The Sound Of Chains (3)

Valentine stood there looking a little disappointed in himself. I can’t tell if this is all just a bad joke…

“Please, I don’t want to fight right now,” I said. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that Marion isn’t dangerous?” he asked. “Or Tyler either for a matter of fact?”

“I know they can both be dangerous, I’ve experienced it myself first hand. But I’m going to make sure that no matter what they won’t be able to hurt anybody.”

“Oh, there seems to be a mix-up,” Valentine said. “The only thing I know about you is that you have some resolve. That’s not nearly enough for me to be able to trust what you’re saying, especially since you also told me you’re a novice. So far, you’re not exactly inspiring confidence…”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” I asked. “How can I show you-”

“You can’t really,” he interrupted. “Especially if you’re asking me to let you prove yourself. That just means that you’ll probably be trying harder to accomplish whatever test I would give then if you didn’t know I was testing you. That kind of difference won’t do for someone like me when the decision I make could decide the fates of hundreds of lives, maybe even more.”

I guess he has a point, he has no reason to trust I’d actually be able to do what I say. But I don’t have any reason to just give up now.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Well that should be easy enough to explain,” he said with a cheerful undertone as the corners of his mouth turned ever so slightly upward. “I’ll just have to kill the two shifters and decide what to do with the rest of you later.”

Before I had a chance to verbally react I noticed a slight movement of his arm and activated Accelerate.

I watched as he raised his arm up and a pink chain shot out of it, heading straight towards Marion. I ran in front of her and used the second art to counter the chain, deflecting it to the side.

At the same time the grey fur grew all over Tyler’s body and he used his free blade to cut the chain that was holding his other one before rushing towards Valentine.

I activated Miracle and ran with Tyler, wordlessly we split off to attack from both sides.

“Unseen Slash!” “X-Slash!!”

Nothing.

In a split second, Valentine had lifted both his arms out from under his cloak to block our attacks. Our blades clanged off of the metal plating of his armor, not even leaving scratches.

“Come on…” Valentine said. “Don’t tell me that’s all the power you can put into a swing. The first form is supposed to be the strongest one, too…”

He then faced his open palms toward us and shot a pink chain. The chain hit straight in our guts and knocked us into trees a couple feet away.

I didn’t expect a chain to be used as a brunt force attack… I just thought it would magically wrap around us or something…

Immediately after we were knocked out of the way, Jessica made a giant hand out of the dirt Valentine was standing on and pushed him away from us.

Me and Tyler regrouped with the others.

“This isn’t looking good,” I said.

“You’re telling me,” Jessica responded. “Slayer, huh? Not gonna lie, my man, I kinda wish I turned down your offer now… just a little bit…”

“I’m really sorry guys,” Marion said. “I didn’t think-”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” I interrupted. “We need to focus on trying to get away from this guy! Tyler, you fought with him before and got away, right? Got any tips?”

“We can’t hurt him through his armor no matter how hard we try,” he said. “And even though his head’s exposed his reflexives are too quick for us to be able to hit him.”

“I said tips about running away from him, not fighting him!” I yelled. “We can already tell we can’t beat him!”

“Right!! I knew that!” Tyler yelled back. “How I got away from him before was by having Fenrir create a body using all his mana and then running full speed as far away as I could, but there’s too many of us for that to work, and even then I got super lucky because I didn’t even reach the maximum distance before he managed to kill Fenrir’s body!”

If we’re gonna run away then we’ll need more of a distraction then Fenrir can provide alone. This isn’t promising…

“Are you guys done strategizing yet?” Valentine asked as he slowly walked back into view. “I even walked back so that you guys could have more time to strategize.”

Without wasting any time, I rushed at Valentine and used the first shisu art one more time.

But to my surprise, he didn’t block this time. He didn’t even dodge. Instead-

“I am a crusader rank adventurer…” he said. “You’re already aware that you can’t break my armor, but shouldn’t you know that your amateur first art is too slow to hit me.”

-he had caught my blade mid swing.

Still holding onto my sword, he kicked me in the gut, knocking me away.

“Sorry,” he said. “Your first art isn’t actually amateur, but it’s still far from perfect. Here, watch.”

He tossed the sword and grabbed its hilt before fixing his stance. Then, he slashed at the air in front of him while calmly saying.

“Sword Style, First Art: Heavy Slash!”

The air around us shook with the force of his swing, much like when I use Miracle Punch..

“Anyway, swords aren’t exactly my specialty,” Valentine said as he stuck my sword into the ground. “If you really wanna see a perfect first art with a sword you should catch the DreamWalker when he’s serious…”

The ground under him rumbled as another giant dirt hand rose up, but this time he was ready for it.

“The same trick again?” Valentine asked as he leaped up and shot chains that wrapped around the hand. “I’ve already come up with about ten ways to counter this…”

Using the chains, he then swung under the arching hand and let go at the peak of his swing, like a kid jumping off of the swingset mid-motion.

“Even so, I feel like you’ll be too much trouble if I just leave you be…”

Fearing the worst, I quickly activated Accelerate again and watched as a new chain shot straight towards Jessica.

Without my sword, I’m not any help in this fight. I doubt going hand to hand with Valentine would accomplish very much, even if he wasn’t wearing that armor. Jessica on the other hand, still has a few tricks she could use against him.

Or at least she better… not that it’d make much difference in my decision anyway.

Reaching out, I used Miracle and grabbed the chain with my right hand. The chain then wrapped itself painfully tight around my arm.

I can’t believe I ever stopped suspecting it could do that…

“You’re really making my job hard, kid,” Valentine said with a tinge of irritation in his voice as he yanked on the chain, pulling me off my feet and towards him.

With Accelerate’s bullet time effect, I watched helplessly as I was dragged through the air. And then-

…

\\\ Marion ///

Wham!!

Thud!

And just like that, Oliver was down. Once again he had gotten into a fight he couldn’t possibly win for my sake. And I’m just sitting by, helplessly watching…

I’m so sick of this…

I tried, didn’t I?

I tried to resolve this peacefully.

When I saw that it was Slayer, when I saw someone I just couldn’t possibly stand a chance against I surrendered. Or at least I tried to.

I tried the easy way, I tried to resolve this without anyone getting hurt. So why? Why!? Why!?!

Why is it always violence!? Why can’t these things ever just be resolved peacefully!? Why does Oliver have to keep getting hurt protecting me!? Why am I so decaying useless all the time!? Why does it always have to be like this!?!

I’m just so- so… so angry!!

Hmph, it sure took you long enough…

What the hell do you want right now, you dulled kaiju, I responded. It’s your fault that these things keep happening to me. So if you’re just going to irritate me then keep your-

You know, I really like this side of you, Marion, Sellouva said. So much that I’m actually willing to help you out this once.

Huh?

Look… it may be bad news for you if that guy captures us, but it’s worse news for me, she said. If we die without me ever going free I’ll be heartbroken.

What?

The point is, let’s just kill this guy and get out of here. Or just get out of here if it turns out we can’t kill him.

Would it kill you to just-

The point is, for this one battle, I’m willing to cooperate, she said. Well, cooperate’s a strong word, but I’m going to give you some more of my power so that you don’t get your butt handed to you.

I don’t-

Mana incoming…!

All of sudden I felt a surge of power, it was almost too much for my body to handle- no, it was too much.

I suddenly realized that my demonic fury state was in complete veil, but at this moment it didn’t really matter…

My body started to rip itself apart, while spontaneously putting itself back together. It was probably the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.

I fell on my knees and screamed out in pain. My whole body screamed at me, yelling an unbearable shout about how much pain it was in.

Oops… I accidentally released too much hostile mana, Sellouva smirked. Let me fix that for you.

The pain then subsided and two horns grew out of my forehead as well as a third eye in the space between them. I had a keen sense that those body parts were there, but I had no control over them. It was weird to see out of an eye that moved on its own.

“Looks like you’re finally doing something,” Slayer said. “Took you long enough-”

“Shut up.”

“Heh? Why are you being so rude all of a-”

In a moment I dashed towards him and closed the distance, then I let loose a demonic rend, but he just blocked it by putting up his arm.

“You’re pretty fast…” he said. “Plus it looks like you’ve got more mana in you. There’s no mistaking you for an infected now.”

What does he mean by that? Not that it matters anyway…

“Now I’ve got you!!” Tyler yelled as he jumped over us and swung his swords to attack Slayer from behind.

Slayer quickly moved his other arm to block Tyler’s attack, but was surprised when instead of attacking, Tyler quickly sheathed his blades and landed on all fours in a crouching position.

“Beast Bolt!” he yelled as he zoomed past us.

When he landed near Jessica I saw that he had both Oliver and his Shisu balde.

“Now it’s time to finish it!!” Tyler yelled as he dropped Oliver and went into a crouch again. “Do it Jessica!!”

“You’d better not be late!”

Tyler then used Beast Bolt again, but this time he grabbed me.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Let me go!!”

As I broke out of Tyler’s hold, a metal dome then came up from around where Slayer was standing and closed him inside.

“Now let’s run!” Jessica yelled as she hopped on the Carrier Titan which had already picked up Oliver with its tail.

“Move! Move! Move!” Tyler yelled as he started to run as well.

It’s not really like I have much choice in the matter, do I? After testing my own claws against Slayer’s armor, it’s abundantly clear to me that it’d be years before I was ever able to break through something that hard. And since being able to break a Kendelan’s armor is a prerequisite for being able to beat them, I stood no chance.

I ran after Tyler and Jessica.