Captured

“Stop it right there!” Tsubaki shouted.

“Shit!” the professor cursed, spinning on his heel and bolting.

“No, don’t leave me like this! You said you’d help!” the girl cried.

Akiko rushed to her side to lift the curse. I remembered how brutal it felt when mine was broken, like tearing fire out of my veins. If hers had been building for so long, it could kill her. I told Tsubaki to stay ready with healing. Genesis magic was her specialty, and she’d be the best backup.

Yuno sprinted past us, snarling, “You’re mine!” His body lunged forward, and a glowing portal snapped open. He vanished through it, reappearing beside Kenta.

“That ability, that’s my classmate’s!” Hinabi yelled.

The professor opened another portal, trying to escape, but Akiko cut it off with a gesture. “Don’t let him get away!”

Hinabi and I lunged at him, striking from both sides. Every time Hinabi punched, the next one hit harder, her fists glowing with raw force.

Was that her blessing?

No time to dwell on it, we had to put this bastard down. Even with Akiko blocking his ability, he fought viciously, stronger than any Demon Worshipper we’d faced before. He had to have absorbed Hanabi’s classmate.

We pressed harder. Or rather, Hinabi did. Her aura flared with every strike, her combat skill undeniable. She was driving him back until finally we dropped him to the ground, beaten and bloodied.

“Y-you won’t get anything out of me!” he spat.

“Akiko!” I shouted. “It’s on you now.”

She split-stepped forward. The professor’s body glowed with violent purple light, he was about to blow. Akiko planted her hands on him, focusing hard.

“What’s she doing?” Hinabi asked.

“Disabling the explosion.”

“He’s not dimming.”

“We just have to trust her.”

The professor’s glow flared brighter.

“I think we should get out of here,” Hinabi said nervously.

“You can leave,” I said firmly. “I know Akiko can handle this.”

Hinabi didn’t argue; she split-stepped away.

“Come on, Akiko,” I muttered. “You’ve done this before.”

The man screamed as the negative mana burned through him. I knew how excruciating that pain was. His body shook, his glow faltered, and then, slowly, he began to dim. Finally, the light went out. He collapsed unconscious, too broken to keep fighting.

“I, I did it!” Akiko gasped.

“I knew you could.” I grinned. “Good work. Bind him now?”

“Yeah.” I thrust my hand out. “Runed Chains!” The glowing binds wrapped around him tightly.

We regrouped with the others. The cursed girl was still unconscious but stable.

“Looks like it’s still affecting her,” Tsubaki said. “But her condition’s improving.”

“That’s good. We’ll take her to the recovery building,” Kenta suggested.

“You guys do that,” I said, hefting the professor.

“You captured him?!” Kenta exclaimed.

“Hand him over!” Yuno barked. “He owes me a rematch after crashing me into Kenta’s fat ass.”

“No way. He’s worth more alive; we need information.”

“How’d you even stop him?” Tsubaki asked. “Don’t they usually just blow themselves up?”

“Usually,” Akiko said, smiling proudly. “But I disabled the explosion with my ability.”

It was rare to see her so openly happy. Honestly, it was kind of cute.

We hauled the professor back to my dorm and tied him to a chair to wait for the others.

“Yakusei,” Akiko said quietly, “do you think they killed Hanabi’s classmate?”

I hadn’t thought about it at first. But when I remembered him using her ability… it made sense. If they absorbed her, she’d be nothing but dust by now.

“After what we’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised,” I admitted.

“Oh…” Her face fell.

“Something wrong?”

“It was our job to protect the students,” she said softly. “If seven of them died while we were on watch, then I failed.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even with all of us guarding, people still slipped through.

“It’s not guaranteed you can save everyone,” Kenta said gently. “Be grateful for the ones you can save.”

“You’ve had experience letting people die?” Yuno asked bluntly.

Kenta shook his head. “No. That was advice from my father. He was a battlefield medic. Anyway, what do we do with him?”

“All we can do is wait until he wakes up,” I said, staring at the unconscious professor bound to the chair.