...
Jain scratched the back of her neck, a gesture that betrayed a slight embarrassment, despite her usually relaxed demeanor. Boss's words had hit home.
"Ahem!"
She cleared her throat, trying to cover it up.
"We came here to stop Cheok from doing something that could endanger his offspring. So, no lectures, boss."
She hastened to change the focus, pointing out the real reason they were there, before the conversation took a turn where she would be corrected to the core.
"Let's go."
Without further ado, Jain jumped ahead, leaving the black-haired woman behind, who seemed lost in thought, a subtle wrinkle marking her forehead.
"Hey! Your disguise."
Boss's voice cut through the air, causing Jain to stop mid-stride, her brow furrowed in confusion. She turned her face over her shoulder, a shameless smile, but with a touch of irony, playing at the corners of her lips.
"Oh! I forgot to mention... But it was your kid who blew my cover."
"Huh?!"
Boss stopped abruptly, his eyes widening for a second in pure astonishment as he quickly approached to stand beside Jain. The disbelief was evident in his voice.
"He saw through your Gift?"
Jain turned completely toward Boss, the relaxed smile still present, but now with a hint of something else, a mixture of admiration and a twinge of shame.
"It's a little embarrassing to say, but not only did he see through it, he was able to render it useless as well."
The admission came out in a whisper, an acknowledgment of unexpected vulnerability.
For Jain, who had mastered the art of camouflage, having his Gift nullified was almost unheard of and, in a way, humiliating. The embarrassment was evident in his posture, his slightly hunched shoulders, and his gaze, which for a moment averted from Boss's.
It was surprising, to say the least. Boss found himself doubting those words for a few seconds. It had crossed his mind that perhaps this was just another one of Jain's countless jokes, one of her usual pranks. But when he noticed the genuine embarrassment of the woman next to him, the way she scratched the back of her neck, Boss kind of accepted the truth.
"...Did you see how he did that?"
Boss's question was laden with intense curiosity, his mind already working to unravel the mystery behind such a feat.
"Uh! Not really..."
Jain seemed a little thoughtful, her eyes lost in the void as she tried to relive the moment.
"Wait... I saw his eye look a little different when he looked at me."
She paused, as if trying to capture a fleeting memory.
"Different?"
Boss prodded, his voice low, almost a whisper, so as not to break Jain's train of thought.
"Yes. His eyes flashed a little, but it was so quick that I didn't pay much attention to it. And also, when I was about to ask him what he had done, poof! He disappeared with Cheok."
Jain gestured with her hands, illustrating how quickly it all happened.
Boss frowned, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows as he processed the information.
The ability to nullify a Gift as powerful as Jain's—a Gift that didn't just change appearance, but altered the very frequency of magical power, making it nearly impossible for anyone to detect her under such a disguise—was something she had only encountered once in her entire life.
The implication that Theo Sagan possessed such an ability was, at the very least, alarming and at the same time hopeful.
'How did he do that?'
Her mind raced, theories and assumptions coming to her as she tried to understand how he had done it.
'Is it possible that his Gift has some way of directly interfering with other people's magical power'
"Boom!"
A muffled bang echoed in the distance, interrupting Boss's thoughts.
Instinctively, she and Jain exchanged glances, and in less than a second their bodies were already in motion.
After skirting around a few rocks, their light, precise footsteps finally ceased when they saw the scene ahead, in the clearing of fine sand between the woods and the open sea.
Cheok was standing.
Or at least trying to.
His unbalanced posture, trembling knees, and heaving chest showed that the effort to remain upright was a losing battle.
Blood dripped from his mouth and nose in dark streaks that already stained part of his chin. His shirt was completely gone, perhaps torn, revealing a torso covered in scratches, bruises, and superficial cuts.
But the worst was his arm.
His left arm hung at a grotesque angle, bent where there should be no joint. His fingers were still clenched into a poorly formed fist, trembling but clearly determined not to let go of something.
The sand around his feet seemed to vibrate, as if the earth itself rejected the presence of that unbalanced body. Small stones trembled, and the air around his torso rippled with the heat of red energy escaping from him like boiling blood vapor.
Jain swallowed hard.
"...Shit."
Boss remained silent, paying little attention to Cheok... His black eyes were searching for someone else.
The beach wind blew through their hair, but the smell of salt had been overpowered by something metallic.
"He's about to lose his mind, isn't he?"
Jain muttered, his eyes still fixed on the image of Cheok.
"No."
Boss replied, dismissing Jain's thoughts.
"But he's one step away from it."
The red aura around him flickered like flames in a vacuum, expanding and contracting in an unstable pulse.
"There's only one reason he's like this. That boy must be very strong."
Jain commented, pressing his forehead. Dealing with Cheok when he lost control of his rationality was truly a pain; it was like dealing with a monster with the instincts of a wild beast and completely obsessed with fighting.
"Jain! Go help Theo. I'll take care of him."
Boss pointed with a quick gesture to a set of boulders ahead, where fresh marks in the sand formed an irregular, deep trail, as if something, or someone, had been violently thrown in that direction.
"There. He must be there."
Boss said, pointing.
"Leave it to me... Uh!?"
As Jain was preparing to run, the ground beneath his feet shook.
Boss and Jain narrowed their eyes.
Jain froze in place, his instincts heightened. And then...
"Clack!"
A loud crack tore through the air, and rocks, heavy blocks, some the size of a cart, were thrown into the air as if they were nothing more than sticks. Jain instinctively protected himself with his arms, while Boss steadied his body, his eyes fixed on the point of origin of the explosion.
The rocks fell into the nearby sea with a thunderous impact, raising columns of water and startling a flock of birds that took flight in synchronized chaos.
When the dust finally began to settle, the two could see Theo, standing in the afternoon glow that was fading on the horizon.
Standing among the wreckage, the boy slowly emerged, walking toward the beach as if nothing had happened. His shirt was torn at the shoulder, but other than that, his body remained intact. His clean skin contrasted sharply with Cheok's deplorable state.
Theo looked toward Jain and Boss, his gaze lingering a little longer on the black-haired woman before turning to the brute.
He stretched out his arm, adjusting the torn sleeve, and said loudly, with a hint of irony:
"Hey! That was my favorite shirt, big guy..."
The silence that followed was as heavy as the previous crack.
Jain was speechless for a second, her eyes going from Theo to Cheok and back again. The difference was striking.
One looked like he had just come out of a war, the other like he had just been for a walk on the beach.
Jain broke the heavy silence with her relaxed voice, laden with irony and amazement:
"Wow... You're something else, huh? Now I understand why the Boss has her eye on you."
With a broad, carefree smile, as if there weren't a bloodied brute a few feet away, she approached Theo and, in an unexpectedly light gesture, put her arm around the boy's neck, pulling him aside as if they were old friends who had just finished a game of cards.
"What was that, huh, kid? Has the world changed so much that I see a first-year Cube cadet beating up a high-level hero in broad daylight?"
Theo let out a short, awkward laugh and raised an eyebrow, still caught in Jain's improvised embrace.
"Hey, it wasn't a beating. He gave me a hard time."
"Oh, sure!"
Jain rolled her eyes with a mocking smile.
"It was the ground that fell out from under his feet, right?"
"Thud!"
As if to prove her point, Cheok fell face-first onto the ground. The impact of his heavy body against the damp sand elicited a muffled sound from the ground.
"Pehehe! I think I got it right."
...