Chapter 65 Awareness in the Darkness
The Dark Triad.
The heart of all malevolent natures in human minds.
Narcissism, the bedrock of grandiosity, pride, egotism, and the lack of empathy.
Machiavellianism, the seed of manipulation, exploitation, deception, and the focus of self-interests.
Psychopathy, the core of selfishness, callousness, remorselessness, and the behaviors of anti-society.
Truly, they contribute to the death of all ethics and morality.
Those who possess qualities from the above compose inevitably the darkest portion in our civilizations.
Darker than anything the society encompasses.
Darker than black.
…
Hei, an artificial living being, besets his unparalleled reasons for his goals. There are no friendships, sensations, or principles in his line of work. Survival is the key, and he would have committed anything atrocious if it were to be beneficial to his own liking.
Can the Night Raid assassins be labeled as his acquaintances? Conceivably. It is really just a trade in his own eyes. With his presence, the assassins can provide him crucial information about the Revolutionary Army, and thus his search for other bearers of contractor souls would be greatly abridged. Furthermore, it is imperative to keep an eye on one of the most dangerous bearers out there – the Izanami herself.
That being said, there should not be any obligations for him to concern about the wellness of the young assassins, right?
"Quantitively unremunerative. Trade mistakes consequential. Subjective judgements introduce impotent dispossessions."
Steadily holding onto the pair of throwing axes in his hand, the masked man undeviatingly uses his weapons to fend off the oncoming vertical slash from the cane sword, stopping the blade from cutting through the frontal bones of the dismayed pinkette.
"Abdomen bone fracture severe. Left Humerus damaged. Body vitality at most fifty-five percent. Continuing combat unproductive. Self-reliance able for full-retreat. Go."
You know, Hei, it would be much nicer if you can express that "I will hold the enemies as you retreat" in a more humane way, especially when you are talking to an emotionally devastated assassin.
"But, but –"
Mine turns her gaze from the Black Reaper to the young general, to the Imperial Police Captain, to her Teigu, and finally to Sheele. Latently, her heart is telling her that she should not leave the body of her friend to be dismembered by that giant monster. Also, maybe just a little, she is rather grateful for Hei to appear in the most crucial moment –
The interlocked pair of conflicting weapons are swiftly retrieved by their respective users. The silver-haired general relocates himself for a more accessible position, and swings his weapon after a full counter-clockwise body revolution.
CLANG!
"Foolishness. Narrow-minded acumen, absolute absurdity."
Never mind. That man is still a jerk.
CLANG!
Junius extracts the blade from the locking position, and thrusts it directly at Hei's left rib cage, while the man in black parries the sword with the axe in his left hand.
Biting down her teeth, the injured pinkette takes a last look at the body of her purple-haired friend, and half-heartedly stumbles toward the layers of trees.
"Bastard! I don't care if you live or die…"
While reassuring herself that it does not matter to her if Hei dies on the battlefield, a loud command cuts Mine off in the middle of her murmuring, causing the pinkette to hastily raise her footsteps as she lays a final view on the Black Reaper.
"No! Damned Night Raid! Damned scoundrels! Koro, kill her!"
Hearing the order from its master, the monstrous being unleashes a thundering battle cry, and dashes toward the escaping assassin.
"Reaction force collected. Momentum derives estimation of body mass. Position diagram assembled. Calculating center of mass. Moment of inertia constitutes general balance. Gravitation acceleration distributed over irregular densities. Collision sounds suggest materials of composition. Wavelength, frequency, and speed verify predictions. Structural analysis complete. Launching force vector determined."
Just like a real-time battle computer, the Black Reaper swiftly dodges a horizontal back kick from the one-eyed general, and contracts his right arm toward his chest.
"Electron Manipulation, Type-Beta."
Discharging the metal weapon with a precisely calculated electric potential, Hei pushes himself back from the current battleground, landing outside of Junius' range of attack.
"Electron Manipulation, Type-Gamma."
Feeling invisible magnetic field he deployed above the stony ground, the Black Reaper immediately releases the folded right arm as a motion for a horizontal swing, sending the charged metal axe sweepingly through a parabolic path.
ZAP!
ROAR!
The axe brutally engraves itself into the left leg of the giant creature. The high amount of electricity successfully disrupts the internal connection system of the biological Teigu for a second, creating a small malfunction in the communication process between its central core and that specific leg, leaving the monster crash itself onto the ground because of its unbalanced distribution of force.
"Well done, well done, assassin. Even though you presented yourself as a carrier of the Dark Triad qualities, you still managed to grant a flawless escape for your teammate."
Upon seeing Hei's masterful display of control in his previous attack, Junius lets out his signature simle toward the masked man once again, and points his cane sword directly to the center of that pale mask.
"The real show should start now."