If his opponent had been someone he could communicate with in a healthy way, Yu might have been able to rationalize his action.
With someone who was frightening in every way, suddenly appearing behind him with a weapon in his hand, there were two things he could do: either cower and run away, or stay and fight. The logic was the same as that of a crow facing a scarecrow.
Yu, who had no chance to escape at that moment, did what he had to do to protect his life against the person who looked like he was going to kill him.
Although his defense was ready, Yu was not in a position to defend his action, nor was his opponent willing to give Yu the right to defend himself. In fact, even if he did, the freak in front of him did not seem to understand him. She was a madman, her angry voice contrasting with her cheerful mask, the clothes she wore and the way she spoke.
The clown raised her foot to kick him on the balls. Yu rolled on the ground and avoided being kicked on the balls, but his body shook with pain as he rolled on his injured arm.
As long as he was on the ground he could easily be killed, he had to get up if he wanted to increase his chances of survival. To stand up, he needed to open his distance. If he tried to stand up now, a kick to the jaw would knock his teethes out and knock him down again and Yu would lose the chance to stand up completely.
He tried to think of something to get up and get away, but the pain that spread through his whole body prevented him from thinking of a plan. He couldn't plan, he couldn't fight. He could only try to escape from his opponent by using the reflexes he had not needed to develop thanks to the modern life he had lived so far.
The clown wanted to strike Yu's balls again and lifted his foot. This was Yu's chance to make a move. Yu drove his foot into the clown's foot on the ground and knocked her down.
As his opponent lay on the ground, he wanted to kick her a few times in the face, but it would have been best to get away from him and run away. Of course, he couldn't do that either, because the clown was in front of the stairs they had come up, and if he tried to jump over the clown he might get caught and things would only get worse for him.
"Why isn't Rie coming?"
He crawled on his haunches away from the clown and stood up, hoping that Rie would come and save him.
His arm, his nose, his whole body was burning in pain. There was blood in his mouth, and even if he spat it out, it quickly pooled back up. He wanted to vomit, but if he did, he would give his opponent a chance to kill him.
Yu was at a disadvantage no matter how he looked at it. His opponent was probably strong enough to withstand the blows he had received so far, but Yu was not like her. His arm was hurting more and more every second and he was losing blood. With a little effort, he could have removed the skewer, but he was afraid of getting hurt and his opponent would not give him time to do so.
The clown on the ground stood up nimbly and, taking two of the skewers attached to his belt, rushed forward at a speed Yu could hardly follow with his eyes.
As the distance diminished in the blink of an eye, Yu stopped trying to think and threw himself to the ground to escape.
He escaped for the moment, but he was down again and his opponent was standing, this time instead of kicking him, she threw a skewer at Yu.
The skewer missed its target and lodged slightly below his chest. The pain of the skewer piercing an organ was worse than any other pain. Yu crawled to the wall and leaned back against it in his last struggles for life.
His opponent was furious, he could hear her breathing furiously. She grabbed another skewer and pounced on Yu. She was about to stab him in the face with both of the skewers in her hands. Yu tried to stop her with his hands. One of the skewers went into his palm and pierced his hand, grazing Yu's cheek, while the other skewer went into his shoulder.
It worked and he managed to survive again, but that was it, he no longer had the strength to endure the pain or the energy to move.
"I don't want to die."
He couldn't hold back the tears as vomit mixed with blood poured over him. As Yu felt a crisis coming, the clown took another skewer from her waist to make a final move on Yu, who was moaning on the floor.
At this point, Yu had nothing. He was lying on the floor and didn't even have the strength to put his arms around his head.
"Haa!"
The voice Yu heard belonged to the person he had hoped to save him. The owner of the voice appeared before the clown made his last move and a red light filled the room, burning Yu's eyes as well. The clown's scream rang in Yu's ears.
As he drifted in and out of consciousness, it was hard to understand where he was. He found himself in an unfamiliar place, then being carried on the shoulder of an unknown woman. In the scene before his eyes, he was again on the ground and in another scene he was again being carried on the shoulder of a woman.
While his arms and legs were dangling, his teeth were clenched and he bit his tongue because of his clenched teeth and filled his mouth with blood again.
Sometimes he seemed to be able to think, but then he lost his ability to think again. The scenes in front of his eyes would change quickly, and just as quickly he would forget where he was in the next scene.
After a while, Yu began to feel peace in his body. His whole body was being blessed, the warmth his body felt was increasing as he felt better.
"I will try to slow down the fire, heal Yu."
After the last sound he heard, he lost consciousness again. In none of his previous crises had he ever lost consciousness at such a rate. When he regained consciousness, he felt better than before, but it was strange to meet a person he didn't recognize every time.
He felt relief in the place of the skewers that had been removed from his body, and the healing mana being transferred into his body was healing Yu's mind as well.
Unexpectedly quickly, all the wounds on his body healed and he regained full consciousness and remembered what had happened. He also realized who was healing him, the girl with cat ears on the top of her head was healing Yu with white light emanating from both hands.
"I'm sorry."
He was apologizing to Neko, but he didn't know why he was apologizing.
Neko didn't answer him and continued to cast her spell. Being healed by magic didn't feel real to Yu. He was conscious, there were no convulsions, there was a bad taste in his mouth but no more blood, and his wounds had disappeared without a trace.
It was so hard to believe that this was real that the possibility of it being a dream came to his mind again. The heat was getting unbearable.
"I got what I wanted, let's run."
Rie came in, completely covered in blood, her robes torn, her beautiful face covered in bruises. Yu didn't know what she had taken, it must have been something small that she had hidden inside her shredded robe.
When Neko saw her mother's wounds, she ran to her crying and began a healing spell.
"I managed to contain the fire upstairs, but there is a fire downstairs too. Right now we don't have to worry about the fire upstairs because it's protected by my magic, but if they get near there my spell will be broken. We need to find an escape point before they come to us."
Yu came to his senses, but the only thing he understood from what she said was that they were going to escape.
"What about Sharley?" Would they leave the child he had carried on his back all the way?
"I don't know, I don't have time to think about him now, let's go."
The meaning of that sentence was: I'm not going to risk the lives of all three of us to save one person. Yu could understand that logic, especially if one of those two people was a small child, Rie's logic became more acceptable.
He and Rie were going to look for an escape point on the floor they were on, but before they could even start looking, their enemies in the tower reappeared.
"Where are you going after hurting me like that? We have to hurt you now, don't we, Joy?" said Sorrow. His voice was as sorrowful as his name.
"We have to hurt them, brother. Especially yours, young lady, we are very sorry," said Joy. She sounded like she was having fun.
Showing that things weren't over yet, their enemies came out for a second round, announcing their names.