The Forsaken Hero

AAA

“How… how!? How are you alive!?”

“… Shut up, you f*cking fake corpse.”

I tightened my grip on his head and heard the dull sound of a bone breaking.

“Aaaaah!!”

“I just told you to shut up.”

Still keeping hold of his face, I slammed him to the floor.

“Gahah…!?”

His chest slammed against the ground, Fantra had trouble breathing. Given how he had his middle finger on his thumb, it looked like he still intended to resist.

I stamped down on his fingers.

Fantra couldn’t even scream properly.

“You don’t need your fingers anymore, right?”

Saying that, I broke the fingers on his right hand one by one. For his left hand, I pulled them backwards at the knuckle far enough so that his bones could be seen poking through his skin.

“Uaaaah!?”

I couldn’t even catch what he was trying to say anymore. If he thought I was going to end it at that, he was dead wrong.

When I came to, I saw how messed up Shuri was. I saw Tamaki collapsed. I saw Leadred bound.

I still had to pay back their share of the fun.

I put my hand on Fantra’s abdomen as he was rolling about, wracked by pain.

“Wind Cut.”

The wind blade tore through his body mercilessly.

“S-Stop…”

I’d managed to have him beg for his life. I didn’t stop, obviously.

I’ll only kill him after I punish him so much that he would prefer death.

“Earth Chains.”

Chains sprouting from the ground took Fantra’s arms and legs and pulled them away from each other. Following that, the chain morphed into having spikes.

Naturally, the spikes dug into his flesh as it tightened.

“——aah!?”

“Man you cry a lot. Maybe you don’t need that mouth of yours either? Guess I could remove your nose while I’m at it?”

“——!?”

“Wind Slice.”

The small, compressed wind blade slice through his nose, soundlessly severing it from his face.

“———!?”

He let out a soundless scream.

By then, Fantra practically couldn’t breathe.

Foam started to bubble at his mouth as he started to struggle. His eyes growing vacant, he looked like he was about to faint.

“Water Ball.”

I doused his body with water, making sure that he wouldn’t have the luxury of losing consciousness. The water soaking into his wounds, Fantra tried to struggle free again.

However, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t escape the pain he felt, either.

All he could do was suffer.

“… I’m still not done with you, you still have to go through Shuri’s and Leadred’s repayment. So let’s finish it with the next one, I don’t have the time to play around with you anymore.”

“… …”

Fantra couldn’t say anything anymore.

Flecks of blood covered his skin. His expression was that of a person staring death in the face.

Convinced that Fantra had lost his will to live, I called for the person most deserving of the honors, the one who was currently trying to stand up and pat the dust off herself.

“Tamaki!”

“Wh-What? Oh, that stuff at the end was just an act okay? I’m talented in that stuff!”

“Yeah, you could definitely be an actress or something.”

When I followed along with her lighthearted remark and joked back with a feeling of grat.i.tude for what she did, she looked at me dubiously.

“… Are you really Katsuragi? The Katsuragi I know would never smile like that.”

“Don’t make me hurt you, Shield.”

“Yep, you’re Katsuragi alright.”

Tamaki laughed like a mischievous child who succeeded in a prank.

What kind of punishment should I… no, now’s not the time for that. Let’s just focus on this guy for now.

But there’s something I’ll have to do first.

“Tamaki. You get to perform the finishing blow.”

Hearing me say that, Tamaki looked puzzled.

“Eh, why? Why don’t you do it? The crystals are all used up, he won’t be able to revive himself anymore…?”

As Tamaki said, the crystals that had been glittering around the room had all lost their light.

“Idiot. Even without using the crystals’ mana, he could always just use his own. It’s not like I believe him when he said that that was all of the crystals either.”

“Oh, true.”

Tamaki clapped her hands together in realization.

“Huh? Then he’ll revive even if we kill him…”

“If that’s all then don’t worry. I had a chat with someone.”

“A chat? With who?”

“Someone beloved.”

Not my beloved, but this guy’s.

Tamaki just tilted her head in confusion, but it was best off for me to only say that much, at least while Fantra could still hear us.

“That aside, you were the leading figure today. You did great, Tamaki. You should get to kill him.”

“Well, if you insist, guess I won’t hold myself back. Nothing to do but to do it.”

Tamaki shrugged like she had no choice, but she grinned all the same.

“Triple Guard.”

In the air above Fantra, who was teetering between life and death, Tamaki created her sheets of ice.

“Crush!!”

Her arm outstretched all the way to her fingertips, she swung it down in an arc.

The snow-white shields crushed his existence.