TW: Blood, graphic depictions of violence, death
TL;DR on the bottom!
I mentally calculated how the leader would react when I ran towards the document and drew a warp circle over Yves. I couldn't seem to figure out the answer. Seeing the various magical artifacts he was wearing on him, we were sure to get blocked.
Couldn't we do anything? I guessed it was time to go overboard.
I took out the magic stone, which was almost completely depleted of its power. There was a faint golden glow coming from it. I put down the rock and stepped on it, hard. I poured all of the magic I had left to my foot and smashed it into pieces. Then, I took the pieces of the stone that I had shattered, put it in a pocket, then poured it into my mouth. You could hear the crunch.
Now that the holder was broken, the magic left in the stones began to power up my body. If a magic stone was absorbed like this, the 'raw power' from the stone would be absorbed into the body and the user was able to use double, or even triple the power of the stone itself. Although you did end up fainting from exhaustion once you ran out of magic.
It might have been for a short while, but the power overflowed within me. I used that to strengthen my body with magic.
"Hoo, what a vacation full of ups and downs."
I relaxed my wrist. I was planning on planting my fist in that overconfident, prideful teddy bear.
I quickly grabbed onto the leader. I grabbed at the floor with both hands and raised my legs up to kick at his chin.
The leader's ring felt my attack and activated a protective barrier around him, but I changed the magic equations of the circle to protect Yves instead. He was already injured; I didn't want anything going his way.
"Don't come!"
I yelled at Yves, afraid that he would attack the leader. The moment Yves attacked him, he would be poisoned with enough poison to kill him on the spot. He'd also said that he was almost out of the antidote, too. I couldn't look his way because I had no time, but I hoped that my intentions would be understood by him.
I was always sad about the amount of magic I had. If I had a lot of magic, I would've been able to cast an invisible spell or something high-level enough to have finished this efficiently. It was true how those without talent struggled more.
The leader, who had just gotten struck by my kick, almost fell backwards but didn't. It looked like my attack didn't do as much as it could because of the magic that had activated. I reached my hand to grab at my dagger, but paused.
I couldn't kill him. That was a key point. For Yves' revenge plan to go as he wanted, I couldn't kill him.
Yves, who could have hundreds of thousands of opportunities to murder the leader, hadn't done so because he wanted the man to suffer–both mentally and physically. He had planned this out for years in advance; I couldn't mess it up for him.
So instead of my dagger, I used my bare hands to attack. We had to learn basic hand-to-hand combat when training for swordsmanship, but who would've known it would be so handy right now? I pretended to try and kick him with my foot, and when he lowered his body I punched his face instead.
"Keugh...."
As he wobbled slightly, I hurriedly ran to the desk to grab at the documents. But I must've moved too quickly, because I wobbled a few times as well. Eating magic rocks gave the user an explosive boost of power, but drained too quickly. I could feel my power slipping out.
"Ugh, where...."
The leader, who had fallen on the floor, grabbed me by the ankle and started to drag me.
I raised my leg again to hit the teddy bear in the face, but the bear didn't let go of my ankle. I was almost completely out of strength so I was easily dragged away.
I put my hand in my pocket to grab another rock to eat. This time, I was going to make him pass out. I tilted my body away from the desk and towards the leader. Little hearts kept blocking the bear in my sight. Spelling the glasses felt like an excellent decision.
The leader kept trying to strengthen himself through the rings. I kept attacking him and worked on nullifying the magic as much as possible. But he didn't pass out easily.
So I put another piece of magic stone in my mouth and continued to attack him. Power rose up inside of me, but it ran out just as quickly. It felt like I had sand in my hands, and it kept slipping through my fingers.
The leader wasn't just letting himself be attacked. He occasionally attacked me with his fists or with kicks, and while most of the attacks didn't reach me, some did.
My glasses were kicked off.
The world was in plain sight now.
In front of me, the bloodied leader glared at me with murder in his eyes.
The fear that had disappeared earlier shot up to my throat, but it was too late for me to back down now.
I bit my tongue to help with my fear.
I couldn't see anything else because I was too focused on the leader in front of me. He needed to pass out quickly so Yves could begin his revenge, but the stupid teddy bear was still strong.
The faint tang of blood in my mouth made me frown. He had called for security earlier, so if we wasted more time then everything would become even more complicated. My heart beat in a frenzy at my panic.
Then, somebody came over to me and put my glasses back on me. Then…..
Stab!
Suddenly, there was a sound of something penetrating flesh.
Stab!
The sound repeated itself over and over.
I didn't know whose, but blood splattered onto my face. Because of my magic, it had all changed into hearts, but the heat carried itself on my skin. I could still feel everything.
It wasn't mine. It didn't hurt anywhere. A distinct smell spread through the rooom.
I frowned as I tried to see with my blurry eyes. There was a familiar hair stick in the teddy bear's throat. The blood that had splattered onto me was the leader's.
I looked at the boy on the leader's back. The red haired boy was wobbling, his entire body covered in blood. He held the documents I had tried so hard to reach, but threw it down on the floor and stabbed the hair stick in the leader's throat again.
"Get your hands off of her, you son of a bitch."
Yvnes' eyes were filled with murderous rage and anger. It was the first time that his rage was so visible to the outside.
Stab!
Delirious with rage, Yves continued attacking. Soon, the crescent moon on his neck began to shine.
The leader, who was annoyingly still alive, had plenty of time to figure out who had harmed him so.
As the contract's penalty began to take place, all of Yvnes' disguise began to disappear. His red hair turned orange, and his red eyes turned back into silver.
The leader, who had seen that his murderer was Yvnes, had a look of surprise on his face.
"Yv...…nes......…just as I thought.......eugh."
The leader had removed the hair stick from his neck and was trying to stab Yves with it, but died before he could swing his arm. He had closed his eyes on the floor. Knowing what he had done in his life, it was too easy of a death for him.
The leader, who was now a cooling corpse on the ground, was none of my concern now. I ran towards Yves, who was suffering from poison after attacking him. Multiple black lines had begun spreading from the tattoo through his body. He was already a mess from the previous beating, but he looked absolutely miserable with the addition of the poison.
I tried to get Yves to lie down immediately, but it was difficult because of the height difference. I had no choice but to have him put his head on my knees. Yves, who had returned to his original appearance, was riddled with scars.
Yves had cold sweat pouring down from pain, but tried not to show it. He had a blank expression that was just slightly tinged with a frown.
He seemed to think that my state was more important than his pain. He kept scanning me here and there. Honestly, I had just one-sidedly attacked the leader so there weren't too many scars. I was just out of strength. Seeing that I was okay, Yves just rubbed his hands over his face.
"Sir!"
"An intruder! It's an intruder!"
When security finally began to arrive, Yves took out another hair stick out of his hair. His long orange hair gently rolled down onto his shoulders. With an incredible aim, Yves stabbed it through the throats of the guards.
After taking care of the noisy security guards, Yves wobbled and took a seat. Then, he breathed roughly as sweat poured down from him. His lips began to dry.
Yves laid down on the floor and looked up at me.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to die."
I didn't know what my expression looked like right now. I thought it was probably looking incredibly anguished.
I watched as Yves, even with poison spreading through his body, didn't take his antidote. I hurriedly asked him a question.
"That antidote, from before. Where is it?"
Even though his revenge was going according to plan, he had suddenly attacked the leader. I didn't understand why he did that, but his health came first.
At that question, Yves had a slightly complicated expression on his face.
".....to be honest, that dose from before was the last of it."
I scowled. This asshole, right when it was important. It looked like he was trying to hug me. I refused because I was trying to figure out how to get rid of the poison, but Yves dragged me into a hug anyway. I was still tiny because I was in my ten-year-old form, so I ended up almost trapped in the hug.
I was going absolutely nuts. I had taken some time to research the poison before this, but apparently anyone who had this particular poison injected in them would feel like they were being burned alive before they died. I was scared for Yves, who was lying there with poison spreading through his system and didn't even seem to think of curing himself.
'No way, he's not resigned is he?'
Yves raised his hand and wiped at a small scratch on my face with his finger. He took out a wrinkled tube of clear ointment from his pocket and began to carefully apply it on my face with his finger. His finger trembled as he raised it, as if it was taking too much strength to do even that.
"It's over."
Yves breathed in deeply with me in his arms. Yves' emotions, which were on overdrive, came back down to normal. I faced him and hugged him back. Then, I pat him gently on the back.
"How futile.'
Yves' face was completely expressionless.
"I let him go too easily. I wanted to chuck him in prison and take everything away from him, just like he did to me. This is the first failure of my life."
His silver eyes were murky.
Yves turned his head to stare at the dead leader. I couldn't figure out what Yves was currently thinking, nor what he was feeling at the moment. How would it feel to kill somebody you had wanted to kill for years? Especially if that person was your father.
"Why did you kill him? You were almost right there."
"...…I know."
I felt guilty. I felt like it was because of me that he couldn't complete his revenge, and had murdered his father in anger.
'No, but....there was no way that he gave up on his revenge because of me, right? Am I nuts? Of course not.'
But what were we going to do about the poison? Could we rip off the skin with the tattoo to take care of it? But that was too brutal..... But if he was going to live, then. But moreover, the poison was spreading too quickly...…
Amidst the complicated thoughts running through my head, I heard Yves' voice speaking to me.
TL;DR: Shushu gets caught, and begins to fight with the leader. She chomps on a magic rock to gain strength, but it's temporary and she begins flagging. Her glasses get kicked off of her face, and she's able to see the cruel reality of everything in front of her...…until suddenly, somebody (read: Yves) puts her glasses back on and kills his father.
Out of sheer rage, Yves stabs his father in the throat with his hair stick multiple times, but his father survives long enough to figure out that it's Yves and activates the penalty of the tattoo (poison). His father dies, Yves is poisoned, and Shushu is figuring out what to do. Yves, poisoned and basically slowly dying, lays on the floor and drags Shushu into a hug and takes care of her.
Shushu wonders if he gave up on his idea of revenge because of her, but thinks, "No way," but now has to figure out how to get the poison out of Yves.....