“Where is Yuuko?” Hinami asks while observing the bandage man in his second form.

“The masked woman took her to another unknown dimension. Don't worry, she is safe. My double is supporting her right now.” An unexpected voice answers that question.

“!!” Makoto gasps in surprise as she hears her cat talking.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Hinami asks, unfazed by the fact that the cat can speak.

After listening his story, Hinami is surprised by how many things happened during her collapse, but at the same time sighs in relief knowing that everyone is safe somehow. She was worried that everyone was going to be killed, but luckily, both Yuuko and Makoto have awaken their power and fought the enemies in her stead. She is really thankful for him helping them out of this situation. With more capable persons at hand, they can have higher chance surviving from this hell.

On the other hand, Makoto stares in disbelief how normal those two are talking normally like there is nothing wrong. She is the owner of her cat yet doesn't even know that he can talk like a human. There are other things like his double and his skill. She does not understand any of it yet her friend is nodding like it is expected.

“Hinami, can you explain what is going on !?” Makoto shakes her friend's shoulder and questions her.

“He hasn't said anything to you?” Hinami asks while looking at the cat.

“Sorry, there was no time and no opportunity to speak. And we don't have much time now, either. Look.” Lexar answers then points to the bandage man.

The huge figure in flame begins to roar loudly. His voice does not sound anything like human anymore, proving the identity as a monster. Makoto clicks her tongue as why this monster finds such a right time to interrupt her. Why did it just stay there when her cat talked to Hinami?

Looking at her friend behavior, Hinami smiles bitterly. She knows that Makoto can be quite obsessive toward things she likes, and realizes that her friend thought that she knows more about her cat than its owner and gets dissatisfied. However, the truth is that she only knows that he can talk and give people power. When Lexar mentioned his abilities and double, she just only nodded to keep the conversation flow.

“You girls, your tension has dropped quite a lot when you are together. The enemy is still here, you know. And he is much stronger too. Please get serious.” Lexar observes the two girls' attitude and reminds them.

“Sorry. You are right. The enemy is still in front of me. However, with Hinami here, I believe we can win this and go home.” Makoto says with confidence.

“Don't worry. I was quite desperate when there was only me. But now it's different. We will show you that.” Hinami smiles “Oh, I forgot to ask. What is your ability, Makoto?”

“I call it “ability extraction”. Basically, I can absorb thing and get a special ability from it. I absorbed a fire extinguisher, a water bottle with some ice cubes in it so I was able to manipulate carbon gas, water, and ice.” Makoto answers while creating small whirlwind having water, white foam and ice mixed in.

“Any limitation?” Hinami asks.

“Quite a lot. Right now, I can only freely use carbon gas as mean to attack and defend. Water and ice have limited number of use and they are hard to control. I did absorbed many things else but either I could not get any ability from it or I had to discard an ability I absorbed before. Three is the maximum I can have.” Makoto lists out her power's limitation.

“I see. Can you demonstrate a little bit?” Hinami asks and points her finger to the bandage man.

“No problem. Watch.” Makoto snaps her finger as she says.

A big whirlwind of white foam moves with everyone in the center. A clap is heard and all white foam gathers in a sphere then shoots at the monster. He is knocked back a few centimeter and fire on its body reduces a lot but soon burns ferociously again like nothing happened. Being agitated, that big build runs toward the two girls while raising his weapon high. The witch girl and military uniform girl separate and run to both sides of the attacker.

“Makoto, cover me. I will do the attacking.” Hinami assigns the job.

“Roger that.” Makoto replies.

A shotgun appears in Hinami's hand and she fires repeatedly on many parts of the monster: head, chest, arm, back, lower body, and legs. The shots hit the body and ignite many white flames. Black liquid spurts out from the wounds like blood but works more effectively. It helps extinguish the white flame and recovers his body. The bandage man roars in anger and now looks at Hinami only.

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“No sensitive or weakness spot. Shooting anywhere is the same. Black liquid comes out of the body and recovers the wound. Possible solution is to keep shooting until all the liquid is used, but that is too time consuming.” Hinami analyzes while running.

The monster's movement is much slower comparing to before. However, because of his build, his step can cover a large distance and his attack range is much wider. Soon after that, Hinami is in the range of his scimitar. The monster swings his arm horizontally low, intending to cut the girl in half. Just when the blade nearly hits her, a clap is heard and a white torrent blows her out of attack trajectory. She stably lands on the ground more than 10 meters away then takes out a RPG. With only one second aiming, the grenade protrudes from the launch tube and strikes on the exposed skeleton. An explosion comes and white flame engulfs the monster whole body.

He screams out of pain and rolls on the ground to get rid of the white fire. His weight causes an earthquake every time he rolls and black liquid, which are flowing out profusely from the chest, splashes all over the place. His dangerous state urges everyone to stay far away from him.

Makoto and Lexar gather on Hinami's side while watching the monster suffering. They all remain silent, not saying anything until all the flame on the monster ceases. When he stands up, the body looks completely fine but the posture reveals that he is severely weakened.

“It seems that the RPG works better than expected. I guess that with one more hit, we can end this.” Hinami assesses the enemy's state then loads another grenade on the RPG.

When the bandage man brings up his face to find the girls, another grenade enters his view and shatters the head. The whole upper body is blown up to pieces and the lower half collapse on the floor. The white fire remains burning even if the black liquid is flowing out profusely from the lower body. Soon after that, no more liquid flows out. Without obstruction, the flame incinerates the body into white ashes then fades out.

“Is it over?” Makoto asks.

“Yeah, probably so. I don't sense any more danger though.” Hinami replies with uncertainty.

“It's alright now. I check that there is no more monster around here.” Lexar assures the girls. “And rejoice.  Yuuko is going to come back soon.” He turns his head to one direction and says so.

A black portal suddenly appears and a white light comes out, aiming at the cat. However, he does not evade but just stand there and let it hit his body. The cat shines brightly with white light for a few second before dimming down. Then a person wearing a samurai armor jumps out of the portal before it disappears. Her armor is broken in many places with traces of blood and the person herself struggles to stand up steadily.

“Lexar! Yuuko!” Makoto and Hinami call both persons' name.

“It's okay. I just received the information from my double. Right now, I am just only tired a little bit after processing the data. More importantly, you guys should worry more about Yuuko. She is done quite badly” Lexar tells them to go to Yuuko side.

“Double guardian” is also the new ability that he obtained from awakening people's power. For each person he helped with awakening the power, they can summon him or his double to help them with various tasks. Although he cannot share vision or thought with his double, he can absorb them to know what they have experienced. The light before was his clone changing into the form that can fuse with him.

The girls hurries to Yuuko after learning that Lexar is fine. Looking closely, the armor is broken many places with skin exposed but there is no wound. However, they still get close to her and lend her their shoulders.

“Are you hurt anywhere? Blood is all over your body.” Makoto asks worriedly.

“You don't have to do that. I can still walk fine. The blood here belonged to the enemies and all my injuries were already healed. You are the one I should be saying that to, Makoto.” Yuuko denies while lightly shaking their shoulders off.

“It's only light injury and it's not even comparable to yours. The attacks must have been quite heavy for your armor to be like that and I can bet that you also lost a lot blood too. Your face pales and the legs are shaking.” Makoto insists on letting Yuuko's hand on her shoulder.

“It's no good pretending like that. Don't act strong when it comes to injury.” Hinami also resists her struggle.”Can you tell me what happened?”

“Fine, fine. Right now, I am completely beaten up, okay? About what happened, I was teleported to a strange village  with a lot of those masked women. After killing all of them with the help of Lexar, I managed to meet their leader then got dragged into her past or something like that. And after several trial killing her, we were able to escape.” Yuuko gives in their insistence and tells them the summary of what happened.

“Is she really that powerful? To give you that much wound?” Makoto asks in doubt. She looked at how Hinami fought those women before and won without taking a hit.

“That woman's attack was very strange. It was easy to predict where she was going to hit, but the frequency and shrewdness behind were the biggest problems. Its strength was also not underestimated. I was quite confident in the hardness of this armor but it still ended up like this.” Yuuko sighed in depress. “So, what happened with you girls? Why are you Makoto wearing that clothes? But I have to say that it looks good.” She asks while inspecting the witch costume.

“The bandage man came and I had to borrow the power from my other self to fight back. Then he transformed into a huge monster. Luckily, Hinami woke up right in time and we defeated him together.” Makoto explains what happened.

“I see, you guys were also in the danger too.” Yuuko pauses a bit. “This world is full of danger. We should get out of here. I don't feel good with all the surrounding fire.” Yuuko suggests so.

“Un, let's join with the the Sugihara group. They are the reason we are here so we stayed back in the first place. We should at least bring them out with us.” Hinami says while heading to the other students.