Elizabeth's words played back in his mind. This was the first time that someone had forgiven him in their final moments. Every other time someone had died around him, they cursed him with their last breaths. He thought that they were undeniably right in their hatred. That these events were his fault. That they had died because they chose to be near him, and he let them be even though he knew the risks better than they did.

Elizabeth's last sentence shattered his fragile view of the world. He felt regret from the bottom of his soul for running away. To die would had to have been better than to live this gnawing feeling inside of him.

The deluge of emotions inside him battled for control. His guilt was the foremost, but that quickly turned to anger. Ryuji steadied his gaze at Alician. If he was too late to save them, then the only thing left to do was avenge them.

"ALICIAN!"

The murderer felt unfazed by the crazed look in his opponent's eyes or the blood-curdling scream he had just unleashed. "Are you done crying then? It's too late for you now, or have you been too busy sobbing to notice? You're missing quite a bit of blood. I doubt you have the strength to even walk forward, let alone strike me down."

Under normal circumstances, Alician would've been right. Unfortunately for him, Ryuji was anything but typical.

He carried within him a divine blessing from one of the many gods. "Critical" The closer he got to death, the more exponentially powerful he became. The problem with it was that Ryuji would have to wait until he close to dying before his strength gain outweighed the negatives of blood loss.

Fortunately, with all Alicians pointless bolstering, the tipping point had just passed. Ryuji was feeling mightier than ever before. Fueled by anger and his blessing, Ryuji readied his sword in its sheath and charged at Alician. The killer felt something amiss but stood to meet him anyway. Before Ryuji could get close, he would fire off enough swords to put a small beast down.

"Fool! Fifty folds"

"Iai draw."

The swords flew at him, but with an unnatural speed, he drew the blade, and with two strikes, all the swords in his way disappeared.

With his sword now drawn, he pointed it at the murderer. Ryuji now stood only a few paces away from a deadly striking distance. Time seemed to slow down as the two watched and waited.

"One hundred folds!"

"Shigure Soen Ryu: torrential downpour." The weeb, Ryuji, after learning that he could create his own skills, decided to use his magic to recreate what he saw in anime. The result of this was that most of his attacks were reimaginings from his favorite fictional sword styles.

Against the one hundred and one blades, Ryuji struck out with his katana. A magical aura perpetuated throughout the blade. He responded to the onslaught by swinging his sword in a flowing pattern. At first, it seemed peaceful and serene, but it soon sped up into a barrage of quick precision strikes that stopped the blades in their tracks. Alician's real sword met Ryuji's, and the shock blew him back. For the first time, Alician had retreated a step. The humiliation could not stand, so what was there to do but up the anty?

"One hundred and fifty folds!"

"Shigure Soen Ryu: torrential downpour."

Without hesitation, Alician stepped it up a notch, but Ryuji held firm. The attack was stopped dead in its tracks, just like the last one. And just like last time, he had no choice but to try and put some distance before his hand was lopped off. Feeling cornered and disgraced, Alician struck out with all his might in a desperate attempt to overpower Ryuji.

"Two hundred and fifty folds!"

"Dance of the falling cherry blossoms."

Ryuji's response to the mass of blades was his best technique for projectiles. It focused all of his senses to the max for a few seconds. In it, just as the name suggested, he could cut singular blossoms as they fell from a tree. As he began swatting down the legion of blades, his defense faltered. Sword after sword broke through his skill, tearing him to shreds. As new blood left his system, Ryuji felt powerful. With each drop that dripped out of him, he could feel his sword gaining newfound sharpness. His eyes felt like they were slowing down time itself. He felt deadly. The surge of confidence was what let Ryuji go on the offensive.

"Lightning God style: Thunderclap-"

As the rest of the arsenal barred down on him, Ryuji sheathed his blade and ran. He went diagonal and to the left of Alician, attempting to circle him. In just one second, he had run a total of one hundred feet.

"Hundred folds."

In response, Alician drew his sword back and arced the slash in the path he was heading. If Ryuji had an attack that could only be unleashed at a distance, then Alician needed to seal that possibility as soon as possible. But this decision was what he had been waiting for. Instead of continuing the path or heading in a safe direction, Ryuji turned on a dime and ran directly at Alician.

"Thirty folds!"

Alician, who had no time to prepare a large-scale magical attack, could only muster a small response. Ryuji then sprang into the air with blinding speed while leaving a spark trail in his wake. In midair, he positioned himself as if he was aiming. His blade still sheathed, he unleashed the strike at the source of his hatred.

"-And flash!"

With the calling of his skill, Ryuji accelerated down to Alician. He barely had time to react and lashed out with his sword. As he rushed through the air, Ryuji just managed to dodge it by twisting his body. Drawing his sword, which had been gathering his mana, he sliced at the head of his foe. Alician had no way to dodge the impending cut, so he protected his head by using his left arm as a shield. A sickening crunch could be heard, and Alician's arm now only hung on by a few strings of his tendons. Blood gushed forth from the limb that was now facing the wrong direction and had gone permanently limp. Now in front of him, Ryuji tried his best to decelerate and turn around.

"FUCK!"

Alician faltered but did not surrender. With his back now turned away from his foe, Ryuji had no way to react fast enough and protect himself.

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"Twenty folds!"

Alician didn't have enough time to conjure a great many, but the blades he could did their job. A panicked and open Ryuji could only fend off about half of them. The rest impaled and sliced him.

The world spun out of control as one drove into his right eye. A great pang of pain and agony resonated throughout his body, and he began to go limp. His consciousness faded as he fell toward the ground. After all, it doesn't matter how strong you become if your body is missing too much blood to function. As he fell, his one eye looked toward Elizabeth's corpse.

His mind was oddly calm, given the situation, and he began to have thoughts about her final message. She had called him a good person but-

'What does that mean? What makes a person good? I never pitched in more than I had to. I was always the first to start acting lazy the second their eyes were off me. So why did she think that?'

Ryuji wracked his brain for the answer he was seeking in his final moments.

'It's not like I was that close to them. In fact, I hated half and could only slightly tolerate the other half. I was in no way a good person to them. I slept in every chance I got and even snuck peeks at Elizabeth when she wasn't aware. So why did she think that?'

No matter how much he thought, he couldn't come up with an answer.

'If I had to call them friends or acquaintances, I would put them in the work buddy camp. If she did have this impression that I was a good person, she would be wrong. The fact is that they never knew me, and that was because I never let them. I'm not a good person. I'm a coward who hides the real me from people in an attempt to protect myself. Only in the trappings of her mind was I ever, for even a moment, a good person.'

He had come to his depressing answer that he came up within his own mind.

'She thought that because she was mistaken. She died without ever knowing who I really was. That's the only thing that could've had led her to say that.'

He found his answer and knew deep in his heart that he was right.

'So why? Why do I feel so sad? Why do I feel so empty? Is it because I'm alone again? Is it because I'm going to die again? Why?'

"That bastard Raeg LIED TO ME! Easy pickings, my ass! I HAVE HAD IT! JUST SUBMIT AND DIE! FIVE HUNDREDFOLD!"

As Ryuji contemplated in his own mind, Alician prepared his final attack. An entire armory of prismatic blades appeared around Alician as Ryuji continued his descent. They seemed to take longer than usual to manifest correctly. Perhaps it was the sheer quantity, or perhaps it was his dwindling blood supply slowing him down. Whatever the case, this gave Ryuji more time to think in this high-pitched battle.

'Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?'

Ryuji's shameful attempt at fleeing flashed through his mind alongside Elizabeth's final moments.

'Ah, I get it now. It's because I ran, it's because I ran, and she still believed in me. She must have seen the fear on my face, the shame that I couldn't hide. In her final moments, instead of worrying about herself, she was more worried about how I felt. She wanted me to know that I shouldn't feel guilty. She wanted me to know that she forgave me.'

He stopped himself before he touched the ground with an outstretched hand.

'In the end, she was a good person. She got mad and was a pain in the ass. But when the chips were down, she was the person that I could count on. I mean, who the hell worries about other people when your guts are spilling out? How heroic can you get?'

Trembling, he slowly pushed himself off the ground.

'Then what do I do now? How do I move on? How can I move on? Ah, the answer is simple, I just have to become a good person! I'll live my life like Elizebeth would have wanted! I'll show everyone exactly what living like Elizabeth means! Move over Jesus, there's a new messiah in town!'

His one good eye locked in on the horrible man in front of him.

'First order of business strike down this asshole in front of me! How can she move on; how can the others move on when this bitch still gets to breathe?'

Ryuji planted his foot firmly on the ground as he slowly lifted his whole body.

'But how do I break through that many blades? I can't react fast enough, and I only have enough strength for one real attack. What can I do?'

An idea struck Ryuji, and a devious smile plastered itself on his disfigured and bloody face. If he couldn't react to all the blades, he would just need to bust through with a single strike. Only one of his many styles came to mind. He lowered himself to the ground with his hand ready on the sheathed blade and bolted forward. The readying barrage was finally prepared, and Alician let loose the deadly volley.

"Die."

An entire sea of blades came crashing down upon the approaching Ryuji. As he sprinted towards his end, he showed no hesitation. He didn't stop until he was within an inch of Alician's face. Only by rushing into the jaws of death could this technique be utilized. With his left foot forward, he dragged his momentum into the blade.

"Heavenly Dragon Style: Flash of the Heavenly Dragon!"

He drew with a speed that surpassed lightning and cleaved through the Armory. The swords broke apart under the massive current of energy behind the blade.

While they numbered in many and each was sharp enough to kill a man, the swords had a fatal flaw. Ryuji had learned throughout the fight that these swords broke under the slightest pressure. As Ryuji swung, what appeared to be a dragon riding on his sword, had come and gone.

In that instant, the man known as Alician was severed in two.

Ryuji couldn't, however, cut through all of the swords. The rest bore through him. As his insides became his outsides and his life faded, he spoke one sentence.

"Sacred high heal!"

All his wounds and deformities created by the strife vanished, and the only proof of battle were the bloodstains accompanying his posh clothes.

Sacred high heal, a miracle that he had claimed for his pocket skill. To make it as effective as possible, he had to limit himself to using it once a day. But because of that contract, it could heal any life-threatening injuries.

He looked down upon the dead assassin and spit.

"If you had held my friends hostage instead of killing them right away, I would've wasted my miracle. At least then you wouldn't have had to die alone."

He turned away from the man he never wanted to see again and walked towards his fallen hero.

"He said someone named Raeg sent him. I'll find this Raeg and bring him to the justice of my blade."

He leaned down over his inspiration. "But first..."

He picked up her limp body and began to move back towards the campsite.

He started his tumultuous trial of burying his friends. He chose a nearby hill for them to rest in that overlooked the ruins below and made for a memorable place.

Shovel in hand, Ryuji broke the earth apart and began excavating the ground. His head focused only on the menial task before him. Soon he found a rhythm and had made five different holes.

Carefully he laid each body into their respective resting places and started to cover them over. His heart had cooled, and he began thinking that maybe he was some sort of monster. He hadn't shed a single tear during this time. The final load of dirt packed down into the earth marking the end of his chore.

The sun peeked from behind the clouds, and dawn broke on a brand new day. The light bounced into his eyes and slowly shown on the grave markers behind him. Looking at this beautiful sight, Ryuji slowly fell and laid on his back. Now that he was done, his exhaustion caught up with him. While his miracle healed all wounds, it did not heal fatigue.

As he lay on the grass and the cool summer air blew through his hair, Ryuji and his thoughts turned towards the people beside him. Suddenly he remembered that in his bag was a dagger. He took it out and unsheathed it. Sure enough, it looked just like the real thing, but as he tested it against his pants, it couldn't even cut a single loose thread. A useless trinket through and through.

That was why he had no choice but to laugh.

"Hahahahahahaha!" His laughter started involuntarily as if he was told a funny joke, but it quickly devolved into full-body sobs.

After a few minutes, he was crying his heart out.

For the people, he would never meet again.

For the girl, he could never thank.

For the men, he could never apologize to.

On the hill where his fate started to turn, Ryuji swore an oath to himself.

"I'll try my best to be something you could be proud of. Then... maybe then... this will never happen again."

He closed his eyes, and his adventure began anew.