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Chapter 41: Murder or not to Murder

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Standing inside the room was a figure clad in black and red. Her entire face was hidden underneath a Grimm mask. In addition to her long, black hair, the woman's red eyes that could be seen through the slits of her mask gave the appearance of a humanoid Grimm.

#*%[email protected](%@! (Lvl 66)HP:1520/1520Aura:2295/2295

= Oh for fuck's sake. I'm sick of all these hidden names. =

“Die!” the men yelled. They fired their machine guns at the figure in front.

“Foolish.”

Portal

Reaching her hand out, a blood red hole opened up in the space in front of her. The bullets that was fired disappeared into the empty space and reappeared behind the men through a second portal. Riddled with their own bullets, their bodies sank to the floor. Thomas noticed Robin was watching them from the entrace of the room.

“Kid! Quickly. Protect me! I will triple your reward -- no I'll quadruple it! Just stop her!”

The woman looked at Robin. In response to her questioning stare, Robin shrugged his shoulders.

“You little..”

“You just tried to make me a slave. You have no right to give me orders.”

Thomas opened and closed his mouth in shock. Then, he pushed his bodyguards forward and dashed for the other exit.

“Stop her!”

The two men, clad in their auras at full power, dashed towards the woman. One of them dual wielded a sword and gun. He slashed downward on her head, but was blocked by the katana. He then fired at her with his other hand. The woman leaned to the side and avoided the bullet. At this point, the other man approached her back and stabbed her.

Portal

Instead of connecting, another blood red portal opened, and the blade passed into it. It reappeared above the other bodyguard's head. Just noticing it in time, he leaned to the side to avoid getting impaled, but the blade made contact with his shoulder instead. The pain made the taller man drop his gun.

Item Creation

A black knife materialized into her hand, and she jabbed it into the man's eye. Screaming in pain, he backed away while the woman faced the man behind her. The man withdrew his weapon from the portal and tried to get some distance between the two of them. However, Robin had sneaked behind the other bodyguard and tripped him with his foot. The man stumbled, and received a roundhouse kick to the chest. The force knocked him off his feet and into the furniture behind him. .

-203

The man tried to lift his weapon, but it was kicked away by Robin's left leg. He swung the foot back and crushed the man's nose. The man took the full force of Robin's kick, and his upper body disappeared into the wall.

-403

Robin turned to find that the other woman finishing up her own target. The remaining bodyguard couldn't hold onto his weapon with one arm against the stranger's two. The woman parried his strike and disarmed him in one fluid movement.

“Monster!” he exclaimed.

The man watched with his one eye in horror as the her blade approached his neck. He closed his eyes, but found that he was still breathing. Opening his eyes, the criminal found the blade an inch from his neck. The woman's weapon was stopped by Robin's hand.

“Let go.” The woman said.

“Why?” Robin asked. “He's been disarmed. There's no reason to kill him. Just let the police handle things.”

The woman scoffed and pushed Robin's hand away.

“You think some time in jail will fix them? They've done things they can never atone for. Lives that they have taken will never return. What could they possibly do to make up to those who have suffered? What could you do to change them?”

Robin frowned in silence. How many other children had they kidnapped before this? Are they even still alive? Robin understood that even though they could save the children in the building, the others may never come back.

“Even so,” Robin began, “it's unnecessary.”

The woman ignored him and proceeded to murder the man in front of her. Robin was a beat too slow and witnessed the head of the man being severed. The blood splashed into Robin's face as the head flew in the air. The woman flicked her blade to get rid of the excess blood and began walking after sheathing her blade.

The blood gave Robin a feeling of neither sickness nor nervousness. Instead, the metallic taste somehow calmed Robin down. He hurriedly wiped his face clean and followed the woman with mixed feelings.

“...You know. He might get away if you take too long.” Robin commented.

Even though he said that, he didn't actually believe the man would get away.

“No, he can't escape. I blew up the vehicles and barred all the possible exits in this building. All I have to do now is find him.”

“Oh that's easy.” Robin said. His eyes darted to a door in the hallway. With his Bloodlust still active, he could see the silhouette frantically banging against a window.

“He's in there.”

The two of them walked into the room together as if it was the most natural thing to do. They saw Thomas panting heavily as he smacked the black bars that was outside the window. When he noticed the two entering, he grabbed the girl next to him and put his gun to her head.

“Don't move! Or the girl dies.”

= Shit. = Robin cursed.

= I thought that silhouette was another one of his men. I didn't expect for him to bring a hostage with him. =

Robin and the woman brandished their weapons. Thomas pulled the hammer back on his gun and pressed the muzzle against the girls temple. She was in tears, trembling in fear.

“I said stop! Don't you care what happens to her?!” Thomas yelled.

“Put you weapons away. Now!” he screeched.

Robin reluctantly put Pantomath back on his holster, but he noticed that she didn't move.

“Oi.” Robin frowned. “Don't tell me you'll let her die just so you get one criminal.”

“What are you doing?!! I'll shoot if you don't put that away!!”

The woman just stared at Thomas through the slits in her mask. Thomas pulled the trigger.

= NO! =

Enhance

With his body enhanced to the max, Robin dashed forward and reached for the girl as quick as he could. He ripped her from Thomas's arm and collided with the wall. Protecting the girl, Robin held her and waited for the worse to happen. The bang from the gunfire was already heard while Robin was traveling. It all happened so fast, so Robin couldn't tell if he was too late or not.

Portal

Robin felt no pain, and when he examined the girl in his arms, she had no bullet holes in her. Relieved in finding her safe, Robin turned around to find Thomas sprawled on the floor with a bullet hole in his forehead.

Robin hadn't noticed and neither had Thomas. The woman had opened a tiny portal just big enough to cover the muzzle of the gun. The woman was silent, so she could concentrate Enhance on her eyes in order to not mess up the location of the portal. The bullet had traveled out the gun, into the portal, out the other end, and into Thomas's head from behind. Robin who had pumped aura into his body for movement had missed the tiny portal in front of the gun.

= What happened? =

At that moment, sirens could be heard outside. The woman turned to leave. She walked out of the room and into the hallway.

“Wait!!” Robin shouted. "Just who are you?"

He set the girl down gently, and dashed outside the room to find that the stranger's silhouette had disappeared from his vision.

= Where the fuck is she go? =

Looking around, he found nobody except for the slaves and the policemen who were about to break into the building. Robin returned to the room with Thomas's corpse and the girl. Upon looking at the window, he saw the black bars that was blocking the window evaporating into black dust.

= What in the world? =

He could only stare in confusion. Baffled by the turn of events, he stood there before realizing he was running out of time and began to search Thomas's body for his status plate. At that moment, the police barged in.

“Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them!”

= Oh fuck... =

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“And that's what happened.” Robin concluded.

Currently, he was sitting in the interrogation room with the head police officer whose name he learned was Officer Trudge. The officer sighed and put his head in his hands.

“So she struck again..sigh.”

“Excuse me. If I may be so daring to ask, but who was she?”

“Nobody knows who she is.” the officer answered.

“She had appeared out of nowhere. Criminals that have been avoiding authorities have started to surface. Their corpses found in conspicuous locations. Sometimes they show signs of torture among other things. Nobody knows her name and thus we can only identify her using her nickname, the Grimm Reaper...”

The officer sunk further into depression and murmured his thoughts in a voice that Robin's wolf ears happened to pick up.

“Sigh...First the Torchwick guy and now this. If I don't start showing results, the higher ups are going to be furious, not to mention the public aren't going to trust the police at this rate.”

Robin couldn't help but feel sorry for the officer. Most likely, he had let the information about the Grimm Reaper slip due to exhaustion and lack of information. He probably had hoped Robin knew something about her, so Officer Trudge had not mind telling him. However, that was Robin's first encounter with her, so he had nothing to share. A man walked into the room and whispered into Trudge's ear.

“The surveillance tape has confirmed your story.” Officer Trudge announced.

“You're free to go.”

Robin left the police station and walked towards a bus stop. After getting out of sight of the station, Robin stepped into an alley and reached into his inventory. He pulled out the four inventory chips he had retrieved from Thomas's corpse. He plugged them in and examined the contents.

Inventory400/400$3,950

10 Inventory chips

= Pfft. He has inventory chips inside of inventory chips. How rich was this guy? =

Robin smirked while feeling not the least bit guilty.

= Sweet. There's enough for everyone. =

*beep*

ScavengerYou are able to shamelessly take the spoils from your opponent after your victory. From now on, all defeated opponents will have important items on their person glowing white for easy searching.

Busy with RL atm. I'll post more tomorrow. Rate, comment, enjoy! Thanks for reading!

For those curious about how she looks like

Edit: So people are once again saying stuff so I wanna clarify for both loyal fans who follow despite my slow progress and those who are considering to leave this alone for a while and coming back later (hopefully). I go slower than most authors. Usually by chapter 40 you would see op characters, I get it. I'm not doing that.

THIS HAS BEEN REMOVED DUE TO SPOILERS.

Then we're moving on. You can stop for now and come back later, or you can keep following chapter by chapter. Up to you. I respect your decisions either way and am well aware of my slow progress. xD