The next day our party decided to go scouting the city together near sunset with each of us in pairs, Ryder and Azura were the obvious pair. Since everyone else was arguing over who would pair up with me the last two pairs were decided by drawing sticks, whoever had the longest one would end up being paired up with me.

“HAHA, WHO’S THE SHORT ONE NOW!” Nazuko exclaims as she holds out the longest stick.

“It’s still you, and anyways it's not like I wanted to pair up with Will. Come on Lilith let’s go find this freak already,” Remi declares as she drags Lilith away.

“Alright guys remember the signal, send out a firework as soon as you make contact with the enemy,” I tell everyone before we each split up.

I’m sure that splitting up the party against the guy who is most likely to assassinate us sounds like a bad idea, but that’s why we’re in pairs. I’m making use of my portal training that I did with Vasavir, I can label an object with a kind of marker that I can open a portal to wherever I want. As a safety precaution I gave everybody a dagger that has one of these portal markers on them, so as soon as we see fireworks go off in the sky I can open a portal straight to them. Inversely if Nazuko and I run into the thief first I can open portals to everyone else to allow them to come to our aid. Plan B is if we don’t find this guy we head back to the tower at midnight, yet I can feel that he’ll attack again tonight.

It’s been about an hour since the sun went down, and we haven’t seen any sign of the thief. I’ve just been meandering about the city with Nazuko by my side. There’s only the light of our lantern and the half moon lighting up the city. My hands are cold and sweaty, with a hand ready to draw my sword at any time. I feel like I have the sword version of an itchy trigger finger.

“Hey Will if this thief guy doesn’t show up tonight then does that mean that this counts as our first date?” Nazuko asks, breaking the tension.

“It would be pretty boring as a first date wouldn’t it?” I respond still on the lookout.

“Yeah, but it’s still time that you and I are spending together,” she argues.

“If those are your standards for a date then your standards are quite low,” I say engaging in this meaningless small talk.

“Eh, I’ll take what I can get, therefore I declare this our first date. I’m going to celebrate with this trinket I stole from that merchant’s stall over there,” she informs me.

“Would you stop stealing things when I’m around at least?” I sigh.

I turn around in the direction of the merchant’s stall, take out a bag of gold and toss it at his face.

“Here for your troubles,” I tell the confused merchant who doesn’t even realize that his goods have been stolen.

I’m too lazy to have that conversation and just hope that whatever was in that gold pouch is compensation enough.

“Hooray a present from Will!” Nazuko exclaims as she dangles around a gold pendant with a full moon emblem on it.

“Yep sure, a present that you stole,” I say in a deadpan tone.

“A present is a present no matter how you look at it,” she jokes.

All of a sudden I hear a loud bang go off in the distance so I turn around and see green and yellow fireworks exploding in the air. Someone’s made contact with the enemy and judging by the color, it's Remi and Lilith’s group.

“Nazuko stop playing around with your toy, Remi and Lilith are in trouble. We need to go right now!” I ordered.

I open a portal to those two as well as another portal to Ryder and Azura to have us all regroup.

We step through to see Lilith and Remi unharmed, but there’s a broken lantern lying on the floor.

“Are you guys okay? What happened?” I ask looking around for the thief.

“We’re fine, we were walking when all of a sudden a dagger came flying out of a shadow. I dodged it, but it ended up breaking the lantern,” Remi responds.

“Okay then be on your guard, he’s probably still in the area,” I tell everyone.

We all draw our weapons prepared for a fight but it doesn’t come. It’s as if the enemy attacked to test us and ran away.

“What’s with this coward hiding in the shadows?” Remi complains.

“This is a much bigger pain the *ss to deal with than Sirius,” Lilith comments.

“If he’s just going to fight like this, then there’s no point in splitting up the party again, he’ll just try and attack as soon as we split up,” I say analyzing our situation.

We walk around for a bit looking for the thief when we come across a chestnut haired girl walking around by herself.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be walking around at night alone like this. Don’t you know there’s a killer roaming about,” Azura says as she starts giving the girl a lecture.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ve fought off plenty of attackers at night before, some drunken loon doesn’t scare me,” she responds.

“It’s not some drunken idiot it's a trained killer, going around kidnapping people, you really need to get somewhere safe,” Lilith adds.

“If people like you, and the imperial knights are around then I shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” she continues.

Suddenly I feel my instinct ability go off and I see a dagger fly out of a shadow just like Remi said.

“Lilith! Put up a barrier now!” I commanded.

She puts up a barrier just in the nick of time as the dagger bounces off the barrier into another shadow.

“Another sneak attack, this guy is starting to get on my nerves. If I only had a target I could blow up,” Ryder states.

We took one second to look around for the possible assailant, but it was one second too late. We turn back to the girl to see a man with a hand over the girl’s mouth and a knife at her throat. He has a fairly lean build, his jet black hair is tied in a ponytail, and his eyes are blacker than Quincy. He has quite the long face and bags under his eyes implying that he frequently stalks his targets. He’s wearing a ninja like outfit, perfectly fitting the stereotype of an assassin.

“Mmffm, mmmmhhm, mmffhhm,” the girl tries to let out muffled screams, but it's incomprehensible.

“Ke, ke, ke, first hero it's a pleasure to kill you on a night like this, but I think we should save that for later. My name is Azazel, pleasure to make your acquaintance, if you want to save this girl along with all the other people I’ve kidnapped, come to the abandoned tower on the outskirts of the city. We are going to have lots of fun tonight,” he says creepily.

He backs away and falls into a shadow that was cast on a wall of the building.

“Stop! I won’t let you get away,” Remi yells as she runs after the guy.

She attempts to go through the same shadow the thief guy escaped through, but she just straight up hits the wall face first.

“Oof,” Nazuko comments as she witnesses Remi run face first into a wall.

“Oof indeed,” Ryder says, agreeing with Nazuko.

“Oww, my head, I swear when we find that thief bastard, he’s dinner for my wolf,” Remi threatens.

“Hold still Remi, let me heal you before you run into another wall,” Azura says savagely.

“Oof,” Nazuko repeats.

“Oof indeed,” Ryder repeated as well.

“Would you guys stop saying Oof already!” Remi yells.

“Come on guys, stop bullying Remi, we need to think about what our next move is,” I say.

“Well that tower is definitely a trap,” Azura states plainly.

“I know, but what other choice do we have?” I respond.

“We could just blow the tower skyhigh and hope we could save the hostages in time,” Ryder suggests.

“That’s definitely a bad idea, I don’t think we could even save them all in time. And that’s not even guaranteed to defeat that thief guy. Remember the monk, he took a direct hit from your strongest attack and didn’t go down,” Nazuko mentions.

“Then it seems like our only option to go into that tower. If we're being honest here, I’m not sure I’m ready,” I confess.

“It’s okay to feel that way, I feel a bit of uneasiness as well, but I believe in the strength of our bonds. We did it before, we can do it again,” Lilith says with confidence.

“Yeah, she's right, we can beat him if we work together,” Remi adds.

“Yeah, Will remember what I said earlier, I promised I’ll be your best, most reliable teammate,” Nazuko says smiling.

“They’re right you know,” Azura tells me.

“Can’t disagree with that logic,” Ryder reckons.

“Okay, okay, yeah, you guys are right. I’ll believe in that strength,” I state.

We walk up to the abandoned tower as the light from the half moon falls over the entrance. As we enter the tower we see that the inside is like a broken down building on the verge of collapse. The wood holding together the walls, ceiling and floor looks out of date, as if anyone could easily pry it off the wall. Each step makes a creaky noise, comparable to an unoiled door.

“Ke, ke, ke, I can hear that you’ve arrived, valued guests. Now let’s play a little game, there’s a total of 6 hostages scattered throughout the tower, if you can’t kill me, then every 5 minutes one of the hostages dies,” he informs us.

“Screw this game, show yourself already!” Remi yells.

“In due time, but first I think I’ll let you play with my clones,” he cackles.

All of a sudden 6 thieves jump out of the shadows and start running at us. They’re all dual wielding daggers, I guess that means he clones his weapons as well. I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen that one dagger that’s been flying out of the shadows in an attempt to kill us. I should be on my guard, in case it comes as a sneak attack. Each of us initiate combat with the clones, but they’re quick and their movements are unnatural. This guy seems to be bending his limbs in such ways it would look like he broke his arms, his joints are extremely flexible. This gives him much more venues for attack and allows him to attack at weird angles. Attacks that would seem like they would miss are now capable of landing a hit. One of the thieves' attacks slip past my guard and end up slashing at my armor. I back away enough so the hit only ends up scratching my armor and not doing any real damage.

“Ugh, these guys are really annoying,” Remi says as she’s forced to defend.

“I know and they won’t stop doing their creepy laugh the whole time,” Lilith said as she punts one clone into the wall making it disintegrate.

“Come on we have to hurry, we need to save those hostages,” I dictate.

I throw out a black hole portal to suck the other four inside and as I open another portal I swing my blade through it decapitating all five clones. If I know these are clones I won’t hesitate to kill them off, we don’t have time to waste. If this thief guy was serious he would utilize stealth more in his approach instead of facing us directly. This guy’s just playing with us at the moment. We rush up the stairs of this musty building to find Azazel holding a knife to a young boy’s throat. The boy looks somewhat similar to Adam with his curly brown hair, but not as pathetic which is weird considering the situation he’s in right now. I wonder what Quincy would do in this situation if it were Adam being held hostage.

“Ah hello friends I see my clones have provided quite the warmup. Let’s see here… Ah yes you have about 2 minutes and 15 seconds before this boy dies, let’s hope you can deal with me quickly,” he says as he forms his trademark creepy smile.

“Please help, I don’t wanna die,” the boy begs.

I approach by opening a portal directly behind him as I try to sneak attack the thief. But as I’m about to strike a dagger comes out of nowhere forcing me to block the random weapon.

“Someone’s a little eager to die aren’t they,” Azazel laughs as he takes the boy and jumps into a shadow.

“Damn it where’d you go,” I shouted looking around for the messed up man.

“If 6 clones wasn’t fun enough let’s try 12. Amp the fun by a factor of 2,” he laughs.

Suddenly 12 shadow clones appear behind us and all throw their daggers at us. Lilith fails to put up her barrier in time as a few daggers slip past and end up scratching Ryder a bit. Azura immediately starts healing him as he launches a few explosives at them to keep them at bay. This ends up dealing with four of the clones as they all disintegrate into nothingness. These clones seem to be less durable than the last. It seems that the more clones he makes the less durable they are. Remi’s wolf and bear end up finishing the rest of the clones so we see continue to look for the thief’s main body. We hear the creak of the floorboards so we turn around to see the thief and the boy staring at us.

“Double the clones, double the fun, but unfortunately for you, you’ve run out of time for this one, maybe you’ll do better for the next one,” Azazel says.

“NO STOP!” I yelled.

But those words fell on deaf ears as he slits the young boy’s throat and runs up the stairs.

We run to the boy whose throat has been slit and Azura takes him into her arms.

“Can you heal him with that kind of injury? Is there anything you can do?” Lilith asks Azura.

“I’m sorry, he has severe damage to his carotid artery, I don’t have enough time to close the wound and apply blood regeneration magic before his brain dies from the lack of oxygen,” Azura informs us.

“Damn it, curse that reaper guy. We are so going to get him back for this,” Ryder threatens.

If only I were faster, if only I could’ve done something to save him.

Azura places her hand over the boy’s face and closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save you, but I promise we’ll avenge your death,” Azura reassures him.

We place a cloth over the boy’s face and we start to rush after the thief, but as Remi makes one wrong step she falls through the floor. The floor in that area must have had a broken foundation, this building is partially falling apart.

“Remi are you okay!” I yelled to her.

“Yes I’m okay, just keep going after that thief guy I’ll catch up,” she tells us.

“Are you sure, the thief could pull something if we’re not careful,” I tell her.

“I know, but trust me I’ll be okay. The lives of the hostages are more important right now,” she responds.

“Okay hurry up then!” Nazuko commands her.

We hurry up the next set of stairs to find even more clones waiting for us, however we anticipated this, so we had Ryder launch a preemptive attack up the stairs. This blew up over half of them, so now we’re dealing with a more manageable number. This setting is a real bad place for Ryder to fight, he’s limited to using smaller scale explosions, instead of his usual wide ranging attacks. If we’re not careful we could end up blowing the tower skyhigh and inadvertently causing the deaths of all the hostages.

As we continue fighting the clones we seem to be adapting to their strange fighting style and movements. Although the clones are moving a lot faster than before, jumping around the walls, ceiling, to move into our blindspots. We eventually do finish off the rest of the clones in the room, but there are 2 clones we didn’t notice. As they jump from behind us and attempt to stab us with their daggers. However these two clones are bitten by a spirit wolf and bear that jump out from behind them.

“Remi, just in time,” Azura praises.

“Of course it's me, Remi, your most reliable teammate,” she says strangely.

“Hey that’s my line,” Nazuko says.

She goes up to me and started touching my face for some reason.

“Umm, Remi are you okay,” I ask her.

“I’m fine, I just want to see the look in your eyes when you realize that your own teammate stabbed you,” she says.

I look down to find a dagger in my abdomen. I immediately felt a sharp pain in my gut and see a bunch of blood rushing out the wound. As everyone witnesses this, Nazuko stabs Remi in the back and she disintegrates into a shadow.

“I knew that wasn’t Remi, she was being more of a hoe than she usually was,” Nazuko states.

“F*ck I didn’t know the thief could make clones of people he’s seen before,” I cursed.

“Will I need to heal that stab wound quickly so don’t move, you're lucky that the knife didn’t hit any of your internal organs,” Azura tells me.

“We need to go check up on Remi something could have happened to her,” I say as Azura closes my wound.

Suddenly someone that looks like Remi comes up the stairs and we all point our weapons at her.

“Remi is that really you?” Ryder questions.

“What are you talking about? Why are you all pointing your weapons at me? When I rushed up the stairs I was attacked by shadows that wrapped themselves around my legs so I couldn’t move, I just now broke free,” she informs us.

“Well just now someone who looked like you stabbed Will in the gut,” Lilith tells her.

“I didn’t do that, I was busy being attacked by that thief f*cker,” Remi aruges.

“I’m not completely convinced that is Remi. Says something that a hoe would say!” Nazuko commands her.

“Why you stupid midget, stop with the hoe insults already!” Remi yells back.

“Yeah that’s Remi. Only she would stoop to using short insults like that,” Nazuko decides.

“Ke, ke, ke, what’s the matter pets, having a little friendly quarrel I see,” Azazel chides.

“SHUT UP!” Remi yells as she sends her wolf to bite the neck of the thief.

He bends his body so far back to avoid the wolf it looks like he could break his spine. The wolf ends up flying over him and getting slashed in the leg. Ryder manages to hit him with a well timed flintlock shot making a hole in his right shoulder. In response he pulls out a healing potion and is about to drink it when I start pelting him with wind bullets.

“Ah this attack reminds me of Lancer, yet it wouldn’t be right to compare a pebble to a boulder,” he comments.

We then see one of his clones come out with a hostage and he pulls the bag off of his head. Maybe I might be able to land a strike when he takes the opportunity to heal. If I’m fast enough I could do it. I mentally calculate the spatial coordinates to teleport and I make the jump. I enhance my sword by focusing my aura into it and launch my fastest strike. In response the thief grabs his clone and uses it as a human shield absorbing the blow.

“Ah so close, but yet so far away. It seems you’ve run out of time for the second stage, oh well let’s try adding another corpse to the pile of people you couldn’t save,” he mocks as we see him take a hostage that looks like an old man and throws him out a window.

Damn it he’s forcing me to go save the hostage so he can go heal his injury. I don’t have a choice, I open a portal on this floor and I jump out a window to catch the old man. I grab him and open a portal before we hit the floor. We then make our way back to the 3rd floor of the building via portal.

“Oh thank the gods, I’m alive. That man did nothing but torture us hostages the enitre time. Please you have to go save the others,” the old man pleads.

While it sucked that I was unable to pursue Azazel, this could be a turning point for us.

“We will, but first you need to go ask for reinforcements from the knights at the tower, we need help to save the rest of the hostages,” I instructed as I opened a portal back to the tower.

I wish I could maintain it so help could arrive quicker, but I don’t have the energy to waste so I send the old man on his way.

“Everybody stay together, if we can make clones of us we don’t want a repeat of what just happened,” I ordered.

We charge up to the fourth floor and find the three hostages all tied together against a wood beam.

“You know they say your greatest enemy is yourself, let’s see if that’s true,” the thief's voice echoes.

He creates mirror images of us and they start to attack us. They each seem to be able to mimic our actions and abilities.

“Oh great, now we’re fighting mirror images of ourselves, I can’t wait to nearly get killed by Remi again,” I comment.

“That wasn’t even me,” she argues.

“Nevermind that, how are we going to tell who’s real and who’s fake,” Azura mentions.

“Umm, let's decide a safeword then, something only the real us would know. Everyone remember what we first called Sirius,” Ryder suggests.

I guess our safeword is now Snickerdoodle, but I shouldn’t say that out loud. We all just nod and start fighting the mirror images of ourselves, but it's really annoying because they keep making the same moves as us. Ryder’s bombs keep clashing with fake Ryder’s and I just fight my clone to a standstill.

“How about we change things up a bit, I’ll take the fake Will,” Nazuko says as she intercepts my clone's blow.

She then dodges underneath fake me’s strike and shoves her small blade through my clone's crotch. Oh god, I’m getting flashbacks that I do not want to think of right now. Why does everyone want to stab me in the internal organs I do not know, but it seems to be my curse. Either way my clone vanishes. I take a moment to assess the situation. Remi then starts fighting fake Nazuko and as Remi gets hit with a quick punch to the face she retaliates by having her wolf bite down on fake Nazuko’s leg. Remi then grabs fake Nazuko by her legs and starts slamming her on the ground over and over again.

“Yes, how do you like that you little dwarf,” Remi exclaims as she keeps slamming the fake clone on the ground.

“I feel like she has a bit of repressed anger, just a bit, like obviously nothing that would give that away,” I say rather sarcastically.

“Oof,” is all Nazuko says as she watches the events play out.

Fake Remi commands her wolf to come behind me so I dodge the incoming attack from the fake wolf. I take a page out of Lilith's book, pick up the fake wolf and punt it so hard it hits the fake clone of Remi and sends them through the wall flying out of the building.

“So that’s what that feels like, that felt pretty good,” I said while looking at the Remi shaped hole in the wall.

“Hey a mind giving me a little help here,” Ryder says as his explosions are blocked by the fake version of Lilith.

“Man you are really annoying to fight when you're on the other side,” I comment.

“She’s really annoying to fight regardless of what side she’s on,” Remi adds.

“Yeah Lilith is too bulky and tanky,” Nazuko acknowledges.

“I’m right here you know,” Lilith tells us.

With the constant explosions from Ryder and his clone, it's doing quite a bit of damage. I feel the floor might give way underneath us any second now.

“Hey Ryder I feel like we might fall if you launch one more bomb, cut it out with the explosives,” I remind him.

“Wait that’s it, we need just one more bomb,” Ryder says as his eyes light up.

He launches one more bomb that is blocked by the fake version of Lilith and the floor starts to give way underneath us.

“What did I just say?!” I shouted.

“Don’t worry, just open a portal to catch the hostages and get us to the next floor,” he tells me.

The rest of our fake clones fall through the floor disappearing and I manage to open enough portals to save everyone from falling a floor below us. I then send the hostages to safety by opening another portal to the knights tower. All the magic I’ve been using is starting to catch up to me, but I have to keep going, I can’t be exhausted this early when we haven’t even fought the thief directly yet. I pull out a potion to restore my stamina, but I can’t keep relying on those. Azura tells me that restorative potions tend to be slightly toxic which means it's bad for the body if you drink too many of them.

“Ke, ke, ke four out of six hostages saved so far, not a bad track record. I suppose I’ll go track them down and kill them once I’m done with you guys,” Azazel notes.

“No this stops now, you're not laying your filthy hands on anyone else,” I tell him.

“Oh is that so,” he says as he strokes my chin.

“What the f*ck!”

When the heck did he move, it felt like he came from my own shadow.

I turn around and slash at him giving the thief a shallow papercut on his arm before he dives back into another shadow. He then reappears in front of us drinking what looks to be a stamina potion.

“What! That’s mine! When did he steal that?” Azura says as she searches her person for any other missing items.

“Ah that hits the spot, thanks for the drink,” the thief says gratefully.

“God, thieves are the worst,” Remi says while looking at Nazuko.

“What, I didn’t do it!” Nazuko says attempting to defend herself.

“Now, now I think it's about time we start getting serious,” Azazel says.

With his now renewed strength he creates so many clones, they start numbering in the dozens. I can barely count how many are in the room, forty-eight, no, sixty, no, seventy-two. And they just keep on multiplying. This is bad, I’m not sure we can deal with so many clones.

“Hey Ryder, I'm considering plan: level the building at this point,” I say as my anxiety rises.

“Yeah I think it might start to be a valid plan too,” Ryder says agreeing with me.

“But what about that last hostage,” Azura argues.

“If his past actions are anything to go by he’ll probably end up abandoning the hostage to go save himself, if we’re fast enough we can save the hostage and escape. Does anyone have a better plan, if we end up fighting all these clones we’ll be tired and get picked off one by one,” I say.

“Ugh, I don’t like this, but it seems we don’t have a choice,” she says bracing herself for the explosion.

Ryder launches a bomb at one of the pillars holding the building together and it starts to crumble. We quickly carve a path through the clones making our way to the final level of the building.

“For heroes you guys sure do love destroying things don’t you,” the thief comments.

I don’t want to say he’s right, since he kinda is, but I will still deny it.

“Your little game is over, hand over the hostage already you coward,” Ryder commands.

“Heh sure take her,” he says as he unmasks the hostage and pushes her towards us.

It's the same girl who he kidnapped no less than 45 minutes ago.

Suddenly his shadow dagger emerges and flies at the girl. I won’t let him kill another innocent person, I won’t. I rush forward and deflect the dagger with my own.

“I’ll just take you in exchange,” Azazel says as he grabs me and jumps into the shadow.

“WILL!” everyone yells as they see me get grabbed and taken away.

Everyone tries to rush to my aid, but only Nazuko is fast enough to jump into the same shadow as the thief. As we exit out another shadow I see we are no longer in the same building as we were before. Our current setting looks like we are in a warehouse, in close proximity to the tower. The thief then tosses me against a wall and jumps into the shadows once more.

I can see through a window that falling and collapsing tower. Oh no, I really hope everyone made it out of there safely. The only one who is left by my side is Nazuko as she runs to me, drawing her blade.

“Ke, ke, ke let’s begin our last and final game,” he says as he speaks in the background.

Thief Fucker's Theme

“Damn it, if we’re going to take this guy down we need to at least limit his mobility. Nazuko you still have some of the sparklers that Ryder gave us right?” I ask her.

“Yeah I do, let’s put on a light show,” Nazuko says as she pulls out the small items and throws them around the warehouse.

I do the same with mine and soon the warehouse is lit up with the little fireworks. This should cut off the amount of places he can hide in making him a little easier to predict. These have a short duration of only about 10 minutes, which means we really need to win this fight within the next 10 minutes. He’s too fast and agile to deal with otherwise.

“Did you think a little light would hinder my advances? I’ve come up with techniques specifically designed to counter the light,” Azazel tells us.

I can feel a hideous aura start to envelop the room, I then noticed that the room suddenly became dimmer. Not dark enough that it blocks our vision, but dark enough that those pesky shadows are now plentiful throughout the room.

“Oh come on, that isn’t fair,” Nazuko complains.

This is bad, even though we outnumber him, our strength doesn’t compare. If only everyone were here, then maybe we would have a fighting chance. I need more information, if I can’t beat an opponent through sheer strength then I need to come up with a plan. I need something, anything.

I may have something that might help.

“Finally Mythril, why couldn’t you have told me about this earlier?” I whined.

For some reason my analysis ability was not working on the clones, I needed to see his real body for it to work. His Shadow Walker specialization allows him to mask his presence so completely that even a Goddess wouldn’t be able to detect him unless they physically touched him. This ability he’s using right now will only last 5-7 minutes. If you can last that long you may have an advantage. As an important side note, his third dagger, the one that’s been pestering you this whole time, is special. It flies through the shadows and he can even teleport to it to capitalize on holes in your defense.

“Thanks for that, so we only need to last 5-7 minutes in and then we might have a chance. He hasn’t used that dagger ability yet, so I presume he wanted to catch me off guard with that. For the next 5-7 minutes we’ll hold out with everything we can.”

“Nazuko we just need to hold on for a little while, his ability won’t last that long, if we can last 5-7 minutes we’ll have an advantage,” I tell her.

“As if you’d last that long,” Azazel says as he pops out of a shadow behind Nazuko.

He then bends his arms in a weird motion and slashes at her neck. She dodges fast enough that the blade only cuts her cheek.

For the first minute I’m forced to dodge all of his attacks, some of which are starting to hurt as his short daggers smash against my armor. As agile as Nazuko is, the way this man moves is unnatural, no other opponent would be able to fight like he does.

I need to focus, the only chance to attack will be with a counter. Focus, enter that pure state of mind like you did against Sirius. Hone your instinct, only then will I be able to fight back.

I dodge and dodge and dodge. There’s two thieves attacking me simultaneously, one in front and one behind. I can sense his attack coming from behind, that’s the real one. He’s not the only one who can attack from strange angles. I charge forward at the clone stabbing it straight through opening a portal at its back, another directly behind me and stabbing the real one right where his heart should be.

“Yes, you’ve landed a fatal blow, it’s over,” Nazuko exclaims.

I remove my sword from his body as he now falls to the ground defeated. However, I see the shadow dagger fly out of the thief’s shadow and I’m only barely able to dodge it because of instinct. The next thing I know the thief teleports to his dagger and strikes for my neck. I try to block his strike with my left dagger, but he bends his arms and his attack ends up cutting off my left pinky and ring fingers.

“Fuck me, why the hell are you still alive!” I yell in pain.

“Ke, ke, ke I shifted my organs around right before you stabbed me. I moved my heart to where my stomach usually resides,” he responds.

“That’s bullshit,” I swear.

Goddamn I know fingers are something you can usually sew on if they’re cut off but it hurts like hell. Azazel’s attacks continue, capitalizing on our blindspots with his shadow traversal. I’m concerned for Nazuko’s safety as well. I can see her bleeding from stray cuts due to that stupid shadow dagger. The pain from my stab wound from earlier and the loss of my fingers are preventing me from concentrating. I’m still not sure I’ve fully recovered after my fight with Sirius either. I was mistaken earlier, last 5-7 minutes, we’ll be lucky if we even last 4. I was wrong, I don’t have anything left, I can’t deal with this myself. I start hyperventilating, I feel panicked knowing that there’s not a lot I can do.

“Hahahahahahaha, that’s it. That’s exactly the look I wanted to see on your face right before you die,” he says as he won’t stop laughing.

I feel like I might have a mental breakdown, my hands are shaking, this time it truly is out of fear.

“Will it’s okay, remember what I said, with me around there’s nothing to worry about,” Nazuko tells me as she places her hand on mine.

Her touch calms me a little but it doesn’t last long as the shadow dagger flies out from behind us and stabs her in the back.

“NAZUKO!” I cried out.

“What was that, I couldn’t hear what she said over the sound of her dying,” Azazel comments.

Reverse Situation

But unexpectedly she vanishes leaving an explosion of light blinding both me and the thief. The next thing I know she appears right in front of the thief and slashes his right eye and steals his daggers from his grasp.

“Here Will, get rid of these for me,” she tells me as she throws me the thief’s weapons.

I receive both of the thief’s daggers and toss them into a portal to who knows where. I would have done this earlier with his shadow dagger, but it moves so fast I can’t predict where it could come from.

“You should be dead,” Azazel says, baffled at Nazuko’s appearance.

“So should you,” she responds.

“Mythril what’s going on here, I clearly saw her get stabbed right in the back,” I ask.

Her aura has changed, it seems that in your brief moment of despair she forcibly unlocked her specialization. See for yourself.

Name:

Nazuko

Class:

Thief -> Luminous Wind

Element:

Light

Agility Level:

Unmatched

Aura and Magic:

Aura centered

Nazuko has now gained the power to manipulate light and create light constructs. She survived by using her ability to substitute her position with a light construct.

“I didn’t know she had that kind of power within her. She really is living up to her words.”

Everytime the thief tries to escape into the shadows Nazuko unleashes a burst of light from her hand that eradicates his escape route. He’s forced to pull out his shadow dagger to defend himself as Nazuko throws a kunai made of solid light. 7 minutes have now passed since he used his ability which means within these last 3 minutes we have an advantage.

Azazel now has this really concerned look as he’s being heavily pressured by Nazuko. An eerie feeling overcomes me as his demeanor changes, his eye goes completely black. I can sense it, his killing aura is leaking out, he’s going to use everything he has to kill us now. He attempts to utilize shadows to try and immobilize us, but Nazuko counters by unleashing a blast of light similar to Ryder’s flashbangs. He tosses his dagger right at Nazuko, but she deflects it with her dagger and it flies right at me. He then teleports to the dagger right in front of me, grabs the dagger and tries to stab me in the head. I’m fast enough to move to the side but he still stabs me right in the shoulder before retreating out of my counterattack range. He’s not fucking around anymore, if I’m a second too late I’ll die.

Finishing Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic79GPBwvt4

“We need to hit him hard and fast, and inflict so much damage it doesn’t matter where his internal organs are,” Nazuko notes.

“Do you have a plan in mind?” I ask her.

“Actually yes, just open a bunch of portals throughout the warehouse and leave the rest to me,” she decides.

I do as she says and I witness Nazuko start to accelerate so rapidly throughout the building as if she’s become light itself. She’s bouncing around the warehouse using my portals to build up speed. As a side effect of her movement it's starting to light up the entire building like a Christmas Tree. In fact it's so bright I can barely see where Azazel is, but it seems his vision is being heavily impeded as well. Once hitting a fast enough speed she starts hitting Azazel with quick and repeated slashes. He’s being cut so quickly the force of the cuts are levitating him in the air leaving him unable to move. He’s being cut up so much it doesn’t matter where his organs are shifted to. Accumulate enough wounds and anyone will go down. Nazuko finishes the attack by slashing him one final time sending him flying against the wall. The small girl then lands and the blazing light that was surrounding her dissipates.

“Hah, hah, man I’m so tired I used up so much of my aura, Will you need to go finish him off,” Nazuko tells me.

I walk over to the body of the unconscious thief and ready my upraised sword. Should I do this? I shouldn’t take chances, if he were awake he would kill us without mercy. My right hand is shaking, I’m contemplating whether I’m really about to take this man’s life. I should not have hesitated, in those brief seconds of hesitation the shadow dagger flies at me attempting to take my life.

“WILL WATCH OUT!!!” Nazuko yells as she pushes me out of the way of the dagger taking the lethal blow in my stead.

Time freezes as I watch Nazuko get stabbed in the chest with the dagger. I turn back to see the thief escape into the shadows once more. I ran to her to see a ton of blood gushing from her wound. It’s much worse than my stab wound from earlier; this one is located near her heart.

“Ke, ke, ke you had every chance in the world to kill me, but because you hesitated you lost. It’s now your turn to die,” Azazel tells me.

He picks up Nazuko’s blade and jumps up in the air to deliver the finishing blow.

Berserk Theme

This is all my fault, I could have prevented this. Nazuko is dead because of me. Everything everyone’s been telling me was right. Elisa was right. Warren was right. Sirius was right. Quincy was right. I have no right to be called a hero anymore, just a fool. I DON’T CARE ANYMORE.

“Hahahahaha, I’m going to make you suffer.”

The blade pierces my left hand and I grab his hand. I clench my right hand and punch him so hard in the gut it sends him flying, colliding with the wall. The force of my attack causes a large fracture along my right arm, but I don’t care. I can’t feel it. I immobilize him by sending so much air pressure against the wall he can’t move. Then I rip off the floor boards and grind them down into stakes, telekinetically ripping them apart. Four stakes are now sent at the thief’s elbows and knees.

Suddenly a door swings open revealing the rest of my party, their appearance here means they escaped the collapsing tower.

“Will, Nazuko, are you guys okay? We saw all the light coming from the warehouse and figured it must be you guys,” Remi says as she bursts through the door.

I witness their expressions change as they see the scene that has unfolded before their eyes. Azura immediately assesses the situation and rushes over to Nazuko’s side.

“Oh my god, what happened here?!” Lilith demands as she sees Nazuko bleeding out on the floor.

Azura removes the blade near Nazuko’s heart and immediately starts applying healing magic.

“This wound, her left coronary artery has been cut, I’ll need to fix this quickly or else she’ll die from blood loss,” she tells everyone.

“It must have been that thief, but it seems the fight is over now?” Ryder concludes.

Remi and Ryder look over at the thief pinned to the wall. His limbs look contorted as if they could easily fall off.

“I know this man deserves to die, but isn’t that a cruel way to finish him off,” Remi remarks.

I’m unable to focus on what they’re saying right now. All that’s on my mind is how exactly I want to kill this piece of shit. I wanted to go for a nice slow death, I had a plan that would condemn him to eternal suffering, but it seems like that opportunity is no longer available to me now. I rip Nazuko’s blade out of my left hand and throw it right into the thief’s head. However it turns out that the body in front of me was actually another of the thief’s insufferable clones as it vanishes into shadows. Deep inside me I feel relief, not relief in the fact that I didn’t kill him, but that I get another chance to.

“That thief, he’s still alive!” Ryder shouts out as he notices the clone dissipate.

“Heheheh,” I laugh menacingly as a grin starts to appear on my face.

“Hey, Will… are you okay?” Remi asks as she notices my odd behavior.

The sparklers that were scattered around earlier begin to spread sparks onto the wood crates inside the warehouse eventually catching fire. The fire starts to grow rapidly and spreads throughout the building.

“The building is catching on fire, we have to get out of here now!” Lilith announces.

“No we can’t! Nazuko’s injury is too severe, we can’t risk moving her right now. I need to finish healing the wound, before we can leave,” Azura responds.

“But we have to, we need to move to a safer area, that asshole is still alive,” Remi argues.

“Not yet do you want Nazuko to die, come on, just keep the flames at bay using your water magic. I need at least 10 minutes,” she says urgently.

A man with demonic eyes teleports right to the shadow dagger that Azura took out of Nazuko’s chest. There’s a desperate expression on his face, it seems that the last clone required him to use a major amount of his aura. His killing intent can be sensed clearly by everyone in the room, sending shivers down my party members’ spines. Deciding to finish off Nazuko he rushes to stab the short girl bleeding out on the floor.

“Like I’d let you!” Lilith yells as she swings her longsword at the thief.

The thief slides under her blade and brings up his dagger to end Nazuko’s life.

“Nice of you to show yourself again,” I say as I open a portal over Nazuko’s body.

The second portal is opened right over the thief’s head. The man barely notices and stops himself from stabbing himself in the head. Without wasting a moment’s notice I close the distance in an instant and knee the thief in the chest sending him flying into the pile of burning boxes in the corner.

“Alright round two against this thief bastard, let’s finish him together Will,” Remi declares.

“That fucker is all mine, don’t get in my way.”

“You can’t be serious, let us help,” Ryder says.

I ignore their request and charge forward without any care for my teammates' whims. Azazel attempts to kill Remi by popping out of a shadow behind her, but only manages to get a small slash cutting her arm before being bitten by Remi’s wolf. The spirit wolf is preventing the thief from diving into the shadows again so Remi commands her bear to come out and maul the thief. I interrupt her attack by slashing the thief across the chest, sending him and the wolf flying across the warehouse.

“What the heck, I had that!” Remi shouts.

“I don’t need your help, he’s going to die by my hand. So stay out of it,” I tell her.

“What’s wrong with you! Don’t be so selfish, we need to work together to beat this guy,” she concludes.

There’s a rumble amongst the boxes in the corner so Ryder fires an explosive adding on to the damage the thief has taken. He dives into the shadows once more, looking for an opening. Shadows appear to move, taking on an appearance similar to black tendrils. Unaware Ryder is immobilized as shadows wrapped around his legs and make his way up his body. The shadows further encroach on his body eventually wrapping around his arm. The shadows then pull on Ryder’s arm bending back at an angle, breaking it.

“Ack!” he yells as the shadows further encroach on his neck. It seems that that’s their next target.

I take one of the burning boxes in the warehouse and toss it directly at Ryder’s feet causing the light of the fire to erase the shadows on Ryder. The shadow dagger emerges from the ceiling heading directly for my head, but I simply tilt my head to avoid it. As it passes me I hear the thief teleport to it and attempt to strike the back of my neck. In that instant I teleport behind him and slit his throat with my own blade. Another clone. I’m getting sick and tired of his clones, but I know he doesn’t have much aura left. If they're going down so easily and he’s not making use of them so freely then he’s almost done for. Just a little more until your demise.

The fire in the warehouse is starting to spread more rapidly, about 50% of the building is consumed in flames and about 9 minutes have passed. 1 more minute until Nazuko is stable, but everyone is looking beaten. The building is starting to collapse with the far end of the building’s walls collapsing. Our assailant is using everything he has to kill us in this last minute struggle. He’s taken down the long range fighters while simultaneously attacking our healer. He uses his shadow dagger to teleport behind Lilith and slashes at a tendon in her arm making her drop her sword. In response she turns around and shield bashes him in the face, knocking him back. The dagger got knocked into the air so he teleports to it getting above her into her blindspot. She raises her shield with one hand and prepares to shoot a fireball up with her other arm. I abruptly interrupt the attack by jumping on her shield to boost me towards the thief. Not expecting me to interrupt she accidentally fires the fireball at both me and Azazel.

“Hey watch out!” Lilith yells as her magical attack encroaches us.

I grab Azazel and turn us around in midair so I’m on top and he is hit with the full force of the fire ball. I then rotate my body in midair and toss him at the stakes still attached to the wall. He bends his arms so they don’t collide with the stakes, but his stomach is still penetrated by the bottom left stake. Since his body now has a large hole in his stomach and the fact that he hasn’t disappeared yet means that this wasn’t a clone. Good this means it's finally time to give you the brutal death that you deserve.

“Guys I’ve finished the healing, we need to leave this building right now!” Azura informs everyone.

I ignore her alerts as I walk forward to finish the job.

“Will we need to go now! What are you doing!” Lilith says as she yells at me.

The building is falling apart and the ceiling is starting to collapse.

“Leave without me, I need to make absolutely sure that this man dies,” I respond.

“You’re crazy, you don’t need to go this far, Nazuko will be okay,” Azura asserts.

No matter what I will finish this myself, I won’t make the same mistake again. I open a portal outside the building and a black hole portal to suck everyone in forcing them to leave. Before Ryder is sucked in I steal a grenade from his waist.

“I’m sorry everyone, but this is something I need to do.”

“NO WAIT!” they yell as they’re all sucked inside.

“Now then, sorry to keep you waiting, it's time for you to die.”

“Ke, ke, ke, you may kill me here, but your death is all but assured against Archer. It makes me happy knowing that everyone you hold dear is going to die by his hands,” he laughs as he says his final words.

My opponent is out of aura, no longer capable of escaping. I use the rest of my power to grab all the debris in the collapsing building and send all of it to the thief. The man is crushed underneath the weight of all the rubble. It’s as if he has been made into a center of gravity as everything collapses in on his body. I don’t care if you can shift around the internal organs of your body. If part of your body is completely destroyed, then you will die no matter what. In front of me lies a small ball of rubble and I can see his blood leaking out. Taking no chances I toss Ryder’s grenade into the pile to finish it once and for all.

The blast causes the rest of the building to fall apart. I'm not sure if I can make it out in time. I’m out of aura and am no longer capable of using my powers. But it doesn’t matter, I’ve killed my opponent with everything I had. The last thing I see before the building collapses on me is the beautiful sight of the half moon in the sky.