With Ana out of the way, the orb protecting Uta and Edya vanished, leaving the two girls alone with the man, helpless.

Both girls' reactions were very different; one began panicking, unable to utter a single word, and the other ran straight to her unconscious friend, who had collapsed in front of the man.

"Stay away from her!" the girl bravely threatened.

Unfortunately for her, her menace was certainly not enough to cut it. "That’s a courageous little flower that we have here. You must be Uta; we’ve been looking for you."

"Wha—"

Using his magic, the man tased the girl unconscious, caught her in her fall, and gently put her down on the ground before calling, "Aiden, you can come out now."

Immediately after that call, the boy from earlier reappeared by the man’s side and asked, "What do I do?"

"Take them to the facility."

The man tased the last girl unconscious with a single wave of his hand.

"Even the noble? You’re sure this is a good idea?"

"No, but we can’t let her here, can we? This whole mission has been messed up enough. We will take her to the facility, and the boss will decide what we will do next."

"All right," the boy said, approaching the two unconscious girls and kneeling to grasp both of their arms. "Silas won’t like this; he’s been furious already when I arrived with that crazy girl. Now I'm supposed to bring two other girls."

The man went over to recover the third girl, whom he put atop the man’s back so that he could take them away, adding, "Stop babbling and do what you have to do; that girl, Analise, was merely buying time for someone from—"

As he turned his gaze towards the direction where Ana had launched her magic, the man saw a fiery spiral flying towards them from the location of the Rose Blanche establishment.

"Shit— Aiden, get the hell away from here."

Just before the fiery thing landed where the boy and the girls were, the boy managed to teleport away, taking with him the two unconscious girls.

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"Ana?!"

A blue-haired boy descended from the sky in a blaze of glory.

It came across as obvious from the name he called that it was for the young man that the girl, Ana, was buying time for. It was for him that she sent out that magic of hers as a signal of distress in the direction of the Rose Blanche.

"Arte Barbosse…"

***

Having seen Ana and Uta, unconscious, being teleported away, Arte understood that he was right in coming here, but he also came to realize that he was late.

Amidst the confusion, the hurry, the surprise to see someone wielding teleportation magic, and the shock of having seen Ana suddenly vanish before he could come to her rescue, Arte struggled to come back to his senses. There was a lot of information to process, but once he didn't have to do it all right away, he realized there was someone in front of him from whom he could get an answer.

Arte, not even considering negotiating, launched himself at the man, throwing a punch that the man managed to block with his arm. However, Arte followed up with another attack that the man couldn't defend against. Arte summoned a rectangular earth pillar from the ground, using it to strike the man in the stomach and send him flying into the distance.

Arte wasn’t yet done; using wind magic, Arte propelled himself onto the man, once again sending a punch, which this time the man could not avoid. The man was thrown against the pavement of an unpopular alley, crashing and heaving.

"You’re one of them, are you?! The ones abducting flowers."

The man, raising his hand that was zapped with lightning, prepared to conjure his magic, but before he could do so, Arte, using wind magic, sent the man crashing heavily against a wall.

"Where have they been taken away!?" Arte asked, approaching.

He had reached a point where he was ready to use whatever means were at his disposal to get an answer from the man.

"I asked you a damn ques—What!?"

Suddenly, between Arte and the man, the boy with the teleportation magic reappeared, and though Ana and the girls were no longer with him, he was not alone. A masked man dressed in a dark coat appeared; the moment they got into Arte's view was brief, since the following second, a blinding light suddenly emitted from something the boy held in his hands.

Though he was caught by surprise by the sudden radiance, Arte's reflexes were vivid enough to have him immediately block what his instinct told him was coming at him.

It was a single punch, yet it was strong enough to fly a few meters away from where he stood. Arte was grateful to have landed on his feet rather than being thrown off into the distance until he saw through his still blurry vision the masked man summoning an array of projectiles and unleashing them onto him.

The lightning has already been fired. It was too late for Arte to summon anything to protect himself; all that was left for him to do was aina-enhance himself, which he already did, and brace himself for the impact.

It was at that moment that Arte noticed something appear in front of him: a tall, silver-haired person whom he instantly recognized.

"You simply can’t stand still for a single second, do you?"

"Mael."