My Enigmatic Life

(Naoya’s POV)

    Son of a bitch! I can’t believe we're having such a hard time dealing with this blighter! Akai’s doing better than I am, but that isn’t saying much.

“Yeah! Yeah! Good work, big guy! Keep it up for me!”

Akai throws a straight jab that the bastard blocks with his pipe, but then he follows up with a knee to his gut that knocks the wind out of him. I rush in to take advantage of this opening and smack the tosser weakly in the head with my staff. I’d like to add on, but the pipe comes barreling towards my head. I narrowly evade it, hearing the rush of wind as it cuts through the air.

“Seems like you’re just here to take up space aren’t you? Unlike the big guy, you obviously can’t put up a fight.”, the git snickers. “Good thing my brother wandered off somewhere, or else you’d be dead already!”

Brother, eh? That must be the bloke that Govvy beat. I told Gege not to let anyone interfere, but that mayyyy have been a bad call.

“Oi, Naoya.”

Akai whispers to me as quietly as humanly possible. I just barely heard him, jeez.

“Yeah?”

“I need you to create the biggest opening for, okay?”

“You’re gonna give him the beans, eh? But that means that I’ll have to face him all by myself, right?”

Akai says nothing. I can’t help but smirk to myself…. Silence really is the clearest answer sometimes, isn’t it?

“Alright, you delinquent! Get ready to get smacked!”

“Hahahaha! Come on!”

I swing at his body, but he parries it and aims a kick at my leg that lands sharply. I’m knocked off balance briefly, but counter by whacking him in the stomach with the end of my staff. I then smack him in the both legs, knocking him to the ground! Don’t stop! Pile it on!

I raise my staff aloft, ready to land a crushing blow on him. I swing down on him and-

“Buckler!”

A magic circle appears and stops my attack?! He knows how to use Magic?! He really isn’t just a regular hooligan! Could these tossers be with Shade’s gang?!

“Magick Missile, Rapidfire!”

Shite! At this range, there’s no way I can avoid those! I just have to take the full brunt of it!

“GYAAAA!”

Fucking hell! It hurts! It really, really, REALLY hurts! Is this what getting shot feels like?! I feel like I’m about to black out, but I manage to hold strong!

“Take this!”

I swing at him again, but-

“Buckler!”

He again stops my attack with that Chant! Or is it an Incantation? Whatever it is, I don’t have time to think about it, because the bell-end is swinging for my head again! Unlike with that spell from before, I can evade this!

“Man, you’re boring…Big guy! Why aren’t you joining in on the fun, huh?! Mana Bo-”

Like hell I’ll let you do that! I punch him square in the nose with all I can muster! Finally! I landed a solid hit!

“You’re dealing with me! Don’t forget that, bastard!”

He wipes away the blood from his nose and scowls at me, clearly peeved.

“Okay, now I’m pissed. Mag-Storm!”

Mag-wha…? Eh?

“Naoya!”

Something just hit me. No, it went through me! I’m full of holes…and I’m losing consciousness..

“Alright, big guy! Now, you and I can go back to having fun!”

No…Not yet! I can’t stop just yet! I have to keep fighting, even if it’s just for a little while longer!

“TAKE THISSSSSSSS!!!!”, I roar.

“Try something else, idiot! Buckler!”

I imbue my staff with all of the mana I can give and bear down on his shield relentlessly!

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

It’s cracking! There are cracks starting to form in it! The delinquent looks shocked by this. Yeah, get scared, jerk!

“What?! How can you have the mana to-”

“Great work, Naoya! That’s just what I needed!”

Akai appears from seemingly nowhere, standing behind him! He cocks back and lands a devastating, bone-crushing double axe-handle directly into the delinquent’s rib-cage!

“Guuuu…”

With all of the wind knocked out of him, the poor bastard gets clobbered away like a poorly located fastball. I can’t see where he’s going to land.

DOOOOOOOOOM

….But I can definitely hear him landing….

Akai slowly, stiffly turns to me. He’s sweating buckets.

“Do you think he’s alive?”

“...”

What did I say earlier about silence being the best answer?

 

      While Akai fetches the tosser, Arianne uses her Curative Magic to heal my wounds. And she patches me up in just a tick!

“Wow, the pain is gone completely! Incredible!”, I say gleefully, clapping my hands together.

My sister and Arianne give each other a relieved smile.

“You really are lucky, Naoya. If that hooligan was a competent mage, you would’ve been knackered.”

“That’s right, Naoya-nii. So don’t get a swollen head, yeah?”

Yeah, yeah….Ah, Akai’s back with the bastard in tow, who’s unsurprisingly unconscious.

“He’s alive, somehow.”, he says, clearly allayed.

“That’s good, I suppose. Oi, Gege, where the devil are Govvy and Akane?”

“They’re supposedly on the way.”, Gege mutters half-heartedly. “That’s what they said, right, Haruhi?”

“Uh-huh. They’re totes taking long, though.”

Ah, I see. That’s what it is.

“They’ve gone off somewhere to snog, clearly.”

“Shut up.”

Yoko and Arianne rebuke me swiftly, whereas Akai and the others are obviously lost. Yoko opens her gob to chastise me, but quickly stops. That’s because Govvy and Akane are close.

At least I think so.

Sure enough, the two of them joined us in short order.

“Hullo, everyone. Good work tonight.”

“Sorry we took so long. Daisuke-nii wanted to slow it down so that the pig’s injuries wouldn’t worsen.”

Her exasperated tone of voice tells me that she’s not lying. We should’ve figured so, I honestly would’ve preferred it if they were actually off somewhere snogging, damn it.

“Oi, we shouldn’t discard his well-being just because he’s an enemy.”, Govvy says strongly. “He’s still a human when all is said and done.”

“That’s true, Daisuke. But you have to understand something.”, Akai smiles wryly.

“Not everyone is deserving of such rights.”

Gege’s voice sounds through all of our earpieces. He sounds rather serious.

“Jeez, Nii-chan. Stop picking on Daisuke-san, okay? He’s just being a good person!”

Haruhi-chan comes to Govvy’s aid, but-

“Aniki. What are you going to do when you’re faced with someone who has thrown away their humanity? Will you have the mettle to kill them?”

Uh, hold on, hold on. Aren’t we getting too heavy here? It’s gotten so quiet, too...

“Oi, sis. Let’s not get into deep with this, yeah? Let’s just wrap it up and-”

“No, I won’t and I never will.”

Govvy angrily cuts me off, his expression mingled with anger and sorrow. His voice gets progressively louder as he presses on.

“If you all want to kill someone that much, you can do it on your bloody own, alright?! But I’m not going to get involved in that, damn it! So just drop it!”

“Come on, Govvy, just relax. We’re ju-”, I start.

But he turns around and thunders off, ignoring me completely.

“Daisuke-nii, wait up!”

Akane tries to follow after him, but-

“Don’t trail after me. Just stay here with everyone else and leave me alone.”

“Wha-what? But I didn’t even…”, Akane stammers hurtfully, her voice trailing off.

“As far as I’m concerned, I already stained my hands with blood eleven years ago. And I’m sure as hell not going to do it again. Never again.”

“Govvy..”

“...I’ll do the report by myself. You all just go home and stay out of my way.”

With those final words, he leaves us to be caught up in this uncomfortable and stuffy atmosphere.