Hans kept running for some time after that, and Adlet’s party lost sight of him. They illuminated the area with their light gems at max strength but saw neither hide nor hair of him.
There were no fiends nearby; it seemed they’d lost sight of Hans, too. He was formidably fast, despite his injury.
This is convenient , thought Adlet. Hans wanted to talk with him one-on-one, and Adlet meant to acquiesce to that demand.
“It doesn’t look like we’ll find him as a group. Fremy, Nashetania, I think we should split up for now,” suggested Adlet.
Nashetania replied, “That’s dangerous. We don’t know which direction he might attack from.”
“We’ll keep from separating too far so we can quickly rush to help one another.” Adlet instructed Nashetania to go east, while Fremy went south.
“Please be careful. And we’re not secretly communicating with Hans,” Nashetania added before she ran off eastward.
Just as Fremy was about to head south, Adlet ran up to her. “Be careful of Chamo. There’s a chance Hans may be using her.”
“…There’s no way. She should understand who the seventh is.”
“He can pull off the impossible,” Adlet warned her. It hurt to be away from Fremy, even though it was necessary. And he had one more thing to tell her. “Fremy, if…” The words caught for a moment; this was a hard thing to say. “If I die, the plan fails, and you lose any way of escape. There’s nothing you can do…”
“What are you trying to say here?”
“Surrender. You survive, at least.” He didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t be sure he would live through this. He had to tell her this before he died.
Dumbfounded, she stared at him.
Then she slapped him across the cheek. “…When did the strongest man in the world give up?”
“I’m still the strongest man in the world. But even so…there are some battles you can win—and some you can’t.”
“Don’t give me that. I intend to fight to the death. To the bitter end—no matter what.”
He’d expected that reply, and that was exactly what made this so hard. “Give me a firecracker. For communication. If I set it off…that’s the signal that there’s nothing left to be done. If you see that, then surrender.” Another slap resounded off his cheek. Adlet offered his other cheek, too. “Hit me as many times as you like. Once you’re satisfied, give me a firecracker.”
Fremy raised her hand to slap him a third time. But then she lowered it. She manifested gunpowder in her hand—not as a firecracker but in the shape of a small board.
“Fremy, I—”
Fremy shoved the gunpowder board into his hand; then, without waiting for his reply, she turned away and ran off.
Adlet stroked his cheek. It wasn’t the way she’d looked at him before. Adlet could sense she hated him from the bottom of her heart. But I don’t care if she hates me. It’s enough if she’s alive and happy , he thought, burying his sorrow deep in his heart.
He tucked the gunpowder into one of his belt pouches and dashed off after Hans.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hans revealed himself to Adlet, then fled, over and over. As Adlet pursued, he slowly moved farther and farther away from Fremy and Nashetania. Hans had insisted a one-on-one conversation, and Adlet didn’t want the others interrupting him.
There were fewer fiends coming after them now. Chamo had killed many, and the remainder had lost sight of Hans and Adlet. The fiends wouldn’t be getting in their way.
As Adlet sprinted, he scanned the area. He didn’t see any of Chamo’s slave-fiends coming after him, and everything suggested Hans really did want to talk one-on-one. He must have figured the presence of slave-fiends would put Adlet on guard and keep him at bay.
“…Hrmeow.” Hans was watching him from the shadow of a tree, quietly pointing toward the center of the ruins. Only Adlet noticed him before he vanished again.
Adlet headed in that direction, making sure to avoid Nashetania’s and Fremy’s notice. The voices of the two women got farther away.
After running for what must have been about ten minutes or so, Adlet eventually came to a halt.
He stood in a place that had once probably been a town square for the ancients. There were no buildings for a hundred square yards, and only trees and weeds poked up here and there among the flagstones. On the edge of the square were some particularly large structures, maybe the estates of nobles or the churches of some long-dead religion.
This was about a mile and a half away from Mora’s position. Of course, at this distance, there was no sign of any fiends after them, either.
Adlet found Hans in the center of the square, crouching weakly. His face was pale, probably due to blood loss. Adlet approached cautiously and said to him, “I’ll agree to your deal, like you wanted. And you asked me to come alone, so here I am.”
“So what’ll ya do?”
“I don’t care what happens to me as long as Fremy is safe. I’m fine if you reveal to the others that I’m the seventh.”
“Hrmeow , so…”
“But! It’ll be after I’ve made sure you can actually save her from Tgurneu! Tell me, Hans! What do you know?!”
“Hold yer horses, meow . I’ve gotta tell ’em yer the seventh, or I’m as good as dead.”
“Shut up. Fremy’s all that matters. I don’t care about you or the other Braves or the world.” Sword up, Adlet slowly closed on Hans. “I want so badly to kill you—you hurt her. I don’t care how little it was; you hurt her.” Then, before Adlet finished speaking, something moved off to his side. He turned and spotted a small fiend falling from high up in a tree, so he whipped his sword around to point at it.
But he quickly realized—the fiend was already dead. Its body had been tied up with string, the other end of which stretched toward where Hans had just been.
It was a trap to distract him. The moment Adlet realized it, he took a step back and tried to block Hans’s swing. Hans was slow enough for Adlet to deflect the blade. Hans rolled backward, and then, as Adlet was following up his last strike with a paralysis needle—
“Hrmeooow!” Hans leaped, nothing like before, charging straight for Adlet with the strength of his arms alone. Adlet couldn’t believe it. Hans shouldn’t have been able to move.
Startled by the double-layered trick of the fiend corpse and Hans’s sudden comeback, Adlet was taken off guard. The pommel of Hans’s sword drove into Adlet’s stomach, making his lower body go numb. He pitched forward, and a fist smacked right behind his ear. The world spun.
“Sorry, Adlet. The truth is I don’t kneow any way to save her.”
Adlet looked at Hans’s stomach. He could have sworn he’d seen enough bleeding there to stop Hans in his tracks.
“That was rabbit’s blood. I ain’t fond of torturin’ animals, but push came to shove,” Hans said casually, pulling Adlet’s arms as far as they would go. Adlet’s joints creaked, and he felt weak. With his free hand, Hans struck Adlet in the stomach. When his mouth opened in a gasp, Hans shoved his fingers in and pushed something bitter and wriggling down to the back of his throat. “Meow-hee-hee , good boy. Eat right up.” Hans poured something down after it.
“Ya wanna neow what ya just swallowed? I’ll tell ya, Adlet. It’s one o’ Chamo’s slave-fiends. A real smart one, too. It’s monitorin’ ya from inside yer stomach. I’ve ordered it to kill ya right away if ya do anythin’ bad.”
“…That’s…ridiculous.”
“Neow ya can’t fight us.”
Until now, Adlet had intended to eliminate Hans and Chamo if need be. All he’d have to do was capture Hans and take Chamo by surprise and kill her, and Fremy would be okay. But now, he had no choice but to do as Hans said.
“Meow-hee. Let’s make a deal.”