Responsibility

The air was thick with tension. Zeke was now face to face with the creature, who was about to tear him apart. It was just the Hals and Zeke with his bare fists, no magic or weapon, and no Yuki to help him, it was just a fight between them.

Even though he was trying to look cool in front of Yuki a few moments ago, his legs were still trembling, he was still sweating a little and his breathing felt heavier than before. The moment of silence between them was interrupted when the Hals rushed toward him and unleashed an attack with its sharp claws, an attack that could easily kill an ordinary human, but luckily, Zeke didn't fall into that category and was able to avoid it.

'Shit! That was very close!' he said to himself 'I need to be cautious with this creature, It's not like I stand a good chance of winning right now'

The Hals used its tail to strike him this time, and he was able to avoid it once more, but this time he took advantage of it and climbed on top of the creature's tail, preparing to attack. The Hals, on the other hand, do not give up and launch a counterattack against Zeke's attack.

Zeke was in a terrible spot, and it wasn't looking good. He had no choice but to retreat since if he hadn't, he would have been hit by the attack. Yuki saw something wasn't right and tried to intervene, but Zeke stopped her.

'I told you, you've done enough for today, it's my turn now'

'And I told you to be careful, it's not like you can beat a D rank Hals alone'

'I can handle it, don't worry, just stay behind and watch'

'I'm not worried,' she replied irritated.

'You don't give that impression'

'Are you trying to say you know better than me how I feel?'

'I'm just saying that at the moment you don't even know how you feel, but if you say you're not worried, it's ok, as long as no one is worried about me it means that the result doesn't matter, so I can fully enjoy this fight' he replied with excitement in his voice.

Yuki remained silent for a moment, before saying anything else 'It's not a good thing to underestimate your opponent'

'It's not a good thing to underestimate me either'

'You know you're going to die if you're too careless right?' she replied instantly.

Zeke listened to Yuki's words, but something inside him had changed at that moment. For a few seconds, he didn't say anything else. His pupils dilated, and he began to sweat profusely more rapidly. These words kept echoing in his head: 'You're going to die.' At that moment, deep in his mind, Zeke saw a figure, a middle-aged person whose face he couldn't see, staring at him and repeating the words 'You're going to die'.

Yuki sensed something was wrong with him and attempted to comfort him.

'Hey, is everything alright?' she said putting her hand on his shoulder

'DON'T TOUCH ME' he yelled at her, scaring her and pushing her hand.

'What is up with you, are you alright?' she asked, very worried, but this time Zeke did not answer. He got to his feet and began to walk towards the creature, which to his surprise, did not attack him while he was not ready for battle.

'Hmpf, I didn't know that beasts have a sense of honor' he said in a deep and menacing tone.

'Hey Zeke, I think it's the time to switch, I think I can handle it now' Yuki said, getting off the ground and preparing to fight the Hals, but as she was walking past Zeke, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, making her fall to the ground.

'Auch…hey! That hurt! What are you doing?' she asked, confused and irritated.

But instead of responding right away, Zeke turned around and stared menacingly at her, saying, 'I told you, this is my fight, stay back.' He then leaves Yuki behind to prepare for the fight.

'What happened to him? Did I say something wrong?' Yuki wondered.

Zeke rushes closer to Hals and prepares to attack, but Hals counters with its claws, preparing to rip Zeke to shreds. The Hals attack Zeke, but he manages to avoid them. He used the creature's claw as a boost point, followed by a 900 degree kick to the creature's face. The Hals fall to the ground and begin bleeding as a result of Zeke's violent blow.

It was exactly as Zeke expected, physical attacks have more effect on Halses than magic does. Although Zeke's blow appears to have caused it more pain than all of Yuki's subsequent attacks, the Hals get up even angrier than before. It let out a fierce roar, but Zeke hasn't moved an inch, and that seemed to annoy it.

Then it rushed up to Zeke and prepared to attack him. This time, it utilizes both claws to launch a far more powerful attack than before. It would have been a fatal blow to any normal person, but not Zeke, who miraculously managed to evade the attack once again.

Instead of running, Zeke slips beneath the Hals and begins delivering a barrage of powerful blows to the creature's stomach, inflicting severe pain. The Hals began to bleed profusely, with a considerable amount of blood dripping from its mouth. As the two were still fighting, Yuki was watching them from the rock where Zeke had hidden before.

'It's incredible how he can keep up with the Hals this easily. Even if he received some of the demonic powers…I told him he's still weak, but to be honest…Zeke, are you really a human?' she wondered.

As the Hals have already received several powerful blows, it finally manages to escape Zeke's raging storm of blows. It retreated a little behind and took a more defensive stance. Suddenly the bruises and scratches produced by Zeke were clear to the naked eye, and the blood that flowed from different parts of the creature's body as well.

'Oh? What happened, beast?' Zeke asked, looking straight into the creature's eyes 'You look more like a scared cat than the jungle king'

Everything seemed to be in Zeke's favor. After a fight with Yuki, followed by one with Zeke, in which it took even more damage, the Hals was almost done. But that was until one thing happened. The Hals took a defensive stance and was preparing for a counterattack.

It wasn't long before the creature began to roar very loudly. Normally this would not be a problem for Zeke, as it was already the second fight against a Hals, their roar was starting to no longer affect him, and only this time something was different. The sound of Hals's roar was far more deafening than it had ever been. Zeke had fallen to the ground, closing his eyes and putting his hands to his ears. He started screaming in pain, unaware of what was happening. He couldn't hear anything going on around him until he heard a voice yelling: 'WATCH OUT'

But when he opened his eyes, it was already too late. The very next thing he realized was that he had just been hit by Hals's tail. It sent him flying until he hit a nearby tree and fell to the ground. As he was lying on the ground, a lot of blood began to flow from his mouth. And his advantage seemed to be gone. Not far from where Zeke had fallen, Yuki was yelling at him

'Hey! Are you alright?!'

Yuki approached him, pulled him from the ground, and heard him muttering something.

'You…bastard… This hurts a lot more than I expected.'

Something inside Yuki had shifted when she saw Zeke all damaged, blood dripping from his mouth and head, a little dazed from the impact, and all of this because she had let him fight in her place.

'Okay, that's enough!' she said 'We're gonna change places! I will take care of the Hals'

She was ready to attack it, when Zeke grabbed her hand, pulling her back again.

'I said you stay behind, this is my fight'

'What do you mean this is your fight? You're already starting to get beat up, you won't be able to resist like this for too long. Why don't you let me fight?!' she asked, confused, at witch, Zeke simply laughed.

'I can't let you fight because I've taken away a lot of your powers, therefore it's my obligation to take responsibility and make sure you don't get hurt in any fights'

Part of his T-shirt was already torn, so he decides to take down what's left of it and use it as a bandage for his wounds. As a result of this, Zeke remained half-shirtless, at which Yuki began to blush, and looked away.

'Y…You did it on purpose!' she said, stammering.

'You know, nobody told you to look in this direction' he replied, looking irritated at her.

Zeke's image seemed a little changed in Yuki's eyes. In reality it was the same Zeke, a young man 180 centimeters tall, in shape, little defined by the training he practices daily, his black hair dropped down that covered a little of his right eye, his big eyes full of emotion, an emotion... unsettling, we can say. Although muscular, Zeke's body was now covered in scratches from his fight, but even so, something felt different about him.

'I didn't expect him to go so far with all of this...it seems that I was wrong about him...it appears that not every human is as evil as he was…' Yuki said to herself, but her thoughts were interrupted by Zeke.

'Hey Yuki, I want you to answer a question'

'What would that be?'

Zeke waited a few seconds before asking the question. 'Do you trust me?' he said with half a mouth.

'Huh? What made you say that?'

'You claimed you didn't trust me today on the terrace, but I feel something has changed in you now'

Yuki started to smile before answering 'You just think so'

'Do I understand that you still don't trust me?'

'Why do you want to know the answer now? Don't you think you have more important things to do?' she replied, an answer that made Zeke remain silent.

'Yuki…' he said after a couple of seconds.

'Yes?'

'Do you mind if I kill this thing?

'You? Kill this Hals? Do you think you'll be able to kill another being?'

'It's not like it's another human; it's just a soulless beast that just seeks to harm others.'

'He really seems to be serious,' she said to herself 'If you're so confident, here's some advice: normally, if you want to kill these kind of Hals, you should stab them in the heart or chop their head off.'

'Noted'

After that, a moment of silence was left between the two, silence that was broken by Yuki in the end.

'Do you still want to kill this thing alone?' she said in a soft voice.

'Yes' Zeke replied 'Let me take responsibility for this, and prove to you that you can trust me. Even if I just met you, after a long time, you are the first person I can consider a friend, and I don't want it to be a one-sided relationshi…'

'WATCH OUT!' she screamed, interrupting him.

The Hals attacked them again with its tail at that point. Fortunately, Yuki was able to avoid being hit, but Zeke was seriously wounded, as he had been the previous time. It's just that this time was different; despite being severely injured, Zeke remained standing. He even used his bare hands to block the Hals' tail attack.

'You bastard! Don't you think it's a little rude to interrupt other people's conversation?' said Zeke concentrating his strength and tensed all his muscles to lift the Hals, then throwing it back. Zeke looked exhausted, he was breathing harder and harder.

But at that moment, Yuki stepped in, and said to him 'I'm going to help you with some magic, it's ok, I decide to trust you, so don't worry' at witch Zeke replied with a smile and a simple 'Thanks'

The Hals was preparing to attack, while Zeke and Yuki were ready for the fight. Yuki had prepared her spells, and was about to attack first, when, at the very last moment, Zeke pushed her out of the Hals's way, knocking her to the ground. When she looked at him, he was smiling, before being hit by the Hals and taken with it in the woods.

'YOU BRAINLESS MONKEY!' she screamed with all her might.

Once in the middle of the forest, the Hals threw Zeke in a random direction and hid between the trees. Zeke looked around after rising up off the ground, dazed and bruised, and saw only a sliver of the path Hals was going, so he chose to follow it.

'Wonderful, now it can attack me from everywhere' he thought.

As he followed the direction, he began to notice claw marks on various objects in his path. Zeke had already arrived in an area with dense trees and a lot of vegetation, you couldn't really distinguish many things from each other.

He stopped and looked closely at the area around him, many details that could lead him to his death. Suddenly, he heard a rustle coming from a bush. He had taken a defensive stance and was preparing to attack. After that, a rabbit comes out of the bush, looks at Zeke, then runs away scared.

'Huh, it looks like you are more scared than I am' said Zeke, but by the time he realized, the Hals was already behind him, ready to tear him to pieces alive. It lunged at him, slammed him to the ground and tried to bite him with its sharp fangs. Even so, Zeke somehow managed to block the creature's attack, grabbing it by the fangs and resisting.

He then hits the creature in the throat with his leg, causing it to drown for a second, and managed to escape from its clutches, but it was not over. Even though he escaped the creature's attack, Zeke still didn't let go of its fangs, he held them tight, and looked into Hals eyes.

'Let's see how dangerous you are without these, beast' he said in a hard tone.

At that moment, with all the power he had, Zeke snatches the creature's fangs out of its mouth, then retreats, leaving the Hals in great agony. The Hals was sitting on the ground, roaring with anger and pain.

'Yuki said the weapons work best against you, let's see how true it is.'

The creature's fangs were huge, they were so big that in Zeke's hands they could be used as daggers. Now the odds seemed to be in Zeke's favor again. The Hals rose from the ground and rushed to Zeke and Zeke did the same, attacking the creature, this time with its own weapons. The moment Zeke approaches the creature, its used its claws to attack him, and fortunately Zeke manages to avoid it, stabs the creature in the side, and then cuts it.

The creature's fangs were so sharp that not even its dense skin could withstand it. But in a moment of inattention, Zeke was caught in a blind spot, and by the time it was too late, he could no longer avoid the creature's counterattack. The Hals managed to injure Zeke, leaving a deep wound on his chest, after which it hit him with its tail, throwing him into a nearby tree.

Zeke began to lose a lot of blood after that fatal hit. Too much of it began to flow from his mouth, and he became dizzy as a result of the massive loss.

'This...This is too dangerous...I need to finish this quickly...before it's not too late' Zeke said to himself.

At that moment, something had happened in Zeke's mind. The same image reappeared, it was the same silhouette of a person who kept repeating to Zeke 'You're going to die'. Zeke bit his lip in frustration and said in a silent voice: 'I told you…nobody is gonna die as long as I'm here'

Zeke then dashed at the Hals, slipping beneath it and effectively cutting its stomach. Both Zeke and Hals have already lost too much blood at that point. The battle was coming to an end, but the winner had yet to be determined. It was time for them to put their remaining aces to good use.

The Hals took its defensive stance once again, and prepared for the last attack. It used the same strange roar as before, hoping that the result would be the same. But its misfortune was that Zeke had already noticed the trick behind this attack.

'So you're applying magic to increase your roar effectiveness, aren't you? Damn, that girl, there are a lot of things you can do with magic and you haven't told me yet…'

Although he realized the secret behind the enemy's attack, Zeke could do nothing, he still didn't know how to counteract the magic, and all he had was an extraordinary physical force. So this time, Zeke decided to cash in on the attack, and everything else had Hals ready.

Zeke's ears began to bleed from Hals' attack, but he didn't seem to care too much, instead he attacked the Hals with all he had, but Hals retaliated using his tail. But at the very last moment something happened.

'I got you beast' Zeke said, with a maniac smile appearing on his face.

Using the creature's fangs, Zeke managed to cut Hals' tail. It roars in pain and then attacks Zeke with its sharp claws. The fight wasn't over yet. Zeke used a fang and stabbed the Hals in the hand, but the wounds and the lost blood were already saying their word, and Zeke started to feel an immense pain from them.

He could not continue this fight any longer, and so with his last strength he used the other fang and stabbed the Hals in the neck, making it let out a last roar of pain, slightly fading.

The beast breathed its last breath at that point, leaving a waterfall of blood spilling from its throat, caused by its own fang. Zeke was sitting in this pool of blood full of scratches, and with a fatal wound on his chest, next to the creature's corpse, which began to turn into particles and then disappear.

'What is happening?' He wondered, before slowly losing his consciousness. He was about to fall to the ground, but luckily, someone was there to catch him, it was Yuki, who was looking worriedly at his wounded and bloody body.

'You idiot, you've gone way too far' she said.

'I…told…you…I'm going to take responsibility' Zeke replied before falling unconscious.

'Hmpf, you were right, you've taken responsibility Zeke…you really did…it's ok, you can rest now, you've done enough' she said, as she stroked Zeke's hair.