It has been quite a while since i wrote as my finals are cutting in real close, honestly i should be studying. but yea, an update, cause i got bored of revising.

Hope you enjoy this daydreamy chapter. :D

Ch.7

We ran, and ran.

Until we lost the crowd at the edge of the campus, next to the sea. I let Charlotte down to the ground at last after running for nearly 3 minutes straight. Her emotions at the time was a mix of angry and embarrassed.

I hopped out of my Warframe and stood next to her. "Sor…"

"Shhhhhhhuuu…" Charlotte placed her index finger on my lips, paused my sentence. "Don't! … Speak… another word."

She sounded very angry, and a bit embarrassed I think. I didn't quite know how to reply, so I stepped backwards a bit. Previously, after the match, people start rushing out of the arena to find me. Unfortunately, Charlotte was there too. In order to stop any rumors spreading before it begins, I carried Charlotte without asking and ran with her in my arms. It was very selfish and inconsiderate of me to carry her like a princess on top of that.

It was pretty sudden if you ask me; and if I was her, I would be mad right now as well.

Good news was that I got rid of the crowd after running a long distance, it was unlikely for them to continue to follow me any longer. Bad news was, I pissed her off.

I looked at my Warframe, which was now covered in dust and a bit of scratch here and there; I then looked around me, it was nearly sun set, the sky turned orange. There was a tree line next to the path way, the other side were the metal rail fence and the sea shore. Nothing really special… except one tree shadow a few meters away behind Charlotte's back. It was in the opposite direction compare to the others.

"Er…" I wanted to warn Charlotte.

"Quiet!" Charlotte bashed out her anger. "Can you not see how embarrassing it was? Do you know how I…"

I lost focus on Charlotte with her list of complains, and instead I kept my eye on the shadow. Black smokes began to pop up from the odd black shadow. "Charlotte… We will hav…"

"ARE you even listening to me?" She interrupted my sentence and got on with her complains.

The shadow formed a human-like figure, a bit tall and completely black. Before it completed its formation, it dashed toward us. I quickly grabbed Charlotte by her collar and switched our position, turned my back against the shadow to shield her.

The next moment a sharp cut stroked my back and I shouted out in pain. I lost hold of Charlotte and she fell to the floor. Our eyes crossed for a moment, followed by a blade stabbing through me from my lower back. I grinded my teeth and held the blade head with my bare hands, blood soaked my clothes and flowed out of my hands.

I quickly bend the blade and broke the tip. At the same time I gave the attacker a good back kick and sent him off for a few meters. I pulled out the bloody blade from behind and chucked it onto the floor. The void energy should slowly heal my wound. Meanwhile the healing was taking place, I needed to prevent myself getting anymore injury and protect Charlotte.

I looked her Charlotte again, her eyes were wide opened and with her hand covering her mouth. She was in shock. She won't be helping me anytime soon. I had to defeat that attacker on my own with my Warframe. I tapped back into the suit and stood between the shadow and Charlotte.

There was no telling if there were any more of these shadow lurking around. If there were more of them coming for us at once, I would not be able to protect Charlotte.

I gave a better look at the attacker, who looks like stalker but without a fixed form. A cluster of gases and smokes held together by black magic, hidden the physical person in it. "Who are you?" I asked, trying to hide my pain from my voice. "What is your purpose?"

"…"

"I repeat… Who are you? And what is your purpose?"

Still no reply. I held my fists tight and took a defensive fighting stance. The shadow did not have a weapon either as I have broken it, so it held its fists up as well. All a sudden it charged at me.

I dodged its first attack and applied a counter on its second strike, aiming for its neck. I hit a physical object and proceed to place my hand on its neck, my leg behind its, and tackled it onto the floor with my hand still on its throat.

"ONE… LAST… TIME!" I yelled at its face. "What is your purpose!"

"…"

"What is… your PURPOSE!"

"… Trust… No one… Avoid… Shino… no… no…" it replied in a female voice, and shortly after that, it body turned bright red and exploded.

The explosion made a strong blinding light and loud explosion, knocking me backwards and landing next to Charlotte. I quickly sat up to look at the remains – not a single dust on the ground. There was no crater from the explosion either. I looked at Charlotte who was still in shock with tears coming out of her eyes.

I exited the suit and crouched opposite her, placed my hands on her shoulders. "Hey! Hey Charlotte!" I gently shake her to get herself back in control. "It is alright now! It is alright now! The shadow is gone now."

Her face flicked once and scanned my body to check my wounds. Once she was convinced, she hugged me hard. "I thought you were going to die!" she cried and the tears wetted my shoulder.

"No, I am not going to." I rubbed her head, calming her down.

While she was settling her emotions, I repeated those word I heard from the attacker in my head.

'Trust no one, avoid Shinonono.'

Not to mentioned, its voice sound familiar… the female voice sounded like… Laura.

Which Shinonono should I be avoiding, Tabane or my classmate?

What was so dangerous that need me to trust no one? Something that could be contagious maybe? Or there was some kind of underground plan taking place? I will have to find out.

Charlotte had pull herself together after a while, and stopped crying. Her eyes were a bit red and her face was still quite pale though. I held her by her upper arms and helped her to stand up.

"Should we get something to eat? Something of your choice?" I asked. "Even outside campus is fine."

"Shouldn't you do a check up first? … I mean, you got stabbed really badly!"

"Okay then… check up, and dinner later." I nodded, trying reassure her that I am fine.

…

We visited the school medical center and had my wounds checked, as I predicted, they healed up on their own. I left my Warframe in the nearby hanger storage next to the medical center, locked it in a massive locker.

"There… there were no wounds!" Charlotte kept touching my back. "How?"

"My body was made of void energy tissues, they can regenerate faster than normal living tissues."

"Void?" she was puzzled.

"Basically, some alien technology has radiated my body and caused mutation." I replied with the simplest words I could think of. "Anyway, worry not, I am fine."

Charlotte let out a sigh as she was final convinced that I was fine. At the same time, a person came into the nurse room – it was Laura.

"Laura, you woke up." Charlotte turned away from me to look at who came in. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, thank you." She turned to me, still looking serious and deadly. "And what are you doing here?"

"He got ambushed." Charlotte cut in before I could answer her. "He is fine now."

"Ambushed?" Laura raised her eyebrow. "Phantom taskforce?"

"We have no clue…" I replied.

"Was there any IS involved? Any remains at the site?" Laura quickly followed up with more questions.

"There was not even a single piece left at the scene. And as for whether there was an IS involved, I am not sure due to the fact I do not know what its definition."

"If there was any sign of 'Phantom Task's appearance, we need to report to instructor at once." Laura told Charlotte. "It could be dangerous."

"Sorry, but who is the 'Phantom Task'?" I asked. "Some kind of organization?"

"Yeah… A terrorist organization that steals IS and attack other users." Charlotte answered. "They appeared randomly and hard to predict they course of action as the organization never once spoken about its goal."

"They also attacked us in one of ours school anniversary event and a school trip as well." Laura added. "Their pilots are also well trained, they aren't any ordinary organization."

I took a moment of thinking about all the information I just learned. "Although both Charlotte and I matched their target criterial, there was no supporting evident at the scene. Especially…"

I was about to say what the last words of the attacker was, but I didn't know who to trust at the moment. Which made me held the sentence at pause.

"What especially?" Charlotte asked.

"Never mind that, I just thought I might had a clue about something."

"Okay then…"

A moment of silence was kept inside the room, either no one had a clue on what just attacked me and Charlotte, or no one wanted to create more things to worry about. We all had our heads down, each one of us was probably feeling down for different reasons.

I clapped my hands to get their attentions and suggested, "Now that I have checked up… dinner?"

…

So we went for French cuisine and of course Charlotte enjoyed it and Laura didn't seems to dislike it either. It was Charlotte's pick and no one refused the idea. The place was outside bound and by the time we reached the restaurant, the sun was already set long ago. I personally don't have a preference on food yet because I haven't have a meal for centuries until few days ago.

During dinner, Charlotte seems to have forgotten about her shock and moved on quickly. I guessed she had a high EQ. Laura on the other hand sat next to me the entire time but never spoke a single word, the awkwardness between her and I was unexplainable. I thought she hated me, but she didn't seems to be all that hated to me after the duel.

Laura remained silence on our way back to the campus as well, Charlotte on the other hand felt sleepy and I am currently carrying her on my back. She was like a princess and I am her body guard. Yea, not her dream prince riding on white horse. At least that was how I saw our relationship.

"Shhhu." Laura suddenly raised her hand and made a fist. I stopped and looked around. Laura whispered. "We have been followed. 4 o'clock direction."

I nodded. Laura started to count on three.

The moment it reached zero, Laura and I began to run towards the dormitory as fast as possible. We stepped inside the building and closed the door behind us. I drew out Ordis and tried to catch my breath, "Ordis… Scan for any signature… of present."

"I detected one faint trace in the pathway leading to this door."

I let down Charlotte, who woke up in the middle of the run, and stood up, ready to hunt the unknown follower.

Laura held my shoulder before I made my first step. "Something is off. May I?"

I handed her Ordis, "Ordis, scan again."

"Er… okay… it is still there." Ordis replied with a bit of hesitation, as it was Laura speaking, not me. "Weird…"

"I think I have a clue who it was." I told Laura. "Let me deal with him."

"Don't go out. It might be a trap." Laura warned me. "We should call the teachers to help."

"Even teachers might not be able to do anything to him."

Charlotte grabbed my lower arm, "You don't know what will happen…"

I looked at her in the eyes. She had the same pair of eyes when she was about to cry after the ambush. "… Do you?"

"If anything goes wrong…" I gave a second to think of a back-up plan, I turned to Laura. "Call the teachers if anything goes wrong. Even though it might not help a lot."

I opened the door and stepped out to the pathway. I shoved my hands into my pocket, still in my female School uniform. I took a breath.

.

"It has been a while…" I said to the shadow.

.

Up from the dark, a black figure appeared, crimson red lines on the edges of his body and different shade of grey on his limbs. His black smoke slowly disappear and vaporize.

.

"…Stalker."