Chapter 8 (1/2)

K R:B by Azano Kouhei

8 (extract, pages 212-215)

<…>

“Hurry up. Don’t let them get away!”

Issuing this order over the intercom link, Awas.h.i.+ma broke into a sprint herself, headed to where Doumyouji was.

A moment later, she heard low rumbling of violent wind behind her.

Turning around, she saw a colossal pillar of flame shooting up higher than the nearby buildings. Her breath caught instinctively. It was the Red King’s, no doubt.

Using his tremendous power so recklessly. Laying waste and destruction just for fun. To Scepter 4, dedicated to the beauty of “order”, such a sight was unpardonable.

—Curse you…

But she ought to hurry.

With this thought, she was about to resume running when…

Overhead, a blue light twinkled.

“Eh?” She stared into the sky with wide open eyes.

A blue shooting star briefly crossed her sight at about the height of the nearby buildings. A crystal-shaped blue object, scattering showers of blue sparks in its wake, sailed whirling in spirals. At its tip there was a blue uniform clad young man, the blue aura coiling around him. The next instance, the man deftly twisted - the move that could make the observer think that there might have been erected a geometrically-shaped barrier across the sky - smoothly steering away from a giant rooftop billboard he was about to crash into and landing there instead. Then, moving along the outer wall of the building as if sliding, he dropped down onto the ground.

Coattails of his uniform swis.h.i.+ng, he landed on the road easily, as if such stunts were nothing.

It was Munakata.

Awas.h.i.+ma found herself dumbfounded. She came to her senses quickly though and, panicking, was about to rush to his side, but then…

Wham!

Not turning to her, Munakata forcefully slammed his left fist into the wall of the building behind him.

“What the h.e.l.l’s with that man?!”