N. Chuuya X Fem! Reader: The Territory of Gravity

16.3 - Stormbringer

You peered through your binoculars in an attempt to understand the fight more, glad that things were going as per plan so far.

"An ability user from the mafia, huh?" Verlaine smiled like a beast. "But you're just one gifted with two blades. What can you possibly do against gravity?"

Verlaine got low to the ground, intending to jump towards Kouyou.

"Who said I was alone?"

Verlaine's body sank.

Verlaine looked down at his feet in surprise. The earth was winding like a snake, sinking his legs into the ground and then crawling up them.

Astonished, he erased his body's gravity and jumped. He landed sideways on a nearby tree trunk, but even the usually sturdy trunk began to liquify where his shoes touched. It hurried to swallow him.

"This is..."

Verlaine jumped forward, but the ground where he expected to land became sludge with a mind of its own, opening its mouth as it waited for him.

"Ha ha ha! Run, run young'un! Young folk like you are here for this old man's enjoyment! Time to die by decapitation!"

Emerging from the darkness of the trees was a large, stout man who resembled a giant tree. He wore a discolored military uniform that was torn in some places. He had a few bristly hairs that were like sewing needles, a judo belt around his waist, and tall, wooden sandals on his feet. He crossed both of his arms, thick as hundred year old trees, in front of his chest.

He was an elite in the Port Mafia, a soldier who survived the Great War—a man known throughout the organization as, Colonel.

He raised his arm much like an old tree, then suddenly clasped down his palm in front of his eyes. At the same time, the earth wriggled, the soil turned to liquid, the trees and even the flipped over train, all of it rushed towards Verlaine, who was in the air.

"The ability to control liquified materials...?!"

Verlaine kicked the first piece of liquified earth that reached him and retreated to the opposite side. However, past that was more liquified earth. He tried to change his direction, but both above and underneath him was liquified earth. If he used his gravity to blow away what he touched, even more of the liquified earth would come and completely surround him. There was no way for him to fight back.

On top of that, as if they were stitching up any gaps in their plan, there were mafioso snipers in all directions.

"Tch...!"

Verlaine used his gravity to make a small amount of dirt dense before kicking it and running away in midair. He did that to create distance. Material manipulation abilities like the Colonel's are, more often than not, unable to control things that were out of sight. So, he planned to hide in the depths of the forest and throw a giant, gravity filled stone to bring him down.

But then, something rather eccentric came into Verlaine's view.

It was a clock.

A clock was floating in midair.

It looked like a normal pocket watch. It had numbers on the dial, an hour and minute hand, a crown, and internal movements that peeked out of the edge of the clock's interface.

The strange thing was that it was about the size of a human torso and constantly turned around so the clock face stared at Verlaine.

He ripped off a button on his suit's sleeve and increased the gravity of it by several tens of kilograms before throwing it towards the clock.