Chapter 21 - Self-Sacrifice

"What's happening?!" Two grabbed his head in disbelief as one by one, he saw the life signals of his subordinates dwindle away.

He stepped back in shock and barely managed to support himself with one hand pressed on the table beside him. He looked out of the window with disbelief in his eyes; pillars of flames illuminated the starry night sky, thunder struck from the heavens and ruptured the ground below, and resounding explosions brought smoke and destruction to the serene and dark forest.

Each time a disaster struck, he saw the life of one member after another vanish. He felt his heart drop at these unexpected merciless acts. He felt a shiver crawl down his spine and onto his legs; he felt his heart accelerate as if it wanted to explode out and escape.

He gritted his teeth and waved his wrist. In the next moment, a portal opened up beside him. Pushing in his hand inside it, he stored his tablet for safe keeping and took a deep breath. Perhaps this was the last deep breath he'll take for a while.

As he stared out of the window with a grim face, the starry sky greeted him. He opened up a portal the size of his body, and he walked through it with a rapidly beating heart.

…

"Huff…" Pindle gasped for air as the sound of her heartbeat rang in her ears. The smell of iron and the gooey liquid coating her arms and legs left her deeply shaken to her core, but an invisible power forcefully kept her calm and cool-headed.

"It's…" She leaned her back to the wall and stared at her bloody hands where bits of mangled flesh remained, "It's finally over."

Pindle lets out a sigh of relief and turned to look over at the strange cylindrical object planted on thick black tubes that ran through the ground. She stood up with a grunt and walked over towards it, but not before wiping her hands on the hem of her clothes and concocting a new potion with a shake of her hand.

Gulping down the ice-cold liquid, she felt her wounds heal and her vigor return. The sensory overload from the smell of blood quickly disappeared, while her eyes regained clarity.

Onward to the strange device, she was about to crouch down and grab it when all of a sudden, the hair on her nape stood up and she rolled to the side by sheer instinct.

She heard a loud bang as a bullet whizzed past where she previously stood and pierced through numerous trees in its wake. Her muscles tensed up and she felt her eyes dilate; her beast-like instincts once again reawakened as the remnant potion swirled with mystical power.

'Crap, my buffs are almost over.' She grimaced inside her mind as she twisted her neck to look at the source of the bullet, but she was surprised to see nothing. Only the dark forest of colorful cotton greeted her view.

In the next moment, another loud bang was heard and she once again barely managed to dodge another bullet that came behind her. 'Behind me?'

'Multiple enemies? A quirk?' She tried to find out the source of the danger while she grabbed a handful of vials and tried to concoct more potions.

As she instinctively went to grab her utility belt, she suddenly felt something amiss as if both of her hands passed through something strange. Before she can even turn to look down and see what she just felt, she felt a surreal pain erupt from her hands before the same mystical power once again dulled her senses and calmed her down.

Ignoring the grisly pain, she turned to look down and saw both of her hands were chopped as if they were cut in one swift strike by the world's sharpest blade. 'Shit!'

'How can I concoct potions like this?' She clicked her tongue and remained calm, utilizing the strange mystical remnant in her mind to her advantage. At this moment, she was particularly glad to have Dolian as her teammate, because if not, she would have been knocked unconscious by the normally intolerable pain already.

She hurriedly dodged one bullet after another, all the while fighting through the pain and trying to find a way to create a healing potion and restore her missing hands.

'Container, I need a container!' Pindle clenched her teeth and looked around, trying to find whatever could act as a container for her potion.

Pindle's quirk is both simple and complex. She can create potions using the various formulas and combinations she has created throughout her entire life, and the creations of those potions require nothing other than her mind and energy.

Of course, if she wasn't careful, any wrong step in the potion-making process can result in strange creations like explosives or poisons. This resulted in her reliance on glass vials, containers that can safely go through the creation process and handle any mishaps that may occur.

Just as she was running and thinking, she suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion and fatigue wash over her. Her eyes widened upon realizing this as she muttered, "My time's up."

'There's no time! I can't hesitate anymore!' Her eyes shone brightly as she activated her quirk.

Bang!

A bullet tore through the silent forest, and without having the capacity to dodge, blood and flesh erupted from her chest as she fell down to the ground.

Quietly, from the shadows, Two stared through one of his portals and inspected Pindle's dying body with a cold gaze. "One down."

As he said so, he fixed the strange device once more onto the exposed wires and disappeared after being sucked into the portal that appeared below him.

But as soon as he disappeared, a trickle of green liquid flowed out of Pindle's mouth and the flesh on her chest started to move as if they have a life of their own.

…

Luke was once again back in his small metallic jet form as he flew through the dark and silent forest. The tall spiraling woods and cotton-like leaves made his worries ease for a bit, along with the unbearable guilt that continued to gnaw at his conscience.

He still remembered the way those bodies exploded and splattered all over the beautiful trees; dying them with scarlet blood as a sea of crimson bathed the ground.

The scene embedded into the deepest crevices of his mind continued to replay with each passing second. Even though he was partially a robot already, his human heart still remained strong and vulnerable to his emotions.

Unknowingly, he started to go faster and faster as the trees around him pass by like a blur. He didn't want to remain feeling guilty and instead directed his focus on completing their mission of saving everyone else unless things become too late.

Just as he sped up and was about to arrive at another group to deal with, a portal appeared in front of him all of a sudden. Due to his breakneck speed, he was unable to stop himself and passed through the portal which then hurriedly close as soon as he went through it.

Luke spun around, and he was greeted by a vast blue ocean in the middle of nowhere.

"That's two." Two stared at the sea of crimson in front of him and shook his head. Giving one final look at his dead teammates, Two planted the strange device that is able to suck out the power of the underground bunker on a nearby tree and disappeared once more after walking through another portal.

…

Alastor stared coldly at the suffocating villains in front of him. He tightly clenched his fist, silently counting down the seconds in his head so he can stop stabilizing the air vacuum around them before they suffocate to death.

As he was doing so, he heard a loud bang and something suddenly collided with the invisible wind barrier around his body. His eyes turned alert and he turned to look behind him only to then see a bullet shell landing on the ground with a loud clank.

Just as he turned to look behind him, a portal unknowingly opened up behind him right inside his barrier and the muzzle of a gun was aimed right at Alastor's head.

Two prepared to pull the trigger as he squinted his eyes in delight. 'Another big fish about to die!'

As his fingers made contact with the trigger of the fun, Alastor's ears twitched, and he managed to hear the subtle sound of Two's finger pressing on the trigger that no one else would normally hear. By pure instinct, his wrist flicked and the wind gathered around his fingers.

Before Two could even pull the trigger, a sharp blade of wind shot through the portal, and he hastily moved out of the way but not before continuing with his movement and pulling the trigger.

A loud bang echoed in the silent forest, one not too far away from Alastor who quickly located the source of the loud noise.

Two touched the trickle of blood running down his face and chuckled as he felt the deep wound that surged with pain.

This was quite a surprise as he felt the clear killing intent from that young boy with dark blue hair and ocean-blue eyes, and his last attack clearly aimed for his throat rather than his face. If he did a tiny mistake, maybe it wouldn't be a wound that's his problem but a missing head.

After regaining his calm, Two prepared to open up another portal and continue to pester the young boy when all of a sudden, a bolt of electricity and a blade of wind appeared from nowhere.

Not surprised by these sudden attacks, he remained calm and clear-headed as he opened a portal below him to dodge the attacks in the nick of time.

Appearing right beside the group Alastor was planning on suffocating, Two expected that the air vacuum was already gone since the focus of the boy was disrupted, but he was wrong. Upon going through the portal, he felt the weird environment where there was a lack of air pressure and he could even feel the lack of any breathable oxygen.

Two widened his eyes upon this newfound realization and stared at the dead corpses beside him; a sudden thought emerge, 'There's something wrong here.'

Without any moment of hesitation, Two suddenly raised his arms and conjured another portal beside him as a blue bolt of electricity tore through the air from nowhere. The portal absorbed the electricity bolt, and behind Alastor, the portal that appeared behind him shot out the same bolt of electricity which then collided with the invisible barrier around him.

He grunted as the electric current went through the barrier of air around him as he felt his body get zapped and electrified.

Taking that period of peace, Two waved his arm as a portal appeared right below Alastor's body.

…

Inside Glory Academy Cotton Forest School Camp, Two appeared within a random building and peered out of the window towards one of the few last living groups who were part of this mission. They were busily handling the strange device that kept disrupting the electric current that powered the underground bunker; the final last line of defense before Two and the other four can finally complete this once and for all.

It was so close already that Two can almost grab it with his hands. But as a fiery pillar of flames descended from the sky, he gritted his teeth and watched as all of them burned helplessly under the surge of fire and heat.

By this point, Two already knew that those students have gone insane and resorted to murdering them, an act which he found quite reasonable and logical from a person with no moral standards… but they were heroes and children! It was definitely abnormal to have them resort to murder so quickly and without mercy!

Two opened a portal and landed on a random rooftop. He stared at the fiery beams of death and waved his arms, conjuring another portal right in those beams' path and opening the other end toward Aleksandra.

Using her lightning-fast reflexes, Aleksandra hastily moved through the air and left multiple afterimages behind her wake. In the next moment, her fist was already right in front of Two's fearless face.

'Heh, an easy bait-trap tactic.' Rolling his eyes, a portal he was already prepared to open appeared right in front of Aleksandra.

Before she can stop her movements, she suffered the same anticlimactic end as Luke and found herself stranded in the middle of nowhere.

"Whew…" Two stared at the burning corpses in the distance and shook his head, "Don't worry you bastards, I'll avenge you all soon."

He opened another portal beside him and pulled out a tablet. Staring down at it, he saw a line of text that almost made him cackle in joy.

"Time left before power disappears: 5 minutes." Two smiled and was prepared to open the portals leading to One, Three, Four, and Five and save them in the nick of time when a sudden change occurred.

From the shadows beside him, a young boy with black hair and vertical golden eyes snapped his fingers and Two's body stopped moving.

…

Under the starry night sky, a man flew through the sky with explosions continuously booming out of the soles of his feet while he carried the body of a bruised and bloody young girl in his hands. He turned to look behind him and clicked his tongue, "They're a lot tougher than I originally thought."

Beside them, two cloaked figures rode on a metallic plate, and the young girl with brown hair and brown eyes clenched her fist while grabbing a few metallic marbles, "Magnify!"

She released all of them in one go while the boy beside her, the one controlling the metallic plate, waved his arms as the rapidly expanding marbles quickly became a barrier of steel that blocked the heroes behind them.

"One! It's time!" All of a sudden, they heard Two's voice in their ears and they almost laughed.

"Just in time!" One slowed down his flying speed along with the other two beside him and they saw a portal open up right in front of them.

As they passed through it, they found themselves right in the middle of the camp with Two holding a strange item in his hand whose muzzle was pointed into a portal in midair.

"Holy fuck, what happened to Five?" Two asked in surprise as One dropped her body to the ground.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine." One paused and stared at the charred corpse near them; he shook his head and walked towards a bag from the nearby corpses and took out a syringe with blood-red liquid inside it.

Walking back to Five, he injected it into her bloodstream and they visibly saw her wounds and deformed bones rapidly healing. In a matter of minutes, she'll be brand new.

"Are they asleep yet?" One turned to look back at Two who was pulling out the long muzzle of the strange object he held in his hand and smiled. The strange object he held in his hand was a simple devise that allowed Two to spread out the sleeping gas in the underground bunker so that they can deal with the students without any problems.

"Yep." Two snapped his fingers and a portal opened up right in front of them leading directly towards the underground bunker where over a hundred students were fast asleep, and only a few were on the brink of consciousness.

…

'No!' Blitz stared as five cloaked figures walked through a portal that suddenly appeared in the room. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, but he was unable to move his body. He inhaled too much of the sleeping gas that enveloped the room, and he was once again helpless like before.

"Hahaha! Look at them, sleeping so soundly, maybe they're going to be sleeping forever once those mad scientists get their hands on them." One laughed and patted the short girl with brown hair and brown eyes beside him.

"Ugh, can't you hurry up, Two?" Four—the brown-haired girl urged.

"On it." Two pressed both of his palms toward the air and grabbed at something invisible. As he pulled with all his might, a portal opened up leading into an unknown forest in the middle of the day.

Next, he groaned and rubbed both of his hands, "That was fucking tiring, as always."

"Don't worry about it." One cracked his knuckles, "Once we're done with this batch, we're gonna get a huge boon from Leader and probably a long vacation!"

Just as they were about to go and start grabbing the sleeping students and dragging them toward the portal, they suddenly saw a golden blur rush through the ground at extreme speeds and, with a resounding bang, flew through the air like a cannonball and launched towards the five of them.

Unable to dodge at how it was so sudden, the golden blur and the five were pushed back into the portal and disappeared, leaving behind Blitz who remained conscious till the end to stare in disbelief.

"Dolian…" Blitz bit his lips, "No…"

AN: This chapter has 2902 words.

Damn, my little goblin brain just likes to make things a lot more mysterious and complex than what it originally was. From fucking Soul of Negary power system to galaxy brain schemes and terrifying entities, this novel's just making me struggle. If you want to write a smart character, don't make them too smart.

(April 10, 2023 - 501st day of writing)