Surviving as a Broken Hero

“Aizen…?”

His words trailed off into a question, and he scratched his chin in thought while he considered me.

“I suppose that makes this easier…” he mumbled to himself.

Rhil continued to soundlessly pound on the barrier in the doorway.

“Alikr? How long…?”

How long had he been in league with the demons? Was it before or after we had last seen each other in Karfana?

Seeming to correctly understand what I was attempting to ask, he smirked.

“How long did I know about the attack on Karfana? How long have I been planning to betray the Association? How long have I known about the demons?”

He considered me, his eyes glinting with a dark light.

“Aizen, do you know how long the elves have been here?”

By ‘here’, he was probably referring to the new world.

Humans were the last to arrive. The other races had been there before, each arriving at different times.

Even with all that time, the world was massive enough for there to still be areas largely unexplored.

I knew that the elves had arrived first, decades before the first humans.

It wasn’t really a question to begin with, and he continued speaking before I could reply.

“All this time, and I found myself serving humans, of all things, in a backwater city in the middle of nowhere. Do you think that’s where I envisioned myself when I started working for the Association?”

He said the word ‘humans’ like it was an insult, something to be disgusted by.

“I’ve worked for the Association for even longer than humans have been here, and every request I sent to be stationed elsewhere was ignored. Nobody wants to be in human lands, you see, but someone had to do it, and it was by some cruel twist of fate that it happened to be me.”

He had sided with the demon because he was tired of serving humans?

He had never given any indication of his resentment while I had been hanging around the Association building all of those years. Had he just kept it bottled inside?

“So, of course, when the ‘demons’ came knocking, offering true positions of leadership and showing a power that you cannot even begin to comprehend, a power more than capable of bringing every other species to heel, how could I refuse? Would you have refused if the demons had offered to heal you and give you access to—”

“Bullshit,” I said.

Alikr’s eyes widened at my sudden interruption.

“Of course I would have refused. You know how much I’ve been wanting to find my family, you know about how much I’ve searched and listened for any hints as to where they could be.”

Alikr’s reasoning for having betrayed Karfana, the Association, and the world at large was just that: bullshit.

He could have left the Association at any moment. It wasn’t like they were keeping him there at knifepoint. He wasn’t being punished.

“So, what? You got put somewhere you didn’t want to be, serving a species that looks more like your own than any other? You’re just greedy, Alikr. There are people like you everywhere, among every species, and that can be found at any point in the past. You’re not special, you’re just self-centered.”

I had thought him to be better than that.

In reality, he was no different from those who had stepped over me and mocked me for my disability in the past.

He just wanted power to feel superior to those who didn’t have it.

“You can still give up.”

The faint light in his eyes ignited, and he leaned forward in his chair.

“Or what? You’re going to stop me? What are you, level four or five at most? Do you even know my level, Aizen? No, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m not going to kill you, there would be no joy in that. Instead, I’m going to capture you and your friends out there and have you watch as we dismantle the Association and all of the other, inferior, species. Then, I’m going to give you a choice again: Join us or die.”

I clenched my fists.

“You can’t fight me, Aizen, and System abilities are blocked in this room anyway. Even if you could fight me, you wouldn’t be able to.”

He was right. I wouldn’t be able to beat him there, not even if I could use both Systems. There was only so much of a gap that could be overcome.

Rather than that, I had to escape with what I had learned.

I turned and hit the barrier over the door, Rhil’s blurred form on the other side had stopped trying to break through, and I saw chaotic movement.

They were probably fighting the demons that had noticed them. If they stayed too long, the entire camp would be upon them before long, and it would be too late to escape then.

[«Strike»]

Just as Alikr had said, my fist impacted the barrier without the aid of «Strike». My System abilities were blocked.

Maybe he had forgotten, maybe he discounted it as an offshoot of the regular System, or maybe he just didn’t care, but there was no mention made of my Second System.

I could still feel the energy of the earth within my body, waiting to be used.

“Give it up, Aizen, even if you maxed Strength, there’s no—”

I hit the barrier over the door again, unleashing the energy of the earth and channeling it through my fist in a concentrated, armor-piercing «Eruption».

Flash!

A spark of light shot out of my fist when my strike made contact with the barrier, and the semi-opaque obstruction warped briefly around my fist, trying to take the impact, before bursting outward.

Rather than stay for Alikr’s reaction, I ran out in time to see Rhil and Koise fighting off a few of the demons that had realized something was wrong.

The troll was, luckily, still dragging most of their attention elsewhere in the camp, though it could only do so for so long.

Even though her stats were focused around her ability use, Rhil had picked up a demon’s spear and was using it to distract and fend a few off while Koise’s arrows pierced their heads with pinpoint accuracy.

They turned their heads to look at me.

The hopeful light in Rhil’s eyes made me shake my head briefly in disappointment. We would have to find another way to remove the collar that was limiting access to her abilities.

Rather than that, though, it was more important for us to escape.

It wasn’t a complete bust, at least, we had managed to free Rhil and learn a bit about what the demons were planning.

“We have to go, now!” I shouted at the two.

I trusted Koise to be able to keep up. I gave him a glance as I picked Rhil up in my arms, not giving her time to protest.

“Back through the tunnels?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

He took off, not needing to be told twice.

Just as I saw Alikr emerging from the building out of the corner of my eye…

I launched myself at a vertical angle using «Strike» and another «Eruption», launching myself over the camp toward the wall at a speed that made the world blur while Rhil’s hair whipped over my face and I felt her grip on me tighten.

Luckily, I was able to keep enough control to stop myself from tumbling or crashing into the earth. We soared over the tents of the camp, demons catching sight of us as we flew overhead.

It didn’t matter at that point, I could just hope that none would be fast enough to catch us.

I couldn’t see him, but I trusted that Koise had his own methods of quick getaway.

We landed just before the walls of the camp, my knees bending to take the impact as I had to lean back to stop from falling while my feet slid over the stone and sent pebbles and dirt scattering outward.

Then, before my momentum could fully stop, I leaned back forward and jumped again, only aided by my Strength stat, which was enough to send us sailing over the wall.

From there, it was only another short leap over the shining, pearlescent snow before we arrived at the cliff’s edge.

“Haa…” I took a moment to catch the breath that I hadn’t even known I was holding and put Rhil back down.

She stumbled sideways and leaned against my arm.

“Ugh… What the hell was that?”

Awakener or not, such an unexpected and sudden movement would have been enough to make anyone dizzy.

“I’ll have to tell you later. Let’s get out of here first.”

I gripped her hand and pulled her forward.

“Come on, there’s a tunnel system under the mountains that we can use to escape.”

It would be too easy for them to chase us over the open, snowy terrain.

We crawled down next to the edge of the mountain that hid the opening of the caves.

Koise wasn’t there yet.

We didn’t have the comfort of being able to wait long. It would be easy enough to track us through the snow and find where we had gone.

I waited, each pounding of my heartbeat signaling yet another moment of lead we lost on the demons.

“Aizen…”

I turned when Rhil spoke to me to see her frown.

“You can let go of my hand now.”

Her hand was still being crushed in my anxiety-fueled grip.

“Ah… Sorry.”

I let her hand go.

Koise arrived just then, swinging over the edge of the mountain.

Boom!

Another explosion shook the ground.

It looked like he had left them with a parting gift.