Vol.5 Ch.104 - Woken up

“You ready, asshole?”“Lune, Ed, stop this!” Marina interjected, “You guys are friends, can’t yousettle this peacefully?”“No can do.” Ed refused to lock eyes with her, “Our friendship is special.When one friend falls off the deep end, the other one drags him back on theright path.”This piece of shit…! He thinks what he’s doing is righteous?! Callingsomeone’s lover such horrible names, hitting him with a sucker punch andthen having the gall to spit in his face?! What part of that means friendship?!“Tch.” I clicked my tongue, “And if the other friend refuses, then we settlethings with a good old-fashioned scuffle. That’s just how we are, right Ed?”“Right you are, Lune. But remember what Aaron taught us? What’s a scufflewithout a little warm up?” He said as he started pacing around me to try andtest the waters.Slowly, patiently, he made sure to look for an opening in my stance. Sinceneither of us were armed in any way, shape or form, we had no other choicebut to close the gap between us if we ever wanted to deal some damage. Ed’seyes are glimmering, but that could also just be me seeing things due to therain hindering my vision. For a split second, I lowered my guard to wipeaway the raindrops from my eyes, and in the very next moment…!“Lune! Look out!” Marina warned me.“Hey, no outside help, you damned homewrecker!” Ed cussed her out forwarning me of his impending attack.Well, impending wouldn’t be the correct term for it, cause it was all butalready executed. Ed was fast, too fast. It’s impossible to have such reactiontime to jump at me the very moment I let my guard down. The only way hecould do such a thing is if he had known somehow what I was gonna dobefore I did it. Makes me wonder…“Oi, Ed, you’ve gotten pretty nimble, eh?” I taunted him, “Must be the workof that nifty Brown Iro of yours, no?”Ed chose to go in for the attack once again instead of giving me a straightanswer, but actions speak louder than words. With this, I immediately knewfor a fact that he can somehow accurately read my movements in advance.His attack didn’t have any harmful intent behind it, he mostly did it becausehe got flustered over the fact that I figured out his little shtick this quickly, sododging it was easier than last time. Even still, I have no idea what a BrownIro’s ability is, so I’ll have to do some testing with him to figure it out!“Always curious, even now…” He notes, “Try and guess all you want, butuntil you figure it out, I’ll be taking this victory!”Ugh, this annoying prick is really getting on my nerves again! Wait, mustn’tget impatient. Rage isn’t the way here, since he’s reading my movementssomehow, I need to use my head more to try and juke him out. I haven’t donethis in a while, but maybe Going Solipsistic is the way to go?And so, I could feel my vision go monotone in color, as a black and whitefilter spread from the sides of my field of vision. This was it, this familiarfeeling of seeing the world as devoid of color, unimportant, uninteresting.This was the power of the Gray Iro, one that believed in Elegance overanything. Those who lacked Elegance didn’t exist in the real world, theywere but mere extras in my life, the life that was ‘true’.“Oh ho?” Ed chuckled, “Going Solipsistic are we? Now that sure bringsback some good memories! You haven’t done that since you and Cecily werea thing!”Shut up, extra. Cecily and I never broke up! I love her, and she loves meback! Your jests mean nothing to me, someone who can see the world throughthe first person! I am the beginning, and so too am I the end. You began whenI first saw you, and with but a mere chop to the throat, here is where you’llend.As each raindrop fell, I could hear his heart beat ever louder as I approachedhim. I wasn’t running, I wasn’t panting, I wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Isimply walked towards him, and he did nothing. Then again, what could amere pawn do in the face of the true one such as I?“Whoa!” He jumped aside in the last moment before giving me a punch to thegut, “That one was really close! Just goes to show how amazing a Gray Irois, eh? The power of the Generals… Don’t get discouraged though, you’ll getthere eventually!”W-What?! Such impudence! Could it really be that a lowly Brown Irocounters a pristine Iro like Gray? But that wasn’t supposed to happen! I needto get up before…!“Ah, you figured me out.” Ed said with a playful tone right before breakingthe ground where I was at just moments before dodging, “Looks like youmemorized my fighting style from the years we’ve known each other.”“Ugh, can’t help it.” I noted as the colors came back to my eyes, “It’s yourfault for not switching it up since the last time we’ve faced off. It makes youeasier to re-”…Read, is what I wanted to say before realizing. Could it be…? Is theability of the Brown Iro the ability to foretell the near future?!“Bzzt! Wrong!” Ed kicked me in my side whilst I was down, “By the way, Ithink my fighting style doesn’t have to change, since it apparently still worksfine against you. Kick the enemy while they’re down, that makes themthe easiest target, no?”“What a lame fighting style! Coward!” Marina yelled out from the sidelines,hurting Ed’s pride.“Shut up, tramp! I don’t need your opinion-”In that very moment, a strong potential energy that originated from my fistnear-instantaneously turned into kinetic energy that accumulated in his face.The punch sent him flying at least a couple meters, which in turn lead to meregaining the upper hand.I spared no time in running in for a follow-up attack, but he seemed to havepredicted that one and scuttled away in the nick of time. Ugh, why is hisability so difficult to figure out!? He predicted all of my previous moves, butthe moment he turned around to address Marina…“That’s it!” I yelled out as I closed my eyes, “You need my eyes in order tofight me, but I don’t!”I think I figured it out! His ability is to ‘read minds’! But he needs to bemaking direct eye contact with the person he’s reading in order for it towork! Now that I think about it, he’s been staring at me the entire time withthose glimmering pupils of his for the entire duration of the fight, so it’d allbut make sense! Thanks to my instincts, I can roughly pinpoint his locationdue to audio cues, after that’s it’s as simple as one, two…!“Wrong again.” He hit me square in the face, “Geez, to think the FamedInventor Sol would be so dumb to not realize by now… What a sorry displayof fighting prowess. Y’know, some say the human brain is in many wayssimilar to our muscles. Makes sense, given the fact that both of thematrophied in your body.”“You…! That’s it!”With my back cornered against the wall, I had no other option left. I didn’twanna have to do this, but I’ll have to resort to Rage. Having said that, myvision slowly erupted into a vignette of flames dyed a crimson red as I lostmy train of thought.“Hm? Heh hey, Lune? Your noggin’s become empty, everything alright?”He was making an amusing face. One that spelled fear, uncertainty and regret.I never got to understand what his ability was, but that don’t matter now, doit? All’s I gotta do now is give him a well-deserved serving of retribution,and that of course would be exacted without a second thought!“Unf!” I slugged him as hard as I could whilst he whined and whined, “HHey! I can’t read your mind if you stop thinking, dumbass!”Ah, so that was it? He only required cognitive thoughts to read someone’smind? Interesting, but unimportant in the present moment. That’s information Icertainly don’t care about now. For now, the only thing that’s important is tofight. Fight, fight, and win.“Ugh!” Ed took another blow as I straddled him to do a follow-up flurry ofattacks.“How do ya’ like that!? Hahaha!”“F…Fu…uck…!” He yelped.“Muahahahaha! Die, die, die!”“Lune, stop!” Marina grabbed my arm, “He’s already unconscious! You’vewon, now stop it, please!”Looking back down, I noticed that his face was a bloody mess. Might leave afew cool scars, but other than that I’d say his handsomeness could onlybenefit from this. Now, to take that horrible thing from his belt…!“S…” Ed murmured, “Stop… don’t…”Not giving up until the very end, huh? Hmph, I can at least respect yourbravery, so I guess I’ll hear you out before snapping the firestarter like atwig. Hahaha, I can’t wait to see the look on your face when that happens!“A…”“Hmm? What was that?” I mocked him.“Avis… Furtum.”In that moment, a bird from a nearby flock that just so happened to be flyingby the island deviated from its group and tried to steal the pistol away frommy hands.“Wha-?!” I quickly tried to grab it back, but Ed got to it first, “Ed, what is themeaning of this?!”“Cough! What’s the matter, huh!? Did you really think I didn’t have a trumpcard of my own?”“Grr…! Give it here!” I lunged at him to try and take it away forcefully.“Never!”“Guys! Stop fooling around, it’s dangerous!” Marina jumped in as well.The scene looked kind of comical in a way. Two guys and a pregnant ladyfighting over a dangerous weapon that could almost singlehandedly destroythe world. Comical, up until the moment we heard a loud bang.The gun had fired. We all stopped what we were doing at the same time, butno one could tell which one of us got shot. God, I hope it’s not Ed, I’d feelterrible if he died here. Then what would we tell Cecily and the others?Well, Ed’s strong, so I’m sure he could survive a gunshot if it didn’t hit acritical spot. Oh, but then again he’s the one who’s holding the pistol, sothere’s no way he shot himself.By the way, I’d also prefer if it isn’t me. I mean, checking my body resultedin me finding no holes anywhere. I’d say I don’t feel the pain, but then again Idon’t even know how taking a bullet would feel, since I’ve never been shotbefore. You could also argue I don’t feel the pain because my adrenaline ispumping, but who’s to say. Even still, I need to be there to take care of Nellyand Licht (tentative), so I can’t die here. But wait, wouldn’t I be putting thecart before the horse here then? Isn’t there another person here who I’d wantto not get shot the most?“Me.” Marina chuckled as blood dripped from her mouth, “It’s me that it hit.Geez, I told you guys to stop, didn’t I?”In the very next moment, she fell to the ground with a chillingly silent thud asthe clouds above us started pouring out all the rain they had in them at once.