Chapter 39: Five Minutes

Reinhard closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the mana racing through him, and he understood exactly how much of it was left.

Ten minutes.

That was all his body had before the reserves ran dry.

He opened his eyes. The Silent Night assassins were still watching him, and instead of looking worried, he started laughing again.

Heart Guy took a step back.

Reinhard looked at the blood coating his hand, then casually wiped it on his sweatpants. "Ten minutes."

Nobody understood what he meant.

He rolled his neck. "I’ve got about ten minutes before this body gives out." His grin widened. "But I only need five."

Big Arm scoffed. "You think you can finish us in five minutes?"

Blue Death slowly raised his sword. "Then this time, I will take your head."

Reinhard laughed. "That’s the plan? Let’s see you try."

Fog Machine flung both arms wide, and the mist exploded outward and swallowed the factory floor. The shapes of the assassins melted into it one by one until there was nothing left but gray.

"This again?" Reinhard looked around at the fog. "Come on, now."

For the first time that night, he didn’t bother searching for them. He simply raised one hand, and a Space Tear opened in front of him.

No shiver. No half-second. It was simply there, the way a thought is there.

He stepped into it.

Across the factory, a second tear opened just as instantly, and Reinhard stepped out on the far side of the mist. He rolled his shoulder and smiled. "Much better."

He looked around at the wreckage covering the floor: broken weapons, discarded daggers, snapped swords, iron poles, chunks of machinery, and everything the first fight had left behind. "Well," he said cheerfully, "if I can’t see you..."

He picked up a broken sword and tossed it into a tear no bigger than a dinner plate.

"...I might as well hit everything."

The sword shot out of another tear on the far side of the mist and whistled through the gray, and somewhere inside it, someone yelped and dove out of the way.

Reinhard scooped up a handful of daggers and threw them into a single tear, and they burst out of four smaller ones scattered through the fog, coming from every direction at once.

One assassin caught a blade across the shoulder. Another rolled frantically across the concrete as a dagger punched through the space where his head had just been.

"There you are," Reinhard said.

He grabbed an iron pole and hurled it into a tear, and it came out of the fog behind Big Arm and forced him to lurch forward into the open.

Reinhard was already waiting.

His fist sank into Big Arm’s stomach, and the big man flew backward, and a tear opened beneath him mid-flight and dropped him straight down into the concrete.

Reinhard didn’t give him time to breathe. He closed the distance and drove another punch into him, and Big Arm skidded across the floor into a stack of wooden crates. A stray Mana Blast from somewhere in the fog caught the crates a second later, and they went up in flames.

Fog Machine tried to summon again, and three massive shapes began to swell out of the mist.

Reinhard opened a tear the length of a train car directly between the summoner and his creatures, a long black wall cutting the battlefield in half, and the creatures slammed into it and vanished. He followed it with a Mana Blast into the other half, and the explosion blew a hole in the fog.

The assassins tried to regroup, and he didn’t let them.

Every time two of them moved toward each other, Reinhard was somewhere else, attacking from a new angle.

A coin-sized tear opened in the path of a thrown knife and sent it harmlessly into the wall. Another opened beside a Mana Blast and sent it screaming away across the factory.

A third appeared between him and a lunging mist beast and cut its attack off before it reached him.

The battlefield stopped belonging to the assassins. It belonged to Reinhard.

"Where do you think you’re going?" He appeared behind Big Arm, who was just climbing out of the burning crates, and smashed a fist into his back.

Before Big Arm could get up, Reinhard grabbed him by the ankle, swung him in a full circle, and slammed him into a support pillar.

The pillar cracked from top to bottom.

Reinhard let him drop.

He glanced around. "Three minutes already?"

Heart Guy’s expression changed, and a moment later Reinhard felt it again, the invisible hand closing around the place where his heart should have been. His body staggered.

But this time he didn’t panic. He had watched it happen three times now, and he understood the pattern. The false heart took concentration.

And Heart Guy always waited until Reinhard had committed to a movement before he squeezed, so Reinhard couldn’t stop halfway.

Reinhard smiled at him. "So that’s your trick."

Heart Guy’s eyes went wide.

Reinhard flicked a dagger into the air, and it sailed through nothing, then vanished into a tear the size of a coin and came out right behind Heart Guy’s ear. The man jerked sideways just in time, and his concentration broke, and the hand around Reinhard’s chest let go.

Reinhard stepped out of a tear directly in front of him.

His fist connected, and Heart Guy flew backward. Reinhard followed and grabbed his collar and slammed him into the floor, and the man coughed blood.

"You’re the annoying one, right?" Reinhard looked down at him. "Heart Guy. Sorry, I never actually learned your name. You’re just very forgettable."

He hit him once more, and Heart Guy stopped moving.

One down.

The mist surged again, thicker than before, and a huge serpent burst out of it with its jaws wide open. Reinhard opened a tear big enough to swallow a truck, and the serpent’s entire head disappeared into it.

He closed it, and the rest of the serpent collapsed into drifting mist.

He turned and fired a Mana Beam straight through the fog bank, and it tore across the factory and found Fog Machine at the other end. The summoner staggered.

Reinhard was already moving. Air Dash. He crossed the distance in a single burst and drove his fist into the man’s chest, and Fog Machine flew through two rusted machines and didn’t get back up.

Two down.

Without its master, the mist began to thin and drift away.

Reinhard looked around.

Three were left who mattered: Blue Death, Big Arm, who was dragging himself away from the cracked pillar, and the invisible one, whom he had privately started calling Ghost.

Ghost darted out of the thinning fog and touched Big Arm’s shoulder, and both of them vanished. Their presences simply disappeared together.

Reinhard laughed. "Oh, you can do that for other people too? That’s cute."

The factory went silent. Reinhard stood in the middle of it, surrounded by smoke, burning crates, and wreckage, and his eyes moved slowly across the room.

Nothing.

No presence.

No movement.

Danger Intuition gave him nothing, and neither did Predator Awareness. But Combat Analysis had been watching them all night.

Ghost always moved toward wherever Reinhard was most committed. Big Arm always followed the openings Reinhard created. And Blue Death...

Reinhard smiled. He knew exactly what Blue Death wanted. He had said it himself. The head. The only kill he could be sure of.

So Reinhard gave it to him. He let his attention drift toward the burning crates, just for a moment, just long enough.

The blade came out of nowhere, driving at the back of his neck.

Reinhard’s hand swept backward, and a tear opened between the sword and his neck. The blade plunged into it up to the hilt.

Blue Death eyes widened in disbelief.

Then a third tear opened directly across to two other assassins who had paused. The sword of Blue Death rushed out and cut their heads.

"You really thought I’d fall for the same thing twice?" Reinhard said as he turned around before the bodies fell to the ground.

He closed the tear holding Blue Death’s sword. It snapped shut, and the Blue Death sword alongside his sword was gone.

Blue Death stood staring at his destroyed hand.

And then Reinhard’s fist crashed into his bone mask, and the impact launched him across the factory. Reinhard Air Dashed after him, caught him by the leg in midair, and slammed him into the floor.

Once. Twice. Again.

The concrete cracked beneath him.

Then a hand grabbed onto his face before he was dragged a crossed the floor and then hurled towards the walls. A large sound rang out as the Blue Death gasped before a fist smashed into his face, forcing him into the wall.

Reinhard then grabbed the front of his skull-mask and smiled into those empty blue pupils. "You know, you’re starting to disappoint me. I thought the guy who nearly killed me would be more interesting."

He opened a tear beside them and threw Blue Death into it before closing it around his neck. And then the leftover body of Blue Death fell to the ground.

Silence filled the factory.

Reinhard turned towards the two other assassins who were shaking from what they had just witness. To them the Blue Death was not only their group leader but one of the legendary Nights who has killed many strong Awakeners before.

And now he was dead, killed by a C-rank.

Reinhard rolled his arms and noted his breathing had gotten heavier. His clothes were soaked through with blood, and the mana in his cells was running thin, but his grin was still there.

He checked in with his body. Then he winced. "Okay. I said five minutes." He held up a hand. "But we have already surpassed that time and now it been seven minutes. Please don’t tell anyone."

The two stragglers backed away.

"So, three-minute left." He spread his arms slightly. "That’s plenty."

One of them turned and ran.

"Oh, don’t leave yet," Reinhard called after him. "I’m having fun."

He opened a tear directly in the runner’s path, and Blue Death came out of it. He shot out of the rift like a cannonball, unconscious, fist-first, and slammed face-first into the fleeing assassin at full speed. Both of them went tumbling across the floor.

"Returning your coworker," Reinhard said.

The runner staggered back to his feet, dazed, and Reinhard’s fist caught him from the other side and sent him flying back the way he had come.

Reinhard caught him by the back of the head as he passed, and Ember erupted across his palm, and the flames spread over the man’s body before Reinhard hurled him across the factory, where he rolled and lay smoking.

The final assassin bolted for the exit.

Reinhard Air Dashed after him and crashed into his back, driving him face-first into the floor. The man struggled underneath him, and Reinhard grabbed his head and lifted him clear off the ground.

His face was covered in blood, and his grin was almost cheerful.

"I have some questions."

The assassin trembled in his grip.

Reinhard’s eyes began to glow. "Either you talk..." His gaze locked onto the man’s eyes. "...or I break everything."

Mind Glance activated.