Location: Outside of the Federal Archives Building

Time: 2:12 PM, January 4th, 2108

“Truly barbaric, are they not? Not a hint of civilized behavior.”

I looked to my right to confirm what Red was referencing. About twenty meters away from us the Chief and Sara were engaged in what could only be described as a fight to the death.

The Chief was creating countless weapons and projectiles out of ice, but she hadn’t been able to land a hit on Sara. Somehow Sara was able to acrobatically avoid everything without much effort.

Things weren’t going perfectly for Sara though. She’d been avoiding everything, but she couldn’t land a hit either. She’d broken a least a dozen of Red’s artificially constructed weapons against the ice shield the Chief had on her left arm. After breaking, the weapons dissolved into nothing.

It was truly an amazing fight; the kind of thing I had no part in.

“Yeah, it’s something. I can’t imagine having that much energy.”

“Well, soon enough we’ll be in a similar situation. Although I’ll make sure to hold myself to a higher standard of class. ”

No thanks. I already decided to fight using a different method.

“Eh, let’s not. There’s no need for us to do anything yet.” I needed him to take the bait.

“What do you mean?”

Haha, I won. The girls in high school always used to say ‘it’s over once you start talking to Alec.’ I think they meant something a lot crueler than I do, but it’s true. Once I got him talking I’d already won.

“Think about it. Right now there are two other fights going on. Depending on how they turn out there might not even be a reason for the two of us to go at it.”

“I suppose. I can’t say I was looking forward to sullying myself by engaging with a man of such low status.”

Hi, that’s me, A man of low status. I’m just lucky I managed to win the fight lottery by getting the one who could be talked to. If the Chief had gone after Red from the start and I was left with Sara, well, it wouldn’t have gone in an ideal direction.

Once I got him willing to wait I needed to keep him distracted. If he noticed the barrier it would be over.

“I figured you'd understand. Besides, your objective doesn’t have anything to do with fighting us. You just need to stall for time while the fourth member of your group finds whatever you’re looking for.”

“Oh? You know why we’re here?”

“No, and I’d rather not find out. I’m just guessing.”

“A good guess. Once he manages to hack in we’ll be leaving.”

“I wouldn’t really mind if that were the case, but you should be careful with planning too far ahead like that. In high school I always used to buy two tickets to the formal dances as soon as they went on sale, but I never managed to find a date.”

“I guess that’s, unfortunate.”

“Oh, it gets worse. I have two younger sisters, and they always wanted to see what dances at Evergreen were like, so I took turns giving them each tickets.”

“You alternated between your sisters as dates?”

“Dates? What kind of fantasy world are you living in? They wouldn’t even show up with me. I don’t think either one of them actually said a single word to me at any of the dances. I’d have been happy if they at least made eye contact with me. It was pretty traumatizing really. Not even my own family would talk to me in a social situation.”

“I’m not sure if I can believe this. Why would you keep going?”

“I was foolish and naive. I still hadn’t realized that this world is truly devoid of hope for people like me. I did learn my lesson eventually though. I didn’t go to any of the dances my senior year.”

“At least you learned eventually.”

“Yeah. That year I just kept giving both tickets to my sisters, and they went together.”

“You kept buying the tickets? What happened to learning your lesson?”

“Those are two different things. I still had hope for finding a date, but I couldn’t keep showing up alone. A girl I liked told me that she didn’t want to see me go without a date anymore, so the only thing I could do was not show up at all. I didn’t want to disappoint her.”

“No, she was definitely trying to, never mind. I can’t believe I’m actually talking about this with you.”

Red started rubbing his temples and let out a long sigh. He was starting to have trouble breathing. He didn’t seem to realize it himself, but he was taking deep breaths every chance he got.

“We might not have to fight after all. You’re looking pretty pale, and you’re sweating like crazy. That wound you got from Enki might be worse than you thought.”

That wasn’t it. It was difficult to let sound pass through a barrier without letting any air pass through. Plus, I was managing to keep it hidden. Doing that much would put anyone under a lot of stress.

Even then, I couldn’t let him think I was feeling weak. He might see that as an opportunity to take me out quickly.

“It hurts, but don’t get the wrong idea. I only look like this because you got me talking about high school. Thinking about my past always makes me look like a hospital patient. By the time this day is over I’m going to need to be admitted.”

“Coming from you, I can actually believe that.”

Just a few more minutes. He wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

Something dropped onto my head. I looked up and got hit again, this time in the face.

“Rain?”

I wasn’t trying to ask a question, but the inflection came naturally. I mean, why was it raining? It wasn’t supposed to rain.

Those few drops quickly became a shower. It was a far cry from a downpour, but enough to start soaking my clothes.

I looked back toward Red. Unlike me, he was perfectly dry. There was a two meter circle of dry grass surrounding him. Of course there would be. The barrier that I’d been maintaining was keeping it perfectly dry.

Red noticed that discrepancy and reached forward. He touched the invisible wall that the rain was bouncing off of.

“I see. I’ve been tricked. I thought it was getting hard to breathe, but I wasn’t expecting this. You had me completely fooled. I never knew such a barrier was possible. Sound flows through it perfectly, but no oxygen can pass through. And even now that I know it’s here I can only sense it through touch. You played the part perfectly. I fully believed that you had no intention of fighting me.”

“Well, you know, that’s actually still true. I never intended on fighting you.”

“But you intended on having me suffocate? You were talking to me about frivolous things knowing I only had a few minutes left to live?”

“What can I say? I get surprisingly devious when push comes to shove.”

“You have incurred my wrath. You haven’t seemed to realize this, but I’m of a higher breed then you. You’ll die for your transgressions.”

“I’d really rather not.”

I was feeling a little weak from keeping the barrier hidden for so long, so I needed to end things quickly. I didn’t think I’d be able to win a drawn out confrontation.

I contracted the barrier around Red. I didn’t suffocate him, but I could still crush him.

Red’s reaction was instant. A sword materialized in his hand, and he used it to slash through my barrier. The cut caused the whole thing to collapse.

“That’s-”

“Durendal, yes.”

Red answered before I could finish. He was holding up a sword that looked just like Enki’s Durendal.

“This isn’t the real one of course, it’s just a copy. You’ve probably noticed this already, but that’s my augmentation. I can create a replica of anything I’ve ever seen. Convenient, right? The replicas might pale in quality compared to the real thing, but they’re still useful.”

“You sure it’s worth it to waste such a valuable skill on someone like me? Wouldn’t your time be better spent getting rich by making precious metals?”

“A man in my position has no need for money. Even if I did, it’s not that simple. My constructs won’t last forever. All the weapons sticking out of the ground were made using the earth as a medium, so they’ll last for thirty minutes or so. But if one of them loses contact with the ground it will only last around thirty seconds.”

“Should you really be telling me this?”

“Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t, but I’m positive you won’t be able to survive this.”

“That’s pretty unfortunate for me, isn’t it? But you know, this will be my third getting attacked with a sword today, so I feel like I’m getting pretty used to it.”

“A sword? I’m not interested in such crude tools.”

The fake Durendal disappeared from Red’s hand.

A bright green liquid covered Red’s arm.

“Disgusting. I don’t know how he deals with this. Let me try something even he can’t do.”

Red swung his arm toward me. The liquid flew off his arm in my direction. It didn’t look particularly dangerous, but I put up a barrier anyway. I didn’t have the energy for anything complex, so it was just a standard purple, hexagonal barrier.

The liquid sizzled as it made contact with the barrier. It looked like it was trying to dissolve through, but it wasn’t strong enough.

“You’ll have to try better than that, Red.”

“No, I saw what I wanted. Your barrier, I’ll remember it.”

Something new appeared in Red’s grasp. It was a silver ball that fit in the palm of his hand. He twisted the top half ninety degrees. A red dot started flashing on it.

“Do you know what this is?” He held up the silver ball.

“No idea, but I can’t imagine it’s something pleasant.”

A second red dot started flashing beside the first.

“This is an explosive designed by the Russian Federation before they dropped out of the war.”

Dropped out? Ah, this guy is from the Pacific Empire. To them the war is still going on.

“They dropped out right before this little guy could start its trial run.”

A third red dot started flashing beside the second.

“I’m not sure how it works, but apparently it packs enough of a punch to wreck an entire building. No one would volunteer for field testing because most people couldn't throw it far enough to avoid getting caught up in the explosion.”

A fourth red dot started flashing beside the third.

“Your military history hobby sure is interesting, but there’s something else I’d like to know. Most explosives count down, but that one is counting up. Would you be kind enough to tell me what it’s counting up to?”

“That’s easy, five.”

Red tossed the explosive in my direction. Based on how long it had been the fifth dot should have appeared at any moment. I didn’t have time to think. I put everything I had into creating a barrier around the explosive.

The fifth dot appeared. I braced myself, but nothing happened.

A sharp pain appeared in my left leg. It gave out as my weight pulled me to the ground. The mud splashed across my face, but I didn’t have time to care. I looked at my leg. A knife was sticking out of it.

I pushed myself back up, but Red walked past me. He picked up the silver ball he had thrown.

“Sorry, I was lying about this guy.”

“Yeah, you got me. I can’t believe I just wanted so much energy on a toy. I should’ve known. If it was a real explosive you’d have been putting yourself at risk as well.”

“No, you’ve misunderstood. I wasn’t lying about what it is, I was lying about the time. It actually lasts three minutes. But don’t worry, if I give it another turn it will be set to a five second fuse.”

Red twists the top half another ninety degrees. The flashing dots were replaced by a single red ring.

“Good luck. I'd hate to have this end so easily. I’m hoping to have more time to properly take you apart.”

Red tossed the explosive toward me a second time.

It had to be another trick. If I didn’t contain the explosion then Red would be caught up in it as well. He didn’t seem like the type to put himself at risk.

Red dropped to one knee and a purple, hexagonal barrier appeared around him. Hey, what’s that about? He seriously copied my augmentation. But did he really think a lesser version of my barrier would be enough?

The barrier froze over. It took less than a second for the whole thing to be covered in ice. It looked similar to the shield the Chief had been wearing on her arm as she fought Sara.

He copied that too. With both of our defensive abilities he was probably safe. What about me? The explosive was on the downswing of its parabola, heading in my direction. It would probably have been easier to just protect myself, but I wasn’t sure how strong that thing really was. There was a chance someone on the outside of the barricade would get hurt.

My only option was to try and contain it again.

I created another barrier around the explosive. I couldn’t make it as strong as the first one, but it would have to do.

This time, it actually exploded.

No sound got out and all of the explosive was destroyed with its initial explosion. It actually looked relatively peaceful inside the barrier, but that was just an illusion. I didn’t give it any room to expend, so all of the energy was being converted into heat. The inside of my barrier was reaching temperatures I couldn’t even fathom.

I was trying to hold it back, but some of the heat was getting out. The rain that fell too close was starting to boil and evaporate before it reached the ground. Safe to say, things weren’t going well. The heat was causing the pressure to rise to high. I couldn’t hold it back much longer.

In theory I could have fine tuned my barrier to release the pressure slowly. That theory wasn’t one I could put into practice though, at least not in my current state. If I tried anything fancy I’d probably lose control altogether.

If I released it the damage wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the initial explosion would have been, but it wouldn’t be good. Especially for me. Doesn’t matter, I couldn’t keep it up either way. I created a barrier around my body. It could protect me from the heat, but it couldn’t do anything about the force.

My barrier that was containing the explosion broke down. An incredibly loud sound filled the air as the zone of extremely high pressure expanded outward. The sudden rush of air blasted me backwards. I’m not sure how far it launched me, but my back smashed into a tree.

Everything, other than Red’s protective bubble and myself, within a ten meter radius was turned to ash.

The temperature and pressure in the area didn’t take long to regulate. Well, that disaster was averted, but I was losing consciousness. The knife in my leg disappeared at some point and the wound on my side definitely opened back up. I was losing too much blood. Plus, I think the pressure change was messing with my head, or maybe hitting that tree gave me a concussion.

Red’s protective bubble disappeared, and he stood up; observing the scorched field around him.

What could I do at that point? Pray? I didn’t believe in any gods, so it probably wouldn’t work. I’d have to play possum. As long as I could keep stalling for time I would have a chance.

“I thought I heard someone having a hard time. You look like you’re in some bad shape.”

It was Kanon’s subordinate. He crouched down and put a hand on my shoulder.

“How convenient. If you’re here that means you took care of Enki, right? Mind lending me a hand?”

“Is that the impression I gave you? I’m actually in the process of making my escape. I didn’t think it was going to rain. I’m useless in the rain.

“Huh?”

“It’s like I always say, when the ink starts to run, so do I.”

He took a piece of paper out of his sleeve and stuck it on my forehead.

“Well then, sayonara.”

He stood back up and started running away.

Seriously?

I took the paper off my forehead and looked at it. It was the same as the ones he was throwing around before, except it was soaking wet. The writing on it had been smeared as well. Just touching it left my fingers covered in black ink.

His augmentation must rely on those pieces of paper, and the writing had to be important.

I looked in the direction he was running from. Enki. He was walking towards me.

It was supposed to be an easy victory for me, wasn’t it?

The rain messed everything up. Why’d it have to start training in the first place? I wanted to devote the rest of my life toward harassing whatever demonic force caused a sudden rainstorm on a sunny day.