Cat and Mouse

Aomuri, central area, late evening. Two figures were running at the highest speed they could without rousing suspicion, zigzagging through the crowd. They were Barnie and Yaleena. As for why they were running...

"Did we lose him?!"

"No! He's tailing us! Fortunately, he too is refraining from using his true capabilities."

"How far is he?"

"About 1 km away from us."

"Shit! We are definitely under his radar! If only we had Reinard with us! I can't even fucking use my <Spatial Rift> on short range with so many people around. Also, he will surely detect where we are going!"

"But even if he finds us out, what will he do assuming he doesn't want to reveal his powers to the public?"

"You know dark element is his affinity, right?"

*Gulp*

"...."

This reply from Yaleena shut Barnie up. She knew all too well that there are techniques in both light and dark magic which can mess with your perception, and their pursuer could easily use the latter to distort the perception of the crowd.

"Leader, can you open two rifts together, ummmm... while running?"

She looked at her leader hopefully. The inky blue eyes looked right into her as her leader said.....

"Actually, I can."

"Can you do it twice in a row?"

"It will be hard... very... But I can understand what you are thinking. Send you somewhere safe while I go to another place. Activate two rifts again and teleport to your place. Four portals would surely confuse him. Am I right?"

"Exactly!"

"What a fool!"

"Huh? Isn't it good enough? Leader will transport me to a place and then come here while successfully confusing him!"

"Do you think he will seriously be affected by that cheap tactic? Let's say I cast two rifts and you use it to travel to a certain place. I use the other one and go to another place. Then I open two rifts again, and use one to go to the your place. He will analyse where the rifts lead to. If two out of four rifts lead to the same place, even a half-wit can understand what it means! Also, how do you know he will not go to your location at first?"

As she explained that, Yaleena sensed a bolt of energy and jerked her head to the side, avoiding it. The bolt continued going on, and struck an unsuspecting passerby. She furrowed her eyebrows while Barnie gasped. Not even daring to look back, they picked their paces up.

"Here I thought he would not involve innocent people..."

Indeed, the poor bystander who got hit was sent flying. Apparently it hit him in his shoulder. He gave out a blood curdling scream of pain as chaos ensued. Everyone started to scream and shout in panic.

"A sniper!!" Someone shouted. Everybody started to run towards the nearest shops to take shelter. It had turned into a stampede. In the midst of the pandemonium, the duo were running away from the scene, hoping to lose their overpowered pursuer.

"Wait wait! We need to help that guy!"

Barnie exclaimed, her voice an octave higher.

Having a caring nature, she couldn't accept the fact that an innocent person got injured due to a matter related to them.

As she was breathed in to refocus and readied herself to let her voice out again, Barnie widened her eyes and jumped forwards.

The inertia carried her forward as she sailed through the air following which she landed on the ground nimbly and resumed the sprint.

She turned back and saw a spike coming out of the place in front of where she was running a moment before. It was slanted, most probably aimed at her heart. Her mouth opened and came out a shaky voice,

"Leader... he may not know the place where we are going to teleport...It might be possible he hasn't explored as many places in this planet as you have..."

"Do you think you can underestimate him?! He has scoured every end of this city!"

Their pursuer's presence was closing in. Yaleena started preparing a spatial barrier. She ordered Barnie to intercept the pursuer's conjurations.

If her guess was right, then that person was a master technician with dark conjurations as the prime source of offence. In that case, Barnie, a dark conjurer herself would be able to buy some time.

"I will intercept it. Use the time not to make a barrier but let's open a two or three rifts and enter any one together! He won't be able to say which one we went through!"

As she was too busy talking to Yaleena, she didn't notice that someone was standing right in her path, resulting in a collision.

"Owh!" Barnie got thrown backwards and landed on her butt.

"Ugh!" The person whom she collided with was thrown backwards too, and he fell down spread-eagled. He looked hurt.

"Barnie! Quick we have to get away or else we'll be caught!"

Yaleena urged, since their pursuer was surely going to catch up to them.

The boy stood up and dusted himself off. He was none other than Mino. Upon hearing the urgent words of the Inky blue haired girl which consisted of 'get away' and 'caught', he felt strangely suspicious. He gave them a wary look before his eyes met with the person's who was chasing those two. Barnie clearly felt Mino's glare of suspicion that was directed at them.

"W-why is he looking at us suspiciously!?"

"Because we are trying to run away from the 'scene of crime' and not running to find shelter."

*Gasp*

"We are also caught on camera. Our hair colours are quite unique. Now, there's quite some chance that suspicion will be directed at us and that we will have to cover our faces from now onwards. We also can't use illusions since they can be detected by that fucking technician!"

[Damn! Why the hell is Josh that sly!]

She once again put her hoodie on as Barnie took out her kerchief to tie it around her face sans the eyes.

But then Yaleena leaked out a surprised tone.

"Eh?!"

"Wh-What!?"

"He seems to have stopped pursuing us..."

"WHAT!!! IS HE CALLING FOR REINFORCEMENTS?!"

"Stop shouting! Let us run away and maximise the distance. Let's hope he isn't leading us into a trap once again."

But the reason the pursuer had to stop was quite different.

******

"Hey bro Josh! You alright?!"

Mino asked energetically when he saw Josh run towards his direction (towards the girls' direction to be precise). Even though a man was shot in his vicinity, he didn't look tensed at all.

"Ah... I didn't expect to meet with you so soon. Thanks for the concern." was the quiet reply. It appeared to be mixed with a bit of dissatisfaction and annoyance, but Mino chalked it up to be his imagination and ignored it.

"Quickly let's find shelter! I don't wanna be the sniper's next victim."

Apparently he thought that Josh was running for shelter too.

[Seems like he didn't notice I was chasing them. Well, it doesn't matter. Now that I have seen the leader of the second group herself, that makes it safe to assume that all of their nine members are scattered throughout the city, since we have seen members from both groups.]

Making this mental note, he turned towards Mino.

"Yeah... it's prudent to do so." smiling wryly, Josh accompanied Mino to a nearby cafe. It was packed with people and most of them were dead scared.

Shortly after, police came and tried their best to dispel the fear and panic. They said,

"The sniper has escaped it seems. But don't worry, we will definitely nab him. It is unclear who was his target, but I can guarantee one thing. Such a thing will not go unpunished. As for the victim, he has been taken to a hospital. His condition is critical. Citizens, I request you to deal with a crisis calmly. Panic leads to ruin. If this person was taken some time before, then his chances of recovery would've been even higher. Your duty, just like us, is to protect your and others' lives. In case of an accident, never hesitate to call the ambulance first."

People were afraid. Some were even crying. Looking at the miserable condition of the people, Josh thought to himself,

"Did I go too overboard... These people haven't done anything... yet they are suffering so much... because of me..."

Then he shook his head and slapped his cheeks lightly to drive such thoughts away from his head. [Nobody will suffer anymore... this game of cat and mouse has stretched for too long... we hunters will surely finish it this time. They think they have escaped? How naïve of them.]

"Hey Mino, don't worry... I am sure this will end soon..."

He only offered these words to his newfound friend before opening the door and walking out casually.

"Eh? Huh? What the heck's he talking about..."

Mino was utterly confused, but Josh was already gone.