"Wh-What is she!?

The three Teria soldiers near Franucci lifted their rifles and aimed in my direction. Their outfit slowly etiolated in color followed by the guns in their hands, until the soldiers disappeared out of sight entirely.

Franucci Tergett—gritting her teeth in pain—held her left palm towards me as it glowed in pale blue. Light sparks fulgurated, orbited around the glove just as quickly.

"S-Stop this!!" I shouted.

The red sickles projecting from my arm lost its rigid shape as it changed from solid into a malleable form in less than three seconds. The blood-like state my sickles had taken, reformed itself, congealing and splicing to make a series of linked crystal rings.

It thickened and lengthened itself swift, and when I realized it, three crimson chains had secured the invisible Teria soldiers. They dropped their weapon as the chains tightened its hold.

Franucci saw this happened in front of her, but she didn't do anything more than bat an eye at them. The blood gushing out from the woman's abscised arm merely managed to elicit a glare towards me, and I could not help but wrapped my arms around my body in fear.

Suddenly, she thrust her palm in my direction once.

"Hm!" Franucci appeared behind me after she vanished, and before she could do anything else to follow it up with, a red tendril grazed the woman's cheek. She had avoided my Aegis's initial response, and immediately, the tendril previously formed on my left shoulder whipped.

Franucci ducked in time. She dodged a few more whips and landed ten meters away.

"That girl is something else. She doesn't back down even after getting her arm cut off," said Ludwig, watching us as sweat trickled down his cheek. "...I should get the others."

Franucci lowered her body and planted her right foot further in the front. "...I see. Six minutes before my movement gets restricted from blood loss."

Her glove glowed again, and in the next moment, she got behind Ludwig and did a front kick to his chin. A groan escaped his mouth, writhing on the floor as Franucci kicked him repeatedly with her boot's heel. Franucci then looked at the chains binding her Teria soldiers and shifted her stare towards me next.

"Maybe this kid is an escapee. And she's working with them? I see." Franucci's boots clicked against the floor as she confronted me, and this time too, she used her glove to strike with baffling speed.

"A quick rush and a blow."

The female soldier appeared in front of me within a second and her right foot send a push kick to my head—but nothing happened. The boot connected to a crimson, seemingly crystallized plank that manifested from the tendril I had.

The plank had taken all the initial force of Franucci's push kick, saving me. I was not able to foresee her frightening lightning-speed movements even in the last second.

"Tch. My Iliad's attraction to her is not strong enough. I need both gloves," said Franucci to herself.

The crimson plank started to congeal and several mounds appeared on its smooth surface.

Seeing this, Franucci's eyes narrowed and did a quick kick against it with both legs, stretching her body downwards to accommodate the gravity's pull, and in the next moment, she used the platform to propel herself seven meters away from me as her figure spun in the air.

However, my Aegis did not let up. The mounds on my Aegis's plank elongated into large tendrils and shot up before it was brought down towards Franucci. In response, Franucci's glove glowed and she vanished, avoiding the cruel fate of being skewered by multiple tendrils. She reappeared near the ceiling far up, and as if the tendrils had predicted this, it circled back upwards and darted towards her.

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"Tch!" Franucci vanished from sight just as quickly as she came, allowing herself to escape the tendrils before it punctured the ceiling. This time, Franucci emerged in mid-air near the wall at my left, her boots then landed on it with her back against the wall's surface.

She dodged it, yes, but the tendrils showed no sign of slowing down as it darted at Franucci again the next moment. The soldier dropped herself to the floor to let the tendrils passed her, and then shifted her center of gravity by facing me, and ran.

"This time. I will get you!" said Franucci as she did her signature gesture of pointing at me with her gloved palm.

The glove glimmered—erasing her entire existence just as the tendrils came down. Franucci's right leg formed first—pulling a sidekick before the rest of her body emerged from nothingness a few meters in front of me. Instinctively, I shrunk to the floor and avoided her powerful kick.

However, as much as I begged her to stop, Franucci ignored it and her missed kick quickly turned into a dropkick as it descended, brought down in an arc. The dropkick's force crashed onto my skull's parietal bone, and an immense pain seared throughout my entire head.

"Aaaaah!!" I grabbed my scalp as an untrammeled cry echoed throughout the corridor, bawling like the child I was.

"ScReeesChHccHHHccch!!!"

The crimson chains wrapped around the Teria soldiers and the plank protecting me let out a merciless, ear-splitting shrill. In a sense, my Aegis responded to my emotions and acted on it. These objects transfigured their shape and reformed into a grim representation of nightmarish weapons—a concatenation of sharp, crimson spikes.

Ultimately, the Teria soldiers caught up by the chains were skewered to death by the ominous spikes. Franucci's eyes shot wide open when she saw it happened. She did five back handsprings—landing on one's hands after a backward flip followed by the legs in the same direction to return on standing position, five times in succession—avoiding my plank-turned-spikes.

The spikes darted at her just as she landed, but Franucci made use of her glove once more and moved her entire body to the ceiling. The Officer activated her ability again when my spikes arrowed up at her spot. To avoid it, Franucci appeared next to Ludwig who was crouching on one knee.

A scowl formed on Franucci's face. She disappeared behind another man who appeared from one of the hallways, her glove glowed, and then she punched straight through the man's chest.

"Ghakkk!" He fell down and Franucci took the opportunity to rip his shirt's sleeve and used it to bandage the stump of her severed arm, sealing off the wound.

"Now you really had done it, kid. I'll destroy this place if that's what it takes to bring down a monster like you."

My red eyes gazed at the mutilated corpses of Teria soldiers, and with it came the unpleasant memories—grinding and pounding against my brain. I did not want to kill anyone, and yet... This place that everyone said would keep me safe, it was all a big lie.

Everything hurt. My muscles throbbed, my head would not stop spinning, the sight I was seeing getting blurred as time passed. What was wrong with me? Why was I in this place again? For what purpose, did I had to go through this much pain...?

"...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," these two words repeated itself over and over, my lips parted and closed to the point where I did not know what I was saying anymore.

Franucci lifted her hand into the air, twisted her body, and after a moment, the Officer brought down her glowing fist.

Boom!

The floor exploded and chunks of it flew in every direction. I covered my face from the dust, and as if my reflexes had adapted to it, my instinct screamed internally for me to duck and I did.

Franucci's boot emerged overhead from behind and I quickly turned to look over my shoulders. Her callous glare met my eyes before she pulled her right foot in mid-air upward and did a dropkick. This time, the Aegis's tendrils saved me from getting hit. The tendrils shot at Franucci, specifically her arcing leg being brought down, and sensing this, she disappeared to the little space above me. The woman spun while in the air and with bloodshot eyes, her fist plummeted.

A shockwave resounded throughout the area after Franucci's fist connected with a large, deformed crimson claw just a meter above me. As the claw held Franucci's attack out of harm's way, fragments of it sprouted from the side, opening up like the peelings of a white birch tree bark. The peels retracted and merged with the claw again.

"This thing is still intact!? After receiving my Iliad's peak 'force of attraction' this close!?" cried Franucci, "Th-This is ridiculous!"

She disappeared and reappeared next to Ludwig and pulled him up using a rear-naked choke with her good arm.

"What do you hope to ac-achieve by taking me captive?" said Ludwig through the choke Franucci gave him, "It's not like Ava can control her Aegis anyway."

"...Sh-She can't control it? But those people I saw could use it like they're a part of them!" Franucci's eyes opened wide.

"I know what you're thinking... By taking me hostage, you wish that Ava will stop attacking you, but... Gah... huh... That Aegis thing-y doesn't work that way. The weapon moves on its own will from the very beginning, for the little girl. Ava has no control over it."