Erika was momentarily stunned as much as Hana and Lucy was when she saw Rucker, but her expression became childlike joy.
“Nii-san!”
Nii...san?
Lucy hadn’t heard those words before, but as Erika rushed towards Rucker and hugged him, she assumed that it was referring to him?
Rucker had a smile on his face as well, so clearly the two knew each other.
“Sorry I haven’t contacted you, but it was necessary.”
“No, no, if nii-san had a reason for it, then I understand completely… But how did you know I would come here?”
“Ah, that’s because of Narrator… I’ll explain later, but for now-”
Lucy’s eyes widened at the words that came out of his mouth next.
“-it’s inconvenient to let Hana live at the moment. Could you hold back Lucy?”
...Huh…?
Lucy’s mind was drawing a blank.
What did he mean that it was inconvenient to let Hana live?
What did he know about anything?
Lucy would be damned if she would just let him do that, and she doubted that Erika would listen to him.
“Haiii~”
But, the response was cheerful and immediate, and Lucy felt Erika’s arms hold her up helplessly in the next instant.
“Wh- Erika, what the hell are you doing!?”
“Ah, sorry, sorry, but you see, Nii-san said so.”
“Like I give a damn, let-me-goooo!”
Lucy kicked and flailed helplessly, but Erika was the oldest out of the three of them, as well as the strongest.
Lucy was unable to stomp her feet as well, as she was lifted up too high off the ground.
In the meanwhile, Rucker pulled out a knife and Hana, still recovering from crying and being in shock, was sluggish in her movements.
“Hana, run!”
Lucy yelled, realizing she was too weak to escape Erika’s grasp, and Hana seemed to snap out of it.
She turned to run, but Rucker was already too close and grabbed her by the wrist.
Snapping back, Hana used her free hand to touch the hand that held her.
Yes!
Lucy cheered in her mind; Hana’s power could now come into play!
Rucker had been foolish to touch her.
That’s what Lucy thought, but then she observed something.
It was a pure black void, near where he reached to grab Hana.
“!!! Hana, he’s-!”
The next instant, it was over.
A gash was across Hana’s tiny, delicate throat.
The knife had a streak of blood running along it’s edge and Rucker released his hold on Hana’s wrist.
“You can let her go now.”
The weight holding up Lucy was no more, and despite how much the scenes suddenness made her feel like it was too heavy to move, before she knew it, she was at Hana’s side, kneeling beside her.
Hana’s green eyes looked around wildly, and they seemed to be growing dimmer, unable to see Lucy.
She was still alive.
Hana wasn’t dead yet.
Lucy observed the wound.
It was fatal, and she would soon bleed out.
Conditions for preventing death?
One. To stop the bleeding.
Two. To repair the wound.
Three. To fix the nicked areas that were bleeding.
Four. To do it all in five seconds.
It wasn’t impossible, Lucy thought in denial.
After all, it was absurd that Hana would die.
Wasn’t she working so hard just so that Hana didn’t have to die or regret anything?
For her to die here with regrets mean that she failed on both accounts, so it was absolutely not going to happen.
4.5 seconds remaining.
She spent .5 seconds thinking.
Far too long.
But she had no means to heal Hana with her tools.
She would take too long reaching for them and using them with precision.
But still, she couldn’t accept that Hana was going to die.
So, at a time like this, how could she survive?
4 seconds remaining.
Lucy knew someone who could save her.
There was no guarantee, no logical reason for her to be there or even understand enough in one word to act quickly enough.
Even so, Lucy had no other options.
“Sharon!”
She called the name of the person she once distrusted on the rooftop as they made their escape.
3 seconds remaining.
The only person who could save Hana was someone with the power meant to heal wounds.
Even so.
2 seconds.
It was absurd to think that they were there, as the group they belonged to was the very same one that Rucker belonged to.
The man who slit Hana’s throat with no explanation.
1 second.
No more time left.
“I love you.”
0 seconds.
Lucy choked those words out before the life left Hana’s body, and she wept.
“Why…?”
She echoed Hana’s final word with shaking shoulders, directed at both individuals in the room.
Taking Hana’s small body, that was smaller than hers, she cradled it against her shoulder and asked again in sorrow.
“Tell me why, dammit!”
Rucker quietly spoke.
“This needs to happen or else you won’t be able to succeed.”
A cryptic message, one that Lucy didn’t accept.
“At what!? The only thing I wanted to succeed in is saving Hana, and that’s impossible now!”
There was no answer and Lucy glared at Rucker and Erika, who was clinging to him happily, and snapped.
She let go of Hana’s corpse, her soaked shirt now colored red, and reached to pull out her knife, only realizing then that her bag wasn’t hanging from her shoulders.
It didn’t matter to her, so she just charged them with her hands, despite having little to no sharpness in her nails.
It was almost laughable with how easily Erika teleported behind her and restrained her again.
Erika had let go of Rucker before she did so, however, a brief moment of confusion across her face.
“Now I see why it didn’t work.”
Erika spoke in a voice of realization, ignoring Lucy’s screeching and flailing, which had gotten considerably worse than before.
Rucker smiled and rolled down his sleeve, revealing what Lucy observed; it was a bracelet made of the black shards, much like the one she had pulled out of Erika in her fake memories.
She had once again remembered something that conflicted with she remembered originally, but she didn’t care.
She was confused.
She was hurt.
She hated everything.
She wondered why everything happened the way it did, but at the same time, was in no mind to figure it all out at all.
Rucker ignored her inner turmoil and approached her, taking off the bracelet.
“Don’t worry. In the next few days, you’ll come to remember everything. But for now, I need you to take a nap.”
Ruckers hand reached out as he spoke, and Lucy tried to bite it, but he touched her head without any problems.
Lucy blanked out for a moment, wondering what she was doing, and why she was there.
Then, the next thought came.
Oh, I was just going to sleep.
And so, she slept soundly.
* * * * *
Bug arrived at the base of Laurence and co. on his route back home, to tell them that the places he searched held nothing of value, but there was no one there.
Strange.
Bug wondered if they had to leave in a hurry, because there was still various belongings scattered around the shabby area.
He thought that maybe they did find the base, and they all decided to go?
If they wanted to keep their numbers up, it made sense, but it was also risky in the sense that it would be harder to move in such a group.
Bug sighed, deciding that he wouldn’t put it past such a strange group.
He left the basement and was going to walk back home, but he saw someone running towards his direction.
It was Birdy, the person he had a crush on.
Of course, he doubted that those feelings would lead anywhere, but it wasn’t like he could control how he felt.
He put such conflicted feelings aside when he saw how grave and exhausted her face was, though, and went to meet her.
“Birdy!”
Bug called out from concern and Birdy looked up, an immediate expression of relief showing on her face.
If he wasn’t so concerned, he felt like he would have jumped for joy at being looked at so.
He supported Birdy, who looked like she had lost all strength when she reached him.
“H-hey!”
“S-sorry.”
Birdy mumbled that apology while trying to catch her breath, but Bug wasn’t bothered at all.
“What happened?”
He felt like he needed to know, even if it meant he was going to end up being put into another dangerous situation.
...Hm? When was I such a courageous person? Ah, I’ll leave that for later.
Birdy, having taken enough breaths, was able to answer.
“Ruri and Thomas were captured by the chosen.”
* * * * *
*End of Volume 2; Fight of the Valkyries*