Hey ~
here follows chapter 3. Without many words this time: Have fun! :)



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Chapter 3 - In the shadow of the future III



3 chapters - In the shadow of the future

She winced, feeling her body freeze at the same time as she unexpectedly felt the warm sensation of a touch on the skin of her left cheek. In surprise she had lowered her right arm and the sword she was holding in her hand a little. And for a brief moment she stopped breathing.

"N-Noel?" She gasped in surprise, couldn't believe, couldn't really process what was just happening. Never had an opponent, a man dared to come so close to her.

So what ... what was that supposed to mean? Why was Noel so close to her all of a sudden? Touched her?

But then the contact between her and the young hunter changed. She saw how the hoping, slightly lost expression in the sea-blue eyes of the person opposite her changed. The trace of fear that she herself felt subsided a little, giving way to a spark of confusion and disbelief. He quarreled. The fingers on her skin began to tremble, slowly peeling away from her, and Noel's breathing became shaky.

The young man in front of her closed his eyes for a moment while shaking his head slightly, then blinked a few more doggedly, as if he wanted to shake some of his conscience with his lids and drew an audible breath through his slightly parted lips.

"It ... it ..." he stuttered, somehow heavily, and the young woman's eyes widened helplessly before he resumed his broken sentence.

"Lightning ... I'm sorry ..."

Again the young woman couldn't prevent her body from twitching when the trembling fingers of a rough, yet tender fighter's hand touched her face once more, gently caressing her skin. Knowing their goal, Noel's fingers wandered down her left cheek until, after a moment's hesitation, they tucked under her chin, but lifted it decisively. A moment that seemed so unbearably long, and yet left no chance of a reaction from her.

Because the movement was too sudden, so tight was the grip of the hand that pulled it defenselessly closer to the young man. And her senses, dragging her mind into a state of intoxication, Noel leaned forward to her, tentatively resting his lips on hers. A moment that flew by faster than a gentle breeze when she noticed beyond that how the grip of the young man's fingers on her chin tightened, his body cramped and he suddenly, breaking off the kiss, mute words against hers closed lips breathed.

A surprised gasp stole from her mouth, but all of a sudden a strong hand closed around the one in which she was still holding the sunken sword, fingers burrowing roughly into her wrist. Reluctantly, her grip loosened and she let go of her gun.

And before Lightning could fully deal with the situation, she understood what was happening when Noel's head and the feeling of warmth on her chin disappeared from her, she felt a potential source of danger.With her eyelids wide open in shock, she instinctively took a step back, feeling the draft that brushed her right arm after the blade of her own sword narrowly missed her.

"Forgive me, Lightning ...", she heard the deep voice of the young man whisper, saw how he tore the deadly steel up in a sweeping, horizontal arc, only to let it crash down on her again.

A movement at such a speed that it was almost impossible to follow for her eyes. Only her sense of danger told her what to do, how to save herself. Just in time she was able to throw herself to the side, feeling the sharp wind of the sword, which swirled the morganite-colored strands of her long hair and brushed her head as she caught herself with her hand on the dusty and dirty stone floor, to secure herself on her arm to support. Only to strike back immediately, with a skillful and powerful kick on her left leg, which is booted in black leather, unexpectedly to hit her opponent in the stomach area.

A short gasp and Noel was thrown through the air by the force of the attack, uttering a painful scream as, after a few meters, his back hit the hard stone wall. The grip on Lightning's sword loosened at the moment of impact and immediately fell to the ground with a clanking, sliding sound, far from where the young man's body crashed.

"What are you thinking of?" She shouted angry, quite atypical of her actual, calm manner and took a few quick steps towards the still lying hunter.

From that direction a groaning, plaintive sound of pain reached her ears and the young woman saw how he lifted his head weakly, began to cough terribly and churned up coarse dust. With an effort, with bowed head and a few strands of blond-brown hair that fell wildly in front of his face, Noel tried to heave himself back up on his elbows.

"Ambushed me just like that ...", it broke out of her, furious at Noel's insidious ruse.

She felt the anger simmer hot inside her, erupting blazing through every fiber of her inside. Angry, she clenched her hands again into hard fists while looking down at the young man crouching at her feet. Noel had used a devious ruse to kill her. She should have foreseen it, seen his plan coming. It was so obvious that as soon as the slightest opportunity presented itself to him, he would try to eliminate it immediately. She was deeply upset that she had only let it get that far.

"You kissed me! You actually just dared it!", She got a lot louder, stamped a few steps alternately with the soles of her boots in order to get just a little bit of air, to somehow calm down.

"What ...?", Noel rattled, carrying a trace of bewilderment in his voice and his shoulders shook from another, unexpected coughing fit tickled by the dust dancing in the air."It wasn't missing much, and I would have succeeded in killing you. But you ..." he laughed puzzled and shook his head in disbelief while he tried to pull himself to his feet with his right hand on the cold stone wall.

"But you are most annoyed that I kissed you? You are incredible, Lightning."

The young hunter should immediately regret these words. With rage - less with anger at his words, but the hatred of herself - Lightning shot forward, found with the fingers of her left hand a piece of the dark blue material, by which she pulled Noel up, held him by the collar of his shirt . And the blow that hit him with all his might on the left side of his face carried its sound weakly into the shadows of the alley.

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The young man groaned in anguish when the force of the blow hit him roughly with the back of his head against the hard stone of the wall behind him, clouding all of his senses and turning black points into a thin veil of shadow in front of his eyes.

"No matter ...", he heard Lightning then sigh weakly, could feel the angry tremor that emanated from the body of the young woman and from the iron grip with which she still held him in the air by the fabric of his shirt passed over to him, calmed down a little.

"You lost, Noel."

Noel shook his head barely noticeably, uttered a fading, low sound as he punished him for it with an immediate, stronger throbbing pain. No, he couldn't lose. Not now. Not here. Not after all this time. And yet he felt weak, felt how the paralyzing feeling of despair and helplessness that had so often accompanied him through his life seized once more. He could no longer fight it, no longer hide it, and felt powerless. He bit his lip hard.

He was doing everything wrong again, not strong enough to keep her promise he and Yul made so long ago. The young hunter could not protect their future and save them from the cruelty of fate. Even then, it couldn't. How could he tell himself all this time that it would be different now? That he could defeat Lightning? He had let everyone who cared about something die. So maybe it was for the best that this world would forget him. That he died and there was no hope for his soul.

And if he had to die, why not by Lightning's hand? Yes, why shouldn't it be she who accused him of the kiss of death? He was responsible for the deaths of so many people and for every life that would die out when he started the chaos in this world. He had traveled over five hundred years before he got here and now it's been another five years since this world began to die too. Noel never thought that Lightning would actually return after all this time.


Five years of learning to live in the dark and kill from the shadows.Five years devoted to patrolling the beasts born of Chaos. Five years that he had only waited for that day when he could do everything well again ...

And now that the day had finally come, it was failing again.

He had really tried. In order to win he had ... he even had ...

He had kissed Lightning. But if he only did it to outsmart her ... why did his thoughts still not want to forget even now, somewhere and secretly hidden, the tingling sensation that he felt on his lips and from there like a lightning strike through his whole body to let? Admired, doesn't he want this woman so much more? More than he would ever want to admit, was allowed to ...?

In his world, a future he knew how to prevent, he was the last child to see the light of day. A world that, just like this one, was facing doom. There was no heaven under which to fall in love. No. Not if you were the last survivor of humanity from another time and spent your whole life chasing the hope of a lost dream. After Caius had disappeared and Yul had left him, a barely bearable time of loneliness, Lightning was the first person he met and gave him hope again. Because he and her sister, they too, became their hope that day ...

And he admired her. The future from which he came and his mission, his journey through so many times in which he only tried to prevent them in some way, left no opportunity or time for anything more. And yet it seemed to him that the boundaries were easy to