Kira and Ayuka continued their duel. "I've been missing this joy! I can't remember the last time I had so much fun!" Kira shouted, her voice louder than before. "You're enjoying this? You can't be serious. You're seeing this as some kinda game? While there are lives on the line? You must be insane to think something of that type!"
Ayuka was bothered by her joy, but she couldn't deny but admit that she was having some fun too. "Oh, come on, missy. It's not like we're going to destroy this city. Take a breather!" laughed Kira. "Take a breather? I *can't* take a breather! I'm not trying to break my body in a nearly meaningless battle!"
"Meaningless battle? Come the hell on, sweetie! This isn't a meaningless battle. It's much more than that, yes, much more! This battle is to protect your friend who nearly crushed my skull to bitter ends!" she stated. She was annoyed but happy too. "If you didn't step in, your friend would be dead by now! You're the only obstacle that's preventing me from meetin' and greetin' 'em."
Ayuka stood her ground, and so did Kira. Then a massive explosion occurred in the distance, blowing the wind past them. Both fixed their gazes on it and became confused. "What the hell?" questioned Kira, swallowing her saliva. "It's done! Yes!" smiled Ayuka, proud of what happened. "They managed to blow up the city hall."
A question mark popped on the top of Kira's head. "Huh? What are you talking about?" she looked Ayuka in the eyes. "Oh, don't tell me you don't know? How can you be so silly? If it's not obvious, Ralphie and the others finally managed to blow up the city hall. Now that that's out of the way we don't need to worry about any more problems involving Niklas. His hard work of storing his items has gone to waste. Now, all that's left to do is beat you and your allies, and finally take down Niklas."
Kira's mouth shivered but then smiled. She raised her arm out to the side and closed her eyes. "Oh, well. I guess it can't be fixed." Ayuka became bewildered about how she reacted. "You're not mad about it?"
Kira cocked her head to the side, chuckling. "Of course, I don't, silly. That's not my problem. The city hall is supposed to be supervised by Bruno, so he'll get all the complaints. Anyway, now that that cursed city hall is out of the way, I'd like to kill you if you don't mind. You don't mind, right? Come on, you don't, riiiiight?" she giggled.
"What is your problem? Of course, I mind. You're taking everything so lightly. How did you gain a role as one of the commanding officers that work under Niklas?" Ayuka asked. She tried and tried to understand her, but Kira was a difficult life to comprehend.
"Why, that's simple. Because I'm cute." Ayuka became unimpressed. Her arms dangled in front of her knees. "Describe, cute." Kira didn't understand and blinked multiple times in a row. "Uh..." Kira grabbed the top of her head and scratched it. "Now that I think about it, I've gotten uglier ever since Niklas gave me this buff. Man, I look like an old hag."
She crossed her arms, shut her eyes, and relaxed her muscles. In the next moment, the shadow aura disappeared. Her eyes turned back to normal and her hair became blonde. "Much better." She placed her fingertip onto her mouth and thought. "If I remember correctly, Lord Niklas told me I have about 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure that time nearly passed, so I had to stop this thing to flow out of my body. Do you mind if we continue?"
Ayuka was still confused. "What? You're making me dumb the more I talk to you. I don't intend to lose my intellect if you mind?" Kira chuckled cutely and exhaled. "You'll be fine. I think. Anyway, I didn't like that power that Niklas provided me, but now that it's gone I can go all out." She made fists, prepared a fighting pose, and then dashed toward Ayuka.
Both prepared themselves. They were ready to exchange blows but at that moment both heard a voice. "Ayuka!" they stopped before they could hurt each other and looked behind them.
Kira straightened up and folded her arms under her chest. "Aw, come on. I was just about to go all out. Why did they have to come and ruin the fun?" Kira yawned and covered her lips with her palm. "Tim, Yumiko, Bow, and that guy? What's going on? What happened to Niklas?"
They ran in front of them, and Tim quickly reached for Kou. "Ayuka. Please, you need to help Kou. He's been wounded again. None of the bones are broken, it's just multiple stab wounds. You should be able to heal him, right?"
Ayuka and Kira became surprised, and Tim decided to ignore her silver eyes that slowly returned back to blue. "Lower him on the ground." She asked. "Yeah, sure thing." Without wasting time, he gently placed Kou on the ground and that's when Ayuka noticed Tim's burned arm. "Y-Your arm." She looked Tim in the eyes, noticing that he shook his head.
She decided to listen and then place both of her hands above Kou. Kira peeked from over Ayuka's shoulders and blinked in confusion. "Hey, hold on! We were in the middle of a fight!" she called, disappointed.
Tim looked at her. "Kira, right?" she nodded. "Don't be stupid. This boy was nearly killed because one of you had no mercy. You seemed to be one of the nicest people on this island that worked under Niklas. So, tell me. Why are you working under his commands if they're treating others like this? You don't need to work under them. You could easily just ignore them and help us out instead." Kira seemed perplexed and unimpressed.
"Don't be stupid. You nearly hammered my head and killed me. Do you really think I'd help somebody like you? No way I'd betray Lord Niklas like that. I don't care if the kid is treated, I'm still waiting for our rematch. Maybe if you beat me, then I might help out." She made fists, but Tim looked at her unamused. He rested his right arm on his knee.
"Is that your brain talking or your heart? Because, earlier when we fought, you seemed good and just wanted to have fun. You even said it yourself. So, tell me. Is that really what you want? I know I kicked your ass, but can we at least forget that ever happened? We can always fight later after everything here is done." Kira tilted her head to the side again, her hair stretching to her bottom.
"First. You didn't kick my ass. You were just lucky, and second. Why should I help you out? Don't tell me it's because you feel sorry for your friend over there?" she asked, and allowed Tim to stand up.
"Because I know that deep down you're not a bad person. You might have tricked me by making me think you were dumb, but I still managed to tell you that you had no desire to kill me. I'm right, aren't I?" Kira stayed silent for a moment and looked away. "I guess. Look, I was told to kill you, but when I met you, you were kind of nice, so I felt bad for fighting you. So, yeah, I guess that made me think twice. But now that you're here, we can finally end this duel!"
She became pumped up, made fists, and spread her arms. "So, come on and fight me!" Tim remained quiet, holding a casual expression. She raised her eyes to look at Tim and sweat dripped down her forehead. She straightened herself up and folded her arms again. "I changed my mind. I'm not going to fight you. You're too boring to fight now anyway."
Tim placed his right hand on his hip. "You sure that you just don't want to hurt me? You just want to fight for fun, isn't that right?" he giggled, but Kira instantly looked at him with puffed cheeks. "No way! I wanna kick your ass!" she looked away. "I just don't feel you'd be fun to fight when you're too nice."
Tim laughed out loud and nearly started crying. "You're so funny! You're definitely going to help us! We're officially best buds!" Tim pointed at her and poked her nose. "What?! No, we're not! I can still kick your ass if you want!"
Tim became serious and changed her thoughts. She dropped her arms and sighed. "I don't get it. You're just a boy who wants to help people. I thought Niklas could help me kill you, but I just can't kill somebody who's trying to protect his friends." She straightened up and folded her arms. "So, you told me that one of us did that to your friend there? That kid's been through a lot, huh? Fine, I'll help you out, but don't you dare see us as buddies now."
She showed some anger and pointed her finger in between Tim's eyes. He didn't react and watched her finger. "But we are." Kira became unimpressed and sweat slowly slipped down the side of her head. She backed away.
Yumiko approached him and placed her hand on her hip. "Tim. Do you think we can trust her?" he looked at her. "Yeah, why?"
Yumiko became startled and tossed looks between Tim and Kira. "Well. You know, she's kind of been trying to kill you, and even injured Ayuka."
Ayuka continued to concentrate on healing Kou but spoke out before it would be too late. "It's fine. She might have lied to Tim before, but I can see that she's trustworthy at the moment."
Yumiko smiled awkwardly. "Well... Okay." Tim chuckled, wrapped her arms around Yumiko's neck, and squeezed her into his chest. "Aw, come on, Yumi. No need to be so anxious around her. She's not a bad person." Yumiko slowly followed a line by looking into Tim and Ayuka, and then she made a wide smile. Her eyes sparkled in excitement. "I'm being held by him! This is the best day of my life!"
Tim moved his arms away from her, puzzled, and noticed that Ayuka held back her jealousy. "Um. I'll just wait alone..." He waltzed on into the distance and stopped in front of the house. "There, I'm done." They looked at Kou and noticed that his wounds were gone. He was healed but still needed to regain consciousness. "Tim. I'm not going to tell you twice. Hurry up and let me treat your arm."
"But I told you, I'm fine, Ayuka." Ayuka seemed irritated by him and placed her arms on her hips. Tim didn't act, but he finally surrendered. "Fine! I'm coming..." he slowly walked toward her. "Man, she's scary..." he whispered.
In the next couple of minutes, both Tim and Yumiko were treated by Ayuka, as well as Bow who suffered a minor wound from the chain.
Tim raised his right arm, grabbed it with his left, and looked at it. "Man. Your healing abilities improved a bunch since the last time I was this badly hurt by my ability. I mean, it's been a year or two, but still."
"Well, I had time to improve it." But then they heard Kou's groan and they looked at him. They surrounded him and checked up on him. He opened his eyes slowly, waited for his blurry view to disappear, and then spotted multiple faces looking down at him. He blinked, realized, and screamed. "Gah!" he got caught in surprise. "Kou. You're all right! We thought we lost you."
"O-Oh... it's just you guys." Yumiko, Ayuka, and Bow helped Kou by pulling him up to his feet. "W-Wait... What happened? How did we end up here?"
Kou, puzzled, didn't comprehend. He listened to Bow. "Well. You got nearly killed, so Tim came to help you out and brought you here."
Kou looked at his own body, surprised to see that he had no scratches. "What about that girl? What happened to her?" he asked. Tim barged in with his arms folded. "Oh, I killed her."
Then at that moment, everybody who didn't participate in the battle or saw what happened looked at Tim in instant. "You did what?!" he felt attacked, confused, but unfazed. "What? I got mad, so I might have gone a bit overboard. I mean, I might have melted her alive, but that's not as bad as what she did to Kou."
Ayuka, Yumiko, Kira, and Kou looked at him silently. Their eyes were wide open. "What do you mean?! Sure, I had spikes piercing my body, but melting someone's body alive is a completely different story!"
Tim kept his arms folded. "Look, I'm sorry. I couldn't just let somebody horrible as her run around in a cell. I know I'm not supposed to kill anyone, but I just couldn't let that one slide. I didn't want it to end that way, and I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
They sighed and became calm. "To be honest, she was getting on my nerves. I'm kind of glad she's dead." Claimed Kira, and seeing that neither of Rosi's allies was bothered, they became relaxed. "Look, Tim. Just make sure to keep your word. When we're done here, don't go killing around anyone else, no matter how bad the consequences are." Ayuka claimed, a bit disturbed by him, but forgave him.
"I already said I won't do it again. So, I won't do it again." The others smiled in relief, but Ayuka noticed something strange about him. "Tim... You didn't promise. You-" he interrupted her. "I didn't promise because of you, Ayuka. But I do promise that I won't kill anyone else if not needed. Even if that means one of our allies to be treated like Kou today."
Ayuka seemed astonished. "Wait... You don't mean that-" Again, Tim interrupted her. He turned around and looked at the hill. "Now, then. I promised I'm going to kick Niklas' ass. So, I think it's about time I make that promise come true. The rest of you go find Ralphie and Leandre. They might need help in case something horrible happens. I promise I'll come back, and I won't kill Niklas."
That's when Yumiko became intimidating. "Hold on a second, Flamey. You're not planning to fight him on your own, are you? We're all here, so why don't we just go together and outnumber him?" she asked.
Tim looked at Yumiko with an intimidating face. He put on the hood and grabbed it firmly. His face scared her. "Yumiko. I prefer battles one on one, that way it's fairer, and that's the only way to prove the other duelist who's stronger. Didn't you notice? All of us who fought had our battles separated. Even Kou who was with Bow at the time wanted to fight that girl alone." Yumiko didn't reply. "So, if you're planning to join our crew, then you'll have to accept it. If I recall correctly, you also fought your opponent by yourself, right? So, understand it, okay?"
She needed some seconds to piece together what Tim said, but when she did, she immediately asked. "Wait, hold on? Did you say what I think you said? Did you ask me to join the crew?" she asked, surprised.
"So, what if I did? You did want to join us, right? Well, I think you've done more than enough to help us out. So, tell me, did you want to join our crew?" he asked, looking at her. Yumiko's hand was hanging in front of her. She felt awkward. "I mean... I didn't think it would be possible, so I thought I'd leave it be. But if I had the chance to join, then I would."
Tim lowered his arm off his hood. "Welp, then it's official. Welcome aboard. From now on, we're sailing together!" Tim smiled, sharing his friendliness with her. "Y-You really mean it?"
Tim made a wide smile, revealing his teeth. "Of course I mean it. So, since I'm your captain now. I'm ordering you all to go meet up with Ralphie." Yumiko's eyes sparkled with ginormous enthusiasm, and she was too excited to stay still. "Got it!" she smiled, while Ayuka looked at her. "Well, since you're a new crewmember, and Elliott isn't with us anymore to fulfill the role of a combatant, I think that should be your role now."
Yumiko swept her head to face Ayuka, overreacting. "Really?! It's not like I'm good at anything else other than fighting. I guess it suits me well!" but Ayuka seemed unimpressed. "And you seem to be good at figuring out other people's secrets. You'd be a better guesser than a combatant."
Tim stepped in front of the stairs. "Guess I should hurry. 'Kay, now. Just leave Niklas to me. I'm pretty sure all of you've been through enough beating already." Tim punched into his palm and grinned. "It's time that I kick Niklas' ass and stop this slavery. Be careful, alright guys?" they nodded in unison, but Kou stepped forward.
"Wait, Tim. I know that you told me to go with them, but please, let me help you out. I'll leave all the fighting to you, I just want to keep my promise to Louisa. I told her I'd get her out of that cell, so please, let me come too." Tim stood still, casually watching Kou's determined face, and smiled. "Sure, if you've promised. But you better stay out of my fight, got it?" Kou nodded with a smile filled with confidence. "Got it!" he told.
"Okay, then. See you guys! Off I go." Yumiko, Bow, Peter, Kira, and Ayuka ran in the opposite direction toward the exploded city hall, but Ayuka stopped and allowed them to go ahead. "Okay, Kou. Are you ready?" they exchanged views, and both smiled.
"Wait, Tim!" Tim tried to put his first foot on the ground, became annoyed, and then turned around. "What now?! I need to-" he was interrupted as he noticed Ayuka's face lean in closer to his.
The next moment, Kou who innocently stood next to them became completely red in the face. He sweated and felt strange, but the next moment he watched Ayuka run after the others.
Tim needed to blink multiple times and noticed Ayuka turning to look at him again. "Be careful." Was her only word, and without another sentence, she ran into the alleyway. Tim's eyes sparkled a little, but he smiled and dropped the hood. "All right, Kou. Let's hurry up and get your friend out of there."
Tim ran up the stairs, Kou stunned. "I... Uh... I mean, yeah. Of course!" then ran after Tim, both preparing for a dangerous finish line.
To be continued...