[A Way To Break Through]

The creature slowly crept towards our direction. Its long arms stopped spinning around and were now dragged against the concrete surface, waiting to attack at any time.

But even though it was directly staring our way, it didn't make any sudden moves. It continued creeping around the dark alleyway, seeming to survey the area.

It was as if it didn't know where we were.

Can it not see because of the darkness? Are we far out of its sight? I simulated all possibilities as to why the creature halted its attacks. Amid brainstorming, a thought came to me.

For the sake of confirming my deduction, I looked and observed the creature's faceless head as it revealed itself under the moonlight.

That's right. It was "faceless."

It had no vision.

I grabbed a small rock from the ground beside and threw it towards the wall near the creature. As soon as the rock hit the wall, the creature's towards the sound immediately and began furiously attacking.

The creature's uncontrollable aggression, its slow movement, and the fact that we were still here without getting attacked, all confirmed my hunch. I turned to Akane, who seem to be coping with her previous damage, in hopes of conveying the creature's weakness. I pressed my finger against my lips, making a sign not to make any noise and pointed towards where the creature's eyes were supposed to be.

As she looked over at me and towards the creature, she seemed to understand what I was trying to say as she halted any sudden movements not to create any noise as possible.

I needed to create an opening.

Although my back was screaming in agony, I powered my way up to into a crouching position.

—What was I going to do…?

I looked down at the corpse I used as a shield previously and thought. I could not do any damage to the creature, but I could manage to distract it. Even with the protection, I couldn't reduce its arms' force by much, but that was when I blocked the attack straight-on. If I could stop the attack from the side before it strikes, where the power is much weaker, I could lessen the impact; I would block the attacks without flying off like previously. I could distract, but how could we manage to kill it?

Then I remembered back to the moment when I encountered Akane in the alleyway. The corpse I was holding also looked a lot like the creature that was currently roaming around. If Akane was able to kill this one, she must have a way of eliminating these creatures. I sharpened my resolve and powered myself onto my feet. My body ached like hell, but I could stand it. I had to.

The good thing was that because of the previous strike, the corpse had lost some of its weight, giving me mobility. This way, it wouldn't be a problem to run around without the encumbrance. As I got up, I faced Akane, who was looking at me with an anxious expression. I slowly moved towards Akane, careful not to make any noises, and whisper in her ear. "I got a plan."

She whispered back, "Have you gone insane?! Just get out of the alleyway as fast as possible! A regular like you will die in seconds!"

Assuming that she described me as a "regular," it seemed that she was indicating herself as different from normal humans.

"So that flash of light I saw had to do something with Akane." I thought to myself as I stared directly into her eyes, "I can't let you be here alone, plus like I told you before, I have a plan."

Akane seemed to hesitate for a moment but didn't push on the matter any further, and it seemed like she was willing to hear what I was going to say.

"I'm going to turn its attention towards me and bring it to the other side of the alleyway, and while it is turned away, I want you to finish it off," I whispered as I took off my school uniform and tied it around the corpse like a rope, to give myself a more comfortable grip of the shield.

"But that's suicide…!" Akane didn't seem to like my plan one bit, but that was to be expected. She wasn't wrong on this attempt being no different than running into my doom, but I had no other choices. If this thing were to roam around, many people would've been in danger. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and responded. "Can you trust me?"

As I gave her a bitter smile, I could see her now clenching her teeth and looking troubled. I could understand her. In her state, it was unlikely that she would be able to kill the creature by herself. But the situation could be reversed if I used myself as bait. It was a 50-50 chance—no. My chances of success weren't very high, but I had no means of dying just yet. I was going to break through this situation and get home safely. I hardened my resolve and got ready to run with all my strength. It was now or never.

As I kicked off, the gravel below me rustled, and the creature turned its head sharply, letting out a high-pitched screech.

"KIAHHHHHHHHHH!"

"BRING IT ON!"

Its whip-like arms shot towards me, and in a split second, I moved towards the left right before the strike and smashed my shield with all my might onto its arm, which was wide open. With the impact, the arm bent like a tape measure and collided with the wall. In an instant, I manage to get through its left arm, but there was still its other one. As I closed the distance between the creature and me, its remaining arm shot out towards me at a violent speed. I braced myself for impact and held out the shield. As the whip-like arm struck, I took advantage of the momentum to spin towards the outer side, and as I did, I finally reached the creature. Sliding off of the arms that just struck my shield, I bashed the shield towards its slender body, and in an instant, the creature lost its balance and fell to the ground.

"I did it…!" But it wasn't over yet. I still had to turn its attention completely off Akane's direction. So, I ran towards the other side as fast as I could. I turned around to see that the creature slowly lifted itself back on its feet as its arms retracted back to its original length.

"I put all my strength into that one strike, but of course, it wasn't enough…!" I clenched my teeth as I prepared myself for more attacks.

"KIHHHHHHHHH!" The creature let out a shriek and launched its arms towards me, but its velocity has significantly gotten lower. The creature received some damage from my attack. If its speed decreased this much, even I could easily dodge them.

As the arms shot towards me, I swiftly dodged them and continued blocking them with the corpse, but I noticed something strange. The corpse was starting to wither away like burning paper.

Has it reached its limits?!

If this continued, I would have no way of defending myself, and I didn't know how much stamina I had left to keep dodging its attacks. I was in a pinch.

With every impact, the corpse withered away faster. As it received a considerable amount of damage, it was to the point that no one would have believed that this body was once a humanoid.

What was taking Akane so long? The consecutive attacks had drained most of my stamina. As the attacks continued, there was not much left of the corpse.

"AKANE!" I cried out, but there was no response. While I was distracted momentarily, its arms came swinging, and just as I was about to block it with the shield, the corpse had wholly withered away.

"Crap—!" Unable to defend, the arm struck my right arm that I used to guard myself, and I flew into the wall.

This was bad.

While I was immobile, the creature grabbed my leg and lifted me into the air.

"Ugh!" I groaned and struggled helplessly to free myself from its grip, but it was useless. I had no strength left at this point. The creature let out a sinister smile. It was mocking me. It was over.

It was at that moment when I felt a sudden vibrancy in the air. It was such a strange sensation, yet so familiar. The world shifted its hue to grey as if all the colors had been sucked out of the world. Everything seemed so slow. Amid the colorless world, I could see little rays of light wiggling their way towards the creature. What was going on—?

"Get your hands off of him." Akane's voice rung out from behind the creature as she emerged from the darkness at such a speed that it seemed like she appeared out of thin air. As Akane's clenched fist sparked with bright light, the grey world regained its color back. What was that sensation that I just felt…?

My eyes were focused on Akane—no. It wasn't that I was focused on Akane but around her. The entire alleyway was filled with little cracks of light that others couldn't see but me.

"Tanaka arts, 3rd form," she breathed in heavily after she let out those words. Her fist became engulfed in bright red-yellow flame, and her eyes began to glow fiery red. The fire became prominent as time passed, and the sight that it beheld was truly magnificent.

That was the moment when I truly upheld the sight of the "otherworldly."

As she rushed to the left side of the creatures from the back of the alleyway, she chanted as her fist was now, wholly engulfed with the brightest flames I have ever witnessed. "IGNIS FLAMMEUS!"

As she launched her fist at a ferocious speed, the flames danced wildly as it impaled the enemy, burning them to nothingness. With the impact, a wave of fire gushed out from its back, and the creature burst into flames.

"KIIIAHHHHH!" The creature let out its final shriek and fell to the ground lifelessly. As the creature slumped down to the ground, the grip on my legs had also loosened, dropping me to the ground.

As Akane's flames lost its life, the alleyway that was lit up had sunken into the darkness once again.

—We survived.

I panted heavily and collapsed onto the ground. I looked over in Akane's direction to see that she also slumped down on her knees. It must've been exhausting for her to use her powers like that. But to think that such otherworldly capabilities existed in this world. I weirdly coped well, despite seeing it for the first time.

"Akane, you saved my life there."

"…"

There was no response.

Foreboding, I stood up to approach her, and that's when I felt the same sensation that I felt earlier. The air became vibrant, and the world became colorless once again. The only color I could see was millions of fractures on the walls, the ground, and even the air. I couldn't move a muscle as my heart sunk as I witnessed the otherworldly phenomenon. Why was this happening?

As the rays of "dimensional fractures" slowly coasted towards my way, my instinct began calling out to me repeatedly.

Danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger

These thoughts were irrepressible.

Interrupting my thoughts were Akane's desperate shout, "Reo, get away from me, right now!"

Instantaneously without being given a chance to think, I flinched my head to the left, followed by a loud crash behind me.

I looked over to my back to see a black streak—a burn on the wall. Something had just flown towards me, intending to finish me. Did I just dodge that instinctively?

—What had just happened…?

Everything happened all at once so fast that I couldn't comprehend what had just happened. I remember that the world was drained of color for an instant, and I saw a ray of light making its way towards me, so I jerked my head to the side to dodge and—

"Reo."

I faced Akane, who was now turned towards me, her eyes still glowing amid the alleyway's pitch darkness. My instinct continuously told me to run, but from what…?

"Akane… what's wrong…?"

I could tell that she was troubled by her expression, but I didn't understand the reason. We already defeated the creature, so why was she like this?

Trembling, she opened her mouth and began shouting. "Reo, YOU NEED TO RUN NOW!"

As she finished her sentence, the alleyway was lit up once again as flames began to emerge from thin air surrounding Akane.

"RUN!"

Her flames were beyond her control at this point.