"Who told you to look for Lanevus? Was it Xio Derecha? Are you his informant?" the dark figure asked in a low, slow voice.
Kiyotaka lightly clicked his sword-cane. "I am not looking for him myself."
"But you are looking for him. Why?"
"Would you leave if I tell you why?"
"Yes."
"Hmm, why are you protecting a Swindler though? Are you one of his cronies that helped him? No, that can't be, you would be in hiding as well if that was the case. Then, does that mean that your organization is behind Lanevus?
Something tells me that is not the exact reason either. You are a mass murderer, I can see the blood on your hands." Kiyotaka kept rambling as his hands got hot. "Then that means you are from a secret organization and Lanevus has something that you want, so you are protecting him, correct?"
"Why did your people suddenly start looking for Lanevus? This is a bounty that was offered a long time ago." The black figure slowly stood up and began to take leisure steps towards Kiyotaka. It looked like whatever Kiyotaka was saying was going right over his head.
'This person is extremely unreasonable. Good... I can use that against him.'
Kiyotaka ruminated as the man suddenly lunged at him. At the same time, flames erupted from all over his body.
At the same time, the giant man flipped his fingers and Kiyotaka's shadow began to squirm. Shadowy tentacles began to rise upwards as they started to encase Kiyotaka in a chrysalis of pure shadows.
Pulling his hand back, Kiyotaka pulled the thin stream of flames back as it condensed into a small spear with a pointed tip. Not waiting to let the flames converge for long, he fired it at the giant man.
The Flaming Spear that was cast without letting it condense to its full extent tore through chrysalis and blitzed through the air at the man, however, just as the spear made contact, the man's skin rippled like jelly and the spear fizzled out, leaving behind a gap in his clothes.
Underneath his clothes, the man's skin was charred, however, the skin began to wriggle in a disgusting manner before healing itself completely.
'Power over shadows and flesh...This is going to be bothersome. Physical attacks won't work...Unless I inflict so much damage that there is nothing to recover from.'
Making a preliminary judgement, Kiyotaka closed in the distance at a monstrous speed. The new Mystical Item that was made from a Pyromaniac did not come with all the abilities that a Hunter, Provoker and a Pyromaniac had, but it still had a decent array of abilities.
Kiyotaka pressed his palms together and was about to condense another Flaming Spear when the giant man suddenly ripped away his thumb and index finger before throwing it at him. The fingers reached towards Kiyotaka in the blink of an eye.
His spiritual intuition spiked as Kiyotaka took a giant leap back. However, the fingers began to morph into blobs of flesh as they suddenly exploded. Kiyotaka brought his arms up, however, the explosion sent him flying through the room as he went through the wooden door and into the hall.
Using his body's momentum, Kiyotaka used his hands to quickly prop himself up to his feet. Just as he looked up, he saw something running towards him at a high speed. In the dim lighting of his house, he saw that it was not the giant man from before, but rather a disgusting mush of flesh and blood.
The thing ran towards Kiyotaka in a lanky manner, wobbling sideways. Throwing its fist at Kiyotaka, he simply touched its wrist and let it draw to the side before kicking its torso. However, his foot went right through it, stretching the flesh like elastic.
'It has no bones...!'
This was a Flesh Puppet of a Rose Bishop, from Secrets Supplicant Pathway.
Kiyotaka's eyes moved ahead where he saw the giant man show a sliver of an expression that was full of madness and malice. He snapped his fingers as the monstrosity exploded in a violent flush of flesh and blood. Kiyotaka hissed as the noxious blood made the skin over his palm sizzle.
"Got you." The man mumbled as his eyes went white and he began mumbling something. At the same time, Kiyotaka's body started to turn slow and sluggish, while thin streams of blood began to pour out of his eyes and nose and ears.
Using the Flesh Puppet to inflict damage to Kiyotaka and as a master of blood and curses, he had inflicted a curse directly to Kiyotaka's physical body using his blood as a conduit. The curse had numbed all of his senses!
Not letting the moment go by, the giant man suddenly took a step back and disappeared into the shadows. This was the Shadow Lurking ability of a Shadow Ascetic.
Kiyotaka felt his body beginning to lose its control.
The giant man was using Shadow Lurking in tandem with Shadow Manipulation to capture Kiyotaka's shadow from within the Shadow World. Once the control was complete, he would be able to completely destroy him.
Kiyotaka expended his spirituality and suddenly multiple ravens made out of flames burst out of him that flew in different directions. Since his senses were numbed, he couldn't pinpoint the other party's location.
The entire house began to rumble as it lit up, somewhat revealing the silhouette of the giant man in the corner.
Two of the ravens began to intercept him as he tried to run and dodge the attack, and Kiyotaka directed the other one to pincer him from the back.
Suddenly cornered by the sudden onslaught of attacks, the giant man let go of taking control of Kiyotaka's shadow and took out something out of thin air.
It was a cloak.
One look at it and Kiyotaka couldn't help but frown. The cloak had some occasional hair on it with clear veins and even capillaries visible all over it. It was clear what the cloak was made out of—a human.
Covering himself in the Flesh Cloak, the giant began bull-charging at Kiyotaka. Using his pyrokinesis, Kiyotaka slightly altered their trajectory and made them direct at the man, however, he did not stop.
Instead the giant man drove straight into him.
'What a mad-man.'
Kiyotaka thought. Simple side-stepping and using his enhanced physique to jump to a safe distance away, all three Fire Ravens hit the giant man and exploded in a small, blazing inferno of a tornado.
Kiyotaka's room was completely blown away and more than half of the house was brought down. Meanwhile, his senses were blaring and seeing the flames engulf the entire house, he was having the urge to burn it completely to the ground.
While lost in maddening thoughts, underneath the rubble, the giant stood back up. His left half was gone, but congealed blood and flesh began to squirm, mending his broken body back up.
Kiyotaka tried to steady his breath and rubbed his hand over the other in the same as Billy had done, imitating the action of nocking an arrow and drawing a bow. A giant spear materialized between his fingers.
The flames got hotter and thicker until his entire arm was shaking from just holding it in place. Aiming at the man's torso, Kiyotaka let go of the Flaming Spear.
At the same time, he raised his hands and conjured two Fire Ravens and hurled them at the giant man.
All of the attacks landed in an instant as Kiyotaka ran away. The impact sent everything flying as he ran outside the house. Once he was outside, he looked around.
This much noise would've attracted people from all over the Cherwood Borough and authorities would've been most likely notified. This was one of his plans as well, to gather attention, from the Nighthawks. Since they were monitoring him, it was possible that seeing something so strange happening would alert them.
And since they looked quite compromising with what he was doing, he assumed they would surely come to help him.
However, once he was outside, Kiyotaka noticed that there was...no one. Not the authorities, or police or fire brigade, not even the neighbors. It was deathly and suspiciously quiet.
Kiyotaka looked back but did not see any other movements. The structure of the house had collapsed completely and there were no signs of life. It looked like time had stopped and everything had come to a standstill.
Hesitatingly, he walked back inside. Walking through the splintered furniture, burnt leather and broken glass that he had spent his "hard-earned" cash on, Kiyotaka finally arrived at the place where the lunatic giant man had fallen.
His body from above his groin had vanished and whatever remained of him looked like candle wax. This was because right before the flaming spear had landed on him, the giant man had tried to use "Shadow Creek."
Shadow Creek allowed a Rose Bishop to melt like a candle and turn into pure sticky Flesh and Blood that can quickly penetrate into the ground and move, or hide within other people's stomach in order to avoid detection.
However, since the house belonged to Kiyotaka, he had laid multiple traps using the Trap Laying abilities of a Hunter via his first Mystical Item, some of which included anti-escape measures for intruders once they are inside and adding brain-numbing agents to his whiskey.
That was also why he had stopped drinking for the past 3 days. Since he was suspicious of people following him anyways, it was just a matter of days before someone intruded his house. It was a far-call, assuming that someone would intrude his house and drink his liquids, however, it was worth a shot.
And it had worked perfectly.
After pushing the giant man into the far corner, Kiyotaka had his prey right where he wanted him to be.
And when faced with a certain death, even a man who looked like he had no reasoning skills decided to escape and was thrown right into the trap, causing his escape to be nullified and being hit by a full powered Flaming Spear from a Pyromaniac.
Kiyotaka took the bracelet off and looked up at the sky. The crimson moon hung low and looked like there was a layer of oil covering it—as if it was not the real crimson moon, but rather a hyper-realistic oil-painting.
Bending down, Kiyotaka inserted his hand inside the man's pant's pocket. He did not retract it instantly, but felt disgusted as the inside of the man's pocket made wet sounds. When he slowly took his hand out, he saw that it was covered in sticky, black blood.
'Even if he uses abilities tied to Flesh and Blood and Shadows, isn't this too much? There really is no need to keep body parts in your pants or have a cloak made out of someone's back. That said, the man did not use a lot of these Flesh Bombs.
He was a good brawler but when it came to using his abilities, he did not use the full extent of it. This seems to be a recurring theme of events so far. It happened with Meursault when I was an ordinary person, and it happened now when there was a disparity between our Sequences.
It can't just be that I am lucky. Hm... Well, I might be overthinking it. The man was quite laid back while attacking me, as if underestimating me.
That said, Sherlock did mention that there is an organization who's actions are totally erratic.
The Aurora Order. Mr. A is from Aurora Order, and this man also had the same malice and madness in his eyes as him, albeit he felt much weaker than him.
If this man is really from the Aurora Order, then this hypothesis should make sense. After all, Mr. A only knows that I am a Sequence 9, looking to advance to Sequence 8. However, he did not know that I had multiple traps laid all over the house and had a Sequence 7 Mystical Item as well.
That said, why is Aurora Order backing Lanevus? He is merely a swindler. Hmm...Should I contact Sherlock?'
Kiyotaka inserted his hand in the man's other pocket. This pocket was cleaner and had a wallet inside it. He picked it up and eyed the thick wads of cash a few times before stuffing them into his pocket.
Just as he was about to leave, a putrid mass of bloody flesh with visible tendons and blood vessels appeared beside the giant man. Kiyotaka looked down at it, weighed his options and then ended up picking it up, placing it in a plastic bag and then leaving the premises.
No matter what happened, this much property damage, even if the Nighthawks saved him, was going to be detrimental. He did not have the monetary means to afford for repairs. However, if he had to ditch his identity, that meant that he had to let go of his shares in the Alcohol Engine project.
So instead of leaving and disappearing out of the blue, Kiyotaka made a visit to Inventor Leppard and took a share transfer document—issued straight from the official body—from him and then told Leppard to stay silent about him.
Needless to say, the fanatic man that had become a follower of him since day 1 obliged without asking anything. He did not ask who or why was he going to transfer the shares, nor did he ask why the man he admired so much was covered in so much blood and smelled like shit.
Once he had obtained the share transfer document, he made his way to his destination.
*****
The day was quite productive for Klein. He had met Williams in person, and had obtained quite the information on the underground structure. He was quite content, since he had obtained 5 Gold Coins as well.
Setting the pepper-steak and some fresh bread in front of himself, he was about to fork through it when he heard a few knocks.
'Sigh... Again. Just let me eat in peace for once! Is that blonde guy not enough to bother me all the time?!'
He stuffed his revolver in his pants and walked towards the door. Slowly opening it, he saw a man with long blonde hair and blue eyes standing, while covered in dirt, soot and blood.
'Would you look at this...'
The man smelled of copper and his beautiful suit was all ruined. Klein swallowed a dry lump of saliva as he looked at the expensive suit made out of good wool and cotton in tatters. His face was covered in bruises, his hands looked blistered and there were thin streaks of blood flowing from his nose, ears and eyes.
He had a stack of documents in one hand and spare clothes in the other.
'Did I jinx the suit when I said it would be a shame if something happened to it?' Klein lampooned internally.
Realizing the situation, he sidestepped and let Kiyotaka walk inside. Kiyotaka's gaze fell on the dinner plates as he let out a relieved breath.
"Sorry for disturbing your dinner."
"Its ok. What have you done now? Wait, no, what happened to you? You are still bleeding." Klein rubbed the bridge of his nose. He now realized how must have Captain Dunn Smith felt whenever Klein came with some ground-breaking, and world-ending problems.
"Nothing much..." Kiyotaka wiped the streak of blood from his nose, "...I am cursed, probably. Do you think you have some medicine?"
Klein stared at him with a dumbfounded look. "Sit down. I will see what I can get." He quickly ran to the door, and wore his coat and hat and picked up his cane. "I will be right back with some medicine from an Apothecary I know. Help yourself to some water. The bathroom is to the right."
"Thanks." Kiyotaka limped as he placed a stack of paper and an extremely thick wad of cash at the dinner table, besides the steak and walked over to the bathroom to wash the dirt and blood off of himself.
Once again, somehow, he had marginally escaped a certain death.