Chương 32: Chapter 31. An Even Longer Day, Part Two

It was almost comical how often Oscar found himself in these grave situations. For all his life the most danger he'd ever been in was when he'd got caught plagiarizing a paper in his junior year of high school. The situation had been far more dire than he'd imagined with threats of expulsion looming over his head. Fortunately for him, Mrs. Lindell had pitied him and advocated for one month of detentions instead. He remembered how grateful he'd been towards her.

He also remembered how he swore that situation would never happen again. And to his credit, he'd learned his lesson and had never gotten caught again after that. This world was different, though. It seemed that no matter what he did, he was unable to learn how to avoid the promise of imminent death. And this time he didn't have [Negate] available to save him. Ariesa took a sharp turn causing him to almost trip as he corrected his course.

Next to him another thud struck, destroying the part of the building that the attack had hit. They couldn't outrun him. Each attack was getting closer and closer to hitting them. A sensation of wet trickled down the back of his head. Tentatively he reach back and felt the source of the wetness and pulled back a hand streak in red. His adrenaline must've been so high that he hadn't felt a piece of rubble flying off and striking him.

"Ari!" Oscar gasped out mid sprint.

"We… we can't keep running! What do we do?" Ari didn't break her pace, and if she answered then he didn't hear it as another attack struck, deafening him momentarily. After another couple of seconds of running, Ari hit a dead end.

"No, no, no, no…" she said in dismay.

"There's not any good spots to climb either… wait! Oscar, make another ladder!"

"These buildings are too high. And your climbing skill isn't fast enough, he'll be on us any second now!"

"Then what do we do? I can't fight that! I'm a [Pr—]… I'm not trained for this!" Oscar searched around the environment for a way out… and then felt like an idiot.

"[Erasure!]" he said and wiped away the wall in front. He didn't know what kind of building this was, but it seemed to be something like an apartment's lobby floor. What it was didn't matter so long as it provided an escape.

"Oh, gods! You're brilliant!" Ari said as she hopped inside the building and ran for the door ahead. Something was off, though. In the midst of his panic to find a way out, he didn't notice the decrease in destruction. But now he noticed the sudden calm that felt more threatening than the destruction had ever been. Where had Maveon gone? Ari opened the door and stepped out, but was sent crashing back right into Oscar. They flew back far and hit another wall in the dead-end alley.

"Like I said, you cannot run. Tell me, why were you two spying on me?" Maveon said as he stood in the ruined building lobby.

"I'm a man willing to grant forgiveness… but I need to know who sent you."

"Ourselves sent us," Ari said through her teeth.

"There isn't some big scheme. We just thought you seemed to be an easy mark…"

"Lies."

"S-She's my fiancée!" Oscar suddenly said.

"It's as she said, we were looking for easy money to fund our wedding! It's dumb, I know, but… all we know is this life of thievery to earn coin." Maveon looked at Oscar, summing him up. His breath halted as he began to worry about their connection being discovered.

"A couple of lovebirds, huh? Interesting… You'd have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that bastard." Oscar finally stood up, his muscles protesting from the mad sprint they'd just embarked on and watched Maveon as he slowly stepped through rubble to enter the alley. The man looked sick. His eyes had heavy, dark bags under them that made it seem like he hadn't slept in years. Aside from the ridiculously nice suit, the rest of him looked pretty average.

"Do you have any idea what you stumbled upon back there? Of course you don't. How could you? But I bet you feel it don't you? This city is changing… it's healing… it's… it's evolving."

"I-I don't understand," Ari said and began to babble about things that Oscar wasn't listening to. His mind was turning trying to craft a plan out of this mess. He raked over the past events trying to search for some sort of clue.

"Did you know… I'm labeled as insane? My own brother doesn't want to acknowledge me because he worries that I'll ruin everything for him. All I've ever done is be loyal and do whatever he asked of me. I've been subject to experimentation that's completely altered me. As you saw, I can use skills now without speaking. I'm not insane, that's insane."

"No, you can't," Oscar heard himself say in the midst of his plotting.

"You are speaking skills, but masking it in your cry of pain from snapping your own finger. The act of breaking your fingers shocks your opponent, making them miss the activation of your skill. I-I'm right, am I not?" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Maveon's right eye twitched as he looked at Oscar.

"…How did you figure that out?"

"It was easy, what do you mean? Did you forget that we had an overhead view?" Oscar asked, this time adding confidence to his voice.

"Maybe you're not insane, but you're definitely an idiot."" Excuse me? I've been kind to entertain conversation, but clearly I—" Oscar, used his passive skill [Quick Creation], and formed a small shadow dagger and flung it at Maveon. Well, perhaps calling it a dagger was too generous. It was a pointy bit of shadow that he threw at him, but calling it a dagger sounded better. The shadow dagger struck Maveon by surprise. It stuck in his shoulder, but Oscar wasn't done.

He threw three more at him, all hitting in different spots. All he needed was one to hit the man in his face… and it was the last one that had done so. Sort of... The dagger struck his cheek, slicing the skin deep as it pierced through before exiting and hitting the wall. Maveon cradled his wounded cheek, wailing in agony. The chunk of meat that had been his cheek now flopped against his face as blood streamed out of the open wound.

"Fow…' y fhace…" Maveon babbled through his mangled mouth. A cry of anguish and raged flooded the alley as Maveon grabbed the loose flesh and ripped it right off of his face. If the wound had been open before… now it was gaping. Oscar could clearly see his right row teeth and tongue amidst a sea of blood that oozed out of his mouth. And then… he began to laugh. Maveon reached up and gripped the loose hanging flesh and tore it down further. A manic ramble then took over the man.

Oscar couldn't really understand him, but it sounded like he was… crying for his brother? That was what he believed was being said at least. A hand gripped Oscar's shoulder causing him to spin towards the source in a panic. Once he saw it was only Ari, relief hit him.

"Let's go, now!" she yelled at him and turned off. This time there were no drums of war that followed his every move. The music was done now. There was to be no encore or anything of the sorts. There was only a miserable silence that stretched over the pair as they ran far, far, far away from the freak named Maveon.

Maveon writhed around on the ground in a fit of hysterics. One second he was laughing, the next he was wailing. Emotions flowed through him as easily as his blood poured out of his gaping wound. The truth was that he was insane. Ever since his parents had died, Maveon had become this vessel of hatred. Or that was what his brother had called him and had been the reasoning for why they couldn't been seen together. The true truth was more complex than that.

There was a higher being out there that was pulling his strings. It'd been small tugs here and there, forcing him to do all of those foul deeds. Then once his parents had died, the tugs had gotten harsher, the strings more taut. And finally, once he'd been volunteered to take part in the [Kings] experiments, the tugs had ceased entirely. The strings had been cut because finally he'd been allowed to see the being that had commanded him for so long.

He hadn't actually been able to see whoever or whatever it was, but he'd been able to communicate with Him. Finally, after years of obedience, he'd been able to understand why. It was now, in these moments of insanity and suffering that he called out to Him, his Lord. But… no response came. It never did unless he was fresh off an injection of Desire X. Such lucidity could only be achieved then in those brief few hours, and he wasn't scheduled for another session for another couple of days.

Their connection was getting stronger with each dose, but it just wasn't at that level yet. Or... maybe his Lord just didn't desire to speak with him. And so, instead, Maveon Reissi fled back to the man that he'd first revered way back when he was a boy in hopes that he'd have the answers instead.

Before Oscar knew it, he was back at the District Seven Orphanage. There was an old and weathered bench that sat facing the city that Ari sat down in. He did the same and let out a heavy sigh as he allowed himself the opportunity to relax. It was only now that he noticed he'd somehow lost a shoe.

"I've been in some perilous situations these last few days, but that… was probably second most frightening, actually," Oscar said.

"I don't want to know what first was then," Ari replied.

"Even though we didn't have to fight him, I thought that we were dead. Shit, if that little trick of mine didn't work the way that it did… then we probably would've."

"I'm glad you managed to do something because I… I gave up. It's shameful to admit, but I thought that was it." Oscar didn't think any less of her for giving up. In truth, he had all but given up himself until he realized what sort of trick Maveon had been doing. Which was a strange trick when he thought about it. The man seemed plenty strong enough as he was without resorting to deceiving. Even though he couldn't use his skill without speaking it had still been a skill of pure destruction.

Although Oscar wondered if his skill had some sort of drawback tied to it. Since they were both similar due to their corruption, perhaps the skill was like [Negate]. Or maybe Maveon truly was just insane. Sometimes it was impossible to ever understand someone. The truth could be as simple as he liked the illusion that he created with the trick and the fear that it instilled within people.

"Oscar, do you ever feel alone?" Ari asked as she gazed up at the large moon that hovered overhead.

"If I died down there… how long would it take before my father found out? Would he raze everyone and everything down in the lower cities for taking his successor… Or would he even care? For so long I've been trying to find a way to cure my father on my own… but if I would've died… who would care?"

"I'd care…" Oscar said awkwardly. Internally he grimaced at the dumb attempt to make her feel better. But at the same time… he could relate to the feeling. Well, not the whole father threatening to burn down the whole city thing, but…

"Wait, who's your father?" Ari had been laughing at his first response before seemingly realizing her potential mistake.

"Ah… dang. I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget I said anything, would you?"

"Your tone indicates that for some reason I wouldn't, but I would. We all have our own secrets," Oscar said to a bewildered Ari.

"Uh… but you surely know where I'm from, right?" Oscar wasn't normally so dense, but in the face of a beautiful woman and in the throws of an adrenaline come down… he couldn't piece together who she might be.

"I don't know who you are, but let me guess," he said and pretended to think.

"Ah, I got it! You're a [Princess], right?" He gave the guess a meager little laugh to indicate it was a joke… but she suddenly froze up.

"Yeah right, as if a [Princess] would be hanging out down here for fun." Ari continued to stay silent, making him even more nervous. And when he got nervous around pretty girls, he… tended to ramble.

"And I'm someone who came from another world! C'mon, let's get serious now, tell me who you are. We've been through some heavy shit, let's get to know each other!" he followed that up with another awkward laugh. As Oscar looked over at Ari, he saw her hand was covering her gaping mouth.

"Y-You weren't lying! You actually are from another world!"

"Ah! What! No, no, I was just joking!" Oscar said in a panic.

"[Descry Authenticity]! My [Princess] skill I got at level nine tells me when people are being truthful!" A brief silence stretched over them before Oscar bit his upper lip and gave Ari a meek shrug.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget I said anything… would you?"

"I can't—" A meaty hand gripped Oscar's shoulder causing him to freeze in fear.

"Hmm… No, I don't think I'd be willing to do that for you. Perhaps you and the [Princess] should come inside so we can… discuss this little revelation." Oscar turned and looked up to see the frighteningly cheerful Bruno grinning down at him and Ari.

"She's a fraud! It's not as she says! She went crazy against that freak in the wharf! Her mind broke! She… she's… ah, fuck me." The last thing that Oscar saw was Bruno's fist crashing down onto his face, knocking him out.