This was the moment to prove that all the years of training, every move, every strategy I had learned from Clara and the others—it all meant something.
This time, I had to step up.
This time, I was needed.
Deep down, however, I hoped that help would arrive faster than I could. I never stopped for even a second, but I knew running back to the other side of the castle was no longer an option. We didn't have time.
I could only hope that whoever was out there in the darkness… it wasn't too late.
The whole situation just seemed impossible to me. A facility this large, with so many dark-clad soldiers, guards, and armed men… how was it that no one noticed what was happening? It wasn't exactly easy to get through the gates. So how was this even possible?
As I ran toward the garden gate, deep inside, I hoped one more time that maybe… maybe it wasn't too late. That by the time I arrived, there would already be plenty of armed men there, and I wouldn't even have to do anything.
And then we stepped outside.
My foot slipped on the dewy grass, but I managed to keep my balance. The brown-haired girl arrived beside me, both of us panting as we looked at each other. Then I saw him. The stranger.
With a black blade at the throat of a young, dark-uniformed boy.
The air froze inside me.
But I had no time to panic.
I quickly assessed the situation. The stranger was holding the boy, but in the background, in the distance, there was movement. Many dark-clothed figures were running toward us. The guards. Very good. Then now… now I had to move.
And this was the moment when I couldn't decide whether what I did was incredibly well-thought-out or simply incredibly foolish. But I didn't know which was the better choice in this situation—to wait or to act. My body chose the latter.
In the blink of an eye, I went from playing the hero to becoming the victim.
Because the moment I ran to pull the boy from the man's grip, the stranger moved. Lightning fast. The boy broke free and collapsed in front of the brown-haired girl, who immediately bent over him to check if there was a cut on his throat.
And I…
I felt a cold blade press against my own throat.
I didn't move. I didn't dare. I could even feel a small cut as the knife's edge pressed against my skin.
For a moment, the world seemed to stop.
I could hear the approaching footsteps of the soldiers, their shouts, but I didn't expect what the stranger did next.
In an instant, he pulled me up with him.
To the rooftop.
Even now, I can't imagine how he did it. He moved so fast, so effortlessly, like a panther. By the time I grasped what was happening, we were already up there, alone.
Or… almost alone.
I managed to wrench the knife from his hand, and for a second, I thought I had the advantage. But then… then I saw someone else.
Another figure.
His blonde hair glinted in the moonlight. He stood behind the man, looking down at the crowd of dark-clad soldiers below, and signaled to them that everything was fine, that they didn't need to come up.
And I stood there, my heart still pounding from the adrenaline, trying to understand what was happening.
The blonde man looked at me.
— "No problem, recruit. Go back to your room. This is my business, not yours."
His voice was calm and indifferent. Only the hands-in-his-pockets stance was missing.
Then, coolly and matter-of-factly, he turned to the stranger.
— "Hello, Michael. This wasn't the way you should have handled your entrance."
At last, the stranger spoke. His voice was calm but visibly tense.
— "You didn't show up at the meeting, so I had no choice but to come to you. The recruit was just in my way."
Then he glanced back at me.
— "Recruits…" he added. "I had no intention of hurting you, but if I hadn't made a scene, you wouldn't have rushed over."
He smiled faintly.
And I still stood there, completely unable to decide whether this was a friendly conversation or something entirely different.
My body was exhausted, my mind racing, and there was only one thing I wanted: sleep.
Sleep, without passing out. Without waking up on a marble table or in a completely different room.
I just wanted one peaceful night.
Now that the general was here, I finally felt a little safe. So I was about to head down from the rooftop… But.
As I looked down, I tried to figure out how to get off in one piece. There was no staircase, no obvious way down, and since I couldn't bounce around like a deer, I tried to cautiously step my way off the roof.
I was examining a narrow ledge when I heard the blonde man's deep voice. Reflexively, I lifted my head, but I barely had time to process his words before the stranger spoke again.
— "You didn't keep your promise."
The blonde general's voice was cold and quiet:
— "I invited you here so you could come and go as you pleased and be respected as you deserve. But this should have been discussed in private."
They spoke dispassionately, about business, about something that clearly didn't concern me. This was an Angel Guardian matter, not a recruit's.
So I decided to focus once again on how the hell I was going to get off this damned roof. I was just about to take a different route when a sharp sound struck my ears.
I turned around.
The blonde was on the ground.
The stranger had taken him down.
But a moment later, the general bounced back, and a bloody fight began—one I was completely unprepared for. Though, given the past few days, I wasn't really prepared for anything, so this didn't surprise me either.
The dark-clad soldiers still stood below, motionless, because the general hadn't given them the order to intervene.
I saw that the blonde was pushing the stranger back sufficiently, but then the man retaliated. They fought more and more brutally.
And I…
I was just tired.
Tired because I didn't want any more excitement today.
Tired because I just wanted to get down.
Tired because I just wanted to sleep.
And when the stranger made a massive move to strike the general in the chest, something snapped inside me.
— "Oh, that's enough," I muttered, rolling my eyes.
Frustration and exhaustion blurred together inside me, and throwing all rational thought aside, I simply let my instincts take over.
I leapt forward.
And with a spinning kick, I sent the stranger flying off the roof so hard that he literally spun in the air before crashing down into the crowd of dark-clad soldiers.
Silence fell.
The soldiers stared at me in shock, then at the stranger, then back at me.
And I…
I just looked down at them, tired and annoyed, then back at the blonde.
Then I managed to say only one thing:
— "Holy shit."