blueteamnovel 859. Tying Loose Ends
859. Tying Loose Ends
859. Tying Loose Ends
Ara had regained consciousness at some point.
But thanks to her experiences in S7, she knew how to approach the situation. Playing dead was one of the first lessons she had learned, and she used it to stab Beethoven. The attack was hardly effective, but he was not prepared for the follow up.
“Get the fuck away from me!”
A giant guitar shaped like a mallet appeared in the air, and she swung it to hammer the bone fragment deeper into his body. The impact threw Beethoven meters away, allowing Ara to roll off the platform as she took to the side of the mutated woman.
The mound of flesh completely concealed her head, so she could not speak, talk nor likely hear what was going on.
Ara attempted to conjure a violin from thin air, but she quickly realized that she was out of mana.
“You think I don’t know who my biological mother is!? Who the fuck are you to know what I think!? And Raoul... What did you do to Raoul to make him betray me!?” Ara was in no position to speak, but she knew that the risk of her being killed was low.
She had overheard enough of their conversation to know that Beethoven needed her. But what she didn’t know was that Raoul had betrayed her on his own accord; a truth that Beethoven refused to answer with.
“Bzzt. Then you are truly the grandson... the granddaughter of the Green Composer. Bzzt. But to think that you can fight so cowardly. Bzzt. It will not matter. Bzzt. You belong to us! Bzzt!”
Beethoven did not allow Ara to gain her bearings. He had wasted too much time. The Red Wing’s warnings were not to be ignored. Spending even a single minute here after sensing the Red Wing’s warning easily meant certain death.
“Bzzt! We’ll take care of you at our stage! Bzzt!”
But he was confident that no one could find them. No one would know what happened here. Beethoven threw himself forward at a speed that Ara could not comprehend. By the time she blinked, his free hand was already inches away from her face.
Beethoven planned to teleport the moment he grabbed her. He preemptively activated the Etched Coin as a result, expecting to take Ara with him. However, he saw a pair of golden eyes appear at the entrance, and before he knew it –
– The arm that reached for Ara disappeared.
“BZZT!? THE AMALGAM!? BZZT!?”
A bullet had carved through the length of his arm, leaving nothing but an explosion of gore. His form disappeared in an instant. The red mist and his echo were the only things that remained.
“Tch. I went for the eyes, but I’m not supposed to kill a friend of my Original.”
A voice belonging to a highly developed Frost nonchalantly uttered, causing a blood-soaked, naked Ara to turn around.
“Frost!?” She cried. “Is... is that you!?”
This was Frost, right? Ara was unsure. Her apparel and her body proportions were completely different from the Frost she knew, but the heart of this Frost was still a piano.
“Yes and no.” The black-haired woman spoke as she approached them.
She reached towards Ara without saying another word. Ara was not one to allow anyone to approach her so easily. The only people she did were her family, extremely close friends, and probably Raoul.
“Healing, right? You should heal this person first.” Ara motioned towards the mutated, old woman. Suddenly, she wore a conflicted expression. “... You should be quick. There’s a lot I want to ask them.”
The Frost, which Ara denoted as the Big Frost due to her chest size that was still not larger than her own, nodded before stomping on the elbows of the woman. She entered a spasming fit before passing out due to the pain.
After her limbs were fully crushed from their sockets, the Hired Arm planted a boot on her back and healed her at once.
Once the captives were meticulously healed, she returned to the old woman and investigated her. Nothing of interest stood out to her. That was until she noticed a strange mark on the back of her right hand.
“A ‘Mark’? I’ve seen this before. If my memory serves me right, then the Taleor will know. She serves as the past version of me. There is a high chance that she will recognize it. Taleor.”
“What? I’m busy making sure the Atelier bastards aren’t secretly Librarians. If it’s important, then speak.”
“There is a woman with a mark on her right hand.” The Hired Arm didn’t even get to describe it yet.
The Taleor immediately responded.
“You have my attention. Which part of the hand bears the mark?”
“Dorsum of the right hand. Majority is located radially. Dead center, if you will.”
“Does it glow?”
The Hired Arm took a closer look. She brushed a thumb over the mark, and immediately, it pulsed with a soft glow.
“It does only upon external contact.”
“Is the bearer alive?”
“Breathing. Stable vitals. The subject is in a pain-induced coma. Non-permanent.”
“What does the mark look like.”
It was impossible to describe it other than it was simply a mark on the old woman’s right hand. Deciphering it would require the Taleor to see it in person. But the longer she looked, the more she noticed how it looked like:
“A constellation of stars.”
There was a long pause that felt like hours.
Eventually, a deep sigh came from the other side.
“Bring her to me as soon as you can.”