Location: Outside of Alec’s Apartment
Time: Tokino-48 year (2108), Feb. 14 (Tue) 22:23
Ah, so that’s what it was. The question that I didn’t ask. The fact that I didn’t even think about that really shows that I’ve already lost something important.
What will happen to Alec once the stone is removed?
As expected, Hassan confronted Kanan and Alec. And as expected, it looked like they had the upper hand. With my support, I think the odds were definitely in their favor.
Until, well, you know.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to happen, but Hassan just took the philosopher’s stone out of his body like it was the easiest thing in the world.
And that left Alec writhing on the ground, struggling to even stay conscious.
That’s unfortunate, but it still left Kanon and me to deal with Hassan. Kanon even managed to land a solid hit on him already. The two of us should have been able to handle things.
At least, that’s what I thought until I took a better look at Kanon’s face.
Ah, of course.
Kanon liked to talk a big game, but when it came down to it, she just wasn’t suited for this.
She kept looking over her shoulder with a look of fear on her face.
After spending a month working with him, she wasn’t capable of abandoning Alec. Her mind had already drifted away from capturing Hassan and on to saving Alec.
She might not have even realized this herself, but I could tell. Kanon never could hide her emotions, so reading her was beyond simple.
She wanted to help Alec.
That made things difficult for me, but I wouldn’t voice any complaints about it. That was the way Kanon should act. She isn’t like the rest of us. It didn’t matter how many finger segments she cut off, she’d never be yakuza.
And that was probably a good thing.
But that leads us back to my initial remark.
What will happen to Alec once the stone is removed?
Well, that was starting to become clear, but what I really wanted to know was how to fix whatever was happening to him.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
If our princess wanted to help him, I needed to make that possible.
I slipped out of the shadows and placed myself between the staggered Hassan and Kanon.
“Kazuko!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t pretend to be surprised now. This is the surprising part: Take Alec and go to Alexis Albright. She knows how to fix him.”
I didn’t actually know if she could help, but it was probably something like that. Why else would she tell me to send Kanon to her?
“But, Hassan is right here! I can’t leave.”
“You can. I’ll capture Hassan, you leave with Alec.”
“No, I can’t just leave. I’ll capture Hassan.”
“Do you think that there’s anything you can do like that?” My tone was harsher than what Kanon was used to. She’d probably never heard me talk like that. “You’re distracted. You’ve already lost the right to fight here. Even if you tried, you’d only get in my way. Now get out of here so I can focus on Hassan without having to babysit you as well.”
I could tell, even without looking, that Kanon was upset with my outburst, but she didn’t refute it. She was starting to realize what was clear to me from the beginning. Her mind was elsewhere.
Granted, even in that mental state she would have still been useful in cornering Hassan.
Fortunately, she seemed to believe my assertion that she would only hold me back. She was overly responsible in the weirdest ways.
“Very well. I will not take even a single breath for myself until I can redeem myself from this shame, but I will concede this matter to you. Good luck.”
Still under the possession of the oni, Kanon easily picked up Alec with one hand before launching herself into the air, bouncing from building to building, leaving a fleeting trail of fire in her wake.
“Yeah. Sayonara.”
In only a few moments she was completely out of sight.
“Well, Hassan, here it is. I guess it’s just the two of us now, huh?”
I had been facing him the whole time, but I addressed Enki for the first time.
“Indeed. I am grateful you decided to stay, male.”
“Grateful? What’s that about? I would have thought I was the last person you wanted to see.”
“I wouldn’t expect a human to understand, but now that I have the philosopher’s stone I was hoping to run into someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Exactly. An athletic build, but not overly developed. The perfect amount of muscle mass to have both strength and flexibility.”
“Ah, um, thanks?”
What exactly was that about?
“Now, male, I’d rather not cause unneeded damage to your body, so I’ll be settling things with one blow. I’ll be using my trump card. Prepare yourself if you will.”
Hassan started running toward me.
He thought he could settle things in one blow?
A trick? No, probably not. With the way he was before, maybe, but since his supposed transformation into Enki, he wasn’t the type to lie.
So then what was his strategy?
He said it was his trump card, so it must have been something I hadn’t seen before.
I quickly scanned through the catalog in my head of every relic that was confirmed to be in his possession.
Was it one of them? Or maybe it would be something that he’d never used before. But could he really have managed to steal a relic powerful enough to be his trump card without anyone noticing?
That seemed unlikely, but I’d need to be prepared for it either way.
I pulled a talisman out of each sleeve and held them in my hands.
In my right was one that could seal whatever relic he tried to summon, and in my left was one that would completely restrict his movement.
That was actually the talisman I designed specifically to capture Hassan. Drawing it out took me over a week, and it took even longer to fill it with the required energy.
As soon as I noticed a relic materialize in his hands I would seal it away as I reached out with the paralyzing talisman. If Hassan wanted to settle things in a single attack then I would do the same.