When the members of the Mountain Crow family arrived, they only saw Natsu Kuri standing desolately before the drainage grate, staring blankly at a photograph within the memorial curtain.
Even now, Natsu Kuri felt as if a lifetime had passed; everything that happened today was too surreal.
It was supposed to be a perfectly ordinary day. Before the afternoon, everything had been just like any other day. In the morning, that freckled girl had greeted her timidly; not long ago, she had been laughing, foolishly saying hopeful and beautiful things...
She was just an ordinary girl with an ordinary family who should have lived an ordinary life in Dragonfly Town. Perhaps after graduation, their lives would have simply diverged into different paths.
The people around her, whether it was her brother or Sebas, had always told her about the cruelty of this world. She had learned of many tragic events through various channels, but until today, she had never personally felt the reality of that cruelty.
Was she... too cold-blooded?
She couldn't cry at a time like this; she didn't feel like crying at all, as if she were merely an audience member who had just watched an absurd tragedy.
Even though she would never see that girl who always followed behind her again.
She would never hear her soft murmurs again.
She would never see those eyes full of hope again.
"Yuzu, let's go," Natsu Kuri said, her voice hoarse as she shook her head.
Xu Xiaoyou watched her walk down the stairs with a certain indifference. Inside the restroom, the sigh of a Mountain Crow family member could be heard: "The identity of the victim has been found. Yugawa Mao, a second-year student at Zhutai High, and her mother, Nishimiya Izumi."
"A sower parasitized this lady. Out of maternal instinct, she came to the school to find her daughter.
Who would have thought it would end like this?"
"Life is unpredictable, truly unpredictable."
"No wonder Mrs. Nishimiya wasn't on the casualty list from the chemical plant."
"Let's go. Report these matters to the superiors before dark, and then we'll go grab a couple of drinks."
Clunk.
Watching the two bottles of lime tea drop from the vending machine, Natsu Kuri didn't snap out of it for a moment. She picked up one of the bottles and reflexively shoved it into Xu Xiaoyou's arms.
"I bought an extra one."
Xu Xiaoyou looked at the lime tea in her hand and said nothing. At that moment, both of their communication curtains rang. Seeing it was an emergency transmission from the Night Walkers, Natsu Kuri accidentally cut her finger on the beverage's pull tab, and a bead of blood seeped out.
Disregarding the injury, she answered the call.
"What is it?"
Only in the most urgent situations would the Night Walkers pass information directly through curtain communication. Natsu Kuri took a sip of the lime tea as she asked.
"Hello? Hello? This is bad, really bad!"
It was Sparrow's voice. She was swallowing hard, her expression frantic, seemingly trying to organize her words. Finally, she slammed the table and shouted,
"Big Sister and that guy Night Owl were just taken by Eight-Spider!"
"I saw them walking downstairs when a van pulled up and kidnapped them! It was just two minutes ago!"
"Hey, hey, Eldest Miss, what's with that face? That's Eight-Spider! A bunch of cold-blooded lunatics! Did you forget what happened in Heisenberg? Their lives are actually in danger!"
Natsu Kuri's mind went numb. Listening to the girl's shouting through the transmission, she sluggishly came back to her senses.
"What did you say?"
"Anyway, we have to move fast! I tracked the Eight-Spider group's location by looking up their vehicle code. If you don't want them losing limbs, get moving and stay in communication!"
Natsu Kuri nodded repeatedly and looked toward Xu Xiaoyou for help.
Xu Xiaoyou pressed her car key, and the horn of a luxury land-air vehicle nearby sounded.
"How did you..."
"No time to explain. Get on."
Xu Xiaoyou pulled her small scooter out from behind the land-air vehicle. She buckled a helmet onto Natsu Kuri's head and patted the thick leather pad of her back seat.
Natsu Kuri was in no mood to complain about such things. She swung her leg over and sat down. Before long, they were speeding through the streets of Dragonfly Town.
Natsu Kuri silently held onto Xu Xiaoyou in front of her. Her mind was a complete mess. The matter with Xiao Xu wasn't even over yet, and now her companions had been kidnapped. So many things happening in a single day gave rise to anxiety and unease within her heart.
"I'm planning to leave," Xu Xiaoyou's voice suddenly came from the front.
"Yuzu, what are you saying all of a sudden...?"
"I said before that I would only stay in Dragonfly Town for a month. Tomorrow, I'm returning to the Star of Art."
"I came to find you today to say goodbye."
As if the last straw was suddenly snatched away from a drowning person, Natsu Kuri's throat twitched as a sense of oppression spread through her heart. She wanted to say something, but realizing she was once again trying to selfishly make demands of others, she recalled the image of Xiao Xu from earlier. She opened her mouth, then finally closed it.
"...Yes, I understand."
"Yuzu, will you still come back..."
"Watch out."
Xu Xiaoyou suddenly swerved the scooter. A speeding vehicle roared past them, carrying away the words the girl left in the wind.
A deep sense of helplessness surged up, washing over Natsu Kuri's legs. She felt as if she were standing in a pool of foul-smelling sludge; her limbs grew heavy and stopped obeying her as a cold sensation spread upward from her calves.
Silence followed for the rest of the way.
Before long, following Sparrow's guidance over the communication channel, the two of them arrived at an abandoned civilian building in the suburbs. No Eight-Spider guards were visible in the vicinity; the atmosphere was unnaturally quiet.
Natsu Kuri's eyes were dim. She didn't think much of it, ignoring the anomalies because Xu Xiaoyou was walking in front of her. As long as she was there, no matter what happened, everything would turn out fine in the end, right?
Yuzu could take care of these Eight-Spider guys in a few moves and easily rescue her companions. No matter how deep and cold the mire she was in, Yuzu's hand would hold hers tightly, pulling her out and saving her.
As long as today passed, tomorrow would surely be better.
She was the little family head of the Chi family, after all. Whether it was her brother, Sebas, or the many others around her, they would all pave the way ahead for her. Maybe, just maybe, Xiao Xu wasn't dead. Tomorrow, she would appear before her again and greet her just like always.
Following Xu Xiaoyou through a dim tunnel, Sparrow's chirping on the communication channel had ceased at some point. The flickering incandescent lamps overhead also began to falter. Only then did Natsu Kuri suddenly realize something was wrong.
She looked around in a daze and found that the corridors on both sides were filled with ferocious-looking lunatics staring at her with ill intent. The Eight-Spider tattoos on their arms were glaringly bright. They shouted crazed insults, holding rifles loaded with magazines high.
Natsu Kuri instinctively took two steps back, only to bump into the chest of a thug. Her way out had been blocked off completely at some point.
"Yuzu...?"
In front of her, Xu Xiaoyou turned around, a faint, imperceptible sneer curling her lips. A pure white laughing mask had been donned at some point. She snapped her digits, and the room suddenly brightened up.
Natsu Kuri had just manifested her mimicry when Xu Xiaoyou grabbed her hand, knocking away the Spider-Gu Fang. She stumbled into the latter's embrace as a devil's whisper sounded in her ear.
"Shh. Look up."
Natsu Kuri looked up tremblingly. The scene before her eyes turned into countless needles stabbing into her eyeballs, as blood-red stained her vision.
Including Sparrow, all of her companions were suspended in the air by chains covered in iron thorns. The blood flowing from their wrists had soaked them, making them look like lambs waiting for the slaughter.
Xu Xiaoyou placed a hand on her shoulder, her body pressing close like a cold venomous snake wrapping around her from behind, dragging her down into the depths of an endless, icy mire.
"Do you like the farewell ceremony I meticulously prepared for you?"
Rate on N.U.
