Arias asked. He saw that she was looking at the unconscious civilian in the middle of the broken store; for a moment, he even forgot about the civilian. He walked steadily toward the civilian, with Arias following behind him, as if she was wary that the civilian would attack them.
The civilian was unconscious and still breathing. But as Henry touched him in the chest, he could tell that the wounds on his was quite serious. Given more or less an hour, the internal bleeding inside the body would eventually kill him by itself. As expected from Robby’s cannon. It’s too much for an ordinary person.
“Is he okay…?” asked Arias. “That cannon attack… he can’t be that well…”
“No, indeed. He’s dying, and will die in an hour or less.” said Henry coldly.
“So, what do we do? Take him to the hospital…?”
“He seems to have a close relationship with that curse. He did hug him, after all. And that curse defended so hard to keep him safe.” said Henry, emotionless. “So we do what we do toward their sympathizers.”
He then stabbed the civilian in the head.
Part 6
He finally woke up, opening his eyes, as Henry stabbed him. As he expected, the civilian was shocked, supposedly looking from his perspective, looking at an unfamiliar face in front of him. It then turned into anger, confusion, and fear, but only for a moment. Eventually, in the next second, Henry could see that the light in the civilian’s eyes disappeared, leaving an empty stare toward the very person that killed him just because.
He could hear Arias gasping in shock, but said nothing nevertheless. So he turned, and saw that Arias had her eyes closed.
“Open your eyes.”
Henry ordered. Arias obeyed, although slowly and reluctantly. He went behind her and moved her head to actually look at the body, a bit roughly. “Take a look at it,” he added.
He looked at her from beside. She still squinted her eyes, but it was enough for her to actually see it. Although the body didn’t exactly look at her, it felt as if his eyes looked in any direction, including his and hers.
“This is an enemy. He may not be a curse, but he sided with them. He was also an enemy, because of that.” said Henry, giving pressure on each end of the phrases. “They would not hesitate if they were to kill you. If anything, even worse, they would use your hesitance to turn the table and kill you instead. Do you understand that?”
“But-but… but it’s still…”
“Which one is more valuable? Your life or theirs?”
“M… My life…”
“Would you rather lose their lives? Or your life?”
“T… Their lives…”
“Then what should you do?”
“K-Kill them…?”
“Before what?”
“I-I don’t understand…”
Henry sighed and rolled his eyes. “Kill them before they kill you. It’s either you or them.” he answered instead. “Come on, now, It’s so simple.”
“Y-Yes, it… it is…”
“Make it into a mantra if you have to.” added Henry. “Something like ‘my life is more important than theirs, so I must take theirs, or they’ll take mine,’ or whatever you like, it’s up to you. I’m sure you can make your own mantra, right?”
“Y-Yes… of course…”
“That’s good. Hop on, now. We need to resurrect Robby.” said Henry, removing his hands from her head. This time, he offered her his hand, which she took right away. Like before, he lifted her onto his back, before he flashed back to the top of the destroyed building. He could feel Arias cuddling herself to him so close and tightly, embracing herself for the speed. Still not used to it…
Nevertheless, he ran forward.
From others’ perspective, it was an incredibly fast movement — from what he knew, the shadow enemy even thought that it was teleportation. However, from his own perspective, he simply ran with his own enhanced strength, while the time itself seemed to freeze. A single push from his one step propelled him forward for up to fifty meters in less than a second, and with continuous propelling, he reached the speed of sound, although it looked like simply leaping ahead to him. Whether he was running or jumping, on ground or even midair, his legs and arms were strong enough to do the job, repeatedly without getting tired. Soon enough, they already reached the building. He simply jumped onto the wall, and ran vertically upward, having his feet landing on the wall and pushing him upward, before he even felt the sensation of falling down.
He stopped, as they arrived at the destroyed rooftop. Robby’s hand still stuck out from the surface of rubble. When he was supposed to feel the immense air pressure for suddenly stopping, it felt almost like a breeze at all, not bothering him in the slightest.
Arias, on the other hand, had it differently. As he dropped him down, this time, she actually fell down and sat on the rubble, touching her head in pain.
“Still not used to it? I suppose you need to take more.” commented Henry.
“I-I suppose… give-give me time…” stuttered Arias. “I-I need to…”
“Yeah, yeah…” Henry sighed. He stepped away to look at the surroundings below from the top of the building.
Nothing around the dead city indicated any life or activity. It was all dark, save the weak glowing light of the night itself and visible stars in the night sky. The buildings themselves looked old and dead, with all the moss, vines, dust, and rust, blanketing the buildings. Some were even partly demolished, if not fully demolished, most of them were definitely not due to their own battle. As far as he could see, there was no single person around other than themselves, but he knew that the collectors were already lurking around, in places hidden even to him, waiting for them to leave before they gathered from the surroundings anything with value for themselves.
Nevertheless, it offered a unique kind of peaceful silence. It made him actually think, somehow, that the place was entirely safe, where no one would attack him, not even the collectors. He was even thinking of getting a comfortable spot to lie down and relax, for the first time since —
He turned, throwing the thought away. Arias was already in the process of getting Robby’s body out of the burying concrete, using her power to manipulate the concrete and push the body out. However, she herself was lying on the ground, most likely because she was crawling toward Robby. She looked exhausted, judging from her face.
Yeah. She needs to take more of it. Henry thought to himself, as he looked away and turned his sight, back to their last battlefield. The destruction caused by Arias’ power was still visible, considering that the ground itself basically turned into a wide crater filled with rocks and pieces of concrete and asphalt. The building itself was demolished, leaving nothing but some of the remaining furniture in the store. He thought that it looked as if it had happened a long time ago, although he also thought that those who examined thoroughly would be able to tell that it was a recent one. Aside from that, there didn’t seem to be anything valuable or meaningful around it, at least not for the collectors.
But that was when he noticed something.
He heard a gasp for air, from a familiar voice behind him. “Oh, holy whore… I died again…?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s done. They’re all dead.” said Arias.
“No, they’re not.”
“W-What…?” stuttered Arias.
“Take a look at it yourself,” said Henry, standing still, staring at the battlefield. “What do you notice?”
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Arias, along with Robby, who was resurrected, stood next to him, and took a look at where Henry pointed, as told. With their enhanced sight, they didn’t really need binoculars to look afar. It took them a few seconds, and Arias was the one who noticed it.
“Wait… what… how…?” she turned to Henry, confused and shocked.
“What? What is it?”
“You… you stabbed them… all of them…” said Arias, “I saw it myself, too… but… is it them collectors…?”
“That’s too fast even for the best of them. And that wouldn’t explain the fact that the blood disappeared, as if it never happened. Why would they?”
“I don’t understand…”
“You… you didn’t get… get the stain…?”
“No. I kill people without getting stains on my clothes, after all.”
“Henry!” shouted Robby, still confused. “What the hell are you talking about?!”
“They’re gone, Robby.” explained Henry eventually. “I killed them. Stabbed their heads, right there, in that crater. And now their bodies disappear. There’s not even a single drop of blood there, when there were puddles of blood.”
“So… what… what does that mean…?”
Henry didn’t reply immediately. His mind worked on the possible explanation for the disappearance, but no matter what and how, he only had one explanation that made sense to him.
“When we fought them, we fought the guy with lightning — my guess is that he controlled elements — while the guy with shadow stayed behind in the store. He seemed to attempt healing the wounded civilian, which you blasted along.” Henry said, looking at Robby. “The thing is… it could be a ruse from the beginning.”
Arias lifted her eyelids; she seemed to finally understand what he suspected. “Illusion…? That the battle was… was not real…?”
“That’s the most logical explanation I can think of. Be it an illusion in our minds or body doubles — it has to be a sort of illusion.”
“From the beginning…? No, can’t be… since when…?” asked Arias.
“Must be some time after I threw things to the lightning barrier. Probably when I stopped and started talking with him.” said Henry. “The thing is… it looked so… felt too realistic…”
“Same… it didn’t feel like it’s fake at all…” commented Arias, still unable to wrap it around her head.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re saying that our enemies can… what, hypnotize you? Trap you into a hallucination or something?!” interrupted Robby. “That sounds like what you do…!”
“I wouldn’t say that they’re similar. ‘Riling people up’ and ‘fooling people with realistic fakery’ are two different things.” replied Henry.
“That still doesn’t make it any less disturbing! If you can get hypnotized or whatever, they’ll keep using that on you!”
“Doesn’t seem to be that simple. I reckon that it takes time and preparation for him to employ that trick. Otherwise, he would have done it already in his mission, much less when he’s fighting us.” said Henry. “Seems like that’s why he had the other guy stand in guard, instead of going together against us.”
“So if we can make a move before they start it, we can knock them off,” said Arias.
“Yes, that’s the possible theory.” replied Henry. He finally turned to look at them both. Both Arias and Robby looked like two children who were waiting for their teacher to tell them what they should do. “That doesn’t mean we can rely on that weakness. They’re no amateurs, that’s for sure. We need to find them, and hit them hard, right away in one go.”
“How would we even know where they’re going…?” Robby rolled his eyes.
“Map.” said Henry to Arias.
She lifted her hands, and pressed the button on her watch. It projected the map in interactive, 3D hologram, simply displaying its geographic display of the surroundings. Henry slid and pinched the map with his finger to look around the map. Their position was marked with a big purple pin in the middle of the map, while around it were smaller pins, indicating major places with enough concentration of populace.
Henry pointed at the closest pin from their location. “Their civilian was gravely wounded. So we can assume that they would take him to the closest place that can mend grave wounds, but not the cities themselves.”
“Shuperta…” said Arias, reading the name of the city Henry pointed out.
“You’re certain that they would get this civilian to the…” started Robby.
“Oh, yeah, you weren’t there, were you? Just trust me on this.” cut Henry, with a sigh. “You go back to grab more equipment. I and Arias will go there.”
“Equipment…?” Robby scratched his head.
“One can manipulate his own shadow, and the other can manipulate elements. I’m sure you think of something that will help us.”
“Understood…” started Arias, as she turned off the map projection.
“Remember. Our task here is surveillance and observation, not combat or huntdown. At least not until we’ve confirmed their location.”
Comments (0)
See all