Toru had distanced himself from the group after the argument with Maestro. Arisa and Renji began to treat him as if he were a villain, an obstacle in their way.
That old man's henchmen.
That's how he saw them now. Even Yui, who tried to intervene, ended up being silenced when the others threw the school rumors in her face.
All this made her shut down even more, and Toru noticed something strange.
They were angrier than usual.
As if something was... wrong.
But at that moment, he didn't care.
"What a pain in the ass!"
He muttered to himself, kicking a stone away as he walked.
"Those two idiots... They're like guard dogs for that 'Maestro'"
He made quotation marks with his fingers, mocking the title.
"Seriously, who calls themselves that?"
The night wind blew hard, kicking up dust along the cobbled path. The torches that illuminated the corners flickered, casting elongated shadows on the walls.
Drakenvaar looked like a ghost town.
Everyone was at the festival, celebrating an achievement from decades ago, the Maestro's victory over the floor boss.
"Hell!"
He ran a hand through his hair, annoyed.
"Arisa's always been an arrogant bitch, but until that piece of trash Renji humiliates me like this?"
His teeth gritted. He knew that Renji was no longer the same useless boy from school. He had changed. But that didn't justify the way he treated him now.
The wind blew hard, and before Toru could react, the sky collapsed in on him.
A brutal impact hit his back, and in the blink of an eye, he was ripped from the ground.
Giant claws closed in on his shoulders, crushing his skin and muscles with absurd force. The world spun violently, and before he could scream, he was in the air.
The wind roared against his face, and the cold of the altitude penetrated his bones. His stomach churned, and the city below turned into a handful of distant lights.
"What... what's happening?!"
He tried to struggle, but the claws held him like an iron trap.
The dragon's colossal wings flapped several times, guiding them even higher.
Toru felt his body being thrown back and forth, as if he were on a runaway train.
He tried to activate his ability, but nothing happened. There were no corpses in the sky. He was completely helpless.
Then, suddenly, the dragon slowed down.
The previously ferocious flight became stable, with the wings now beating more rhythmically.
The claws holding it were no longer so firm and the surrounding wind died down.
It was enough for Toru to notice.
"He's going to let me go."
And that's exactly what happened.
The claws opened, causing his body to plummet like a meteor.
The air collided against him, spinning him uncontrollably. The world spun, heaven and earth blending together in a confusion of light and dark.
Then came the impact.
He flew through the treetops, breaking wood and leaves as he plummeted through the dark forest.
Each bump against a tree trunk made his body turn. His arms and legs tore the bark off some trees, before finally letting him hit the ground.
The pain was overwhelming.
A dizzying chill ran down his spine. He had broken his ribs.
"What the... shit!" He coughed, feeling the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
The necromancer then propped himself up against a tree, using it to get to his feet.
But before he could even process the pain, a light appeared in the middle of the forest.
A golden-tipped spear flew towards him.
His body screamed to move, but he didn't have the speed to dodge.
The sharp point pierced his shoulder, pinning him against a tree like a pinned insect.
The pain momentarily darkened his vision.
"Fuck...!" He shouted, turning his gaze in the direction of the attack. "Come out... you bastard."
And then he saw it.
A red-haired silhouette emerging from the gloom. With predatory eyes and a cold smile on his face. Shouma.
"What luck," said the knight, snapping his neck. "I was afraid I'd hit your head... I didn't want you to die so easily."
He smiled and then stepped forward. His knee collided with Toru's stomach.
"HNGH!"
Toru bent forward, vomiting directly onto Shouma's leg.
"Urgh. Disgusting."
The knight leisurely cleaned up the mess. Then he punched the tree-bound boy in the face, forcing the spear further into his flesh.
The pain exploded in his mind.
He screamed.
"You can scream all you want. No one will hear you from here."
Toru tried to stay lucid, his eyes watering with pain.
"W-Why...?" he managed to mutter. "Why are you doing this, Shouma?"
"Um..." He punched Toru in the throat, then put his hand on his chin, thinking. The boy would die anyway, either at his hands or from the bleeding.
Whether he explained his motivation or not, Toru couldn't tell anyone.
"Just nipping a problem in the bud." He shrugged. "The Maestro wants to use you as an example. I'm just here to carry out the order."
Toru tried to process that.
"That's... all because I didn't take a passive?"
Shouma laughed.
"Your skill is strong. The Maestro himself recognized that." He bent down, bringing his face close to Toru's. "But you know what the problem is? You don't trust him."
Toru's heart pounded.
So that was it.
He hadn't shown submission like Renji and Arisa...
...And that's why he was going to die?
But Shouma didn't stop there.
"By the way... Haven't you noticed something strange?"
Toru blinked. "Strange?"
"Renji and Arisa... they were different today, weren't they?" Shouma smiled. "More stressed? More angry?"
Toru's mind spun.
It was true.
He hadn't had time to think about it before, but now, the pieces were starting to fit together.
"You're saying that..."
"Ha!"
Shouma grew tired of the conversation.
"I'll let you die with that one." He snapped his fingers.
In the sky, a glow appeared.
Askaloon.
The dragon opened its jaws, forming a colossal fireball.
Shouma walked away, leaving the boy alone to die. "To tell you the truth now, I never liked you Toru... and the way Arisa looked at you only irritated me even more." he said.
Toru frowned, but it wasn't at Shouma's comment.
"Attack Askaloon!"
The dragon then launched his fireball.
The explosion lit up the forest, the heat devoured everything around it, turning the trees into large pieces of embers. The earth opened up into a crater, and a smell of burning flesh infested the air, along with a pile of ash.
"This is going to be a pain to clean up," Shouma muttered, turning around.
But then... he saw it.
Askaloon's head.
Lying on the ground.
His body had disappeared.
Shouma froze. "What...?"
He then felt something above.
He looked up.
He saw a man floating in the sky.
He was holding Toru under one arm. While Shouma's spear was held in his other hand.
"Who... are you?"
The stranger slowly descended.
The knight held out his hand, calling his spear back. With some resistance, it returned to its owner, spinning in the air and leaving a light cut on the strange man's palm. It regenerated soon after, startling Shouma.
"You... aren't normal."
The man remained silent, but in response. He slid his hand through the air, and a sword formed in the darkness of the night. A dark blade, forged from the shadows that surrounded the three players.
Emitting an aura so disturbing that it made even Shouma recoil. The knight then jumped back, aiming to gain distance from the bizarre man.
"Stay back, I..."
Movement.
Silence.
Blood.
A blow.
An instant.
Shouma's body remained still for a second, as if his brain had not yet processed what had happened.
Then the pain never came.
Because his head was no longer attached to his body.
His vision rotated. Letting him see his own corpse, standing up, before plummeting like a puppet without strings.
His face hit the ground before the rest of his body.
And before his brain shut down completely, he remembered those damn words.
"Be my sword... And I'll make sure nothing happens to you. I'll always be there."
Shouma could no longer speak, but he still had one last thought.
"...You liar"
And then... everything went dark.
The stranger wiped the shadow blade clean, without showing any reaction. He then turned his gaze to Toru.
With a subtle flick of his wrist, his black sword seemed to transform in the darkness of the night. The dark, opaque hue of the blade began to ripple, as if absorbing the light around it, until it slowly took on a greenish, translucent glow.
The new coloration pulsed gently, as if the blade were alive.
Without hesitation, he raised the sword and drove it into the blond-haired young man's back.
But strangely, Toru felt no pain. The blade actually relieved her, as if it were rebuilding her ribs. It seemed to regenerate the flesh of his body, also reversing the hole caused by Shouma's spear.
The strange man then grabbed Toru's shirt, dragging him into the forest.
○
In the city, the Maestro dropped his cup.
The resident next door was startled.
"Mr. Maestro, is everything all right?"
The man closed his eyes.
"Yes," he said, his voice colder than usual. "I think I've had too much to drink."
On the outside, he might have looked calm, but inside, hatred consumed him, stirring up memories he wouldn't want to bring up again.
He had felt the death of the most loyal of his subordinates.
"He's back!" Murmured the Maestro. He raised his hand to his eye.
A passive was activated, sending a message to all the guards in the city.
"Surround Drakenvarr. No one is to enter or leave these walls. The Saint of the Sword has returned."