Kino was transported out of Magnus’s memory as soon as Magnus saw him watching. Thinking he’ll be brought back to reality, his eyes saw a series of new but unfamiliar blurry sceneries faster than watching the wraith prince’s life.

He saw the city in destruction, a group of people marching in a dark setting, a nurse and a doctor in a laboratory, a girl he couldn’t recognize, and a man with foreign features and a faint smile.

Then he felt the touch of Beatrice’s hand that’s now gripping his cheeks between her fingers. All the things he saw due to her touch took only a few milliseconds in reality. Her face remained unchanged, and her scythe was still in the air ready to slaughter him.

“Come, Abaddon.”

But before she could decapitate his head in which one of his cores is surely located, his right arm reached from the side. He watched how her expression changed when he pulled a morningstar from a tiny gate they call the “void” just like what she did with her weapon. It was the same weapon Magnus used in those thousands of battles.

“H-How did you—WAAAAAHHH!!!” Her scream was unbearably frightening when Kino chopped her arm off from touching his face. Beatrice watched the blood ooze out of her flesh. “Y-You! I won’t forgive you for this—”

Kino didn’t let her speak more of her nonsense and followed another quick attack with his morningstar. Awakening his body with his wraith form except for a portion of his face to not get his consciousness controlled, he repeatedly attacked Beatrice.

“You will pay for this, Rosen!” She exclaimed angrily as she avoided his attacks, arm regenerating, but not the hit on her shoulder. It seems Kino has become faster than before. He noticed how her red eyes glow redder when she activates her foresight, and even if Beatrice could see what can happen in the next 30 seconds after the 10-second cooldown, the wraith princess is still obviously having a hard time against him even in the second round.

If I keep up this speed, I can beat her...

But it didn’t take her long to adjust to his speed, which gritted his teeth. He won’t let himself struggle again, as he could get killed the second time around. Not when he saw Magnus’ past and the unfamiliar scenery he showed him. He has to tell the association about it, and Henrietta, who wants to see how all of these would end with the path he chose.

Their weapons clanged and sparked, giving hints of light in the dark abandoned apartment complex. They may have almost the same amount of strength and power, yet Kino has to catch up to her skills. He saw how skilled Magnus was in battle and his body instinctively duplicated the techniques and fighting style he possessed, yet it was his body that wasn’t fit enough for those.

Kino frustratedly cussed himself. I need to keep training more, I shouldn’t just rely solely on the pieces of him inside me!

Another attack of his morning star but Beatrice blocked it with her scythe. She was already in her full wraith awakening form, and her fangs showed up to spite him.

“How dare you steal our god’s power! I and my people will never forgive you, swindler!”

“He never wanted to be a god, and you forced him to be!”

“You don’t know him!”

“I know him better than you do!”

Beatrice escaped from the clash and hopped in the air backward to escape his range for a brief moment. She smirked. “Is this a human siding with us now? With the creatures who want to eradicate your existence to occupy this world for ourselves?”

“I didn’t say that I side with you, nor with him. I just understand where he was coming from, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with his objective!” They clashed their weapons once again. “I’m a selfish person, and if it’s for the sake of the survival of mine and my loved ones, I’d gladly use it against you all instead!”

“Then I have more reasons to kill you and get that power for myself!” Those words with a hint of a new determination made her power up her strength and foresight ability. Kino found himself flying through the walls of apartment units until the road across the street, landing in a two-story establishment.

A small family having dinner was dumbfounded to find a wraith crashing in the comfort of their home. They instantly fled out of fear.

Shit!

Using his foresight, Kino saw Beatrice gliding towards the area where he landed. He immediately levitated out of the building to avoid the impact of her attack and took that chance to strike from behind. He knows he can beat her foresight with speed, but he has to maintain his stamina to keep getting faster than her movements. He couldn’t afford to lose.

But Beatrice already saw him coming by using her foresight. The girl managed to be faster. She turned around and released a wind strike directly to his face. Despite Kino seeing it coming, the wind strike was too close this time that he was unable to escape its area of effect and his body took almost all the damage.

Fuck!

The only thing he could do was to protect his face with his arms and fly like a helpless insect across the walls of the next units of the commercial building. It was so powerful that his body reached the lively shopping mall across another wider street, creating an impact on its glass walls.

People screaming and cars honking could be heard in the background. Kino attempted to get up from the pile of ruined indoor fountains but his body had already suffered too many injuries. Half of his awakening form subsided, causing him to groan in pain when he felt his broken bones. Gritting his teeth, he tried to regenerate his wounds yet his body didn’t have enough power to seal them, nor the courage to get his awakened form back.

D-Damn it!

“KYAAAAAHHH!!!”

“Wraith!”

Civilians started running everywhere when the wraith princess appeared in front of the mall from the skies. Her cute face and dress weren’t enough to trick people anymore as she showed up in her wraith awakening form. She whipped her scythe left to right to cause wind strikes, leaving hundreds of chopped bodies flying in the air. Men, women, and children were never spared.

Kino was left horrified.

“H-HOW DARE YOU!” He groaned his throat out, trying his best to stand back to his feet with the broken legs he was trying to heal.

C’mon! Stand up!

Beatrice didn’t care about the chaos she inflicted on the surroundings. Her eyes were focused on him as she walked while whipping her scythe continuously in opposite directions, killing innocents that her wind strike could reach. No one was safe.

As she got closer with every step, the death count increased. It was raining blood and flesh, dust, glass, and rubble. A group of patrolling police also came in no time, yet they were just cut into pieces in one swoop.

Kino wanted to shut his eyes to avoid the traumatic scene, but it was fulfilled when he got blinded by the glass shards caused by the harsh wind strikes.

“AAAHHH!!!” He didn’t know if he should be thankful or not. It was like watching the horrible deaths of his comrades back in the island raid all over again. He didn’t want to see a similar thing happen again.

He did some shallow breathing to allow his whole body to calm down and to slowly recover. He knew Beatrice was getting closer and closer, but he has to trust himself that he can do it. His eyes finally regenerated in a short period, and when he got his sight back, his foresight activated to show the next 30 seconds of the future.

I-I know what to do this time…

“Abaddon, come!”

A wind strike was coming instantly in his direction. His fully recovered arm immediately pulled his morning star from the void and prevented it from hitting him until it dissolved in the air.

“Oh? You’re back?” Beatrice was amused.

Kino didn’t waste any time. As soon as he got his body in 75% awakened form, he levitated out of the glass dome of the shopping mall to make Beatrice follow him in the skies. No more civilians should be involved. She has killed a lot of people already.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

“You need to shut up!” He hissed at Magnus inside his head.

Beatrice appeared as what his foresight tells, and it was also right in the timing of her own foresight activation. He observed the girl as careful when using her foresight, and that she activates it at the moment she’s prepared to attack.

Her eyes are aiming to glow red to open her foresight, and Kino took that little opportunity to hit her face with his morningstar, specifically targeting her eyes. He put extra power into the attack to make her eyeballs burst out of her skull, and he was successful when she screamed in pain and faced his direction eyeless.

“AAAAHHH!!!—”

He hit her again on repeat. Beatrice kept trying to regenerate her eyes, yet Kino prevented her.

This way, you cannot use your eyes to see my next moves!

As he got the advantage this time, he figured out where her two remaining cores are located. His wraith instinct couldn’t find the third one, so he was sure that it was in her head when he chopped it off. He used his right arm to hit her face with the morningstar, while his left arm clawed its way into her right shoulder. There, Kino saw the core, a glowing white light inside the flesh. Beatrice roared when Kino slashed it and the light vanished as a sign the core was instantly gone. His attack was strong enough to even dislocate her shoulder.

“No! My core!!!”

Just one more…

She kicked him while having no sight, and Kino purposely backed out to save more energy. He returned Abaddon to the void to pull out the pistol he snatched from one of the nearest cop’s bodies before he levitated. Beatrice took that chance to regenerate her eyes immediately, only to be shot in the face aimed at her eyes.

“ARGH!”

Just one more…!

But the 30-second advantage was over, and inside the next 10-second cooldown was a shot coming from below. Kino received gunshots through his body. He looked down and saw the wraith hunters had finally arrived at the scene.

He called his morningstar to shield the next gunshots, but a rumbling made him look up at the skies. A huge fold was getting formed to trap them inside with the hunters.

Shit!

The quick distraction has lowered his guard. Kino didn’t see Beatrice’s immediate recovery, nor the attack of her scythe that sent him flying to the Itaport Tower behind him. The destruction worsened. People from inside the tower were hit by the impact and those below were crushed by the falling glass and debris.

“Stop killing people!” Kino shouted when he landed on a random floor.

“I can kill those who are weaker than me, and that includes you!”

The injured people in the room managed to run away to save themselves. Beatrice glided herself across the floor to follow Kino. He tried to activate his foresight and escape, but her scythe had already stabbed through his body to push him down, floor-to-floor of the tower.

His body received several injuries and broken bones on the impact of every floor. Beatrice raised her other hand, and sharp claws were aimed at his chest, which he now knew was where his second core was, just exactly like Magnus’. He used the body of his morningstar to block her arm.

“DIE! JUST DIE!” She desperately screamed with her fangs out. His bare chest was already scratched, and his flesh has been slightly ripped open. “That power belongs to me! If Magnus is here, he’ll tell you himself that it belongs to me!”

“If your brother was here, princess, he’d still love you, despite all these actions you committed for your selfish desires!”

Kino monstrously growled and did his best to go against gravity. There are only a few more floors left before they hit the ground floor. He turned their places in space with her scythe still intact to his body. The pain was unbearable, and he could feel his strength dying down soon. He has to kill Beatrice before it happens. There is no more time.

“If he loves me, why didn’t he look for me?” Her voice shook. Kino was stunned. He felt her strength weakening and tears started flowing out of her eyes in the opposite direction of their fall.

Somehow, Beatrice showing emotion suited her appearance for once. Love and answers. It turned out that deep inside, it is what she has been seeking.

“Believe me, he tried.”

“He never tried! He didn’t care about me! About us! B-Because if he did, he would’ve looked for us in that forest!”

“You were the only people he was thinking about during his final moments. If you don’t believe me, why don't you ask him when you meet again in Paradise?”

“P-Paradise? How did you…?” Beatrice closed her eyes shut, and cried like a little child who just remembered a good childhood dream.

Now rest. I can’t let you kill anymore.

Kino flipped his morningstar that was shielding her sharp claws to stab her in the middle of her chest where her last core was located. He roared in pain as his shoulder bled, but he managed to save his second core when he kicked her down so powerful that could get her body crashed to the ground floor.

She mouthed a “sorry” as she closed her eyes in the fall, wondering to whom she was apologizing, to him or to the curse inside him. Kino maneuvered himself in the gravity and got the right moment to activate his foresight ability.

“Brother?”

But everything happened so fast. His sharp foresight spotted Reno standing on the ground floor. He felt his blood drain in his body.

No… No! Reno, what are you doing here? Why did you follow me?

Kino has never felt that kind of fear in his life until that day. For once, he despised his foresight ability, and the words Magnus kept telling his brother, Vale.

Once the future is set, fate cannot be changed. Because in the next 30 seconds of his life…

“RENO!!!”

No! I can change it!

Kino took the risk and raised against the future, all for the sake of saving his brother’s life. He beat Beatrice’s foresight with his dashing skills, saving Reno is a piece of cake. He knew he could still rely on his body. It will not fail him. It has to.

Tears were pooling in his eyes as he rushed down to grab Beatrice’s body to control its downfall, yet the latter’s fall was faster due to his kick. He did not mind the wounds and broken bones his body received in every floor frame he hit, as the only thing on his mind right at that moment was to save Reno, the only family he had left.

Two individuals were falling off the tower for different purposes: Life and death.

“RENO!!! GET OUT!!!” He kept calling his kid brother’s name.

Please… just this once, let the future be changed! Just let me have this, please! Dear gods!

He only got a touch of a hair strand of Beatrice’s pigtails, before her body hit the very first floor and the ground floor where Reno was. The child managed to even look up and wave at him.

The spark in the boy’s innocent eyes just by seeing his big brother was a sight Kino can never bring back again.