Kaito was running after Mashiro. To the naked eye they were invisible, nothing but a blur, a shadow disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Still, for Kaito that speed was desperately slow. As he lamented the wasted time and thought about how useless it was to advance like this, he realized something.
"I'm an idiot," he muttered, hitting his forehead with one hand.
Of course, he didn't have to match Mashiro's speed. He could simply carry her, like he had done so many times before, and reach their destination in less than a minute.
But when he was about to do so, Mashiro rejected him.
"Why?" asked Kaito.
"There are too many people," she replied, shaking her head.
He sighed and accepted it. It wasn't like the mission would vanish. Besides, he was absolutely confident that he would fulfill it perfectly anyway.
In recent days, both of them had rushed through multiple cities with a single goal: reaching the military base.
Not just any base, but the central one.
The minors weren't taken to the nearest outpost or anything like that, but to this main base. That meant they could be months away. And indeed, that was the case. Although Kaito and Mashiro would only need a few days to arrive thanks to their speed, a normal bus would have taken more than a month and a half, especially now with roads blocked by abandoned vehicles and ruins.
Two things surprised Kaito during the trip. First, the minors. Kaito clearly remembered the first time the military had tried to put him on a bus. He and Mashiro had been shocked: neither of them was a minor. Everyone had to be at least eighteen years old to enter Gaia, so technically no Lord was a minor.
However, after looking around, he understood. Compared to adults, and even to some teenagers, they looked much younger. A genetic advantage, perhaps; after all, Asians tended to look younger than they really were.
The second surprise came after leaving that bus. Besides the strange worshippers they had already encountered, in the following days they ran into more odd people. Not face to face, of course, since they preferred to ignore everything and keep moving, but as they passed by they witnessed peculiar scenes: bizarre cults, betrayals between companions… and, curiously, the exact opposite. People willing to give their lives for others. Scenes worthy of a soap opera.
After reflecting, Kaito reached a conclusion as to why this happened: the original story was about that. Beyond the plot, it was about trust and mistrust, about human bonds.
In general, in any story, when someone entered a fictional world, there were two scenarios:
1. The world was completely different from what they remembered, which confused them until they accepted that they were in a reality with flesh-and-blood people, so naturally people wouldn't act according to a script.
2. More often used in comedy. The world followed the rules of the book, game, series, or story, and then absurd or even comical situations arose. Like entering a shoujo where everyone falls in love at first sight, or a fighting world where even a passerby seemed like a professional fighter.
The difference between both was clear: in the first case, the world turned out to be real; in the second, it was exactly a story, a game, a movie.
From what he had seen, Kaito was almost sure this was the second scenario. Which meant the Tower's worlds weren't real. And he, more than anyone, should know that. After all, they were stories he remembered from his past life. But due to many circumstances, he had begun to doubt it.
Now, however, he was once again convinced of his initial statement: these worlds were not real, but exactly what he had seen, nothing more than stories. That explained the absurd situations of this world or others, like in High School DxD, where even side characters were incredibly attractive and with ridiculously high levels of perversion. Even Koneko had described Issei as "a little perverted," when in real life he would have been in jail long ago.
If the worlds weren't real, the real question was another:
Who had created them?
Who had the power to drag them into stories from his past life?
Was that god related to the Earth of his other life?
And to Gaia?
Absorbed in his thoughts, Kaito barely noticed the truck in the forest. His reflexes saved him from a crash. Inside were two people… whom he planned to ignore as always.
But Mashiro stopped him.
Kaito, confused, looked closer. And silently thanked Mashiro. There were Cassie and a man.
Cassie was pointing a gun at him, and the man, hands raised, was begging her.
Kaito recognized the scene: the moment Cassie discovered her supposed savior was a Silencer. He confessed that his love for her had made him awaken, and in the end she let him go.
Mashiro also recognized it. But not the scene, the man. He was a Silencer. She raised her hand, ready to cast a spell and kill him.
Kaito stopped her.
Mashiro frowned, but what she saw next left her speechless: the Silencer, far from attacking, truly loved Cassie. And Cassie, instead of killing him, let him go.
During that conversation, Kaito also learned the truth about the fifth wave: the children the army was training had been injected with a chip that made them confuse the Others with humans. And they were sent to kill them.
When Cassie and the Silencer left, Kaito wanted to continue. But Mashiro stopped him.
"What is it?"
"I don't want to go."
"Why not?"
Mashiro stayed silent for a moment. Then she lowered her gaze.
"I don't know who to trust."
Kaito looked at her, surprised. That was probably the longest sentence he had ever heard her say.
She continued:
"Humans are the good ones… but there are bad ones among them too. The Others are the bad ones… but there are good ones among them too. The Others kill humans… but humans also kill humans thinking they are the Others."
Kaito sighed.
"I can't help you with that."
Mashiro looked at him, surprised, waiting for his usual solution or input.
"Only you can decide who to trust."
"But…"
"I know. You don't know. But you don't have to know right now." He shook his head. "Trust isn't given just like that. It's earned."
"So I'll be alone until then?"
"No. You can trust people. You just have to get to know them first."
He smiled and ruffled her hair.
Mashiro didn't understand much but she understood enough, and smiled again before speaking.
"Can I trust you?"
Kaito returned the smile without hesitation.
"Of course."
Mashiro tilted her head, confused.
"But you said I should decide."
"I'm the exception. I'm the most trustworthy person there is."
"Mmm… just as expected from my boyfriend."
Kaito froze.
"I thought we were done instilling common sense in you, I explained that to you."
She only smiled and kept walking. It was late, so they decided to sleep in a house still in good condition. But when Mashiro woke up, they would no longer be there.
He watched her as she slept, sighing.
Over the past weeks they had grown closer, and Kaito cared about her much more than he thought he would.
"You ruined all my plans," he murmured. "You were supposed to learn more, to grow more, there's still so much I wanted you to see in this world… But that would have meant you would suffer. And it seems I no longer want to see you suffer."
He looked out the window. On the horizon, the massive ship of the Others loomed, visible from anywhere on the planet.
In a blink, the room only held Mashiro sleeping, while Kaito was right beneath the ship he had seen on the horizon.
The ship contained the true digitized form of the Others. Destroying it meant also eliminating the Silencers. An immediate victory.
Weeks ago he had told Mashiro that with their current levels it was impossible to enter.
A lie.
Either of them could have done it. But he wanted Mashiro to stay longer in this world, to grow.
Now he had changed his mind, and the ship before him was nothing more than a huge target.
Bat wings sprouted from his back. In an instant he was flying toward the ship without stopping. The moment he collided, he vibrated and pierced its hull as if nothing could stop him.
Contrary to expectations, the interior didn't give a futuristic impression but a clinical one: white, smooth walls with no joints. Everything spotless and clean. No ornaments at all.
Immediately he was surrounded by modified soldiers, comparable to supersoldiers, trained as hunters.
Kaito barely smiled. His plan was simple: destroy the ship. He could have done it meticulously, entertaining himself as he always would. But not this time. Today he wanted to end it all and return home once and for all.
He accessed the system window and selected an option. A message appeared before him.
[Deactivate the passive skill Speedforce?
-Yes -No]
The Speedforce had the function of allowing him to run fast without worrying about anything, any consequences that should come with moving so fast disappeared.
This protected him of course but, even more, it protected his surroundings.
He confirmed and began to move.
As he moved, nothing protected the environment anymore. Each step was a shockwave that would deafen anyone not already dead. The soldiers burst into gore, the walls and floors cracked and shattered wherever he passed, opening fissures that kept spreading like an earthquake, the entire ship trembling.
From Earth, if anyone had been watching, the sight would have been spectacular: golden lights and cracks running through the ship, nothing but fissures igniting due to the speed and explosions wherever Kaito moved. This continued for almost a minute until, in a colossal explosion, the glorious alien ship collapsed.
On the ground, thousands fell dead instantly. All the Silencers. As for those who were inside in their true form, they couldn't even defend themselves.
A message appeared before all the Lords:
[Lord Lucifer has destroyed 3,598,769 of "the Others," exterminating them all]
[The mission has been forcibly ended ahead of time. Return in 5 minutes]
[00:04:59]
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)