Esme sat in her bed still in her school uniform with the light in her room completely turned off trying to keep her mind intact. She couldn't believe what she had done already, she actually went into the school's farm and killed those animals.
She couldn't help it though, she was just so damn hungry. She tried to stave off the hunger and was successful for almost two days. But come Monday she couldn't handle it anymore. At least it wasn't a person. She thought as she rubbed a finger across her newly sharpened canines.
It made her skin crawl that she felt her stomach rumble at the thought of a person's blood. There was a sense of hopelessness in her situation, how in the world would she get any help? She was a monster now, maybe she should just turn herself in, but she was also scared of what would happen once she does.
But it's better than being a mass-murdering monster. She tried to convince herself, she knew that while she was able to control herself today, it wouldn't be long before she lost complete control. Even after having a full meal, she felt herself getting hungry quicker than the first time. She was sure that it was only going to get worse.
A knock on her door caused her to freeze up. It was loud and sounded like it could break down her front door, even from inside her bedroom. She remained silent as she saw the light glow through the seams of her bedroom door. She forgot to shut the lights in her living room.
"Esme Soto! Get out here! Last warning!" A voice called out, it was Jarold Walker, the S rank that was part of the search for the culprit. He was yelling through the door it sounded like his patience was waning.
Esme instinctively shrank back as she had a feeling that nothing good would come with her opening the door, yet not answering wouldn't cause the problem to go away either. As she debated with herself someone else spoke up, while she was alone in her room.
"I wouldn't recommend that."
"Aahh!" Esme yelped as she looked wildly around before hearing a knock on her window. Cautiously she got up from her bed and cautiously pulled the curtain apart only to see Archer pull up the window and crawl himself in.
"Careful not too loud." Archer said as he lazily flopped onto the floor, "They'll hear us." Archer said as he calmly sat up.
"How did you get up here? It's the twelfth floor!" Esme said completely flabbergasted that he was here.
"I climbed." Archer said as he grabbed her blanket from the bed.
"You what?"
"Well, I can't fly." Archer said he ripped the curtains from their frames, "I would explain more, but we don't have time right now." As if on cue, Jarold shouted.
"If you don't come out by the count of ten I'm smashing the door!"
"Come on let's go." Archer said draping the fabrics over his shoulders and offering Esme a hand, "Do you want to get out here and figure things out or do you want to be killed for being a monster?"
Esme paused for a brief second before taking Archer's hand, "I'm not a monster. Wah!" She cried out as Archer immediately threw her and himself out her window. Halfway down their fall, she heard her door break open.
"You're insane!" Esme shouted as she saw the parking lot concrete get closer and closer. She shut her eyes as she braced for impact. Only the hard landing never came, opening her eyes she saw that she was being princess carried with the blanket draped over them.
As Archer placed her gently back on her feet she could only stare at Archer under the blanket in shocked silence. After a moment Archer prodded her to move.
"They'll be after us, we need to leave."
"How did you do that?" Esme said finally finding her voice.
"Old trick I learned, though I haven't done that since I was fourteen." Archer said as they started to move with Archer keeping the blanket over their heads as they ran.
"Where are we going?"
"Just to somewhere where they'll lose track of us." Archer said before he noticed movement, "We're being encircled." Archer realized, "They were expecting you to get down here?"
"How would I know? Why are we running with this thing anyway?" Esme said as she had to help hold up the blanket.
"To hide us, well me mostly. They don't know who I am yet." Archer said as he quickly glanced around, "Only three on the left, let's go."
"Wait, those are A and B-ranks." Esme said alarmed.
"Yep." Archer said not slowing his pace.
"We can't fight them."
"Oh we can." Archer assured as the three students now came at them, all armed and ready to take the duo down.
Archer made sure to lift up one of the curtains to cover his face and looking through the fabric waited for the first person to come close enough. Once in range he tossed it outwards and blocked the first A-rank's field of view. He promptly followed it up with a straight left into the face of the student.
A heavy thump could be heard and as Archer snatched the curtain back to cover his face, the student hit the floor. The other A rank and the B rank took pause, which was bad for them as Archer left the blanket for Esme as Archer used the curtains to hide his appearance and moved forward to attack. A hard roundhouse to the midsection caused the B-rank to crumple into a ball and the last A-rank armed with a halberd looked stunned.
He was then promptly, actually, stunned as Archer rushed in and struck her down. Archer then fixed his gloves and grinned at Esme who watched in pure confusion. This moment did not last long as a voice shouted from the other side of the parking lot.
"Jarold! I see them!" The person called up to the apartment.
Evan Case. Archer thought as he nearly gave an outward sigh of disappointment. Instead he picked up Esme like a sack of potatoes and ran towards the trees. At the same moment he heard a loud crash as Jarold himself dropped down onto the parking lot leaving a small crater where he landed.
"He's angry." Archer murmured as his shoes crunched down on the dead leaves that littered the ground.
"He's going to kill us." Esme said, voice gripped with fear as Archer carried her and she desperately kept the blanket pulled down on them. Part of her wondered how Archer was navigating so well and quickly despite having a blanket and a girl on top of her, another part wondered why she was still trying to cover them, they were going to get caught anyways.
"He's not that scary." Archer said as he took them into deeper woods.
"He's an S-rank!" She hissed.
"S-rank huh?" Archer said sounding unconvinced of the threat before he stopped running.
"Why are you stopping? Wah?" Esme asked as Archer dropped her onto her feet.
"I can hear that he'll catch up at this pace. We need to change the plan." Archer said as he took the blanket and draped it over his head, "Since he already knows your face, I may as well use this for now." He said as he covered himself with the blanket.
"Are you crazy? He'll kill you! You're blind underneath that thing!" Esme said alarmed.
Archer now just a thing under a large white blanket couldn't offer any visual assurance underneath the fabric, so instead opted to simply turn around and meander towards Jarold. S-rank huh? He thought rather interested at the prospect.
Jarold slowly made his way over towards Archer, flanked by half a dozen A and B-ranks as well as Evan Case who tailed in the back. Though Archer couldn't really see through the fabric, the night sky didn't help matters, he could make out about eight figures and assumed the one who led them was Jarold, especially how the other clumps were crowded.
"I don't know who you are stranger, but you're helping a monster. As part of the student council of Trinity Academy I recommend you to give up." Jarold warned.
Archer said nothing and instead he slowly bent down to pick up a rock and chucked it, smacking a B rank in the head and taking them out immediately. Jarold then saw what looked like arms being raised under the blanket and seemed to make a bring it on gesture.
"Get him, I'll take the girl." Jarold ordered and everyone ran forward, Evan being careful to hang back a bit.
Archer carefully undid his tie and held it with one hand and the two curtains in the other. He then proceeded to drape one of the curtains over him from under the blanket and then moved towards the closet one.
The girl in front swung a wild haymaker with her massive gauntlet which Archer easily sidestepped and took them down with an elbow. Then from under the sheets, he whipped his tie outwards and smacked another one out taking them out immediately.
About what I expected. Archer thought feeling a twinge of disappointment. He had guessed about the level of skill the other ranks had based on the combat classes he's had. These were all first-years, no doubt next year they would've caused more of a problem, but right now all they had was a week's worth of training from the academy.
It bothered Archer thinking about it as he ran through a third with a knee. With the disguise it looked as though the poor boy was tackled by a living blanket, no doubt an embarrassing memory for the future. Sending a load of green kids to deal with something as serious as apprehending a criminal who defaced the school was stupid.
Archer then tossed the blanket from his head towards another student who now faced a wall of cloth, Archer blitzed around the blanket wall and now flanked the student and another smack from the whip took him down as well.
Though I'm not one to judge on that aspect I guess. Archer admitted to himself as he snatched the blanket before it hit the ground, his journey to being a WDO was hardly an easy one. In fact he's probably done stupider at younger times. No, he definitely has done stupider. Still doesn't mean what's going on is right. Archer thought as he wrapped the blanket around his neck like a scarf.
The last two charged at him in unison, a good plan, if not for the lack of strength, Archer very quickly took both out with a single strike each. Archer then looked over to the last person, Evan Case. Though Archer still didn't know it was actually him as he couldn't see anything properly.
As Archer was tempted to lift the curtain up a bit to peek, Evan took the opportunity to run away. Archer watched in curiosity as he watched Evan run away. He could make out him yelling something about how this wasn't supposed to happen and how this encounter event had been ruined. He assumed this was related to Sariel and Mariel in some way, he could ask later.
Wait, they were a distraction. Archer realized as he immediately rushed to where he left Esme. Good news was that she ran when Jarold ran after her, unluckily in the short time it took for Archer to dispatch the other, he had caught up to her.
Currently on the dead leaf-covered ground Esme had a hand covering a bleeding shoulder wound as she stared up at Jarold, his sword raised ready to strike down on her head. Archer at least had a moment to lift up the curtain to see Jarold properly.
He was equipped with what looked like pieces of metal armour attached to a hoodie. His bottom half had no armour on and looked like a simple pair of jeans, his blade looked to be a good-quality longsword.
Before Jarold could bring his sword down, Archer whipped out the tie again and it coiled itself around Jarold's sword arm. Jarold feeling his arm now bound turned around to see the weird, cheap cosplay of a ghost holding a tie out grabbing at his arm.
Unimpressed Jarold went to yank the tie from Archer's grasp only to be surprised that he couldn't. Archer in his own right was shocked as he was trying to drag Jarold towards him, but found ample resistance.
S-rank huh? Archer thought as they had a mini tug of war. Jarold quickly grew tired of it and with a dexterous spin of his wrist, he managed to free his hand and leave a cut on the tie.
As Archer quickly pulled his tie back into the palm of his hand and noticed how it was barely hanging together by a thread after the cut. There goes a night's worth of work. But I still have two curtains and a blanket. Archer thought as he quickly stuffed it into a pocket.
Archer then began to try and flank around Jarold, forcing him to move in mirror of Archer. As they circled one another Jarold unwittingly allowed Archer to move himself between Esme and Jarold. Without looking at Esme, Archer gave her a reassuring tap on her good shoulder as he readied himself for plan B.
"How in the hell did you take them all down?" Jarold more so demanded than asked.
Archer said nothing and surged forward and Jarold brought his sword straight down. Only to slice through a hollow curtain. Archer had thrown the curtain he was under towards Jarold as a feint and held himself a step back as he held the second curtain in front of him to cover himself up.
Planting a firm foot onto the, embedding it into the ground while holding up the second curtain to block each other's view, Archer launched a devastating straight left and cracked Jarold straight across his unprotected jaw.
Archer blinked in surprise as he pulled his gloved hand back from the strike. He hurt him, but not as much as Archer expected. Jarold then proceeded to lift his blade upwards and Archer had to flip away to avoid losing a toe. It seemed like the strike did nothing more than anger him further.
S-rank huh? Archer thought feeling himself breaking into a slight grin. He had to refocus as Jarold now pressed his attack. Powerful and fast sword strikes that sent Archer stumbling back. It didn't help that Archer was moving with a curtain on him, he was looking downwards at his feet, trying not to trip over the dead leaves and twigs that littered the ground.
Should have been smarter. Archer thought as he began to flap the blanket and curtain to blind Jarold. Things would have been easier if he didn't need to hide his face, or if he at least changed out of his school uniform. He really should have thought this through, at least next time he would. If he ever gets the chance.
As Jarold was pressing the attack he had to acknowledge the annoyance of the blanket and curtain that this stranger was using. It was causing him to hold back a bit to avoid getting blinded. The stranger hit hard enough that he'd rather not let it happen again. Who is he? He wondered as he decided that he needed to get rid of the stranger's defence.
Baiting Archer to swing the curtain towards him, Jarold managed to step in and slice the curtain apart. Instantly Archer dropped the remaining part he was holding, it was too short to do anything now. Instead he did something that Jarold was not expecting, he moved forward.
Grasping the blanket tightly he rushed towards Jarold who had to take pause and take a backstep. This momentary pause gave Archer the opening to throw the blanket over Jarold's face. Immediately Jarold gave a few wild swings trying to keep Archer back as he removed the blanket.
Tearing it off of him and throwing the blanket to the ground Jarold looked around to find Archer, only to find him missing. Jarold scanned his surroundings and realized something else, Esme was now missing.
"Where did they go?" Jarold roared as the other students began to stir.
Evan at the same time came running back joined by two other students who had hung back in the parking lot guarding it. Evan could see that the body language of Jarold was not a happy one.
"Is everything okay? Where are they?" Evan asked.
"They escaped. Everyone, get up and search for them now!" Jarold roared as the other students, once able to gather themselves, ran off in different directions deeper into the woods. Jarold looked around and ran off in a random direction he picked with Evan following behind, not wanting to lose any credit when they find her.
After a few seconds the area was now clear and Archer unburied himself from the autumn leaves he had been under, as did Esme. Archer looked over to Esme, whose bleeding wound was momentarily bandaged with Archer's necktie. Thankfully they planted those trees around here.
"Are you alright? Can you move?" Archer said voice full of concern.
"I think I'm good for now, just in shock I think." Esme said slowly staring at Archer like he was a stranger, which he was. They hadn't talked aside from greeting one another during mornings.
"Listen, I promise to answer your questions, but let's get out of here before the redhead find us." Archer said holding out a hand to her. Esme nodded her head and accepted it, after everything that happened, following Archer seemed to be the smartest move right now.