Shadows of Regret

Four days have passed since the end of the survival round of the Grava Academy tournament. All thirty-two students who are competing in the tournament have started their preparation.

Unknown is currently walking to Kage's house.

"I've been calling this dude for four days now! I left him alone because I thought maybe he was tired, but he wouldn't leave me unanswered for this long."

Unknown looks at his phone and sees his call log.

"I called this man sixty times; he's treating me like some hoe!"

Unknown reaches Kage's house and knocks on the door. He hears no answer.

"That bitch!"

Unknown starts to rapidly knock on the door.

"I know you're in there asshole!"

After two minutes of knocking, Kage finally opens the door.

"There you are, you..."

Unknown is left shocked after seeing Kage in a drained state. He has bags under his eyes; he looks like he hasn't eaten in a while; and he has bad posture.

"Kage, what the hell?"

"Oh, what's up, Unknown."

Kage falls onto Unknown.

"Ahhh, he's dead! Oh, wait, he's just sleeping."

Unknown takes Kage into the house and sets him on his bed. While he's walking through the house, he sees that Kage's desk has his laptop and a bunch of books on it.

"Kage reading books—that's not like him at all."

Kage wakes up and looks toward Unknown.

"It's 4 PM."

Unknown brings Kage a glass of water.

"What the hell have you been doing in here to get you into that state? Have you even slept?"

"I think I slept two days."

"Oh, that's a lot of sleep."

"Ago"

"What! How the hell have you been up for two days straight?"

"Well, do you remember what Mr.Mink told me when we left his house after a day of training?"

"Oh that"

Unknown starts to remember what Kage is referring to. When he does, he remembers the same day Kage was training his recover technique. Kage and Unknown were walking out of Mr.Mink's house in the afternoon after finishing training for that day.

"Wait a minute, Kage."

After hearing Mr.Mink call him, Kage turns around.

"Oh, what's up, Mr. Mink? You need something."

"No, I just wanted to give you some advice. You should start researching your powers."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"Well, of course, I don't mean research into energy manipulation because I don't even know if that's possible, but you can manipulate any energy, right?"

"I mean, yeah, I can manipulate any type of energy."

"Well, since you love making up attacks so much, you should do some research on different types of energy so you can expand your ability range."

"Wow, that might be a good idea. I will try that."

"Good! Now you two be off!"

After remembering this, Unknown looks back at Kage.

"Oh, so is that what you're researching?"

"Yep, I didn't really take that research Mr.Mink said to do seriously, but after losing to Jason and seeing how powerful Seth is becoming, I realized that if I truly want to fight Paul, then I need to develop my OGI control and my powers at the same time."

"Wait, fight Paul?"

"Oh, come on now, you know I want to fight Paul!"

"Wait, that's your main goal?"

"Don't get me wrong. I want to get back our dagger, but I want to be the one to get it back, not Paul!"

After hearing this, Unlmown starts to think to himself.

"So you just want to get all the glory very typical of you Kage."

Kage gets up and walks over to his laptop.

"I've been trying to do my research, but I'm struggling to figure out how to implement it into my fighting style."

"Have you thought about asking Selena to help you?"

"Oh shit, I didn't think of that!"

"Of course you didn't."

"Oh shut up Unknown; let's just go to Selena's house already!"

"Uhh, maybe you should get some sleep first."

"Yeah, you're right."

At the same time, in the Moro zone, Ketsu is sitting at the bottom of a tree in front of Wayne's birth village. Wayne's birth village has changed a lot ever since Kirata visited it. It has grown into a prosperous village, with Pan, the same man who gave the speech at Kirata's funeral, as its chief.

Ketsu starts typing on his phone.

"Exploiter is really making moves now, but I hope this mission isn't like the last one because going against that monster Nixion was scary.

Ketsu starts to remember his and Exploiter's confrontation with Nixion after invading Grava Academy. Nixon is staring the two of them down on the roof with a stern expression.

"Now that I have your attention, tell me what you're doing on my campus before I have to take extreme action."

Exploiter looks at Nixion directly in the eyes.

"Oh, not even a hi Nixion; you're as serious as ever."

"What are you doing, Exploiter? We need to get out of here! Nixon is probably the strongest OGI user on the planet! There's no way we can beat him!"

"Calm down, Ketsu; we will get out of here alive."

"But ho—"

Nixon appears in front of the two of them with an unchanging expression.

"I gave you my warning."

Nixon goes to grab Exploiter, but when he grabs her, she spits something out of her mouth, and it completely blinds him.

"What!"

"I knew this would happen, so I planted a little bit of poison in my mouth. I know that won't be enough to stop you, but it will give us enough time to escape."

Ketsu and Exploiter jump off the roof onto a car they had ready below.

"Drive Ketsu!"

"I know! I know!"

Ketsu starts driving, but Nixion has recovered from the poison.

"You won't be going anywhere."

Nixon points his finger at the car leaving Grava Academy.

"Blow it up."

"The car instantly blows up, sending car parts everywhere."

Nixon puts his finger down and says, "They escaped."

Ketsu returns to reality and puts his head up.

"I'm going to be honest; I enjoyed just sitting and waiting for L.T.O. to make a move."

"I see you still enjoy talking to yourself, Ketsu."

Ketsu looks straight and sees a muscular 5'9, bald, dark-skinned man wearing black sweatpants and a tight fuzzy black shirt.

"Oh, what's up, Butch? I see you're back from vacation."

"Yeah, I went on a vacation with my girl; we had a lovely picnic, went on a cruise as well, and we shared so many beautiful memories. Damn, she's so beautiful. I love her so much. We were in the Snachro zone, and still, nothing was more beautiful than her."

As Butch brags about his girlfriend, Ketsu looks at him with an annoyed expression.

"This guy is always talking about his girlfriend, and he's even more obsessed than he was last time. This is going to be a long mission."

"Oh, she's so amazing! She must be an angel from heav—"

"OK, that's enough now!"

"Oh, I see you still don't have your own girl to love. Oh, to be young!"

"You're twenty-six years old."

"Wait! I'm twenty-seven now, the same age as my baby!"

"OK, whatever fuckface is Mary coming?"

"Unfortunately, no, she is handling personal business right now."

The sun starts to set.

"OK, whatever, we don't need her right now. This isn't a mission that requires too much. We are only trying to get information out of this old man. Remember, don't kill him; Exploiter will handle him."

"Oh, speaking of the mission, where is Exploiter?"

"Don't play dumb, Butch; you already know she's one step ahead."

"I guess you're right."

Ketsu gets up and cracks his neck.

"Ok, let's go!"

"You got it!"

Butch activates level two and rips a tree out of the ground.

"Time to get big!"

Butch starts to slowly grow bigger and bigger until he eventually becomes 25 feet tall. The tree also grows alongside Butch.

"You ready!"

All the villagers in the village see Butch standing to the right of the village. Ketsu runs up Butch and jumps onto the giant tree.

"Make sure you throw me directly into the building!"

"Of course!"

Butch swings the tree and sends Ketsu flying toward the village."

"Ahhh! Why the hell are we entering like this again? Is it really that serious that I don't let him get a chance to run away?"

Ketsu starts heading toward the big building at the end of the village.

"Dang it Butch, you threw me too far to the left!"

Ketsu creates a clone and grabs it by the leg.

"Now get in there!"

Ketsu throws himself through the building window. When he breaks through the window, he instantly sees Pan sitting at his desk.

"There you are!"

Ketsu lands on both of his hands, and at the same time, Pan jumps out of his seat."

"Who are you?"

"You shouldn't worry about who I am; you should worry about your life."

"What! What have I done to you?"

"I don't know; maybe you should tell me "holder of the dagger"."

Pan's eyes open wide, and he instantly rushes out of the room.

"Oh no, you don't!"

Ketsu creates multiple clones and sends them all across the building. At the bottom of the building, Pan has activated level one and started running as fast as he can.

"What is going on? Who is that guy, and why is he asking me about the dagger? I need to get some protection before it's too late."

Pan runs out of the building, and the second he walks outside, he gets kicked by a Ketsu clone.

"You don't run fast enough, old man!"

Another clone kicks Pan through a hut to the left.

Pan instantly gets up and continues running. As he runs, he sees a beat-down house.

"That place has an escape route, but I can't go over there, or they might find out!"

Pan pushes a woman out of the way and runs to the right. The second he does that, Butch jumps in front of him and punches him back in the direction of the house.

"Hurry up and make this quick, old man. I want to go home and see my girl!"

With blood spilling from his head, Pan gets up and tries to run to the left.

"I have to get out of here!"

Before he can get too far, a bunch of Ketsu clones block off his route.

"Damn it, I have no choice!"

Pan starts running to the beat-down house. Ketsu walks next to Butch.

"Good job, Butch. We did our job. Now we just sit and wait."

Pan runs into the beat-down house and starts rushing to an underground basement under the house.

"This is all too much! Do I really have to go into hiding? Why are they even after me? I haven't done anything in years."

The underground basement is a small room with multiple bookshelves. Pan jumps into the room.

I need to hurry up and use the escape route before they catch up."

"Yes, go ahead and escape, but I have some questions before you do so."

"I should've known."

Pan turns around.

"Exploiter!"

Exploiter is sitting on a luxurious chair, reading a book.

"Hello, Pan It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Yes, it has been, mam!"

"You know, I've just been down here reading all your research notes."

"Oh, you have?"

"Twenty years ago, I entrusted you with finding me a dagger."

"Oh, about that."

"No need to speak; I already know you found one and gave it to the beast king instead."

"Wait, how do you?"

"How do I know that? You're stupid if you think I didn't know. I've known for the past sixteen years, but, as you know, I like to move strategically. So coming to get the dagger when you have the beast king at your side would be pretty much a death sentence. Oh, rest in peace to the beast king by the way. I heard the Moro zone has been going downhill ever since he died."

Pan starts to shiver in fear.

"Just tell me: What you want, Exploiter? I'm sure we can work something out."

"Ok, first, where did you find the dagger?"

"I found it in the middle of an active volcano. It wouldn't show unless the volcano was erupting. The volcano was dormant for eight years. I only found it because I was lucky, and even then, I still almost died from getting it."

"Hmm, were there any clues left to the next dagger?"

"No, not a single one."

"Oh, so it will be harder to find all of them than I thought."

"Can yo—"

"Why did you give the dagger to the beast king?"

Pan clenches his fist in fear.

"Because you, L.T.O., and even the government, all of you only want level three for selfish reasons. Kirata was the only one I felt could be trusted with that dagger."

"So you betrayed me because of morals? How interesting. To think a beast would be more human than the actual humans, or maybe he's like that because he's not human.

"Please, Exploiter! I'm sorry for what I did; it's just that..."

Exploiter closes the book in her hands.

"You realize you fucked up, right?"

"What?"

"Thanks to you, L.T.O. has been able to move their plans forward. I tried to use that idiot Detective Luthor to reveal their plans, but it looks like the world is still going to be caught by surprise."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know!"

"It's not about not knowing you, pathetic insect! You didn't follow my lead, and now soon the entire world will have to pay for it."

Exploiter looks at Pan with anger in her eyes.

"Do you have any more useful information for me? Maybe something can help me fix this mess."

Pan starts to sweat and cry.

"No, I don't."

Exploiter pulls out a gold pistol with a silencer on it and puts it on Pan's head.

"Then you're useless to me."

Exploiter pulls the trigger.

Exploiter wa—!"

Chapter 99 end