Awakening of the Weakest Slayer

Vesta couldn't believe her eyes. The man who was saying that she had gone mad just a few moments ago was now in the air, a silent specter, attacking the very monster she, a Rank-5, couldn't even reach.

The man, suspended in the air with the bored, indifferent expression, finally seemed to notice the presence beside him. His hollow eyes, which had been fixed on Vesta, now squinted, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his pristine features. Sezel's kick was a hair's breadth from his face, a blur of motion and raw, desperate power, when it struck something just a few inches short of his actual flesh.

Sezel clicked his tongue in frustration. There was some kind of invisible barrier between the man and his leg. The man's eyes flickered to Sezel, bloodlust a primary thing to his gaze. Sezel's heart shuddered in his chest. The next moment, a grip like a steel vise closed around his leg, and he was yanked backwards, his body a helpless projectile.

The man brought Sezel up in front of his face, holding him by the leg as one might hold a particularly interesting, if fragile, insect. "What were you trying to do, boy?" the man asked. His voice was somehow more terrifying than a shout. "And how did you jump so high?"

"Sorry," Sezel mocked, a bloody-minded grin spreading across his face despite the terror that was screaming in his mind. "But that's a secret."

The man's lips curled into a snarl of pure, undiluted anger at Sezel's insolence. He raised his other hand, his fingers flexing as if he were about to crush Sezel's skull. But he stopped, his hand hovering just inches from Sezel's face, as a new threat entered his perception. He noticed a form of pure purple and dark energy, a Flesh Reaper attacking him from the other side.

His eyebrows tautened. A beast attacking him, out of the blue? And stranger still, the beast had closed in a lot of distance, yet the assessment device didn't announce a word. The two-meter-large beast with one of its scythes gone slashed at the man. It sliced through the air, its trajectory perfectly aimed to sever his hand.

The man, his attention now fully on the new, more immediate threat, let go of Sezel. But the beast stopped mid-motion, as if it had planned this out already. It had been a feint. The man felt a flicker of wrongness, and his gaze immediately snapped back to Sezel. It had been less than a second, but it was a second too long. He could already see the gleaming edge of the katana slicing towards him.

The man moved, a blur of motion that was almost too fast to see, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The arc of the blade grazed his cheek, and a single, thin line of crimson appeared on his perfect, porcelain skin. Sezel hit the ground and rolled backwards, the impact jarring his bones, but he was free.

It had all been a planned attack, a suicidal gambit. Sezel had used his puppet as a foothold to launch himself into the air, his kick a deliberate distraction to draw the man's attention away from the puppet's swift approach. And even the puppet's attack had been a distraction, a feint designed to create the single, fleeting opening for Sezel.

The man slowly raised a hand to his cheek, his long, elegant fingers coming away with a smear of his own blood. He brought his fingers to his lips and licked the blood away. A devious, chilling smirk appeared on his face. "Interesting," he said, his voice a slow, calculated purr.

Vesta rushed to Sezel's side, her earlier rage now replaced by a desperate concern. "Are you okay?" she asked hastily, her voice tight with worry.

"Yes," Sezel replied, a weak, triumphant smile on his face. "I'm standing right here, aren't I?"

SMACK!

Vesta smacked him hard on the back of the head. "You fool!" she snapped, her voice a mixture of anger and relief. "Don't you ever try to be that reckless again."

"What was that for?" Sezel yelped, rubbing his head. But the words were cut short as he suddenly coughed, a dry, racking sound, and fell to his knees. His eyes went wide with shock, his hands flying to his throat as he desperately tried to claw at something that was choking him, an invisible, crushing force that was squeezing life from his lungs.

Vesta dropped down beside him, her face a mask of pure panic. "Are you okay? What is happening? Gabriel!" Her voice a faint, distant echo in his ears.

And then, just as his vision began to tunnel into darkness, the force vanished. Sezel let out a guttural, animal cry, his body collapsing as he gasped for air, his lungs burning. His face was as red as a tomato, sweat rolling down his body in slick, cold streams. He placed his hands around his neck, checking the still fresh feeling.

His gaze flickered to the man, who stood there. He didn't move an inch, but Sezel was sure, with a certainty that was as cold and hard as the grave, that it had been his doing.

"Do that again," the man said, his voice carrying the unshakeable weight of finality, "and you are dead."

He took Vesta's offered hand and pulled himself to his feet, his body trembling with exhaustion. "What happened just now?" Vesta asked, her voice still laced with a worried confusion.

Sezel just shook his head slowly, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, a silent message that he was, for the moment, still alive.

Then, the man laid his cards on the table. With a slow, deliberate cadence, as if making a generous offer to a favored subordinate, he spoke. "Will you join me, young man?" he asked, his deep, resonant voice seemed to bypass the ears and slide straight into the mind. "I will let the girl live, if you do."

'Bastard.' Sezel gritted his teeth, his crimson eyes fixed on the man's charcoal-black pools of emptiness. He didn't answer. He just stood there.

"No," he finally replied, the word a simple, unadorned statement of fact. "I don't want to."

The man's eyes narrowed, his calm demeanor finally cracking to reveal the ugly anger that lay beneath. "You cheeky rat," he hissed.

The thunderclouds above rumbled ferociously, a deep, angry growl that seemed to echo the man's fury. None of them had noticed it until now, but the storm had grown, its intensity building to a fever pitch.

And as if on cue, the ground below them began to tremble. Not once or twice, but with an earth-shaking beat, as if something truly, impossibly humongous was walking towards them.

A faint grin appeared on Sezel's face. "Just as I expected."