Kaito and Mashiro opened their eyes in shock at what had just happened.
"Did he kill himself…?"
Kaito's disbelief wasn't about the death itself, but about who had died. That general wasn't just anyone: he had been the most important link between "The Others" and humanity.
Up until now, setting aside things like the electromagnetic pulse or the tsunamis controlled from the mothership, every matter directly involving humans , especially the Fifth Wave, was, or had been, under Colonel Vosch's command.
"Maybe he wasn't as crucial as the original story made it seem?"
It wasn't an unreasonable thought. After all, stories are usually told from the protagonist's perspective, so perhaps his importance only existed because he was Cassie's direct antagonist.
"Or maybe… they already have a replacent."
Kaito leaned more toward that idea. For the Others, humans weren't exactly irreplaceable.
Turning his gaze away from the corpse before them, they looked around. Despite their swift intervention, hundreds had already died. One should never underestimate what an automatic weapon could do in the middle of a crowd. Just one second was enough to bring down five people. Add nearly four dozen soldiers to that, and the result was the chaos before them.
Even so, it was still preferable to everyone dying.
Suddenly, Mashiro frowned. Kaito noticed imdiately and expanded his senses. It didn't take long for him to pick up on what was troubling her.
People were still dying. Even though the soldiers had been killed, Silencers were still hiding among the survivors. Since there was no way to tell them apart, the only option was to head toward where they felt the most hostility and eliminate them.
A simple job thanks to their superhuman senses and speed.
After a while, not a single Silencer remained. However, the population had been reduced to a fourth of what it once was. At first, that surprised Kaito, but after thinking it through, it made sense: since they couldn't hunt individually, the most efficient thod was to regroup and wipe out a large number of people at once.
After a few quick calculations, he concluded that about one-sixth of the inhabitants had been Silencers.
Just then, a gunshot rang out. Kaito vanished from his spot and reappeared inside a house three hundred ters away, just in ti to stop a bullet aid straight at a man's head.
The Silencer who had fired froze in shock when he saw him. Still, he quickly pulled the trigger again—only to realize his weapon was no longer in his hand. In front of him, Kaito was pointing the very sa gun back at him.
One shot was all it took. The enemy collapsed lifelessly.
Kaito glanced at him briefly, then tossed the gun back at the body.
"Too slow. I prefer using my hands," he muttered as he turned to the man who had almost been killed.
Mashiro arrived just then and saw the scene.
"Kaito… Mashiro… thank you so much."
They recognized him instantly: the kind man who had led them to the camp on their first day. Since then, they had run into each other a few tis, always exchanging polite greetings.
"Amazing… You're so fast. And her… she shoots fireballs! I saw her in the park."
Kaito wasn't in the mood to explain, so he turned to leave. Mashiro, instead, approached the man and helped him up. His legs refused to move from sheer fear.
"Ah… thank you," he murmured.
"You're incredible. Do you have powers?"
Mashiro silently nodded, as she usually did. That didn't diminish the man's excitent.
"And are you as fast as him?" he asked, glancing at Kaito.
Mashiro gently shook her head. After a brief pause, she spoke again:
"Your family… are they…?"
The man lowered his gaze sadly and shook his head. The answer was obvious. But instead of dwelling on it, he quickly changed the subject.
"Tell about your powers. Are you an esper? Are there more like you?"
Kaito, uninterested in continuing, stepped out of the house. But when he sensed sothing, he stopped outside, staring at the door for a few seconds.
BANG!
A gunshot echoed. Seconds later, Mashiro stepped out of the house, her eyes distant.
She didn't need to say a word.
"His family?" Mashiro asked quietly after a few monts.
"I don't know… maybe they were Silencers too, maybe…"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. Mashiro understood.
Even so, she muttered bitterly:
"He seed like a good person…"
"People aren't always what they seem. Don't trust soone just because they look trustworthy."
Mashiro remained silent for the rest of the day, even more than usual.
A few days passed in the camp. Mashiro devoted herself to practicing her magic, focused on sothing. After so ti, she was visibly more cheerful—a sign she had achieved her goal. Then they set out, following the path the military buses had taken, aiming to find the base.
But the distance was far greater than they expected. With Kaito matching his speed to Mashiro's pace, night fell before they even reached halfway. They stopped in a small village, where the inhabitants welcod them warmly.
Mashiro, however, was extrely distrustful, hiding behind Kaito.
Inside one of the houses, the girl used a new spell. For Kaito, the sensation was as if she had expanded her senses while releasing a wave of mana from all elents. Surprised, he asked what she was doing, and she smiled before replying:
"They're all human."
"How do you know?"
"With magic."
Puzzled by the answer, Mashiro explained. Her new spell analyzed people through each elent: the water in their bodies, the heat they emitted, the air in their lungs, the circulation of their blood… Then it compared that data with humans she already knew, and from there it determined whether they were human or not.
The comparison was only made the first ti. Afterward, the spell processed everything on its own and gave her just the result. Of course, this was based on the assumption that the aliens had so difference from humans. And although the probability was very high, the risk that they didn't still remained. Kaito warned her not to let her guard down.
Even more surprising was the fact that Mashiro could create spells simply by thinking about what she wanted her magic to do.
Feeling overconfident, Mashiro went to sleep alongside Kaito.
But only a few hours later, noises woke them.
Looking out the windows, they saw the glow of dozens of torches. The villagers had surrounded the house.
The door opened, and one of them spoke solemnly:
"Outsiders, you are lucky. You will be part of the sacrifice to the new gods."
Just from hearing that, Kaito understood what was happening.
"Unbelievable… Just a few weeks have passed and there are already fanatic cults," he remarked, more amused than worried.
"We are not a cult. We are the followers of the new gods."
"And does your 'cult' have sothing to do with a spaceship?" Kaito mocked.
"It is the descent vessel of the gods. They ca to cleanse this world of sinners."
The man stepped forward with his torch, trying to look intimidating.
Kaito didn't move. He just watched calmly, as if playing along.
The man sneered.
"There's no point in resisting. You and the cowardly girl behind you will have the honor of being sacrificed."
Among all that rambling, one phrase caught Kaito's attention.
"Cowardly girl…?"
When he turned toward Mashiro, he saw sothing unusual: her usually expressionless face showed shock, confusion, and sadness all at once. Her body trembled.
Kaito sighed. He understood what she was feeling.
He ford a shadow bomb in his hand and dropped it. But before it touched the ground, he had already pulled Mashiro out of the village, carrying her to a clearing among the trees.
An explosion echoed in the distance, followed by a strong gust of wind shaking the branches.
When everything cald, he set the girl down. She sat on the ground, hugging her knees, wordless.
Kaito simply sat beside her, gazing at the starry sky.
______________________________________
15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon/IAM26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)
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