CMS

Chapter 12

Elijah sighed, his shoulders slumping as he wheeled away from the school building. "This act is getting old," he muttered to himself, his voice echoing in the empty alleyway. He was ready to shed his disguise and return to the rebellion HQ.

As he stashed his wheelchair in its usual hiding spot, a sudden chill ran down his spine. He spun around, his eyes widening at the sight of a girl running along the walls of the narrow alley. Her eyes were cold, her intent to kill clear as day.

Elijah narrowly evaded her katana with a crouch. "Damn, she's fast," Elijah muttered. The blade sliced through the air, embedding itself into the brick wall with a resonating thud. He attempted to counterattack, but her speed and agility were formidable. Their confrontation was a lethal dance, a ballet of blade and evasion that spanned across the alleyways and towering rooftops. Elijah recognized his disadvantage in an open area; her katana provided her with a significant edge. He needed to strategize, to utilize the environment to his advantage. He needed to outwit her somehow. Yet, her perception was extraordinary, almost supernatural. He tapped into the surveillance line to track her even when he veered around a corner, but she was untraceable. "How is that even possible?" he pondered aloud, his mind a whirlwind of confusion as he tried to figure out the situation.

"What if she doesn't have a surveillance line?" The thought echoed in his mind, a haunting whisper in the dark. It was a terrifying prospect, one that sent a shiver of dread coursing through his veins. He could almost feel the icy tendrils of fear wrapping around his heart, squeezing it with an iron grip.

He found himself spiraling into a vortex of fear and uncertainty. His mind was a battlefield, torn between denial and acceptance. He wanted to reject the idea, to dismiss it as nonsense. But the evidence was there, staring him in the face. Her agility, her heightened reflexes, her ability to see him so perfectly, with no trace back - they all pointed to one chilling conclusion.

He led her to an abandoned construction site on the outskirts of town. Under the cloak of night, he endeavored to understand his predicament. He relied on his reflexes to dodge her relentless attacks, straining to detect her surveillance line, but he couldn't find a trace. Her blade danced through the air, leaving a trail of cuts on his arms and legs. Her speed and endurance were far superior to what he had anticipated. Her stamina seemed inexhaustible, and she could manipulate her lines with ease. Her agility was extraordinary, her reflexes almost inhuman.

In a desperate bid to elude her relentless pursuit, he resorted to toppling a towering metal beam, which sent a thick cloud of dust spiraling into the air. Yet, through the swirling particles of his makeshift smokescreen, she maintained an unerring focus on him. It dawned on him then, a realization as chilling as it was enlightening: without her surveillance line, she was effectively a sensory void - blind, deaf, and bereft of all other senses.

A sudden revelation struck him like a bolt of lightning. He needed to trace the source of this anomaly not from her, but from within himself. He retraced his own surveillance line, and what he discovered filled him with a sense of dread he had never experienced before. It was as if the line was transmitting the most malevolent human emotions known to man, as if the devil himself was communicating through it.

He attempted to disrupt this sinister data stream, but a swift slash of her katana left a searing cut across his arm. The pain was a reminder of his predicament - he couldn't concentrate on evading her and severing this malevolent connection simultaneously.  That would prove to be too difficult.

Elijah then remembered he could completely shut off his surveillance line. That would essentially render him senseless, but make him untraceable. He wouldn't be able to sense his body moving at all, but he would still be able to control it.