Fuel To A Dying Flame

Obeying his clown senses, Scarnetti let go of Enji and retreated in a series of acrobatic movements.

Thud. He took a flexible stance, gazing at the Flame Sorcerer; a short distance lay between them.

Meanwhile, Enji felt every cell in his body slowly melt beneath the hellish heat of the blue flames. He stabilized his balance and drew a series of calm breaths.

I’ll cover myself in warm, healing flames to stay conscious as long as possible.

I have to finish him as soon as possible. His throat tightened, the thought stifling a swallow.

Or else, I’m going to die from the heat. He gazed back at his archenemy.

“Before we even do this—” The clown gestured with his hand. “I am Valerius Scarnetti, a devoted believer in the Clown.”

Scarnetti bowed. “You have my absolute respect, Tatsuki Enji.”

A devoted believer of the Clown… I thought it was the Trickster or the Circus. Enji couldn’t help but question the essence of a clown, desperately attempting to predict the enemy’s abilities.

But that didn’t slow him down.

FWOOOSH! A colossal pair of wings erupted from his back, this time blue and frenzied.

He leveled his left palm at Scarnetti and tightly held its wrist with his other hand.

“Incinerate.”

!!

A focused, infernal lance of blue fire blasted from his palm! Its only target being the clown Scarnetti, who had no time to create any clones.

But a clown’s trick is to never be expected! He stood still and allowed a piece of paper to float before him, cutting the trajectory of the fire beam.

Snap. The paper instantly reconfigured into a peculiar mirror that, upon first contact, deflected the fire beam away toward a nearby building.

THUMP! CRACK! The building was split in two halves, both crumbling beneath their own weight as heavy dust clouds flooded the atmosphere.

No way… Enji’s eyes narrowed as he watched Scarnetti shrug in indifference.

Fwooosh! Suddenly, he vaulted upward, flaring his wings wide as he hovered.

At that sight, Scarnetti began flashstepping across the rooftop at immense velocity. He could barely be seen.

Flash steps? In that case. Enji squeezed his burning fists and cast an agonized scream through the air, incinerating the very breeze itself.

He screamed in agony until another pair of wings erupted from his back.

Scarnetti’s movement was noticeably disrupted after the sight he had witnessed, but before he could even react—“COMBUST!”

Was it a storm? Or perhaps a tornado? No, it was clearly something far greater. The typhoon of blazing blue feathers that seared the skyscraper, shattered the nearby buildings’ glass, and scorched the atmosphere itself was far greater than any tornado.

And Scarnetti, who constantly flash-stepped at a slowing pace, clearly knew that.

All said, Enji didn’t stop here. He abruptly, and for no visible reason, thrust his palm upward, and—FWOOOSH!

Another lance of blue fire blasted from it.

Its target, torn through this time, was Scarnetti. He fell from beside the hovering Enji like a piece of paper, missing an entire right leg.

Thump! He crashed against the glass and concrete.

Hovering above him like an angel of destruction, Enji couldn’t help but grin at a game-changing detail.

Scarnetti was bleeding. Not paint, but actual soft blood.

He was no deity, no archon, and clearly no illusion.

Watching him crawl, waiting for his leg to perhaps regenerate, Enji did not stand still.

He, in the same way as before, extended his left arm rigidly, aiming his index finger at the heavens.

“Glimmer!” Once again, he offered the sky a guiding light with a swirling burst of blue flames extending from his fingertip.

The swirling bursts coalesced. They drew themselves into a burning constellation, giving birth to a vast star—a blue sun of pure combustion.

Gazing down at the pitifully crawling clown, he drew a heavy breath as his rigid arm fell back slowly to his waist, the blue sun following in the same motion.

BOOOM! KRAKOOOM!

The entirety of the Umeda district shook.

The streets, the buildings, the evacuating cars, and the air itself quivered at the impact.

Silence.

Hovering down to the ground like a saint, Enji felt suffocated beneath the waves of smoke and dust that arose from the Umeda Sky Building.

Half of it had crumbled, and the rest was following gradually. Hungry, seemingly endless flames erupted from its corners, feeding on the steel platforms and metal pipes.

Thud! Enji’s burning boots hammered the ground in an exhausted landing.

The scorching blue flames that engulfed his entire body vanished into mana dust and faded into the windless breeze.

I used my entire torso and arms as fuel… This is bad. A white-hot agony traced itself through his synapses as pain began to catch up to him.

His upper garments turned into ash the instant he mutated. The skin on his core was entirely peeled, like paper dissolving in water. Underneath, the glistening flesh was exposed to the stinging, ash-choked air.

His back was no different from his core, while both his arms were mostly carbonized into brittle, black ash.

This amount of damage. Although I covered myself in a layer of healing flames… He clenched his teeth so tightly, his jaw felt as if it were about to snap.

Calm down… This is not the time for whining. He inhaled and exhaled slowly.

I should find Sarai and bring him back safe—

!!

CRUNCH!

A knife-gripping hand tore through his chest.

Splatter. Splatter.

The knife was made of paper.

Splatter. Splatter.

At the zenith of agony, Enji glimpsed the lower half of the figure behind him.

It was a clown dressed in white and black.

And it had both of its legs.

CRUNCH! The clown wrenched the knife back.

H-How… Enji’s knees, once again, crashed against the dusty ground.

T-That wasn’t an… illusion. His mind was a dying candle.

The clown Scarnetti faced him. He crouched, held Enji’s shoulders, and muttered, “It was no illusion indeed.”

“You simply misunderstood the essence of the Clown.”

“Its essence does not lie in chaos and volatility.” Scarnetti stared at his blood-soaked palm.

“It lies in paradox and contradiction. A clown’s strongest ability is to reshape reality while being a paradoxical axis themselves.”

“The flames in your final attack, for me and only me, were healing flames.” He tapped his right leg.

Upon hearing the words, Enji’s jaw unhinged in a silent gasp. His pupils were slowly extinguishing like a traveler’s torch.

“Farewell.” Scarnetti placed his finger on Enji’s forehead. “Tatsuki Enji.” He pushed firmly, stood up, and vanished into the dust fogs.

Thud. Enji fell to his back, blood excessively flooding out of his chest.

For mere seconds, memories began flashing across his mind.

The days when he lived with his family as a kid in their peaceful village.

The day when the military executed every Faithful adult in the village by burning them to death.

How he watched his parents and sister melt beneath the flames with a smile of affection.

How the boss and a group of assassins killed the soldiers and saved him and the other kids.

How he had idolized him since that day and sought to be a mentor like him.

And how he met Sarai and sought to be his mentor, yet failed horribly.

…

Finally, his eyes began to lose their hazel as they faded into darkness.

They closed with a smile spreading across his pale face.

A faithful smile.

Faith in the flame that burned his everything… in exchange for its beauty.