CHAPTER 266: THAT WASN’T YOU.

Faced with silence and a cold gaze, Wolf tried to swallow only to notice how dry his throat was. He noticed that his team’s leader was out of her costume, which meant she was currently off duty. Her face and arms were covered in bandages, but it didn’t look like she had any sever injuries.

As she walked up to him, he thought of asking her what happened or for how long he was asleep, but before he could say a word, a loud clap echoed through the unadorned room and he felt a sting on his cheek.

All of a sudden, Wolf found himself looking to the left. For a while there, he couldn’t move at all, and when he slowly turned to face the front again, another clap echoed, and he found himself looking to the right.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Beatrice raise her hand again. That was when he suddenly came back to his senses.

"Wait wait wait! What are you doing!!?

He tried to back away only to realize he couldn’t. The restraints kept him firmly in place, and since he was on his knees, they were practically on the same eye level. Beatrice held her hand up and stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed.

"You still with me?" She asked after a brief silence.

"What ar-"

Her hand flashed, and his cheek stung once more.

"What about..." The petite woman gave him the same cold look, but the next moment, her expression crumbled. "Wait, are you crying!?"

He was starting to tear up, and his ears had dropped to the side, making him look like a really sad puppy. That seemed to strike a cord with Beatrice, and she suddenly felt a little guilty.

"Sorry! I was just testing something!" She said. "C’mon! No need to cry! I will make it up for you later!"

She reached out and started patting him on the head, but that only made things worse.

"I might die from embarrassment so please stop," Wolf said while trying to move his head away from her hand. "Can’t you just explain to me what’s happening? And release me while you’re at it. This pose is really uncomfortable."

Retracting her hand, Beatrice stared at him for a moment, her expression turning complicated.

"I guess you don’t remember..."

"... Did I do something?"

The last thing he could recall was being healed by Sunray while Klaus Stahlwölfe was trying to cut a deal with the red demon. He remembered being attacked by the scion right after, but after that...

"Wolf, you..." Pausing, the petite woman looked down. She was struggling to find the words, her lips tightly pursed. After some time, she shook her head as if trying to convince herself of something. "No, that wasn’t you. That was... something..."

Wolf didn’t know how to respond to that, leaving him to stare at her in silence. After some time, she let out a sigh, glanced to the side, then snapped her fingers. A panel on the wall opened up and a small box appeared. It slid on the floor and stopped behind the young woman, providing her with something to sit on.

"From what I have seen, it seemed the instincts from your other side have become strong enough to affect your behavior." She said. "Well, it would be more accurate to say it took over."

Wolf was speechless. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what she was saying. On the contrary, he knew exactly what she was trying to say, and he finally figured out why there was a need to keep him restrained like that.

"I... I didn’t hurt anyone... right?" He asked, his gaze cast down.

"Kafka and Merry are fine, but..." Averting her gaze, Beatrice followed in a hushed tone. "When the blue demons escaped, you no longer had anyone to turn your anger at so... the noise was probably what attracted you?"

Raising his head, Wolf looked at her in confusion and noticed that she was avoiding his gaze. Eventually, she gave up and just told him.

"You attacked the people fighting in the mansion." She said, looking rather uncomfortable. "Some of our forces got in the way so..."

"... oh no..."

"Most survived but... well, you didn’t stop for a while and... we had to team up with Blizzard Force to stop you..."

"... seriously?"

"Yeah..." Beatrice pressed her lips into a line. "That’s why... you’ll have to stay like this for a while. Until we know why you turned that way."

"... I understand."

As the two failed to find anything to say, the silence between them lingered, turning more awkward by the second. Soon after, Wolf gathered the strength to talk, having decided to ask the important questions.

"How long... how long was I out of it?"

"Less than an hour."

The answer caused him to look up with a start.

"We’re still on the Cloud Chaser." She said. "It has been only a few minutes since we retreated from the hotel."

"Oh..."

For some reason, it felt like he was out of it for far longer.

"Then... what about the operation?"

"A complete failure." Beatrice held her hands up in resignation. "The only thing we managed to do was end most of the Romano Executioners. Everything else..."

"The relic?"

"Gone. We never managed to track it down."

Once again, Wolf could only cast his gaze down. Things haven’t gone their way from the start, and by the end, they still failed to turn them around. Not only that, but he also lost control, becoming a burden on his teammates. This had been their biggest mission since becoming heroes and he butchered it completely.

"The matter had been transferred to another department so it’s no longer our problem." Said Beatrice, sounding a little annoyed.

"Are we... are we in trouble?" Wolf asked.

"Why would we? It was obvious from the start that we were way in over our heads." She scoffed. "It only took us being kicked around by a bunch of Level 5s before they realized."

The battle flashed in his mind, bringing back the struggle they had to endure. Fighting the Romano executioners was one thing, but the Shirogane assassins proved to be far too much for them. Then there was that guy.

"The red demon-"

"Got away."

"... did you learn anything about them?"

"Well, for starters, that was just one of his powers."

Pausing, Beatrice turned to the left, absentmindedly looking into the distance. A few seconds later, she turned to look at him, her eyes having turned cold once more.

"We were told to never engage with them in the future." She said, he tone suggesting that the matter wasn’t up for debate. "And don’t mention anything about them again."