ELIJAH’S POV

I slid my phone back into my pocket as I tried to act as natural as possible.

Standing up from a bench on a side of a pathway, I wandered around the perimeter of the building.

Nothing out of the ordinary so far.

According to the plan, Amber should also be around here as backup.

I pulled up my hood and zipped up the jacket.

…cold.

Noting the building’s exterior, I relayed all of the information to Lucas.

RING RING RIIIN-

I cursed and pulled out my phone.

WHO THE HELL IS IN THEIR RIGHT MIND TO CALL ME DURING A F*CKING-

I checked the caller. 

Which little brat dares-

Ah, no.

According to the text it was-

Aw! Yeni is worried about me! She’s so considerate, she must know I’m very nervous right now and is trying to comfort me.

I picked up immediately.

“Hey~ How’s my Yeni?”

Before her reply, I turned on the speaker.

“BWUADDER!”

Onlookers turned to me, annoyed at the volume of the call.

My ear bud turned on-

“Elijah! What are you doing? Are you seriously-”

Oh. I guess she really was in the area.

I dialled the volume down on my plug.

SO rude, interrupted my Yeni…

Amber continued to reprimand me, “- taking a call in the midd-”

BEEP.

After confirming she didn’t have anything important to tell me, I cut her off by ending the call.

She called again.

Tch.

I selected the contract named “Asher Simp” and blocked it.

“Hahhhhhhhh? Why aren’t you answering?”

Yeni’s voice impatiently rang out.

“Hm? Sorry, I needed to turn up the volume, so what’s up Yeni?”

“I called you because the teacher told me that the teddy bear you got me was pretty!”

And…”

“Hmm is that so..”

I listened patiently to Yeni’s rambling.

Gosh, her voice was so cute.

After a couple of minutes of having scathing glares sent my way I decided to end the conversation here.

Letting her get in one more point I the spoke.

“Alright Yeni, as you’ve heard, brother will be a little more busy for now. 

But brother will try his best to answer your calls okay?

Let’s talk another time.”

“Awwww. Okay…”

Gah. Guilt overcame me.

I had to force myself to hang up after hearing Yeni’s disappointed tone.

I turned my attention upwards at the distant sound of a voice over a speaker, thanks to my enhanced senses.

Hmm? Something along the lines- about assembling employees?

Oh. The gears in my mind clicked.

I checked the time on my phone before switching it off to silent.

I guess it’s time to get serious.

They should be in the later stages of the kidnapping, no?

But there’s been something bugging me this whole time…

“Where the hell is the other team…”

Julian’s voice, laced with frustration reached me through the earphone, exemplifying my unease.

“Lacey was uncovered, she’s on the run now. Amber is on the way, find Asher on floor sixteen.”

Could Amber arrive in time if something went wrong?

Our members were high rankers but the other ranker team has the compatibility advantage.

Not to mention the fact that we didn’t know their smth formation. They could of all stuck together to guard the target, giving us the numerical disadvantage if one of us was confronted.

Don’t get me wrong, our team suited each other a lot, but we only banded this year.

The other team were close knitted friends since a young age and have trained together to make it into Xira.

They knew everything about each other.

Damn it…

Haah… 

I grimanced and made my decision.

I haven’t done this in a long time.

WHACK BAM-

I raced to the building and scaled it with the aid of Kaida’s dragonic mana to get me started before clawing my way up the ledge of the building’s windows using parkour.

***

“Haah. Haah. ”

I wiped off the sweat that had accumulated from that short but exhausting burst of strength.

Now. Where were they?

Anyone would do at this point.

My mind raced with the worst scenario situations, a habit I had formed back then.

One that could be useful at times like these.

Ah. My hand paused on the door leading off the roof. 

There were personnel hired to monitor the situation 24/7.

Lacey was supposed to be around done inserting the USB by now, meaning Lucas should also be around done with his task of hacking the surveillance cameras.

My- our grades and their reputation were on the line.

But… It doesn’t hurt me to be careful. 

The communication device I had gotten had remained pretty silent after all.

There was a chance something happened to at least one of the others.

Damn it…

Wait- I have an idea-

I took a deep breath before bellowing, “IF YOU CAN HEAR ME THIS IS A SIGN FROM THE HEAVENS YOU HAVE A RECEDING HAIRLINE AND HAIR LOSS IS GOING TO LOOK GOOD ON YOU!”

Step step step-

I dove out the window at the sound of footsteps-

“Hm? I definitely heard the voice here though…”

He paced around the room and came to a conclusion,

“This must be a diversion, I need to check the other floors then.”

I was standing on the shade of a window on the floor below.

Grabbing the ledge of the window I jumped out from I pulled myself up and crawled into the room again.

But I got to admit, the previous dude’s hairstyle did make in look bald-

I wheezed and dusted my shirt, then slowly- carefully- opened the door.

SWISH-

A sword too fast for me to react to stopped within a milimetre from my face.

“Elijah?”

I guess I have a long way to go. Figures.

“Asher… Can you get the sword off my face?”

“Sorry!”

“So what is the current situation?”

Asher raised his brows, “So it’s true- Lucas said your connection might’ve been cut off. Basically we located the target and Julian and Amber are closing in on him. While we need to help Lacey get out of here, she risked her life to plug the USB and is currently hiding in the underground floors- where the routers and all the technology are.”

Before I could give my response I was interrupted by a speaker.

“You have been surrounded, place your weapons down on the ground and hands on your heads as a sign of surrender, you have nowhere to escape, the entrances and exits are barricaded and it’s no use to jump out of the window.”

The voice paused, as if gloatingly.

“-The building is also surrounded. There is security on their way promptly, don’t make it hard for us.”

Sure enough, the door busted open to reveal a swarm of guards and one of the opposing Xira students leading them.

“I will give you a few moments to decide whether you want to do this the hard way, Asher I know you are pretty powerful, I truely do admire you, maybe another time, not under the current circumstances of course- I believe we would be very good friends. But with all due respect, do you think that you can win while protecting Elijah at the same time?”

I could hear the pure arrogance dripping off his voice.

Hah. He’s talking as if he’s already won.

I will wipe the floor with his smug smile.

We'll show him…