RETIRED TRANSMIGRATION: The Shadow Loss Chronicles

HOODED FIGURE

Although mentally frozen as a result of the shocking turn of events, Avery's years of boxing training kicked in and like somebody whose limbs had been taken captive by an attachment of puppet strings, his body acted on its own.

With lightning-fast reflexes, Avery's arms swung over his head and then further behind, using the momentum to lean backward into a limbo-like position. To maintain balance so as not to fall over, his left hand grabbed onto the door frame while his right hand supported his weight on the floor, effectively keeping his upper body parallel to it.

It was after his body had gotten in this position on its own, being low enough to see his sister's disfigured body diving over him and not being able to touch a single piece of fabric on his skin or hair on his head that Avery came back to his senses.

Cassandra landed a few meters away in the living room and Avery who still couldn't make sense of what was going on quickly flashed back to what he saw whilst in limbo underneath his flying sibling.

Although suffering from tunnel vision at the time, Avery remembered seeing how stretched Cassandra's hands were, but also, how they didn't move towards him even when he evaded which for someone whose intent was to attack him, they would have at least twitched when she missed.

Thinking about this only brought one conclusion to him.

"Wait, she wasn't reaching out for me?" Avery asked himself before letting go of the door frame which allowed his body to drop to the floor.

With his right hand still supporting his body's weight against the floor, Avery swept his left leg to the right, rotating his core while also using that right hand as a pivot to turn his entire body into a crouching position that faced the living room.

The first thing his eyes looked for was Cassandra, all the while thinking:

'If I wasn't her target then what was?' He asked himself as his eyes tried to find his sister and then he did.

He saw her crawling with great speed toward the kitchen a few paces ahead which confused him as to what she was going to look for there.

When she got close enough, Cassandra dove headfirst at the door but bumped into it with her shoulder and pushed her way into the kitchen.

'It doesn't matter what she's looking for, I have to hold her down and get help before things get even worse,' Avery thought as he rushed to his feet, remembering the emergency number he saw on the news broadcasts about responding to cases of The Shadow Loss Fever.

Though he never once cared for or believed news about the cases of Shadow Loss Fever until now, the number of times they disturbed what he was watching to broadcast breaking news of an outbreak just this month alone forced Avery to have the response team's hotline stuck in his memory.

Thankfully that "inconvenience" happened as he needed their help right now. So, with calling the number after he successfully apprehends his sister acting as his driving force, Avery went straight for the kitchen whose double swing doors had already closed before he could get halfway there.

Halfway to the kitchen was where the living room couch was and halfway past the couch was when Avery started to hear a ruckus coming from the kitchen that alarmed him even more than he was.

He heard a lot of crashing and choking noise, mixed with the crackling sounds that Cassandra was already making when he saw her in her room and the concerning nature of what could be happening behind those kitchen doors increased the panic and speed with which he rushed to the kitchen.

"Cassandra!" Avery yelled as he got to the kitchen door and then burst through by jumping and slamming his shoulder against it.

Avery landed inside the kitchen, drifting toward the oven until he stopped.

He heard the same choking and crackling noise coming from his right side and so he asked while turning his body to the direction "Cassandra, what's going—!"

Avery froze when to his surprise he saw a tall hooded figure with a firm grip on Cassandra's neck, lifting her entire body in the air with one hand while she struggled to get free.

"W-what the hell is going on here? Who the hell is this? Who the hell are you?!" Avery asked stutteringly as the ominous aura that this hooded figure was giving out sent chills down his spine.

Slowly, the hooded figure panned his head from Cassandra to Avery who stood an acute angle away. He tilted his head like he was thinking if he should do something about Avery or not.

The way the hooded figure moved showed that he was the least bit threatened by or worried about Avery's or Cassandra's presence there. Why would he be when he's able to overpower a rampaging Cassandra, lift her entire body, and keep her up in the air with a single hand?

As the hooded figure stared down Avery, making him feel like he was an insignificant insect, the retired boxing prodigy was forced to rely on his years of boxing training which explicitly hammered the principle of observing and assessing an opponent before doing anything.

One wrong move and not only he but Cassandra might be forced into a worse predicament than they already are.

Avery assessed the hooded figure's build and although the thick clothing obscured what he really looked like underneath, it was clear that both their bodies weren't of the same weight classes.

The hooded figure seemed to be a few pounds heavier and a few inches taller than Avery which normally wouldn't be a problem as Avery has been able to handle guys bigger than himself in the past. This time shouldn't be any different— at least that's what his mind told him— but then, his fighting instinct was telling him the complete opposite.

"It's not humanly possible for someone to single-handedly suspend another human of Cassandra's weight in the air while she's also flailing like a rabid dog." This is what all of Avery's instinct was conveying to him.

It had only been a second since Avery and the hooded figure faced each other and all his senses were on edge, screaming how dangerous this figure in front of him was. It also didn't help that no matter how much he stared at the hooded part of the hooded figure's clothing, all he could see was darkness like there wasn't a person in there.

It felt like death had come into the real world and it was standing in front of him, about to take his sister away.

Avery's feet became heavy for a moment which the hooded figure saw, confirming to himself that Avery was indeed not a threat. He then returned his head to face Cassandra who was starting to flail even more aggressively.

'What should I do? Should I ignore what my senses are telling me and just attack? But this isn't like those guys from the store. I don't know why but something about this guy is different, not human, but regardless I have to get Cassandra away from this person and contact that emergency hotline for help—' Avery thought, feeling so overwhelmed that he lowered his head and slowly started looking at the hooded figure only to see something that shocked him.

'What the hell is this? This person, he has no shadow too?' Avery asked himself, looking at the floor where Cassandra and the hooded figure were and both of them didn't have a shadow in sight.

Avery quickly looked at the hooded figure's hood, thinking "He has the Shadow Loss Fever too? But that doesn't make sense. Why does he seem normal when Cassandra is in that shape? What does this person know about the fever that everyone else doesn't—'

As if thinking about the bizarre turn of events wasn't enough, Avery's curiosity was taken over by what Cassandra was doing.

'Cassandra, instead of trying to get free, she's reaching out to something… something that this hooded figure seems to possess?' Avery asked himself as he saw Cassandra giving up on freeing her neck from the hooded figure's grip and instead stretching her hands toward something the hooded figure had with him.

Avery had been too distracted to observe this detail but the hooded figure had a device that looked like a canister in his left hand and that was what Cassandra was desperately trying to reach for.

"Hey, what do you have in that canister and why is my sister so desperate for it?! Does that have anything to do with all of this?!" Avery asked, pointing at the canister.

The hooded figure looked down at the canister in his hand, paused then looked at Cassandra and started squeezing her neck tighter like he trying to kill her.

"Hey, stop that right now!" Avery yelled and ignoring all his instincts except for the one to protect his only family, he dashed toward the hooded figure.

Avery grabbed a struggling Cassandra, trying to free her but the hooded figure's grip was so strong that she couldn't be freed.

Avery abandoned trying to loosen the hooded figure's grip and struck the figure's head instead. Unfortunately, not only was the hooded figure strong but he was fast as well, and with a swift backward lean, Avery's punch missed.

Avery was shocked, saying "He dodged my attack?"

The hooded figure stood upright and a shocked Avery tried looking into the hood to see who it was that was able to evade his punch so effortlessly. However, even at this close distance, he couldn't see anything in the darkness of the hood.

"What the hell are you—?" Avery asked but then paused when there was a sound from below that drew both his and the hooded figure's attention.

Turns out that while he was going in for the punch and the hooded figure was distracted in his evasion, Cassandra had used her leg to hit the canister in the hooded figure's hand which by accident unlocked it.

'This device, what is it? It doesn't look like anything I've seen before. Am I crazy or does it look… unworldly—?' Avery asked himself as he stared at the canister but then stopped when he felt aggression coming from the hooded figure.

This was the first time he was getting any emotion from the hooded figure and that could only be bad. Avery hurriedly looked up, seeing the hooded figure vibrate with rage as he pulled Cassandra closer and was about to throw her backward.

Avery's eyes widened as he gasped. He reached for his sister, grabbing her and immediately the two of them were pushed away with such great force that if it wasn't for Avery planting his feet to the ground, they would have slammed into the wall behind.

"What insane power" Avery commented as he panted with a struggling grimace. He and Cassandra were on the floor and he was trying to hold her down because she still wanted to get whatever it was that was in that canister.

"Cassandra calm down! I have to get you help so stop struggling—" Avery pleaded as he and Cassandra resisted each other, but then, the hooded figure forced Avery's attention back to him.

Seems like Cassandra unlocking the canister was something that couldn't be stopped, even with how much work the hooded figure did in operating the buttons on the canister.

It was too late and the canister opened.

Acting quickly, the hooded figure held on to the top of the canister and tried using his strength to keep it from opening. Unfortunately, nothing he did worked and his arms were flung apart, allowing the cover of the canister to come off.

Avery wondered what was happening, but suddenly, out of the canister came a black fog while everything in the kitchen shook. The next thing Avery saw was a completely black figure whose silhouette was somewhat familiar, coming out of the canister.

"Ah… Ah!" Cassandra voiced desperately and when Avery looked at her she was reaching out to this black figure which caused Avery's eyes to widen.

Avery looked at the black figure that was gliding in the air toward him and Cassandra and he said "Cassandra, that looks like your… shadow!"