Jane cracked a small grin, and Brock gave her the finger. Slowly, he felt his racing heartrate calm and his stress peter out. He had dreaded this reunion for so long, though he assumed it had slipped his mind during all of the… events that had happened in the meantime. But now that he had gotten his apology out, it all faded away, and he was left with simply being content.

“You worry about things too much,” Jane started, rolling her shoulders and earning a series of satisfying pops, “You need to learn to relax, Brock.”

The man in question raised his brows at her in disbelief. You know how long I stressed over what I said? Damnit.

Instead of voicing his concerns, he rubbed the sore muscles of his neck and sighed once more. Jane crossed her arms and rested further back in her bed as he spoke, “Maybe. It’s kinda hard to relax when everything you see wants to bite your fucking face off.”

“You swear too much.” She scolded.

“You don’t swear enough.” He countered.

Jane snorted, “Suit yourself.”

Brock narrowed his eyes at her, and his gaze locked with her own. They held it for several tense seconds, before finally they broke out into smiles. He’d missed his older sister, her annoying nit-picks about him and all. And from what he could tell, she had missed him just as much, if not more.

“It’s good to see you aga-” Brock’s tongue froze, and he found his body was reacting before he had even issued the order to move. The presence of an aura flared into being behind him.

The air hissed as his frame twisted around and his fist blurred through empty space, the form of a person coated by sloughing shadows frantically stepping back to dodge the blow. His eyes were wide with shock and Brock stopped himself right after the attack missed. The man placed himself in a stance the moment he regained his bearings, although seeing Brock’s apologetic gaze, let it drop.

He rubbed the back of his head, “Uh… sorry. Reflex.”

Brock could feel the searing gaze of Jane’s disapproval boring holes in his back, and he knew he’d never hear the end of her scolding later. To his credit, the man shrugged nonchalantly, as though being attacked randomly was par for the course. Oddly enough, however, Brock felt the man’s face was familiar.

“You… you’re that guy that was with Redhead.” Brock gestured toward him idly, recalling his face among the woman’s two followers.

Immediately, the guy’s – Daniel, if he remembered correctly – face fell into an angered grimace, though he quickly did his best to mask it. While Brock had already seen it before, the suspicion and dislike hidden within Dan’s eyes flared to prominence. Clearly, the man disliked him from the get-go.

“Minerva.” His spoke, his tone very clearly portraying a warning.

Brock nodded, “That’s what I said.”

Daniel seemed like he wanted to say something more, perhaps even throw a punch considering the way his hand was tightening into a fist, but he had enough intelligence to glance at Jane and diffuse his anger. Even he knew that deciding to throw hands at the brother of their future leader in front of the woman herself was a bad idea.

Brock too glanced behind him and was met with the overly unimpressed expression smeared across his sister’s face. If it wasn’t evident already, she didn’t approve of his behaviour. Daniel let his fist loosen back into a limp palm and bit back a growl, “The Patriarch has called for your presence. Come with me.”

He bowed toward Jane, “And apologies for the intrusion, Young Matriarch.”

Jane waved him off, not really caring too much it seemed, “It’s fine. Brock, behave yourself.”

Daniel turned to him as the shadows began to rise up and consume them and gave him a stare that spelled ‘I fucking hate you’ in seven different languages. Brock ignored him and waved goodbye to his sister. He chuckled, “I’ll try.”

The look of disapproval on her face as the shadows closed around him was worth a million bucks.

Brock was relatively used to the disorientation of shadow jumping by now, and apart from a little queasiness as he plummeted through the darkness, he felt no adverse effects. It was a blessing too, as it gave him some time to prepare for what was about to occur.

Daniel had already been predisposed toward disliking Brock, meaning he had been convinced of a reason to dislike him beforehand. Considering he was part of Minerva’s little entourage, the redhead herself was the most likely culprit, as she didn’t happen to like him either. He doubted his initial slight was enough, but if the woman up played it, or commanded something, that should be enough to do it.

Yeah, that’s my bad.

Whether Hiroto had actually called for him or not, he had no idea. It was entirely possible it was just some ploy to lure him out or something, though he doubted that they’d dare to misuse the man’s name. In the end, it didn’t really matter, as he was relatively certain that what awaited him on the other side of the teleportation was conflict.

Even just disregarding the fresh traces of Minerva’s aura wafting off the man, probably only a few minutes old at most, the guy had arrived up from his shadow. That meant that at some point in time between when Mio had transported them into King’s Cavity to when he had entered Jane’s hospital room, he had deliberately slipped into his shadow.

That alone pointed to a high probability that he had been tailing him. Considering the shadow scout’s tendencies to stay undetectable in the shadows, he didn’t doubt that they could follow him without him being aware.

Fortunately, it seemed that they wanted him, not Harry and Fon. That said, he doubted Minerva would let anyone else lead the attack, and he knew it’d be too much of a clusterfuck for them to try transport them all to separate locations and jump them all at once. The potential of a revenge plot aside, they should be safe back at the hospital.

This is gonna be interesting. Brock’s eyes hardened as the shadows thinned. They had arrived.

Abruptly, the world swapped as he rose up from the darkness and had his surroundings replaced by a sprawling forest. He could sense the auras of several dozen people only a few hundred meters behind him– regular citizens, judging by their low levels – which led him to believe he hadn’t been transported far from the city itself.

Brock wasted no time as his arm snaked outward and caught Daniel by his neck as he tried to slip away. His fingers tightened on his throat, and he heard the man gurgle with panic. Other than the citizens, he couldn’t detect the auras of anyone else here.

Unfortunately for the assassins attempting to ambush him, however, he could see their auras rising up out of the shadows they resided in. Idly, Brock felt the movement of energy as Daniel tried to activate a Technique, but the energy fizzled out the moment it was triggered. His frantic squirming redoubled, and Brock snorted at him.

Idly, he felt a chunk of his aura disappear in the process. Something similar happened to that other guy in Adelaide, didn’t it?

He knew that was a thought for another time and shelved it for now. As a deliberate show of power, he let his gaze settle on the cluster of shadows hiding his ambushers, and he let an easy grin spread across his face, “You guys aren’t very good at hiding.”

Daniel stilled in his grasp, his eyes wide with shock. Aware that the battle was about to throw down, Brock twisted and lobbed the man toward the shadows. He hit the loam rolling and gasped for air as he regained himself and scrambled back.

In the brief respite, he tested his abilities, forming a spike of shadow from his own, and a look of profound confusion crossed his face.

Brock ignored the man’s little shenanigans, however, and instead set his sights on the twitching shadows a little ways behind his prone form. They bulged and expanded until finally, they sloughed away like mud and revealed a troop of five individuals.

Like he had guessed, Minerva was stood arrogantly at the head of the pack, her arms crossed and her expression a mix of bafflement and righteous distaste. Kai, the woman that had been with her and Daniel before, stood directly to her right. The remaining members crouched at the ready behind her, their weapons pulled, and eyes sharp.

Among them, however, was a face he recognised.

“You!” Brock singled him out with a pointed finger, “you’re that guy…”

He was…

If he recalled correctly, the man he had recognised was the very same one that had tried to fight him on the day he had arrived in the city to rescue Jane. While trying to fight him for disrespecting his leader wasn’t exactly a dumb thing to do per se, the way the guy did it was. Plus, he really just came off like he was a dickhead.

That Guy didn’t respond, only grit his teeth and glance expectantly at Minerva, who had her eyes narrowed so sharply that Brock was afraid her gaze would chop off his only remaining arm, “You aren’t afraid? Shocked?”

Brock snorted, and naturally, his hand found itself slipped into his jacket pocket. Everyone present tensed up at the display, appearing to take it as open disregard. Brock suppressed a smirk. It was, “Not in the slightest. If you were gonna kill me, we wouldn’t be so close to the city. Plus, even with one arm and broken pathways…”

He barred his teeth, “I should be fine.”

Minerva’s hand twitched toward the blade sheathed at her thigh, and he could see the way her jaw clenched clear as day, but she held herself together. The others around her tried to step forward and engage, but a brief flash of her aura was enough to calm them down, at least enough to wait for her order.

Brock found himself enamoured with the way the remnant aura traces of the action wisped through the air. Minerva was clueless as to what he was seeing, and instead broke the silence while she reached for her dagger, “How’d you know we were ther-?”

Her eyes barely had enough time to widen as Brock appeared before her, his fingers already having wrapped themselves around her face. A startled grunt resounded from beneath his palm as Brock drove her to the ground, kicking up a storm of loam and moist dirt.

Everything sprung into motion at once.

Minerva’s head slammed into the ground, and Brock landed atop her. Two people dashed forward, their katanas gleaming high above their heads. A series of shadow tentacles rose up from the darkness around them and stabbed down at him.

Brock’s fingers tightened in their grip, and he rolled, avoiding both the barrage of shadow and the slashes of blade alike. Oppressive Might blasted outward and the melee combatants were smashed against each other, their bodies immediately going limp and their consciousnesses fading. Minerva grabbed his arm and her legs snaked around his waist.

A sharp pain erupted in his flank, and he knew he had been stabbed. Minerva’s leg lock tightened, and another burst of pain struck him, this time a little lower.

Brock retracted his arm and slammed her head back down into the earth, startling his attacker for a brief moment. Another herd of shadows rose up and Brock finally let go of Minerva. His fist struck her in the wrist and her dagger dropped. Quickly, he snatched it up.

Then he let it fly.

The tip drove through Daniel’s palm as he finally regained his bearing and got to his feet, pinning his hand to the tree behind him. He yelled out in pain, and Oppressive Might smashed his head back against the tree so hard it splintered, making him go limp.

That still left the matter of the other two shadow users, but Brock had a simple solution. Pushing off the ground with his hand as the tentacles streaked towards him, Brock rolled, bringing the still stunned Minerva onto the top position. Just as he expected, the shadow paused immediately, afraid of injury their leader.

Too eas-

A fist struck his face, and he felt his nose shatter.

“All you have,” another fist came down, although Brock managed to block it with his forearm, “are your stats. Nothing more.”

Her fists came down again and again, “No skill. No power. Just a body you aren’t even trained to use.”

With blood dribbling down his face, Brock finally gathered his thoughts and used his only Technique to tear her off him. She skittered along the ground, muddying her clothes, but she swiftly returned to her feet and stood alongside the remaining two combatants. Brock tried to stand, but a thick appendage of shadow slammed into his side the next moment.

The world blurred around him as a series of pain assaulted his senses. There were the sounds of crackles, the shocks of impact. It didn’t take him long to pin the former as the splintering of wood, trees. A second after, his momentum stalled, and he collided with a tree. A glance was all he needed to see the other seven he had broken through.

His back killed, and his head was a mess of aches. Idly, he wiped at his nose, finding thick clumps of blood stringing from it. Tears of blood streaked down his cheeks too, and Brock was very aware that it wasn’t due to the trees.

What…?

Under normal circumstances, he knew simply being smashed through a few trees would hurt a ton but wouldn’t impair or even damage him all that much. Yet, he was bleeding. He had been a lot recently. He’d been pale, he’d had nose bleeds, he’d coughed up blood. What the hell was happening to him?

He coughed up a glob of phlegm and spat it to the ground as he got to his feet, “Did Ryan do something to me?”

“I hope so.” Brock caught the elbow as it flew toward his face, though he wasn’t aware enough to dodge Minerva’s heel as she spun around and countered.

It caught him across the cheek, and he stumbled to the side. Through hazy eyes, he watched her aura wisp off her, free from the bounds of her body yet contained akin to some sort of shroud surrounding her frame. It’s… infused with her limbs…?

Minerva was fast, fast enough that she should be nearing Brock in Agility, which meant he doubted she had many points in Strength. Despite that, she was stronger than him by a decent margin, even with all his Title bonuses. Another fist flew at him, and he caught it, though his muscles flexed dangerously. Her aura expelled itself as the momentum was spent.

She’s… she’s enhancing her strength with her aura?

A knife slash at his stomach brought him back to the real world as he narrowly avoided the scarily sharp tip and disengaged. He glanced over and hopped backwards, seeing the two remaining followers, Guy included, moving to help the others back at the initial stage of the fight.

What followed was flurry of quick slashes and pointed blows, and Brock was put on the back foot, skill clearly showing itself superior to mere stats here. Even if he could see and perceive them effortlessly, Minerva was still far more experienced, both in combat and the execution of it. That, plus the reactive dissonance Brock felt with each movement as he worked his body to the limits, spelled for a tough time.

He really needed to increase his Dexterity before the issue got even worse.

Brock tried to catch the next strike – one aimed at killing instead of maiming - but a flare of pain from his punctured flank made him freeze for a split second. It was still enough that he wouldn’t catch it in time, and the blade shot straight for his throat.

As his eyes widened in shock, so did Minerva’s, perhaps having believed he would dodge it. Within her eyes, he saw sparks of fear and regret flash. A presence flared off in the distance.

“That’s enough!”