Damion crossed the road to the shop on the other side. He approached a middle-aged man standing at the back of the crowd and asked him what they were going to do. Word was, there was a plan to cause a distraction by blowing something up so they could get to the coffins. All they had to do was cause a little damage to the symbols on the coffin, leading to Spire losing the source of his supposed immense power.
Damion understood what had to happen, and as long as his parents' coffins weren't interfered with, he offered no objection.
"However," the man continued. "There is another group on the Northern entrance that don't care much for the dead like the rest of us do, they were bandits who were driven out of power by Spire and want him out."
"I don't blame them…" He replied.
"The last rumor I heard from them was that they were planning on burning the coffins entirely. We don't blame them, but there are bodies that once contained life in them, they had families… they do not deserve this at all… any of it."
Damion smiled as he kept this in mind and moved over to Tasue, asking her what she could do for a distraction. Once she asked who they were distracting, Damion pointed at the guards guarding the gate to the graveyard, the Western entrance to be specific. She agreed, "Okay Aniki!! I'll make you proud!!" His lips slightly parted, confused by the 'I'll make you proud,' statement. Damion stood off his guard for a second, fortunately, that was all Tasue needed to disappear, she had taken quite a few steps, running atop a stack of wooden crates, jumping on a banner that had a sign written 'Clinic' and suddenly, she was above one of the roofs of the town. She unfurled her umbrella and swirled it. Only some of the guards saw her, but because as she was a child, they ignored her. She began lunging across rooftops and jumped right above them. Startled, they began trying to catch her. The distraction was complete. For Damion.
Instantly, she began falling slower and slower, in the guards' confusion, she released her whip from the handle and cracked it on seven of them at once, each hit smacked their backs in ferocity. The towners of Gami began exchanging words, asking who that girl was, soon enough, they began cheering as the guards wailed in pain. However…
"Wait… they're pointing their guns at her!!" One shouted.
"Will they shoot a child??!!" An old woman claimed.
"She should have thought of that before she decided to disturb us!!" A guard began, his rifle aimed directly at Tasue's body. Damion watched, he clutched his bow, ready to use it to help Tasue out. However, while in the air, a thin smile showed up on her face, she then chanted.
"(重め) Omome — Heavy."
"Heavy??" Suspense caught one of the guards.
A split second later, all seven guards began struggling… their weapons were suddenly too heavy to hold, their hands followed, forcing them to release their guns. Immediately after, their entire bodies fell to the ground, they struggled to move let alone try to understand why they were suddenly in their situation.
'She did more than I asked… but it worked.' Damion thought as he saw this and before he took a step forward, the townspeople already started shouting, cheering, and so, they decided to begin their plan then and there. Starting from the people next to the shop scaled above, one of them began, "This is our chance!!"
Another added, "The girl did it?!?!"
"It doesn't matter. Let's go!!"
And so the multitude began running forward, toward the now weakly-guarded entrance. Tasue landed next to their struggling bodies, 'This should be enough to help aniki.' A grin formed as the thought ran in her mind.
*****
Not too far from the West, the other group of people had began their confrontation with Spire a little earlier. Ritta was on the wooden door to the room, Otto stood outside, right behind her. In front of her… Alloy stood, not letting her eyes off Spire, who was right behind his right hand man… and a desk.
"What do you believe I have of his??" Spire asked.
"His parents," Alloy responded.
"Hey… they were mine too, you know…" He replied, a smirk forming on his face.
"Why are you hurting Damion?? What do you gain from it??!!" She asked, giving in to her true question that determined her next move.
"Hurting?? Is that what I'm doing??" He held his chair and stared down. "Perhaps what I've already done to him isn't enough."
"What??" Her jaw tightened. Spire glanced back up at her.
"I don't want to hurt him… I want him to suffer, I want him to die painfully."
Alloy clenched her teeth, her hands followed, and her shadows weren't far behind the situation. Ritta stayed silent, so did Maki and Otto.
"Why…" Alloy continued.
"Why…?
Why..??
WHY??!!" Spire begun. His hand squeezed the black leather of the chair as it was forced inward. "I wonder what story he told you to get you to help him."
He chuckled. "Let me tell you why I do this. Why he deserves it all."
"I left home, tired of my father's rambling about my dead mother… and more so, Damion's pathetic everyday cries because he sucked at necromancy. I left to find the nearest academy I could find and with my natural abilities, they let me join their troops." His eyes shifted to Ritta.
"I made it to a mere superior officer, second after troops when I returned home to share my achievement with father. Surely enough, I wanted him to be forever proud of me, but he kept looking at that pathetic brother of mine who would rather play with flying sticks. So my pride was to be shared along with my family, but I came home to find a nightmare."
His facial expression changed to a darker sensation, enough to make Alloy, Otto and Ritta feel the chill on their skin. He continued…
"People swarmed the graveyard of the fallen. At first, I believed Damion had began mastering basic skills, but I was wrong… I found corpses, a lot of corpses, piled atop each other. And at the center of the mass lay my mother's corpse, and when I moved it, right underneath, lay my half mauled and gouged father." His eyes narrowed at Ritta. "YOU!!" He pointed at her. "I KNOW YOU WATCHED HIM EVERYDAY!! YET YOU DID NOTHING!!"
This obviously hit Ritta deep, she might've been able to do something but unfortunately, her state of shock was incomparable to anything for her to even move from her position at the time.
"Spire… I…"
"Save your words, they mean nothing."
"Do you know why??" Alloy intervened.
"Why what?!" He glanced at her once more.
"Why it happened??"
"Who cares!!" He shouted
"He does!!" She shouted back. Her tears were clearly held back.
"Your father made him…" Alloy began. He cut her off.
"I. Don't. Care."
"By killing him, that will make father proud… seeing him in the afterlife will make him proud that that such weakness is no longer part of the living."
Within the same second he finished his statement, an arrow flew past Alloy directly at Spire. His statement gave Ritta more anger than she could hold back, despite her age and wisdom. But, it didn't hit him, it got stuck in a space between him and his partner. It didn't struggle to go on. It just stopped in the air. Alloy then heard a screeching sound where the arrow was.
Hers' and Ritta's eyes darted in disbelief as Spire let out another chuckle, "Do you know why Maki here is my right hand??…" He walked beside his desk, in front of Maki himself to where the arrow floated.
"Because his ability protects me from you especially, and quite easily." He said as he took the arrow from the air, broke it and released the two pieces to the ground.
Alloy, too, couldn't hold back her anger, but before she could make a move, the five people heard some shouts, screams, and gunshots not too far from them. The looks on Alloy's and Ritta's faces gave away what Spire was thinking all along.
"He's there, isn't he??" His smirk widened. "Damion's the cause of that commotion… isn't he?!?!" He demanded.
"Looks like he took the bait, sir." Maki said.
Like a madman, he turned around, reached for the inside of his coat, and threw something that broke the window as he ran and jumped over his desk and out to a distance of what was similar to the height of the first floor of a building. He rolled upon impact on the ground and began making a run for the graveyard.
"SPIRE!!" Ritta called out. Her bow in hand.
She didn't hesitate. She followed quickly due to her light footing, Maki watched her move, but right before he could do anything about it, Alloy took a step forward and slashed a wave of shadows in the space between them. Stopping Maki's advance and breaking the rest of the window. Ritta lunged out of the window to a nearby rooftop as the wave dissipated in the air outside.
"I'll catch up soon!!" She shouted to Ritta. Without a needed response, she continued going after Spire. Alloy's right hand already had a formed katana that gleamed.
"What the hell was that?!" Maki asked. His eyes fluttered in his disbelief of Alloy's attack.
"Tell me yours first." She turned and glanced at him. "How did you stop Ritta's arrow??"
"I have no reason to tell yo…"
"HE HAS A SHIELD ABILITY!! BUT IT'S INVISIBLE!!" Otto shouted from the back.
Immediately, both of them remembered that one… Otto was there, and two… his unfortunate quirk to tell more information than is needed or even wanted. Maki grit his teeth.
"That man brings more and problems." He sneered.
Alloy turned her head to the informant as the shadows in her left hand began forming her second blade. "Thanks Otto." She smirked.
She turned back to face Maki as she readied a stance. "I have a new question. What happens when I break your shield…??"