"Damn it! Can't win straight up, so you're going dirty, huh!"
Geno had clocked the Filth's move the moment it happened. He threw every scrap of Ether he had into a full-body barrier, dead set on keeping the Filth out entirely.
But if there was one thing the Filth excelled at, it was Corruption. Geno's defenses might as well have been tissue paper — the thing found a gap almost instantly.
One moment two figures were locked together in a desperate struggle. The next, only one remained.
And on Geno's body, the Filth's signature — that deep, sickly crimson aura and its crawling, branching marks — had appeared once again.
"Not good!"
He could feel it: the Filth was about to seep back into him. Within moments, he'd lose control again.
Geno made the call without a second's hesitation. He teleported — deep into the Hollow's interior — and in an instant, the distance between himself and Lucia and the others stretched wide.
"Geno!"
"Get out of here! I'll catch up!"
Lucia watched Geno get swallowed by the Filth a second time, a flicker of worry she couldn't quite suppress crossing her eyes.
But Geno was already gone. The three of them didn't waste time deliberating — they hauled Yidhari up off the ground and ran.
Before they left, Lucia had tried to channel her staff once more. It responded like a mage the morning after casting their magnum opus — utterly dead to the world.
"Why is it already tapped out? Absolutely no stamina."
Complaining about it, though, wouldn't change anything. They still had a patient on their hands, and they still had to move.
As for Geno — all Lucia could do was trust him.
"Geno. You better be okay."
Her chest tight with worry, the three of them half-carried, half-dragged Yidhari out of the Hollow.
Now — back to Geno.
Riding his teleport, Geno plunged deeper and deeper into the Hollow, running blind, not even sure anymore where he was going.
Then his body grew heavier. And heavier. Until finally, consciousness slipped away entirely, and he crumpled to the ground.
After he collapsed, Geno's body gradually reverted to its human form — lying there motionless on the Hollow floor, still as a corpse.
But the Ether energy radiating off him was another matter entirely. That invisible beacon drew every Ethereal wandering the Hollow toward him, one by one, step by step.
When he was conscious, he could at least make an effort to suppress it. Unconscious, the Ether he was bleeding out without any control was, to Ethereals with barely a shred of rational thought, nothing short of a gourmet banquet.
High quantity, high quality — the kind of windfall Ethereals would never get from hunting humans. This was the jackpot.
So in under five minutes, no fewer than twenty Ethereals had gathered around Geno — and not one of them dared get close.
Because what radiated from Geno's body was a dense, suffocating Filth aura layered over a second, entirely mysterious Ether signature — and the combination made every Ethereal present hang back in wary silence.
That standoff didn't last long, though. As time crept by, more and more Ethereals caught the scent and converged on Geno's location — including heavyweights like Dullahans and Thanatos-class Ethereals.
Just as the assembled Ethereals finally reached the breaking point of their restraint and moved in toward Geno — a gunshot rang out.
One Ethereal's core shattered on the spot, and the creature dissolved into nothing.
Every other Ethereal snapped its gaze toward the source. A solitary figure stood not far off — gun raised, expression cold and sharp as a blade.
That same figure attacked again without pause. In less time than it takes to draw a breath, every last Ethereal had been wiped out. The stranger's clothes were barely scuffed — not so much as a hair out of place.
"This person... it's him."
The stranger studied Geno's face, something flickering in their eyes like a memory being dredged up — and then, quickly, they placed him from New Eridu's top headlines.
"Didn't think he'd be carrying a secret like this... Maybe he could..."
With a purpose of their own in mind, the stranger crouched down and pressed a hand to Geno's head. Slowly, visibly, the Filth aura clinging to Geno's body began to be suppressed. Then the stranger rose, turned to go, and murmured something under their breath.
"I hope... what I'm doing is right."
― ✦ ―
Inside Geno's mind.
The moment Geno blacked out, his consciousness surfaced here.
He'd been in this place before — this was where he'd once had a conversation with the soul of Miguel.
But when he opened his eyes in this pure-white expanse, what greeted him was most definitely not an easygoing fellow like Miguel.
A dark silhouette wearing his own face came launching itself straight at him.
The sight of it was the kind of thing that would have made Alice shriek on the spot.
But this was Geno we were talking about. Mt. Tai could crumble in front of him and he wouldn't bat an eye.
Crack. He drove his fist straight into the shadow's face.
The thing hung suspended in the air for a brief, stunned moment — and then rocketed backward like it had been shot from a cannon, slamming into the boundary of the mindspace.
[This isn't how it's supposed to be! You should be merging with me — becoming one with me!]
The shadow picked itself up, face twisted with fury, and unleashed a roar at Geno.
Geno, for his part, looked utterly bored. He idly stuck a finger in his ear and twisted it.
"Go on, keep talking. I'm listening. Plenty of time to beat you up after you're done."
Compared to the situation before — where the thing had been whispering endlessly inside his skull and he hadn't been able to lay a hand on it — Geno had all the leisure in the world to deal with this chatterbox now.
And apparently Geno's generosity only made the Filth-Geno lose its mind entirely.
[This isn't how it's supposed to be! You should be joining with me! Together we could save the Great Master! The Master didn't tell me it would be like this!]
The black, Filth-wreathed shadow clutched its head and screamed its gibberish — then charged at Geno again, sheer stubbornness overriding any sense.
"Kid, let me teach you something. When you're on someone else's turf, you behave."
It sounded like something a villain would say. But every word Geno said was the plain truth.
In his own mindspace, the Filth was, at best, a small fry...
Well — given that it was wearing his face, Geno was maybe going to take that back.
And whether it was just his imagination or not, even accounting for the home-turf advantage, the thing felt dramatically weaker here than it had been in the real world. By a lot.
Not that the Filth-shadow paid any attention to Geno's inner musings. It just kept throwing itself at him, relentlessly, mindlessly.
"Which is exactly why I said — this is my home turf!"
Geno swept one arm out in a broad gesture. The Filth-shadow immediately crumpled like something enormous had fallen on it, pinned flat to the ground — though even from down there it kept muttering, on and on, about "liberation," "symbiosis," "merging" — words that made absolutely zero sense to Geno.
Just as Geno was trying to figure out what to do with this thing, an unfamiliar voice appeared behind him.
"My, my. Looks like you're having quite the good time."
Geno spun around instantly, palm shooting out to grab whoever it was.
His hand closed on empty air.
Just as he was puzzling over where the person had gone, the owner of that voice materialized directly in front of him.
"Hello there, little lamb's friend~"
A graceful figure appeared — indigo hair, small and delicate horns — who else could it be but Lucia?
____
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