FDD 12

Luca was so reckless that the boy, despite being dead, was flustered. He flinched, unable to even think of rushing at the exhausted Gerald instead of Luca.

“I said come here? Let’s all die together…”

Crash! Slam!

“…Wow.”

Luca blinked his wide eyes. Something huge had swept over the boy’s body. It was the chair Chloe had thrown. Crash! Startled by the sound, Gerald jumped to his feet.

“W-what…!”

“You idiot, do you like sleeping alone?”

“Who’s sleeping? You bastard, who do you think you are to torment me? Huh? Why are you tormenting me?!”

Upon hearing Chloe’s scolding, Gerald kicked the boy. The boy appeared to have fainted after being hit by the chair. Perhaps emboldened by the boy’s unresponsive behavior, Gerald kicked him even more aggressively, but he stumbled briefly as something bumped against the top of his foot. Gerald, who had been looking down, opened his eyes wide and screamed, “Aaaargh!”

“It’s that bastard’s arm! His arm!”

The boy’s arm had finally been torn off. Unfortunately, what unauthorized copyhit Gerald’s foot was kicked away and flew far off.

“An arm, an arm, an arm!?”

“Shut up and follow me!”

“An arm, I said, arm! Aaaargh!”

“Shut up!”

Chloe took care of Luca and the panicked Gerald. She sighed after barely managing to save those two wretched men by bringing them into a room.

“An arm, an arm, an arm……!”

“I said be quiet!”

“B-but.…”

Gerald mumbled; he had barely calmed down after entering the enclosed space. He crouched down and grumbled incessantly. Luca, on the other hand, was silent. Chloe sighed and cautiously approached him.

“Luca.”

“……Why am I like this?”

“Luca, calm down first…….”

“Why am I like this? Noah, Noah…!”

Tears ran down Luca’s face and fell to the floor as he blamed himself. He had only ever done bad things to Noah, yet Noah had sacrificed his own life to save him. It was Noah, not Luca himself, who should have been the one living. That would have been the right thing.

“……”

Chloe glanced at the knife lying beside Luca. She thought that Noah’s blood might be mixed in with the dried blood on the blade, but she didn’t voice it. Instead, she let out a small sigh as she looked at Luca.

She wished she could just let Luca cry, but now was not the right time. Chloe grabbed Luca’s face with both hands and lifted it up. His face was soaked with tears, but Chloe pretended not to notice. She stared straight into his eyes, then she spoke in a firm voice.

“I don’t know what situation Noah is in, but regardless, it is absolutely not your fault, Luca. That crazy boy pulled off something weird, and that’s why we’re in this situation.”

“…But it’s my fault that Noah ended up like that.”

“I told you it wasn’t!”

“……”

Luca still thought it was his fault, but he couldn’t say that in front of visit our site Chloe, who was looking at him so sternly. His vision was so blurry from the tears that he couldn’t see Chloe’s face clearly.

“…Sorry for making such a fool of myself.”

Luca mumbled as he wiped his tears with his palm.

‘I can’t just sit here looking pathetic…‘

Sniff.

Luca hid his damp t-shirt sleeves and completely shut off the faucet of tears. Gerald spoke slyly.

“What kind of guy cries like that? It’s not like you’re a girl.”

“……”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood!”

Under Chloe’s cold glare, Gerald shouted in frustration.

“So, what happened to Noah? Don’t cry again.”

“I’m not crying.”

Chloe’s last words playful, so Luca grumbled in embarrassment. He rubbed the tears off his cheeks with his sleeve and answered.

“He was in the room with me, and Baphomet was searching around everywhere. If we closed the door, we’d be caught inside, so we tried to hit him on the back of the head and run away together, but…sniff! Somehow, only Noah and Baphomet were left in the room, so…”

“So that’s what you mean by becoming bait…”

“…..”

Luca thought of Noah and tears welled in his eyes. He tried to keep them back as best he could to finish speaking but it was no use. But the explanation was sufficient. Chloe rubbed Luca’s back to comfort him, signaling that it was enough. However, her efforts were thwarted by Gerald.

“Then, if that goat-headed thing shows up unharmed, does that mean Solano is dead?”

“Hey!”

Chloe was annoyed by Gerald’s thoughtless and tactless remark, but it was too late to stop Luca’s tears.

“…What if Noah is dead?”

He started crying again, and Chloe genuinely started wondering if it was right to let a bastard like Gerald live.

Luca was not a child who was naturally reserved in tears. As a child, he would cry over trivial matters and was the kind who tried to express his emotions exactly as he felt them.

However, constantly brainwashed by his father’s words that a man should only cry three times in his life and by a society that told him not to ‘become a woman,’ Luca gradually refused to shed tears. Although he could not understand what a woman was or what the difference was between a ‘man’ and a ‘woman,’ Luca was a child who was faithful to the rules of the world. That was why he had locked away his tears from a young age.

However, with a deranged murderer roaming outside and the possibility that the person he liked might have been killed by that murderer – and even worse, he had done nothing but bad things to that person – it was too difficult for Luca to hold back his tears even in this situation. He was ashamed of crying, but his tear ducts were beyond his control.

Chloe rummaged through her pocket, took out a crumpled tissue, and handed it to him.

She didn’t know when the tissue had gotten inside or where it had come from, but she didn’t bother to say.

“Thank you…”

Luca briefly expressed his gratitude in a choked up voice. Then he sniffed, and the sound was louder than expected, turning not only the corners of his eyes but also his cheeks and the tips of his ears red.

“Let’s cry again later, when we’re alive, when we survive. I’ll cry then too.”

Chloe said as she patted Luca’s back. He realized anew why Chloe had been the leader of the track team for so long. Luca rubbed his red, stinging eyes with his palms and responded to Chloe’s words.

“Okay. I’ll have plenty of tissue ready.”

“Is this girls’ talk?”

Gerald, feeling left out by Chloe and [stolen content]Luca, tried to chime in. He showed no remorse and even worse, he didn’t even realize his mistake.

Ignored, Gerald angrily banged on the wall. Because of this, none of the three of them were aware of the sounds coming from outside.

Luca wiped away his tears and picked up the knife placed beside him. He then approached the glass window in the door. An opaque film was attached to the glass, but he could look outside through a narrow gap where it wasn’t.

Ashamed of having cried like a child, and slightly agitated, he was less perceptive than usual. Consequently, he failed to notice the shadow flickering beyond the window. The moment the nervous Luca blinked…

Crash!

“…Argh!”

Something pierced through the glass. Fortunately, it happened just as Luca had his eyes closed, so his eyeballs were not injured. However, glass shards rained down on his face, leaving him covered in cuts.

“… Ahh, ugh!”

The thick arm that had pierced through the window strangled Luca.

“It-it’s Baphomet!”

…Noah is dead!

The knife that fell from Luca’s hand in shock crashed to the floor.

“Luca!”

He struggled with all his might, but Baphomet was too strong, and he was helplessly dragged along.

“Aargh!”

A shard of glass remaining on the window cut deep into Luca’s cheek.

“Ngh!”

The pain of being cut through flesh was considerable, but it gradually dulled. It was because the amount of oxygen entering Luca’s brain had decreased. He felt like he just wanted to pass out on the spot. Then rverything would go quiet.

“……You, you fucking bastard……!”

But he couldn’t die at the hands of that bastard!

‘Noah…….’

Noah came to mind, and once again his eyes burned, but he held back his tears. He struggled to stay conscious and mustered all his strength. Then he grabbed the hand strangling his neck tightly.

“…Damn… bastard!”

Thud! Crack!

Luca grabbed Baphomet’s arm and lowered himself down. Baphomet’s hand was pulled inward; it bend into a grotesque angle, and was sliced by a shard of glass from the window.

“Damn son of a bitch!”

“Luca, grab him!”

Chloe quickly came to Luca’s aid and joined him in applying her weight. Free from Baphomet’s grip, Luca quickly felt around with his hands, searching for the knife lying somewhere on the floor.

‘Where is it? Where the fuck is it…!’

“…Found it!”

Clang! Finally, the knife was in his hand! Luca quickly grabbed the hilt and unhesitatingly thrust it into the thick wrist.

Thud!

“You bastard!”

His injured stomach throbbed, but he endured it and twisted the knife with all his might. Crunch, crunch! Baphomet’s wrist bones and muscles were being torn to shreds.

“You goddamn bastard!”

Luca put his body weight into the knife. Whether his stomach hurst again or not, that didn’t matter. And finally.

Thump!

Baphomet’s wrist was severed

“You goat-head freak!”

Bang!

While Luca struggled, Chloe grabbed a fire extinguisher from the corner of the room and struck Baphomet’s elbow.

Crack!

The sound of bone shattering echoed. They had successfully destroyed Baphomet’s right arm! However, they could not cheer.

Creak, creak…

The hinges were tattered.

“D-dodge!”

Just as Chloe and Luca quickly backed away and reached the wall, the door slammed down to the floor.

Baphomet emerged. He exhaled steam through the holes in his stuffed mask. In the hand he had not lost, he held a saw. The very saw Noah had possessed and had stuck into Baphomet’s shoulder. Luca’s blood boiled.

“I… why did I mess with that bastard?”

Chloe mumbled. Baphomet looked terrifying, she regretted her actions from a moment ago. But it was too late. Just as Baphomet was within striking distance of Luca, Chloe, and Gerald, she quickly pulled the safety pin on the fire extinguisher and fired it.

Ssssshhhhh!

White fire extinguisher powder filled the room, obscuring the view, and Baphomet paused for a moment. Chloe took the opportunity and threw the extinguisher at his abdomen. She was a track athlete who had trained in shot put, and the extinguisher she threw landed precisely on Baphomet’s stomach. As Baphomet lost his balance and staggered, Chloe shouted.

“Run!”

Following Chloe, who was running ahead, Luca sprinted like a madman. Chloe had been by his side when he first started running, but after a while, he found himself separated from her.

Luca felt his breath growing short, but he was afraid that if he stopped to rest, he would fully realize he was alone. However, his legs betrayed their master’s will and gave out. Because he had been running so fast, Luca fell to the ground.

He felt so aggrieved that he was on the verge of crying again, but he held his tears back and opened the nearest door to enter. Inside was a restroom, but since it was a women’s restroom, it only had a toilet. Luca blocked the door with a mop in the corner and slumped onto the floor. The floor was dry, so the bottom of his pants did[unauthorized copy]n’t get wet. He sprawled his legs out and rubbed his face with trembling hands.

“…Ngh!”

Upon feeling the stinging pain in his face, Luca stood up and approached the bathroom mirror. The reflection he saw was miserable. There were wounds all over his face, and blood was still gushing from his cheeks. There was dried blood here and there that he hadn’t been able to wipe away, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were still red.

Luca turned the faucet on the sink to wash his face. There was quite a bit of dried blood, so one wash wasn’t enough to clean it properly; he had to endure the stinging pain and wash it several times. He had cuts on his hands as well, so he washed them. He also roughly soaked the blood-stained knife in the water.

After wiping away the blood and sweat, the wounds on his face looked even worse.

‘How am I supposed to face Noah with a face like this?

“…Noah.”

As soon as he said that name, he felt like he was about to cry again.

Is he alive……?

He couldn’t breathe because he didn’t even have a faint glimmer of hope. But as if it were rebuking him for wallowing in sadness, his stomach hurt so much that it was hard to keep thinking about Noah. He rolled up his clothes. He had stopped the bleeding, but after running and falling, the wound began bleeding again.

Luca scooped up water with his hands and poured it over his dusty, blood-stained stomach; once the wound was roughly clean, he pulled out a whole bunch of hand towels and pressed them against his belly.

Earlier, the situation was so chaotic that he couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge the pain, but now that he had a little breathing room, every part of his body began screaming in pain. Luca rolled up his pants to check his [visit our site]knee. There was a bruise on his knee from the fall. When he looked at that bruise, Luca thought of Blue. Blue Grey, the owner of Grey’s, where Luca first met Noah.