Captured #4

The clock continued to run, the long minute hand making its way through the lines, marking the time. A scientist and his assistant looked lazily at it, seemingly frozen as they stared aimlessly at the hands, their mugs of drinks growing lukewarm.

The older man turned to his younger protege with a bored expression, “Was this job what you expected?” He asked curiously. The younger man turned around to search the empty room and after making sure they were the only two inside, he shook his head.

“No sir, this is not what I had in mind.” He simply answered, clicking his pen. He frowned sharply. “I heard that we were going to perform life-changing experiments for the betterment of mankind!”

The older scientist looked at him with an understanding look, saying nothing, and it prompted the younger man to explain himself. “I thought we were to discover new magic! New medicine! N-New– New— Everything good that isn’t that!”

The scientist followed the man’s pointing finger, which was raised to the subject suspended above them. A former Hero, now reduced to a shadow of his previous self– scarred, taken-advantage of– displayed in a disgraceful manner. Tubes continuously pumped venom and other lethal chemicals into him, while tubes extracted blood out of him, filling jars– he was nothing more that a crop being harvested.

The scientist looked at the hooks that suspended him, latched through his muscles, shackles wrapped around his limbs, and great chains weighing him down. Any other man would have been ripped apart if they were in that bind, but not this man, this monster.

“If it makes you sleep better at night, that thing isn't human. Do you think that a human could single handedly slaughter its own comrades? Do you think that a human could butcher a mercenary army single handedly, barehanded?--” The man sighed, “That is not human, it is a monster. It should be treated as such, nothing more.”

The assistant only nodded grimly, yielding to the older’s advice, “Your right sir,” He acknowledged, looking at the test subject one more time, “Say, how long has he been captured?”

The older man looked at the subject, “A little over a month and three-quarters, I think?” He answered, not so sure himself, “All I know is, it’s gonna get transported in tomorrow. For trial or something, I’m not sure. Speaking of which, we should probably get some guys to remove all that.”

“Alright sir!-- Wait!” The younger assistant nodded as he followed his superior out of the room. He quickly exited the room, but a gut feeling caused him to pause and retrace his steps. He looked back into the room and found that nothing had changed. He shrugged, leaving again. “What was I even doing?”

The lifeless captive slowly opened its eyes, its chapped, dried lips slowly moving, straining from its lack of use. Akiro’s voice was weak, almost like a whisper, raspy and without strength. However his voice conveyed confidence, shining light on a plan nearly three months into the making. “It’s time…”

[ Name: Akiro Hiroto / Age 18 / Job: Assassin / Sub Job: Gunman ] [Race: Superior-Human][ Title: Grim Reaper’s Emissary ] [ Lvl 100 ] [ ATK: 800 / STR: 400 / DEX: 700 / SPD: 500 / DEF: 200 / INT: 500 / MANA: 1500 ]

[ Active Skill: ‘Gunman's Manual / EX’ ] [ Passive Skill: Eye of Truth / EX ] [ Active Skill: ‘Stealth / S’ ] [ Passive Skill: ‘Weapon Master / S’ ] [Active Skill: Acceleration / E] [ Passive Skill: Spatial-Perception / E] [ Active Skill: ‘Disguise / S’ ] [ Attack Skill: ‘Square Cut / A’ ] [ Passive Skill: ‘Language comprehension / D’ ] [ Passive Skill; ‘Swordsmanship / S’ ] [ Weapon Art: Moonlight-Execution Style / C ] [ Ultimate Skill: Reaper’s Culling / S] [Active Skill: Void / E] [ Attack Skill: Imbue Curse / E ] [ Passive Skill: Dominating Spirit / E ] [ Passive Skill: Alchemy / F ]

The shadows of the room began to twitch, long lines turning into curves and into tentacles. They stretched and they wiggled, creeping toward the caster in the center and revitalizing him.

Slowly he began to gain weight, muscle mass slowly returning underneath his skin, and Akiro’s body rejected the foreign items lodged into his arms, spitting out the lines connected to his blood stream, leaving only the lines of poison.

With their aid and his magic, function began to return to him and Akiro grinned, slipping off the shackles that suspended him in the air. The assassin landed softly on the ground without sound, leaving only an identical clone in his place.

Crack! Crack! Crack

“I suppose it's about time–” Akiro stretched, popping his sore joints back into place. He approached the end of the room, his feet slowly sinking into the dark as if he was walking down a flight of stairs. “--that I cut out the tumor of this country, and I should start at the heart, this facility.”

Clank! Clang! Pang!

“Phew!” The assistant huffed. He wiped the beads of sweat falling down from his brow and stood back to marvel at the arrangements placed on their prisoner. Heavy chains, metal bars, hooks and chains wrapped around his form, inscribed by all sorts of magic all to restrain him.

He crossed his arms, inspecting the nails he hammered through the hero’s arms and legs. “That should do,” He told himself, looking at his mentor, “What do you think, Sir?”

The older scientist nodded, raising a thumb. “That’ll do!” He agreed, motioning to the soldiers next to him, “Take the prisoner and be on your way.”

The younger assistant smirked in satisfaction as he watched the soldiers bring the prisoner away. The heavy restraints required him to be brought on wheels so that he could be held for trial, but in the assistant’s humble opinion, it would be better for him to just be thrown off into the sea.

The two scientists followed the soldiers from a distance, exiting the facility located on an island. The great ship that was awaiting the transport was swarming with Templars, and the assistant couldn’t help but roll his eyes as the ship departed.

“Good riddance,” The younger man huffed underneath his breath. “What do you think, Sir?”

The older scientist lifted the mug to his mouth and drank from it. “...The irony is laughable.” He shook his head, “It’s been fun, working with you.”

The assistant did not understand, and so he smiled, “Thank you sir–”

Shink!

The assistant looked at the needle that pierced his sternum, its contents emptying into his heart. He turned to his mentor with a confused, saddened expression, but the latter couldn’t have cared less. “W-Why…”

“You were doing so well,” The older scientist shook his head, turning his head away from his protege, the latter’s brain liquifying out of his ears, his eyeballs exploding into the white coat he wore. “It's a shame. If it weren’t for your bleeding heart and naivete, you could have been my successor.”

Thud!

The corpse eventually landed onto the ground, blackened liquid of organs spilling out of every pore from his body, slowly dissolving it. Eventually, the scentless remnants evaporated into nothingness, leaving only a residue on the dock’s wood, but it was nothing a splash of conjured water couldn’t wash.

The scientist hummed into his cup, thinking nothing more of the assistant he had just killed. He turned around and made his way back to the entrance of the facility, staring up at the doors that were four times his height.

The man raised his hand in the air and conjured a magic circle to open the door. However as the gap widened enough to fit a person, a hand quickly emerged from his shadow.

“What!?!” The man jumped back from the door, his shadow extending before leaving a puddle where he once was, there a hand curled into a fist. He heard someone click their tongue.

Tsk!

“Who are you!! Show yourself!” He demanded a magic circle appear on both his hands. He readied himself, watching patiently at the person that slowly emerged from the shrinking shadow. “You–!”

“I’m…” Akiro looked at his fist, flexing and relaxing it, “very rusty, it seems.” The former hero looked at the perplexed magician in the lab coat, who was stammering up a response.

“Y-You! H-how– You were in a vegetative state!” The man reasoned with anger. He put both his hands together to double the power of his magic spell, “You tricked us! Monster!”

“Now you’re just being hypocritical. You just killed your subordinate.” Akiro stared at the man, his magic circle whirring to life. Akiro opened his hand and summoned a book he had surrendered willingly. “[Gunman’s Manual].”

[ Passive Skill: ‘Weapon Master’ is activating. ] [ You are charging your weapon with your magic power. ] [ Curse of Frost has been imbued into the weapon. ]

“A grimoire?! How does he have one– no matter. I’ll kill him for sure!” The man’s eyes widened in surprise before narrowing oncer more.“[ Water Magic : Twin Helix, Hydra-Wyrm]!”

Whoooosh!

A cloud of cold air exploded from the magician’s circle and two great streams of water emerged, taking the shape of wyvern heads. They spiral together in a perfect helix, soaring towards the assassin at break-neck speed, and when it was halfway to the assassin, the two heads respectively split into six with each head following sequencially.

“Overpowering through sheer numbers and bruteforce while also covering a great area– a carpet bomb attack with a great range– in just fifteen seconds.” Akiro appraised as he swung outward with the grimoire, its spine used as a wedge to freeze the first head. “He’s on the level of Olivia, at least in the firepower of this spell.”

shh—Crack!

The force of the blow cracked the head, shattering it down to the base of its neck. “H-He destroyed a head!? That was possible?!” The scientist gasped, his eyes watching the assassin through the clear water bursting from his magic circle.

The grimoire in his hand was used both in defense and in attacking, with the corners and spine of the book to strike the heads and the hard covers as shields. His magic was fruitless when it collided with the book as it turned to ice and shattered into pieces.

The assassin coiled his arm back, punching forward and splitting the second head with the spine of the book. Shh-Crunch!

Two heads followed the second in near succession, prompting the boy to jump to the left hand side with the book as a shield. The stream of water exploded into a cone before freezing into a disk.

Whiiish!

However Akiro couldn’t attack, the fourth stream curved unnaturally from above the cone. “It tracks targets too?” He huffed with slight annoyance, jumping back from the attack, his back touching the closed blast doors of the bunker-facility.

“What an annoyingly useful attack spell. [ Acceleration ].” The head opened its mouth, aiming for the neck of its target, only for it to strike its afterimage on the door. The real body appeared just above it.

Crash!

“He disappeared?!-- No! He dodged” The caster huffed, adjusting his index finger to lead the mouth back and upwards at the assassin. “What incredible speed. Is that really the athleticism of a prisoner, starved and farmed for three months?!”

“It can even be positioned, each head individually?” Akiro spotted how the man’s finger moved. He placed the book underneath his feet, letting the head crash and freeze against it. “Ten heads for ten fingers. Where could the other two be?”

Thud! C-Crack!

With a powerful kick, Akiro forced himself forward at the cost of the blast door’s integrity, leaving a crater with an imprint of his foot while rapidly approaching the magician. “It’s impressive, I’ll give you that,” Akiro nodded with a smirk at the man, pulling something tucked on his waist behind him. “but with such continuous output requirements, ignoring the large amounts of mana needed to keep a spell, you’re a sitting duck.”

In response to the charge, the caster clenched the rest of his fingers, sending six heads barreling at the boy. “A frontal assault? I thought he was a rogue, perhaps a duelist, but a frontal assault is a guaranteed death sentence!” The scientist racked his brain as the boy raised a peculiar weapon, something that glistened with a silver shine and bellowed six thundering explosions following in quick succession– all with one hand.

Thu-Thu-Thu-Thu-Thu-Thud!

Splash!

Beams of condensed magic power soared, perfectly sixty degrees from the previous, piercing each head perfectly in their centers. The force of each attack was enough to blast the wyvern silhouettes into perfect showers for the surrounding wildlife.

“W-What reflexes–” The man gasped, jumping back from his position to another one and created a cross with his arms. “But I’m not done yet!”

Akiro jumped from the stream of now frozen water, turning the remnants of the attack into a sculpture, the revolver’s cylinder swinging out of the firearm. He noticed the magic circle forming from the man’s feet. He had only dealt with ten heads so far and before he could fully land, it was already too late. “Not enough time to reload–”

“Die!”

Ka-blam!

Two great pillars of water arose from the ground, crossing over where Akiro would’ve landed, its incredible pressure causing it to explode into a great rainshower. The two pillars of water eventually lost its shape, crashing into the ground with a loud crash.

“huff…huff…It is a few years too early for you to challenge me head on like that, brat.” The man heaved proudly, puffing his chest as he struggled for air.

He fixed his hair, admiring his handiwork and the grimoire dropped on the ground. “Not even a speck of blood to be seen.” He proudly smirked, his hands on his knees. “That bastard was nothing after all.”

Shing!

Despite his prideful remarks, a spear of ice emerged from his shadow, killing him on the spot. From the shadow of his corpse emerged the prisoner, the spear adjusting as he rose to his full height, his shirt shredded and small missing bits of flesh and deep gashes were present all over his body and ears— where the attack had barely grazed.

“Water…” Akiro thought to himself, feeling his vitality drip from his wounds. He turned his back to the bunker facility, eyeing the small docks at the edge of the island he found himself in. “Were mages always this strong? He’s on the same level as Olivia in terms of combat prowess. Why is someone like this man hiding in a remote island?”

“Nevermind that— Agh—” The assassin winced at the gashes over his body, oversensitivity clouding his sense of awareness, the result of being deprived of them. He may have learned how to ignore the pains of his flesh, but his flesh still aches from phantoms.

“Damn prick,” Akiro cussed out at the impaled corpse as he slowly walked away into the thicket of the forest, “Just you wait, Keisha– I’ll get revenge for what you did…to me, to the others, and the other Heroes that came before us.”