VI

Chapter 33: The Book of Lies

Constellation_Diagram

Part 1

He finally opened his eyes.

Where was he? How much time has passed?

Slowly, the memories of what had happened earlier flashed through his mind. That's right… The members of Evening Dusk were pursuing me and then, in order to escape, I...

He got up, still feeling a little dizzy. After launching himself towards Academy City, it seemed he had landed on top of some kind of mall. And looking at the sky, it seemed that at least an hour had passed since then.

Due to the lights of the city, it was hard to see the stars from there, but even so, he could feel his body being bathed in their power. Now he was fully prepared for combat, even if it was too late. "More importantly though, I ended up really losing it..."

He was referring to the item that had been sent here with him. It was indeed nowhere to be found. Still, there was no sign of worry in the boy's expression as he removed his hood, revealing his dark skin, deep black short hair and same colored eyes staring towards the direction where the windowless building should be. "I better take it back fast. Master Hamapep won't be happy if he finds out that I let go of it to save my own skin. Specially in this place."

Part 2

As usual, things didn't go as planned.

It was night time now. The movement in the streets of the city inhabited mostly by students had started to diminish, and in contrast, the activity of the dark side was about to increase considerably. It was on that boundary that Shouta and Kumiko ran for their lives while carrying the silver suitcase marked with the District 23 logo.

"Haah… W-why?! Where did all these people come from?!"

"Don't think, just run!"

At first, the only ones pursuing them were the passengers of the armored vehicle they had taken down some time ago. But it seemed they weren't the only ones after it. So when the two teenagers wrecked their target and took the cargo, they ended up becoming the target themselves, and now the situation turned into a race to see who managed to take their heads first. And speaking of which, a wide blade was flying towards them at neck's height like a guillotine hungry for blood.

"Shouta!"

The girl panicked when her partner stopped suddenly and prepared to take the attack head on. However, he was not planning to get hit. He launched a red dice towards his left and blinked.

*Swoosh*

In an instant, the tiny cube and the deadly weapon swapped places, meaning they were safe for now. The important part though was: who had done that and how? Was it some form of psychokinesis? There were many shadows approaching from the distant street corner behind them, the many flashes of light showing they were also fighting each other, but none of them seemed to be using the same attack method from before.

Before he could continue, Kumiko pulled on his arm and dragged him towards an alley on their right. "Stupid! That was dangerous!"

"It was about to hit us!"

"Still! What would you do if you had failed!?"

Shouta's ability was called Swap Point. He was a Level 2 teleporter that could swap the position of multiple objects within an undetermined range. All that sounds great on paper, but there was a catch: it wasn't all that reliable. First of all, he could only activate it with a small object that he could easily identify in a blink - literally. His eyes were the trigger. If he blinked without identifying the items he was teleporting, it would not work, hence why he had chosen to always use colorful dice as the "Point A" to swap places with the object at "Point B".

Unfortunately for him, this ended up being a two edged sword. For some unknown reason, his subconscious had developed an annoying quirk. If the number displayed by the dice at the time of the activation wasn't high enough, his power would not work. And what was high enough, you may ask? No one knew. At moments it seemed to be related to the size of the object he wanted to teleport, but oftenly it was completely random. He even tried to use rigged dice, or mark all sides with 6, but that only resulted in a 100% failure rate. The theory the researchers came with was that this was caused by his lack of confidence, but there was not enough evidence to back that up.

So it was indeed a risky bet to attempt a move like the one he had just done. Any rebuttal he could try here was not going to satisfy Kumiko. "If they try anything like that again, leave it to me. I can make the attack move right through us, remember?"

The boy didn't respond. Insead, he ended up looking at the reliable and yet fragile arm pulling him. It was full of scratches from her using her ability on the trunk before to get the suitcase. If that was enough to leave her this hurt, what would happen if she used that power to escape from the attack just now?

He would never allow that to happen. And telling her that would only make her even angrier. This contradiction pained Shouta, but he had more important issues to take care of. "Never mind that! What do we do? At this rate…"

"I'm… I'm thinking!" Kumiko replied in between her rugged breathing just before taking a sudden turn into another alley. As soon as that happened, the whole street exploded in a light blue smoke. Whatever that was, it couldn't be good. For a brief moment, they were relieved to have avoided it.

But then despair sank in.

The alley was narrow, so their foes would have trouble following them with so many people. That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that it was a dead end.

They came to a stop and didn't even dare to say anything. Going back was not an option. High buildings with no big enough gaps between them surrounded the two. Hiding in the dumpster or going inside a manhole were the oldest tricks in the book, they were going to get caught for sure if they tried that.

Urged by the approaching footsteps, Shouta came up with an idea. "Kumiko, lend me the case for a sec."

"Eh? What are you go- Wait!"

*Crash*

One by one, Shouta smashed all the windows he could reach by swinging the silver suitcase at full strength. Then he picked one of them at random and threw the object inside before jumping in himself. "C'mon!"

The girl followed, disregarding her clothes. Even though this was far from being a solution, it would at least give them some time.

The room inside seemed to be a cramped toilet. They wasted no time and dashed through the door in search of a way upstairs. A few people in the hallways gave them weird looks, but no one got in their way.

After climbing at least eight floors, they choose to go inside a half opened room, lock the door and finally take a break.

"Ahh…ahh… nice thinking, Shouta."

"Hehehe… thanks."

"What now?"

Obviously, he didn't think it that far and she knew it. They kept quiet for a moment while staring at the cursed treasure that got them into that situation.

"Hey…" the boy broke the silence. "And what if we just left it here and hid somewhere else?"

The girl's eyes widened in surprise. "You don't mean you want to give up just like that?"

"You saw how many of them there were, didn't you? They are going to get us sooner or later."

Kumiko narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "That doesn't sound like you. What is it? Be honest with me."

Shouta laughed nervously before answering. "I'm sorry… I messed up again…" And then, he showed her something that would change the situation for the worse.

There was a large cut on his leg, very close to the ankle. He probably got hurt with the glass shards when jumping through the window.

"Shouta…" All she could do was call his name. This injury, combined with the shot he had taken in the arm earlier made it impossible for him to keep running away like they had done until now.

"It's okay if you want to go without me. I'll do my best to delay them and give you as much time as-"

"Stupid! I would never do that!" The girl lashed out, as if he had offended her. "How could I just leave you behind injured like this?! That will never happen!"

"Ah-" The action was so sudden that Shouta took a moment to understand what had happened. Kumiko closed the distance between them in a blink and embraced his body while continuing to murmur "never… never…" over and over again under her breath. All the pain he was feeling slipped from his mind as he felt her warmth, making his heart racing like crazy.

Letting go of him after a while, she assured him with a kind look in her eyes. "We will get out of this together, okay?"

Part 3

Yuna had woken up at some point during that afternoon while no one else was in the facility. When Hideaki, Daisuki and Miyuri came to check on her later, she was sitting up on the bed looking melancholically towards the window.

"Y- Yuna-sama!" Miyuri shouted of happiness and would've jumped over her leader if it wasn't for Daisuke holding her back by her collar.

"I am glad to see you are doing fine." He said in his usual tone, but it was clear that he was also holding back his emotions.

Yuna, however, paid the two no heed and continued staring outside as if no one was there.

"Yuna… sama?" Her lack of reaction drained all excitement from Miyuri as she asked, worried. "Are-are you okay?"

"Hm." Nodded the girl, still not turning around to face them.

An awkward silence followed as the three visitors looked at each other not knowing what to do. Hideaki sighed and signalled for the other two to leave. Daisuke understood and turned around, dragging the younger girl with him. "Well then, you will have to excuse us. We just wanted to see you before our next mission."

"Huh? W-wait, that's too soon! I don't wanna go yet? Yuna-samaaaaaa!"

After they left and Hideaki confirmed the door was properly closed, he dragged a chair close to the bed and sat down. "They were really worried about you, you know."

"Yeah…"

"Daisuke-kun told me what happened. That makes it the second time you almost got yourself killed using the booster the overseer gave you."

She seemed very displeased to know that he had heard about it, but kept the uninterested tone. "So what?"

"That's not like you, Yuna. You don't have to keep doing this if you don't want to."

"But I need to!" She finally turned to face him with her eyes full of tears, but she didn't let a single one drop down. "If I manage to master that power, I'll be unstoppable! You had to see it yourself. I kept my fire going even without oxygen! How amazing is that? Not even a level 5 would be able to do-"

"There's no point if you die doing it, you fool! This is no longer our attempt at revolution! No one will even notice if you were to lose your life-"

"Shut up!" Her outburst caught him by surprise, making Hideaki swallow his words in shock. "I don't care about any of that anymore! There's no point! This city… this world… doesn't want to become a better place to anyone! All that matters is whether you have enough power to survive in it or not!"

She brought her own trembling hands close to her face and stared at them for a few moments before clenching both into fists and continuing her rant in a lower tone. "You understand, don't you, professor? After all, you had enough power to survive back then. I just got lucky, but… everyone else… Yuko…"

Her voice got stuck in her throat and she couldn't continue speaking after that. Hideaki let out another sigh and looked out the window, unable to face her anymore. "I see, so that's what this is about." He couldn't say it out loud, but the fact that she was not tricked into all of this by the overseer was a relief. Still, this situation is…

"Yuna, it is still not too late. If you want to, I can get us out of this place. Like you said, I am strong. Strong enough for the both of us. You don't need to fight anymore."

"Are you suggesting that I live in your shadow forever?" Her voice carried a hint of irony. "How could I do that? I… would never be able to face Yuko if I did it."

"I was afraid that you would reply like this"

"Sorry, but I've made up my mind. And… sorry for dragging you into this, professor."

"I also made up my mind the day all of you entrusted me with your lives for my selfish goal. And as long as at least one of you is alive, it is my duty to protect you to the best of my ability." A few seconds of silence followed. Then Hideaki stood up and walked towards the door. "Rest well, Yuna. And give my suggestion a little more thought."

Even after he had left, Yuna didn't move. There was no one left to hear her words, but she still couldn't help but speak her thoughts out loud. "I'm really, really sorry professor. But I can't. I just can't go on as if nothing happened."

All the tears disappeared as she reached deep within herself for her source of motivation, bringing a new bright, yet cruel, light to her eyes. Inside her mind, the image of those who she had lost slowly faded away and got replaced by the silhouette of the boy that had taken everything from her that day.

Part 4

"There they are!"

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

As predicted, they were found after leaving the building. Two men quickly broke in pursuit while Kumiko and Shouta both pulled the suitcase along. Thanks to the boy's injuries, their pace was nowhere near to what it used to be, and even though sharing the weight of the cargo helped and kept them in the same rhythm, it was clear they wouldn't be getting away this time.

The pursuers couldn't relax however. The direction they were headed led to a busy avenue. It seemed that their intentions were to mix in the crowd, believing that the others would hold back in front of the public eye.

That, of course, was a naive thought. If the dark side cared for that, there would be no reason for an organisation like WATCH to exist in the first place.

The first ones to act were the most reckless. The members of the very group that the two teenagers had stolen the cargo from managed to pick some heavy weaponry at some point and, from very far behind, fired a high explosive rocket launcher that covered the distance between them in a matter of seconds.

There was a bright flash. Probably a loud noise followed, but Kumiko and Shouta could no longer hear anything.

The boy could barely open his eyes and try to understand what had happened. Blood, fire, debry, corpses. Those filled his blurred vision.

Kumiko… Kumiko? Where is she?!

His body was not responding well, so it took a while for him to look around and find her collapsed several steps away from him, holding onto the suitcase for her dear life. Behind her were the bodies of several of their pursuers which, judging by their state, were the ones to take the direct hit from the missile.

And approaching from that direction was the man holding the rocket launcher.

He kicked the corpses out of the way as he got closer, stopping beside the fallen girl. His hand tried to pull the suitcase away from her, but she wouldn't let go.

Clearly annoyed, the man stomped on her. Shouta could see the agony on her face, but her screams didn't reach his ears that still hadn't recovered from the loud blast earlier. He desperately tried to stand up and defend her, but it was all in vain. The muscles of his body simply didn't respond, and any effort he made tipped him closer to the edge of passing out.

After hitting Kumiko over and over again, the aggressor finally managed to knock her away and take the package away from her, walking away satisfied.

Or did he?

Shouta remembered what had happened before the two left the building.

…

There wasn't much inside the room that would help Kumiko and Shouta to survive the dire situation. They didn't dare to turn on the lights to avoid any unnecessary attention, so it was a little difficult to look for anything in their surroundings.

However, it was exactly for this reason that a certain thing picked the girl's interest.

The only well lit part of the room was near a broken window. And lying on top of the glass shards there was a heavy book badly wrapped in a ragged white cloth.

"This will do", said the girl, opening the silver suitcase without hesitation. They were not supposed to mess up with the contents, but now was hardly the time to worry about details. She didn't even think twice about the electronic components locked inside the transparent plastic box as she removed them from the suitcase and wrapped it in the cloth. Then she placed the book inside the case before closing it again.

"What are you doing?" Shouta didn't quite get her intentions, but the girl only smiled mischievously in return.

…

So that was her goal all along?

Kumiko opened her eyes, and even though she was badly beaten up, still grinned from ear to ear towards him. The person that took the suitcase didn't care to check for the contents, thus falling right into the trap she had set. All they had to do now was go back into the building and recover the true treasure of this insane hunt.

Speaking of which, something was happening in that room at the exact same time.

The dark skinned boy wearing grey robes jumped inside through the broken window, following the traces of his own manna left in the object he had used to cast the spell that saved his life.

However, the object was nowhere to be seen. All he had found was the cloth he used to hide it, but it was wrapped on a transparent box instead of the book he was meant to take back home.

Just what in the world had happened to it?

The thought that maybe the members of the Exit of the Evening Dusk had infiltrated the city and taken it crossed his mind, but he quickly discarded the possibility. They weren't reckless enough to infiltrate Academy City unprepared, let alone being able to locate the book before him.

Then a second scenario popped into his mind. One far worse, capable of ruining not only the whole plan, but one that would also cause countless victims. "Oh boy, this is not good. Not good at all."

Between the Lines

Everything drowned into chaos in a matter of seconds. The whole port turned into a warzone. Still, the members of the Golden Sages of the Next Aeon continued to carry out their duties taking out the cargo from the docked ships that came from all over Europe.

The only ones engaged in combat were the three pillars that held the whole organisation together: Lillian, Myrin and Rázval. Without breaking a sweat, the Trinity Crown were fighting toe to toe against multiple members of the Down-Colored Sunlight.

However, this was not a one sided battle. Despite the absurd fact that they were holding their ground, the opposing faction managed to break their formation, splitting the three of them apart. In a long dragged battle, this could pose a problem for them.

Or rather, for the other two.

This fact did not bother Rázval in the slightest.

Even among those monsters, he was unanimously considered to be the strongest by everyone in the cabal. His self-proclaimed title of former magic god was not just for show, and even those that did not believe his story could not deny the possibility after witnessing what the old magician was capable of doing.

After all, just by standing there perfectly still, many of the enemy combatants had let go of their weapons, dropping to their knees, unable to do anything else. It seemed stupid on the surface, but it cpuldn1't be helped. The man had somehow destroyed their will to fight by changing their perception of him and their surroundings. It was the same spell he had used to casually go in and out of Academy City without anyone finding it odd or suspicious.

"This spell was not made for fighting, but… oh well. It is still surprising that so many of you are capable of avoiding the effects."

Indeed, many of them were down before even trying to fight, but not all of them were affected. Those who were still on their feet charged towards him casting multiple spells at the same time. Rázval had his hand almost pull his tarot card out to fight back, but decided it wasn't necessary after gauging his foes. He instead charged back at the closest one carrying the bubbling green flames on his hands and leaving a burning trail on the path.

There was no clash of power. The woman opposing him had all the mana she had been channelling disappear in a blink while her whole body engulfed by the odd collared fire. "HYIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"!

She seemed to be the only target, but others around started to suffer from the same effect one after the other, making the rest hesitate. "What… is this? What has he done?"

"That's… oh no, stop looking! Don't try to understand it! That's not a spell!" The warning from the more experienced magician came a bit too late for some of his squad as more of them were being consumed by the fire, making the man click his tongue.

"If you avoided the effects of the Flames of Knowledge, it means you are wiser than you look. Either that or…"

"Curse you! How… how can you wield something like that?!" The man did not know exactly what was that green fire, but he had seen countless people lose their lives before from the same symptoms his allies were suffering. That was not an attack. Their minds were being corrupted by forbidden knowledge. This is exactly what happens to someone when they try to use a grimoire without the due preparations.

How was he not affected then?

The answer was hidden beneath his shirt, attached to a chain hung around his neck. It was the only shield and the only weapon capable of dealing with this, so he pulled it out without delay.

"Now this is an interesting development." Rázval said with a dark grim as he stared at the small book acting as a collar pendant. That was a grimoire without a doubt. "This is going to be more entertaining than what I initially expected."

The man opened the book, and with an angry roar, dashed towards Rázval who simply increased the intensity of his flames. That was the last time his voice was ever heard.

Hi. It has been a few years now, hasn't it?

Yeah, it has been… rough to say the least, but I'm not gonna bore you all with the details. Things have gone chaotic all over the world, and I had it really bad. I considered even giving up on writing at all, but month after month I would check in on the site and see that more people kept reading my story, even after being abandoned for so long. I don't get why. I thought everyone would probably have moved on after so long. In any case, it gave me strength to come back and finish what I have started… or at least try to. Thank you all for the support you have given me over all this time. I hope I can keep you all entertained for as long as this keeps going.