The assassin took off his hood, revealing a short messy brown haired young man with nary a beard bearing a terrible scar crossing his face diagonally from the forehead all the way down to his chin going right through between his dark blue eyes and nose. Though clothed very differently to how he did back when they were together, Leona managed to recognize his face and for a brief moment tension left her muscles along with the fire spells she snuffed out.
"Jonathan?! You are alive!" She approached and grasped his shoulders. "Where have you been? Why are you all the way up north like this?"
Noticing that he was someone the tactician genuinely knew, Athena sheathed her dagger and holstered the derringer she had pulled out and walked up behind her friend. Jonathan looked around the streets before answering any of the questions as the previous wind spell had caused a ruckus and he knew it was just a matter of time before someone investigated that place.
"Let's head somewhere else, I'll tell you more once we get some distance from here."
He sheathed both daggers and turned around to walk. Before heading off Athena stood beside Leona.
"Is that man someone you trust?" The lieutenant asked. "If so, do you think you can still trust him?"
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
"It has been a while since you've seen him, right? Don't you think it'd be strange for him to just show up like this?"
"I'm sure it's a coincidence, welcomed one nonetheless. He was among the people that tried to help my father escape. Though in my hubris, we were single handedly defeated by Alexander to which it cost their lives. The only ones standing after that fact were me, Krieg, Phoebe and now, him."
"I see… as long as he's an ally then-"
Before the lieutenant could finish her sentence, Jonathan turned to them a few meters ahead.
"Hasten your pace, lest people see you. It's not far from here so might as well make it quick."
Leona and Athena exchanged looks and nodded to each other as they began to walk faster behind him.
While walking Leona noticed the skies getting darker, darker than it usually was which made the narrow streets they traversed that much more eerie. Slight shadow walls overcasting the shattered bricks of the unattended road made it difficult to tell where it was safe or not to take a step all the while a storm brewing wind blew right past her sending chills down her spine as she fought her natural response to tense up. Meanwhile Athena was often looking around as if waiting for someone or something to try and ambush them.
'I can't shake off this feeling of dread…' The lieutenant thought for herself. 'It's as if I'm facing one of them…'
They went on for a while until Jonathan stopped in front of a large decayed building that seemed to resemble a three story mansion though the lack of a front yard made it hard to seem like one. The front of the building was haphazardly covered with wooden boards while the upper floor's windows were completely open, or more specifically, broken.
"We are here."
He said while getting one of the double wooden doors opened. The whole building seemed like it was about to collapse, cracks in the walls showed there wasn't any maintenance or repair recently.
"Is it okay to go inside?" Leona asked with a noticeable worried tone in her voice. "It doesn't seem like it's safe…"
He glanced over the shoulder with a half smile on his face.
"It's fine, it'll be quick, I just need to ask you a few things."
"Hmm. If you say so."
Jonathan walked inside which prompted Leona to follow. Athena took a good look around to see if she saw anyone else but that place was deserted.
'I don't sense any presence either…'
She thought for herself in order to calm down her nerves but there was something wrong there and she couldn't pinpoint what exactly was sending her instincts into a frenzy.
"Athena, aren't you coming in?"
Leona's voice made her force herself inside the building, though once she took a step in the room she felt a disturbing presence and her right hand instinctively went to her hip. Jonathan was a few meters ahead of the tactician when the same asked.
"Jonathan, tell me. How were you able to flee? And more importantly, why are you here?"
He turned around with an indifferent look in his eyes, much like an empty stare towards her.
"Well Leona, for your first question, I didn't. I tried to kill him the moment you guys escaped. As for the second-"
Without warning, Athena pulled her friend back while drawing the derringer out in a fluid motion as she pulled the trigger on him. The grape shot ripped his face to shreds as his body spun backwards and blood splattered across the rotten wooden floor but before she could get another shell in, Leona snapped at her, holding the lieutenant's right arm to prevent her from shooting.
"Athena! What have you done?!" The lieutenant shoved her to the side, making her fall on her butt. "ATHENA!" In less than a second, Leona felt something snap beside her right ear and the moment she did she also saw Athena bend over in pain whilst holding the left side of her waist. "Huh?"
Once she turned towards where Jonathan would be lying on the ground, she instead saw him standing by uncrooking his back as his face, which was previously shredded to pieces by her ammunition, started to stitch itself by quickly regenerating.
"Ah… this new friend of yours is a terrible person, Leona. I would've given both of you the sweet embrace of death without pain." His disfigured face was quickly fixing itself as if the flesh, skin and bones had lives of its own. Twisting and knitting itself in order to regain his original appearance but instead he was left with the left side of his cheek and eyebrow higher than normal, giving him a repulsive inhumane appearance. "Ah, it appears that I can't quite fix this right now. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll have plenty of time once I'm done with you."
"What- what happened to you Jonathan?! Why are you doing this?!"
"You doomed us all! It is only fair you get what you deserve!"
From beneath his cloak she noticed two glints of what seemed to be metal ready to spring out, but each of his hands already had weapons, namely the two daggers from before.
"Dammit!" Leona didn't know what was about to happen but she couldn't take any chances. "Frost Rampart!"
She managed to create a curved wall of ice that protected both her and Athena just in time before they were pierced as the previous glints of metal were in fact two long and thin tendrils shooting out from the side of the assassin's body with very sharp metal like spear heads on each end.
"Stop resisting and die already!" He yelled from behind the wall of ice. "I knew from the beginning that helping someone like you was a terrible idea!"
Upon extending his arms to the side, about six other tendrils shot out from his back trying to pierce the wall of ice. Meanwhile Leona was trying to aid Athena with the time she had bought them.
"How bad was it?" The tactician had rushed to her side and was rummaging through the backpack as fast as she could to find a healing potion. "Dammit where is it?!"
"Tsk. It was pretty deep." She released the pressure she was making with her left hand and she noticed blood gush out of the horizontal wound. "Leo, I think- I think this is where we part ways." She began to pull the rifle from the sling, but Leona held her arm.
"No, we get out of this together!" She placed the lieutenant's arm over her own neck while supporting the rest of her body with her left arm. "I swore I'll never let anyone die like this again!"
"Leo don't, at this rate we'll both die here." She winced when she tried to move her left hand. "I can at least fight with what I have left-"
"We'll get out of this together, on this I swear my name!" She clenched her teeth as she mustered all her strength to carry the weakened lieutenant out of the building. The half open double doors were too narrow for her to pass so she blasted it open with wind magic, sending the piece of wooden structure flying a few meters away. Once outside she pointed her hand backwards towards the building and without looking she began to chant whilst walking. "Flames of destruction heed my call, bring ruin to mine enemies-" Mana gathered at her fingertips, empowered by her determination the light blue strings began to rapidly rotate to the middle of her palm to form the blazing azure fireball that originally was the size of a handball but suddenly expanded in size without losing any of the concentrated mass of the original spell. Right before she released the spell it had the size of a basketball, Athena could feel the extreme heat behind her back and thankfully her coat was insulated enough to protect her from being scorched by the blazing fury. "-Fireball!"
Once out of her hand, the fire spell hit the ice wall which released a deadly hot steam inside before violently exploding in a sea of inferno. The flames quickly took hold of the entire place in mere seconds as the upper floor's windows flashed brightly before bursting into azure flames sending out debris and pieces of burning furniture outside.
Leona glanced over her shoulder to inspect the building consumed by roaring flames, the walls inside were collapsing as the roof was beginning to give in and wooden beams supporting the structure fell in flames.
'That killed him for sure…' She had a sad look on her face. 'Why… what happened to you Jonathan…?"
When she was about to turn around, she heard his voice up ahead and her whole body froze in place.
"Ah… that was close-" Once her eyes saw him, she noticed not only he was mostly intact, but with the cloak covering his body gone it was possible to see the grotesque inhuman flesh inhabiting his body, coiling and twisting around his upper torso as if it was the host of the supposed parasite. "If not for these I would've been dead." He discarded what seemed to be a lump of burnt flesh on the ground which was twitching until it became imobile. "Say Leona, why do you struggle? You know everything would've ended if you just remained quiet. Me, Laura, Neiliel, Laslow, Luke even Phoebe. All of us could've been leading a relatively normal life, but no, you had to drag us in-"
"It was my fault!" She shouted. "But if I don't fight until the very end it would be the same as giving up on them! You have been given a second chance yet-"
"You think this is a second chance?!" He retorted while opening both of his arms to the sky. "I walk the earth not as man or as demon, but as an abomination-" He then looked her dead in the eyes. "-and this is all because of you!"
Sensing he was about to attack, she tried to quickly cast a spell however the three tendrils were coming directly at her.
"Frost Rampa-" Suddenly Athena dashed in front of the tactician with the rifle in front of her body, taking the brunt of the impact which in turn knocked Leona backwards on the ground. "ATHENA!"
The tactician's eyes were locked at the back of the lieutenant's head as if half expecting her to turn and say it was nothing, but about a second later she noticed a dark red liquid drip on the ground in front of her, at first just a few drops and then it turned into bigger ones, until there was a puddle of red soaking the lieutenant's soles.
"I'm… sorry… Leo…"
Athena coughed before falling backwards with both eyes closed as her arms spread out open and in each hand she clutched pieces of the broken rifle.
"NO! ATHENA!"