Chereads / The Noble Curse of Ookami / Chapter 18 - Roaring Lion

Chapter 18 - Roaring Lion

My duel with Yamato wasn't satisfying, because he had much more power than I had at that time. I kept getting hit and dodging his attacks one by one. It was starting to get exhausting after a while. At one instance, he managed to hit me with his dark fist.

I nearly fell off the edge of the rooftop. Yamato then walked towards me and stepped on my chest. He looked at me with his brown and purple eyes, which I've realized just now. His left eye was purple. He kept on pressing my chest, I was hopeless and couldn't move much.

"This is strange, you're not him. You're someone else," Yamato uttered, as his dark arm began to glow purple, with slight purple lightning surrounding it, "But whatever, this only makes it easier," he slowly raised his Capricorn sword, preparing to stab me in the heart.

---"GOTCHA!!"

From the side, suddenly a huge fist came up to Yamato, he tried to defend himself with the blade of his sword, but still flung to his left after getting hit by a glowing auric glove. It was a girl, an Ora from another team came as a back up.

"Here, let me help you," one of them helped me to stand up. "I'm Kentaro, the leader of this group. Kotetsu called for back up a few minutes ago," what a nice guy of him, I forgot that I left him to chase Ishigaki. Not long after, Kotetsu came to the area.

"This is Kanata," Kentaro introduced the girl who punched Yamato earlier. She was strange, an Ora normally doesn't behave with violence, "she's uh... a little too fired up,"

Yamato tried to stand up one more time, and saw three extra warriors in front of him. He spat out blood, and said, "What perfect timing you have... Nice, isn't it? Having someone always on your back, even though sometimes they are a complete stranger to you... This is not how fate works, you are a disturbance in this system," he then vanished with darkness to who-knows-where.

Kentaro's team were split, two of them were trying to save Kazuki and Ishigaki. A few minutes later, Kazuki and his savior arrived at the rooftop we were standing on, but no signs of Ishigaki. As I looked for him in the middle of thick smoke some hundreds of meters away, I saw some sparks, and sounds of sword clanging. Maybe a fight broke off in that area, but our visibility was poor.

Kazuki, the one with the light-element sword, offered to be our guide, but because of his injured state, we were hesitant to let him lead the way. After a short discussion, we agreed to let Kanata lead the way with her auric.

Then something happened, an explosion from Ishigaki's position. We stopped and observed from a safe distance. Then a straight vertical red thunder struck the earth and exploded the ground even more. The smog drifted away with the blast, making our view clearer than before.

One of Kentaro's men laid dead on the ground, while Ishigaki was holding his zodiac sword. He was kneeling down while screaming painfully. It's happening again... just like my experience months ago, something entered my body, mixed with my soul. I saw he was crying while I imagined the heat of the thing rising inside him. He gripped the sword more firmly, then tried to stand up with his eyes closed, his auric glove was glowing. One of the pair was missing.

Ishigaki opened his eyes, and as soon as he looked at his surroundings, dozens of hunters were at his proximity, even some came from behind him, further out of sector 24's coverage. We dashed through as fast as possible to aid him, but at one moment, his sword and auric started to burn.

"It's good to be back!" something spoke to me telepathically just like father. This time it was a girl, her voice was not as sweet as other girls, it was kinda deep and rough. Then at that moment, Ishigaki slashed through the incoming possessed with a fire sword and auric on his side.

I was worried about the victims, but magically, the fire cleansed them of their darkness, purifying them instantly and making them unconscious. This is not him, this is someone else.