Arthur let go of Celia and turned to the one assassin still left standing. Johnny was heaving, catching his breath as he looked at the unconscious Lana. He glanced at them one by one, but did not move. Arthur grabbed Celia by her hand and took her all the way to Elle, where Vil had also decided to stand. All eyes were on the assassin. His move would dictate theirs. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to fight too much. But if they did, then he did have his skill ready, and his proficiency with the katana was only getting better.

  Then, he finally moved.

  Slowly, he took small steps to Lana’s side and sat down. His massive body towered over hers, but the emotion in him was apparent. As he picked up her hand and brought it closer to his face, his trembling hands betrayed his bear-like persona. Or rather, accentuated it. If he had not been their enemy, there was no saying what kind of person he would have been. Maybe the scary-looking man with a heart of gold? They didn’t even know why he didn’t speak.

  “I’ll do it,” Vil whispered and shifted the grip on his sword.

  But Arthur put his hand forward and stopped him. Johnny hadn’t attacked yet, so he would rather watch and see what he was going to do. If he gave up and stopped, then it would be the best possible outcome. Yes, he had just destroyed the entire warehouse, but this is exactly what he had spent almost half a decade teaching the kids in his class. Scientific observation and perception. There was objectivity in everything. Objectivity, even in the fact that humans were not capable of it.

  “Johnny…?” Arthur whispered, putting his hand forward, “Look, we have nothing against you…”

  The big man did not move. Hand on Lana’s, he stayed expressionless.

  “Arthur, move back. It’s not worth it. He’s killed two other versions of you before, so don’t even try.” Elle warned, stepping forward.

  “I…”

  He was going to say that he knew. But he didn’t. The fact that Johnny had already killed two other Arthurs came as a shock. Not factually, of course. There was no doubt that a man like him was capable of it. But it just made his theory of trying to understand his perspective shaky. It gave him less reason to worry and care about what he going to say or do.

  “Vi…”

  Arthur’s heartbeat increased. His hand trembled, and a chill went down his spine. Just now, a voice had escaped Johnny’s mouth. With Lana’s hand right near it, he kissed it and opened his mouth again. As his eyes grew moist, and his head shook with a mix of fear, anger, and sadness, he opened his mouth wide and said a single thing.

  “Violet…”

  Holding her hand tight, he let the tears out. As they fell, so did her hand. It slumped on the floor and did not move.

  “Hey, she’s alive. It’s alright. She’ll be alright!” Arthur spoke up louder, hoping to start a conversation.

  “Y-yeah.” Celia joined in, “She’s still breathing.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Elle whispered.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The person who contracted them. The one after us? No matter what, they’ll be killed for failure. And falling unconscious means failure. She lost to Vil and effectively let him get away.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t need to-”

  The hulking man stood up, tears still rolling down his cheeks, and sniffed.

  Elle sighed and blinked thrice. He was probably checking his skill timer. Whatever it was made him groan and look at Arthur with an indecipherable look on his face, “If they could just go away, then they wouldn’t be assassins in the first place.”

  Johnny’s body began to shake. Slowly at first, and then slowly getting more violent. A suppressed groan escaped his body, as if he wanted to scream, but was holding himself back. The vibrations grew louder, and his fingers started to swell. A little bit after that, so did his feet. As they grew, his groan grew more painful. His hands moved up, and he grabbed his head, pushing it down and shaking it side to side.

  “Alright, that’s new…”

  Even Elle was surprised. Arthur took a step back with the rest of them and pushed Celia along with him. Dee, looking down, also shook off all the metal and wood from his back and moved so that he was behind all of them instead of standing on top. Johnny kept shaking, still making weird noises.

  Then, all at once, he stopped.

  A strange silence filled the room. The occasional groan from a piece of bent metal was the only source of sound. Johnny stood as he had just a moment ago. His body was still, without any growth or bloat. The lights at the very top of the warehouse flickered on and off, but weren’t strong enough to send too much of their brightness to the very bottom of the basement.

  “We should leave.” Vil declared, patting Dee’s leg.

  Elle nodded and started moving backwards, too. Celia gulped and turned. But Arthur couldn’t. What had happened to him? He knew it was pathetic, maybe. He knew that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he needed to know. He might have just been a teacher now, but his background and love for science were real. Bodies did not just react like that for no reason. Speaking itself had had an adverse effect on him. It had changed his physiology in not-so-desirable manners.

  And even if they left him alone, why had Elle been so adamant about keeping Lana alive? Was their plan not to take her with them for questioning? If they had her, they could find out more about who hired her and figure out a way to get to him. Arthur took a step forward, hoping to at least grab her before they got out. If he did not find out about Johnny, it was fine. But he needed Lana.

  He needed to find this villain as soon as possible, deal with him, and then come back. The expressions on Celia’s face just now, when she had told him that it would be weird if he never returned, had hurt him way too much. Now that his mind was clear, he knew he didn’t really want her to feel like that. Another step, and he got closer to her, katana still trembling in his hand.

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  Johnny moved.

  Groaning, he said the same thing once more, “Violet!”, and then started moving towards Arthur and the body at full speed. Seeing the massive man hurtling his entire body at him panicked the teacher. He pulled Lana’s body towards himself and slid her to the back, where Elle caught the scent of the plan and grabbed her. Johnny, barely missing the man, fell on the floor because of his speed, and screamed, smashing his hands on the ground over and over again, breaking through the junk.

  Arthur stepped back and readied his sword. Vil started to get down from the dragon, but his armor got stuck on one of the scales, and he was delayed. Elle’s skill cooldown was still not up. Johnny pushed himself up and ran towards Arthur once more, hands outstretched. Dodging the attack with a roll, he slashed the assassin’s leg and left a sizeable gash.

  Then, before he could crash into Celia and the others, Arthur turned and grabbed the leg he had just hit. Pulling backwards, he offset the man’s center of gravity. Weight or strength did not matter in this case. Johnny might have been stronger, but just a small obstacle stopping him at such a high speed and mass was enough for displacement. The giant fell on the floor and smashed his face against the ground. Arthur didn’t need his abilities for this.

  He hopped on the man’s back and stuck the sword into his back, but it didn’t go deep enough. His fat was far too much to skew through. There was nothing to be done.

  “Holy…” Celia whispered, moving back in shock as she looked at how much better he had gotten.

  There was something to be done, though. If he needed force to be generated inside the man’s body, he could do it. He had crashed on the floor. Or rather, what was the floor right now. It had been a different floor before. And now that time had passed, he could not repair the entire thing at once.

  Aiming his hand at the piece of concrete that Johnny was on right now, Arthur closed his eyes. He could hear the man slowly pushing himself up, but the sword in his back was certainly doing damage. One. Two. Three.

  Skill Activation

  Object Reversal

  The concrete flew up into the air at once. Arthur opened his eyes and moved out of the way, looking up. Both the piece of the floor he was on and Johnny were floating right in the middle of the air where the main floor of the basement had once been. Then, since there was no beating gravity, it fell down. Since the movement of the dragon had caused the rubble to move all over the place, it had gone back to its original place, which was right in the middle of the room.

  It fell down with a crash, at once.

  The piece broke into two once more, thanks to all the weight above it. Johnny’s body rattled and vibrated with the fall, causing his insides to loosen for just a little bit. This allowed the sword to lodge itself deeper, while also releasing some of the tension that had been built up inside it. The assassin coughed, choked, and a pool of blood gushed out of his mouth.

  Arthur sighed and fell down on the floor. He had done that. Just now, he had done that. He wasn’t sure what had taken over him, but this method of killing him had just popped into his mind. He wiped the sweat on his face and took Celia’s help to stand up. Leaning against her hand, he watched as Johnny struggled on the floor, but did not give up.

  The teacher slowly started taking steps forward, cautious of every twitch in the enemy’s body. He needed to get the sword back, at the very least. Once he got to Johnny’s body, he put his hand on the hilt and moved it around to loosen it. Thankfully, it did not take a lot of time for him to quickly dislodge it from the body and move back. Dripping with blood, it shrieked against the floor as he tried to get away from the dying assassin.

  “I…”

  Arthur looked back at Celia with his eyes widened. But she did not say anything. He tried to meet her eyes, but she was looking elsewhere. What had he done? Had he killed him? He didn’t intend to. He really didn’t. Even Vil hadn’t killed Lana, and he was the commander of an army. He was a knight to whom all of this everyday stuff. But he had…killed Johnny.

  “Arthur!”

  Celia jumped forward, her hand outstretched. But she could not get too close to him. Johnny had already pushed himself up and jumped on Arthur from the back. Feeling the weight of the assassin on his back, he fell to the floor. All the mass pushed against his body, causing it to squish against the stone on the other side. He groaned, moved his sword hand, and kept slashing it around in the hopes of hitting the man at least once.

  But it wasn’t working. The weight kept growing, and growing. Until he felt a massive pool of liquid pour all over his back. He didn’t even want to know what it was. It felt like his sword had hit something solid, but he didn’t want to know what it was either. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to forget it all and go back home. He hadn’t done it. He hadn’t done any of it. He didn’t kill a person. No, he didn’t.

  “Help me out.”

  Elle called out to Vil, who finally managed to get down on the ground. Together, they pulled the Arthur out of the body of the man and held him up. He refused to look back, especially now that the sword had left his hand.

  “It’s ok.” Elle whispered, pulling him into a hug, “You didn’t kill him.”

  “Huh?” Arthur asked, his eyes still wide and his hand wrapped around Elle, too.

  “It was…poison.”

  Arthur looked back.

  Sure enough, it wasn’t the sword. He had hit the man, but just in his hand, where the sword was now stuck. He had done that more than enough times already to know that that meant nothing to Johnny. It left no damage on the man. No, that was not what killed him. Instead, his head had gone a weird shade of purple, and he had vomited blood soon after that. A little bit of froth at the edge of his mouth.

  Poison. Elle was right.

  “It’s a curse, I guess. Or a contract of some sort.” Elle said, looking at the unconscious Lana, “That’s why they don’t speak.”

  “You mean, if they speak, they…”

  “Die, yes.” Vil confirmed his guess, “That is exactly what you would expect from a coward who hires assassins over a petty feud. To not even kill them for saying specific things, but to just kill them for speaking altogether. It’s revolting.”

  Celia gulped, looked at Arthur, and gave him a slight nod. He nodded back, but the pain in his back took up most of his attention.

  “We should leave. Come on.”

  Elle gave him another pat on his back and started leading him towards the dragon. As they passed, Celia quietly stood beside him and started walking along with them. Once they reached the dragon and started getting on, she followed too, stepping from scale to scale as the others watched in confusion.

  “Uh, Celia?” Dee asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “You should not follow us, Celia. Please, stay here and live a long life, my love.” Vil shook his head.

  “Uh, no. That’s obvious. I am not coming with you guys. I just…want to be there until I confirm he’s alright. I’ll make my way back home after you leave.”

  Elle nodded and helped her get up, sitting her down right beside Arthur.

  Then, right as the dragon was ready to start moving, one of the large doors to the warehouse’s main entrance opened, and a gasp echoed through the entire building. All of them looked up to see a single man standing right at the gate, barely escaping the fall and catching his breath. It was a police officer.

  And behind him, through the gate, the sounds of a helicopter in the air and more sirens became apparent.