Puvis was only a few steps away from Itoî. The tension was suffocating, set against a backdrop bleak enough to make an abandoned cemetery blush. Crows cawed, and the hostile glare of a red-eyed owl watched over them. And Itoî... still in a pitiful state.
It was over. Puvis stood there, right in front of him, blade in his right hand. He violently grabbed Itoî by the hair and hauled him up.
"Hey! It's over, kid!" Puvis screamed.
He brought his blade to Itoî's throat. At that exact moment, a light breeze blew the strands of hair hanging over the boy's face. You could briefly make out tears mixed with blood. His braid had come undone; he was in a sorry state. And his eyes locked onto Puvis's gaze.
The boy looked so pitiful. So weak. Yet, he grabbed the poacher's wrist.
Puvis laughed contemptuously:
"My boy! Don't you see how ridiculous this is? You were dead the second I pressed my blade to your neck."
Itoî tensed for a second and tightened his grip.
Puvis kept sneering. He looked down at Itoî's neck and violently swung his blade toward it.
"Confidence is usually reserved for the strong," Itoî said, staring Puvis down with an unflinching gaze.
Then he clamped down with brutal force, crushing Puvis's wrist. The poacher's eyes bulged, and he lost his grip, dropping both the blade and the boy's hair. Itoî pulled off a half-backflip, driving both feet into the poacher's stomach to use him as a springboard and launch himself backward. Puvis was sent flying several meters by the sheer force of the blow.
"AAAAARGH!!! My hand, my hand!" Puvis screamed, lying on the ground, staring at his shattered wrist. He had dropped his blade when he was thrown.
"Fuck. What is this strength?" Itoî wondered, looking at his hands. Meanwhile, his wounds were slowly regenerating.
"How is that possible?!" Puvis screamed.
"How, damn it?! What did you do?! You're not human!" the poacher continued.
Itoî didn't seem to be listening and was just messing around, bouncing all over the place. He threw punches in the air that made the wind whistle. Then he struck a tree, which was blasted several meters away, taking out the other trees in its path.
The boy's eyes were shining; for once, he truly felt alive and confident.
"Shit! Shit! SHIIIT!!!" Puvis screamed, pounding the ground with all his might. Then he struggled to his feet and chanted a spell.
"I'm not done with you yet, kid!" he added.
Itoî stared at him for a second before charging.
Puvis laughed. His mouth was full of blood; the impact had really messed him up.
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"Yeah, that's right! Come on! Come on! Double Fire Wall!"
A circle appeared above Itoî, and another in front of him, blocking the path between Puvis and the boy. A fraction of a second later, the circles spawned a wall each: one in the sky, two meters above Itoî, dropping violently toward him, and the other in front of him, closing in fast.
Itoî ran straight ahead. He couldn't care less about any of it. He blasted through the wall of fire, grabbed Puvis by the throat, and slammed him to the ground.
"Look at that, the tables have turned, asshole," Itoî said, staring into Puvis's terrified eyes.
The fire had indeed burned Itoî's skin, but it gradually regenerated.
Puvis swallowed hard and held Itoî's hostile glare:
"B-But h-how? A few minutes ago, you were getting your ass kicked, and now—"
"Shut the fuck up, I don't owe you any explanations."
He drove a fist into Puvis's face, though he seemed to have held back. The damage was still noticeable: his nose was now crooked. He threw another punch, and another. The poacher's face started swelling badly.
"P-Please, stop! Y-You're not actually gonna kill me, are you?" Puvis whined, his eyes pleading.
Itoî's gaze softened for a moment. He had his fist raised but hesitated to bring it down on his opponent's face. He wondered, for a fraction of a second:
Am I really capable of killing someone? Let alone a human? I kind of killed a demon already, but a human? Could I actually do that—
Taking advantage of the hesitation, Puvis grabbed a heavy rock and hurled it at Itoî's face. The impact cracked. Itoî hit the ground. Puvis scrambled to his feet, out of breath, and searched for his blade in the dark.
Itoî opened his eyes, stared at the ground, and kept wondering:
Even if I can beat him, can I kill him? Can I actually do that? Do I even have the right to act like this? Fuck, I don't know—
The demon screamed in the boy's head:
"Why are you talking about rights? Why are you hesitating? It's simple! This guy wants to kill you. Look at him, watch! He's looking for his dagger to finish you off. That's reason enough to take him down."
This time, the demon didn't appear with a vision. Itoî only heard his voice in his head, but seemed to ignore him.
Itoî stood up. Half his face was still covered in blood. He was in pain, but the regeneration—slower than before—was healing him bit by bit. Itoî watched Puvis desperately search for his dagger. Then he looked at his hands again. Strangely, his wounds and scratches seemed to be reappearing little by little. And the pain was coming back, slow but steady.
I guess I need to finish this now. Looks like the power I was given has a time limit...
Puvis yelled:
"Ah! There it is! Found it!"
He hastily scooped up his blade and turned around.
"Huh? Where the hell did he go? He was out cold a second ago!"
Itoî burst from the bushes, lunged at Puvis, and pinned him to the ground again. But the poacher had realized something: Itoî was weaker than he'd been a few minutes ago!
"You've lost your strength, huh! Raah!"
He managed to shove the boy off, making him fall on his ass. Puvis lunged at him, the blade aimed at his chest. Itoî quickly pulled one of the last seeds from his pocket and threw it at Puvis. It produced a brief flash. Puvis threw his hands over his eyes to shield them from the light.
"Fuck! What is this crap, aga—"
Itoî delivered a roundhouse kick. The man collapsed and dropped his dagger.
"Shit!" Puvis spat.
Itoî stood up and smacked the blade, sending it flying several meters into the bushes. It was now out of reach. He pulled out the wand—out of mana, sure, but it could still be used differently. He nimbly snapped a piece off and drove it into Puvis's throat.
"Argh! Arrgh! What did you do, fuck...!"
He thrashed, pulled the piece of wand out of his throat, but he was losing way too much blood. A large puddle formed in seconds. He violently shoved Itoî, who ended up on the ground again. Puvis staggered off in the opposite direction.
Fuck! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! Shit, shit, shit!
Itoî watched him stumble away for a moment before pulling the last seed from his pocket. It was an explosive seed: not very powerful, but enough to finish off someone who was clearly going to die anyway.
Puvis kept moving. He was already five meters away from Itoî when a silhouette appeared in front of him. It was Vars.
"Yo! Where do you think you're going?"
A vine viciously whipped Puvis's head, spinning it around several times before it tore off the body and smashed against a tree. Puvis's body collapsed a few seconds later.
Itoî stared ahead in horror, eyes wide.
What Itoî couldn't bring himself to do—kill a human—Vars did with disconcerting ease.
"V-Vars..."