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Chapter 14: Familiar yet different

UGH, THIS IS A DAMN PAIN. I can barely comprehend what happened, but I goddamn wasn’t expecting this. This is why I felt something familiar, but the feeling was slightly different. I lay on the ground for a bit, trying to rest a bit before I have to somehow fight against her. I can tell from her eyes she cannot recognise me at all. It’s drab, lacking any life inside of her.

A vision rapidly passed through my brain. I could see a blue beam flash straight towards Leo’s head.

「Tiana, are you alr-」

My eyes snapped open. I shoved him through the shadow portal, then instantly fired Pallweber at the beam, erupting a large puff of smoke into the air. I summoned my revolver, Huygen ready to fight against that goddamn crazy woman.

「Hey, Nozomi. Long time no see. It’s your favourite husband’s alternate self.」

Nozomi walks through the smoke with broken up cloth wrapped around her holding multiple small plasma balls in her damn hand.

「ah, son of a b-」

She fires them straight at me. I fired Huygen, creating a large purple time barrier blocking the attack. Can’t I choose to have a less fracking crazy woman? I mean, thinking about it more, I shouldn’t be surprised. Both are really mentally stupid.

I fired my Pall - UGH FRACK IT’S MY SHOTGUN. WHOEVER NAMED THESE GUNS NEEDS TO GO FRACK THEMSELF. It was me. **cough** so anyway, I fired my shotgun straight into her chest, stopping her in her tracks. She instantly shatters through the effect and leaped straight at me while engulfing her arms with flames with sparks of lightning.

「I mean, I should’ve fracking known.」

I instantly parried using the sides of my shotgun, reflecting her away. I saw a quick vision and instantly slowed down time a bit to give me more time to react before she kicks past it with her shins encircled by whirling rings of air blades.

With no breaks, she unleashed a flurry of different punches and kicks at me, trying to kill me. But I could dodge those annoying ass attacks with slowing time for a brief moment while allowing Valfur to give me brief glimpses of the future. Frack, what should I do? I need some kind of diversion to keep her at bay, but her swings are getting faster and fast-

The punch blasted right through my chest, killing my clone before I leaped back with my two guns and fired a consecutive barrage of shots. With a surge of power, I imbued my shotgun with Valquer, enveloping it in an ominous purple light.

「GABELUNG!」

A quick but powerful purple blast shot out of my shotgun, flinging her back while simultaneously splitting her mind from the past and present. From what I can fracking see, it’s working. She looks like her head is scrambled; hopefully it’s enough to bring her back to normal. Valfur activated, giving me a brief vision. I instinctively jumped high while cloning hundreds of clones of myself; I looked towards where my feet were and noticed a puddle of dark energy force appeared. I shifted my eyes towards Nozomi.

「Oh fracking course.」

Her eyes glowed pink while she was on all fours like a feral beast; the grass suddenly grew high creating spikes of out the grass piercing all of my clones. Without missing a beat, the grass. Suddenly tried to engulf me. I started firing my gun at the damn grass while I dodge and weave through the air, before all the grass has been blasted. I sped my gravitational fall to crash down onto Nozomi.

「AH FRA-」

She doges then grabs me by the neck and slammed me into the floor. Her grip rapidly tightens while the spell she cast on her hand strengthens. I flailed at her while trying to gasp for some fracking air. AH FRACK WHA- OK THIS IS MY LAST FRACKING HOPE. I used my time powers to help me navigate fast on my watch to grab a small golden pendant while everything was slowly turning back. It instantly materialised onto my left hand. She instantly diverted her attention towards the pendant with her feral expression completely wiped. She let go of my neck, releasing me while I tried to fracking catch my breath.

「Fracking hell, Nozomi. You almost fracking-」

A tear escaped her eye, landing on my cheek just before her emotions crashed, and she dissolved into sobs, showering my face with more tears. Instinctively, I hugged her while patting her back, trying to comfort her. Even if I call her fracking crazy woman, I cannot hate her; it’s built into my genetics.

I opened up a shadow portal near me, allowing Leo to get out. With one step at a time, he slowly exited out of the void. He doesn’t seem happy with me.

「Sorry Leo, I can’t risk you being out there.」

「I thought you’re going to die.」

「Yeah, I know if I die you’ll be stuck there forever. 」

「No, I’m more worried about you dying.」

「Worried about me? You don’t have -」

I looked at him. I know I cannot think straight, but I knew instantly that he was angry and sad about what happened. It felt weird for someone caring about my life like that. It felt unnatural, especially what I will be dragging him into soon. I can’t go against him either; I can’t figure out the right emotion, but it feels like I have a unique bond that I haven’t felt in a long time. Something very familial. I gave a warm smile .

「Ok Leo, I will try to be careful next time.」

I lay on the ground while hugging Nozomi until she stopped bawling her eyes out and collected her feelings.

I'm rushing a bit :(. I am def struggling with how the introduction will end.