I'm not the happiest with this chapter but it is what it is.

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Missions were a breeze and I eventually lost count of how many people I had killed. Was it two hundred fifty or three hundred? I couldn't remember. Plus a lot of the fights were fast and had a lot of bodies. I just let them hit the floor. It was easy enough.

Ardent Sheik got partnered up with me for our next mission. A little town named Xiao Ling. Grimm was the unofficial word but I walked in ready to kill people.

Sheik was fast. She had high combo potential. But she didn't hit particularly hard. Not the way I did. Besides, I was faster than her anyway. Not many people could keep up with my ability to fly.

We got out there and set up to search and destroy. That's about when shit hit the fan. There were these white Grimm bone pods. I guess. And when I entered the area one of them just went off. It exploded. I tried to contain the blast with my telekinesis but I failed.

Grimm particulate went every which way. It touched the grass and the grass turned black. It touched the trees and the trees turned black and white before dissolving into more gunk.

I created a flare and tried to scorch the area before the contagion could spread but it reached the village.

It infected the people.

They became twisted fragments of Grimm flesh and white bone. I had to put them down. Then the stuff got on Shiek. She screamed as the black rode her over. I don't think it hurt and I could feel her aura still. I could feel the panic. I tried to slice the Grimm black flesh off her but her aura got in the way.

When I faced off against her she had shards of Grimm bone clenched between her fists like her needles. She grew more and flung them at me. If I got infected it would be very bad so I used my telekinesis to keep myself clear. I tried striking down airborne particulates and scorching the area but the infestation was spreading out of control.

I started cutting down people then.

Innocent people. Good people. People just caught up in the infection and turned against me. I couldn't risk being taken. With my powers and abilities if I got taken it could be disastrous. I wasn't even sure I could be put down by conventional means.

Sheik came at me. Her Grimm white bone mask looked like her scarf which like all organic material had been absorbed. She hit me and my aura blocked it. It hit me so hard so casually. It was unbelievable how much stronger she was. She launched her needles and tried to combo me. I blocked the needles and caught her with the cross slash. Where I cut her she healed almost instantly and used her aura to go on the offensive with this long kick which showed off her grace and ended in a cartwheel. She grew more needles from her flesh. I didn't know what her semblance was but it scared the fuck out of me.

She telefragged me. She teleported into my space with an explosion and knocked me into the dirt. She tried to combo me while prone but I rolled to my feet with a sweep of my blade. It forced her back a step and I tried to knock her down with my telekinesis. She twisted out of the way of the blast of energy. Then she teleported on top of me again with another explosion. It launched me up and she comboed me with an up air which almost touched me and infected me. She kept up with a forward air and tried to finish with a strong diamond cutter.

I hovered out of the way mid combo. I clotheslined her into the dirt. Once more I barely collided with aura. I mostly hit black flesh and white bone. I wasn't doing enough and the infection was still spreading into the forest around me. This pestilence was protecting her. She didn't need to spend aura on defending herself anymore. She could go on the offensive. I could still feel the fear from her aura which swelled like a bubble into this world. I could really feel it each time she teleported. She was scared. Somewhere in there was Ardent Sheik.

It held me back from fighting in earnest. At this rate I'd lose. Hunters held a lot back for the sake of defense. I still had to but she didn't. I had to keep the air around me clear. She didn't even have to worry about that. They needed people with flame throwers out here to clear this. But someone had to put Sheik down. It had to be me. She could teleport. She could spread this pestilence from the Pandora Shells. She could reach so far. I needed to do something.

I hit her with a flare of magic which scorched her body but it didn't do enough to put her down. I swept into her space with my blade. I tried to keep the Grimm matter down and out of the way. It tried to breach my space constantly. If I wasn't careful I'd inhale some of it.

I hit her clean with my blade and comboed her into a tight arc with my sword. I went all the way around my body and then into a low to high backwards aerial I outright stole from my father's style. I held onto limit. I couldn't spend it yet.

She telefragged me again. I hit a tree hard. She did that arcing kick flip and hammered me into the ground after smashing me through a tree.

I growled. I needed to end this soon. I bisected Soldier Sheik's body and then spent limit on a point blank blast of energy which scorched the earth for fifty meters and burn her body to ash. I simply was not strong enough to spare her life. I didn't know what treatments were available. I just didn't know and she was too dangerous.

I swept away the ashes and superheated my blade to destroy any Grimm on it. I radioed Goldenfold and made my report urgently. She was going to send in the flamethrowers and confiscate my clothes and weapon. I agreed. The infection was slowing down and turning into more Pandora Shells. It reached a certain equilibrium and then it was returning to a state of shells.

I sighed heavily when the bullheads full of contamination crews arrived. They arrested me a little. They confiscated my weapon and clothes and gave me a robe to wear. I didn't resist in the slightest. I put on the robe and they took me in. They scanned my whole body wart of any infection and eventually I was cleared to walk around Mistral again. I didn't really take them up on it. I remained confined to my hotel room.

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-WG