The Zeroth Day (The Final Part)

Sekai clutched his lungs as Annabeth proceeded to shock him with her next words:

"You're a witch working with Witch-hunters?!"

Vaelea merely nodded, "A bitter ironic truth, but the truth nonetheless."

"Why!? Whatever they've promised you, there's no way they will go through with it!" Annabeth yelled as she dodged the encroaching vines, slicing them apart with a quick spell of wind blades.

"It is none of your business. You should just die." Vaelea said simply,

Annabeth tch'ed, fighting magic-less opponents was one thing, but Vaelea was clearly more experienced in mage-to-mage combat and was more than willing to turn that experience on her opponent.

Seeing this, Sekai immediately began to rush towards Vaelea, but was intercepted by none other than the Huntsmaster himself.

"You chose the wrong side in this war. Such a shame so young has fallen to the temptations of magic." The Huntsmaster rushed at Sekai, catching him off guard as he feinted with his silver sword, causing Sekai to stumble off balance in an attempt to block it, only to receive the remaining bullets within the revolver directly to the chest, causing him to collapse to the ground in pain.

"Too simple." The Huntsmaster stared down at the pitiful Sekai Kaeru.

The boy forced himself to his feet, seemingly not willing to give up.

"Still alive? I suppose you would be given how much trouble you've caused..." The Huntsmaster sighed in surprise,

However, he was truly caught off-guard when Sekai - rather than trying to attack him again - chose to run in the opposite direction.

Straight towards Annabeth.

"H-hey?! What are you?!" Annabeth didn't have any time to react before Sekai quickly snatched the grimoire from her waist.

"I don't know how valuable this book is - but it's the reason they're after you right?" Sekai stated,

"Give that back!" Annabeth yelled at him, but Sekai merely turned and ran in the opposite direction.

The Huntsmaster laughed at the situation, "The blind ignorance of youth, does he believe that he is a hero of some sort? That by taking the burden of such an artifact onto himself he'll spare those around him?"

His face turned serious once again as he began giving orders: "Vaelea, don't let us down. The rest of you, on me, we're going after the boy and that book."

"We're just leaving our pet witch to fight alone?" Artois asked hesitantly,

The Huntsmaster shrugged, "Let witches fight witches, and the humans deal with more important things."

Artois nodded, and the Witch Hunters quickly followed after the boy who had gained a significant lead ahead of them, leaving the two witches alone.

"No one will fault you if you run." Vaelea stated at last, "That boy is placing everything on the line in the hopes you will utilize this chance."

"...You're willing to let me go?" Annabeth cocked her head,

Vaelea shrugged, "I'm a Witch working for Witch Hunters, I don't like my job."

"Well then, I thank you for your offer, but...even if Sekai is going to die soon...I don't want to abandon him, not after everything he's done for me!" Annabeth clutched her hands in resolve,

"...You are an absolute idiot then." Vaelea stated, "Now both you and that boy will die."

Annabeth said nothing in reply, and merely began casting her spell, with her opponent doing the same.

⸻

Sekai ran.

As fast and as far as his legs could take him, he ran.

'Damn it...this stupid book! It's all because of this damn book! What's so valuable about it anyway?! If it's just a collection of "magical knowledge" then can't it just be recreated?!' He thought to himself in frustration,

Honestly, he didn't know how long or how far he ran.

He was just running.

He rounded a corner, could he lose them-

And then it came.

A horrible slicing sound came from his abdomen as he stared down at the silver sword that penetrated his abdomen.

'Oh...' Sekai thought, as the sword was pulled out with a loud squelching sound, and he collapsed into a nearby alleyway, bleeding out all while continuing to clutch the book in his hands.

It seemed that, whatever luck with his ability he'd had so far, whatever luck he had as a protagonist, it had finally run out.

The Huntsmaster stood on top of the collapsed boy, his sword coated in Sekai's blood.

"I fail to understand what your goal was." The Huntsmaster stated, "Did you really think someone as decidedly unprepared and unequipped like yourself could save her?"

Sekai gasped for air, the pain finally beginning to hit his head and combined with fatigue from fighting the Witch Hunters, he was well and truly about to black out.

'No...I can't pass out...If I pass out...!' Sekai knew that if he passed out, he'd probably wind up dying. Even though he had been prepared from the start, when it really came down to it, Sekai didn't want to die.

He was scared.

"You can stop hanging on to that book so tightly. I'll merely retrieve it from your corpse one way or another." The Huntsmaster said coldy, raising his sword high above Sekai's head, he prepared to finish him off with one, final blow.

Seeing the glint of the blade, Sekai could no longer hold himself awake.

'I'm...really sorry, everyone. I just wanted to protect Annabeth.' Sekai mentally apologized to his family.

Sekai tilted his head to gaze his wrist, the timer he had worn for the past three days now counting out his final seconds:

0:00:03

0:00:02

0:00:01

0:00:00

As the timer reached zero, Sekai closed his eyes, and allowed darkness to overtake his mind.

⸻

The Huntsmaster was on the verge of finally decapitating Sekai, when he saw his body go still.

'Did he die?' He wondered, lowering the silver blade.

'Who was this boy, anyway?' The Huntsmaster circled the still body, as if Sekai was going to jump up and begin attacking or running again at any second.

Was he a young Mage who had figured out effective countermeasures to mana-absorbing weapons?

Someone with some strange ability who was affiliated with Kassandra Sharpe and assigned to protect the Apprentice?

Or was he just a bystander, who had taken the first steps out of an average life and had paid for them dearly?

"It doesn't matter now." The Huntsmaster leaned down, preparing to pick up the grimoire clutched in his hands, when he suddenly heard a scream from behind him.

"What?!" The Huntsmaster whipped around to see one of his Witch Hunters being burned alive by magical flames, another ripped apart by magical wind blades without so much as a scream.

"There's no way...!" He tch'ed, 'Did the others fail!? Those were our best men!'

"Honestly...attacking children now, are we?" A woman approached him calmly, her heels clacking against the ground as she smoked an antique wooden pipe with her arms crossed. "And we are supposed to be the 'inhuman monsters'. Honestly, I don't think anything can be more monstrous than gloating over the corpse of the child you just murdered."

She casually stepped over the suffering Witch Hunters who were being torn apart in various equally brutal ways. They collapsed as she walked, without her seemingly even doing anything.

"Kassandra Sharpe!" The Huntsmaster snarled, whipping out his revolver, he took aim and pulled back on the trigger-

Only for the gun to disassemble itself in his hands.

"What is a gun made of?" Kassandra Sharpe asked him, "At the end of the day, even those lab-refined artificial metals still came from the earth at some point. Thus, it can be magically manipulated. Even that silver you rely on so much is only mana-absorbant. When silver absorbs enough mana, it becomes Argentum - a common magical metal. It goes without saying that magical metals can be manipulated by magic..."

As she explained all this, he could only watch in horror as his own silver blade burst into countless tiny Argentum shards, leaving nothing but the hilt.

"In short, any half-baked mage will just overload your silver weapons with mana. Turning it into easily manipulated Argentum." Kassandra said lightly, "Now, die by your own weapon. It's a fitting fate for a piece of trash like you."

Without further notice, the dozens of Argentum shards impaled him with the speed and force of a machine gun, ripping him apart as they pierced his body.

He didn't even get to scream.

Kassandra Sharpe sighed, "Just who are you kiddo?" She wondered, her eyes falling on his wounds.

'He's alive, but just barely. He doesn't seem to be-' Her eyes widened as they fell on the copy of her Grimoire that he had taken from Annabeth.

"Now how did you get your hands on this?" She whistled, with a wave of her hand, his wounds began to close, however, yet another problem across as he began hacking up more of the white crystal shards.

"You are just getting curiouser and curiouser kid." Kneeling down in front of him, Kassandra focused her magic, rapidly weaving a quick diagnosis spell, she gasped at what she saw.

'The fuck? His insides are being torn to shreds right now, it's a miracle he's even alive!' Immediately, Kassandra began weaving a large scale healing enchantment, a glowing gold magic circle appeared around him as she continued casting in Latin.

'Let me see if I can forcibly remove whatever is causing all this with magic...' Focusing on the white matter crystals inside of his body, Kassandra tried infusing them with mana in order to manipulate them, only for the impossible to happen.

'They rejected mana?! No material in the world should be able to do that!' Kassandra would've loved to study him more, but she perceived the approaching presence of a large amount of people coming.

'It seems like I must run, but don't think this is over quite yet...mystery boy.' With a few short steps, Kassandra Sharpe disappeared as soon as she came, the grimoire in hand.

⸻

'Damn it...this might be the end...' Annabeth thought, she was both frostbitten and burned. Her clothes torn in several areas, and was also bleeding. Vaelea, on the other hand, was fairly uninjured, only showing some minor fatigue but nothing all that major.

"You can't win. Give up and die." Vaelea stated,

"I can say the same about you." Kassandra Sharpe suddenly appeared behind her, causing her to immediately fall back.

"You already dispatched the others?!" Vaelea took a step back in raw fear and panic.

Kassandra squinted her eyes, thoroughly analyzing Vaelea up and down. 'There's no way...is she?' Kassandra raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask any questions, Vaelea immediately vanished in magically conjured smoke.

"Master!" Annabeth immediately rushed over to her.

"Hey, hey! Anna you're bleeding!" Kassandra stepped back, quickly healing her apprentice, who suddenly broke down in sobs.

"Master, you have to help him! H-His name is Sekai Kaeru, he was helping me escape and he took the grimoire-"

"The other Witch Hunters are dead. And I healed the boy to the best of my capabilities, not to mention last I was there there was a bunch of Normals on the way to him. He'll be okay." Kassandra stated, 'So she knows him. I'll have to ask if he knows anything about his abilities then.'

"Thank goodness..." With that, Annabeth collapsed in her Master's arms, causing the older woman to smile.

"I'm here for you, my precious god-daughter." She whispered gently, taking the girl into her arms. "Let's go home."