Kage opens his eyes and looks around.
"Where the hell am I?"
Kage looks around, and all he can see is pitch black. Kage gets up and starts looking around.
"Hello, is anyone there? Wait, wasn't I fighting against some big Brolic guy? Wait, what happened to Tota?"
As he screams in the darkness, Kage feels a chilling presence. Kage quickly turns around, but like everything else around him, he sees pitch black. Kage looks all around in confusion but then grabs his chest. As his heart beats faster, Kage falls to the ground.
"What is this? My heart! It feels like my heart is about to burst!"
Kage falls into the darkness, slowly plummeting lower and lower. As he falls, he starts to hear voices.
"It seems things are getting tough. How are you going to run from it this time, or maybe this time you'll ruin someone else's life?"
Kage grabs his head in pain.
"Shut up; it wasn't my fault! I didn't know."
"Oh yeah, is that the same excuse you're going to use for Tota? Or will you try and fail like always? You never win when it counts, but you don't care, do you?"
"Shut the fuck up!"
"You prove it over and over again! Those kids were murdered by Nest! The beast King Wayne begged you to help him protect! You didn't fight for them because you cared. You fought for them because you didn't want everyone around you to think of you differently. You're heartless to the core—the most selfish person anyone could meet, just like me!"
A shadowy figure appears in front of Kage.
"Stop trying to pretend you care for anything but yourself because you don't!"
"Shut up, I'm not like that!"
Kage's descent into the darkness accelerates, and his body starts to melt, starting with his legs climbing to his torso.
"You try to deny it, but there's no reason for you to live, but you still choose to live anyway and make everyone around you believe you're a good person! It doesn't matter what it is; you'll do anything to feel like your life matters. You'll even chase after something that doesn't matter to you! So many people out there chase level three for selfish reasons, but yours is the most selfish of them all because of the simple fact that you try to fight the fact that it is selfish."
"Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Hahaha, he reminds me of me from a long time ago! Don't make me laugh. Tota is nothing like you; that was just an excuse to not look selfish again, wasn't it?"
All of a sudden, the darkness around Kage transforms into yellow flames.
"It's not true. I'm nothing like that. I didn't know things would end like that."
As his body slowly disintegrates in the flames, a tear drops from Kages eye.
"It wasn't my fault; I don't know what I could have done."
Kage closes his eyes and reopens them. When he opens his eyes again, Kage sees a familiar ceiling. Kage looks around and sees that his body is completely surrounded by yellow flames.
"A dream? Wait these flames!"
"Good to see you're awake. You had me worried there for a second with all that screaming you were doing."
Kage looks to his left and sees Mr.Mink.
"Mr.Mink"
Kage looks towards the window and notices that it's nighttime.
"How long have I been out?"
"I say about five hours."
The yellow flames around Kage dissipate, revealing to Kage that he is lying on a bed.
"Oh, I see that you're fully healed."
"Wait, Mr.Mink, are these flames?"
"Yep, these are Doc's healing flames."
Mr.Mink pulls out a glass cube.
"The doc was nice enough to store some of his flames in three glass cubes just in case we ran into some trouble."
"Oh, that is nice of him."
"Yeah, if it weren't for him, you would have definitely kicked the bucket."
Kage sits up on the bed and then looks at his hand.
"Hey, Mr. Mink, what happened after I blacked out?"
"You mean what happened to Tota, right?"
Kage grabs the sheets of the bed in frustration.
"The Frinstion gang took him back."
Mr.Mink starts to think back to his encounter with Nubuki after Kage passed out.
Mr.Mink arrived on the battlefield seconds before it was too late.
"Did you do this to my student?"
After Mr.Mink asked his serious question, Unknown arrived. Unknown jumped from building to building until he landed next to Kage and Mr.Mink.
"Kage!"
Unknown starts to check up on Kage's condition.
"How is he looking, Unknown?"
"He's knocked out, but he's barely breathing."
"Good, so he's still alive. Take him back to the hotel!"
"Wait, not the hospital?"
"No, I have a feeling the hospital isn't the best option. I sent Akira and Selena to the hotel with my room card. Just go to my room and knock on the door, and they'll let you in. When you get inside my room, go in my bag and grab one of the glass cubes. All you have to do is pull off the cover on the cube in front of Kage. If you do that, Kage will be fine."
"Ok, I'll go right now!"
Unknown throws Kage on his back and uses the accelerate technique to vanish. When he knows Unknown is a safe distance away, Mr.Mink turns his attention back to Nubuki.
"So may I know the reason why I found my student beat to a bloody mess?"
"I wanted my property back, and he stood in my way."
"Your property?"
Mr.Mink looks behind Nubuki and sees Tota lying on the ground with many bruises.
"OK, then I guess I'll pay you back with a beating of your own."
Mr.Mink starts slowly walking towards Nubuki. Nubuki instantly activates level two after seeing Mr.Mink's angry face. After witnessing Nubuki's activation of level two Mr.Mink stops his approach.
"Hey, during that fight with Kage, did you stay in level one the entire time?"
"Yes, what about it?"
"Oh, nothing. I just got an idea. You and your men are free to go!"
All the goons surrounding the area scream "What!" in disappointment.
Nubuki stares at Mr.Mink in silence.
"You all heard me correctly. I don't want to fight right now, so I'll just head out."
Mr.Mink vanishes, leaving everyone in the area confused. After a few seconds, the surrounding goons started to yell once again.
"Ha, what a pussy!'
"Yeah, and after all that hot shit, he was talking!"
"He was definitely scared of the boss's power!"
As his men cheered for his victory, Nubuki was in deep thought.
"I sensed his power the second he arrived. He could have definitely defeated me and all my men. He was sparing us, but why?"
After the battle ended, Nubuki took Tota and left. After hearing what happened after he passed out, Kage was angry.
"Wait, you just let them take Tota!"
"Calm down, Kage. I have my reasons."
"Oh yeah, and what would those be!?"
"Before I answer, I need to know."
"???"
"Do you want to save Tota? We can simply leave and abandon him. You've only known him for a day. Is it really worth risking your life again to save him?"
After hearing Mr.Mink's question, Kage remembers the conversation with the ominous voice in his dream.
"It seems things are getting tough. How are you going to run from it this time, or maybe this time you'll ruin someone else's life?"
"Shut up; it wasn't my fault! I didn't know."
"Oh yeah, is that the same excuse you're going to use for Tota? Or will you try and fail like always? You never win when it counts, but you don't care, do you?"
Kage clenches his fist and responds to Mr.Mink's question.
"I want to save him at all costs."
"Perfect! Because even if you didn't, we would have to fight anyway."
"Wait why!"
"While you were out, I had Selena do some recon for me. She went around the city and read as many minds as she could. She found out something that's very disturbing. That guy Nubuki you fought is the leader of this city's only gang, named the Frinstion gang. Yeah, I know a pretty basic name, but what's more shocking is that this gang has been illegally controlling this city for the past 32 years without anyone outside of Frinstion knowing."
"What! How is that even possible? Wouldn't the government or at least some travelers find out?"
"The government has no idea since everything government-related in this city is controlled by Nubuki. This city's government presence might as well be nonexistent; even the leaders of this city are being manipulated by Nubuki. Now travelers usually don't notice anything strange because Nubuki does a good job of hiding the secrets of this city. Of course, there are slip-ups here and there, so they have constant surveillance all around the city just in case. Even right now, we're being watched.
Mr.Mink looks towards the camera in the lamp next to the bed.
"And to make it even worse, all citizens are required to report if they see anything strange, no matter how small it is. Now why would the citizens do such a thing, you ask? Simply put, this city has the lowest percentage of OGI users in the world, and all the OGI users the city does have are in the Frinstion gang or killed before they become too powerful."
"That's fucked up."
"Yes, these citizens aren't allowed to leave this city, and everyone who has tried was caught and killed. They constantly fear for their lives. The gang members tax them and use their money to buy outside resources so they can become more powerful."
"OK, so we're fighting a gang that has been secretly controlling a city for years, but what did you mean we have no choice?"
Mr.Mink gets out of his seat and walks to the window.
"Come take a look for yourself."
Kage gets out of bed so he can walk to the window. When he looks through the window, he sees the night sky.
"I don't see anything."
"It's kind of hard to see, so I suggest you look a little closer."
Kage starts to squint his eyes and sees something above the city.
"Wait, is that?"
"Yep, that's a barrier surrounding the entire city. About 2 hours ago, it appeared, and I already went to test it out. The barrier is impenetrable from the inside, and if I'm guessing correctly, it's also impossible to break from the outside. Nubuki probably didn't want us to leave the city and tell anyone of this city's situation, so he trapped us."
"Wait, if that's true, wouldn't they have come to kill us by now?"
"That is true, but I'm here. Nubuki isn't confident that he can deal with me, so he's playing it safe by setting up a trap for me instead."
"Do you really think there's a trap out there that can catch you?"
"No, but it's definitely a possibility."
"Are you sure, or are you just guessing?"
"You could call it that, but what I do know is that he's not worried about you."
"Hey, I'm right here!"
"You already lost to him once, so he probably plans to beat you again, but this time finish you for good."
"Damn, I guess you're right."
"But no worries, because I think this is an opportunity. You want to save Tota and escape this city alive, so I'll train you to do just that. With the right skills, your next battle with Nubuki should be different. Since we know Nubuki won't make the first move, we have a lot of time. Don't worry, I'll be training the rest of the class too."
"So we will be preparing for an all-out battle with the Frinstion gang?"
"Yep, and you all will be ready in three days."
Chapter 59 end