was missing a leg and an eye, blood gushing out of the hole in his stomach.
_Spurt!
Hiro finished him off by plunging the spear into his chest, turning his body to ashes bit by bit.
The person's mouth opened wide into a bloody smile. "This is not how it should have ended."
"Hahaha..." He spoke as if he couldn't believe it, but laughed as if expecting nothing less. The darkness inside him was being burned out by the flames until the fire consumed his entire body.
And thus, the greatest hero died at the hand of the greatest villain.
Hiro gasped for breath; his lips trembled as if in great pain, but a joyful glint shone in his eyes, evident in the relaxed relief on his face.
"I had finally killed him."
It had been a four-day, four-night battle that had consumed every bit of energy he had.
He could have killed him sooner, but it had been a hard fight, especially since he had to protect everybody else.
It was a great achievement that nobody died but the villains and he was rightfully proud of himself. Hiro patted his head in his mind, quite pleased with his triumph.
However, although he wanted to collapse and fall to the ground, he didn't allow himself to do so, not yet.
Hiro finally felt a sense of relief wash over him as the haze, the mental chains binding him loosened.
"I can finally go back home." He stood on his feet, quite aware he needed to get out of the place before he lost consciousness.
Hiro could finally go back to Midden, to his home.
He forced his already tattered and bruised body to move.
However, keen that something out of his control was about to happen, he looked down at his chest as he sensed killing intent directed at him, but there was nothing he could do.
_Pierce!
There was no longer any form of energy in his veins. He had consumed it all.
_Drip! Drip! Drip!
"Cough!" A weak cough escaped his lips as a bloodstream ran alongside the spear of rock that had penetrated his body and dripped slowly to the ground.
Hiro didn't feel pain as he unapologetically yanked the spear out of his body, leaving a hole in his chest, right where his heart was.
He looked back at the destroyed, desolate sight.
The buildings were broken, the streets were cracked and filled with rubble, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke and blood, with no sign of its previous prosperity.
Everywhere his eyes landed, there was destruction and desolation, a reminder of the chaos that tore through the city. One he was half responsible for.
Hundreds and thousands of superheroes and civilians, cameras looking at him in silence as blood fell from his wound like a waterfall.
He blinked tirelessly hard to suppress his tears and wasn't sure how he should feel, as a man, wearing a skin-tight suit, retreated silently, trying to reduce his sense of existence.
'Should I kill him?' He thought so but dismissed the idea, not because he was kind, nor was it because he understood why anyone wanted him dead but simply because he didn't have enough power to hurt a fly at the moment and could only shift his focus.
The crowd looked at Hiro with nothing but terror.
"They're ugly." He muttered and laughed despairingly. He was dying soon, he could no longer go back to his parents and family.
Some people felt relief at his already-finished state and started cursing with all kinds of profanities at him. But his focus wasn't on them.
Raising his head, he saw someone who smiled at him with familiarity; a smile he saw thousands of times.
Right outside the group of irrelevant people— An old man with smoky gray hair and a wrinkled face was smiling at him.
He mouthed something, and despite the distance, Hiro could see what he was mouthing with ease:
"Your mission is finished. It's time to die."
On command, Hiro collapsed, gasping as he fell onto his knees and looked at his no longer-existent chest.
'Am I going to die like this?'
Even as his face was getting closer to the ground and his body collapsed despite himself like a broken doll, his line of sight never left the old man, thinking, 'Why? Why? I did everything you told me to.'
Though his mental anguish ended, he couldn't speak in the man's presence, 'I saved humanity from destruction. I killed the demon king. I did everything you told me to do. So why?'
To the entire world, he was the strongest, but in front of that man, he felt like the weakest, most insignificant ant.
'All I ever wanted was to go back to Midden. Why throw me away, Grandpa?'
Hiro wanted to scream, to shout out the injustice he was suffering.
He wanted to cry at the people who called him a villain and pure evil.
All he had ever done was save them from destruction, yet they all looked at him like he was a demon from hell.
"It wasn't fair, I only wanted to go back home."
Following a horse whisper, a single tear fell from his brilliant golden eye.
The light in them faded in an instant as his signature pure white flames engulfed his body, reflecting the brightest ray of the sunset.
His body was scattered in the air, never to be seen again.
Cheers of relief and happiness echoed as the crowd turned into a celebratory mood at the death of a great villain, not realizing their sun would never rise again.
***
Holding the painstakingly crafted script in his hands with the title "The Reincarnated Demon King."
Ryan, a busy man, deliberated over his words as he had spent the past five hours during his rare days of rest reading his sister's future novel as she described it.
Being the head assistant to a company's CEO. He had little time for anything but work, and his only hobby was his job.
Fantasy, action, reincarnation, rebirth, and other stuff were concepts he heard from his obsessed younger sister.
Ryan looked at her big, lovely, round 'do not criticize me' eyes and said, "Couldn't you have just written something normal?"
Lisa shook her head and said with conviction, "No, people like this kind of genre nowadays. Nobody is into heroes anymore."
Ryan massaged his temple and nodded, "Fine."
Taking a sip of coffee, he continued, "Your first mistake is reasoning."
"You gave the protagonist no reason whatsoever for what he did. Was it for pleasure? A trauma? Or did he have something against humans in his past life?"
Ryan had by now considered himself a professional on this kind of topic. Since his sister hit her teenage years, he mostly heard her talking about novels.
And so he picked up a lot of information and could confidently argue with an avid reader.
He continued, "Secondly, there is no character stability at all. You gave your character a background and a personality, but you never acted on it."
Looking down at the script for a minute, he said, "For example, the guy who's supposed to be the protagonist's 'rival' is an arrogant prick born into a family of superheroes."
"He was high and mighty, with his pride up to the skies. Yet, just by seeing the protagonist, as if on instinct, he became his underling. Doesn't make any sense; at least make it so the protagonist has to make some sort of effort to tame him."
"Let's also look at the so-called heroine, whom you have presented as the definition of the goodness of humanity."
"She was kind, helped the poor, protected the weak, the most charming of all the female characters, and most importantly, hated blood. Yet she fell in love with the protagonist the moment she saw him kill somebody."
"And became a crazed homicidal maniac. How did that register as logical in your brain?"
"Ahem, he killed the man to protect her…" Lisa interrupted but fell silent at the look her brother shot her.
Ryan went on and on, criticizing every character and every event she made, one by one, giving examples of what was wrong.
Lisa, exhausted after three hours of straight criticism, was dozing off with her eyes open.
Finally, her brother stopped, or so she thought.
"Lastly, don't you feel ashamed of yourself? I mean, how could you make someone so miserable? Don't you have a conscience?"
Ryan had almost spat his coffee reading this character's backstory, present and future.
'Hiro' was the only character that was consistent from beginning to end.
"There is a limit to how miserable you can make someone to be, but spending paragraphs to describe how utterly hard he had it at life every time he appears is quite over the top."
Lisa looked away from her brother, not wanting to meet his gaze. She knew she had made big mistakes in her writing and was a bit embarrassed, but knew better not to argue back with the man who pays her bills.
She nodded her head and said earnestly like a good student, "I understand. I will rewrite this draft and make it more enjoyable, with a logical progression of events."
Ryan nodded in approval with a smile and said, "That's a start."
"Don't forget to make sure the story has a purpose and isn't just a collection of random events. It also has to have a message or a moral to impart."
Lisa smiled and nodded. "I will. Thank you for the advice, brother."
Ryan smiled at her kindly, patted her on the shoulder, and said, "Good luck. I'm going to sleep now."
He walked toward his bedroom, not realizing she hadn't repented much.