It was the flash of light that signified the boys' arrival.
The decrepit scenery of rusted-over containers blossomed and bloomed extensively in the otherworldly brilliance.
When the angelic white peaked and flared, a portion of the container port reinvented itself, and the sections of that area bathed in the untouchable rejuvenance
However, as quickly as the light appeared, it disappeared, and everything returned back into how it perpetually used to be.
Run downed and abandoned.
Almost all the ships were sunken and most, if not all the containers were eaten into by rust.
And, it was among two 40 feet wide stacks of discolored shipping containers, that the boy, named Touma Kamijou, appeared.
He postured himself upright against the left-sided container. His shoulders heaving quite shakenly as he fought to regain control of his fast-beating heart. Ultimately, he failed. But that did not mean he would just give up.
Grasping his hand tightly at his own hoodie, Kamijou clenches his fingernails deep into the flesh of his chest. His hands were shaking, insanely scratching at the synthetic fiber of his hoodie as if struggling to get rid of something.
It was the only thing he could do.
The only thing he could think of to do, to calm himself down.
He breathed a hard yet quacking breath—in and out— and, after several beats of his pounding heart, salvaged back control over the raging, dreadful, repulsive sea.
Kamijou consciousness is back now. But he no longer needed the support of the solid steel wall. Nor the gesture of pressing his fingertips into his chest.
This was the best way.
The only way.
He can do this. There is no turning back now. He needed to be strong. Not for himself but for Index, his friends and family, and everyone who resided within his world and the other.
As those thoughts began to jumble up together in his mind and he tried to list the reasons why Kamijou finally came to the sudden realization of the time.
It was a half an hours time before the sun would set.
Meaning, in his case, a very bad time for the brightness caused by teleportation.
This meant Kamijou needed to move. However preferably to somewhere where he could take advantage of that major drawback.
Because, the fact is, without a doubt, the person who was offered out to kill him already knew of his location.
Kamijou stepped out from between his cover and ran in the forward direction, cautiously switching from behind shipping container to shipping container as he tried to get an idea of the layout to best get the drop on his enemy.
He had moved past another small stack of discolored shipping containers; However, right after the said moment, he jogged past a 20 ft orange one...
'...Hamazura—!'
Kamijou let out a gasp of shock when he saw the blonde-looking boy.
But. Mere seconds after the fact.
As immediately as when that name popped up into his mind, he had already instantaneously reached out his hand and gripped the lock rod/door locking rod located on the rusted over orange shipping container.
"— Nhg!"
He could do nothing but moan in pain as his body was forcibly jerked backwards in the opposite direction; Which, had consequently dislocated his right shoulder and slammed him, back first, into the asphalt road.
Kamijou got a nail hammering headache, but sadly for him, he didn't have the luxury to do anything about it.
Because, then— At the exact same moment he had jerked…
[— BANG— !]
A thunderous sound immediately followed that made the young lad's blood curdle.
That was the roaring sound of a gun being set off.
'Wh-why?!'
Before he could show any signs of being anxious or tense, Kamijou then immediately contorted himself from off the asphalt road and sprinted back in his previous direction.
There was a narrow passageway to the left of that direction, past the main service road for the automated vehicles. It led into a vast web of shipping containers that were arranged uniformly, so the perfect place for him to lose the tail of the blonde teenage boy.
He pressed his forehead to a blue container and took a few moments to catch his breath.
This is bad.
Kamijou was, even more, paler than he was during his first-ever fight against a magic side character.
Stay calm.
He was nervous. Way more nervous than then.
He can't do this. It can't be done.
He didn't let his guard down. Kamijou expected Othinus would enlist the service of people he was closest to— but Hamazura?!
He was barely able to defeat him back then, and now that boy has a gun.
If he was up against a saint then this would be a whole different complaint. At least he knew how to take care of them, and, seeing the way this area was laid out, that made forcing them to self-destruct all the more easier.
The power residing in his right hand—Imagine Breaker—wouldn't let him win against something so deadly as a gun. So, Kamijou would have to play this even more cautiously than all of his accumulated fights.
Which means no surprise attacks or ambushes until he first ascertains that blonde boy's arsenal.
But first, before anything, Kamijou needed to deal with his dislocated shoulder. He turned his body sideways and anxiously but quickly ram his right side into the wide metal surface.
"Oomph!"
A subdued grunt escaped his tightly gritted lips but due to it being suppressed, it wasn't loud enough to be heard.
But that's when something shocking happened.
[— PANG— !]
There was a huge sound of impact which seemed to echo through the whole complex maze of shipping containers.
A symphony of screeching noises immediately followed and the right container beside Kamijiou started moving in.
'How!'
The sound still continued but with a few quicken steps, Kamijou avoided being squished.
He brushed past another incoming shipping container and instead of running out of the complex maze, opted to ascending atop the stacks of containers. But first, he must find a foothold convenient way to scale a container.
Hence why he continued further in, while trying to keep close to any container walls; out of sight of Hamzara in case, the boy planned to get the drop on him.
Flattening himself against two narrow container walls, he edged his way to, thankfully, a front-facing container; Where he then made use of the shipping container door to hurriedly make his way up to the top.
The slight wind that met his face felt comfortable but the unlucky sight of seeing Hamzarua in a, somehow functioning, container truck vehicle made young Kamijou turn pale.
He shot off from the current container roofing and dash out towards another, heading directly in the adjacent location where another web of complexly organized shipping containers assembled.
Hamazura saw this and noticed his plan so he partially exited the vehicle to open up fire on Kamijou.
However, due to the multiple rises and falls making out the course for that straight shot ahead, Kamijou was able to avoid getting riddled with the many bullets of the Beretta M9s pistol.
He jumped down to another shipping container—dodging his twelfth round—and, acting on reflex, crouched down, mid-stride, to barrel roll off the final shipping container edge.
He landed on the asphalt road with a not-so-subtle sharp cry and a blaring aching pain radiating from his just popped in shoulder.
Though that was just a dull prick of pain to him and a couple heaps of containers blocked and separated Hamazura view from him, Kamijou still quickly pushed himself up and disappeared into the next maze of multicolored shipping containers.
'SHIT!'
And that was a smart move—Because, just a couple seconds later.
[— BOOM— !]
A large explosion of fire and asphalt erupted out.
Kamijou didn't forget. He would never forget—that that boy had a tactical military vest over his orange hoodie.
One after another more grenades rained down; Shrapnel went flying and shipping containers got dented and pierced. Those containers that were effectively hit by the explosive blast all collapse from their high and stagnant positions. And, treading among that unpredictable peppering chaos was Touma Kamijou.
He didn't sustain much injuries; a few scratches here and there—blood dripping from his lips and a gash along his chin— but ultimately, he was still in peak condition.
He cut through his seventh passageway but not in trying to repeat the same prior events as last time. Hamazura was only launching the grenades with his arms. If Kamijou just came out of the throwing range then he was sure he would be safe.
And once he did, the bet paid off. Regardless if Hamazura ran out of grenades' to chuck at him or if he couldn't throw far enough, it didn't matter. He was at a safe distance.
However, there was something that didn't make sense to him. How did Hamazura know of his location earlier? He was sure he was swift in his retreat to the arranged pile, so how did that blonde boy still track him down and with enough foresight to get a container truck?
The only logical explanation is if that boy had set up some cameras.
It couldn't be the port's regular ones. No, that wouldn't explain why it looked like Hamazura was loitering around that brief moment when they met.
"So was it a mounted camera?"
It couldn't be a drone. Kamijou didn't see any at any point. And besides, wouldn't it have been used at the start of everything? So it was definitely a mounted camera. How much and where didn't matter much, however. Because, if Hamazura brought those with him then that means there is also a bag full of other kinds of stuff.
And he is separated from it— His arsenal.
Kamijou just needed to come up with a game plan from here on. Should he find out where the arsenal was now? Or maybe he could just pressure the boy until he runs out of magazines? There were too many hiding places around the port after all. Some that would immediately give away his position. But what if he takes advantage of that. And what if he forced Hamazura to use up that said arsenal.
"There are many ways to go about this but I just need to choose the best one."
Kamijou breathed a heavy breath out then in to focus. In a mere passing second, a modified thought found its root in a section of his brain.
"Yosh!"
It was a good idea. A little risky but this whole situation was gambled with his life on the line.
To begin, Kamijou must first gather an arsenal of his own. Only then could it be time for him to strike.
"Haah...! Haa..ha...!"
It was close to becoming dark.
"Haah...! Haa..ha...!"
Just a couple more minutes.
—Approximately two minutes and nineteen seconds have passed since then.
And, it was around that time frame that Kamijou ran back into Hamazura.
Their battle continued to rage on with the same restless intensity as their previous two encounters.
Hamamazura giving Kamijou one heck of a chase; perusing him through multiple rows of shipping containers, then up, over and along a towering rail-mounted gantry crane—All through various places, everywhere Kamijou went and every time he made a detour—before now tearing through another shipping container maze that was more neatly organized than the previous ones before it.
Pieces of rust flew into the air and there was a light fragrance of sweat and gunpowder.
'Ahh!'
Kamijou gasped from the terribly metallic resonances nearby—that time a bullet almost nicked him!
As a second round of gunfire echoed out in succession, Kamijou dashed towards another turn in his path—wherein he avoided the trajectory of the successive gunshot by effectively making use of the surrounding shipping containers.
Behind him, Hamazura still kept up pace. His feet were sluggish and tangled, as if he could collapse at any given moment—and he fired off a third resounding gunshot.
By the time the bullet boomed within the narrow and confined passageway and scented the multicolored area in gunpowder, it had already eaten into Kamijou's right pants leg—a tiny graze a couple of inches below his hamstrings.
But other than that Kamijou had managed to make it safely into the immediate corner on his left; Where, he then instantly ditched his sprint, mid-stride, and took a lurching step forward, quickly finding his footing as he forcibly pressed the sole of his feet on the hardened ground.
He was 3 paces away from that disembarked point.
Just a good enough distance to start the immediate counterattack.
Straight away, Kamijou reached into his hoodie's left side pocket, where he then pulled out a shirt that had long been drenched in sweat and stained with rust and dirt.
The orange undershirt fabric was stripped down clumsily to form an abstract primitive rock sling, which Kamijou had filled with slabs of asphalt and slices and portions of rust and dirt.
He winded the weapon up, for what felt like hours, but couldn't have been no more than three seconds, before seeing the black nylon upper body of Hamazura entering into the corner.
An explosion of rust, asphalt, and dirt scattered out, showering outward towards Hamazura's direction where it then mercilessly assaulted his face and entire body.
Hamazura groans in pain because of the multiple types of edges biting into his skin. However, he was still able to maneuver his body fast enough to dodge the full brunt of the attack—moving so quickly backwards that it almost looked like he himself was a spring that mechanically leaped itself across the floor.
Hamazura retreated back around the corner, but Kamijou hurriedly pursued after him while he, at the same time, pulled out another weapon from his hoodie's second pocket.
He launched himself outside, out of the alleyway where his eyes then fell onto Hamazura aiming his modified pistol directly at him.
But that didn't stun him. He already accounted for such a reaction.
In the brief moment that Kamijou saw this, his right hand had already swiftly executed his play.
It happened in just an instant—But a 500 yen coin fired from Kamijou's palm and struck Hamazura cleanly in the left eye.
"Arghhhh!"
With it came a sharp cry of pain that made Hamazura stagger backwards, unbalanced, as well as the momentary opportunity Kamijou was waiting for.
So his crushed shoulder, which bore excruciating dreadful pain when slammed, shoulder first, into the concrete asphalt floor, wasn't of concern right now. Nor was the throbbing aching gorge that remained of his ear after Hamazura accidentally missed his head for.
Right, he needed to move.
'Just breeeathe and focusss!'
In one fluent motion, he used the leaped-off momentum to roll himself over vertically— to regain his footing—and quickly heave himself up. Then, from his kneeling position, almost faster than he himself could process, he frantically lifted himself up and scurried towards Hamazura at top speed.
After analyzing the entire battle thus far, the answer was clear.
Kamijou didn't need to rely on intuition. The basis for that thinking already confirmed by that high pitch click of the silver gun.
This was it.
Hamazuara has now ran out of bullets, and, all the extra magazines pocketed in his black kevlar vest are gone.
He was even correct in assuming that fact as Hamazarua quickly ditched the exhausted semi-auto firearm to swiftly switch out for one of those scary-looking combat knives.
'Victory is still possible!'
Thinking that, Kamijou didn't lose pace. Even after seeing Hamazura lunge straight for him, a full charge forward as he shifts the single edge sharp blade from a reverse grip to a standard grip.
But this wasn't a suicide move by Kamijou. Reacting to Hamazura's inside-out diagonal slash, he reached out his left hand.
Perhaps he was relying on intuition this time but Kamijou's body reacted that way on reflex. And, before he even realized it, he had caught the hand that swung around the heavily weighted blade—Or more accurately, the grip that held the hilt.
It only dawned on him a mere second after it happened; yet, that momentary delay cost him dearly.
It was all within just a breath.
Kamijou sensed, no, felt his mistake an instant after he executed his first counterattack—An eerie squishing sound simultaneously following it as he destroyed Hamazura's right eye with a hidden key in his mouth.
The red liquid that flowed out the eye and dripped down the cheek is what announced the barreling roar of a retractable micro-9mm Springfield Armory Hellcat handgun. Half-second after it ejected, from out of Hamazura's left hoodie sleeve, a strip of burning, searing pain tore into the tense muscles of Kamijou's stomach. And, exactly at the same time as that, another bite of pain burst into existence from his left hand.
That is to say, the 7-inch black blade that Kamijou intercepted, followed through its pre-establish trajectory and slit into the delicate surface of his palm. The blood, streaking down the knife while simultaneously splattering across the metal wall.
His jaw cracked shut, the guts inside him screamed and begged for relief as the gunshots kept on ringing out again and again and again—a huge flowery bloom of red inking from his stomach as all the while his vision flared into white and black splotches.
Still, incomprehensibly focus, Kamijou drove his right foot into the outside of Hamazura's left leg and fractured it from the shin in the opposite direction; Where, it not only caused a voice of anguish to leak out from that messy hair blonde, but also unbalanced his left leg footing, enough so to veer off the full wrath of the compact 9mm pistol.
However, at that quickly executed movement, Hamazura made a quick well thought out move of his own. He hadn't resisted the stream of the outcome but instead rode along with it, using that sudden change in equilibrium and exploiting the momentum shift occurring at his left side to bring down that hungry black blade.
But that reaction was per his anticipation. So, when that splotched blade hurriedly descended, following a clean swoosh through the small gap, Kamijou succeeded in guarding against it with his left forearm.
The blade found flesh. His vision drenched red. And, following the forceful exertion brought on by the sudden impact, Kamijou staggered to his right knee, edge even further along by that sudden momentum to grab hold of Hamazura's incoming gun arm.
However—
"…..ah….."
In spite of Hamazura's one good eye not performing optimally, five quick and simple body movements were done by him to prevent that outcome.
Hamazura abandons the knife, slips his left hand past Kamijou's right, interlocks both limbs, and uses that one bad leg to sweep Kamijou's feet from under him.
—Around the time all that had been executed, Kamijou found himself locked tightly within an improper guillotine chokehold.
"—!"
His left arm and head were held firmly under Hamazura's corresponding shoulders, while his body was in the process of falling to the asphalt floor, solely pulled down by Hamazura's full body weight.
Where then—
"Gha!"
No sooner than letting out an anguished scream, his forehead smashed into the pavement with a weight similar to a small bag of drop concrete.
The resulting force caused Kamijou's ears to ring. His breath got caught and he could no longer cry out.
His expression twisted, baffled as a gasp mixed in with an oppressive yelp squeezed from out his throat while he still struggled to get rid of the fully realized pressure oppressively strangling around his neck; Because, though it was already great, it kept on intensifying, becoming greater and even greater, second by second as Hamazura continued to jerk and twist Kamijou's sandwiched gullet between both divisions of his left appendage.
So, of course, his body trembled and his face turned red as a rose because of that. The guillotine choke technique was a blow that would fall most—And, within 8.9-10.2 seconds, Kamijou would lose consciousness.
He was a very resilient character, in truly many great respect, but the sheet of blackness quickly inking its way through his blurry vision was unavoidable.
But, to render Kamijou unconscious, obviously, wasn't Hamazura's goal.
Kamijou's mind was already going blank. Streams of blood spewed from out his stomach like a fountain and the flow of air rushing past his injured nostrils was quickly fading away. Even the numbing intense pain continually spreading across his face was no longer enough of a distraction to overcome the aching discomfort howling from his stomach.
It only needed a dozen more seconds, and his perception of all five senses would become nonfunctional.
Even so, though Hamazura's form severely limited his strength and mobility, Kamijou still had enough vitality left in him to reach for his final hidden weapon.
He mustered up strength, indicative by the clattering of his teeth, and spidered his hand down into his right pants pocket.
All this was in search for the rusted piece of metal—A make-shift blade made from a broken piece of shipping container metal; Which he then, with a dull grunt, pulled out and plunged into Hamazura's exposed bulging jugular.
...
That was, at least, what he intended it for. However, roughly in that same instance, Hamazura had jerked and twisted both their bodies. So the blade held hand, while on its way, bumped into Hamazura's locked arm, and instead, pierced Hamazura's left injured eye—completely/ greatly damaging it.
Still, the outcome worked in Kamijou's favor.
A now-familiar squishing sound immediately followed; The result of which, caused Hamazura's particular lethal grip to become severely weakened. Free from the instant scare of death, however temporally.
But, though the relief that came from not wanting to be submitted into immobility was unimaginably overwhelming, Kamijou couldn't spend any time celebrating that fact, as his demise was still very much imminent.
That being said, Kamijou first used that opportunity to grab hold of, and break, both Hamazura's left trigger and pointer finger in the opposite direction before escaping.
Then,
'Have to hurry!'
After screaming out a very dry deafening roar, dragged his head out from underneath the fleeted arm and quickly toppled over Hamazura's waist to roughly plant him in place, smothered against two pinned knees, and pressed at odds with the hard black asphalt.
Fleeing wasn't the smartest course of action.
The plan from the beginning was always to dispatch Hamazura.
Kamijou forcefully un-clashed both of those objectives and conformed them into one.
Hence, why, he fiercefully wrenched the combat knife from out his left forearm and immediately drove it down—Hard like a blow from a giant hammer which had the entire lethal force of a normal human behind it.
Yet, to avoid it wasn't possible. Or in this specific case, probable. It wasn't in the cards for Hamazura, as considering Kamijou's superior position and scenario, Hamazura very well couldn't escape without a complete twist of his body or the much-needed use of his eyes.
He had put up a suitable defensive position: His chin was tucked in tight and both his arms occupied the 10 and 2 o'clock positions beside his eyes, but against a curve/ wide swing of the sharp blade, his neck might as well contribute to one of the less defended areas around his body.
Gathering the last remains of his strength into his arms and grip, Kamijou brute forces the knife's way towards Hamazura's right upper jugular, and—with a powerful twist, mercifully punctured into the entire width of his neck in one fatal blow.
Jets of red violently spurted out from within the side wound, gushing forth with a sickening wrath of determination and dysfunctionality as it came rushing out both thick and strong.
It raved between his fingers, oozed into his quivering grip, and warmed the rough surface of his palm; A fountain of bright scarlet that also streamed along the blade and brought with it a wave of sickness that went far beyond any kind of physical or emotional discomfort.
But, still, even so.
Kamijou tried—desperately—everything he could to perceive everything. He endured the violent pain brought on by the pleading strikes, uncertain yet highly determined as he could only hear the life dissipating from Hamazura's clogged throat whilst the boy: clawed, shoved, grabbed, scraped, and rolled against his body.
Obviously, it was all ineffective in the grand scheme of things. But, that was not to say it didn't succeed in piercing into his skin.
Every pleading effort drew blood, again and again, and again, but the very feeling of Hamazura's life drained away each try. Becoming, over time, more and more distant by the second until...
Within the next instant— A single heartbeat, Kamijou felt nothing.
He only barely recognized the slap of a cold hand after passing out.
Then, just a mere second later, before even hitting the ground, his consciousness itself vanished.
Immersed in the unpleasant feeling of both suffocation and accomplishment.
Just how great does a cause have to be to disregard human lives?
That was the question. But there was no way anyone in existence could truly answer that.
This was a heavy burden. A tremendously heavy burden. There's nothing light about the weight that he carries. And, it will still get heavier, even after everything is said and done.
"The seed has sprouted. Very soon, it will bear fruit."
Kill or be killed that's the name of the game.
FLOOR 3 OF 100 CLEARED. NINETY-SEVEN MORE FLOORS TO GO.
So, yea, that's it. I wanted this chapter to be something of a parallel to the previous one. This is, well because I used more show than tell in the write up. I have no idea what compelled me to do it all the way but I just wanted to try my hand at subtly a bit more. That said odds are I went a little too thick with it and failed but whatever it's a bit of experimenting. By the way, the chapter title, too, goes two ways. There was only one instance of it but Hamazura also went through some struggle.