188: Taking Things In (1)

Taking Things In (1)

Moby snapped back into reality and slowly let go of Alex's head, a river of sweat flowing down his face as he backed off with unsteady legs, his breathing all of a sudden becoming far more sporadic and abnormal, the piercing pain in his heart growing even further, his head throbbing with a heavy migraine from the immense amount of information he took in in such a short amount of time.1

As he backed off, his shaky eyes instinctively fell underneath his feet… 

He was greeted by the now even more familiar scene of Alex's previously awake yet now numb unconscious body, the look of pure despair on his face that was completely red due to his earlier teary eyes, his exposed flesh that was caused from when he was slapped beginning to regenerate, now no longer showing his broken teeth through the hole in his cheek. 

Then, his gaze shifted towards his beloved, Jayden who was laying right beside him in a near-identical state, her skin as pale as a ghost, both her eyes and mouth wide open and devoid of colour and a look leaning more towards a mixture of both anger and pain.

The mental strain of seeing one of his best friends and only lover in such a state for the third time in the span of a few minutes was extremely immense, the impact and gravity not lessening no matter how many times he looked at it, giving him flashbacks of a similar scene but at the hands of Natalia during the exams instead.

To him, they were truely his family...

The dizziness and pain in his head seemed to only grow with no end in sight.

Before he completely lost his balance, He slowly tumbled and leaned himself back onto a nearby tree, his right hands over his now immensely hurting head and his left hand on his lurching heart.

'It seems like he went unconscious while I was still in his mind…' Moby thought, taking a quick glance at Alex from the corners of his vision, his mind still in absolute chaos.

Seeing his friends in such a state was one thing but seeing exactly what and how it happened to them was another, he felt his emotions welling up inside of him like a red hot volcano ready to explode right from under his hysterical face. Part of him knew it was all his fault, he dragged everyone into it, even people unrelated and who he knew definitely could not care less about Ray like both Abby and Jayden.

He was not fully prepared for what the implications of starting a war with one of the biggest gangs in the entire school entailed.

At this point, he should be lucky that his reckless orders of starting war didn't lead to any fatal or irreversible injuries. It was all his fault, he underestimated his own value to them, if he had known that so many strong people would have shown up just for the purpose of subduing him, he would have gone about things far more cautiously and differently.

That was still a point that he could not bring himself to understand... Why did they want him so badly, to the point of sending 60, some even being B rank, along with 3 of their top 5 members to capture him. Did he reveal too much? Who was the mastermind and what was the purpose, why him of all people? He doubted that every person on his level would get treated with such great importance.

Due to that fact that was unknown to him until now, all of his friends were injured and Abby was kidnapped, he was supposed to have the element of surprise and overpower them with more manpower than they expected but they seemed to have a backup plan in the form of the black and white fallen angel of death, HikariYami.

Moby inwardly cursed again, shaking his head as he tried to calm his nerves once more just in case he decided to do something stupid. 

Spur of the moment thinking would not only put himself at risk but all of his loved ones and comrades, and he was no were near selfish enough to do so.

He closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths, each one longer than the last until his mind was brought back to a somewhat sane level. He knew the result of what happened but seeing the procedure reignited the fear and anger that he had previously locked away in his heart in hopes of a more rational approach.

Immense anger and sadness would do nothing but blind his thoughts and draw him farther away from the truth. He could not go off his emotions, he needed to logically think and fully take in everything that he had just learned. And, most importantly, he could not allow himself to show weakness to his subordinates, strong troops were only as good as their leader, if he stayed like he was, the morale of everyone under him would no doubt plummet.

Instead of asking Alex to explain to him exactly what transpired, he had opted to use his memory manipulation skill in order to relive what Alex had witnessed in order to gain a better grasp of the situation.

When he did, just like he expected, he was able to rewatch exactly what had happened but from Alex's perspective, including the moment when he saw the enemies hands tightly grasped, choking Abby's pail, ghost-like skin with Jayden laid almost lifeless on the ground, exactly like how she was in the present time. 

The memory manipulation skill seemed so real that he almost felt like it was him who was witnessing the events first hand. Yet, he was sadly reminded of the fact that he was only reliving Alex's memories since when he had tried to attack and unleash his wrath on the attacker, nothing happened… he was unable to even move a single inch as the already decided outcome of the simulation kept playing with no signs of stopping, as it was not him controlling the body he was in since it was all nothing now but a distant memory.

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