THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 219. COMPLICATIONS

It had been at least two hours after Sagiri wiped out an entire seventh wing squad and its twelve units. In that period, one more thing had gone completely wrong. The backlash from the black rot was causing him immense pain. He had already felt the archive go silent, and true to the matter, he had depleted all his strength. There was no more strength left in his body. Nokai had naturally retracted, and it was now lying silently in his hip strap. Sagiri had decided not to go further south or step into the Bami lands. Their only option was to head back north a little, then continue west. In his weakened state, Sagiri was convinced that even a Bami tribe toddler could tear him to shreds.

Lira was walking silently behind Sagiri. There was no spring of water nearby, and in the two hours they had only to pull themselves from the Haku tribe’s lands into the nomans’ land, separating them from another tribe. Sagiri and Lira walked deeper into the woods, and at that moment, Sagiri could not go on any longer, and he sat by a tree and rested his back against it. His insides were burning so badly, and the skin on his limbs was almost gone. To put it lightly, he was in agony. So much agony he could wail, but he didn’t. Instead, he shut his eyes.

"You have always wanted to kill me. This is your chance," Sagiri said after a moment.

Lira had been standing there silently, back to the opposite tree. Her eyes had not left him for a moment. Sagiri knew the girl could sense his weakness now, and he was beginning to wonder why she hadn’t killed him yet. Silence stretched, and the girl did not answer.

"This is your only chance to kill me. I might kill you when I get back my strength. Killing me now would do you good," Sagiri insisted. He had felt the girl’s fear on several occasions now, and when his blade was held to his throat, he could feel her crippling need to live and her fear.

"When I touched you..." Lira began to speak, but Sagiri’s eyes snapped open.

"Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I would never share those ties with a Northerner. Especially one who almost killed me," Sagiri snapped, and Lira snapped her lips shut.

"I don’t have the feeling to kill you right now. I don’t know why I..." Lira said before she slid down and onto the forest ground. She had been going in and out of the state several times. Being cold and warm as if she was switching from whatever they made of her in that monstrous lab to a real person. Her real self. It was clear she did not know what was going on with her, and her remembering that hell was also something she could not pull past. It was only right to say they were both fighting something at the moment. One was split between her identity, and another was burning alive from the backlash of the residual poison. She did not look like she was in a state to kill him, but Sagiri was not willing to bet on that for long. The backlash was weaker than the first time it happened, but the pain was still unbearable.

The pain kept growing more and more until Sagiri could not take it anymore, and he must have passed out at some point. When he came to, the sun was moving towards the centre of the sky. After a moment of trying to remember where he was, Sagiri shot to his feet, frantically looking around. He must have fallen unconscious in the wee hours of the morning, and now, if he could guess by the position of the sun, it was only two hours shy of noon. He must have been out for at least six hours.

Six hours?

By now, the place he had laid carnage must have been discovered. Had he slept through flares being fired? It was sure that killing an entire seventh-wing squad could draw attention. Not only that, but the place had also been flattened. No house or vendor’s stall was left standing. A place like that could not be hidden, and hell was bound to break loose. The cuts on their body would no doubt link him to the killings. How could he have fallen asleep with such odds? If he could subtract the few hours of silence before the first person walked into the carnage, then in the past three hours or four, the search for him had been launched.

Those searching for him would have to be very cautious after witnessing what he had done, and so they could not just look for him carelessly. That perhaps was the only reason he had not been caught yet. They must have been coming up with a plan to corner him, and to do that, they must have dispatched the strongest warriors of Tagayia. That could mean even the fourth wing might have to give a hand. Even so, Sagiri knew his window was getting narrower now. He tried to push his senses out to perceive his surroundings, but he couldn’t. The archive was deadly silent. He had never not been able to perceive his surroundings before, and that realization was not one he liked.

Now of all times.

Lira was nowhere to be found, just like the previous night. She must have run away yet again. That was the least of Sagiri’s concerns. He would catch up at a later time. Right before he could break into a run, however, the leaves above him rustled, and someone jumped through. Lira had been above him all the while, and he had not perceived her. Thanks to the archive for acting shy at the moment. Sagiri could tell that the residual poison in his system was almost gone now, but he still needed a few days for it to be completely gone. Days he did not have at all.

Lira was munching on some wild fruits. She handed one to Sagiri, and he did not know what to think of it.

"Put that away, we need to move," Sagiri said. The girl acted like a child sometimes. It was as if she had not left her naive child phase, yet she became an assassin. The monsters who made her did not teach her much about many social things. Not that Sagiri had been any better before, but just watching her, sometimes, he did not know whether to laugh. He could not imagine that it was the same girl who had almost killed him.

Even when not depending on the archive, Sagiri had grown stronger on his own, but right at the moment, he was weak. His body was weakened by the backlash of the black rot and the archive from his rampage. The two were not moving as fast as Sagiri would have liked, but it was not like he had a choice. He was now crippled, and he didn’t know how long he had before elite squads would be on top of him.

He also had a feeling that this time they would not hold back.