Ori used her gale shot by aiming downwards and firing. A gust of wind sent her crashing through the ceiling and landing on the roof of a nearby building. I naturally followed her in a plume of steam as I did my best to close the distance, she created a wall of ice. With no effort I kicked through the wall, but was met with a pyro shot coming straight at me. As it hit me at the direct center of my chest, I was pushed across the roof and almost fell off. As I recovered by using my one good arm, the arm shook as more blood pulled out of the exposed wound. The more force I put on it, the more hazy I felt. But I don’t care!

I looked on as Ori was leaping from rooftop to rooftop away from me. At this rate, the distance between us would get further and further.

Ori’s leaving…

“Blazing Soul: Overclock!”

In one move, I let my stemata do all of the movement as I closed that distance. I flipped over Ori and as the state of the world resumed I once more was right in front of her.

She stopped in her tracks immediately and aimed her sniper at me as I fell to the ground. Despite my injuries, I recovered one last time. I can’t take this anymore. If all of this really meant nothing to her…

“Fine. You win.”

“...What?” Ori lowered her rifle as I continued.

“You were my greatest support. If everyone in the world hated me, I could’ve moved forward as long as you were there. Because after all…I only realized what I was fighting for recently. I was fighting for you. Your heart, your dreams, your world. Every part of you. I wanted to fight for those things even if it took the breaking of every bone in my body…so if I was tool this entire time…if you always planned to throw me away…” I met her eye to eye with a tight-lipped smile. “Then go ahead, Ori! I was more than happy being your weapon.”

I’ll collapse here and fade into nothingness. Just like I started. After all, that day I met her, I thought I was the one saving her. But surviving the fall with her, coming to this country, starting a new life with her, fighting on her side…she saved me.

I’ll never forget that.

I’m excited. I’m excited to see what the future holds for her.

As I allowed my body to finally fall—

Ori was there to catch me.

“This is exactly why I said all of those awful things! I knew you would’ve held back your punches. During that first exchange, you could’ve used both Overclocks to deal a winning blow but you didn’t! Because you wanted to talk to me…but if you throw the match, the Holians won’t like it whatsoever. They’ll think I’m just leeching off of you. So I did all of those things so you could beat me and move on.”

Oh…

Thank goodness…

So she didn’t mean any of the things she said. That’s good.

I used what little power I had in my good arm to shakenly pull her close by her hip and accept her embrace.

“Your warmth is relaxing…”

“W-what are you saying right now?”

“I’m sorry, Ori…I’m sorry you felt like you had to keep a lifelong lie for my happiness. But my happiness is with you, okay?”

“Okay…”

“Whatever shape our relationship takes after this earnest fight, let’s stick together through it.”

“Of course.”

After we finally talked, Ori retrieved the weapon she threw away to catch me and I readied whatever limbs were willing to move. We both walked to opposite ends of the rooftop and counted down.

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“3…”

“2…”

“1…”

“Now!” We said simultaneously.

I was pretty much down two arms. There was a way to move them that I thought about once, but never practiced because of how rare a situation like this would be.

Ori fired off cryo shots to try to slow my movement, but I kicked them away and leaped right in front of her. I used my stemata to eject steam at the exact angles to create a fist winded backward.

“Blazing Soul: Puppeteer!”

Leo Poliark

As soon as Arno split, both Julien and I have been going back and forth. He constantly has me on the defense though because of his super strength. Every time I would make some distance and continue shooting, he get right back into my face. If Bonnie was next to me, I would be able to do more here, but I can’t. I have two training pistols to my name and nothing else.

Fling!

A strand of blood with as much force as a crashing building flicked one of my pistols away and sent it flying. I gripped the pistol still with me with both hands and aimed it at Julien ready to fire…but nothing came out. Regardless of the effort I put in to it, it didn’t shoot up any bullets. When I eyed the stem crystal on the saw, I noticed it lost its blue luster. I see…

“Did you know…” Julien walked steadily toward me. “That when you’re attacked from angles near your lower half you’re more likely to use whichever gun is closer to your target?”

I threw my pistol at him and stepped forward to make a quick dash, but he was already next to me before I could gain any distance. It seemed like he used his blood to create a layer he could skate across. He grabbed my arm and performed a textbook takedown that had me pinned on the floor.

“You know, I haven’t got to pay you back for this scar you gave me. So I got to thinking: your best pal is searching for the bomb, but what if her partner’s screams could be heard across the city? What if…her partner was going to die?”

“You wouldn’t kill me and she knows it, so she’ll get the job done. Terror Crusher disqualified—”

“You see…I’m way past the point of caring about the tournament. I honestly hate seeing people with such deep bonds and connections. I don’t know why, but when I see that, it makes me want to fracture and break them completely. That’s why I helped Ori with her little scheme. But knowing her, she probably went running back to Arno by now. Seriously, what gives? Their relationship pisses me off. Anyway…” Julien Ferritin looked down on me with a playful smile as he said “how would you like to bleed from every orifice of your body?”

He didn’t even wait for my answer. He plugged two of his fingers into my eye sockets and I immediately lost sight. I grit my teeth though and stayed silent. Even when foreign blood entered through my eyes and exited through my ears, mouth, and nostrils, I stayed silent. Even when all airflow was blocked and it felt like I was drowning in a pool of blood, I stayed silent.

I stayed silent because I knew how much this opportunity meant for us. I wasn’t just gonna let it go because there was a chance I could die.

I already lost so much.

===

“Hey, Leo! You staying for the get-together after work?”

“Of course! Though I can’t stay too late. Remember: my wife’s expecting.”

In a life that seems so far away from today, I was a senior at a real estate company. I had my own branch along with people that worked under me to help me sell houses in zone three. It was honestly really simple. Zone three has a massive work culture, so they don’t want to spend too much time on negotiations.

“Heads up though: the guys from one of the partnered firms are gonna be there as well as the CEO. We can party, we just gotta do it moderately, you know?”

“Yeah, for sure”

Turns out our guys were the most tame ones there.

I sat on one of the couches we had in the office and watched the chaos unfold. The guys from the partnered firm brought over girls that were dancing on our work desks, a group of our guys were singing sea shanties with some of our partners, and in the corner two guys were playing chess? Oh, one guy just flipped the entire table. Nevermind. I sighed as I moved into my office and had a seat in my chair. As soon as I did, someone entered my office.

“Mind if I have a seat in here?”

I looked up to see a tall man in a suit, oiled back hair, black glasses, and a white goatee. He closed the door behind him and took a seat across from me without even waiting for my answer. He wasted no time making himself comfortable as he took out a cigar to smoke. After he let a puff go into the air, he introduced himself. “The name’s Alejandro. I’ll cut to the chase: my compatriots and I have enough buying power to make an offer for this company your boss can’t refuse. After all, we did our research and know that he’s considering retirement. The only problem is…we need allies. And you as well as the other seniors at this company seem like the best option. So can I trust you as we make this transition?”

I didn’t doubt his ability to buy out the company. After all, the boss only told myself and one other person about his retirement. Besides that, from the moment his people walked in, they acted like they already owned the place and our usual uptight boss didn’t put up a single fight.

“Fine.”

It’s business, after all. It’s not favorable, but as long as the company doesn’t dissolve, we’ll be fine. I reached out my hand to extend an olive branch, but Alejandro had a different idea to get off this business venture.

He placed a small pouch in my hand and said “Let’s celebrate correctly, shall we?”