To survive a defeat is not truly a loss; the game only ends when the heart stops beating. Until then, there is always a second chance to snatch victory from the jaws of failure.
There was no lie in that logic.
To hurl oneself into a fight with zero prospect of winning was a folly reserved for idiots and martyrs.
Todd Fang believed himself neither wise nor noble, and for that very reason, he moved through life with the caution of a man walking on thin ice.
While a genius might reach a conclusion in a heartbeat, a fool took an eternity—and Todd occupied the pragmatic middle ground, where every step was measured against the risk of death.
Todd did not pick fights he could not win.
Concepts like "honor" and "justice" were invisible weights that only served to slow a man down.
Such was the reality of a Vollachian soldier: a life forged in a crucible where cruelty was the currency of survival.
"If there's even a sliver of a chance... then there is no issue."
Todd muttered, his eyes fixed on the distant silhouette of City Hall.
The cacophony of the siege had finally ebbed into an eerie silence, and the rain of debris that had threatened to flatten him had thankfully ceased.
He brought a clenched fist up to his right eye, peeking through the narrow pinhole created by his fingers—a primitive, effective trick to sharpen his focus.
Through the haze of burning flags and rising smoke, he scanned the structure.
"It's gone quiet... Does that mean the Divine General crushed them?"
Jamal grunted at his side, his voice thick with the restless energy of a man who lived to swing a sword.
Todd wasn't delusional. He didn't believe in absolute victory just because a Divine General was involved.
While he was certainly rooting for the First-Class General, he knew better than to rely on wishful thinking.
Natsuki Subaru's arrival had been a jagged thorn in his side.
The boy had appeared far too early, disrupting the rhythm of Todd's carefully laid traps.
Yet, there was a silver lining: if anyone in this godforsaken Empire could put down that black-haired monster, it was Arakiya.
That was precisely why Todd had targeted the masked man earlier.
He had correctly deduced that the strategist was the brain, and therefore the easier kill.
But he had failed.
He had taken the risk, and the monster had outplayed him.
He was likely only breathing now because of Arakiya's intervention.
Natsuki Subaru... No. That Child of War was a walking catastrophe. Todd wouldn't feel safe until he saw the boy's head separated from his shoulders.
"There ain't a doubt in my mind..."
Jamal muttered, oblivious to Todd's spiraling thoughts.
"That's the woman I saw two years ago when we put down those barbarians. General First-Class Arakiya. Ranked Second for a reason..."
Todd watched the silence of the City Hall. Minutes bled into one another, and no soldiers emerged to claim victory. No signal fire was lit. There was only the heavy, oppressive stillness of a graveyard.
Finally, Todd's eyes narrowed. He saw a flash of color in a shattered window—a slumped, motionless form.
"...She lost."
Jamal's face twisted, his brow furrowing in disbelief.
"What? How the hell can you say she lost? She's Arakiya!"
Todd felt a surge of irritation.
His friend was a hands-on type of man, which was a polite way of saying Jamal's brain was mostly decorative when it came to matters like this.
"Damn it, Jamal——use your eyes. I can see her unconscious body from here."
"Todd! What are we doing, then? We should be backing her up! We can't just leave a Divine General! Hey! Are you listening?!"
"Just shut up, Jamal... I'm thinking." Todd growled.
Jamal gasped, the sudden edge in Todd's voice silencing him instantly.
The scales had tipped. The board was messy, and the Child of War was likely rearranging the pieces as they spoke.
Would the weight of two soldiers be enough to tip the balance back?
Or would they just be two more bodies for the pile?
Arakiya was a piece of staggering value—if she could be salvaged.
But Todd Fang was a survivalist first and a soldier second.
He had to decide: was the reward of a Divine General's life worth the risk of Natsuki Subaru's attention?
"What to do next...?"
Tucked away in the jagged shadows of a building overlooking the City Hall, Todd pondered the question in silence.
Deep down, he was seething.
A surge of cold anger and sharp frustration bubbled in his chest, but he suppressed it.
In this world, an outburst was a luxury that cost lives.
The objective was gone. The board had been flipped.
The logical, pragmatic move was to vanish into the cityscape and leave this disaster behind.
However—
"Todd, oi... you bastard. You better not be thinking about tucking tail and running."
For a fleeting second, Todd calculated the effort it would take to kill Jamal then and there.
It wasn't personal; it was a matter of survival.
Jamal was a loose cannon, and loose cannons tended to sink the ships they were on.
But Jamal was also his future brother-in-law.
Killing him was a least-favored path—a messy complication that would make returning to Katya impossible.
If he didn't bring Jamal back in one piece, the promise he'd made would turn into a noose.
He took a breath, smoothing his expression into one of weary reason.
"Look, Jamal. I get it. But General First-Class Arakiya has been neutralized. The odds aren't just bad; they're non-existent. Do you really want to die for nothing? Think about it——do you want to make Katya cry?"
"——Are you serious right now?"
The reaction wasn't what Todd expected.
Jamal didn't back down; instead, he lunged forward, grabbing Todd by the collar and nearly hoisting him off the ground.
"You think you can just pull my sister's name out of your pocket and manipulate me into deserting?"
Jamal spat, his eyes burning with annoyance.
"You think I'm that easy to read?"
Todd stared back, his mind racing.
He's hell-bent on suicide.
If he abandoned Jamal now, he could probably make it to the city limits.
He'd already mapped out three different escape routes during the infiltration——it was muscle memory at this point.
But Jamal's grip was firm, and his pride was firmer.
"Look, I'm sorry, Jamal..."
Todd said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss.
"But this is beyond 'risky.' It's suicide. You want to charge in there and attack the group that just defeated a Divine General? Be my guest. I'm not joining a funeral procession."
Jamal raised a brow, then shoved Todd back with a scoff, shaking his head in disgust.
"The hell are you talking about? Are you a total dumbass? Why would I do something that stupid?"
Jamal adjusted his gear, glancing toward the City Hall.
"I'm not charging the front gate. I'm going to sneak in and drag the General out of there while they're busy patting themselves on the back."
Todd froze, his eyebrows twitching.
"——What?"
Perhaps he really did underestimate his friends thinking capabilities.
——————————————————————
The Fortress City of Guaral has fallen, and the commander of the garrisoned troops, General Second-Class Zikr Osman, has shifted to their side, complementing the forces of the People of Shudraq of Buddheim Jungle.
Subaru stood before the gathered group, his features twisted into a look of profound unease.
He ran a hand through his hair, and let out a sigh.
"Okay... let's discuss the elephant in the room, and preferably as fast as possible. We're currently babysitting two 'Avengers-level' threats who are going to be beyond livid when they wake up. And honestly? I have severe doubts we can pull off a miracle twice."
"Ignoring those strange words I don't recognize... what about restraints?"
Medium asked, tilting her head.
"If they're unconscious, can't we just... tie them up really, really well?"
Subaru let out a short chuckle.
"I can't fault you for the logic, Medium. It's the first thing I'd think of too, if I didn't have the context."
He shook his head, noticing the clear confusion on her face, and opted for a blunt explanation.
"Gojo-sensei can literally teleport. Physical restraints—chains, ropes and all sorts of things——wouldn't mean a damn thing to him. He'd just slip through them like water. As for Arakiya... she'd probably just vaporize anything we put on her with a sneeze of fire."
The mention of 'teleportation' sent a visible ripple through the room.
Even in a land of miracles and Divine Generals, the concept was jarring.
After all, even the cheats-codes that Subaru knew of, like Reinhard van Astrea, were bound by the laws of physics to some degree.
"You need not fret so over Arakiya, commoner."
Priscilla interjected, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade.
She fanned herself languidly, radiating a confidence that only someone of her station could possess.
"If that girl is forced to gorge on too much mana, it leaves her senses dulled and her mind disoriented. She is a spirit-eater; her strength is also her tether."
Subaru blinked, genuinely surprised. It was rare for the fiery woman to offer tactical insight without being prompted—or without an insult attached.
"Wow... thanks. That's actually really helpful..."
Subaru admitted, staring at her.
Priscilla clicked her tongue, her eyes narrowing with irritation.
"Fool. Do you take me for a moron? If this castle is reduced to rubble while I am standing within it, it reflects poorly on my own luck. Of course I would assist when the situation demands it."
"Right, right... sorry. Can you, uh, read my mind or something?"
"Hah! I possess no such tedious ability, it is merely impossible to miss the fact that you are gawking at me like a confused animal."
Subaru raised his arms in a defensive apology.
"My bad, my bad! But back to the topic... I'm not entirely sure how Gojo-sensei's broken abilities function, but I know they're tied to those eyes of his in some way. I could technically try to restrain him with Shamak, but that's just a bandage on a bullet wound. It wouldn't help much beyond buying us a few seconds."
In truth, Subaru wouldn't be surprised if those eyes—the Six Eyes that perceived the world itself on the atomic scale—could peer straight through the magical darkness of a Shamak spell as if it were nothing more than a thin mist.
Al hummed, the sound echoing hollowly as he tapped his steel helmet.
"Well, that's all well and good, bro, but I'm not sure how that actually helps. It's just delaying the inevitable."
"Exactly..."
Subaru sighed, his shoulders slumping.
"Shamak is basically a smoke grenade for the senses. It confuses the target, sure, but Gojo-sensei isn't 'normal.' If he can perceive the literal foundation of reality, a little dark smoke is just an annoyance. He'd break out, and then we'd have an even angrier teenager ready to beat the crap out of us."
"A valid concern..."
Abel added, his voice cutting through the air like cold iron.
"We cannot afford half-measures. To contain a man who traverses space in an instant, we must do more than 'blind' him. We must sever his connection to the world itself."
Subaru frowned, shaking his head.
"You say that like it's an actual possibility. If I had a way to just 'disconnect' people from reality, I'd be the most overpowered guy in this Empire!"
"——Well... if we're talking about really cutting someone off... then I might have a way. For Arakiya, too."
The voice belonged to Aldebaran. Subaru felt a shift in the air; Al's tone had lost its usual casual edge, replaced by something heavier—something grounded in a history Subaru didn't yet understand.
Subaru's eyebrows rose in genuine interest.
"Wait. Do you... know Arakiya, Al?"
Al gave a noncommittal shrug, his posture deceptively relaxed.
"I suppose that's one way to put it. I was pretty shocked when I saw her again... though I always knew she'd grow up to be a beauty."
Subaru blinked at the unexpected admission, but before he could dig into Al's mysterious past, he focused on the immediate problem.
"Huh. Well... what's this 'special move' you've got in mind?"
Al shifted his weight, his lone hand resting on the hilt of his heavy sword.
"Well... it's a nasty piece of work, bro..."
——————————————————————
Floating. He was floating.
It was a world without direction, a sensory vacuum that defied identification even with the Six Eyes straining at their maximum intensity.
Usually, the world was a cacophony of information—atoms, cursed energy, the very friction of the air—but here, there was only silence.
It was a garden of shadows.
A world of pitch-black.
Satoru Gojo drifted, an island of consciousness severed from reality.
He was isolated, yet as the darkness pressed against his skin, he realized he was not quite alone.
He tried to speak, but he had no voice.
He tried to reach out, but the concept of distance had collapsed.
He tried to think, but his thoughts felt like lead, sinking into the ink.
All he could do was watch as a shrouded figure emerged from the gloom.
A woman.
She approached through the void, her form veiled in a cloak of absolute night.
A disturbing, rhythmic purple glow pulsed around her frame, casting long, sickly shadows into the vacuum.
It was a sight so familiar it made his nonexistent heart ache, yet he could not place the memory.
No—that was a lie.
He did know.
This woman, whoever she was, was the tether.
She was linked to him——the persistent, desperate man who had dared to strike him across the face. The man who shouldn't have been able to touch him, yet did completely.
The woman reached out. Her gesture was one of profound distress, bridging the gap that was simultaneously infinitely large and impossibly small.
She leaned in, her lips moving beneath the veil.
Her voice didn't travel through the air; it vibrated directly into his soul.
And the words she spoke were——
——————————————————————
Satoru Gojo's eyes snapped open.
And a ragged gasp for air escaped his lungs as he glared at an unfamiliar ceiling.
But the disorientation lasted only a fraction of a heartbeat.
Before his back had even left the floor, he felt it——a chilling sensation that made every hair on his body stand on end.
A threat to his very existence. A real one.
Ignoring the throbbing ache in his jaw, Gojo rocketed to his feet. His gaze locked onto a helmeted man standing mere feet away.
Through the narrow slit of the steel visor, he saw a look of pure, panicked distress.
The helmeted man scrambled back, leaping into a retreat as his lips parted to utter a single syllable.
"Ol——"
In that instant, the Six Eyes flooded Gojo's brain with the totality of the room.
Information poured in almost instantly, sorted and filed by his transcendent brain.
There was the helmeted man, mid-leap, heartbeats away from completing a spell that felt like an abyss.
There was the black-haired man—Natsuki Subaru—the persistent, annoying man who refused to stay down even after turning he turned his back on a forgotten past.
His eyes flickered to the others: a strange blonde child with something profound coiled within her small frame.
A man in a mask—not just a mask, but a shroud woven with something 'strange.'
A fire-haired woman whose hand was already raised, mana swirling around her fingers like a captive sun.
And the blonde siblings——the girl's hands already blurring toward the hilts of her twin swords.
One second had passed.
Satoru Gojo blinked, and the world continued.
He understood now.
No more arrogance when dealing with people like this.
No more underestimating his opponents.
He had lost twice in his life.
The first time, he had lost his one and only—his best friend.
This time, these people wanted to take him.
"Sha——"
Before Aldebaran could finish the incantation, Gojo moved.
It wasn't a run; it was two ends of space meeting.
His hand clamped onto the back of Al's helmet.
With a brutal, fluid motion, he drove the man downward against the ground.
The explosive force of the impact cratered the stone floor, the sound of the metal helmet meeting the rock echoing like a cannon blast.
The biggest threat was rendered unconscious before he could even hit the ground.
Gojo stood over the fallen knight, a small, cold smile tugging at the corner of his lips despite the lingering pain in his chin.
It all clicked.
The uncanny foresight, the sword to his neck at all times, the impossible reaction time Al had displayed before...
"Ah~ so that's it~"
Gojo murmured, his voice echoing in the sudden, terrified silence of the hall.
"You have to die for your foresight to work, don't you?"
The moment the words left his lips, Gojo's Six Eyes flared with a blinding, sapphire intensity.
He locked onto the black-haired boy and, acting on pure instinct, craned his neck sharply to the side.
A violent gale of wind whistled past his ear——the same unseen attack that had caught him off guard before.
This time, however, it met only empty air.
With a predatory grin, Gojo coiled the muscles in his legs and lunged.
He was a blur of motion, closing the distance before Subaru could moved to block.
His fist drove deep into the young man's stomach, a blow backed by the maximum physical output his childish frame could muster.
"You sure are durable——"
Gojo muttered, his brow twitching.
"——I guess that ridiculous amount of Cursed Energy isn't just for show."
The strike, though powerful, didn't shatter him.
Subaru stumbled back, his face contorted in a grimace as he gasped for air.
"Wait, Gojo-sensei! Wai——!!"
Gojo didn't wait. He stepped into Subaru's guard, his palm open.
This time, he didn't rely on raw strength alone.
The air around his hand distorted as he infused the strike with Blue.
"———Hahk!"
Subaru's pupils contracted into pinpricks.
The amplified strike hit like a falling star, the "pull" of the technique dragging his internal organs toward the point of impact. His reinforcement cracked like glass.
He would have been launched through the wall, but Gojo's hand caught him, yanking him back into a second strike at the same location.
Then a third. A rhythmic, brutal percussion of reinforced blows.
"B-Big problem! Imperial Soldiers... the Divine General! Arakiya has escaped!!"
A panicked voice shattered the rhythm as a tanned, chubby-looking woman burst into the hall, her footsteps frantic as she shouted the alarm.
Gojo let out a sharp exhale through his nose.
He dismissed Subaru like a broken toy, throwing the boy aside to face the new, greater heat rising in the room.
The fire-haired woman had arrived, her crimson blade already carving an arc of destruction through the air.
In an instant, the area surrounding him was swallowed by a crescendo of hellfire.
The flames roared, hungrily licking at everything around his body——yet they stopped dead inches from Gojo's skin.
The Infinity stood as an absolute wall between himself and the sun's wrath.
Gojo didn't hesitate. He lunged through the fire, the sole of his foot smashing against the edge of Priscilla's blade.
"———Hrk!"
The woman grunted, her heels skidding across the stone as she was forced back multiple meters.
She barely managed to bring her sword up to parry a second strike as Gojo closed the gap with impossible speed.
"Try blocking this one!"
"You——!!"
Gojo twisted his body mid-air, his fist spiraling around the arc of her blade.
The strike, amplified by the vacuum of Blue, erupted against her side.
The force was cataclysmic; her eyes glazed over as she vomited blood, the woman's regal form sent hurtling across the City Hall until she slammed into the far wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Only when the fire-haired woman had lost consciousness did the embers surrounding Gojo finally flicker out. He stood amidst the scorched ruins of the hall, the silence returning like a heavy shroud.
"Who the heck are you supposed to be?"
Gojo asked, pivoting with a casual, predatory grace.
He found himself facing the blonde-haired woman, who stood frozen in the aftermath of a failed attack.
She held a pair of swords, yet she had opted for a desperate kick at his flank——a move that had met nothing but the invisible wall of his Infinity just like the rest.
"Ahh~ my name's Medium... hehe..."
She managed a weak, nervous laugh, her bravado failing her under his gaze.
"Ah, neat. Well, since you didn't actually try to kill me, I guess you can get off lightly."
Gojo gave a dismissive flick of his wrist as he spoke those words.
An invisible surge of Blue caught the woman, flinging her back across the room.
She tumbled along the stone floor until her brother rushed to her side, shielding her with a look of frantic concern.
Gojo turned his back on them, his sapphire eyes settling on the masked figure standing nearby.
The man hadn't moved.
He stood like a statue of ice, his brows furrowed in a gaze that was more clinical than fearful.
"——Something to say, buddy?"
Gojo smirked, though the expression didn't reach his eyes.
"Why do you do this, Satoru Gojo?"
His voice was flat, devoid of the panic that had seized the others.
Gojo tilted his head, a mocking eyebrow raised.
"I'm here to end this mess before the whole country devolves into a civil war and thousands of people get slaughtered because of you lot. Do I really need a better reason than that?"
"Refusing to face your past——fleeing from it simply because it is convenient to forget——is the pinnacle of cowardice."
The man stated. His words were sharp, calculated to bypass Gojo's defenses.
"Natsuki Subaru spoke of you with a great deal of reverence. I was inclined to believe his assessment, but now... I find myself unconvinced."
Gojo's smirk vanished, replaced by a dark, simmering annoyance. He clicked his tongue.
"You call it cowardice? This entire world has treated me like absolute garbage from the second I woke up. Why the hell should I care about any of... this?"
The masked man didn't waver. He simply tilted his head, a gesture of cold curiosity.
"You claim to have come here to save the innocent. A noble task on the surface. And yet, you are a complete and utter hypocrite."
Gojo's posture shifted, his cursed energy beginning to ripple the air around him.
"What did you say?"
"Need I say more?"
Abel gestured vaguely to the carnage in the room——to his unconscious allies and the broken walls.
"You speak of saving thousands, yet you crush those who would help you achieve that very goal. You seek to prevent a war, yet you bring a massacre to the very room where peace was being forged. You do not fight for the innocent, Satoru Gojo. You fight because you are terrified of being anything less than a god."
A visible tremor ran through Gojo's frame.
The blue glow of the Six Eyes flickered into something pitiful.
"…You're wrong…"
He whispered, though the words lacked the weight of conviction.
"I—I'm just…"
Abel offered no comfort. He didn't even offer a rebuttal. He simply watched with the cold, unmoving gaze of a judge.
He had laid the trap with words, and he was content to let Gojo's own conscience do the rest of the work.
I am here for a just reason, I am here because I care for the lives of the innocent.
But the thought felt like ash in his mouth. Was that really the case?
Or was that just the story he told himself to justify the violence?
Was it the truth, or a lie he had been repeating until his voice went hoarse?
Gojo's breath hitched, coming out as a jagged, ragged shudder.
He looked around the room, and for the first time, he wasn't sure what he was seeing.
What if he had been lying to himself from the moment he set foot in this Empire?
What if this wasn't a crusade for the innocent, but a desperate, frantic attempt to feel like the 'Strongest' again——to bury the shame of his forgotten past under the bodies of his 'enemies'?
He saw the blood he had spilled——not the blood of monsters and people who deserved it, but of those who were simply trying to hold a broken world together.
"———"
The realization hit him with more force than any physical blow.
Satoru Gojo stood in the center of the ruin, looking even smaller than his childish frame normally made him.
In a desperate, panicked reflex, he clasped his fingers together.
The air screamed as space folded in on itself, a violent distortion that swallowed his form in a flash of blue.
Space snapped back into place, leaving only the settling dust and the echo of his Departure.
Satoru Gojo was gone.
He hadn't been driven off by a spell.
He hadn't been bested by a blade.
—He had been defeated by a handful of words.
——He had been crushed by the weight of the truth.
——————————————————————
Navigating the City Hall was a grim homecoming for Jamal Aurelie. Having been stationed here in the past, he moved through the corridors with the predatory confidence of a wolf in his own den.
Todd couldn't keep pace—especially not with a mangled leg—so Jamal went in alone.
It didn't slow him down; if anything, it made him quieter and quicker.
He ghosted through the shadows, systematically neutralizing the local government guards.
These weren't the iron-willed Shudraq or Imperial veterans, but mere fence-sitters drafted into a 'rebel army' that was currently coming apart at the seams.
He headed straight for the basement.
The prison was at the building's root. Iron bars were little more than sugar glass to a Divine General, but even a captured goddess wouldn't be granted the hospitality of a guest suite.
"There..."
The air grew heavy as he reached the high-security block.
Standing watch was no mere conscript, but a Shudraqian warrior—a tall woman with shocks of yellow-dyed hair.
One look at her stance told Jamal everything: she was a master of the spear.
There was no sneaking past her in these narrow confines.
"Game time!"
Jamal erupted from the gloom, his twin blades singing as they left their sheaths.
"——Who the heck are you?!"
The woman's eyes widened, her spear snapping up to intercept him, but even she was staggered by his sheer lethality. Jamal was a whirlwind of steel, his blades clashing against her spear in a frantic rhythm.
She was skilled, but she was unprepared for a counter-siege.
"Hahaha! Come on!"
Jamal feinted a high strike, slowing his tempo just enough to bait her into a counter.
As she lunged, he rolled his shoulder and slammed his entire weight into her chest.
The impact sent her reeling and before she could find her footing, Jamal spun, his blade carving a shallow red line across her thick body, unfortunately not quite deep enough to slash through any vital organ.
"——Agh!"
He didn't give her a second to breathe.
He twisted his frame, launching a devastating roundhouse kick that caught her squarely in the neck.
Her head snapped back, and she collapsed in a heap of yellow hair to the ground, gasping.
Jamal spared a glance at her throat—he could kill her now, but time was a luxury he didn't have.
He shattered the lock with a heavy blow from his hilt, kicked the door open, and lunged inside.
Arakiya lay face down on a meager bed.
Even bruised and battered, she possessed a haunting, ethereal beauty.
Jamal didn't linger; he hoisted her onto his back, sheathing one sword to steady her weight, and sprinted for the exit.
"I-Intruder...! Ouch!"
The Shudraqian woman groaned behind him, clawing at the floor.
Jamal didn't look back. He rounded the corner, cut down a guard who had the misfortune of blocking the stairwell, and burst out into the vacant city streets.
Jamal spared a single glance toward the main gate—a jagged ruin of stone and iron eviscerated by Arakiya upon her arrival——before banking hard into the shadows in the opposite direction.
He moved like a phantom through the narrow capillaries of the city, using the lingering chaos to vanish.
With three hundred identically dressed Imperial soldiers milling through the smog, he was just one more uniform among many, provided no one looked too closely at the unconscious Divine General draped over his shoulder.
However——
The sound of a whistle in the air preceded the strike.
Jamal's body reacted before his mind did, twisting mid-stride to shear a feathered arrow in half with a desperate swing of his blade.
He ducked into a pre-arranged alleyway a moment later, his lungs burning.
"Can you run...?"
He rasped to the man waiting in the gloom of the alley.
Todd stood there, his face pale and brows knit together in a permanent scowl of calculation.
"Not at full speed, at least... that archer... it's the woman who shot me earlier. She's persistent..."
Todd's mind raced through the permutations of their survival.
They couldn't backtrack to kill the archer——not while the City Hall was swarming with rebels at this point.
But with their mobility crippled, fleeing was just a slow-motion execution.
If they kept Arakiya, they were heavy.
If they abandoned her, they were cowards who had risked their lives for nothing.
But that wasn't exactly something he cared about.
"We're being targeted, you know."
Todd said in a rather matter of fact tone.
"Yeah, fuck, I know! It's a real pain in the ass..."
Jamal grunted before he peeked around the corner, snapping his head back just as an arrowhead buried itself three inches into the brickwork.
"So... what should——"
Jamal turned back to his partner, only for the words to die in his throat.
"——What the fuck?"
The space where Todd had been standing was empty. There was no blood, no sound of a struggle, and no footsteps.
For an injured man to vanish that completely in a dead-end alley was a physical impossibility.
While Todd could be rather stealthy, it wasn't to the point where Jamal would be totally incapable of hearing him at such a close range.
That's even more true, given his injured state.
So how——
"——Calm down, dude. I'm not a kidnapper or anything."
The voice was light, youthful and totally out of place.
Jamal looked down.
A shock of white hair flickered at the edge of his peripheral vision.
Before he could process the sight of the child, a small, pale hand reached out to grasp his armor.
Jamal swung his twin blade on pure instinct——
Then, the world didn't just change; it folded.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the acrid scent of smoke and the gray stone of Guaral were annihilated.
The suffocating heat of the city was replaced by a cool, damp breeze smelling of forest and rain.
The sun, once obscured by war-fires, now filtered softly through a dense canopy of emerald leaves.
"———"
"——What the fuck?!!"
Jamal roared, nearly dropping Arakiya as he stumbled across the soft forest floor.
"I've got a steaming headache from warping you guys. Is that how you treat your savior? How rude~"
The white-haired child stood nearby, a lazy smirk playing on his lips.
He looked entirely too comfortable for someone who had just upended the laws of physics.
He leaned back, casually nudging the shell-shocked Todd with his elbow.
"Jeez. What a rude guy, am I right...?"