"F*ck!"
The Wanderer quickly moved backward, and simultaneously created an ice wall to temporarily block Nick's attack.
Upon being blocked, he went around the wall, but some of the stray mist actually stuck to the ice, freezing as well. Cane made note of this as he saw it, unlike The Wanderer, who couldn't see it due to the ice blocking the view.
Hmm? So, Nick's Mist Form is actually real mist?? I always thought it was some unknown element, because the colour was black.
Meanwhile, Nick had already begun boosting his speed by creating clones again, which looked more like a really fast person's afterimages rather than clones. As for The Wanderer, he had shapeshifted into a amorphous rope-like blob, slithering along the ground like a snake. Before long, Nick had caught up, and a fist formed mid-air in front of The Wanderer.
Splat!
"Got you!"
The fist embedded itself into The Wanderer, but instead of stopping, it continued to be embedded.
Similarly to a liquid, the rest of The Wanderer's body had enveloped the formed fist, and then he continued on his path, now larger in size. Nick stopped in the air, with a vicious grin on his face. Turning back into human form, he raised his fist and clenched.
In that instant, The Wanderer's body seemed to swell, close to exploding!
What Nick had done was force every mist particle to rapidly move outward, creating an effect similar to an explosion.
But he wasn't done yet.
"Light Explosion!"
BOOMM!
Instead of a full-body Light Explosion like he'd done in the past, this time, Nick only ignited the cells that currently were inside of The Wanderer. Shreds of The Wanderer's flesh flew everywhere, painting the ground black.
Nick slowly floated downwards, cautiously making sure that the fight was truly over. Meanwhile, The Wanderer began to sneakily reform.
F*ck me, if only I could fight at my full strength, using all my powers. But alas, if I OOC, I won't be able to properly execute the Personal Accompaniment Technique. This guy is so shifty, can I even beat him without my full strength??
Naturally, these thoughts belonged to The Wanderer.
Regardless, thinking could be saved for later. A fight was still scheduled, first.
Without warning, the black "paint" covering the ground rose up and swallowed Nick as he got close, completely covering him and making him look like a silhouette. Nick responded quickly, turning back into Mist Form.
The two then began a strange, inhuman struggle, all the while moving down the street.
Nick was like a gas, and The Wanderer was like a liquid, and both could perfectly control their forms - even able to fly or float in the air. The two shifting bodies of substances, gas and liquid, began to writhe and envelop each other, in a constant back-and-forth war.
The confusion was only made worse by the fact that both of their forms were black, making it hard to discern who was who whilst they fought and moved.
In order to break the impasse, Nick began preparing for another Light Explosion - but The Wanderer, possessing Mental Manipulation, realised his plan. Thus, The Wanderer prepared a Frost Energy explosion at the same time too.
BOOMM! CCRACKK!
Nick's body completely froze, before exploding into countless tiny pieces of ice. At the same time, The Wanderer was blown into flesh chunks once more, only now they were on fire. Soon, The Wanderer had put out the fire - and he decided to lie low, turning back into the black blob and hiding in a nearby building.
Meanwhile, Cane and the others finally caught up and reached the battlefield.
"... Well. This is not good."
With a sigh, Cane bent down and began to pick up the ice chunks one by one. Seeing no sign of The Wanderer, he assumed that "Heddler" had ultimately lost the fight, and died.
Together with the rest of the group, Cane went on his way back to the camp, with a basket of ice chunks.
...
"So, you killed him, right?"
Hearing the question, Nick nodded. Well, he tried to.
After the fight, most of his mist had gotten dispersed again, leaving him with nothing but his head - which the group kindly decided to put inside of a jar.
Seeing as he couldn't properly nod, he deigned to verbalise instead.
"Well, I didn't get to see it happen, but he received two point-blank Light Explosions, which should've set his body on fire and burnt him into smoke. That's the perk of my Mist Form, which is naturally much better than that liquid-like form of his."
Susie smiled in relief.
"It would sure be bad if it turns out you didn't actually manage to kill him, and he's still alive and plotting his future revenge."
"Yeah, that would be terrible. Luckily, he's definitely dead."
"Yep. And us saying this is definitely not ominous at all, nor is it foreshadowing of any kind."
"..."
"Anyways... nice weather, huh?"
Outside, a dust cloud blew past, rolling a tumbleweed down the road. Not a moment later, crickets began to chirp, although it definitely wasn't nighttime yet.
After an awkward silence, Nick spoke up once more.
"That guy, the way he fought was very strange. I think it's safe to say that his "shapeshifting" ability definitely has more than meets the eye."
He paused.
"That pretty much should confirm him as the killer, I believe. Since I was the one who killed Heddler, I'll take responsibility for my actions - but - since he is dead, we should come together as a group once more."
Hoffmann nodded. "It makes no sense for us to stay split apart now that the killer's been found and disposed of."
Cassidy initially wanted to disagree, but after thinking it over, she didn't have any good reason to. Not wanting to be overly rude, she could only nod in assent.
Truthfully, it was a losing deal.
With both Nick and Hoffmann being from different Combat Schools, they were still considered outsiders. With Isaac now dead, both Nick and Hoffmann would be completely alone if they didn't join Cassidy and the others, who were all from the same Combat School, and were closely bonded.
With that all decided, everyone was back together as a collective, and they chose to take the 2nd floor as the new camp. Additionally, water was back on the list of priorities. After all, "Heddler" had "died".
However...
Whilst everyone else seemed satisfied with Nick's answer, and of course, were all assured that "Heddler" was the now deceased murderer, Cane held a few suspicions.
With Divine Treasure Eyes, Hidden Strength, and Steal, his sensory capacities were at a level others couldn't match. Furthermore, with the new addition of the Mask of Truth, his original perception was multiplied even further.
And Cane knew for a fact that "Heddler" had never really gotten close to the victims - and even the first time it happened, it was after the killing.
Additionally, Cane wasn't too sure that the guy was dead, either.
But with Heddler now gone, Cane could be considered somewhat isolated within the group once more. He didn't have anyone to share his suspicions with, so he could only increase his vigilance whilst staying quiet.
...
In this way, another month passed, with everyone's mood lightening considerably.
Cane spent this time in somewhat of a daze. He couldn't shake the feeling that time was passing too fast, and he sometimes felt that the world he lived in was fake - nothing but a story that others were reading.
How could everyone else be so relaxed, when the tension and suspense is so f*cking obvious???
The sense of disillusionment mostly came from the fact that Cane couldn't shake his suspicious feelings, even though everyone else had.
It was this exact night that his feelings culminated to their peak.
Cane had suddenly woken up, and once again felt the urge to go outside and relax. However - considering that both of the last times he did so, someone had died - Cane decided to go against his instincts and stay instead.
Not long after, his actions payed off.
"..."
What did I just witness?
He had stayed perfectly still, barely peeking, and mostly relying on his sensory skills, all for him to see...
Susie calmly and quietly walking up to Hoffmann.
Before making any hasty judgements, Cane continued to observe the scene. At this moment, Susie had bent down and placed her hand on Hoffmann's head. Within moments, he began to shrivel and dry up, quickly resembling the corpses of Alex and Isaac that had been found before.
In the meanwhile, Susie began to visibly look younger and healthier. Cane couldn't continue watching anymore - so he stood up.
"... Susie?"
Hearing her name being called, she froze and turned around. On her face was a grim, apologetic look.
"Cane. I want you to know, this isn't what you're thinking."
"I'm thinking that you just killed Hoffmann, and Alex and Isaac a few months ago???"
"... Well, yeah that's true, but it's not for any fun reason, trust me."
She attempted to get closer to Cane, but he moved back in response. Seeing this, Susie could only continue talking.
"The truth is, my ability has less to do with healing... rather, it's more of a damage/vitality transfer. In fact, if I hadn't done this, I'd be dead."
Cane was greatly stunned. This whole time, he had thought Susie had healing abilities. How many people had she killed over the course of her life in order to hide the real truth?
"Since when... there were no signs..."
Susie nodded. "I did hide it very well, didn't I? I chose to be near to Heddler most of the time, so that my actions could be mistaken as his."
Cane was completely dumbfounded. Now that he thought about it, that indeed seemed to be the case? And thinking back further, she had seemed to grow older before, and only looked younger after the first death.
I can't believe she's been killing people secretly all this time. How could anyone have known???
Cane glanced down at his feet on a whim, where he saw that he'd accidently been standing on a book. It was chapter 43, titled "Full-Time Artist", and the first line read "You should take a closer look at that news report...".
... What?
While he was plagued with his thoughts, Susie continued talking.
"And honestly - the people I killed, they were all relatively useless to the current team, weren't they! Alex, he can only fly and speak well. Hoffmann's biggest contribution was his fire, but there are too many ways to do that as well. And for Isaac, apart from creating barricades, which we can source from other buildings, he's got nothing else to contribute."
Cane felt like that was a valid assessment, actually. He looked up and spoke.
"Susie, I think you might be onto something here. How about this - why don't I pretend to have never seen this, and we don't need to bother each other?"
Susie... didn't agree.
"Sorry Cane, but I really don't trust you to keep my secret. Please, die for me."
Summon!
With that, a phantom dog leapt at Cane's head from behind.