Arknights: When Hunters Meet (A Tacet x Projekt Red novel)

Chapter 24 - Indomitable Will's - Projekt Red Route

I had arrived too late.

The forest was aflame and the manor in its heart was absorbed in a blaze that spiked far up into the dark sky. It wasn't night, but a catastrophe was fast approaching. She... we wouldn't escape it. I needed to make sure she was alive. I needed to know she would get out of here before the catastrophe would hit in force. It was my fault after all. I had prompted her to act too fast, earlier than she was supposed to. It was a mighty gamble for her having come here now to end the Game early.

Red stood victorious in front of the falling house of cards. She was now the alpha lupo, the Fang who won the Great Game this round. Now my only thought was if we were standing here as friend or foe. If the hot rushing blood has or has not taken her mind.

-''Red!'' I shouted. Determined to get her attention. Hoping she would recognise me.

She turned to face me. She was battered and wounded but still very much a killing machine, ready to spring into action again. And she looked at me as if a stranger. I knew Grandma was watching. She held domain over the pack now, and she wanted me dead.

-''Tacet shouldn't be here.'' She said in an ominous voice.

Well. At least she recognised me. But I didn't like the way she was approaching me.

-''You are the last that Grandma wants killed.'' She said as she pulled out her knifes.
-We'll talk about it if you catch me first.

I suddenly sprinted in the opposite direction and I instantly knew she was onto my tail! The wolf hunter was hunting the wolf killer and I knew she would catch up to me. My hope being that she was wounded and tired enough that it would take her more time to catch up than normal. More time that I would run away from the scorching blaze that was engulfing the forest and further away from the epicentre of the oncoming catastrophe!

I ran in zigzags and around trees yet here and there a knife landed onto tree trunks too dangerously close to me. I jumped onto a lean ravine picking up speed downwards, yet I knew it wouldn't be enough. At least I had escaped the worst of the flames and the fire would take some time to also catch up downslope. I felt that menacing aura getting closer. This was not good. Grandma must have assumed direct control of Red, abominable damn entity. It wasn't enough that it won, it wanted me taken out of the picture as well! I was approaching a shallow stream and suddenly Red jumped right into it in front of me, cutting my way out of the forest. She wasted no more words and pranced at me in an attack! I parried and quickly avoided her next hit, yet she came onto me unrelentingly! As wounded as she may have been she was only a fraction of a second slower than her prime. More than enough to take me down and not nearly enough to even the odds, not for long anyway!

-''Why!?'' I shouted yet she didn't indulge me.

My sword was flying, and my arm guards were well put to use parrying her knife attacks. Yet her deadly intent was palpable. One wrong move and she would gut me dead.

-You said you loved me! Was it a lie!?

A flinch appeared in her attack and I managed avoid it in time only to cut my shoulder lightly. But her next boot came right into me.

-You said your knives are mine! Yet you wield them to end me now!?
-Tacet... shouldn't have come.

She said before she continued her string of attacks. Slowly but surely she was adding cut after new cut on me. I had to snap her out of it, I had to make her realise what she was doing!

-I came because I am your mate! Because I love you!

Suddenly a knife embedded itself into my shoulder! I managed split second to kick her off me, giving me just a spare moment to jump back. Yet the very next moment she came head first into me, crashing me hard on the ground and I tumbled painfully. I tried to rise, yet there was a sudden weight on me. And a knife at my throat. Red was standing over me. Her glare cold and calculated to what was about to come next.