THREE minutes before Nichika’s screams peeled through the village, Lambert was watching her zipping through the streets like a madwoman from atop the ramparts. Dangling his feet off the side of the wall beside him, Phantom whistled.
“Wowwie! You go girl! Go, go, go! If I’d known it was going to turn out like this, I would’ve placed bets. She only entered at the last minute. She’s the dark horse of the race.” He placed his index finger on his lip in a childish gesture before continuing in the most innocent voice, “But no point in betting on someone you know is gonna fall to their death.”
“……”
Lambert calmly followed Nichika with his eyes. Regret and hesitation were absent from him. The girl he had talked to for days and laughed together with during their short journey simply didn’t matter compared to the loathing he felt for his parents.
Phantom saw Nichika finally arrive at the bottom of the clock tower and figured out what she was amusingly up to.
“Aha, look at that. That girl’s carrying a bomb. She’s probably planning on blowing up the magic crystal with that, but she’s got no idea she’s going to fall right before she reaches the goal.”
Lambert’s hand froze at his side as he watched her scale the side of the tower. His accomplice peered at his face with a goading grin.
“What’s wrong?” he cooed. “You didn’t go and do something lame like become attached to her, now did you?”
“Hardly.”
Lambert raised his hand in front of him once more and closed his fist in the direction of his target. The broom instantly disassembled in the air, throwing the girl to her death.
“All right, I kept my end of the bargain. Tell me where my parents are.”
Lambert closed in on the hooded boy, not even paying a backward glance to the falling girl. But Phantom only chuckled and pulled a deformed accessory out of his pocket. He blew on it and the metal charm turned to sand.
“What the?!”
“Sorry, I lied. Truth is, I don’t know who or where your parents are. I simply created an accessory that looks just like the one you seemed to care so much about.”
“You little snot!” Lambert lunged for him the moment he realized he’d been played.
Phantom agilely sidestepped him and cackled. “Ahahahaha! I had quite a lot of fun. Nice doing business with you. Buh-bye.”
“Wait!” Lambert grabbed for the boy who vanished into smoke, but his hands vainly hit the stone wall instead. “…Bastard…!”
He immediately put his anger to use. In this very moment, he hated Phantom more than anyone else in the world. The ultimate revenge against the bastard who betrayed him was—
“Ha! You underestimated how sick I really am, Phantom.”
The vengeful young man jumped on the railing and off the high wall with a fiendish smirk.
✦ ✦ ✦
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Falling into a panic as she literally fell, Nichika tried to grab hold of the tower even though she knew it was pointless. Two or three of her nails ripped off, but she was so distraught the pain didn’t register.
I’m gonna die!
Just as death seemed like a reality, something caught her in the air. Nichika’s eyes snapped open when she didn’t go kersplat.
“Oswald!”
Gritting his teeth, Oswald gripped a broom in one hand and her in the other. It was the broom she had left behind.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Master!”
Tears filling her eyes, she tried to hug him, but he yelled at her with a frightening face. “Throw it already!”
“Throw what?” For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about…and then she blanched when she saw the bomb swelling in her hand. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”