Hours later, Basara waited patiently in the drawing room, of Hasegawa's condo, without any clothes on his upper body; they had yet to dry so he wasn't able to do anything but wait for them to get to a wearable state. While waiting the debauched affairs that occurred moments ago kept playing in his mind, addling his mind and psyche.

His wait finally finished, he put on the now clean shirt and once again thanked Hasegawa for the delicious meal she provided him today, but he decided to remain silent about the chain of decadent events that happened in the bathroom.

The two had previously decided, after coming to their senses from the lustful indulgence of their bodies, to discuss everything that transpired on a later date, after calming down their raging feelings a little.

By the time Basara left Hasegawa's residence, it was already past eleven into the dead of the night, the roads, the surroundings, everything was dyed in the dark grasp of night.

'It's already so late.'

He couldn't help but sigh while waiting in line on the platform of the nearest train station.

Hasegawa insisted vehemently on driving him back, but he was adamant in his refusal, not giving in to her desires this time. While waiting for his clothes to dry, he had watched Hasegawa, dressed in a sexy bathrobe that left little to the imagination, going about while worrying over the incidents of depravity and carnal indulgence that had been undertaken between the two of them.

The young virgin boy in him was practically roaring to just care about nothing and continue through the night and perhaps even go through the last hurdle with her to grasp the ultimate state of decadence that they could achieve. But the small part of his brain still active was ringing sirens in his brain about how suspicious everything seemed in reality.

Everything was going too fast. Too abnormal, for it to be real.

From what she had confined to him, she was someone without any kind of experience with men and he believed her and her reasonings.

But then, why would an adult woman with zero experience related to sexuality be willing to do so much for him? To go to the brink of almost giving her everything to him — someone who she didn't know much about and had only known for some days.

One had to remember that Basara was just a new student in this town, transferred from a faraway school. The number of times they had met each other could be counted on one hand. But the way Hasegawa acted, it was as if she had known him her whole life, as though they grew up knowing each other, wrapped in a tight inseparable bond.

Was it love at first sight for her? Basara was not so narcissistic to think that was possible. By doing all these acts with him, Hasegawa was putting her entire career in danger, and all that for what? A boy she barely knew and may have fallen in love with on the barest of chances?

That did not seem like the kind of woman she actually was, if anything that seemed to be the farthest thing from the immaculate person that she was.

Of course, the suspicious elements did not stop there. 

The fact that no student entered the infirmary the last time he was there, and so many things occurred between them was one thing suspicious enough. 

But her strength that he felt today…

There was no way any human would be capable of toppling him over as she did, and she did quite easily too as though she was merely moving a pillow to her whims.

If someone said there was nothing fishy about this situation, he would call bullshit to their face.

'Is she perhaps from the Shinto faction?'

Basara chewed at his lips as different possibilities, all ranging from bad to nightmarish, appeared in his mind. The most likely of the cases being that she was a Japanese exorcist. He doubted that she was a yokai since he would have felt it and there was even less chance of her being a devil.

'Perhaps an angel?'

Basara thought for a trifling moment before chuckling slightly. If she was really an angel, then she was a fallen one. Though even that was impossible, he thought. After killing the two fallen angels with his sword yesterday, Basara had already absorbed their power and should now be quite sensitive to the holy power and life force of a fallen angel, letting him identify one by just being near them.

"All right. Let's stop thinking about all this. It is what it is, and I'll deal with it when it pops up."

Hurting his head about all these complexities was a waste of time. He didn't need to guess the answer. He just needed to ask and he would do so… soon…

Basara had already sent a message home to inform them that he was going to be late while his clothes were being dried, and now he sent another one saying that he was currently on the train on his way back. He knew that Lucia could easily teleport him and with his own speed, he could easily reach home in a few minutes at best.

But Basara did not like using supernatural means when they weren't necessary. He liked his normal life and though he knew that it was nothing more than a dream to live normally now, he still wanted to cling to the little normalities of his everyday life.

Once he sent the message, he closed his phone and looked towards the arriving train.

After nightfall, this particular service line would already be filled with commuters returning home from work, and the number of people boarding at this station was a lot; right now, he was part of a very very long line, ostensibly never-ending. It was likely that Hasegawa, who used this station every day knew of this teensy-weensy problem that he was facing, and thus wanted to send him back herself. But even if he was to be packed into this [sardine can], accepting her offer was definitely not a viable option for him.

Just then, the announcement that the train was arriving sounded out from the microphones. However…

[The express train will be passing through the station via platform 2. Commuters pleas–]

'Well, let's go shall we.'

———

When Basara finally reached Kuho town again, there was basically no one out in the street, making it appear as though a deserted town road.

At this hour of the night, the weather was quite cold for normal people, though Basara quite liked the current temperature as it provided him with a pleasant chill that he was craving to cool off his head.

Being out there like this made him feel like he was the only one in the entire world. Sadly, he wasn't able to cling to that pleasant illusion for long.

{Partner…}

"I know."

Nodding inwardly at Ddraig's soft call in his mind, Basara stopped his gait, his eyes flashing in a vigilant light.

Gone was the gentle boy. His green eyes darkened while his aura became akin to an unsheathed sword.

He was waiting, waiting for the intruder to come. But…

"A cat?"

Walking out of the shadow wasn't a menacing enemy but rather, a wounded black cat that was leaving a trail of blood with each step it took.

Basara instinctively wanted to approach it and see its state but he stopped himself from that urge. This wasn't a normal cat at all, he could instinctively feel that.

Aside from its abnormally large size, the wisp of power the cat emanated showed that it was no normal cat.

But as if it wasn't enough, he could feel someone gaze on him far away. Clearly, the cat didn't wound itself, and if the perpetrator was in the surroundings, this was a dangerous situation he found himself in… 

Now it was important to decide what to do.

He had three choices. 

Walking away as if he saw nothing.

Helping the cat.

Helping its pursuers.

'Not my problem.'

Basara wasn't a hero that would jump without any understanding of the situation. People tended to have the misconceptions that the weaker party in a fight was the 'good' one, while the stronger was the 'bad'. 

But this was, for the most part, untrue. There was no correlation between goodness and weakness, for sometimes, the weak could be far eviler than anyone else could ever hope to be.

Furthermore, he had enough problems on his plate already and didn't need anymore to add to it, or else it'd overflow.

Taking a step back, Basara was about to leave when, 

!!!

Whoosh!

BOOM!

Moving faster than one's eyes could see, Basara moved from the place he previously stood, huge lances made out of pure energy pierced his standing place, causing the ground to crumble and break.

It seemed that the choice had been made for him.

Thinking till here, Basara's eyes blazed in anger.

'Boosted gear.'

In a flash of light, the red gauntlet appeared on his arm alongside his hated cursed sword.

'There.'

[BOOST!]

Boosting his speed to a double, Basara covered a few hundred meters in the blink of an eye and reached the place where he felt the presence of the assailant. But what greeted him were three huge colossi made out of earth and nothing else.

Swish!

With one swing of his sword, he immediately cut them all in two then proceeded to keep them down with his gravity magic.

He knew that since they were mere puppets, merely cutting them would not change much about the current situation.

Hmmm…

The earth trembled violently, a hole formed right under Basara's feet, and just as he was about to move to dodge, a fist as large as a truck came down from the sky. He could see spears popping out from deep in the hole and immediately knew what the attacker wanted to do but he did not worry much.

[BOOST!]

This time, boosting his own gravity, he punched the rock fist and destroyed it to smithereens, simultaneously he reversed the flow of gravity, landing gently on the spear before kicking up and jumping out of the hole.

'If it was mother, she would easily be able to fly.'

Basara clicked his tongue. Even though he could boost his power, his mastery was still far inferior to what he had seen his mother do with just the basic applications of gravity magic.

'Well let's think about that later, I have more pressing things to attend to.'

Looking around, he waited for a new attack to occur any minute but after a few minutes of waiting, nothing happened, leaving him a bit confused and restless.

It seemed that the attacks only had a probing goal.

Still, just to be safe, Basara kept his gear on and began to walk in the direction of the cat that was now lying down in a pool of its own blood.

It was clear that if nothing was done, the cat would die here.

Hesitating a little, Basara finally sighed and lifted it with his gravity magic.

"Let's see if Asia can save it."

He wasn't doing it out of kindness. He just wanted to get information from the cat once it was healthier.

Thus was how Basara tried to convince himself of his goody two shoe act. A naive and illogical attempt, but it was enough to not let his mind feel burdened.