Auction (2)

The auction house had collapsed turning it into ruins. Its remains was scattered everywhere while dead bodies from politicians, businessmen and alike were everywhere not able to leave the building in time before it was broken apart.

But walking amongst the rubble was a figure was a hooded cloaked figure. Their clothes were ragged and dirty with rips and tears everywhere but the little hair that showed was long and bright red like fire. Though now the cloth she wore was more ripped, showing the fur on her clothes with dirty yellow resembling the clothes not made out of cloth but out of fiber. Her tall figure and flaming hot hair stood out from the destruction.

This was the same individual who Arai had found tailing the assassins sent to him.

The woman eventually stopped and looked down. Her arm reaching out from her cape as it revealed a prosthetic arm golden arm and attached to it was a long curved blade resembling on of a katana.

She slashed at the rubble easily cutting through the concrete. Her quick movements revealed an encased glass and within it was the needle of Genghis Khan. Smashing through the glass, she picked up the needle and carefully held in her hand like she was holding a baby.

"At long last, I have found it." She muttered.

Her head suddenly jerked to the side as she narrowly dodged a blade aiming at her head. Backing away to gain some distance, she now had time to find her opponent. The man before her was one of the sorcerers originally planning on taking the needle at the auction. Unfortunately for him, she had completely broken his plan.

"Are you crazy woman? Your actions are practically begging the world's attention! Now more attention will be put on the sorcerer world, I can't believe someone this stupid exists." The man grumbled.

The woman though did not even shed a glance at him as she still looked at the needle in her hands. "It does not matter, a couple of human lives is far worth trading for this cursed tool."

Clenching the needle in her hand, she then proceeded to stab her arm with it. The pain from when she jammed the needle into her arm then disappeared. It was a seething pain but went as fast as it appeared. That was the effect of the cursed tool, the ability to nullify any sort of pain while retaining one's senses.

The needle then proceeded to lunge itself deeper inside the arm and clogged up the wound replacing the skin that was there with the metal at the top.

There her body shook as she took a deep breath audible even to the man facing her.

"Finally." She muttered only to herself.

The man may not have understood what she was doing but he knew that he wouldn't get another chance like this. Immediately he attacked her with his weapon in hand.

But even distracted, she was by no means open. Her blade met with his making a loud clank noise. The man struggled but just then he noticed something strange. Her cursed energy was cutting through his. His sword was being cut despite him having enough cursed energy within them.

"Now!" He screamed at the top of his lung.

Without a moment to waste, six more people jumped from the rubble. Originally hiding themselves, they had waited for someone to create an opening to kill this intruder. After the destruction, the sorcerers had banded together to fight this foe and now upon facing her, they now understood that it was not overkill to go against her.

The woman seeing this sighed deeply. "I did not wish to fight, only to take this item but indeed a massacre should never end with letting a simple few live."

The woman took off the robe covering her revealing the golden prosthetic arm and legs. Her clothes were gold and red with fur on her coat. Cracks and rotten flesh was all over her skin. On her head was a golden helmet covering her eyes with wings coming out of the back.

"I shall take your lives just as you did to my brethren." Tracing with her finger to the blade, cursed energy ran through it as it took in shape a sharp edge.

The six sorcerers jumped at her and attacked. Their attack though did not find their target as she jumped up high in the air. Drawing the blade attached to her palm as backwards as she could. Her movement could not be described as anything but a flurry of fast strikes. The speed at which she swung her blade was so fast that none of the sorcerers could correctly deal with it before perishing resembling a dancer putting into action her set of moves. The attack seemed as if even a drop of water would not be spared from her blade.

A waterfowl dance.

"Monster..." The original sorcerer muttered in shock and fear as he stared at the woman with the corpses of sorcerers surrounding her.

With a swing of her arm, a clean cut appeared on his neck as his head slowly slipped off its original position. The seven sorcerers who had originally planned on killing her and taking the needle for themselves in a matter of seconds were all killed.

"If you had planned on hiding yourself, then it has not worked." Her voice trailing around herself but it wasn't clear as to who it was directly at.

Until the rubble was pushed off, revealing a distinct blue haired man with sunglasses. Arai cleaned off the dirt and dust on his clothes and said irritably. "Those butterflies sure are annoying."

The butterflies that she had released not only served to distract the sorcerers and destroy the auction but to find any other survivors. And unluckily, they had found him.

'Just my luck, I hid under the rubble and with my Heavenly Pact I was invisible to them if they searched with cursed energy. But I guess normal humans have so little cursed energy that they prioritized finding others with simple vision.' Arai thought before squashing a butterfly.

His hand darkened with stain from the butterfly but as well as his skin. Noticing an effect as it seemed that where he had touched the butterfly, dead skin had become much more noticeable.

"I don't sense cursed energy from you and from your demeanor, you are way too calm to be a civilian. In all my years, I have not yet found someone with the ability to not have cursed energy and that remains true to this day. You have some kind of hidden cursed energy, correct? How else would you have been able to see my butterflies as they are cursed spirits." The woman spoke to Arai.

Arai who heard her strategized as well. "Correct and I assume that those butterflies are made by blood. Their body is completely composed of blood when I crushed them and it seems they have some kind of effect to rot my skin whilst your cursed energy has a strange property from what I've seen. It seems like your cursed energy is always forming into a sharp edge, a unique property from your cursed energy, I assume?"

The two remained silent knowing that the other was not an easy opponent. They knew that any not well thought move could mean their demise. But then, Arai lifted his arms in the air showing signs of surrender.

"I have no intent to fight, I simply wish we both come out of here without any conflict. My name is Isao Arai. May I know yours?" Arai asked.

Her eyes narrowed down seeing Arai's signs of submission. "... I am Malenia and how am I so sure you won't be reporting me to other sorcerers?"

"You can make sure by forming a pact with me. I'll simply never tell a soul about what happened here and you do the same while we won't fight one another. Seems pretty fair, right?"

His proposal was met by silence but inwardly Arai could see that she was considering it. It was a fair proposal for him as he didn't want to fight and she wouldn't be taking a bigger risk than she already has. 'I hope she takes it, if she does then we'd both get out of here alive without any harm done to us whatsoever and if worse comes to shove I can just break the contract with my technique without repercussions but if she doesn't... then I'd better be ready to fight.'

The silence finally stopped as she pointed the blade at him. "I refuse."

"May I know why? If you want we can change the details-"

"No." Her voice was firm not letting herself open to discussion. "I won't know if somebody somehow has a mind-reading technique to read your memories, that won't break the contract now would it? That would be disadvantageous for me."

Arai shrugged his shoulders. "That is a hypothetical and highly improbable situation."

"But one that can come true, anything can happen that is something my experience has taught me and yet that is not why I will deny this request. It is because you are far too composed, you most certainly have a plan to somehow play around the pact. What I hate the most are people with venomous mouths. I hate them... very much. It is by far more efficient to just dispose of you right here."

"That-" Pulling out a scabbard out of the rubble, Arai unsheathed the blade within it revealing a katana with a jet-black blade and white strings on the blades handle. "Is assuming that you have what it takes to 'dispose' of me."

"Then shall we find out, if I have the might to do so."