46. Mysteries Abound (Part 8)

Raymond exhaled through his nose, steadying his rifle once more. Then came the words that Jaune didn't want to hear.

"I'll buy you time."

Jaune's eyes widened. "Wait—what?"

"That weird rune of his is probably area-based," Raymond said, calm and focused. "So if you can get far enough, the effect will drop. That's your best shot to exit."

Jaune's pulse spiked.

"What about you—?"

"Run. Now."

The command cut through him. No panic. Just conviction.

Jaune hesitated, his throat closing up with a million things he wanted to say—but then realized Raymond's back was still turned. He couldn't see the nod Jaune had instinctively given. Couldn't see the panic that was growing in Jaune's eyes.

"I—Raymond, I—"

Hi rifle fired.

The sharp bark of gunfire drowned out his words. Muzzle flashes lit the broken street. The skull-masked assassin moved without hesitation—dodging the bullets like he'd memorized their trajectories before they were fired. He weaved between them with sickening grace, then spun his spear, deflecting the final few with mechanical precision. Sparks sprayed off the weapon's shaft like molten teeth.

That was all Jaune needed.

He turned and ran.

Every muscle in his legs screamed, but he ran anyway. The ruined pavement shifted beneath his shoes—slick with ash and cracked with decay. His breath tore from his lungs in uneven bursts. His heart felt like it might split open from sheer terror. He could barely even think.

Then the force hit him.

A gust of compressed air slammed into him like a cannon blast. He hadn't even heard the shot. He just felt the force ripple through the air—an aftershock from another collision behind him.

The ground vanished beneath his feet. Jaune was flung like a doll, rolling across the jagged street until his shoulder caught the edge of a torn curb. Pain flared down his side. His helmet cracked on something sharp.

But he forced himself up even as his ears rang. He staggered forwards, even with his vision swimming and still managed to keep moving forward. Away.

Away from the fight.

That was the only direction that mattered!

'Keep going. Just keep going. Get out of range—!' Jaune's mind screamed to his body.

Another clash occurred from behind him. The street cracked apart again. The skull-helmed man was trying to advance. Trying to get around Raymond Red.

Trying to get to him.

Jaune felt it like he could physically feel gravity add more pressure onto his body, like the weight of that man's predatory stare was literally crawling up his spine and slowing him down. It was primal. Almost ancient in nature. A feeling you didn't have to learn—just recognize.

He was being hunted.

And it went even beyond that. There was clearly something magical at play here. That feeling of pressure was the same as when he had first met Raymond.

In any case, whatever it was... the only reason he wasn't already dead… was because Raymond kept intercepting.

Again and again and again.

Each time the assassin made a move toward Jaune, he was already there—blocking, deflecting, countering with clean, brutal swipes of his glowing blade. Even when the assassin blurred forward, fast enough to leave afterimages—Raymond met him head-on.

Keeping the nightmare in human form from reaching its prey.

Jaune's legs burned and even his lungs screamed. But the guilt burned hotter than either.

Because Raymond wasn't fighting to win against the man.

He was fighting to protect him.

And Jaune knew—if Raymond made even one mistake, if Jaune hesitated even one second—

They were both going to die.

The chaos behind him had driven Jaune farther than he had realized.

In the midst of fleeing, dodging, and surviving, he'd been pushed away from the edge of the cracked city streets—away from the cracked buildings and into a different ruin entirely. And now, as he sprinted, lungs burning, he recognized where he was headed.

The mist.

That gray, still-shifting fog he'd first seen a while ago. The same unnatural shroud that had hovered near the gas station at the start of all this.

The battle with the Ursa had moved his location away from it.

And now, the battle between the two monsters behind him had forced him back in its direction—closer and closer, until the cold weight of its unnatural presence returned like a stone in his chest.

His instincts screamed to avoid it but before he could, another scream cut through the air first.

"Look out!"

Jaune spun.

A car—an actual rusted-out four-door car—was flying toward him, tumbling in a slow-motion arc through the air. It had been launched by sheer force, flung like debris from a cataclysmic punch. Jaune didn't think. How could he, when he could barely react?

Instinct guided him and Jaune dropped low, low as he could and slid under it, performing his now patented baseball slide. His sword scraped sparks across the cracked street.

The car soared past him and smashed into the road ahead of him with an earsplitting crunch. Jaune scrambled back upright and kept moving. Ten meters away from the mist now.

Then—a blur shot towards him and a gust of wind blasted past his face. Something grabbed him. Firmly and strongly.

Raymond.

One arm locked tightly around Jaune's waist, and the other was already slicing through another wave of bullet-cannon-fire. The glowing saber once again blurred in his grip—cutting through giant ammunition like a hot knife through butter. Sparks flew and shrapnel spun off in many different directions.

Then, suddenly they were airborne.

Jaune's body was flung upward, legs dangling uselessly beneath him as Raymond leapt with terrifying force. His limbs flopped, spine jolting from the sheer acceleration. His head snapped back and he nearly lost his grip on everything—except the sword that he clutched with a white-knuckled grip in his hands.

His bat, however, was gone. It spiraled downward, forgotten on the cracked and ruined street below.

They landed on a ledge near the bottom of an abandoned five-story building. Raymond's feet skidded across the half-collapsed flooring before he suddenly pivoted, and kicked off again, running vertically up the building. Jaune wasn't sure when the man had gained enough speed to defy gravity—but his boots cracked broken concrete like metal would on glass.

The wind howled past them and massive bullets screamed at them from below.

Raymond blurred to the side, dodging again, a twisting motion that made Jaune's stomach lurch. Then he jumped one last time, sending them both airborne once more—up and over the rooftop.

They landed hard.

Raymond skidded, then shoved Jaune to the side but not too roughly, like one might do with a stubborn backpack that kept getting in the way.

Jaune dropped to his knees, gasping. Raymond didn't look at him.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he snapped.

Jaune blinked, still disoriented. "W-what?"

"You ran toward a Nightmare without backup. Solo. With jack shit points in any of your stats and no rune skills. Are you trying to die?!"

Jaune's brain finally caught up to the words.

"I—what do you mean, Nightmare? I wasn't trying to—!"

Raymond cut him off with a scoff. "Right. Forgot. You're a weird edge case—manifested at sixteen, slipped past the Relic grid. Don't even have the basics drilled in."

He muttered something under his breath about broken systems and negligent management. Then—

Crunch.

The sound of boots echoed behind them. They were heavy and deliberate, announcing their presence to the duo.

They both turned and saw that the skull-helmed man had reached the roof.

His coat billowed in the breeze, torn edges fluttering like cinders in the wind. The red glow behind his mask's eye sockets pulsed as he approached—but he didn't attack.

Not yet, at least. He just stood there, watching them. That same eerie calm in his stance and that same arrogant, unreadable posture.

Jaune stumbled to his feet and his sword trembled in his hand.

But he raised it anyway. Like it would help.

The skull-faced man paused—then laughed.

A low, derisive noise that dripped with contempt. The red in his mask seemed like it pulsed brighter, like his eyes behind them were narrowing.

"Oh, this is rich!" he rasped, voice echoing like metal scraping against teeth. "You really think that's going to help? A rank 0 like you? What a courageous fool you are!"

He tilted his head slightly. Watching Jaune with amusement. Mocking him. And in that moment, Jaune felt more powerless than he ever had before.

Small. Outmatched.

Like a breeze trying to threaten a hurricane.

And worst of all—

Raymond had dragged him all the way up here to keep him alive.

And now he was going to have to fight this monster… while still trying to protect him.

Jaune's hands clenched around his sword. They felt weak. Too useless. Too small.

They kept trembling but his hands still kept the weapon raised towards that unknown enemy, with a forced conviction that felt hollow.

The man across from them didn't move. Just watching his actions—amused. Like a wolf watching a sheep stumble and bleat.

"I can't do anything…" Jaune muttered, voice hollow. "He's going to kill me..."

Raymond didn't turn to face him. But his voice came steady, low.

"Listen, kid," he said. "I know you're afraid. But you shouldn't listen to the words of an enemy. Courage isn't simply about not being afraid. That's just ignorance."

He shifted his stance slightly, eyes still locked on their enemy.

"Courage—bravery is knowing you're outmatched—and raising your sword anyway. That is a mindset that not everyone in this world has. It is innate. Not something that can be learnt."

Jaune's eyelids trembled as he blinked.

Raymond finally glanced back over his shoulder. There was no disappointment in his face. Only calm—and something else behind his eyes. Calculation.

"You're not weak because you're scared," he said. "And you most certainly, are not weak for being ignorant. It's not your fault you were thrown into this without a guide. What matters however, is that you're still standing. And that means something. You will not die today, Jaune Arc. I promise you."

Jaune didn't know what to say. The words should've comforted him but they didn't. Not really. How could they when he was witnessing abilities that defied human comprehension? How could he calm down when two superhuman beasts were duking it out like comic book heroes?! Jaune could scarcely even believe what he was seeing...

However, something about the way Raymond said those words—

The rhythm. The pacing. The emphasis—

He had a plan.

Across from them, the skull-masked man tilted his head.

"Aww," he rasped. "That's cute. Like watching a soldier give his final words to his protégé."

He chuckled again, low and cold. Then added with mock gravitas: "Almost touching, really."

Raymond's posture didn't change. But Jaune saw something, a tightness around his shoulders. Readiness.

Then the unknown man's tone shifted and his laughter faded.

"Well," he said. "If you're done with the sweet talks and the warm-up—how about we fight for real now, Raymond Red?"

That did it. Raymond exhaled slowly. Then rolled his neck once, bones cracking.

Suddenly, he moved.

In an instant he blurred forwards—but not towards the enemy, towards Jaune.

Jaune didn't even have time to react, let alone understand, what flashed across his eyes.

A red glow lit up on Raymond's wristband. The red rune that was embedded there, lit up like a flare in the bloody night.

Then, in a movement that Jaune didn't understand, rune pulled away, as if being peeled from the band. The light flowed and somehow... infused itself into Raymond's body. An invisible heat rippled off of him, leaving cracks on the roof under his boots. Jaune could even see miniscule fragments of debris floating in the air from the pressure rising from him.

The wristband that had been on Raymond's arm suddenly shifted, like it had a mind of its own and clamped down around Jaune's arm.

"What—?"

Before he could say anything, the last rune, the blue one on the band, pulsed. Then it vanished in a flare of light. Immediately after, a glowing bubble of shimmering energy erupted around Jaune, enclosing him in a protective sphere.

Raymond's wristband, now empty and cracked, crumbled into ash.

Gone.

The enemy reacted. His skull-helmed face twitched—from amusement to surprise. Surprise to solemnness. And solemnness to panic.

He moved—a blur of black and crimson, gun-cannon reconfiguring into a spear—

But Raymond was already ahead of him.

In a motion that felt like it bent time, he pressed his palm, almost softly, gently, against the blue shield surrounding Jaune.

The red energy that had suffused his body exploded outward.

BOOM.

A thunderclap echoed across the rooftop.

Jaune didn't even register the movement until his body and the sphere surrounding him had already left the ground.

He was launched—fired like a projectile from a gun. The blue bubble around him shielded him from both whiplash and wind shear. The air split apart around him and even the sky seemed to blur.

A single, time-shattering second later, he saw it.

Raymond Red, standing firm. His hand still outstretched. And the enemy's spear—piercing through his back.

The tip of the weapon jutted out through Raymond's chest.

Blood followed. Dark and thick. In slow-motion.

But Raymond didn't flinch.

His eyes—Jaune saw them clearly in that final instant—were calm.

Relieved.

The rooftop vanished behind Jaune as he rocketed backward over the broken city. Buildings, signs, debris—all blurred into streaks of color. His ears rang. His hands were frozen. His mind barely functioned.

He couldn't scream.

Couldn't cry.

The bubble around him hummed louder, energy reaching its limit—

.

[DREAM AUTHORITY EXIT: AVAILABLE]

.

The system prompt echoed in his mind.

Mechanically, instinctively—he confirmed.

.

[Exit Confirmed.]

.

And the world shattered.

The gray skies. The cracked rooftops. The ruin and blood-red moon. The weird mist—all fell away like paper set aflame.

And Jaune gasped, lurching upright. His ceiling greeted him. The familiar, ordinary ceiling of his home in Ansel.

Still and clean. Unmarred

He was in bed, still wearing his ridiculous outfit.

He was alive.

But his pulse was still racing—and his heart hadn't caught up to the truth yet.

Raymond Red…

Was still in that dream.

And Jaune didn't even know if he was alive.

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I loved writing this arc so much! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Advanced chapters are available on patreon.com/TheFirstFire.