Chapter 7: Intimidation

Everyone present turned toward the uninvited guest who had suddenly burst into the battle. Paper Hero recognized him as the killer from the Copper Parrot. Faru had also seen the surveillance footage and was all but certain this was the man behind the St. Mark's Square massacre ten years ago, a vicious criminal codenamed “Blood Owl” on HL's wanted list, with a danger rating as high as four.

Bottrini's expression at the sight of him could only be described as terrified. The chief priest's instructions flashed through his mind. “When the killer appears before you, you will know it is him.”

“It's you…” Several of the ten knights went deathly pale at the sight of Blood Owl and froze. Even the usually composed Standard-Bearer Suicide was frightened beyond measure.

Every high-ranking member of Steel Commandment would recognize Blood Owl's face. His likeness appeared in the Code of Commandments, the book written over a century ago that served as Steel Commandment's supreme guide. At the end of the book was the image of a demon. The chief priest of that time had prophesied that this evil spirit would one day destroy their faith.

Blood Owl himself knew nothing of these knights' bullshit, but he could sense their fear. That pleased him immensely and eased his foul mood a little. He climbed onto the ice, ignored everyone else as though they were thin air, and looked straight at Paper Hero with a vicious grin. “Name.”

Paper Hero did not give his real name. He gave the answer he thought most appropriate, and the one the other man most wanted to hear. “Paper Hero.”

Blood Owl had always known what people called him, and he had gladly accepted the name HL had given him. So he too withheld his real name and replied, “I'm Blood Owl.” Then he turned to Bottrini. “Having fun splashing around just now, were you? My fucking boatman took advantage of the confusion to slip away. I'd been planning to pull his legs off when we reached the docks and row myself over here. Now I've had to swim. I hate getting wet, you know that?”

Bottrini did a quick calculation. The time since he had raised the tsunami, the distance from the docks to here, plus another half a kilometer or so… This man must swim almost as fast as a torpedo…

“Are you the one who killed the clerics?” Bottrini asked cautiously. He did not know whether the century-old legend was true, but the man before him was clearly someone to be reckoned with. If he really was the target of their revenge, this battle had taken the worst possible turn.

“Huh?” Blood Owl sounded distinctly displeased. “You're the one Steel Commandment sent?” He looked Bottrini up and down. “What a piece of trash…” He turned his gaze back to Paper Hero. “Good thing there's better prey here.”

Faru could no longer contain himself. Blood Owl was ignoring him completely, making him feel like a mere lackey. His actual assignment in Venice was to capture Blood Owl, dead or alive. How could he stand by and let himself be treated with such contempt?

That thought was the last straw. He suddenly stepped onto the water and shot toward Blood Owl like an arrow. He was a Strong-rank ability user, after all, and in physical prowess alone he was every bit a cyborg's equal. His attack was razor-sharp, with the power of a thunderbolt, as he drove straight at Blood Owl's face. Let's see whether you dodge or block this.

It happened so suddenly that Paper Hero had no time to stop Faru.

Blood Owl might not know every last detail of HL's intelligence, but he knew it inside out. He even knew his own alias on the organization's secret wanted list, so naturally he recognized Ge Faru's face.

Blood Owl watched him charge with disdain. In those scant two seconds, he was already bored. Faru's attack was too slow, too feeble. So this was one of the so-called Ape, Sparrow, Python, Dragon?

Their clash went something like this… Blood Owl caught the pitch like a catcher, then smoothly tossed the ball to the ground. Of course, there was no baseball here. Blood Owl had planted his hand on Faru's face, gripped his head, and hurled his entire body down at his feet. The ice shattered, and Faru plunged straight toward the seabed, sinking even faster than he had charged.

After throwing him, Blood Owl flexed his wrist and remarked as though nothing had happened, “That's a python? Looks like a slug to me. Things like that belong in salt water. Let him dissolve on his own. Disgusting, having him floating around on the surface.”

At the sight, Bottrini abandoned his men, shouldered the Holy Cross, turned tail and ran. Suicide and the knights were quick to react too. They did not dare leave so much as a parting threat, scampering after him. Staying alive came first. So you've killed a few hundred clerics, Lord Blood Owl? Kill all you like. We can't afford to mess with someone like you. We'll come back another day with the knight commander to take you on.

“Hmph…” Blood Owl snorted. Without turning to look at them, he pointed behind him with his right thumb and said to Paper Hero, “You've been putting up with those losers for a while too?”

Paper Hero knew what Blood Owl intended. He replied calmly, “Be my guest.”

Blood Owl half turned, held his right hand like a blade, and chopped straight down behind him. The ice split in two, then a gash about a kilometer long tore across the broad expanse of sea. The trench in the water took nearly five seconds to fill again. The shock wave threw up enormous waves on either side, spreading in a fan across the distant sea with every bit as much force as Bottrini's earlier swing of the Holy Cross.

Thirty seconds later, sitting in his office, Malone received reports that more than a dozen armored shuttle vessels had sustained varying degrees of damage. All he could do was order the sea, land and air forces to stop tightening the encirclement and wait at a distance for further instructions.

Malone paced the room, struggling with his decision. As soon as Faru had left, he had issued a series of orders and made every preparation, but he had never expected the battle to escalate this far. Nor did he know what was happening out at sea now.

“According to the last report from the shore, the man flying overhead is definitely Elot. Add Lieutenant Colonel Faru… Judging by the fighting so far, Steel Commandment must have at least one ability user of Strong rank or higher. That makes three already. If even a mechanized encirclement can't bring this under control, will I have to ask European headquarters to send a general officer as reinforcement…?” Malone muttered to himself. He was under so much strain that he wanted to chew up the cigar in his mouth and swallow it.

At sea.

“They should all still be alive,” Paper Hero said. “Aren't you going after them to finish them off?”

Blood Owl said, “I just wanted those beaten dogs to have a taste of seawater too. Then they'll live with the humiliation, grow stronger, or find someone more powerful to avenge them. Isn't that nice?”

As he spoke, something resembling a bank of cloud drifted slowly over from the shore. Closer, it looked more like a flock of birds. Closer still, it became clear that the whole enormous dark mass consisted of sheets of paper whirling in disarray. Newspapers, office paper, wastepaper, even pieces of cardboard boxes. Of every size and type, whole or torn, together they would have made a pile as tall and broad as a sand dune. Now they had flown up behind Paper Hero.

Blood Owl knew there was no need for further talk. He sprang from the ice beneath his feet, now barely an inch thick, and vanished from Paper Hero's sight.

Paper Hero did not fly into the sky. He had no time. Within a second, his paper wings folded in from either side, wrapping him up as tightly as a dumpling standing on end.

Sure enough, Blood Owl's fist struck the paper wings. Paper that steel weapons could not scratch now bore the imprint of four knuckles.

Paper Hero was appalled. He had not seen Blood Owl move at all. Without this absolute defense that left no blind spots, he would probably be beaten to death if his opponent kept up a relentless assault for a minute or so.

Blood Owl, however, said quite casually, “Consider that a greeting. It's positively heartening that you didn't die straight away.” His other fist followed immediately.

Paper Hero had expected the second punch to carry less force. After all, his opponent's feet were off the ground, giving him nothing to push against. He was merely using the recoil from his first punch to twist his upper body and swing. But before that thought had even finished crossing his mind, tremendous force had already passed through the paper wings into his body.

Paper Hero could only retreat rapidly to bleed off the force, following its momentum in a rising arc. Even so, he was still reeling from the blow, and cracks had appeared in the paper wings shielding him.

Still shaken, he spread his wings again and climbed even faster into the sky. The surveillance footage of Blood Owl killing rose before his eyes once more. The petty thug whose body Blood Owl had punched through had been killed by this very kind of jab.

The second punch was an entirely different form of attack. Take a thick steel plate, for example. If Blood Owl's first punch struck it, the plate would cave in at the center, buckle, then fly straight backward. But if the second punch struck it, the plate would not move a fraction. A hole would open in its center, and Blood Owl's arm would pass through.

“Did he devise that strategy in so little time? Impossible… That was instinct… A killer's instinct. He didn't strike that way for tactical reasons, and he certainly wasn't thinking about what was going through my head. He knows by intuition alone how to kill an ability user more efficiently, even on their first encounter…” Paper Hero understood. He was facing a monster unlike any he had encountered before. Danger rating four… That meant more than simply Strong rank. Bottrini, for example, was also Strong rank, but his danger rating was three. Danger rating four meant a preliminary assessment of upper Strong rank, with the actual rank unknown. It was also the highest danger rating Paper Hero knew of.

“If he were Mad rank, I'd probably be dead already. Then… is he a Fierce-rank ability user…?”

Even so, he had to fight, because he was Paper Hero. Like every hero, he would never run away.

Paper Hero watched Blood Owl grow smaller and smaller on the surface of the sea. The air around him was thinning too. He reckoned he was high enough now. Summoning a great quantity of paper from the cloud, he gathered it before him and set it spinning rapidly in a cone. From the shore, it looked as though a tornado had appeared over the sea.

A dozen or so seconds later, the outer surface of the paper tornado beneath his feet was no longer ragged. Its sides grew increasingly smooth and straight, while its lower end gradually formed a sharp point. Only now did the attack's true form become clear. From a distance it looked like an inverted spire. Up close, it was an enormous drill rotating over a thousand times per second.

Blood Owl looked up and sneered. He was immersed in icy seawater, yet his blood raced with excitement. He could hardly wait to take it head-on.