Volume 3—Chapter 67: The Real Culprit?
Two fierce battles raged within the eerie, dimly lit apartment building, its corridors twisted by the unnatural stillness of the dimensional crack. The chaos was divided by a thick wall of jagged ice, splitting the battlefield in two.
On one side, Aria clashed with Shera in a brutal display of strength and supernatural fire. On the other side, Irana and Aneira faced off against Ichiro, who had completely lost his reason, his eyes burning with unfiltered rage and obsession. His strikes came relentlessly, but they lacked coordination. He was no longer fighting with logic. He went berserk.
Despite the danger, Irana never stopped trying to reason with him.
“Hey, snap out of it! Can we talk at least?” she shouted as she weaved around his wild strikes.
But Ichiro wasn't listening. Every attack was directed at Aneira, not Irana. It was as if she didn't even exist to him. Aneira, meanwhile, had no choice but to dodge, her white flame power kept in check, revealing it would only make him more violent.
From a distance, it almost looked like a game: Aneira playing the tank, drawing all the enemy's aggression, while Irana—free from attention—took every chance she could to strike back.
Despite Aneira’s constant evasive manoeuvres, her breathing was growing heavier, and her footwork was slowing, but the same was true for Ichiro. Irana noticed.
“He’s starting to tire… good,” Irana whispered, keeping pace along the flanks.
Ichiro lunged again, this time with less force behind his swing. Aneira ducked just in time, stumbling slightly.
“Careful!” Irana shouted, launching a frozen spike at his leg. It grazed his thigh, not a clean hit, but enough to make him stagger for a moment.
Ichiro growled, swatting the air as if trying to knock away the cold clinging to him. His eyes were bloodshot. “You can’t fool me! That girl, she’s a spectre host!”
Aneira flinched, not from the accusation, but from the emotional weight behind his voice. Whatever he saw in her, it wasn’t her. It was his past.
“She’s not!” Said Irana.
He ignored her, trying to push forward again, but Irana wasn’t about to give him the chance. With a twist of her hand, the floor beneath him iced over, and his footing slipped. He dropped to one knee, panting.
Aneira hesitated. She could have countered, could’ve used the flame—but she didn't. Instead, she stepped back, her voice softer. “You are mistaken...I’m really not a Spectre host…”
Ichiro roared and forced himself up, but his movements were slowing and sluggish. As Ichiro charged one last time, Irana raised a curved wall of ice behind him. When he struck out at Aneira again, she feinted right, and Ichiro slammed straight into the barrier, cracking the ice and falling to his knees again, dazed.
Irana took a deep breath and conjured another set of frost-bound shackles from the floor, locking his wrists and ankles.
He thrashed once… twice… then slumped.
Panting, Irana stepped in front of Aneira. “You okay?”
Aneira nodded, still catching her breath. “Yeah…”
Irana looked down at Ichiro, now subdued but not unconscious. His eyes darted between the two girls, the madness still lingering.
Ichiro glared at Aneira, even as the frost-bound shackles held him in place. His chest rose and fell with laboured breaths, steam rising off his skin in the chill air left by Irana’s ice.
“I’ll kill you…” His eyes burned with unfiltered hatred. “You spectre bastard…”
Aneira’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t back away.
“Because of you!” Ichiro roared, thrashing against the ice restraints. “Because of you… My sister!!”
His voice cracked on that last word, broken. The fury wasn’t just anger anymore. It was grief. Pain that had long festered, now unleashed.
Irana took a step forward, her brow furrowed. “Your sister…?”
“She trusted someone like you... Someone who appears shy and soft on the surface. And in the end... Just like the others…” His voice trembled now, shoulders shaking.
Aneira took a shaky breath. “No… I did nothing…”
“Shut up!!” he shouted.
He clenched his teeth, head hanging low.
“I should’ve stopped her… I should’ve dragged her away when I had the chance…”
Irana, who had stayed silent until now, glanced between Aneira and Ichiro with a tired expression.
She sighed internally. Why do I feel like I'm too old for this kind of melodrama…?
Then she remembered. Ah, right. I’m still in my early teens.
Even so, the way Aneira and Ichiro were emotionally sparring felt too dramatically cheesy, even. The back-and-forth made her cringe just a little. Seriously, can we not turn every battle into a tragic soap opera?
Now that Ichiro was finally subdued, Irana felt she could shift her attention to what really mattered.
Time to help Onee-chan…
She turned away without another word. She had no interest in playing therapist for two emotionally unstable people mid-battle.
Just as Irana began lowering the thick ice wall that separated their battle from Aria’s, a loud crash shattered the moment.
A body burst through the ice barrier like a cannonball, slamming into the far corner of the hallway with a heavy thud. Ice shards scattered everywhere. Irana recoiled on instinct.
That figure was none other than Shera, Aria’s opponent.
“H-How can one person hold that much power…” Shera muttered, struggling to her feet. Her limbs shook as she pushed off the cracked wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
Irana stared, wide-eyed. Did Onee-chan really need my help at all?
Even so, she clenched her fists and readied herself. Onee-chan might be powerful, but this fight wasn’t over yet.
As if on cue, the floor trembled, and several skeletal arms burst through the ground. Another wave of summoned skeletons erupted, surrounding them again like weeds.
Irana moved on instinct, sending sharp ice pillars through the nearest ones, shattering bone with precision. Aria stepped through the broken remains of the ice wall like a force of nature. Without breaking stride, she crushed every skeleton in her path with a flick of her hand—chairs, pipes, and broken furniture smashing down on them through telekinesis.
But then, it was a distraction.
Shera, moving like a shadow, darted past both Irana and Aria in the chaos. In one swift motion, she seized Ichiro by the throat, lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing. Aneira moved to intervene, but Shera lashed out with a brutal kick, sending her sprawling across the floor.
Ichiro gasped, trying to wrench her hand off his neck. “W-What are you doing…?”
Shera gave him a chilling, hollow smile.
“Sorry, but I need all the power I can get,” she whispered, voice like cracked glass.
She leaned in closer, her eyes glowing faintly with something unholy.
“Say hi to your older sister in the afterlife, will you?”
Those words hit like a knife through Ichiro’s chest.
In that moment, it finally clicked.
This woman, the one he’d trusted, was the real culprit behind his sister’s disappearance all along.
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