--This Chapter is written from Erik’s POV--

I was confident in my ability to kill the invaders regardless of Maya’s interference, but the presence of the Witch of Narrations completely changed that equation.

Even under the best of circumstances, such a variable required my full attention.

Piper: "Hmph. Destroying the console was too far, but... Good job, Maya."

Her experience with desolate crises showed instantly. A single glimpse was all she needed to understand the situation and the culprit behind it all.

After scrubbing Maya’s head with her knuckles, the Witch of Narrations stepped forward. Her sharp eyes fixated on me as she furrowed her eyebrows with silent rage.

Several cartoonish clouds puffed into existence around her, each revealing an equally cartoonish object that floated mid-air as she geared up.

In response, I allocated all of my mana output to reinforce my body, pulling back my arm to counterattack whatever may come.

Maya: "You must understand what this means, right? You can’t win here, Erik. So please-"

What precise wording.

Yes, with this one move, Maya had completely reversed the hopeless scenario that her brother had created.

What should have been undoubtedly a devastating defeat for him had turned into a life-threatening proposition for me.

The moment I failed to kill the women, or Maya herself, any measure of victory had slipped through my hands.

A beautiful maneuver, truly.

Her ability to read the board, as well as to control and position even the pieces she didn’t own, remained unmatched.

However, even her miracles couldn’t completely fix this situation.

Her strategy, interesting as it was, had a few crucial flaws.

The most obvious was that she revealed a reliable way to exploit Piper’s recklessness.

Her role as the final guardian of the old system had always been flimsy at best, but knowing I could so easily move this wall made her much less of a threat than I initially assessed.

Furthermore...

Erik: "Ever since you declared war on the government, you’ve become as much of a terrorist as I... Who’s to say the Witch of Narrations won’t target you, as well?"

Their words made it explicit that Maya had to attack Alpha Team’s base for Piper to chase her.

That alone would warrant an arrest.

Though it’d be naive to think that such a scenario would come to pass, as neither seemed at odds with the other. At least, not more than superficially.

Still, it’d be worthwhile to measure her resolve, and to do so, I needed to hear it from the source herself.

Without wasting a second, Piper Williams answered my question.

Piper: "She might be the most annoying brat in the world, but she’s my annoying brat. If any old geezer tells me to hurt her, I’m ending their career the traditional way. Roman-style."

Emotion over reason.

The same flaw that plagued the family extended to those around them.

Erik: "I see. Does that apply to her brother, as well? What about them?"

Piper: "You bet your ass."

She didn’t flinch, even for an instant.

Good.

As long as these words were true, she would value the siblings’ safety above all else, making her predictable.

My preparations for her weren’t complete yet, but the more I learned about her, the greater their chances of success became.

Piper: "I don’t like those eyes. Just come with me quietly, will you?"

Even though there shouldn’t be any noticeable change in my expression, she seemed to recognize my intentions with something akin to a sixth sense.

The Witch of Narrations equipped the last of her items, a pink magic wand that drew mysterious shapes with its sparkly trail.

Squishy noises rang from the star-shaped tip of the wand as its glow intensified.

Despite its childish exterior, I’d be remiss not to notice the increasing heat that set the ground around us ablaze.

But once the light surrounding the tip hid the star, Maya grabbed Piper’s arm and pulled it aside, diverting the pink magic beam into the concrete.

Maya: "Ah, wait, Pip! That’s not gonna work!"

Piper: "Have you lost your mind, Maya!?"

Quite the contrary.

She was thinking one step ahead.

Maya: "Sorry, Pip. I can’t let you kill him, either."

...Oh?

Interesting.

Piper Williams seemed to have misinterpreted her role in this battle.

While it was true that her presence rendered me unable to kill the defeated women surrounding us, it wasn’t a true reverse of the dynamic between Maya and me.

If the Witch of Narrations and I were to clash, the unconscious girls would have no hope of survival.

Despite using all of her cards, Maya’s strategy only amounted to mutually assured destruction.

Initially, I believed Maya wouldn’t be so oblivious as to misinterpret this standstill, but her last words suggested otherwise.

Even if she was aware, there seemed to be another reason that even I hadn’t realized.

Piper: "...Is that so?"

While I thought about what may lie beyond Maya’s reasoning, the Witch’s eyes began to glow.

Their green light pierced the darkness cast by her spaceship’s shadow, as her forced smile increased the intimidating aura she emanated.

Maya, already smaller than Piper, looked like a little kid being scolded by their parent.

And yet, she stood defiantly, raising her chin to meet Piper’s eyes.

Maya: "I’m not scared of you, Pip."

She spoke firmly, with the same cold composure she always shows when treating me seriously.

A moment passed as the two faced each other in silence, testing how stubborn the other could be.

Piper: "Oh?"

Her defiance, while fierce, noticeably crumbled with each step the Witch took towards her.

Before admitting her fear, Maya’s eyes seemed to fill with tears, which she had to turn away to hide.

Maya: "W-Well... Maybe I’m still a little scared of you. But... I’m not backing down, Pip."

She had effectively lost the same battle twice in one second.

Still, Maya was a sore loser.

She refused to look at Piper again, pretending to be angry.

An emotion I wasn’t aware she possessed, as even after everything I’ve done, she had yet to show me an ounce of it.

The glow faded from the Witch’s eyes as she let out a long, exasperated sigh.

Piper: "Hmph. You’re lucky you’re so cute."

Seemingly regretting her actions and wishing to make peace, Piper approached her further.

Her hands almost reached Maya’s shoulder, but a magnetic force seemed to draw them towards her cheeks.

She joyfully pinched them, completely forgetting she had meant to console Maya.

Without much available information about the Witch of Narrations and her personality, I was forced to watch and study the trivial play before my eyes.

Maya: "A-Ahem..."

Despite her initial protests, she seemed to enjoy the interaction.

Though she tried her best to mask her satisfaction, she couldn’t contain the rebellious smile that slipped through her lips.

Erik: "...What’s your next move, Maya?"

Even after analyzing all of her movements so far, the only pattern I recognized was unpredictability.

Her limitations, like the lack of any remaining pieces available for her to use, only fueled my intrigue.

It bothered me how much I looked forward to her next move.

Maya: "...I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. I know you hate wasting time, so... Can’t you take this for what it is? You can go home with the others. Piper will take the girls home. And I’ve already taken Ceres anyway, so... No one loses?"

"Hoping".

She really liked that word.

Any other person would use it as an excuse, as a way to justify not acting.

But not Maya.

She hoped for what she had worked for.

She made it a humble wish that reality had no choice but to grant.

A natural outcome that brought me immense satisfaction to deny.

Erik: "Give me Ceres back, and you have yourself a deal."

I pulled the red-haired swordswoman from the ground, holding her by the neck.

The expression on Maya’s face turned to disappointment as Piper began charging her wand again.

Maya: "Why do you want her back? You were going to kill her anyway."

So Red Mask had told her.

Interesting.

In that case, maybe her objective had been to capture Ceres using her brother’s attack as a distraction?

No, that couldn’t be the case. Bringing Piper Williams in advance proved this was a strategy designed specifically to counter me.

I shouldn’t allow ego to obscure the truth. She was a step ahead of her brother and me, using us both to achieve multiple goals at once.

Erik: "Why do you want her, then? You should already have all the confidential information you could wish for."

Maya stopped for a second, turning her head in several different directions as if searching for something.

Her shoulders lowered with dejection, and she closed her eyes, letting out a long exhale before finally answering me.

Maya: "We both know that’s not true, but... It doesn’t matter now. He’s already here..."

A deafening roar shook the nearby buildings, shattering their windows as metallic fragments from Piper’s spaceship crashed to the ground, along with glass and concrete.

Maya: "Before we end this, I want to hear something from you, Erik. Don’t you think you’ve gone too far? Using civilians, prisoners, and even your own soldiers in those inhumane ammo factories... Is this how you believe we should move forward?"

Ever since her brother and the Witch of Narrations destroyed one of the factories, I worked under the assumption that the government and thus, the Aegis, already knew everything there was to know about them.

Though it seems they were unaware of the scope of our production, given how easily they fell prey to blood bullets that inflicted status like [Packet Loss] and [Enforced Timeout].

Erik: "What do you take me for, Maya? Once I take over the country, I can work towards integrating the crystal and blood bullets. With the growth of the Gifted skills and the infrastructure, a once-a-year blood donation will be enough to maintain supply."

The AOTG has always been pro-Gifts.

Once that is achieved, these alternatives will become just that. Secondary weapons to ensure Earth will never lose a Divine Event again.

Maya: "I see... I still don’t like your answer, but... It just means I’ll have to work harder."

As she spoke those words, Piper’s spaceship split in half.

The sunlight briefly illuminated Maya, and Maya alone.

Quite an angelic sight.

However, with a massive dragon spearheading into the ground, any thought of the divine felt misplaced.

Piper: "Oh, that was so cool, I’m not even mad you destroyed the Starblazer!"

Though she waited a second to register the "cool" imagery of the city-sized spaceship exploding in ice and flames, Piper undid her summoning before it could crash-land.

Because of her actions, Maya scrambled flimsy barriers of solid light to protect the women from the falling debris, including the red-haired girl I had in my hands.

At the same time, once the sky was fully cleared, one figure jumped out of the blueish dragon.

He carried an old man by the collar, and a small woman wrapped around his shoulder.

Maya: "Miwen!"

Miwen: "Sis..."

A slight smile appeared on his face when looking at his sister, but he couldn’t keep it for long.

His eyes only briefly landed on each of the fallen women before they settled on me.

The depths of his stare were nothing like that of Maya.

If her green reflected a vast grassfield, his amber reflected a darkening abyss.

For a moment, I felt inclined to believe what everyone seemed to repeat about him being worse than her.

Once the wolf-girl I had thrown to another city jumped out of the back of the dragon, I prepared myself for another fight, but...

He seemed to have taken a note from his sister’s book.

Instead of a brawl, he came prepared to force my hand.

If not for his sister, he would never have had the chance.

Alas, it was the correct choice.