The moment I stepped into the house, Dark lunged at me and knocked me to the ground. He then gathered all his remaining strength into his already battered fist and threw a punch at me. In response, I created a shield using most of the little magic I had left. It didn't stop the blow entirely, but it absorbed most of the impact, so I barely felt any pain when it hit me.
Dark grimaced in pain, and his already injured hand began to bleed. Despite this, he raised his fist and prepared to strike me again. I shoved him with all my might, and he fell to the ground. I seized the moment to get to my feet. Dark did the same and lunged at me again, but this time I was on guard, so I managed to dodge him effortlessly.
"Fight, you piece of shit!" he shouted, throwing at me a punch that I dodged. Then, he gathered a bit of magic in his fists and began casting spells at me. I was so close to him that I couldn't dodge them in time, so I used almost all my magic to create small shields that slightly deflected them.
Dark then advanced toward me and cast a spell from just a few inches away, forcing me to use the last of my magic to conjure a shield that took the hit and exploded. He seized the moment to strike me in the face with such force that I fell to the ground again. He then loomed over me and began to pummel me. Fortunately, he was also exhausted, so his blows weren't that strong—though they were strong enough to leave my mouth covered in blood.
"You shouldn't have come here!" he shouted at me as he attacked, along with other phrases like:
"Fight, you asshole, fight!"
"Where's your fucking power of friendship!"
"You love that I beat the shit outta you, right?!"
"You think you're better than me, huh?!"
"Hit me, you asshole!"
"Why you don't attack me, you fuck?! You think you're better than me?!"
"Hit me, motherfucker!"
"How can you call yourself the hero if you can't even save yourself?!"
"Fucking piece of shit! You can't save anyone!"
"You're supposed to be the hero! Why didn't you save her?!"
He stopped hitting me after shouting those last questions. His face showed how hard he was holding back tears. Then, he glared at me, gathered all the magic he had left into his fists, and prepared a rather powerful spell.
"Let's see if this finally gets you off my back!" He held out his arms toward me and prepared to cast the spell, but just before he could, I shoved his arms upward; the spell shot off toward the ceiling, blasting a huge hole in it and causing a deafening crash.
After that attack, Dark slumped to the ground and began to pant. I turned toward him, not knowing what to say. I should have saved her, I should have been there sooner. I called myself a Hero, yet I had simply let so many people die.
"I'm sorry about Katya," I said after a couple minutes. He turned toward me and looked at me with more resignation than anger.
"Wasn't your fault," he shook his head.
"Nor yours," I replied, and he—still lying on the floor—turned his back to me and wept silently. He looked so haggard that I thought perhaps he had suffered far more than I had during those last few weeks.
Minutes passed by while I remained lost in my thoughts. I knew fully well that the next step was to call the police and consider my job done, but at that moment, I hesitated. I knew that if I handed Dark over to them, they would almost certainly kill him. The governor, Tantrum, or whoever it might be, would find some legal loophole, an exception to the rule that would allow them to sentence him to death, even though it was illegal.
So, if I handed him over, I would be responsible for one more death.
And even if they didn't kill him, what good would locking him up do? His gang had already been replaced by another—Infinite—and its leader—Raggard—had filled the void Dark had left behind. With or without Dark, crime and insecurity in Saint Money continued unabated, fueled by corrupt officials like General Tantrum or Governor Diddlecrook. And even they, in due time, would be replaced without ever disrupting this cycle of crime.
What is the point of locking people up if the system remains intact?
Or perhaps I should just hand him over to the police, if only to get my freedom. And then what? What was I supposed to do with the rest of my life? I had no work experience in any field unrelated to the police. Should I become one of them again? Should I spend years climbing the ranks, only to once more end up a fake hero that would be eventually betrayed and cast aside? Or should I start a new life from scratch, even though all I truly wanted was to help people?
Though perhaps for that very reason I should be doing something else. The police work for the government and for crime organizations—not for the people. That's why they don't hesitate to repress or directly attack them when ordered to do so. And if, at any point, they do protect the people, it's only so that the government currently in power can take credit for it.
The police are a government's tool, and it will use them only in whatever way suits it best.
So, if I truly wanted to help people, I had to find another way to do it.
"Aren't your friends coming?" Dark turn around and asked me. He was surely referring to Lancel and the rest of my former team.
I shook my head.
"So, when's the police coming? Because you won't be able to get me out of here by yourself, and you know it."
Yeah, I knew it well.
"If I let you go, what would you do?" I asked him. At that moment, I felt a bit of pity for him and for everything he had endured; I also felt a desire to let him go, so that Lancel, Tantrum, and Saint Money's elites wouldn't get what they wanted.
"Let me go?" he asked me filled with indignation. You're gonna have to kill me to get me out of here.
I smirked.
"That's a shame because I don't want to kill more people."
"By the way, you're the one who killed Alpha, right? Even from here I felt your aura, even though I wasn't as strong as mine."
Yes. I killed Alpha and many more.
"I should never have been the Hero in the first place."
"Maybe not, but if it hadn't been you, they would have put someone else in to do the same job."
"And that's exactly what they did."
"Wait, for real? So, what you doin' here, then?" He asked me because, if I wasn't the Hero anymore, arresting him was not my job."
"Because you escaped that day, they blamed me for conspiring with you, and they offered to set me free if I find you."
"Man, you're such a fucking idiot?" He scoffed at me, and just then, there was a knock at the door. Dark tensed up and gathered a bit of energy. "Open it," he told me, so I got up and headed toward the door. On the other side, I could sense an aura—just like that of any ordinary person who doesn't know how to use magic. It was probably delivery.
"Excuse me," said the person on the other side of the door, though I hadn't opened it yet. He sounded like a teenager. "Several neighbors have complained about a fight at this residence, so we're just asking you to please keep the noise down a bit."
I opened the door, and on the other side stood a young man in a white shirt, wearing a cap that read "Security." As soon as he saw me, Dark, and the inside of the house, he panicked and ran toward the sidewalk, where a golf cart and another teenager were waiting. He got into the cart, and both drove off.
I closed the door and looked, puzzled, at Dark—so dirty and disheveled—and at all the trash that littered the room.
That was when I realized my mistake.
I shouldn't have opened the door. Upon seeing us, that teenager must have thought that a couple of migrants had invaded that house.
And he wasn't wrong to be honest.
"Immigration! Stay where you are!" In an instant, dozens of officers burst into the house and subdued both Dark and me. He tried to defend himself by casting a couple of spells, but there were simply too many officers to fight off.
Almost immediately they took us out of that house and put us into their police cars.