After Yuzuha hurled her charm to draw their attention, Geno threw out both arms and gathered all four girls against him — then activated his teleport and ripped them clean out of the encirclement.
To fit everyone, he had no choice but to drop his disguise and revert to his true form.
Even so, with so many passengers weighing him down, the teleport barely carried them any distance at all.
"Run — they'll find us any second!"
The moment his feet hit the ground, Geno was already shouting for the others to move.
Almost before the words were out of his mouth, a bullet grazed his cheek and punched a hole in the wall behind him.
"Tch! That was fast!"
No time to explain — the group sprinted for the nearest exit out of the residential block.
But despair hit them like a wall: the compound's gates were already surrounded. The rebels had sealed every way out.
Before Geno could even begin to think through a plan, Yidhari's voice cut through the chaos.
"I know a way. Follow me."
Drawing on the ghostly echoes of the past that only her eyes could see, Yidhari led them into a sharp turn and they hurtled off in a new direction.
The rebels came after them without missing a beat, firing as they ran.
"These guys — are they actually trying to kill us?"
Something nagged at Geno. If they were after Alice, they'd want her alive. Taking prisoners meant holding fire. But these people weren't holding anything — they were shooting to kill, and that didn't add up.
"No time to figure it out — they're closing in again."
When it came down to it, they were just a group of young girls. Their stamina was a world apart from these rebels — soldiers who had trained relentlessly and lived with death at their heels.
On top of that, they had to keep weaving and ducking to avoid the gunfire, which made running any faster next to impossible.
"Are we actually going to make it out of this?"
Lucia summoned Little Hati to harass the rebels and buy them precious seconds, then called out to Yidhari — who was still leading the way — asking how much further they had to go.
"We're going to make it. We're almost there."
"Once we're inside the Hollow, the hard part's over."
That was the plan — the Hollow.
The best way to shake a pursuit was to use the Hollow's warped, folded space to lose the rebels entirely, then slip out through a different exit.
That was the escape route Yidhari had mapped out on the fly. And why not — she was a Proxy, after all.
Muttering to herself as she went, Yidhari swung her great hammer in sweeping arcs, smashing every obstacle in their path to rubble. Behind her, her tentacles swept the debris aside before it could scatter back and trip up the others.
Her eyes never stopped moving. She was running her ability at full power, scanning for the shortest path to the nearest Hollow Fissure.
"There — that's it!"
Her eyes lit up. Fortunately, Yuzuha had picked a spot that wasn't too far from the Hollow to begin with — it didn't take long before Yidhari found the Fissure.
"Hurry! Everyone in!"
Yidhari waved the others forward and plunged into the Hollow Fissure first.
Geno and the rest followed one by one.
But crossing into the Hollow didn't mean they stopped. If anything, they pushed even deeper — because counting on raw Ether Aptitude to lose trained soldiers in the outer layer would have been a joke.
"This way. I still remember these paths."
The last time they'd been through here, Yidhari had mapped out the Lemnian Hollow's layout. She hadn't expected to need that data quite so soon.
"Hali — remember that little town we found last time? There's a safehouse near it."
"Got it. With me."
With Geno's tip to work from, Yidhari immediately shifted course, leading the group toward the old hilltop town deeper in the Hollow.
Not long after they left, the rebels came spilling through the Fissure behind them — but by then, there was no trace of the group anywhere.
"Sir, what are your orders?"
One of the soldiers turned to his commanding officer for direction — and instead of an answer, he got the butt of a rifle across the face.
"I believe I made myself clear: in my unit, you follow my orders and nothing else. Who told you to ask questions?"
The soldier hit the ground. He looked up at his captain's helmeted face — and through that red visor, something radiated at him that sent a spike of pure dread straight to the top of his skull.
He scrambled to his feet immediately and snapped to a salute.
"Apologies, sir!"
"Take your punishment when we get back. For now — let's see where these little mice have gone to ground."
With that, the captain led his unit into the depths of the Hollow to begin their search.
Back with Geno's group — after what felt like an eternity of running, they finally reached the old hilltop town.
"This is it. A little further in and we hit the safehouse we used last time. That should buy us some breathing room."
The familiar buildings and surroundings finally let everyone exhale.
A glance back — no gunfire, no pursuit. The rebels had lost them.
For the moment, at least, Geno and the others had shaken themselves free of the hunt.
"GRAAOWL!"
"Watch out!"
Just as they thought the danger was behind them, a Hati came lunging out of nowhere — straight at Alice.
A flash of white light — and the Ethereal was still frozen in midair in its pouncing pose when it split cleanly in two.
"Alice! Are you all right?"
Lucia checked her over, and only breathed again when she confirmed Alice was unharmed.
"Careful — more Ethereals are closing in."
The one who had struck was Geno. He stood with his longsword raised, scanning the Ethereals that kept emerging from the town around them, his brow knitting into a deep frown.
There hadn't been anything like this many the last time they were here. How long had it been — and somehow all of this had appeared in that short span of time?
Worse, most of these Ethereals were tainted with the power of Filth. Every single one of them was a nightmare to deal with.
"Heskerons, Filth Hati, Arkavores — each one worse than the last."
Lucia, who could name Ethereals the way others name old friends, gripped her staff in both hands and watched the encirclement tighten around them, her expression growing grimmer by the second.
The others weren't faring any better. They'd barely escaped one trap and walked straight into another.
"Stay sharp. We need to break through before the ring closes completely."
Geno tightened his grip on his sword. The Ethereals were many, but their group wasn't helpless — if they concentrated their attack and punched through in one direction, odds were good they could break out.
"GRAAOWL — GRAAOWL!"
Then, just as they were about to move, a howl rang out from a nearby slope — and every head snapped toward it.
"Another Hati?"
"No — look. The Ethereals are pulling back."
Geno was right. At the sound of that howl, the Ethereals that had been closing in began to retreat — peeling back, one by one, receding into the shadows.
Within moments, there wasn't a single Ethereal left in sight.
Well — almost none.
One remained.
____
👻🔥Whant more?: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: COTE: Confessing to Sakayanagi From the Start
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