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Chapter 23: Pretenders

After being her shadow for all these years, she would now have to kill the person she’d admired since she was a child. Curiously, she didn’t feel anything at the prospect.

Maybe he’d been right. Maybe this place had eroded her beyond repair.

“What? Nothing to say to that?” Azure huffed, holding the back of his head with his hands. “Boooring.”

She simply shrugged. “If that’s the case, I should go get my strongest. That’s all there is to-”

Yet the moment she turned around to head back inside -both to get her Pokeballs and at least a minute of peace- she noticed Azure’s gaze moving fast, somewhere over her shoulders. The slightest show of tension.

Then, a giddy smile formed on his lips, and he spoke.

“You’re good, I’ll give you that. But you’re clearly not the sharpest crayon in the box, are you? After all the effort Sabrina made to keep you safe…”

Sabrina froze in place, every muscle in her body paralyzed. She heard a faint tap on the grass behind her and slowly, fearfully, turned around to find the man with the cross having just landed on the courtyard, eyes hidden by shadows.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Wh…”

This was bad. This was the worst possible situation. How had he managed to sneak in without anyone noticing? And why the fuck had he followed her in the first place?

Stupid, you’re so stupid! She cursed internally, although deep down…

Without dropping his smile, Azure started to take a step forward but was quickly stopped by Sabrina raising an arm in front of him, staring ahead with eyes like those of a Hoothoot.

“I’ll deal with this,” she said, producing a Pokeball. “Didn’t I tell you to fuck off? Forget about what you heard and leave this city if you don’t want to die. I won’t repeat myself again.”

Azure giggled beside her. “Ah, I’m afraid it’s not that simple anymore. This man heard of our plans, which means we can’t let him leave, can we?” He left in just enough of a pause for panic to start building inside Sabrina, but what he said next truly threw her into disarray. “Still… it can’t have come as too much of a surprise. I’m sure you already suspected we’d be killing her tonight; you just came to confirm it, didn’t you?”

Sabrina turned to look at Azure, tilting her head in confusion.

“What?”

“I tried to warn you,” the man shrugged, feigning offense even though childish glee bubbled right under the surface of his face. “I told you to be careful with him, but you didn’t listen.”

She didn’t understand what Azure was implying, but she didn’t like that smile on his lips one bit.

“All this time, feigning interest in you, trying to get close… And you never suspected a thing! He’s been working for the real Sabrina since the very beginning!”