Hatasuko could feel the symphony of screaming souls inside his head fall quiet. Every lost spirit was paralyzed by the tension. A new layer of sweat suddenly arose on his flesh as he came to understand that he had no way to fight back nor somewhere to hide. He was at the mercy of the Interfectus.
“Do whatever it takes to survive. You are the only weapon that humankind has left,” whispered a quiet voice from the heart of the tempest in his head.
[https://imgur.com/ZFBO9fk.jpg]
Hatasuko was stunned because he had hardly ever heard any coherent words from the voices in the abyss. He had never heard anything but screams. As he stood in the ashes with smoke all around him, he glanced up at the Interfectus with a defiant stare; their golden eyes glared into each other. But as soon as the Interfectus started to glow, a small object suddenly flew by his face and startled him from the certainty of his inevitable death.
“GRAB ON IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!” shouted a nearby voice.
Without waiting for an explanation or looking around to search for a reason, Hatasuko grabbed onto the rope-like object in front of his face. It was his only chance for survival. As soon as he grabbed on, he felt a powerful yank in the rope, and then it jerked his body away in the moment before the blade-arm of shadows struck the ashy ground with a burst of dirt and debris. Hatasuko was stunned by how close he had come to dying in that moment, but then his feet hit the ground, and he crash-landed with a roll. After rolling once through the ashes, Hatasuko stopped at the feet of the two people who had saved him. He glanced up through the ashy air and saw a glimpse of a woman holding a whip – the same whip that had pulled him to safety.
“Lazaro, look out!” said the woman, though her voice was quiet and shaky.
The blade of shadows suddenly slashed through the smoky air and accelerated at the woman, but a large man stepped in the way and blocked the attack with a shield. All three of them were saved at the last moment by this shield, but as Interfectus retracted its arm of shadows, Hatasuko stared up at his saviors with his eyes wide open.
“They say that its shadow blade can pierce anything in Agrideī. How were you able to deflect it?” Hatasuko asked as he stumbled onto his feet.
“I’ll tell you anything you wanna know if you can survive this, boy,” answered the large man as he glared at the Interfectus.
Instead of attacking again, the Interfectus turned and accelerated again toward the crowd of frightened runners. Hatasuko saw through the glow of fire that the helpless people ran toward the forest at the southern edge of the city, but they would never make it at this rate. Without wasting another second, the muscular man and the quiet girl both took off running after the demon. Hatasuko was still stunned by how close he had come to dying, so he stood still for a moment and watched them run away. The taller one was a monster of a man; every muscle in his body flexed with every step. He clenched a shield in his right hand and a warhammer in his left. They were both also equipped with a whip and a strange-looking sack at their sides, though the woman had two short swords holstered on her back.
Before they could get away, Hatasuko forced himself into motion. Despite the damage he had taken, he forced himself to run through the dusty streets and chase after the two who had saved him. He could tell just by the way they ran that this was not their first encounter with the Interfectus. They were here for the same reason as him; they had come to fight against the Interfectus. They had endured the Interfectus. So with every scream in the tempest fueling his bloody body, Hatasuko chased them through the smoldering blocks. He ran toward the Interfectus just as he had so many times before, but this time for a different purpose.
[https://imgur.com/rTqaXy2.jpg]
“Hey! I never got the chance to thank you. Both of you,” Hatasuko yelled out as he finally started to catch up.
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Hatasuko had not noticed it before, but as he peered now through the dim glow of distant flames, he could see that deep scars scattered the right side of the woman’s body. He could not see her face since it was blocked by the flapping of her dark hair as she charged through the streets after the Interfectus.
“You thought you could fight the Interfectus, didn’t you?” the large man asked him.
But before Hatasuko had the chance to respond, the Interfectus suddenly stopped moving and deployed its third weapon. It created several shadow spheres in front of its body once again, but Hatasuko was too far away to stop it. The demon was several blocks up ahead. The muscular man and the scarred woman both stopped running as soon as they saw this. It was a silent surrender to the lethality of the Interfectus.
With their wide eyes all watching with horror, the Interfectus unleashed its scattershot of shadow spheres down upon the evacuees who hopelessly scrambled through the smoky streets. Every sphere erupted with a burst of blue fire, and every explosion claimed the life of another innocent person. Every death unleashed an anguished soul, and every death added to the misery of those still left alive. Hatasuko stopped running at that moment, but it was not because of his pain. It was not because of fatigue. It was because the anguish only added to the symphony of sorrow in his head, and the weight became too much for his legs to carry.
“But you cannot fight the Interfectus. It is all for nothing, and this is all a waste. There is no winning, and there can be no winning. The Interfectus is undefeatable, and all we can do is try our best to survive,” said the muscular man as his weapons shimmered from the flicker of fuchsia flames.
“You can say what you want, but this is my destiny. I am the one who will end the whole concept of tragedy. I am the one meant to crush the Interfecti as a hopeless bloodstained apology to the souls I couldn’t save, and so that I can stop more from joining those souls.”
“You are naïve, but it’s a refreshing reminder of something humankind lost long ago,” muttered the large man, and then he started jogging away.
“I wish you the best,” said the scarred woman with a weak smile, and then she ran away as well.
Though a scattered crowd of hopeless citizens had just been crushed by the scattershot of shadow spheres, the two warriors ran toward the smoke and the screams. Hatasuko wanted to join them, but he knew that he would simply get in their way; he understood that he was an amateur compared to them. The large man possessed a shield that could block the blade-arm of the Interfectus – a blade which could supposedly pierce any substance in the world.
“If nothing else, I can distract the Interfectus. I can draw its fire… so that I can stop more from joining those souls,” Hatasuko whispered.
Without hesitation, Hatasuko hooked another arrow onto his bowstring and then charged toward the demon of flashing blades and shifting shadows. As it levitated over the smoldering rooftops of the city, the Interfectus started to slowly spin its ugly head. Hatasuko knew that everyone watched its golden eyes, desperately fearing that the demon would turn its attention to them. Even as people ran through the ashy streets toward the forest, they also watched the monster. But before it could get a chance to attack, an arrow struck the black surface of its stomach and harmlessly bounced off. The Interfectus swerved to face Hatasuko with a swiftness he had not expected.
A sudden rush of terror surged through his veins because he had no time to load another arrow. Hatasuko was now just as defenseless as the ordinary citizens, and therefore he finally obeyed the one command that his brain had given all along. He threw his bow onto the street and immediately ran away; he used the numbing force of adrenaline to overcome his fatigue and injuries. He had burst into motion so quickly that the Interfectus never got the chance to aim a second time, so its blade of piercing shadows struck the street behind him with a jolt. Hatasuko ran away from the blade at full speed, but as soon as he heard the swish of movement, he threw himself into the ashes with a sudden somersault. By doing this, he narrowly dodged a swift slash of the blade arm.
But as soon as Hatasuko rolled to his feet, he glanced to the sky and saw that the Interfectus had summoned a scattershot of shadow spheres. They all shot forth from the darkness and charged toward him with terrifying speed, but now he had nowhere to hide. He had no way to block it. Hatasuko forced himself to run as quickly as his body allowed, but even this was not enough. A shadow ball struck the building beside him as he sprinted through the street; it detonated with a blue blast of fiery debris. The shockwave of sparks and shrapnel swallowed Hatasuko and slammed him onto the ground; he could feel his body skidding to a stop. It was a miracle that he even survived the blast, but it knocked him unconscious. And even in the depths of his tortured mind, he could not escape the abyss of lost souls, all screaming for freedom from the misery.
[https://imgur.com/FoCCXA5.jpg]