Fear overwhelmed him as he hesitates to give a physical reaction to the man standing before him. His hands are slightly trembling in preparation for an incoming attack, but the man notices this and takes a few steps forward.
"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet?" he said in a mocking tone. "Where was that bravado you've had before?"
Nathan fails to give a comeback; he only asks him one simple question.
"Was it you who did this?"
The man answered, "Yes, but just so you know, I'm not alone."
"Is your whole cult here, too?"
He laughed after hearing what he had heard.
"Cult? That's a new one." He sighs in relaxation. "No, no, we're not a cult. I mean, we're 'like' a cult, but if we're a cult for believing in an ideology, then everyone is part of one."
[The way he talks… He's probably in his early 20s. Let's ask what his name is.]
"One more question, what's your name?"
The man gave a loud groan in frustration. "Ugh, why so many questions? It's getting annoying. But fine, how about you answer me, then I'll do the same."
"Fine, what is it?" Nathan answered in a more relaxed manner.
A small grin swept across the man's face.
"Who's the silver-haired girl with the blue eyes you're always around?"
Nathan's pupils dilated in a furious gaze into the man's eyes. Anger overtook his body, with his teeth forcing themselves on each other.
"What the hell did you say?"
The man's grin grew even wider at Nathan's reaction.
"Aah, so that's what makes you tick. I'll have to pay a visit to blue eyes after all."
The air in the room began to fill with suffocating amounts of mana as Nathan positioned himself in a fighting position. "If you go anywhere near her, you'll pay."
The does the same with water surround hovering around his upper body.
"Finally, let's have some fun, shall we?"
Before their clash unfolded, Nathan started to hear footsteps from the hallway. The man was irritated that Nathan's attention wasn't on him.
A boy appeared from the corner of the door. It was an exhausted Harry, heavily breathing from running past the classes before this one, helping with the evacuation.
Nathan quickly asks Harry, "Is everyone alright?" Harry answered with sweat dripping down his face, "Yes. But I have to still check other classes."
"Alright, go."
Just before Harry could leave, the man threw a slash of water towards him. But Nathan intercepted it, letting it hit his right shoulder, causing a streak of blood to spew out.
"Are you okay!?" Harry asked in anxiety about the state of his upperclassman.
"I'm fine, just a bit of blood, now go."
Harry rushed off to evacuate the remaining students in their classrooms, leaving Nathan to deal with the man.
"Shall we resume, hero?"
"Just shut up."
Nathan surged towards him with his fist covered by a pitch-black void, but the man blocked it.
"Not too bad, you're more direct than you were the last time," he said with a cocky smirk.
The force of the impact sounded like a howling wolf. He blocked each attack with confidence and certainty.
[Damn it. Even after all this time, he's still toying with me.]
As the fight went on, Nathan noticed the teachers fighting the rest of the man's group with some of them storming through the halls on the other side of the school, and Prof. Nowell taking care of most of them.
[The best I can do is hold him up until they get here to handle the rest.]
Then the man threw a ferocious undercut punch underneath Nathan's chest, cracking a part of his ribcage. Losing and struggling to breathe, he steps back for a moment to recollect himself.
But without letting up, he attacked Nathan again, leaving him on the floor, bruised and gasping for air.
"Wow, you're shit. I thought you'd improve, but maybe that was too much to ask for."
"Screw you."
"Till this day, I still can't understand what he sees in you." The man said in confusion.
[Is he talking about his lord or whatever?]
The man took a good look at the fallen Nathan before he turned his attention to outside the window, where he was watching his comrades fending off the teachers, but no sign of Prof. Nowell.
He asks one of them where he was with the same transmission technique Noah used with Nathan. They had no clue where Prof. Nowell was, and this forced the man to command all of them to retreat.
"Change of plans. Since my objective is now complete, there's no point in staying here any longer. But… maybe I can surprise him by bringing you as well. I'm sure he'd be quite thrilled to see the boy he has taken such interest in."
After evacuating all the remaining students, Harry hurried back to Nathan in hopes that he won. But just before reaching the door, he heard the man talking about taking Nathan with him to his boss. He took a peek and watched as Nathan resisted being taken. The man grabbed Nathan by the wrist and crushed his hand. He cried out in pain as the joints from his knuckles were crushed one-by-one.
Harry's heart sank after hearing the cries of someone he looked up to. He went through his pockets in hopes of finding anything that could cause a distraction. Unfortunately, he found nothing but crumbled pieces of paper and drips of ink. This made Harry panic even more and succumb to a pit of hopelessness with Nathan's anguished screams in the background. Just as it all seemed fruitless, he looked at the dried pieces of concrete on the ground, surrounded by broken window shards, and a plan came to mind.
He ripped out his pants pockets and crushed both the concrete and shards together until they were almost turned to powder. His hands bled with each motion and placed the bloody powder inside the ripped pockets.
As the man's attention was solely focused on Natha's screams as he continued to torment him, Harry saw this as an opportunity and threw both pockets of powder at the man's face. The pockets exploded in the man's face, taking him aback and coughing violently. This caused a sort of smoke bomb and it dispersed around the entire classroom. The room was completely covered in smoke and rushed over to where Nathan was.
But just as he was about to get there, a hand wrapped itself around his neck. The hand belonged to the smoke-covered man with hints of blood on his face. He strangled a now defenseless Harry, with his eyes almost rolling back, and trying to get himself out of this situation, but his struggles could only be seen to be in vain as he couldn't escape his hold.
Just as Harry was about to meet his end, Nathan jumped on the man's back and stabbed him in the side of his stomach. He threw Harry across the room and slammed Nathan to the ground.
He fell to his knees, and blood started to cover his torso. Harry's coughs and heavy breaths alerted Nathan to whether or not he was still breathing.
He tried to get up, but his body reached its limit. He still tried his hardest with only the thought of taking Harry to safety. After a somewhat long attempt, he got back on his feet, with his eyes fixated on Harry, who was also trying his hardest to do the same.
[Don't worry, Harry. I'm almost there]
But just as he almost reached out to Harry, a brutal whip of water slashed across his leg, and he collapsed on the ground. The man stood towering over him with malicious intent in his eyes.
[How the hell is this bastard still standing?]
"I have to give it to you, both of you. I never thought I would struggle this hard against two teenagers, but fair play," he said with an unruly tone in his voice. "But I'm mostly surprised by you, 'hero'. You purposefully stabbed the least fatal point of my stomach with the sole intention of keeping me down for as long as possible. For that, you deserve a round of applause. But I believe it's time to end this."
He raised his hand in the air in preparation for the final blow.
[Shit, I can't move. Guess he's no longer planning on taking me alive.]
He dispelled another ruthless slash of water, but a figure blocked the attack in front of Nathan.
It was Harry who was on the receiving end of the merciless strike. His body slowly collapsed to the ground, and blood spewed out of his chest and mouth.
[H-Harry…]
"HARRY!"
Nathan screamed from the top of his lungs. He ignored all the pain in his body and hurried towards Harry's bleeding body and held his head up on his arms.
"Damn it, wrong guy." A transmission came across with his comrade telling him to leave the school as they had already left. "That's my cue then. Sorry about your friend." As he was about to jump out of the window, he turned and said to the panicked and fearful Nathan, "My name is Xavier." He jumped out after saying this with a satisfied grin on his face.
"Nathan…" said a weak Harry.
"I'm sorry we couldn't stop him."
"Don't worry about that, I'll get help, and you'll be fine, okay."
His body continued to bleed out as Nathan tried to reassure him. After a brief moment, Harry's vision started to blur out, and a bright light appeared to him. He held Nathan's arm. His grip got tighter as he rapidly took sharp, anxious breaths. He began to cry out to him with tears flowing down his distressed face.
"Nathan… I don't want to die (sob) please…"
"SOMEBODY HELP!" Nathan yelled out from the core of his soul.
"Keep looking at me, buddy. You'll be fine, just hang on. ANYBODY PLEASE!"
Harry's breath slowed down by the second, with Nathan continuing to plead for the help of anyone nearby. He took off the bracelet he had made as a child and asked Nathan to turn to him in these final moments.
"Brother… take this."
"No, no, why are you giving me this? You'll make it, I promise!"
Harry had no strength left to respond to his brother's promise, but instead gave a smile. A small yet happy smile that hid a faint resemblance to sadness.
A thought came to him as he faded away. The happiness of his parents, his friends from school, and lastly, from Nathan, his brother.