✔ The Hunters | Garou

THIRTY THIRD HUNT

REVERSAL

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 

- Shakespeare

The shell on my face cracked, revealing my human face to the hero who was standing over me.

I coughed out blood. "Wh-Why aren't you killing me already?"

I knew he had gone at his fullest power, but not full enough to send me to my grave. Baldy pulled his fist away and paused to think for a moment.

"It's because I'm a hero," he said, "Besides that, I was specifically requested by both the kid and Bang's daughter to stop you without killing you. Pretty sure I told you already."

"Huh?" I exhaled. They requested this?

"It was their final request." He added.

It almost felt like a sack of bricks fell over me. "Final request?" I asked in a quivering voice, feeling my heart hammering wildly in my chest.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a form on the ground. When I looked closely, I saw Tareo and Tenrou; the woman had her arm around the kid. They were lifeless. Dead.

My heart sank. My innards squeezed and my throat dried up. 

I screamed. It was deafening. 

NO! NO! This can't be!

The only two people I cared about, one who I wanted to make a better world for, and the other being the only woman who really loved me selflessly and was like my little ray of happiness... Dead!

Grief and guilt gnawed at me like I was the helpless prey in the mouth of a bear. It was made worse when I noticed the tattered rose barrette still clipped to Tenrou's hair.

My endless screaming echoed in the dark void, making me feel lonelier and emptier with each reverberation. My mental anguish was so great, so visceral that it felt like my whole physical body had been torn into shreds like a rag and thrown into the fire to be eaten up by the flames. Burning tears started to blur my vision as they ran down my cheeks. I got up and scrambled off in the opposite direction, unable to bear to look at those two bodies.

"Hey! They're over there!" said the hero, pointing behind him.

"It's all my fault! I was-" I tripped over a piece of rubble as I ran and fell down flat on the uneven ground.

I had no strength to get up, but to only gasp and sob. I said I would delve humanity into the depths of despair and now look at me, I'm suffering from the results of my own philosophy.

And it's so painfully lonely.

"Tareo... Tenrou..." I sobbed, feeling my cheeks and the ground become damp from my tears. "That's right... I said so myself..." I gasped, "I'm the ominous future."

"You've been acting super weird ever since you fell from the sky. Are you sure someone didn't do this to you?" asked Baldy.

I looked over my shoulder, tears still streaming down my face and remembered that moment I met with some strange being who looked like the old man. I said, "If they did, I must've been really weak then."