At the same time…

“Mph… mph!!!”

“Please… please stop struggling! I’m trying to help you!”

Despite all of Anten’s best efforts to calm him down, the old man she was carrying did not stop struggling to get out of her grip. With his mouth completely covered by her hand, Julian could barely protest, but he was still trying his best to do so.

The fact that she was still flying several feet off the ground did not seem to deter him in the slightest, and she was having a hard time focusing on both flying safely and keeping him safe at the same time.

Should I land? I don’t think that’s a good idea though.

Given the fact that he was being troublesome even when he was in potential danger of falling to his death, going on ground seemed like a worse idea since that would avert the threat and he could have more options to escape. At least while she was in the air, she believed that she could better manage his actions for the time being.

If only I knew how to knock him out…

“Mff! Mfffffff!”

On top of all that trouble, he had also taken to finding ways to get her to uncover his mouth, from licking to attempted biting. It was almost like he was a child or a dog trying to escape their captors, very unfitting for the aging man who was currently doing those exact things.

Ugh, man…

While she was relatively unfazed by his attempts, she was also getting increasingly exhausted and slightly disgusted by them. Determining that there would be no change whether his mouth was uncovered or not, she finally removed her hand, allowing him to speak freely again.

“You don’t know what you are doing! Put me down now! Do you hear me? Do you hear me???”

… I probably should have kept his mouth shut.

Regretting but still standing firm on her decision, she ignored his threats and kept her altitude, all while she began to reason with him.

“Mister Mayor… this is just temporary, okay? Once I’ve determined that you are safe, I will put you down. Just relax for now, please?”

“You’re making a big mistake, kid. I knocked you and the devil out for a good reason, and right now, you’re messing with my choice here!”

“…”

“Oi, kid! Do you understand?”

“I do.”

Anten’s speed slowed rapidly as she gave her answer, surprising him, and the distance of land she covered became lesser and lesser until she stopped in place, still hovering in the air.

“I get what you are going through right now,” she continued with some frustration, “and I have learnt my lesson on trying to judge other people before I fully understand what they want. But then I want to ask, why do you want this?”

“Huh?”

“When we first saw you, Mister Mayor, you looked happy. You seemed like a very good guy, someone who wanted to be the mayor of that small town. The lady we talked to also said you were nice. So, I thought that you were happy. Why would you want to throw away your town, throw away your life like that? All because of something that happened in the past?”

“You don’t get…”

“You’re right!” she loudly interrupted his excuse, “I don’t get it! People are different and I shouldn’t force them to follow me, that’s what I’ve learnt! What I don’t get is this whole situation! Why did you decide to help people, then decide to leave them behind? All in favor of some guy who wants to kill you?”

“I… you…”

“If you truly cared, why didn’t you just… die? Why did you keep on living? Isn’t it because you wanted to do something else?”

“I don’t know!”

His arms flopped to his sides as he shouted, and it was then that Anten finally noticed the familiar ball in his hand that he had once again fished out of his pocket when she was not looking.

“You were…!”

“Ahhh,” he groaned in frustration as he let go of the gas emitting device, letting it fell straight down to the ground below and explode into the recognizable black cloud, “you don’t deserve this, kid. I know you’re just concerned about me. I shouldn’t do this to you.”

“Mister Mayor…”

“You’re right. I don’t know what I want to do now. I cannot run from my past mistakes, and I don’t believe that Blake will want to forgive me so easily. But then… I also care about my current friends, and I don’t want them to be affected by my absence. I have to make a choice here, and I want you to understand that while I am not fully on board with the decision I have made, I believe it is the right thing to do. That is why I must see this through to the end, even if it means that I have to leave.”

“…”

“Kid?”

“T… there’s still time!” Anten shook her head and desperately retorted, “if we can keep you two separated, we can convince Mister Blake that you’re not the same person as you were before! He needs to see that you’ve changed for the better! You can’t just give up like that!”

In response, he gave a sad smile to her and spoke solemnly.

“Kid, you don’t know Blake as much as I do. If you did, you would know that you can’t convince him to change his mind. He will not stop until his opponents are all defeated. That’s another reason why I made my choice.”

“But…”

“I did try to reach him earlier, you know. Even if he doesn’t want to kill me, something, or someone inside him wants to, and I cannot reach that part of him. He’s detached himself because of what we, what I, did to him. That part cannot be changed.”

“… damn it.”

Anten bit her lip in frustration as she tried to think of a way to convince him, racking her brain for anything she had at her current disposal.

“… hang on. What if I forced him to see the truth?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I haven’t tested it out yet, so I don’t know whether it can do what I want it to do,” she admitted, “but if I can use my ability on him, that could help him see what he’s doing, and maybe that part that you mentioned is inside him will also stop.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“That’s… risky.”

“Please, Mister Mayor, I need you to give me and Dauma a chance. If we still can’t convince him to stop, then… I will admit that I was wrong. But until then, please trust us.”

“… alright, I trust you for now.”

“Thank you, Mister Mayor. I think I should let you down now.”

With a look of relief on her face, she gradually floated down to the ground, where she retracted her wings and finally let go of him, allowing him to move freely again.

“Now, we still need to keep you safe first. Do you need me to bring you back to Edelweiss?”

“No need, kid. I know this area well, I can…”

As he turned back to look at her, he suddenly stopped, his eyes going past and lingering on something behind her.

“Oh dear.”

“Wha—"

At the same time, she felt a familiar chill run down her spine. However, before she could follow his gaze or even ask him what he was seeing, Anten felt an extremely strong impact hit her back, causing it to bend at an unnatural angle.

“Crunch.”

Almost as though it was happening to her in slow motion, she could hear a horrifying crack and a burst of pain radiate through her body before her legs suddenly turned limp, and she fell headfirst to the ground.

“Gah… agh…”

As she convulsed and grunted in pain, she could hear the raspy breathing of the thing that had struck her from behind as he slowly walked past.

“Rghhhhhhh… hghhhhhhhhhh…”

“Blake…”

She could not place it at first, but it was not until Julian spoke again that she knew who it was, and even though she was in agony, and he was in imminent danger, only one thought came into her head at the moment.

Dauma… what did you do?

**********************

Bbdkdieehhiicheie… hjwskwwodkok… doctor… devil… kill… hjkwkaskjaiui…

No coherent thoughts were forming in Blake’s mind, not at the current state he was in. It was all a mess, with only singular unconnected ones popping up infrequently, and nothing was making much sense at all.

However, as he looked up at the open roof and saw the devil with his sword raised and ready, something clicked inside him.

Devil.

“HRAAGGHHHHHHHHH!”

All his plans, all his logic, all manner of common sense had disappeared as he let out a loud primal scream and lunged towards him, with his bleeding mouth open and his teeth bared.

“Dmjalskk!”

He could not understand what his target was saying, but that did not matter. What was more of a threat to him now was the fiery sword, which was swung towards him quickly, although with slight hesitation.

Weapon.

Right as it hit and sunk slightly into his right shoulder, burning it slightly, he quickly grabbed onto it with his hands, turned his body around in midair, and placed his feet horizontally on the devil’s torso before pushing off away from him and forcing him to stagger backwards for a moment.

The open flames from the sword were burning through his blood-soaked bandages, but he was not concerned with how much they were hurting. His current priority was to obtain that powerful weapon, and he used his opponent’s temporary unsteadiness to tug it off with all his strength.

“HAH!”

In no time at all, he landed on all fours at the opposite side of the roof, letting out a loud laugh as he held the sword in his hand before aiming it towards his opponent.

“Sjkalalkp…”

The devil appeared to be feeling uneasy by the sudden development, he could definitely sense it, but after just a few short moments, he had not only seemingly recovered, but he had also created a brand-new sword.

In contrast, the one he had painstakingly gotten from him looked like it was fading away, the flames growing smaller with each passing second. It clearly was not meant for sustained use by an outsider.

“Grr…”

Fast.

So, before his new weapon could be fully extinguished, he carried out his attack, pouncing and thrusting wildly at his opponent, who quickly raised his sword to defend.

“Zzz! Zzz!”

The blades made sizzling noises as they crossed paths with each other repeatedly, bits of flame coming off them before disintegrating in the air.

“Ragh! Hah! Grah!”

Blake continued to utter animalistic noises as he extended his free hand and attempted to swipe at the devil’s head while still maintaining his sword attacks. As a result, his opponent was forced to continuously dodge and duck out of the way, lessening his chances of properly retaliating.

“Maloo…”

The outcome of the fight was changing as Blake hopped from spot to spot around the struggling devil, catching him off guard with numerous hits and unfazed by his opponent’s own counterattacks, even as his clothes were slashed and bits of it were torn off, leaving them ripped open and exposing his hard-as-steel flesh.

No.

Yet, as much as the fight advantage was still in his favor, he was still on a time crunch as his scrambled mind told him. He still had his original objective. The devil had to be taken out now, before his original target got too far away. There was only one thing he could do.

“Puh!”

He struck at his fastest possible speed. Spitting his own blood into the devil’s eyes and bypassing his defenses while he was temporarily blinded, he proceeded to grip his borrowed sword tightly before stabbing him numerous times in the torso, at any and all spots he could reach.

“Shaial…”

As his opponent stepped backwards in panic, he stabbed him in the leg, causing his balance to shift, before going up and striking the arm, causing him to drop his sword.

To finish it off, as the devil fell backwards into the church, he threw his sword directly into his forehead, where it pierced through the tough skin before finally disintegrating for good.

“…”

Unable to retaliate, his opponent’s eyes seemed to remain frozen as blood poured out of his body in massive quantities, and he quickly disappeared from his view. A loud thud was all he needed to hear to know that he was down for the count, and that the fight was over.

Doctor.

But even as his body began to feel a little weak, and his limbs began to shake, Blake could not give up at this stage. He had to see his mission through to the end, or else.

Raising his head up into the air, he began to aggressively sniff it like a dog. All his senses had been heightened by his current output level, so he instinctively knew he could track his target down.

“Rgh…”

In no time at all, he caught it. Crouching down, he leapt off the church roof before making a hard landing and racing through the wasteland, in the direction of the doctor’s scent.

He was not going to miss him, not as long as he was still alive.

**********************

Anten was very sure something important had broken inside of her.

Apart from the unbearable pain she was experiencing, she could not move her legs at all, and even as she tried to brandish her wings and force them to flap, they did not respond, leaving her with only her hands to move.

“Come on…”

And even as she tried to will her injury to heal as hard as she could, her body seemed to be unable to do so.

Is this because of the gas from earlier?

She continued to try, but in the end, she was powerless as she watched Blake approach Julian without turning back towards her or stopping.

“Blake… what happened to you?” she heard the mayor ask out of concern, with a horrified expression on his face as he saw what his former test subject had become.

“Grr…”

“Blake, I need you to talk to me, please.”

“Rghhhh…”

“BLAKE!” she shouted at him in a futile attempt to get his attention, “if you lay a finger on Mister Mayor, I will not let you go! Do you hear me?”

“Grrh…”

Blake ignored her as he finally reached his target, and his bleeding eye glared at him as his hands slowly began to reach up towards his neck.

“Mister Mayor! Run!”

“I… don’t think I can anymore…”

Julian stood still as he let it happen. As the fingers closed around him, he knelt down, looking slightly upwards before closing his eyes once again.

“I’m sorry, Bl… ghg…”

“Mister Mayor!”

Weakly attempting to reach the two of them by crawling with her hands, she abruptly stopped and watched in horror as she watched the mayor’s life getting choked away with each passing second.

Crap. You need to stop him now, Anten!

But what could she do?

She immediately created a bow, and after positioning it sideways, she began firing arrows into him. However, either because her powers were still weakened or Blake was now unaffected by them, they bounced off his body like they were paper airplanes, and he did not budge or flinch at all.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Using her new ability could also potentially stop him, or at least stall him enough for her to finish healing.

“For the eyes that see the present… nngh…”

But even as she began reciting the chant, she realized she did not know how long the ability would take to work and, based on the performance of her other abilities so far, she could not take the risk of it failing even if she finished.

So then, what could she do?

“Gah… ahh… na…”

Grunting and groaning incomprehensibly, not unlike what Blake was doing, she was at a complete loss. At that moment, her panic and desperation were only becoming greater the longer she waited.

“Ghh…”

She could see Julian’s body getting weaker, and he had begun frothing at the mouth and turning pale. She had to do something, anything.

I need to… I need to!

In her blind panic, she barely even noticed that she had been unconsciously creating something new in her hand, but as the weight and shape slowly settled in, she finally realized its presence.

A pistol, shaped just like the ones most of the Silver Foxes had equipped with them.

Stop him!!!

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Without questioning it or hesitating, she yelled as she aimed her new weapon at Blake and quickly pulled the trigger.

“Click.”

But nothing happened. Nothing came out of the gun. The pistol had failed to fire, and Blake did not get shot.

“Grahhhhhh…”

He slowly released his fingers from Julian’s throat, letting his limp body fall to the ground before he himself collapsed as well, letting her know it was all over.

“NO! No, no, no…”

She pounded her head down onto the sand and cried, her new gun disappearing in her clenched, trembling fist as she slammed the ground in anger and frustration.

“Why… why does this always happen?”

Even as she begged and asked herself, there was no answer that could satisfy her, and slowly but surely, her anger became focused on one person, the person she needed the answers from the most.

… Blake.

She had to ensure he could not harm anyone innocent again.