Isaac and Nekonečno circled each other, their weapons drawn. The wide hallway they found themselves in was tall and arched, with thick wooden supports keeping the ceiling up, and giving it an almost nave-like appearance. Multiple doors flanked either side of the hallway, leading to more empty rooms and the exit Tenshi and co. had vanished into lay dark and still, with no hint of what sat beyond.
Isaac eyed his opponent, trying to determine his class, so he could predict and counter his moves. Standing calm but ready, Nekonečno was fully dressed in a flowing, knee-length purple cloak with gold trim, the hood pulled low over his eyes. So low in fact, that Isaac wondered how he could see at all. Still, he could obviously see well enough, as his enchanted blade always carefully followed Isaac’s pistol, ready to deflect should Isaac open fire. Isaac tried to read the runes on the blade, but it was impossible at the current angle. So, after finally maneuvering half way around his foe, he decided to make a move.
Raising his pistol suddenly, he opened fire, fanning rapidly as bullet after bullet sought his foe.
But Nekonečno was undeterred. His blade flashing vermillion, he deflected each shot, rose-petals of light flashing from every strike as he sliced the bullets from the air.
“Chip, now!” Isaac commanded suddenly, as his noiseless minion emerged from the corridor behind Nekonečno, a grenade held in her hands.
“Shinitakunaaaaaaai!” she yelled, pulling the pin and leaping at Nekonečno.
Got him! Isaac thought.
Right up until the grenade rolled to the ground in front of him.
Had Isaac been more observant, he would have seen Nekonečno flawlessly hook the grenade’s lever on his blade between deflections, and gently flick it out of the Minion’s grasp and back towards the Minioneer, as his blade flashed to block the next bullet.
All Isaac’s brain managed to process, however, was a simple Oh crap, that’s a live grenade, at which point he dove into an adjacent room, the shrapnel from the explosion clipping his feet as he flew.
Wincing, Isaac scrambled to his knees, quaffing a healing potion as he peeked around the corner, his revolver leading. However, he found Nekonečno standing quite unharmed, a shield of prismatic rose petals crumbling to dust in front of him, as his blade faded back to dull iron.
“Had enough?” the swordsman called out.
“COVERING FIRE!” Isaac yelled back, as his minions shimmered into view.
“Eya!” Grim squeaked, mounting his machinegun and swiveling it towards Nekonečno.
“Soya!” Fletcher responded, loading a belt of bullets and slamming the feed shut.
“Oh dear,” Nekonečno muttered, dashing towards the room opposite Isaac as the minions opened fire, chasing his footsteps with a hail of bullets. Rolling into the room, he kicked the door shut behind him, ineffectually stopping the assault, as the bullets tore through the wooden door like boiling water through snow.
“Now who’s had enough?” Isaac taunted.
*WHIZZZZZZZZZZZZTHUNK!*
Isaac jumped back in shock as something flew through the splintered door. Looking down, he saw Grim totter to the ground, a dagger imbedded in his tiny helmet. With a burst of light, the two minions despawned, leaving Isaac alone again, facing the approaching Nekonečno.
“C’mon, you’ll have to do better than that!” The swordsman smirked, kicking the remnants of the door aside as he approached Isaac, his sword leveled at the ready.
“Damnit!” Isaac raised his pistol, ready to shoot.
*ding!*
The two players stopped suddenly, the notification sound breaking the tension.
*ding!*
*ding!*
*ding!*
*ding!*
“…are you going to get that?” Isaac offered, lowering his gun.
“Yeah, mind if I check this right quick?” Nekonečno grinned wryly, opening his menu.
Every moment I hold him up here is another moment Tenshi and the rest have to ID the bandit chief, Isaac thought to himself, reviewing his situation. I don’t need to fight to beat him, just to keep him facing me. They’ll be able to bail me out on the way back.
“Oh. Oh. Oh, I see.” A shadow passed over Nekonečno’s face as he exited his menu and looked up at Isaac. “So, that’s how things are, eh?” He grit his teeth loudly, as he flicked back his hood, revealing short-cut black hair edged with grey, and dark-granite eyes. Sheathing his sword, he pulled a thick sangria-hued bandana from his pocket, tying it tight around his eyes as he turned towards Isaac again.
“What… what’s going on?” Isaac asked, this throat suddenly dry, as the atmosphere shifted.
“Funny story, that was my sister messaging me just now,” he explained in an overly carefree voice, as he strolled towards Isaac, his sword still sheathed. “Your friends saw fit to kill her daughter, after she had already surrendered and been incapacitated, so I hear.”
“What? No! There’s no way any of us would…” Isaac thought back to Jason’s words. “Oh no, he didn’t!”
“Oh yes, he did!” Nekonečno smiled icily, clapping his hands. “As it so happens, my niece just got her student visa.” He ticked off his fingers. “She had made it into a good university, found a homestay family, and was really just looking forward to studying abroad with the money she had saved up.” Isaac found himself retreating under the man’s piercing gaze, until his back was against the wall of the room. Undaunted, Nekonečno crossed the threshold and continued walking.
“Only, now she can’t do that, can she?” he asked, raising his voice. “Her account has vanished, along with her acceptance, her bank account, and anything else digital that had her name on it. She had even purchased her tickets online, but they’ve just gone “poof!” from the airport’s records. How do you like that, eh?”
“Easy… easy now!” Isaac raised his pistol. “It’s just a game, right? And you guys chose to play the villains! What… what did you think was gonna happen?”
“Ha-ha! Yes! So we did.” Nekonečno pointed at Isaac. “I guess anything you did to us can be justified by that, eh? How wonderfully simple! We were the villains in a video game, so we deserve whatever we get, hmm?”
Isaac blinked to find his shoulder impaled by the man’s blade, a rivulet of blood running down its length, dripping to the floor in short pizzicato notes.
“So since this is a just a game, you really can’t complain no matter what I do to you, right?” He grinned coldly.
“AAAAAAGH!” Isaac screamed in pain, as he brought the pistol level with the man’s head.
“Too slow!” The man drove his off hand up, knocking the gun from Isaac’s hand.
“Raaah!” Isaac bellowed in frustration, driving his knee into the man’s crotch.
Nekonečno paled, dropping back a pace, as Isaac wrenched the blade out of his shoulder, plowing past the man and through the open door, which he slammed behind him.
Damnit! DAMNIT! Isaac mentally screamed, as he tried to open a healing potion with his one good hand. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!
“You can run, but you can’t hide!” Nekonečno called out in a singsong voice from behind the door. “LIFE THROUGH MANY EYES!”
The feeling surging back into Isaac’s arm, he spun around, trying to figure out what the man’s ability had altered. But the hallway appeared unchanged, save for the pair of cats lounging at one end of the hall.
No wait, it was five cats, not two.
No, eight.
Thirteen?
No… it was far, far more.
Isaac backed up against the wall as cats poured into the room in droves. They emerged from little holes in the wall, he saw their eyes glinting from the corners and the rafters, and it seemed he couldn’t stand anywhere without tripping over the horde of felines.
The hell is this? Isaac asked himself, trying to avoid kicking them as he made his way further down the hall.
“I seeeeeee you!”
*Whizzzzzzzzzzzip*
Isaac squeaked as a serrated dagger clipped his shoulder. Turning back, he saw the door to Nekonečno’s room was swinging open, and the swordsman was standing beyond it, grinning fiercely.
Still blindfolded.
“SNIPE!” Isaac intoned, yanking a nearby door open and hiding behind it.
“With what? You dropped your pistol,” Nekonečno taunted.
*Bang!*
Isaac’s minion shot through the door he was hiding behind, following the sound of the swordsman’s voice. As everything went quiet, Isaac gingerly peeked out from behind the door.
Nekonečno was smiling, his blade raised in defense, the bullet lying cloven in two on the ground.
“Wha… but… how…?” Isaac spluttered, as his minion fired off another shot.
*Bang!*
Nekonečno didn’t even block, he just calmly tilted his head, as the bullet slipped past his ear. “How could I not dodge?” The man laughed. “To you, it must look like I’ve blinded myself, but the reality is, I can see faaaaar more than I ever did. In fact, I've got all eyes on you.”
Isaac gulped, as more cats began to slip in, filling the room. Countless little eyes fixated on him.
Kicking open the door, the man strolled out into the hallway, the cats parting before him like the Red Sea before Moses.
“Don’t you run now, you’ll just die tired.”
Not heeding him, Isaac turned and bolted, wincing with every step at the gash in his shoulder. Running blindly, Isaac turned every corner he could, trying to throw off his pursuer.
But there were always cats.
Turn a corner, they were watching him from the rafters. Turn another, they stared out at him from behind open doors. Up a hallway, lined on either side with cats of all colours, watching, waiting. Left, right, left, it made no difference.
They were always watching.
Gasping for breath, Isaac made it to a T intersection, and threw himself against the wall, back first. Swiping his menu open, he equipped his shotgun Charles had given him, and waited.
He looked to the right, he looked to the left, his shoulders heaving. His shotgun felt slippery in his sweat-drenched palms, so he redoubled his grip on it, swinging it left to right as he looked for his pursuer.
But there was nothing but cats.
Grim and silent, they poured out from doors, and dropped down from alcoves above, circling him on padded feet, their amber eyes locked on him.
“G’wan, shoo!” Isaac kicked out at them as they approached, licking his dry lips as he looked around for any sign of Nekonečno.
“Miss me?”
Isaac gasped, spinning full circle, but seeing no sign of the man. He was about to call out a challenge, when a sword flew from above, impaling him through his stomach!
Dropping to his knees, Isaac groaned and looked up, finally noticing his foe, clinging to the alcoves above him like a house spider. Dropping lightly onto his feet, the man approached Isaac, a grim smile on his face.
Flipping the shotgun up, Isaac pulled the trigger, but the man kicked it away, causing buckshot to glance off the stones behind him. Stomping on the gun’s handle, the man ground Isaac’s hand into the floor, forcing him to release it.
“Ironic isn’t it, to run all that way just to end up back here?” The man gestured to Isaac’s left, up at the hallway where they had started, the doorway to the prison cells still hanging ajar across from them.
“It’s not… ironic,” Isaac gasped. “I meant… to come… full circle.”
“Well, that’s a bit odd, isn’t it?” Nekonečno frowned. “Whatever for?”
“Twitch!” Isaac whispered. “SNIPE!”
*Bang!*
Isaac and Nekonečno locked eyes. Nekonečno smirked. Then, he fell to the ground, a hole in the side of his head.
Groaning, Isaac sat up, laying a hand on the sword stuck in him. “Twitch can… use any skill… I can use,” he explained. “She was always… in the guardroom… waiting for a shot. You can't dodge... what your cats can't see.”
“Kill me,” Nekonečno spat at him. “Just like you killed Adéla, defenseless and incapacitated.”
“I won’t do that,” Isaac shot back. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the blade out, a cry of agony roiling up from deep within him. Lights dancing in his eyes, he quaffed another healing potion and staggered to his feet.
“You know that if you leave me alive, I’ll never stop hunting you down,” the downed player threatened.
“I’m aware.” Isaac nodded, limping away. “I don’t have the right to stop you. But I will defeat you, every time you try.”
“Damnit!” the man howled at the top of his lungs. “Goddamn it all! Why couldn’t it have been me instead?!” He broke down in fierce tears, as he lay immobile, face-first on the ground.
Tottering up behind Isaac, Twitch carefully stepped over the man as she followed her master.
“Shuwau?” She looked up at him.
“Yup, let’s go find the rest of them.” Isaac grit his teeth and carried on.
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