Location: Construction Site Across from my Apartment
Time: 10:19 PM, February 14th 2108
Alright, isn’t this getting a bit ridiculous? How long is this joke going to last for? Actually, wait. Maybe I should just be glad that I got in before the afterword.
No, definitely not that. There’s nothing for me to be happy about.
Especially not that imposing figure standing opposite me.
Not that I was afraid of him.
Certainly not the devious woman standing next to me.
Not that I was upset that she had been tricking me.
Me? Upset? Impossible. That would require me to have some kind of expectations in the first place.
“Hey, Enki, I think there must be some kind of misunderstanding. I’m the kind of guy that usually gets misunderstood.”
I decided to ignore the devious one and focus on the imposing one.
“Male. There has been no misunderstanding. The truth has been made clear to me.”
“But what is truth really? I’ll have you know that I never tell a lie, yet people are always telling me I’ve got a dishonest face.”
Now, I wasn’t making small talk with my enemy for no reason.
This time I wasn’t injured, so I didn’t have much of a problem constructing a perfect barrier around Enki. I’d suffocate him. And even if he noticed something was off, by that point he’d be weakened; making him an easier target for the devious one and myself.
Annoyed that I’m trying to use the same strategy again?
Well, tough. In my experience it usually works, and there’s no risk involved.
“Your face is irrelevant.”
“Hey, you know, I hear that one a lot as well.”
“Inari Okami, mother of Kuzunoha, ancestor of my ancestors, I humbly ask for your blessing.”
Having no interest in my strategy of stalling things out, the devious woman recited her mantra.
Hey, come on now, we’ve been working together for a month now, she should be able to pick up on what I was doing.
What, I’m expecting too much from her? No, that’s definitely not true.
My barrier was only completely transparent from the inside after all. Enki wouldn’t see a thing, but to the two of us on the outside, there was clearly a semi-transparent bubble made of purple hexagons.
There’s no way she didn’t see what I was doing.
“Complete possession: Oni. Dual possession: Kitsune.”
Wow, she really wasn’t wasting any time, huh? I guess she already wasted enough time today pretending to be interested in me.
Her skin developed an unnatural red tint and a single horn grew out of her forehead. Before that transformation could complete, an extra set and furry ears perked up on the top of her head, followed by three tails jutting out in the space between her pants and her shirt.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I saw her face get a little rosy before her skin turned completely red.
“Hassan! This ends now.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
That devious woman sure was getting excited.
I’m glad she managed to finally find something today that caught her attention. Must have been pretty boring, spending all day with me.
But on a more serious note, even with her attempting to ruin my original plan, I was pretty confident in our chances. Enki shouldn’t have any more allies in this city, so a surprise attack at this point was unlikely.
That left Enki on his own to take on the two of us.
Even with me making up half of us, the odds were definitely in our favor.
And then if you factor in Kazuko was almost certainly watching this, he’s the one who left the warning note for me after all, Enki doesn’t have much hope of pulling out a win.
I’m typically not one for unwarranted, or even warranted, confidence, but this was an encounter we could win without me having to even participate.
Yeah, sounds good. The Devious woman and Kazuko would take care of Enki.
“Female. Correct. My business here will end soon.”
Rather than take a step forward, Enki stretched his arm out towards me, showing me his open palm.
“Now that I know the location, retrieving it is a simple task.”
A faint purple light started accumulating around Enki’s open hand. The source was, huh?
What?
The source was me.
The light was evaporating off of my body and flowing toward Enki.
“What are you doing to him?”
The devious woman didn’t wait for an answer to her question. She lunged forward with a flame-covered fist, smashing straight into the barrier I had around Enki.
It cracked, and some parts were burnt away, but my barrier prevented her from actually hitting Enki. That wasn’t my intent, but I couldn’t focus enough to remove my barrier to let her fist pass through.
I tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. Or really, it was like I couldn’t even move my tongue or force air to travel out of my mouth.
At some point I ended up on my knees, struggling to stay conscious.
Why was I struggling against a seemingly inevitable force? Just passing out would have been so much easier.
I couldn’t do that though.
It was just a feeling.
I didn’t have any reason to believe this, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I passed out I’d never wake up again.
Enki was somehow siphoning off my very existence.
How?
Was it some other relic that he had in his possession?
No, that shouldn’t have been possible.
His sword was one thing, but with the barrier I had surrounding him, and the barrier that I was keeping active around my body, there shouldn’t be any relics that could just completely ignore my defenses. The only thing that should be able to bypass my power is itself.
If he had such a cheat item, why didn’t he use it before?
No, this had to be something new. He couldn’t do this before.
Why’d he get such a convenient power up?
I could barely keep my focus enough to tell, but the light stopped seeping out of my body, and I watched as the accumulation of it in front of Enki’s had solidified into a deep purple gemstone.
“Perfection. It would seem even I have things to learn from you humans. How the times have changed. I will look kindly upon that female.”
Enki admired the gem in his hand for a moment before absorbing it into himself, similar to what he did with the artifacts he had stolen.
“What did you do to him!”
Kanon sent a second strike at Enki. He was too preoccupied with whatever that gem was, and my barrier had already fallen apart completely. Her fist slammed into his left shoulder; popping it out of the socket and burning away a patch of his shirt.
“Female. I have merely recovered what is rightfully mine. In light of this, I have no reason to continue this charade with you.”
“Well I have plenty of reasons.”
Enki let out what seemed to be an honest sigh.
“I have no desire to destroy humans without need. If I must, I will, but consider the situation. Female, without proper care, that male will die. His body needs stabilizing to adjust to the lack of energy. Sacrifice yourself to me if you so choose, but know that his soul will accompany yours to the underworld.”
So that’s how it was.
I wasn’t in a mindset to understand most of what was happening, but I could understand one thing.
I was going to die.
Enki didn’t seem like the type to make false threats.
My only chance of survival was for that devious woman to let Enki escape, or at least leave things here to Kazuya, and take me somewhere to be healed.
Where would that be exactly?
I know this can be a crazy city, but I don’t think the hospitals are trained to handle ‘an energy imbalance because some insane man claiming to be a god sucked some light from my body and made a pretty rock.’
Yeah, that’s it.
Alec Alexander ends here.
There’s not a single chance that Kanon would give up on her chance to stop Enki in order to save me, even if she knew how.
Well, at least it was a good life.
Sorry, that was a lie.
At least it was a life.
But now it’s over. That’s it. Dead.
Or maybe not. It’s a little late to be saying this, but I’m really not the kind of person you should trust. The worst kind of narrator. Maybe someone jumped in at the last moment to save me, or maybe they just delivered some encouragement and a piece of advice. At this point, who would believe it even if I said it? Even during the callback, I’m a forgotten man who can’t stop lying.