8/20 - Cade's village - early morning

Puck holds up her gun as she fires a bullet at us. I can tell that the bullet is going for Richard. I was about to push him out of the way but Nunnalé slices the bullet in halves. She stands in front of him.

"Master, go back to the bike!"

"No way!"

"It's too dangerous, you must!"

"But you-"

"We don't have time for this, Nunnalé goes after Puck, I got Cade."

"Understood.”

Puck loads another bullet while Nunnalé darts towards her. She evades Nunnalé's attack by the skin of her teeth. Cade is caught up in the attack as well, but he dodges the attack to go for a counter. However, I’m already on him like a bee to a yellow shirt. He backs away from us as I’m about to hit him, canceling his attack to do so. Puck retreats, leaving Cade with us.

"You're mine, Cade! Nunnalé: go after Puck."

"Right, keep my master safe."

"Yeah."

She dashes off into the dead forest that surrounds the village.

"All right then, let's get this on!" I smack my fist into my hand.

"You think you can beat me without a weapon?"

"Of course I. . ." Wait, what did he say? Without a weapon? That's stupid, of course, I- WHERE THE HELL IS MY SWORD! "Where did it go!? I just had it on me!"

Now that I see that I don't have my sword, I notice that I don't have my jacket on either. Oh shit, don't tell me that I left it back at Cade's camp? Damn it, I did!

"Whatever, I don't need a weapon to beat you."

I take on my regular fighting stance.

"If you think so. . ."

Cade moved in with his torso lowered. From the jump, he’s moving like the wind, and coming at me like a hurricane. He hops into the air, coming down at me with a slash. I dodge it but he is quick to come at me with another strike. This is only the beginning and I can already tell this would be a tough one!

…

Proxy was fighting with Cade as Nunnalé was fighting someone else in the dead forest. I’m just standing here, doing nothing but being dead weight. Proxy is evading most of Cade's rapid attacks that would just come one after another without pause. The fact that he can avoid wave after wave of hastily made attacks impresses me and speaks of Proxy's abilities. But even with that, I know that he wasn't doing it effortlessly. I've seen him fight different opponents, all of them were taken down without much effort or thought put into it. However, while Proxy isn't struggling he has to stay focused, one slip up and it could be disastrous. I need to help him somehow without Cade noticing me. Looking at my feet, I see a rusted weapon. Picking it up, it’s too dull to be called a proper sword but hard enough to act as a club. My hand's quake from the idea of me being able to do anything. If he were to see me, he'd surely slit my neck before I could strike him. There is no insurance that I would come out unscathed by trying my luck. There is no way someone like me could pull it off.

"Hehehe, how stupid, what did I think I could do?"

Why am I here anyway? What did I think I could do to help Proxy? It was because he needed Nunnalé, that's right, yeah. . . But that makes no sense, I came here because I wanted to, I didn't want to fight, but I wanted to help any way I could, so why am I just standing here? I need to do something, to make me being here have a purpose.

"I. . .I can do it!"

I'm scared, my hands are shaking like crazy, my footing is unstable, but I knew that I needed to calm myself and go for it. But the timing needs to be perfect, too early I might get in the way of the fight and get me a fast pass to the underworld. I need to wait for the right time!

…

My target attempted to evade me in a mist of dead trees. The female is using bullets against me, they’re strong enough to penetrate the trees, so my sword is my best defensive option. She is fairly fast for a human not using Source. I would normally be able to close the gap nonetheless, however, I need to keep Source stored in my arms, or else I might not be ready to take an incoming attack. The reason for such a thing is so I can utilize my body strengthening ability. I can modify the strength output of certain parts of my body if need be. However, this is only possible if I surround that body part in Source; this would leave me mainly two options to select normally, however, since I am separated from my master, I can only do one for now. The amount of Source I can use from him is getting lower, I need to finish this before we go any deeper into the forest. That being said, I appoint all the Source into my left leg. I take a large leap forward and another leap to my left. I’m now in front of the target, she attempts to fire her weapon, even without my arms being enhanced my reaction time is faster than hers. My blade cut the gun's barrel clean in half. The girl jumped back from my attack. I attacked with intention of cutting her arm off, but she had an idea of where my attack was going, so she let her gun get destroyed as a means to avoid damage herself. An impressive evade however foolish.

"You don't have a weapon any longer, I suggest surrendering, there will be no hesitation if you continue to persist on fighting or running."

I hold my blade to her forehead as she lays on the ground.

"You think you won?"

"Yes."

"You shouldn't underestimate me just because you destroyed my weapon."

She suddenly rolls back, reflexively throwing a spherical object at me while doing so. I sliced it apart without considering what it was. Smoke obscured my field of vision. I hold my sword up with both my hands, preparing for any attempt of an attack. This is a problematic situation, moving around would be a foolish idea, there is no insured way that I wouldn’t be attacked if I did. Albeit, staying in the smoke is not beneficial to me at all. I hear something being fired. Within the extremely short time of the firing of something, I’m hit in the leg, an arrow is sticking in my leg. I rip it out of my leg without breaking the point off. Blood leaks out from my leg, the pain isn't much of an issue, I can still fight. However, that arrow hit my right leg from a diagonal angle, so that would mean my opponent is on my right! Figuring that, I pour my Source into my left leg and kick sideways off the ground. I escaped the smokescreen, but little did I know that I jumped into another trap. My body is pulled into a net of strings attached to two trees parallel to each other. Something clicked, an explosion went off, the heat absorbed me in its embrace.

…

As I wait for Proxy to give me a chance, an explosion going off in the direction of the dead trees. That's where Nunnalé went! Did something happen to her? If so, then I need to go and help her. But then I'd have to leave Proxy. I was set on helping him, so now that she's in danger, I. . .

"Yo, Richard, what are you doing!?" Proxy asks me as he's dodging Cade's attacks. "Go check up on Nunnalé! I'll be fine on my own, so just get going already!"

During a time where he needs to focus, he was paying attention to what I should do, more so than what he should be focusing on. But, no part of me wants to disagree with him, even if Proxy is going to be alone on this he's still strong in his own right, so there's no reason to be concerned for him, I know he'll be fine!

"All right, I'll leave you to this, you better not get killed!"

"Course, who do you think you're telling that to?"

…

I run through the forest with the rusted sword in my hand. The deeper I go into the forest, the closer I am to the blast area. Eventually, I reached the area where the blast took place. Nunnalé is on the ground.

"Nunnalé!"

I broke out into a sprint to go see if she was all right. Her clothes are singed, not too bad but it seems to have done damage to her. Luckily, her skin is alright. There was another wound on her leg as well, it seems like something pierced it. Regardless, I needed to heal her, even if I'm not good at it, I can still try.

"Nunnalé can you hear me? Nunnalé!"

"Master Richard," she whispered.

"Thank God, are you okay?"

"I have a natural resistance to fire and explosives, but I was still hurt in the end. You have to leave me, the enemy is still here."

"I don't see them anywhere."

"I can sense them, they are still nearby. Run, I'll hold them off."

"Don't be stupid, you're hurt, if you fight as you are now you'll get killed."

"That's fine by me."

"Not by me!"

She isn't going to budge no matter my reasoning unless I commanded her. I don't want to, so I guess we're going to do this the hard way. I carefully pick her up from the ground, putting her on my back.

"Hold on tight, we're getting out of here."

"But master."

"No buts, I'd feel terrible if I left you, that's it."

She’s pretty light so carrying her would be easy, even for me.

"Master, jump forward," she commanded me, urging me to do so.

Like a bullet speeding out of a gun, I leap forward. On the spot, there is an arrow sticking into the ground. I trace it back to where it came from. Somebody is standing on the tree behind us, they fire another arrow as I run off with Nunnalé. The adrenaline nulled any exhaustion I built up, my legs are beginning to hurt as I run for my life. The archer is quick to keep up with me. He would shoot arrows in front of me before I would get to the spot. My best bet is to stay behind trees away from him as I run, anything less than that would get me killed. However, the archer is a crack shot as he can make shots that nearly hit me, even if I am a couple of yards away from him. As the arrow is about to find its mark Nunnalé blocks it with her arm, taking a hit for me.

"You idiot! Why did you do that!?"

"Master, get closer to the archer, I have a plan."

"But what about your wounds?"

"My body heals on its own. Allow me to deal with the archer, if not, you will die."

She’s right, I won’t make it to the village alive with the archer on my back, and even if I do, that makes two enemies Proxy would have to fight. If Nunnalé has a plan, then I have no choice but to listen to it, however. . .

"Can you do it without hurting yourself?"

"Yes."

"Okay then, what is it?"

Nunnalé whispers her plan of attack. I kept running, getting a tad closer to our enemy as well.

"Ready?"

"Yes!"

Betting everything on Nunnalé, I take a large leap forward, at the same time, putting my back towards the archer.

"Go!"

At the drop of a hat, Nunnalé jumps off my back with a kick that pushes me to the ground. Quickly jerking my head around, Nunnalé zoomed toward the archer faster than they could react, getting a good slice in with her sword. She did it!

"Nunnalé way to. . ."

My words fell short as her body is about to crash to the ground. My body moves on its own to catch her, but I’m not fast enough.

"Nunnalé!"

I plop next to her.

"Master, did I best the enemy?" Nunnalé asks, her voice taking on a weak tone.

"Yeah, you did."

I go over to check up on the downed enemy. He has a large slash mark on his chest, blood is coming out like soda when you shake the bottle.

"I'll finish her now."

Nunnalé has her sword out to kill. I immediately stop her.

"Don't do that!"

"She's an enemy?"

"Because- wait, she?"

"Indeed, she has the figure of a woman and the build of one."

She has a good eye for detail. Hang on, that's beside the point.

"You just can't, I forbid you to kill people!"

Nunnalé glances at me with a plain but confused gaze. She lowers her sword to her hip, having it disappear soon after.

"Understood, I shall not kill our adversaries."

Thank goodness I was able to put that fire out, but there’s another problem. I put my attention over to our downed opponent, she is still bleeding heavily...

"Nunnalé, I'm gonna heal her."

"Why?"

"Cause she's going to die if I don't, so I need to."

I crouch down next to her chest. I begin the process to heal. The first thing I do is change the properties of my Source, this is achieved by concentrating and commanding it what to do. It takes a bit, but I'm able to do it with some force of will. Of course, I inflict some strain on myself by doing this, I can feel as if something is about to tear apart inside of me the moment I activated my Source. Whenever I heal a wound, it would be a small one, it still takes me a bit of force to get my Source going but it never felt like I strained myself. But healing a large wound like this feels complicated, exhausting, tiresome. It also feels like if I kept doing it I would break something inside myself - something crucial. Not only that but it feels as if I’m being pushed back against a stream! At this rate, I don’t know if my mind will snap or my soul!

"Master!" Nunnalé put her hand on my shoulder, disturbing me and interrupting the healing process. "You're pushing yourself, you'll hurt yourself if you go any further," she tells me in her monotone speech. She’s right, I desperately try to catch my breath. Any more and I might hurt myself, no, hurt wouldn’t describe it; maybe I could’ve died!? Looking back at our opponent, I stop the bleeding but the wound isn't closed.

"Nunnalé, can you walk?"

"Yes, the wound on my leg is almost healed so I’ll be able to walk."

"Good, then let's go back to the village quickly."

"Understood."

After picking up the girl we ran back to the village. I had an idea in mind, a way to end this fight and find Marie. Though I can't say I like it but it’s better than nothing.