Chapter 168: The Completed Calculation

Marek lifted his eyes from the tag just as the Errant came for him again.

He moved before the man reached him, keeping the access tag closed inside one hand while Spatial Parallax settled between his position and the Errant’s lead shoulder. The changing angle told him where the first grab would come from, and Marek twisted aside before the man’s fingers could close around his wrist.

The Errant adjusted without slowing. Instead of reaching for the tag again, he drove his forearm toward Marek’s chest and forced him farther into the narrow passage.

Marek caught the strike with both arms, though the impact made his elbows ache. ‘This guy really wants this thing back.’

“Rafe!” Marek called.

Rafe understood without asking. He moved closer from the side while Eren retreated with the copied schedules, keeping himself well away from the fight. Silas came around the opposite direction, leaving the Errant with three people between him and the papers.

The man ignored both of them.

His attention remained on Marek’s closed hand.

Whatever else the access tag meant, the Errant cared about it more than he cared about escaping before authorities arrived.

Marek shifted farther back and kept his Astral Technique 1anchored to the same two references. The Errant followed, then changed direction when Rafe tried catching his arm from the side. Silas struck behind the man’s knee while Rafe pulled at his shoulder, forcing him off balance for a moment.

It lasted less than a second.

The Errant tore himself free and drove Silas away with one arm before turning toward Marek again.

Rhovan moved.

Marek saw him take one step from the edge of the passage, his earlier patience gone now that the situation had become clear.

He never got farther than that.

Something struck the Errant from the side.

Marek did not understand what he had seen until the man disappeared from the relationship he had been tracking through his technique.

The separation changed so violently that the technique broke.

A crash followed from farther down the passage.

The Errant hit the construction barrier hard. One of its metal supports bent from the impact before he fell onto the pavement among several loose panels.

For a moment, Marek thought Rhovan had done it.

Then, he looked toward him.

Rhovan was standing exactly where Marek had last seen him, though his expression had already changed.

A woman now stood where the Errant had been, and Marek was certain he had never seen her before.

She had entered from the wider road behind them at some point during the fight, though he had no idea how long she had been there. She did not seem particularly concerned about the damaged barrier or the man she had just sent into it. Her attention stayed on the Errant as he pushed himself off the pavement.

She waited.

The expression on her face made it seem as though the Errant had done little more than interrupt whatever she had been doing before entering the passage.

Marek glanced toward Rhovan and found him watching her with a familiarity he had not expected. There was no confusion in his expression, only recognition, and that told Marek enough to stop wondering whether the woman had appeared here by chance.

‘Oh.’

The Errant had already forced himself back onto his feet. His attention moved between the woman and the access tag still closed inside Marek’s hand.

Marek expected him to come after the tag again. However, the man actually turned and rushed toward the woman who had just thrown him across the passage.

She stayed where she was and waited for him.

Marek watched the distance disappear between them and wondered whether she had underestimated how fast the man could move.

His fist came toward her face.

She caught his wrist.

The sound of the impact reached Marek a fraction later, though the woman’s arm barely shifted. The Errant tried pulling free.

She looked at his hand, then at him. “You’re rude.”

Marek blinked.

The woman twisted his wrist and turned with the movement. The Errant’s entire body followed, his feet leaving the pavement before she drove him onto the ground.

The construction boards rattled.

Marek stared, shocked.

Beside him, Silas had stopped moving as well.

Rafe lowered his hands slowly. “Do we help?”

Marek watched the Errant try to rise again. “I think we’d just be adding people.”

Rhovan finally spoke from behind them, in a tone that normally wouldn’t come out of him. “Blanche.”

The woman paused, but not for long.

The Errant had already forced himself onto one knee and swung at her again, forcing her attention back toward him.

‘Blanche.’

Marek looked between her and Rhovan.

The name meant nothing to Marek, though the way Rhovan said it carried the same familiarity he had noticed earlier. Whatever their history was, these two clearly knew each other well.

Blanche slipped around the next strike and drove one hand into the Errant’s chest. He stumbled several meters before managing to stop himself. The black defect crossing his Astral Mark remained visible through the tear in his clothing, and some change in the air around him made Marek’s skin tighten.

Rhovan’s gaze moved toward the Mark. “Careful.”

Blanche finally glanced at him and said, “I can see it.”

The Errant attacked before she turned back fully.

Marek expected the surprise to matter, but it actually didn’t.

Blanche caught the man’s forearm against her side, stepped inside his reach, and struck him once beneath the ribs.

The Errant folded.

Her knee met him on the way down and sent him backward across the pavement.

Marek remembered how little the man had reacted when he struck him in the chest earlier. Blanche had moved him several meters with a single hit.

The Errant landed near the construction fence and rolled onto one side. He tried getting up again, although his movements had become slower.

Blanche walked toward him.

Rhovan sighed. “Blanche. We want him alive. Don’t kill him.”

She stopped and turned her head slightly. “You always ruin the useful part.”

“You can complain after he can answer our questions,” Rhovan said.

Marek looked at Rhovan.

There were already several things Marek wanted Rhovan to explain, and his exchange with Blanche had only added another one.

The Errant rushed toward Blanche again with whatever strength he had left.

Blanche met him halfway, and Marek tried following the exchange with Spatial Parallax, choosing her shoulder and the Errant’s center as his two references. He caught the changing distance and understood the angle when she moved inside the man’s reach, though being able to read what she was doing did little to make it seem achievable.

Her timing was so far beyond his own that Marek felt like he was watching the answer to a calculation he knew how to read but could never have completed in time.

She redirected the man’s arm, stepped behind him, and drove him face-first toward the pavement.

The Errant caught himself with one hand, but Blanche kicked that hand away. His chest struck the ground. And before he could rise, she planted one foot between his shoulders.

The Errant pushed once, while Blanche remained in place.