I ran as far as fast as I could. Looking behind, I noticed I was holding the little girl’s hand (my sister’s?). Whether or not I knew her, instincts forced me to drag her along with me. The slave-dealer kept chasing us down until our breaths shallowed. We weaved through the trees, got cuts here and there, and stopped as I panted. I looked around.
“B-Brother, what’s going on?”
I was too breathless to respond, not so much as looking at her. Just the very presence of a man in black overran my sense of danger, even though I hadn’t met him before. I, Kurayami Saito, hadn’t been active in my past life, so I was surprised that I was able to run this fast while dragging the little girl along.
But I couldn’t let my guard down yet. Without so much as blinking, I scanned my surroundings. We’d gotten out of the forest, so we were on a vast field. We could see a village in the distance, and next to it lay a pond.
“There you are!”
Without looking behind, I ran, but something stopped me. I turned my head to see what was holding me back and saw the man in black grasping the little girl’s other wrist. “I-It hurts!” she said. The man in black tightened his grip.
He almost yanked me away as he pulled her away from me. “B-Brother!” The man locked her with his arm around her neck.
“Let’s do this peacefully. Come with me.”
I stared at him. The little girl wiggled out of his grip, but the man strengthened his armlock as she groaned. She was getting more and more breathless as if he was threatening me to come with him. She bit his arm, but he remained unfazed.
I patted my shorts and felt something inside my back pocket. I traced the shape of the object with my fingers through the fabric. “What are you standing there for? Hurry up, or your little girl dies.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’m going to come.”
The man loosened his grip, and the little girl sighed. Staring at him in the eye, I approached him. The little girl opened her mouth to say something until—
“Ack!”
The man in black growled.
I’d thrown a pocket knife and darted his left eye. Surprised, I stood there, watching the man as he staggered back, palming his bleeding eye, groaning. The little girl snapped me back. “Let’s go, Brother!”
“Why, you little!” The man recovered right away and jumped on me. The little girl dropped my hand and yelped. The man brandished the knife, planning to do the same thing I’d done to him. “If only you just obeyed!”
He was going to stab my eye, but when blood dripped from his left eye onto my skin, he froze. Eyes wide, he tried moving but couldn’t. The little girl pulled me away from him by the arms, and I stood. We stared at the man, who was stuck in this stabbing position.
He was paralyzed.
Glaring up at us.
I touched my cheeks and looked at my fingers to see blood smeared on them. “Brother—now’s our chance!” She grabbed my hand and ran away with me in tow. While running toward the village, I looked behind to see what the hell had I done to that man in black.
I’m not sure how you’d put it, but here you go.
