The Shadow Manipulator

Chapter 28: Suicide

The Dark Room.

That's the only thing that I've been seeing up until now. I don't know how Master Ryu is keeping up with the Ice Irregular but I had a hard time keeping up. Blood continued to drip from my stomach as I try to stabilize my consciousness. Even until now, I haven't sensed the presence of the guy who kept on attacking me, much less see where he is. All I could hear is his voice along with Master Ryu's. Both of them were trying to tell me something but I couldn't hear them for I already reached my limit. I tried to stand up from where I was, but my body won't even obey me.

"Time to finish this. I've had enough playing as it is." A voice came from nowhere. 

I inevitably looked around, trying to find out where the voice came from. But all that I could hear was a scratching sound made by a blade that was being dragged on a floor. But no matter how I tried to find it, I couldn't even sense a presence other than Master Ryu's and the Ice guy. I still couldn't stand up but I maxed my sense enhancement just in case. After all, I have to brace myself for impact everytime he attacks.

Even though it seems impossible to predict where he'll hit me. I thought.

Riing! An alarm began to sound.

"Time to go!" The Ice guy suddenly said.

"Okay." Another voice sounded.

To my relief, the two of them went away, leaving Master Ryu and I behind. Had the fight lasted longer, I could quite predict that I'll die here. Fortunately, that alarm or whatever it was, made them go.

"Hikari, you okay?!" Master Ryu exclaimed as he went to me. "Come on! We have to keep moving. Otherwise we'll just be playing right into their traps. Can you move?" 

"Probably. But where are we going, Master Ryu?" I asked him.

"The traps here have been deactivated since the two of them are leaving. We just need to follow them and get out of here while the traps are on that state."

Master Ryu helped me got up while he looked around, thinking that someone might catch us unguarded. I struggled to keep my balance but to my relief, I was able to stand up but the loss of blood made me dizzier than ever. 

"Come on!"

Master Ryu and I quickly shifted to our shadow form. Without a second to spare, we glided out of the room while following the Ice Guy and we were able to get out of the room, to our relief. WE found ourselves in a corridor, barely lighted by the flickering lights. It was too hard to focus on the surroundings since I was feeling a bit dizzy but I was able to maintain my shadow form along with Master Ryu.

A well lit and spacious room could be seen up ahead as we followed the Ice Guy. From afar, we could see that it looks like it's made of glass and the floor was pristine white. This was the only way out of the corridor we're in but we don't know if it would lead to the organization that we're looking for.

I can't believe a few professional Irregulars were waiting for us in that room. It's as if the organization knew about our plan of infiltration. Who knows how many traps are there up ahead. I thought.

The Ice Guy abruptly stopped short just in front of us, as if trying to stop us from getting into the room. Since he probably knew our weakness, he might revert us to our human form once we passed by him. But there was one way to get one step ahead of him. 

I reverted back to my human form just before we glided past him.

Unexpectedly, he made a wall of Ice just behind him as he began shooting ice spikes towards me. I maxed my sense enhancement again so that I could dodge everything that he hurled but there was so many of them. I was only able to protect the core of my body but my appendages were all badly scraped by the passing ice spikes.