Startled by the sudden darkness, Aida briefly wondered if she was knocked unconscious yet again. Afterall, it'd happened to her so many times in the past week…
Then she heard an indistinct voice saying, "Where's…..brother….come…"
Hearing this, she realized that the little boy was very close by and that this darkness was caused by his superpower. She quickly took rapid steps to back away from the sound of the voice as she pulled up her scan.
Since her eyes were useless, she would just keep them closed!
In the scan, the Reaper's dot was right over hers which meant she would have to use her own sense if she wanted to determine where the Reaper would strike.
The scan was only good at sensing the general location of objects. She made a careful note at this point to ensure that there were no other Enraged or Reapers in the area. With a loss of vision, it would be quite difficult for her to retreat if they all decided to attack her at once. Fortunately, years of training as a killer had honed her body's senses. Any killing intent directed towards her would quickly be sensed.
The little boy did not let this opportunity of her missed attack go unused. He rushed up to her and kicked out with his right leg.
Sensing an incoming attack from her left side, she quickly dodged to the side and countered with a right kick. Much to her surprise, the kick only managed to hit air. If not for her good sense of balance, she would definitely have fallen flat on her face from the momentum.
It seems the boy had some amount of battle sense and was able to turn himself immaterial within short notice. However, given that she was able to feel the wind pass by her as he kicked out at her, she determined that he had to materialize himself in order to attack her.
Due to missing her first hit, she was put into a passive position. The boy aggressively attacked her with an onslaught of kicks and punches. She continually dodged all the boy's hits, but could sense that his attacks were growing increasingly sharp. He was clearly learning how to fight at a rapid speed.
Luckily, Aida was a highly trained killer, so she was still able to continue to dodge with relative ease as the boy attacked. Meanwhile, she had been brainstorming ways to hit him back. So far, every time she tried to counter, the hit would somehow just fall through as if she were hitting air. She subconsciously knew that if she just chose to use her superpower, the fight could be over a lot quicker. However, she stubbornly refused to ruin the first true fun opponent she had encountered this entire time by cheating with her superpower. Instead, she continued to dodge while trying to figure out how to land a hit.
They had been fighting for a full 30 minutes already. Yet despite the duration and constant usage of his superpower, the boy did not appear to slow down or weaken at all. It seems the scan did not misjudge his strength -- he was indeed significantly stronger than the previous Reapers she had faced.
"Ah~ this is so much fun~!" Aida was torn. She wanted to continue fighting the boy and enjoying the fight, but also knew that she was on a tight timeline to fly to City M. After some thought, she decided to make a move.
This time, when the punch came flying towards her face, she didn't dodge. Instead, she reached out to grab hold of the incoming fist in preparation to throw him to the ground. The boy quickly saw through her and backed away instead of committing to the punch, causing her to grab air.
"Che~" thought Aida. What a shame. This boy was far too cautious. Based on his reaction, it seems that her only chance to hit him was when he was forced to solidify himself in order to hit her.
Understanding this, she quickly prepared herself for the boy's attacks again. She continued dodging each of the attacks to lull him into a sense of security. Then, she purposely left an opening for the boy to hit.
As the boy lashed out with his foot, Aida followed the momentum of the foot to minimize the impact of the kick while allowing him to hit her. At the split second that his leg made contact with her body, she quickly threw one of her hidden knives at his throat. This time, it was firmly lodged into his throat rather than passing through him and Aida's vision abruptly cleared.
Unaccustomed to the light, Aida quickly covered her eyes as she took a step back and waited for her eyes to readjust. She turned on her scan to ensure that there were no others nearby who could steal her loot.
She stood there cautiously in attack position for 5 minutes as she waited for her eyes to fully acclimate. After those 5 minutes were up, she looked over at the dead Reaper boy. The black aura that previously surrounded him had disappeared.
There was a small amount of guilt and regret. Guilt because this Reaper was a young boy around Xiao Ai's age and he didn't deserve this fate. Regret because she was really enjoying the fight and honestly didn't want it to end.
Walking to the now ordinary looking boy, she callously ripped out the knife lodged in his throat as blood squirted everywhere then used it to rip his heart open. Digging through his heart, she quickly found a large black gem that was the size of an almond.
After cleaning it off, she quickly hid the gem in her jar. Looking at the boy, she decided to bury him as that was the least she could do after killing a little boy even if he had already lost his mind and was actively trying to kill her.