Chapter 299: There You Are, My Prey

Location: Yuno City

Place: Street Road

The last echoes of the roar gradually disappeared across Yuno City, leaving the ruined street submerged in an unnatural silence. Most of the surrounding buildings had gone completely dark after the electrical network failed, while only a single damaged streetlight continued flickering weakly above the road.

Yuuta barely noticed any of it.

"...Erza."

His crimson eyes remained fixed toward the distant coastline. There was no doubt in his mind anymore. The roar had been impossibly powerful, distorted into something monstrous enough to shake the entire city, but Yuuta still recognized what existed underneath all that power.

It’s Erza.

There was no way he could mistake her voice.

His heart immediately began beating faster.

"I have to move."

While Yuuta reached for Elena, the Shadow Corps were still dealing with a completely different problem. Several soldiers repeatedly attempted to reconnect their communication devices, only to receive static or complete silence.

"Captain Raven, we’ve lost the Command Sector."

"Here too."

"Secondary channel isn’t responding either."

Raven touched the communicator near her ear.

"Command Sector, this is Shadow Raven. Respond."

Nothing.

She switched channels.

"Chief, do you copy?"

Again, there was no response.

The roar appeared to have disrupted far more than the electricity around them. With Yuno City’s damaged infrastructure failing and their direct connection to headquarters suddenly gone, the Shadow Corps had temporarily been cut off from central command.

"Damn it..."

Raven lowered her hand.

Then something else caught her attention.

Yuuta and Elena.

The street was almost completely dark now. Even Raven’s soldiers were relying on their trained senses and equipment to properly observe their surroundings, yet Yuuta seemed to have no difficulty looking around.

Neither did Elena.

Their crimson eyes reflected strangely in the darkness.

Raven became completely still.

She had noticed Elena’s red eyes earlier, but beneath the darkness they looked different. Both father and daughter possessed the same faint reflective glow, almost like the eyes of a nocturnal predator catching what little light remained.

What exactly are these two?

Raven watched Yuuta lift Elena into his arms without fumbling even once in the darkness.

It wasn’t only his eyes that bothered her.

Ever since arriving, her instincts had been reacting strangely whenever she focused too closely on him. Yuuta looked human. He smelled human. He had been injured like a human and nearly killed by a demon that Raven herself wouldn’t consider particularly exceptional.

Yet something inside her continuously whispered the same warning.

Don’t get too close.

It made no sense.

Then Raven remembered the dark-green aura.

For one brief moment, when that power had erupted from Yuuta, something inside Raven had reacted as though it recognized it. She still couldn’t explain the disturbing sensation that the power she herself possessed somehow belonged more naturally to the bleeding human below her.

Is this why Chief Sara specifically sent me here?

Before Raven could think further, Yuuta approached her with Elena held securely against his chest.

"Miss."

Raven turned.

Yuuta gave her a small, grateful bow of his head.

"Thank you for everything you’ve done for us." His voice was still exhausted, but there was urgency behind every word. "I think this is where we have to say goodbye."

Raven blinked.

"What?"

Yuuta had already started walking.

Not deeper into Yuno City.

Toward Davenport.

Raven’s eyes widened as she realized his intention.

"Wait! Sir!"

Yuuta continued forward.

Raven immediately moved.

Her figure disappeared from beside the Shadow Corps and reappeared several meters ahead, directly in Yuuta’s path. Yuuta stopped abruptly and tightened his hold around Elena.

"Sir, please wait."

Yuuta frowned.

"Miss, what’s wrong?"

"You can’t go that way."

Yuuta stared at her for a moment, apparently believing he had misunderstood.

"What do you mean I can’t?"

Raven remained firmly between him and the road ahead.

"I mean I cannot allow you to continue toward Davenport."

Yuuta’s expression changed.

"Ma’am, I appreciate everything you’ve done. You saved Elena, your people treated my injuries, and I genuinely don’t know how I can repay any of you."

He shifted Elena slightly higher against his chest before looking past Raven toward the distant coastline.

"But this is urgent. Please move."

Raven didn’t.

"Sir, Davenport is currently an active combat zone."

"I know."

"No." Raven’s voice became firmer. "I don’t think you understand. Something powerful enough to produce that roar is fighting near the coastline. We don’t know how much of Davenport is still secure, we have lost contact with headquarters, and you are carrying a child."

Yuuta’s jaw tightened.

None of that changed his answer.

"My wife is there," Yuuta said.

Raven remained in front of him, showing no intention of allowing him to pass. "Yes, sir. I know your wife."

Yuuta stared at her in disbelief. For a moment, even his urgency to reach Davenport was forgotten. "What? You know my wife?"

"Yes." Raven nodded beneath her crow mask. "Your wife is the Supreme Commander leading our forces during this invasion."

"Supreme Commander... Erza?" Yuuta whispered.

He knew Erza had hidden countless things from him, but discovering that she had been leading an entire organization without ever mentioning it was something Yuuta never could have imagined.

the very organization that had just rescued him still caught him completely off guard.

Elena raised her head from his chest and happily joined the conversation.

"Yes, Papa! Human Aunty knows Mama!"

Yuuta looked down at her.

"Human Aunty?"

Elena nodded as though there were absolutely nothing strange about the name, while Raven wisely chose not to explain how she’d ended up receiving it.

Instead, Raven stepped forward and lowered herself onto one knee.

"Then allow me to properly introduce myself, sir. My name is Captain Raven of the Shadow Corps. I was assigned to locate and protect you until this demon invasion is brought under control."

Yuuta stared at her for several seconds before a weak laugh suddenly escaped him.

The unexpected reaction made Raven raise her head, but Yuuta quickly shook his own.

"Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to startle you." A tired smile remained on his face as he glanced toward Davenport again.

"I just found it surprising that Erza hid something like this from me too."

There was a little sadness behind those words, but Yuuta didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. After everything Isvarn had told him, there were already too many things he wished he had understood about Erza sooner. Finding out that she was somehow the Supreme Commander of this invasion only added another question to a very long list.

Strangely, though, he didn’t feel surprised anymore. After everything he had learned today, another secret surrounding his wife almost felt expected.

"But I still have to go there," Yuuta said, his expression becoming serious again.

"No matter what."

Raven immediately stood.

"Sir, Davenport is still extremely dangerous. My orders were to protect you and your daughter, and I cannot knowingly allow both of you to walk toward an active battlefield."

"You don’t need to do that," Yuuta said.

"No, sir. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go." Raven’s voice remained firm despite the concern in his expression. "I can see the exhaustion in your eyes. Even your lips have lost their color. Sir, please... let us do our work."

Yuuta’s frustration finally began to show.

He had spent the entire day searching for Erza, fought demons he hadn’t even known existed until tonight, nearly died protecting Elena, and now that he finally knew where his wife was, someone was once again telling him he couldn’t reach her.

"I’m not that weak," Yuuta said, his fist tightening at his side.

He glanced toward the bodies of the demons scattered across the ruined street before looking back at Raven.

"Can’t you see? I killed those demons lying over there."

Raven followed his gaze toward the street, and almost at that exact moment, electricity began returning to the surrounding area.

One streetlight flickered, then another, gradually pushing away the darkness that had covered the road after Erza’s roar.

The returning light finally allowed Raven to properly examine the battlefield.

Her eyes moved across the dead Poison Demons before shifting toward the remains of the seventeen Agency officers nearby.

Until now, Raven had assumed the obvious explanation: the Agency personnel had fought the demons, managed to kill several of them, and ultimately died from the poison themselves.

She hadn’t questioned it because Yuuta had been in such terrible condition when the Shadow Corps arrived that the idea of him defeating this many demons alone had never seemed reasonable.

But now that she actually studied the scene, that explanation began falling apart.

The officers had died together near their defensive position, while the demons were scattered farther along the street. Several had clearly suffered from their own poison, and Raven remembered the enormous contaminated area they had encountered upon arriving. More importantly, she remembered Yuuta standing there with a broken wooden stick, both shoulders ruined and his aura almost completely exhausted.

Her attention slowly returned to him.

He really killed them...

Yuuta could see the realization in the way Raven looked at him.

"Tonight was the first time I’ve ever seen a demon. I didn’t even know what those things were when they started chasing us." His voice remained urgent, but he wasn’t shouting at her.

"I was scared, and I nearly died, but I still fought them because Elena was behind me and I couldn’t run anymore."

He looked toward the corpses for only a moment before returning his attention to Raven.

"So please don’t stop me now. You don’t know what happened between me and my wife, and you don’t know what I said to her before she left."

Yuuta’s fingers tightened slightly around Elena as the memory returned, but this time he refused to stand there drowning in regret.

Erza was somewhere beyond Davenport, and for the first time all day, he actually knew where to find her.

"I can’t leave things between us like this any longer."

Yuuta looked directly at Raven, his crimson eyes carrying a determination that made it clear he wasn’t going to change his mind simply because she ordered him to.

"So please, ma’am. Move."

Raven didn’t answer immediately.

She had been trained to recognize hesitation, fear and desperation in people, especially during situations like this, but what she saw in Yuuta’s eyes wasn’t reckless panic.

This was a man who had already decided where he needed to go, and Raven had the uncomfortable feeling that even if the entire Shadow Corps stood in his way, he would simply keep arguing until he found another route toward Davenport.

She released a quiet sigh.

"I understand, sir. I won’t stop you."

Yuuta blinked, genuinely caught off guard by how quickly her answer changed.

"Really?"

"However," Raven continued before he could become too relieved,

"I have one condition. Allow the Shadow Corps to accompany you. We will escort you to Davenport and protect both you and your daughter along the way. I cannot allow either of you to be placed in any more danger than necessary."

Yuuta glanced at the masked soldiers surrounding them.

He wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of being escorted by people he barely knew, especially after everything that had happened tonight, But arguing would only waste more time, and right now there was only one thing that mattered to him.

Reaching Erza.

"Okay." Yuuta nodded. "I understand."

"Thank you, sir." Raven touched the communicator near her ear. "Please give me a moment. I need to inform my superior before we move."

Yuuta nodded again and adjusted Elena in his arms while Raven stepped aside. She tried the Command Sector once more, but the first attempt returned nothing except broken static. The second failed as well. Raven frowned and changed frequencies, waiting several seconds before suddenly hearing the connection establish.

"Chief, Captain Raven reporting."

Sara’s voice finally came through from the other side.

"Go ahead, Raven."

"We located the targets. The Supreme Commander’s husband and daughter have both been safely rescued."

There was a short pause before Sara answered, and Raven could hear the relief hidden beneath her professional tone.

"I see. Good work. Keep both of them under protection and escort them to the nearest secured Agency base. Don’t separate the child from her father."

Raven glanced toward Yuuta.

He was already looking toward Davenport.

"Chief... I don’t think that’s going to be possible."

Sara’s response came immediately. "What do you mean?"

"Her husband is refusing evacuation."

"Why?"

Raven hesitated for only a moment before answering. "He wants to go to Davenport."

"What?!"

The sudden shout was loud enough that Raven instinctively pulled the communicator slightly away from her ear.

"Yes, Chief. He..."

KRRRZZZT....

The connection broke apart.

Raven stopped speaking as violent static erupted from the communicator. She tapped it once and tried changing channels, but before she could call Sara again, the damaged streetlights above them began flickering.

Once.

Twice.

Then repeatedly.

The Shadow Corps noticed it almost simultaneously. Several soldiers turned away from Yuuta and spread across the street, their earlier conversation forgotten as their hands moved toward their weapons. Raven slowly lowered her communicator, watching the lights pulse strangely over the ruined road.

Then someone spoke.

"No..."

The voice was weak and trembling.

Raven’s head turned.

Poison Warden Vezrath was still alive.

The demon remained where Yuuta’s punch had thrown him earlier, his battered body slumped beside the heavily dented car. Until now, Raven had paid him little attention because he was in no condition to fight, but something had changed. Vezrath had lifted his head and was staring past the Shadow Corps into the darkness farther down the street.

Fear covered his face.

"No... it can’t be..."

Raven’s eyes narrowed.

This demon had endured Yuuta’s attack, watched his entire group die and then been surrounded by the Shadow Corps without showing anything resembling this kind of terror.

Yet now he was trembling.

Elena noticed the sudden tension too. Her small hands tightened around Yuuta’s shirt as she pressed herself closer against his chest.

"Papa... what’s happening?"

"I don’t know."

Yuuta placed one hand protectively across the back of her head, but his attention had already shifted toward the same darkness Vezrath was staring into.

Something felt wrong.

It wasn’t something Yuuta could explain through sight or sound. His body simply reacted before his mind understood why. The exhaustion weighing down his limbs suddenly seemed distant as every instinct inside him warned that something dangerous had entered the street.

Then laughter echoed through the darkness.

It belonged to a young man.

The sound wasn’t particularly loud or threatening. If anything, there was something almost amused about it, as though whoever was approaching had stumbled upon something entertaining rather than a street filled with corpses.

Yuuta slowly turned toward the sound.

Raven did the same.

The Shadow Corps immediately tightened their formation around Yuuta and Elena, several soldiers stepping forward while the others covered the surrounding rooftops and alleys.

A figure began emerging beneath the flickering streetlights.

First came the outline of a man walking casually through the ruined road. As the nearest light flickered back to life, more of him became visible. Blue-white hair framed his face, while his eyes were so unnaturally black-golden eye that they seemed to absorb the weak light around them.

But what unsettled Raven most was his expression.

He was smiling.

Not the furious grin of a demon charging into battle, nor the bloodthirsty expression of the Poison Demons they had fought earlier. It was a calm, disturbingly pleasant smile filled with unmistakable amusement as his gaze moved across the Shadow Corps gathered in the street.

The stranger’s attention remained fixed on Yuuta and Elena, as though the Shadow Corps surrounding them barely existed.

Raven’s hand slowly moved toward her weapon.

"Who are you?"

There was no answer.

The stranger merely continued staring at Yuuta, that unsettling smile never leaving his face. The longer Raven watched him, the stronger the warning inside her became. Even Vezrath, who had shown little fear while surrounded by the Shadow Corps, was now trembling beside the wrecked car.

Raven’s eyes widened beneath her crow mask.

No...

Whatever this man was, she couldn’t allow him anywhere near Yuuta or Elena.

"Shadow Corps!" Raven shouted as she immediately moved between Yuuta and the stranger. "Protect the Supreme Commander’s family!"

The response was instant.

"Formation!"

The Shadow Corps moved as one. Soldiers spread across the street while others appeared along the rooftops and ruined buildings, completely surrounding Yuuta and Elena. Dark energy flowed between them before joining together, forming a wide defensive barrier around the father and daughter.

Yuuta tightened his hold around Elena as he watched the soldiers surround them.

The stranger finally reacted.

He chuckled.

There was no concern in his expression despite the weapons pointed toward him and the barrier separating him from Yuuta. Instead, he slowly opened his arms as though he had finally found something precious after searching for far too long.

"There you are..."

Raven tightened her grip on her weapon.

The stranger’s black eyes never left Yuuta.

"I’ve been looking everywhere for you."

The mysterious figure extended one hand toward him, his fingers slowly spreading as his smile became impossibly wide.

"My prey..."

TO BE CONTINUED.