A few days before.
"What if Raef confronts one of us?" Noctis asked, his mind feeling a bit hazy, as Trisha was talking about the rituals. The recent strangeness was thoroughly scaring him—his attention on her helpful tutoring was thoroughly distracted.
Not thinking about it long, Trisha gave a quick, a bit disinterested answer.
"Just send the other a message, and he or she will then go and inform the creepy-looking guy in the crow mask."
Nox rubbed his temple a bit. He was unsatisfied with the solution. What if he didn't get the chance to inform her, what if his mobile was damaged beforehand?
"How about we simply send each other a message every hour or so, and when one of us doesn't send a message for a while, you'll know that something happened."
Trisha looked him in the eye with an unprecedented seriousness all of a sudden.
"Are you seriously asking for my number in this situation? I am flattered but… You don't have to create such an elaborate scheme to get it. Just ask."
Flabbergasted by the out-of-pocket words, Noctis took a pillow lying next to him and, enraged, threw it toward her face.
***
Back in the current day.
Bang, a loud sound erupted, as Raef made his run towards Noctis, and every one of his enthralled underlings started a run in the opposite direction towards the steadily approaching Plague doctor.
Seven students who had thoroughly overwhelmed Noctis before were now running towards the Plague doctor, jumping him without the slightest hesitation in their movements, completely fearless.
Everyone wore a ferocious bestial expression, ready to throw away their lives for Raef.
And yet, when the time came to strike at the Doctor, they stopped.
Each one of them stopped in their tracks as if frozen.
The Doctor walked on, no emotions on his expressionless mask perceivable, the scene seemingly not fazing him at all.
Trisha, who was leaning on the wall, watched the scene in complete bafflement.
Those students who stood in his way were still frozen, slowly struggling, and started moving backwards to the side.
In the distance, Noctis saw Raef heading towards him, and simply took a step to the side.
Raef stared him in the eye for a moment, yet he did not stop and ran past him without hesitation.
What was rage and revenge? Merely useless desires that would lead to his death. So Raef ran for it.
But somehow he quickly felt exausted, his body was so terribly heavy all of a sudden!
As the Doctor walked past the students, not sparing them a single glance, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, apparently not in a hurry.
Next to him stood a bronze-skinned, tall man, his body muscular and peculiarly treambelling.
It was not trembling because of fear, however. How could it? Raef had made sure that none of them had such an emotion anymore.
The Crow masked doctor, for the first time, turned his head and looked at the bronze-skinned youth through the darkened glasses of his mask, his eyes fully hidden.
"Peculiar?" The doctor's voice echoed as he looked at the trembling student, a certain green colour flaring in his eyes.
The doctor watched as the student resisted the suppression, his body slowly moving more and more.
All across his body, wounds opened as his resistance grew stronger and stronger, a bluish green smoke floating out of the bloody wounds. Illogically, however, what should have been flowing out, namely, blood, did not do so.
"Argh," The student groaned, his body lifted off the ground, held by the neck, a lever-gloved hand tightly grasping it.
"Regretfully, I do not have the time to examine such an intriguing specimen."
The student's hands wandered to the outstretched arm, grasping it and pressing it tightly, as the grip around his neck tightened and his face began to turn blue.
Crack
His head snapped to the side before his body fell to the ground motionless.
Dead.
Not wasting time, the crow masked man did not hesitate, not sparing the carcass another glance.
He started walking once more.
***
In the distance, Raef felt his body drenched in sweat. He was exhausted—every movement felt like torture.
I-I need to get outside the facility. As long as I reach the market, I can rebuild! Even if there won't be so many fitting subjects, it will simply take a bit longer.
Taking a quick glance at his arm, a nail of his extended by a few centimetres, before it cut into his wrist with little resistance.
Not the slightest hesitation in his movements. What was pain in the face of death!
Two substances flowed out of the newly opened wound.
On the one hand, a bluish-green mist began to rise, taking form.
Pressing out the greenish blue smoke, similar to the stuff he used to deactivate the spell, it quickly gathered into a cloud.
Peculiarly, the substance one would expect did not flow so easily. The blood in his veíns was refusing to leave. Frowning at this, Raef flexed the muscles of his arm, the blood suddenly starting to flow, pressing out like jam.
It took the form of a gremlin-like, large beast, its teeth black and sharp, as it started to tower a meter above the exausted Raef.
This time, however, the creature did not disintegrate as in his previous attempts under the spell—no, this beast was real.
Raef pointed in the direction he had been running. The beast, in return, tilted its head a bit, confusedly scratching its head with its long, terrifying claws.
"Bring me in that direction, you fucking dimwit!"
Raef hated to rely on manifested fear—it was so narrow-minded and inflexible!
Finally, it grabbed him by the collar and started its walk in the direction Raef had pointed towards.
Behind a slow, methodical taping sound was resounding throughout the hallway, increasingly growing clearer and more pronounced.
Tap.
Raef quickly learned to begrudge that terrible sound. How could he not? After all, it was the Grim Reaper steadily approaching his position. Each sound symbolized one second of his life receding and being extinguished.
And more than all else, he felt an emotion he had so much control over flare up for the first time in ages.
The creature of fear was fearing for the first time. The person, the death incarnate, was approaching slowly and steadily, as if nothing could stop it.
***
Noctis saw the man in black come and go, his mask turning towards the one student who had not been crippled or controlled. Then it simply turned back, as if nothing had happened, passing by as if he did not exist.
It was a frightening experience. Noctis followed the receding figure of the Doctor with bated breath, the thought of Raef escaping weighing heavily.
In the end, Nox decided to trail behind him—if the Doctor was against it, he did not say so, or he simply had not noticed. Noctis, however, believed neither was the case; he believed that the Doctor was fully and utterly indifferent to the idea of someone spectating his craft.
***
Raef was pulled and pulled his body, slowly regaining the strength he had felt and restricting his movements, mostly gone.
Bang
His head collided with the floor.
Had that good-for-nothing gremlin slipped. Raef thought with annoyance as he looked up with a desperate expression on his face.
What he saw was not what he expected. The gremlin lay on the floor, but not because it slipped.
Its left leg was missing!
Something had torn off the leg at a speed Raef could not even perceive.
"An adult hollow tooth?" The voice echoed from behind.
"No, that seems more like an overgrown child of a hollow tooth, never having left the hatchling stage." The echos answered their own question simply by making observations.
Reaf looked back in horror. Death had caught up!
The masked man stopped, looked down at the creature that had fallen, in confusion, as it stared at its lost limb.
Raef did not hesitate, as he turned once more to run, the hollow tooth at the same time jumped up, its movements clunky, because of the missing limb.
And still it jumped towards certain death without fear, behind it from Raef's direction, the greenish—blue mist arose once more.
This time, it took the form of three knives flying at the doctor with startling speed.
The man in black, in return, simply took a step to the side, barely moving his body out of the way of the downward-slashing claws of the beast. In the same fluid motion, he grabbed the knives flying at him with terrifying speed and flung two toward Raef, while using the third to stab through the beast's skull.
Surprisingly, however, the creature did not collapse, as it wound up for a surprise attack.
This time, the doctor was stunned. Was it because of the resiliency of the beast, or because this was out of his expectations? The words that for the first time revealed emotion surprised Noctis, who could barely hear them.
"What an interessting creature. Is that a manifestation?"
In the next moment, he grabbed the creature's head with startling speed and crushed it into meat pulp. This time, the creature collapsed to the floor, the doctor watching it intensely.
When it started liquifying, a disappointed sigh escaped his concealed mouth.
"The flesh is simply too weak." Echoed through the room, as he walked towards Raef, once more.
Meanwhile, Raef saw two knives of his own creation fly towards him, at a speed he could barely perceive. Following a hastily made mental command of his, one of them turned into a blue—green liquid, while the other suddenly hit his leg. A muffled groan escaped his mouth as he collapsed to a knee.
At the same time, he noticed the mental connection to the hollow tooth had broken and looked up from his wound.
There above him stood he.
How the tables had turned. One moment staring down at a fully suppressed student, the next being suppressed and being stared down at.
Noctis might have found the scene mildly amusing if the circumstances weren't as they were.
Looking up at Death, Raefs had seen fear disappear bit by bit. He had resigned himself to his fate.
"Who or what sent you?" The echoing voice spoke.
"Hm, hm"
Raef chukled, veins all across his body started flaring up, in the green-blue shades.
"I am nothing much. Hm, hm. On the other hand, the one who sent me… hm, hm.
You have doomed this city. The main body will come here, and none of you will be able to stop it."
Raef's body was clearly decaying and falling apart, but the doctor did nothing, his body motionless.
"And who is that main body you speak of?"
This time, Raef broke out in full laughter, the decay of his body increasing by the second. His eye popped out of its socket, his skin was pulling back, and his legs turned into a green-blue liquid.
"Ha, ha, ha, the Fear will consume this city whole, you will see!!!
This bubble we call reality, this illusion, a weak imitation of reality. I won't be able to see the true reality beyond this cage, but he will one day."
Calming down, the last words out of his mouth, before his body fully fell into itself, his vocal cords a bit hazy and distorted.
Iiiitsss—jusssst… so reeegratableeee—thattt I wont seeee thaaaat."