Part 4

There was a breeze that picked up during the quiet night in NEO New York City. Outside, standing on the roof of a gray, 6-story building, was a man in a black hooded robe.

There was silence as he closely watched the building down the street.

A hospital.

To the man, the building itself was not important, but who was inside.

A small girl.

The person on the bounty notice received it from his group.

"Tch, this is becoming tedious; we should have grabbed the girl before she was brought here." The man's annoyed voice broke out.

As he was staring at the hospital, he became alerted to a brown dove flying towards him and landing on a nearby vent.

[So how do you want to precede Sparrow?]

A female voice came from the bird as it rested there. They were using the bird to communicate through magic.

The man turned his attention back to the hospital.

"I'm not sure yet; according to Crow and Raven, she hasn’t moved from her location."

The man began walking toward the ledge.

"If she stays there, we can’t attack the hospital."

A jet-black crow swooped down and landed on a dark green metal railing on the ledge of the rooftop near the man, followed by a dark raven.

[What if we draw her out?] A male voice came from the raven.

"You know what repercussions we would face if we attacked the hospital."

The black crow flew and circled around the man in the air.

[But hear me out: what if we attack the surrounding area? If we do enough damage, they might evacuate the building, and then we can take the girl]

"What do we do?"

There was a silence as he weighed the response.

"I see, that wasn’t a possibility I had considered."

A deep male voice startled the man, causing him to turn around.

"But when you are determined to create the new world, the rules of the old world do not matter."

The man's eyes darted to the figure that appeared behind him.

Nereus.

An imposing figure with jet-black hair that came down to his waist. His dark blue cloak wrapped around his large body.

[Sparrow, what happened? What is going on?] The voice from the dove bird shouted out

The man looked at Nereus as he stood there.

"Someone just appeared here behind me," the man answered as he pulled out a purple rune card.

[Raven and Crow go to Sparrow location, and he-ackkkkk]

The scream startled the man, and soon he turned to the brown dove on the air vent.

"What was that? Say something, Dove." The man shouted to the dove.

Suddenly, the bird disappeared into small particles, which scattered into the air.

[What happened? Dove's bird is gone. Dove, say something, Dove!!!] The voice came from the crow.

The man's attention was drawn to the raven as it shattered apart.

[W-What the hell happened? We are picking them off. I’m setting up a barri-]

The voice that came from the crow was cut off, as several loud thuds could be heard coming from the crow.

The man ran to the crow.

Crow, say something, Crow."

[Som-something landed on the roof……what the hell is this? It is a bunch of armored suits.]

Sparrow turned his head back to Nereus, and his eyes widen when he sees the man smirk.

He quickly turned his head back to the crow.

"CROW, GET OUT OF THERE NOW, RETURN BACK TO THE BAS-" His shouting was cut off as he heard screams and wails echoing from the crow as it blankly stared at him.

There was silence as he held out his hand.

As the hand reached the crow, it shattered apart.

"Please do not worry about them; my hollow knight has probably taken care of them by now."

The man with the codename Sparrow looked at Nereus with fear on his face.

"But then the question now becomes, what to do with you?" Nereus said, forming a white sword in his hand.

_____________________________________________________________________

A breeze hit Elora as she slowly opened her eyes.

Dazed and confused, she began to look around her current surroundings. She was sitting on the floor with her back resting on the metal railing.

Several vehicles were driving across the bridge.

The battle was over.

"So, what the hell do we do with her?" Haruko's voice broke out on the red steel bridge.

She turned her attention to the voice.

There, she saw Haruko and Antonio standing a mere couple of feet away from her.

"I’m not sure at this time."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Haruko looked over the ledge downward to the water below.

"I say we throw the fuck overboard as payback for my food."

Antonio turned to Haruko with a shocked expression on his face.

"Mr. Matsumoto, you can’t be serious."

"Maybe I don’t know. I haven’t eaten in a couple of hours since I was attacked at my house, and the food I bought spilled out when she tried to kill me. I am hungry, I am tired, and I could have sworn I saw a dragon. I don’t even know what is going on anymore," Haruko ranted.

"I see," Antonio said as he reached inside his plastic convenience store bag.

Haruko rested both of his elbows on the metal railing and looked at the Manhattan skyscrapers of NEO New York City.

His concentration was interrupted when he heard a plastic wrapper being opened.

Haruko turned his head.

A croissant.

A buttery, flaky croissant.

(Food.)

Antonio kindly held the food in front of Haruko, prompting the teen to take it.

Haruko stared at the food intensively before taking a bite.

After a calm silence, he shivered.

"So good."

Antonio reached inside his bag again and pulled out something wrapped in foil. The smell caused the teen’s nose to twitch.

Haruko started to sniff the air intensely.

Toast sliced white bread with a spread of butter.

Grilled ham.

Grilled turkey.

Mozzarella cheese.

American Cheese.

Pepper.

Antonio started to unwrap the foil.

A sandwich.

Haruko stared at the man.

"You want to trade meals."

"They are both my meals, and you've already taken a bite of croissant."

Haruko paused

"You….you purposely showed me the croissant first, causing me to lower my guard and not expect more delicious food. I lost all my food because of this chick, and then I had to run around this damn bridge looking for these seals, which at any point you could have destroyed at any time, mind you."

"That is true without a doubt."

"So why didn’t you?"

Antonio pointed to the road, which caused the teen to shift his attention to see several vehicles passing by on the road.

"If I had destroyed the seals before she was taken care of, other people would have descended on this location and inadvertently been brought into the crossfire, and I am pretty sure none of us would have wanted that you had already dragged in more people than you would like to admit."

Haruko calmed down.

"Well, well, aren’t you two the people's white knights or idiots? It’s hard to tell"

Elora's voice startled the two individuals.

"Your awake"

Both Haruko and Antonio walked up to Elora as she sat on the ground. She looked up to them with contempt on her face as they stood there over her, her emotions never changing.

The two individuals she thought were nothing proved to be more than she could handle on her own. The teen was one thing, but the doctor and his attacks were something she was not prepared to handle.

She smirked.

"Regardless of what you do to me now, do not think you have won. My leader will finish what we started, and he will take the girl and her power himself."

(Aoi, he can't.)

"That girl is currently under the protection of the city within the hospital, and there are grave penalties for violating those rules."

Elora glanced over to Antonino.

"And is that supposed to stop him? There isn’t a place he would not go to retrieve her."

"He would attack a no-conflict zone?"

Elora started chuckling and threw her head back in a loud laugh.

"What the hell are you laughing about?"

She calmed herself down with tears in her eyes.

"Morality and rules, really. That is what you are gambling the world on—those outdated concepts."

Both Haruko and Antonio stared at her.

"Let me put this in a way that even idiots like you understand."

Haruko and Antonio looked at the woman closely.

"My leader, the very moment he steps into this battlefield in pursuit of his goals, there will be no stopping him. If you hide behind your rules and beliefs, believing that they will keep you safe, he will violently break those rules and move forward. Operate in a black and white world of morality, and he will paint both sides in a sea of blood under him."

Haruko felt a tingle at the bottom of his stomach as she described this man.

"When you're strong, you don’t follow rules; you create them and impose them upon others. A strong resolve is what is needed in this world."

She smirked at the pair.

"With all this effort you two put into holding me here, he's probably on his way there now, or better yet, perhaps he's already there."

Images of Reiko, Alexis, and Aoi began flashing in his mind.

"No," Haruko blurted out.

She turned her attention to the teen as he stood there.

"If anything, I will praise you; it was a valiant effort on your part, defeating Eduard and myself. Congratulations! You won the battle, but we won the war," she taunted him.

Sitting on the ground, a level of anger emerged from her voice.

"A war 5,000 years in the making!" she shouted out.

"5000 years, then that would make you..."

She turned to Antonio.

"It doesn’t matter what I was then; all that matters is what I am now. Someone devoted to the path my leader laid out before us."

Haruko clenched his fist.

Just standing there, he was getting angry, listening to the woman.

She turned to Haruko.

"You came all this way, fought so hard, only to come up short and just prolong the inevitable. YOU FAIL, ALL OF IT WAS FOR NOTH-!!!!!!"

Elora was cut off as Haruko punched her in the face with a loud yell, knocking her out once again and causing her body to slump to the floor.

"Mr. Matsumoto!" Antonio shouted out as he went to check on the women lying on the floor. He watched as Haruko began running off.

"You’re heading back to the hospital?"

"Of course, if their so-called leader is going to the hospital to take Aoi, then I’m going to do what I can to stop him," Haruko shouted back.

Antonio watched as the teen ran further away.

He turned to the woman, who was slumped on the floor.

He sighed.

His body began to illuminate a white light as he picked up the woman under his right arm.

"Let’s hope my body can go after all this time."

As Haruko was running, he felt a shockwave that blew air past him, causing him to stop in his tracks.

He turned around to see where the head doctor was.

A light.

It was just for a moment.

He saw a white light that quickly approached him and yanked him off his feet.

The ground.

The water.

The rooftops of buildings.

All of which became a blur to the teen as he was moving in the hair.

He didn’t know if it was instinctive or not, but he began to shuffle around.

"Please calm down, Mr. Matsumoto." His voice was calm as he jumped from rooftop to rooftops, with light illuminating his leap. "I simply believe that this is the best method to reach our destination."

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING OOOOOONNNNNNNN!!!!!" Haruko shouted out as Antonio jumped off a rooftop into the air again.

_____________________________________________________________________

Loud thuds were heard on the floor of an alleyway as a male body bounced off the floor several times—if it could be called a body now.

The man had both his legs cut off below his knees and his left arm below his forearm.

Several loud, pained breaths were heard as the man lay in a pool of his own blood.

The man.

Nereus.

The man who attacked him had just been playing with him. He was in a lot of pain, but he tried to crawl away on what were the last of his limbs as far as he could.

Silence.

He then felt intense pain as Nereus kicked him in the ribs. The force of the kick sent the man rolling on the floor several feet away.

The man started to groan in pain as he lay there on the floor. He opened his eyes to see Nereus walking toward him with a white sword in his hand, approaching like a figure of death.

"Ple…please…don’t," the man muttered out.

The man was cut off as Nereus raised the tip of the white sword past his face, just above his right shoulder.

The man stared at the white sword.

"Why did you not attack the hospital and take the girl?"

The question caused the man to turn his attention away from the sword to the man, only to see him stare daggers into him.

"I believe I had asked you a question: why did you not attack the hospital and take the girl?"

The man gulped, not answering the question, as he looked at Nereus.

"For different reasons of your own, we both are after the girl, no. Had you taken the girl, you would have obtained a level of understanding of the universe granted only to a few and, yet…."

Nereus lowered the sword so that it was resting on the man's shoulder.

"At the last moment, you decided not to move forward, remaining stagnant if you would; fear of the repercussions blinded you. Could you imagine a world where people are unable to evolve if they are afraid of what the end result would be?"

There was a long silence as Nereus stared at the man.

"No answer."

The white sword disappeared from Nereus hand as he lowered his arm.

Without saying anything, Nereus turned around and began walking to leave the alleyway.

The man started to calm himself.

(H..He leaving.)

The sound of his footsteps filled the alley.

"I will not kill you, but-"

Nereus kept walking as the ground under him became dark black.

"I will not let someone with your cowardice live in my new world either."

Suddenly, the hollow knights began to emerge from the ground, crowding the alleyway.

"It is almost amusing, isn’t it? The last thing that you would see, you who were afraid to see his goals through, is the end result of someone who did not abandon his goals. It's quite a fitting end, don’t you agree? Knights kill him."

The knights began to take out their swords, and they began to converge on the injured man.

As Nereus exited the alleyway, the last thing he heard was the screams of the man as the knights began to violently stab him over and over.

He opened his eyes as he gazed out onto the streets of NEO New York City. No cars or people were passing through.

Silence.

For a city that never sleeps, it was quiet.

As he stood there on the street, he turned his head to the left.

A white hospital, within that very same hospital, was the object he was searching for, standing just across the street.

"At long last, I am at the door of the new world."

With that statement, Nereus began walking to the hospital.