“Thought I felt somethin’ sneakin’ up behind me!” The Vampire Knight immediately conjured her Prometheus from her Item Box and deftly deflected the initial strike, the counter so swift and unexpected that the normally wooden Hei couldn’t help an expression of abject shock passing over his face.
“Hey! What’re ya thinking bringin’ Hei along?!” Goh snapped.
“W-We will explain later!” replied a clearly flustered Hisomi. “For now, we must focus on leaving this location!”
“No! Don’t teleport me away yet!” Goh cried out. “They’re tracking my movements using blood that splashed on me in a previous battle! You need to wash me down, pronto!”
Hei’s presence here was even more of a surprise for Goh than seeing the previously bare-handed Nazuna deflecting the deadly strike from the consummate swordmaster. However, getting clean was the priority at this particular moment in time, so using just his bare hands imbued with superhuman strength, Goh karate-chopped all of the dreads off his head. Next, he ordered Requin to use his Gift to wash Mera’s blood off his body and clothes.
“Understood,” Requin replied without objection. “Hei, buy us at least a minute.”
Hei flinched with irritation at being given an assignment he had not previously agreed to, but he decided to comply with the instruction anyway, since objecting to the task really wasn’t worth the effort. Requin produced a giant ball of water that surrounded Goh and proceeded to wash him in the liquid enclosure that operated not wholly unlike a washing machine.
“Hey! I’m not gonna let ya wash the blood off him!” Nazuna yelled. The Vampire Knight sought to beat Hei back with a single strike so she could take out the other Masters before they could escape, but he was able to match her blow for blow, with each steel-on-steel collision causing a shower of sparks. The tremors and shock waves generated by the fight shook the leaves from the surrounding trees and blew back the hair on Hisomi’s head.
Nazuna finally allowed herself to be propelled backward by one of Hei’s strikes, then while still in midair, she shouted: “Prometheus, bend my reality!”
All three newly arrived Masters goggled at the five Nazuna clones that appeared in front of them, indicating they had only observed the final segment of Goh’s fight with her, and not the earlier part of the bout where she had similarly quintuplicated herself.
The five Nazunas touched down on the ground and immediately stampeded toward the Masters, although inevitably, another debate between the quintuplets sparked up almost as quickly.
“Here we come, Mr. Black Glasses!”
“He’s not wearin’ glasses! That’s a blindfold!”
“What? Ain’t it an eye patch?”
“Eye patches don’t cover both eyes, dummy!”
“Whatever. Let’s just clobber ’em all!”
All five Nazunas were equal in equipment, power level, skills, and intelligence. The Masters, meanwhile, watched on in horror, as if they were witnessing something out of a nightmare.
“Wh-What was that she just did? A cheat code?” an astonished Requin stammered.
“M-Mr. Hei! You have to do something about her! Hurry!” Hisomi pleaded.
Hei was as temporarily confused by the sight as the rest of them, but he quickly recovered and did what he knew he had to. He removed his long, dark bandanna and opened his eyes. This action alone was enough to blow all five Nazunas into the air.
“Ngah!”
“Wait, what happened?”
“Did he just blow us all away?”
“But how?”
“Some kind of spell? A skill?” the fifth Nazuna wondered aloud. “I didn’t even sense him attack!”
Whatever it was Hei had done to the Nazunas, the force had been so strong, it had taken the quintuplets completely by surprise. They had only managed to regain their footing again by driving their Prometheuses into the ground to stop themselves. However, the mystery move had still blown the Nazunas farther back from the group of Masters than where the original Nazuna had initially split herself into five, and this meant Requin had ample time to complete his task of washing down Goh.
“Okay, I’ve finished scouring him!” Requin shouted. “Hei, come here now!”
Hei nodded and set off at a run to rejoin the others just as Requin burst the water bubble surrounding Goh to release him. As he neared his comrades, Hei resheathed his katana and tied the bandanna around his head once more. Then, once Hei was within range, Hisomi raised a magic item into the air.
“T-Translocation Gem! Whisk us far from here!” Hisomi chanted before crushing the stone in his hand.
“Ah! Get back here—” a Nazuna began, but it was too late. All four of the Masters vanished from sight, leaving the five Nazunas standing alone in the middle of the devastated forest.
“A-Are ya kiddin’ me?” the first Nazuna blurted out. “They seriously ran away just ’cause they couldn’t beat me?”
“What’ll we do?!” wailed the second Nazuna in despair. “Master told us to capture the baddie, but we let him get away!”
The third Nazuna whimpered, going all teary-eyed. “What if master hates me for messin’ up?”
“Th-This is no time to fret!” the next Nazuna in line burst in quickly. “There’s somethin’ we’re s’posed to do if we mess up!”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” the last Nazuna remarked. “If that happens, we’re s’posed to use Telepathy to talk to Ellie and ask her what to do next.”
Nazuna had indeed been given prior instructions on what to do in a bunch of scenarios she was likely to find herself in, including the one she was in at the moment, where Goh had somehow managed to escape from her clutches. Once the Nazunas had finished cycling through the whole range of emotions that had washed over them, they activated an SR Telepathy card and relayed the outcome of the mission to Ellie, so that she could give further instructions.