Chapter 63 - Cold Front, Warm-Blooded

"Angh!" Kirika cried as she tripped over the fallen stalactite harshly and fell to the ground, but lady misfortune wasn't quite done yet.

Another stalactite began wobbling on the ceiling directly above her head, and Kirika hurriedly rolled to one side to avoid being impaled. Then, struggling against the pain in her ankle where a sharp shard of rock had lodged itself in, she continued running towards the entrance, gritting her teeth.

"C'mon, Kirika… you can't die here… remember your wish?" She muttered to herself through grit teeth. "For her to live again… to see her smile again… you must survive, and win this damned game!"

In a last-ditch attempt, she leaped towards the cave entrance, but it wasn't enough. There was only one tiny opening left through, with the rest being blocked off by debris, and Kirika was still about half a meter away.

As she flew through the air, she felt herself losing momentum. Was it over? Was she really going to just die, like this?

Ah… how pitiful…

As she thought this to herself, a tear slid down her cheek.

'All I ever wanted… was to see her smile again…

… I'm sorry, Setsuki… I'm sorry…

… But this is the most I can do.'

"Really just going to give up?" A young man's voice suddenly called out to her, and her eyes, which had already closed from defeat, snapped open once more to see a brilliant ray of light, shining through the last remaining opening in the entrance.

She was still in the air. There was still a chance. A glimmer of hope, just like that ray of light in this cave of darkness. And if she didn't take it now, it would be gone forever—and so would she.

"I'm… not done!"

Narrowing her eyes, she did the only thing she could—whip out her katana, and reach for the opening. It was unexplainable why she did this. Perhaps it was because this katana was the only thing she relied on for her entire life. Perhaps it was because this katana marked the burden that forever weighed on her shoulders.

But either way… this was her final hope.

And on the outside, someone answered.

A hand closed around the katana's sharp blade, not caring about the pain, and pulled hard. Kirika, dragged by the force, flew out of the cave entrance's final opening, right as the final slab of stone blocked it in forever.

"Ngh!" She cried in pain as she landed on the ground, rolling a few meters before coming to a stop. Then, after a few seconds, she realized her katana was not in her hand, and hurriedly sat up, looking around.

There, a few feet away, lay her katana, edge stained with fresh red blood. Beside it, a man stood, calm and collected, hand dripping with blood that he didn't so much even glance at. Instead, his focus was on the cave's blocked-off entrance, waiting. Waiting, to see if the beast had truly been trapped inside.

"Cyanide…" Kirika murmured to herself subconsciously, realizing what he had done for her.

Why? Why did he save her?

Didn't he say that if her life was in danger, she shouldn't expect him to help?

Then… why?

Her head couldn't wrap her mind around these questions, but Cyanide's next words helped snap her back to reality.

"Done gawking, Kiri?"

"H-Huh?" Her eyes widened a bit at the nickname, and she hurriedly nodded. "O-Oh, uh… yeah, sorry. And…"

"Good. Then use your aura detection abilities to sense if that beast is still alive. The cave's been blocked off completely, and I'm not good enough yet to detect presences beyond several layers of stacked rock."

"…" She had been meaning to say 'thanks', but had been rudely interrupted. Still, she couldn't exactly get mad at her savior, so she did as told and stepped closer to the cave's entrance, picking up her katana in the process.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and did her best to sense for the beast's aura. Like a Bluetooth device from back on Earth, this aura sensing ability she had was limited in range. The more obstacles that were in the way of her and her target, the fainter their aura would be, and therefore the harder it would be to sense them.

Still, Kirika was someone who had been trained in this skill her entire life. She was twenty right now, so that was about 15 years of experience considering she started practicing this at age five. It was to be expected she was proficient at this, and she did not let Cyanide down.

"I… sense it," she said after several seconds. "This… I don't know how it's possible, but… it's still alive. The signal appears to be quite strong, too. While it's faint on my end thanks to all the debris… it's very consistent. That means it's not injured or anywhere close to dying."

"… Hmph, as expected," Cyanide muttered, folding his arms.

"Are you… still planning on fighting it?" Kirika asked in worry. "You saw how strong that thing is. Your knife was broken, and-"

"You mean this?"

Cyanide suddenly turned around, and in his hand was a fresh knife identical to the one that was broken earlier. Kirika's jaw dropped.

"W-Wha… but how…"

But Cyanide only scoffed and turned back around. "Amateur."

"What he means to say, is that he always keeps back-ups of everything, so long as it's possible," Luna explained in a friendlier way in her holographic form. "That knife that was broken in the cave? He has tons more like it. He knew from the beginning that knife was going to break—one look at the metal scales on that thing and it would be obvious. However, he still attacked anyway to spark the beast's rage and lure it outside, where you two could fight better than in that dark cave."

Kirika's eyes widened. "Wait… you mean… from the broken knife to the cave's collapse, and even to the beast's survival… he predicted everything?"

Indeed he had. Those kitchen knives? Cyanide had looted more than one from that abandoned warehouse during his escape.

Luna laughed softly, then said the same line she stated not long ago:

"You get used to it."

Suddenly, a rumbling noise could be heard from amidst the debris, and Cyanide got into battle position, one hand on gun and the other holding his blade.

"… It's coming.. Prepare yourself."