Do you want to live?

As I ran away, Momburu appeared in the sky, crossing the water and moving from side to side, using jets of water from his hands for propulsion.

As I suspected, Momburu came first and kept his distance. He was closer to chasing me, but unlike Moima, he had the water to his advantage.

However, following me and keeping up with this distance is all it can do?

So I found it hard to break through the sea ahead in the race. I was surprised.

Is he increasing the amount of water volume in front of me? It’s not just that. It’s like he’s increasing resistance. Is that Energy Insertion? Is his other Ability Insertion?

Momburu said, “Water + Insertion, Inflexible Water!”

If I can’t move here, I’ll move through the air.

I rotated my body, creating a small swirl around me, and used the tornado to propel myself toward the heavens.

“Air + Destruction, Tornado of Destruction!”

Then my gale disappeared little by little. Then I saw, high above in the still sky, several gales pointing toward me that nullified my powers.

Moima? He’s nullified my powers. Is his other Ability Air too?

“Air + Denial, Denial in Area!”

“Did you think we were hesitating to attack from a distance just because we were afraid of you?” Moima said. “The truth is that my Ability needed you to get away from Momburu and Tekopuku enough. I knew you would do what you did, underestimating the powers of others, you arrogant, overrated bastard!”

This is bad, I’m in free fall, and the moment I reach the region that Moima’s power doesn’t reach…

Looking down, I saw the sea opening on both sides and rising toward me to swallow me.

Perfect synchrony…

Momburu cried out on one side of the open sea, closing his hands from one meeting to the other, and crossing his fingers.

“Water + Insertion, Closure of the Red Sea!”

I was swallowed by Momburu’s technique.

Still injured and with a broken arm, I still managed to go to the beach, because even at the last second, I used my aura around me with the Air and Destruction abilities to minimize the total impact of that Momburu technique.

Leaving the sea, spitting water, I saw Tekopuku approaching, running towards me, ready to draw his sword. I pointed my hand towards him.

“You’re not close enough, idiot,” I said, then concluded, “Air + Destruction, Wind Destroyer!”

His body atrophied. He spat blood, but he still kept moving, running towards me, and then his body started to return to normal and heal, with him piercing me with a sword, going through my abdomen.

“What?” I said.

“Don’t understand what happened?” Moima said, descending from the sky onto the edge of the beach near me, drawing his sword. “Don’t you know why your technique didn’t work completely?”

“You have been cursed,” Momburu said, “by my technique.”

“Water + Curse, The Immersion of the Cursed Sea.”

“What? Impossible,” I said, falling to my knees, injured.

“But it seems the Curse didn’t work completely right, did it?” Moima said, questioning Momburu. “Since if Tekopuku didn’t have the Vital Force + Healing Ability combination, he could be dead.”

Note: Tekopuku has the ability combinations (dualism), and the ability combinations respectively: “Vital Force + Purification”, Vital Sacrifice Healing!” which heals the body using its own vital energy, shortening its life in the process.

Tekopuku withdrew his sword, and then the approaching Momburu immediately pierced me in the stomach.

“The steps for the curse to work are to immerse the opponent in a large amount of water for some time, and make him ingest a drop of that water so that the effect of the curse is as strong as possible. The longer he is immersed, the stronger the curse will be, which is to nullify the use of his most dominant Ability.”

He pulled out his sword, and I fell on my stomach, agonizing.

“You probably reacted well, and the curse was not complete enough to nullify your Ability entirely, but it was enough to secure our total victory.”

Then Moima drew his sword and said, “Among the various fight scenarios we considered, this was the one I believed would happen the most. Of course, not everything came out perfect, but we considered this, even the worst, which would be the death of anyone here.” He ended up throwing a wave of air with his sword towards that old man from before who was seeing the situation, cutting him in the chest with a cross cut and immediately killing him.

“You bastard, what’s the need for this?”

“And seeing as how it all ended, hesitating until the right moment to reveal all our abilities was in fact the best thing. If you already knew that, for example, my Ability besides Denial was Air, you could have another strategy, right?”

I just looked at him, and he, staring at me with hatred, continued to say to me, “I used to envy you and hate you for being so famous and well-known, but knowing what you’re capable of made things much easier for us. Well, that’s the price of being famous.”

He cut off his finger partially and bathed his blood on his own sword. Then he continued speaking, “Did you know I have the same three simple abilities as you?”

I was surprised by his information. He went on to say, “At first I envied you for developing the Wind Destroyer combination, and I didn’t, but after seeing that most people just feared and hated you a lot, I realized it was better if I didn’t go your way. I focused on not being the same, so I tried, unlike you, developing another combination first. I focused on support abilities like Air + Denial, so I gained a lot of allies and information with that Ability. On the contrary, I didn’t draw attention to myself for my achievements, but behind the scenes my name was mentioned.”

Momburu put some energy into the sword Moima was holding. At the same time, Moima drew two circles with an interception at the tip of his sword.

“Do you know what this is? As you may already know, of all the Magus that have ever existed in this world, there is no Magus with the abilities: ‘Air + Destruction + Denial.’ Although I kept my abilities secret, one of us in the future might be able to be the Magus who matches those abilities. Before I decided to kill you here, I planned to curse you, in some moment of inattention, so that it would nullify the use of one of your abilities, to ensure that I could achieve this.”

He finally pointed his sword towards me.

“But your idiotic actions made me gain allies on all sides with hatred of you. Even some of your own people handed over this place, where you would be most vulnerable, which made me plan your execution. I don’t even need to do that, since you’re going to die, but I want you to die knowing this: that I cursed you and…”

Before he completed it, I started laughing, and then he fell silent.

“You’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you? Or do you have an inferiority complex to spend so much time explaining this to me?” Soon, purple spots began to appear on my body. I was using my Destruction Ability to destroy my own body in different locations where I could have ingested the water in Momburu’s curse execution. This allowed me to regain some of my Air Ability more and more, and I could prepare myself to execute the Wind Destroyer! I pointed my palm up. “You bought me time. None of us will be the Magus! All die with me!”

“WIND DESTROYER!!!” I screamed.

He tried to pierce me with his sword!

That scared them.… They were all really scared.

but...

I couldn’t perform the technique… Because at the last moment, looking at the horizon, I saw that girl, Iara, in the forest, seeing everything in silence…

If I performed the technique, then… everyone would die…

Including her…

...

“Die, you bastard! Die at once!” They said.

“Do you really think you could escape what you’ve done by coming here?”
“You have treated everything and everyone as dispensable because of your ambitions. Now die a nobody whom yours will not even seek, rot with your plans and drown in your ambitions…”

Pain, so much pain... the wounds, the punctures, were so intense I could barely scream...

I saw a hand piercing my chest with a sword, blood, more blood, with the water mixing. The vision blurred the face, the smiles, the macabre smiles of relief, until finally they walked away and my vision darkened…

My body was getting cold…

So that’s it? My life was short, difficult, and full of struggles… In fact, fighting was pretty much all I did, and for what?

Why did I hesitate? I wondered as the seawater filled me and the nervous Moima shouted insults at me while kicking me with the others…

I’m going to die here. Why didn’t I take them all together?

In the end, all three of them walked away and left…

And I couldn’t hear anything anymore, and I felt almost nothing…

I think I understand…

I’m tired of it, I’m tired of killing, I’m tired of doing something I never wanted to do.

If I could, I wouldn’t want to live any of this. I’d like to be able to have a different life… A happier life.

So…

I heard a different voice going straight to my mind with the following question…

“Do you want to live?”