Chapter 5

After hanging up the phone, Naru curled her knees up to her chest. Through cracked glasses, she looked down at her legs. Blood trickled down her skin from numerous cuts and scratches. It looked like she had skidded across a gravel path on her knees. Although it increasingly stung the more she looked at her legs, she turned her head and looked at Ken's arms. Aside from his closed eyes, she could see several times more cuts, scratches, and bruises compared to her own legs.

Lips pressed tightly together into a frown, she reached back into her purse and rummaged around until she found a small bag of band-aids and gauze. First, she took out an alcohol pad from the bag and wiped her fingers. Then, she carefully wiped one of the bloodier cuts on Ken's right arm. He flinched when the alcohol pad stung the wound.

"What are you doing?"

"I have some band-aids I can put on you, but I have to clean your cuts first, so don't squirm too much, okay?"

"Use them on yourself first."

"Quiet."

"Hm."

The corner of Ken's lips rose in slight amusement at his cousin's act of concern, even if she was a bit forceful about it. He flinched again when the alcohol pad touched the cut again, but he otherwise remained still.

While cleaning the cut, Naru mumbled, "I never had to use these before, but I guess this is why mom always told me to keep bandages in my purse."

Ken nodded at her mumbling.

Silence followed while Naru removed a single band-aid from the bag, tore it out from the packaging, and deftly stuck it over the cleaned cut. She did the same thing for a few of the other cuts that looked deeper than the rest until she ran out of band-aids, only keeping one for a deeper cut on her own shin.

"Thanks, Naru."

"Mhm. You're welcome."

Outside, the battle slowed down after a few more magic bangs, hums, and whirls. The explosions of destructive spells came to a halt shortly after. Rubble and injured civilians remained in the aftermath.

Curious about the results, Ken lifted and tilted his head just enough to look through the broken window again. He forced his eyes open despite the stinging pain just in time to see a large red magic circle spread out on the ground in front of the red-haired girl's outstretched hand. At least, it looked red to him at the moment. The circular diagram rapidly rotated in front of her like some sort of light show a few times. Each rotation sent a nigh invisible ripple through the air. 

"What's going on out there?" 

Ken briefly looked over at his cousin who whispered that, but then moved his gaze back to the ripples that looked like gasoline vapor flowing outward in all directions from the girl. Deactivated lines and symbols allowed him to see it more clearly than the average person. 

"Not sure."

In between him and the red-haired girl, he saw a few straggling survivors who fell unconscious the moment the gaseous wave enveloped them.

'Is this a spell for wiping memories or something?' He wondered. 

Frowning at the thought, he considered activating his eyes again. In the end, however, he decided against it after feeling a sharp pain like thousands of needles poking his eyes and temples the moment he tried to use the ability. Recalling what the lines and symbols informed him earlier regarding mind magic also contributed to a final decision to not use it. Rather than risk causing irreparable damage to his already burning eyes, he adopted a wait-and-see attitude. 

On the plus side, he could somewhat make out some outlines of the surroundings even through his eyelids like how one might see through closed eyelids in a dream. The only difference was that it was limited to barely visible outlines of the faded symbols and lines.

When the gaseous wave of magic passed through the restaurant, all the other stragglers inside quickly fell unconscious. Strangely, any of the people standing on their feet remained standing. 

Ken himself felt something like a puff of air rush past him, but he felt no effects other than that. 

"Eh? Why… do I… feel sleepy all of a sudden?" Naru slurred. 

The girl wobbled back and forth as though close to passing out. Since she was right next to Ken, he felt it and prevented her from falling over by wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Opening his eyes a sliver, he saw the girl blinking very slowly, but she maintained a hazy state of consciousness unlike everyone else around them. Even so, she rested her head on Ken's shoulder as though overcome by weakness.

"Ken-kun, let's go home… no, the hospital. To the hospital," The girl whispered somewhat incoherently. 

"You can sleep Naru. I'll wake you up when the ambulance gets here."

"But… you're hurt."

"I'm fine. Those band-aids helped a lot."

"Mmm. Okay. Gonna sleep. Wake me up."

Finally, the girl closed her eyes. Moments later, her breathing slowed and stabilized. Ken quietly observed her and pondered whether she had some level of magic resistance or if she resisted solely on willpower. He did not get much of a chance to ponder, however.

"I felt some resistance to the spell over this way," A youthful feminine voice spoke while approaching the restaurant.

"Another assassin?" The other voice responded in a serious and lower tone of voice.

Rolling his eyes, Ken thought, 'Lovely. I'd rather not meet them.'

In the hopes that they would not attack on sight, he remained still in a seated position. Before long, he heard footsteps traversing across rubble and broken glass toward him.

Through his eyelids, he vaguely made out two coagulations of lines and symbols approaching from his left. He turned his head toward them. In response, they immediately halted. Circular patterns more visible than anything else he could perceive appeared in front of the two blobs.

"Hm. Who are you?" One girl asked.

Based on the slightly higher pitched voice, Ken assumed the red-haired girl was asking. Pointing at his own injuries, or at least where he felt the most pain, Ken simply responded, "Nobody connected with whoever attacked you, as you can probably see."

The two blobs moved a little near their heads. After a brief pause, they looked back at Ken.

"Are you affiliated with any groups in this area?" 

"No, and I prefer to keep it that way."

"Uh, okay?"

The other girl then asked, "You don't seem very surprised by all this. Are you a local human magician?"

"Something like that, but in case you didn't catch my drift, I prefer to avoid anything related to the supernatural if possible considering I'm almost at the bottom of the food chain."

"I think it's pretty safe to assume he isn't with the assassin," The black-haired girl concluded.

"I think so, too," The other girl replied.

Through his eyelids, Ken watched the circular patterns fade away. The appendages aiming the circles at him lowered. A small sigh of relief slipped from his lips.

'Luckily that got them off my back.'

"You understand the rules for erasing memories, correct? You are fine, but your companion… I can't bring back what is already replaced."

The red-haired girl's voice trailed off as hesitation slowed her words.

"I understand. The weak can only accept what the strong impose upon them."

The red-haired girl frowned at Ken's statement. It reminded her too much of the things in her own life she could not control. Her hand briefly clenched into a fist, which the black-haired girl noticed.

A moment later, the red-haired girl shook her head, took a deep breath, and refocused on the boy in front of her.

"Uh, also… sorry about getting you caught up in all this."

Ken merely gave a slight nod in response.

The two girls stood there awkwardly for a few moments until they looked and nodded at each other.

"Take care. We have to go."

Nodding subtly, Ken simply replied, "I see."

The two girls briefly frowned at his curt replies, but they didn't really blame him, either. As such, they immediately teleported away, but they committed the boy's face to memory just in case.

Ken quietly watched the teleportation circle form as vague lines and symbols inside his eyelids. Then, the two people vanished from sight.

In the distance, sirens echoed. Ignoring the sound, he turned his head toward Naru and fell into contemplation.

'I'm going to have to change my original plans for this world a bit, no, a lot.'

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Elsewhere, inside a luxurious room in a mansion sitting under a red sky, the two girls appeared from the other end of their teleportation circle. The moment they arrived in the room, Rias groaned and plopped onto the luxurious bed nearby.

"I just wanted to go shopping in the human world for manga. Why'd we have to get attacked immediately?" She complained while punching a pillow.

Akeno briefly giggled at her king's antics, but then became serious and asked, "Who do you think sent that assassin?"

"Probably one of my brother's enemies since it was a devil? I don't know. I just wanted to visit Tokyo again, but now all those people got hurt because of it."

"Shall I inform your brother?"

"Absolutely not! He'll never let me go back again if you do! I'll just ask my sister-in-law to find somebody who can heal those people who got hurt."

'Rias, your brother probably already knows,' Akeno thought while sighing. After all, even though it was not a common occurrence, this was not the first time somebody made a token attempt at her King's life.

"That boy was right. It's better to be strong, isn't it?" Akeno quietly stated.

Rias stopped rolling around on her bed. After thinking for a few seconds, she reluctantly grumbled, "I guess so."