Kai and Ayaka were flying in another direction, and according to Kai, they wanted to distract the magical beasts. Kai kept pressuring Ayaka by making her hurry. That way, she wouldn’t think of why they were being chased by magical beasts.

Of course, it wasn’t true. They weren’t being chased by those magical beasts anymore. Kai only kept pressuring her, so she didn’t know they were no longer being chased and that the magical beasts were chasing Chitose and Carmina at the moment.

After almost a minute, Ayaka suddenly felt something wrong. They thought that they were being chased, but the magical beasts should’ve caught up with them. But after flying for a minute, she realized that no magical beasts were near them.

“Kai? Where are the magical beasts?”

“Just keep flying for a few more minutes and I’ll explain it to you. After that, we’ll move to the stadium and request reinforcement. I don’t know if the people in the stadium have noticed it or not though,” Kai said. He wanted to explain it to Ayaka to buy time. If they went toward the base right now, they would encounter those magical beasts again.

“But where are they? Don’t tell me, they are still chasing Chitose and Carmina?” Ayaka looked Kai in surprise. She never thought that Kai would sacrifice their comrades. When she thought about that, she immediately stopped flying and dropped Kai to the ground.

“Kai! Why are you-!” Before Ayaka could ask, Kai already stopped her.

“Tch, I will explain it later. Just keep flying first for a few minutes. We’re still in danger!” Kai shouted.

“Why? I never expected you to be someone willing to sacrifice his comrades just to save his own life!” Ayaka shouted as tears started forming in the corner of her eyes. She lost trust in Kai because of this.

“As I said, we need to get away first! I’ll explain my reason to you after this!” Kai gritted his teeth.

“No! You… I trusted you when I thought we were going to distract them. But to think you only sacrificed them to save your own life, I misjudged you!” Ayaka also roared. She didn’t know why, but knowing about this made her heart wrench in pain. “I’ll save them even if I need to do it alone!”

“Tch!” Kai clicked his tongue. The moment she looked away, trying to fly again. Kai immediately made a magic circle.

“Lullaby.”

The moment he flicked his finger, Ayaka felt a numb sensation on her brain. Because of that sensation, her Fire Wings suddenly vanished and she fell to the ground.

“Kai! You!” Ayaka turned back and roared at Kai. But before she could utter another word, Kai already arrived in front of her. He sent a punch to her abdomen. Of course, he just used his strength enough to knock her out.

“You bas…tard… I won’t… forgive…” She couldn’t utter the last word before she was knocked out.

She fell into his embrace. He didn’t know why, but this made his heart very uncomfortable. He clicked his tongue as he didn’t have time to sort out his feelings.

He immediately carried her on his back before running away from that place. He continued running toward the north.

Kai couldn’t fly, so he just continued to run to create distance between them and those magical beasts. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince Ayaka when she was in that state, so he could only knock her out to make sure she couldn’t struggle.

After all, in this situation, Ayaka wouldn’t believe that they had a mole in their rank, and it was Carmina. Even though Ayaka trusted Kai, she wouldn’t be convinced if he said Carmina was a mole. He could tell from her heartbeat.

And if he explained all the reasons why he ended up with that conclusion, it would take a long time, and the magical beasts would come toward them.

At the same time, he was also unsure whether those numerous magical beasts were chasing them because no one controlled them or because they were under some kind of illusion. Kai didn’t have enough proof to explain it to Ayaka.

Of course, he knew that Chitose was innocent, and he felt very bad about it. But compared to Ayaka, she was just a stranger that somehow became their comrade for the time being.

He didn’t care about how he would be hated because of this. After all, he just made the most logical decision. However, the problem would be how he would explain it to Ayaka.

Luckily, he found a cave in the mountain range after running for around ten minutes. Of course, because he couldn’t fly, he didn’t move too far. And it already took a toll on his body, since the ground was muddy and he needed great concentration to choose the path so he wouldn’t slip and drop Ayaka. He was grateful that he could find a natural cave, and he found that it was quite deep inside.

After making sure that there were no magical beasts inside the cave, he decided to enter the cave. The cave was dark and quite long. However, he purposely stepped as hard as he could in his every step inside.

He made this to send vibrations throughout the ground. With this, he could roughly sense the ground nearby and wouldn’t fall, since he was carrying Ayaka.

He put down the unconscious Ayaka on the ground. He was tired after doing all that work. The natural action after this would be removing their wet clothes, but Kai didn’t do that. What he did first was tie up her hands and feet to make sure that she wouldn’t do anything funny the moment she woke up.

And he was right. Just after he tied her up, she woke up.

She was still fuzzy since she just woke up, but when she remembered everything happened. She involuntarily shouted, “Kai, you bastard! Even Katsuragi Takaki is better than you!”

It was at this time that she realized she couldn’t see a single thing. She didn’t know that she was in a cave. Because of this darkness, she thought Kai had kidnapped her and she was blindfolded.

She tried to remove the blindfold, but she realized her hands and feet were tied up. “Kai! Release me in this instant! You bastard, I will kill you!”

When Kai heard that, he could only sigh. He knew that this would be a normal reaction for her, so he simply said, “Just release your fire a little bit and you’ll be able to see.”

She was startled when she heard Kai’s voice. She clearly felt exhaustion from Kai’s voice. Even so, she was still consumed by rage, so she didn’t care about that.

She then used her fire and made a little light inside the dark cave. When the light finally lit in that dark cave, she could see Kai’s tired face.

“You bastard! Release me right now, I will kill you! I never thought that you would be this kind of person!” Ayaka shouted.

“Just say whatever you want… You won’t even bother to hear my explanation at this point, so it would be useless even if I explain it to you,” Kai sighed.

“Hmph! You’re just a coward that can only sacrifice his comrades. I’m ashamed to think that I thought you were a cool and intelligent guy,” Ayaka spat.

“Have you said enough?” Kai looked at her coldly. He then released both of his swords and stabbed them on the ground just right before her eyes.

“You… You… What do you want? Don’t come!” Ayaka started panicking.

Kai suddenly removed his upper uniform. And when Ayaka saw that, her face became pale as she roared, “You… Even Katsuragi Takaki wouldn’t do something like this! Don’t come near me!”

“Since you’re not going to listen to my explanation, I’m going to shut you up first,” Kai said without any expression.

“Bastard!” Ayaka was scared when Kai suddenly sat down on her belly.

He looked at her with that cold eyes. She felt chill down to the spine.

Kai was already very uncomfortable by doing this. His heart had been wrenched by pain. Just looking at her looking at him with rage and fear, he felt as though his heart was being stabbed by needles.

Even though he had known her for a month, he didn’t know why he had this feeling. Although it wasn’t the same intense feeling as the one he felt from his sister, it was still pain.

In the end, his body started shaking as he punched the ground beside her head. He shouted, “Just listen to me first!”

“You-!” Ayaka noticed that his body was shaking. She didn’t know why, but she felt anxiety in those cold eyes.

After that, he slowly stood up before making a certain distance from her. He closed his eyes for a bit to calm himself down before opening it again with a serious expression. His coldness had vanished into thin air.

He looked at Ayaka, who didn’t say a single thing anymore. He finally said, “Why do you think the magical beasts were chasing us? Before the rain, I activated my Echolocation skill, and I’m sure you’ve seen it.

“There are at least two groups a few hundred meters away from us. But those magical beasts just ignored them and chased us. Why do you think they chased us like that even though we hadn’t done anything strange?

“If we’re in a calm situation, I’m sure you’ll be able to think about that. So I want you to calm yourself first,” Kai said slowly.

“!!!” Ayaka’s body shook when she heard that.