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"There's only one method!"
Ryoji took a deep breath, fierce determination blazing in his eyes.
"What method?"
Kanata looked shocked. Surrounded by three overwhelmingly powerful Blazers, he still believed he could turn the tables?
As expected of the man I've set my sights on! she thought, a spark of pride flashing through her anxiety.
Then,
Ryoji cleanly sheathed his Vrring blade, turned on his heel, scooped the stunned Kanata into his arms, and kicked off the ground like a wind-powered wheel. He dashed straight into a nearby alleyway, leaving a violent gust of displaced air swirling behind them.
"NIGERUDA YO! (I'm getting the hell out of here!)."
There was indeed only one method: Run away with everything you've got!
Though it felt deeply humiliating, only an idiot would continue fighting three consecutive, impossible counters.
The two humanoid figures and the massive lion seemed momentarily frozen by his sudden, decisive flight, pausing for a single beat before instinctively taking up the chase.
But to their disbelief, Ryoji's escape speed was impossibly fast. He vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving all three of them completely unable to catch up.
A moment later, the Chainsaw Woman suddenly vaulted high into the air, and as if stepping on invisible floating platforms, began climbing upward toward the sky. She was reflecting gravity, utilizing an incredibly rare and unconventional application of her power to grant herself effective flight.
Yet, even after reaching a high altitude, she still couldn't detect the slightest trace of her fleeing target.
Minutes passed.
She finally descended back down to the ravaged street.
Then, alongside the Shadow Assassin and the lion, she froze in place like a puppet that had run out of power.
Moments later,
"Gudu… gudu…"
Accompanied by the sound of water displacing, a patch of shadow resurfaced at the center of the street. With a splash, a girl's head covered in long, golden hair emerged from the darkness.
"Cough, cough, !"
Choking violently as if she'd swallowed water, she coughed raggedly. Her simple, wet apron clung tightly to her body, outlining dangerously seductive curves. Messy golden strands stuck fast to her skin.
"…It failed…"
Her eyes were filled with profound disappointment and bitterness.
He had escaped. Even after deploying three distinct 'characters,' he still managed to get away.
She tried to stand, but a sudden wave of dizziness struck her hard. Her legs buckled and she collapsed back onto her knees.
"My mind and focus were too heavily concentrated… Od is down to seventy or eighty percent…"
Sara lay back against the cold ground, sinking into gloom.
Beside her, the shapes of the two stick-figure humans and the lion began to fade. Their bodies turned transparent, their pitch-black shadows dissolving like scattered snowflakes, and then, just like ink dissolving in water, they vanished completely.
Within moments, Sara was the only one left on the street. Chasing was now impossible.
"…I won't give up."
"I will absolutely make you mine!"
Gasping for breath, Sara finally pushed herself up again, staggering step by painful step into the distance. In her eyes burned a terrifying, single-minded obsession. The idea of surrender simply did not exist in her vocabulary.
Ryoji carried Kanata through the nighttime streets like a gale, occasionally making unpredictable stops and swerving movements to evade potential aerial surveillance. Only after a full ten minutes did the sense of lingering crisis finally disappear from his mind. He exhaled in relief.
"Are you alright?"
Kanata stepped out of his arms, looking at him with deep concern.
"I'm fine… truthfully, I'm pretty good at running away."
Still panting, Ryoji managed a proud grin.
His base movement speed was already incredibly high, comparable to a high-level adventurer (Lv. 5) in the DanMachi world. Combined with his Absolute Divine Speed Noble Art and the intuition honed for dodging pursuit, his Escape Skill was essentially maxed out.
"Though it's not an ability worth being proud of, surviving is what matters."
Kanata shot him a subtle look, her eyes falling on his still-bleeding right arm. Her expression immediately softened with worry and concern.
"I'll call the private jet right now and send you to a hospital to treat your injuries!"
Ryoji didn't refuse.
Kanata quickly pulled out her phone and contacted the standby pilot of her private jet. After sending their current location, she was assured the aircraft would arrive within ten minutes.
"But who exactly were those enemies?"
Once things finally settled down, Kanata had the luxury of thinking about the attack. The memory of those unbelievably strong opponents made her head throb.
"To think they could send out three such powerful Blazers one after another, and all of them targeting you…"
The Chainsaw Woman could reflect attacks, possessing an absurdly high Od capacity that let her deflect almost anything. The Shadow Assassin could submerge into darkness, impossible to approach and capable of silent, deadly strikes. And finally, the special lion-type entity, its ability was unclear, but its roar was overwhelmingly powerful, like a raging storm.
"But they might not be three separate people," Ryoji said.
His breathing gradually steadied, and upon hearing Kanata's summation, his expression became strangely contorted.
"That Shadow Assassin had both arms fully restored less than thirty seconds after submerging. That level of medical technique rivals that of Kiriko the Medicine Master."
A powerful healing capsule could achieve such results, but it would still take time, it wouldn't be nearly as miraculously fast as the Doctor's own abilities. As the heiress of the Totokubara conglomerate, Kanata naturally knew the name of Japan's number one doctor and could only nod in agreement.
"Of course, that might not have been a medical technique at all… but if it wasn't, then the alternative is even more terrifying, because it means our enemy this time may actually be just one person!"
Ryoji raised a single finger, a bright, shining smile blooming on his face.
The brighter his smile, the more Kanata felt chills crawling up her spine.
"One person? Impossible!" she gasped in disbelief.
"You didn't fight them directly, Kanata, so you don't understand." Ryoji sat down on a nearby park bench. "That Chainsaw Woman's attacks were incredibly monotonous, like she was repeatedly looping a preset attack pattern."
Anyone else facing such a strong opponent would panic long before they could analyze an enemy's patterns. But Ryoji's ability to observe bordered on the monstrous, allowing him to instantly dissect and predict an opponent's movements mid-combat, always noticing the minute details others would miss.
And more decisively, when he realized he couldn't overcome the reflection ability, he had secretly released a tiny trace of his Charm Noble Art. Yet she hadn't reacted at all.
"That means those two humans and the lion might not have been real living beings at all, but high-level creations born from some kind of Noble Art!" Ryoji announced his final deduction.
When the Shadow Assassin submerged for thirty seconds, he wasn't being healed by an amazing medical Blazer; he was being restored by his own creator, who simply granted him replacement arms upon his recreation.
Kanata shivered violently. Because if that deduction was correct,
"Those Blazers had completely different Noble Arts! If there was really only one person behind them, doesn't that mean the creator can copy the Noble Arts of others?!"
Even though it was only Ryoji's speculation, Kanata instinctively rejected the concept. It was too outrageous, too unprecedented.
"It's only my hypothesis… but if it is true…"
Ryoji's voice sank, heavy with cold dread.
Then that opponent is terrifying beyond belief.
(End of Chapter)