Taming SSR And UR RANK Superwomen-Chapter 70 — The Black Cage

Inori’s body shot off the edge of the roof at brutal speed, hurtling away from the building toward the main street.

She used the momentum to open a portal in the air, and a whip shot toward the facade of the building across from her, swinging her forward before she touched the ground.

"Evelyne!"

Seraphine’s voice cut through the air. Evelyne was already running toward the edge.

"I know," she replied with a frown.

Using her gift, she jumped after Inori. Her agility was in another category. It was not speed in the conventional sense. It was absolute efficiency: every movement of her body going in the right direction, without a single wasted millimeter.

She caught up to Inori in seconds, leaping from ledge to ledge with a naturalness that made it seem as if the air were solid beneath her feet.

While Inori swung from building to building, Evelyne used them as footholds without damaging them in the process.

Inori noticed and clicked her tongue.

"Just what I needed."

A whip shot toward the facade of a nearby building, and Inori swung toward it, changing direction in midair with a fluidity that made following her feel like trying to catch water with your hands.

Evelyne reached out toward the nearest ledge. There was nothing to hold on to, and gravity did its job, sending her plunging thirty feet.

’Damn it.’

She landed on the sidewalk with the delicacy of a princess. Her knees barely bent, and her feet met the ground with a softness that made no sense from that height. She straightened in one continuous motion, without stopping.

The civilians on the street froze as they watched her. Evelyne did not look at them; she only focused on running through them.

Thanks to her gift, her movement was swift, as if she were a feather being pushed by a blizzard.

Inori swung from building to building with her whips, opening portals on the facades to change angles every time Evelyne caught up to her.

The distance between them remained constant, frustrating, as if Inori had an exact sense of how much space she needed to avoid being caught.

’This woman is fast,’ Inori thought, watching her from above. ’That’s very problematic for me, since I don’t have much energy. I’ll end up exhausting myself before I reach my destination.’

Then she vanished into the heights and the darkness. Evelyne saw her disappear onto the roof of a four-story building.

She dragged the soles of her shoes to a stop. She frowned and calculated the distance. She concentrated the vibrations in her legs, at the exact point of contact with the ground, and jumped.

Fifteen meters. The jump was vertical, clean, and excessive; even so, the concrete cracked beneath her feet. Evelyne parted her lips, raising her eyebrows, then looked over her shoulder.

The concrete had cracked beneath her feet. A long, irregular fracture spread toward the edges of the sidewalk like a spiderweb.

’Shit. I’ve already lost control of my gift. I’m rusty...’

She told herself that in the tone of someone scolding herself, without dramatics, with the cold irritation of someone making a mistake she already knew she should not be making.

Her body, carried by the air current, reached the roof of the building and landed with the softness of a feather. Inori was at the other end of the roof.

She was sitting on the ground with one knee raised and the other leg stretched out. She rubbed her ankle with one hand, closing one eye from the pain. The skin around the bone was red.

Her shoes were off to the side. Barefoot, she sat on the cold concrete of the roof, with her black hair falling over her face. She muttered something under her breath:

"That gothic girl hit me way too hard. I hope she didn’t seriously injure me."

She had not even finished saying it. The punch came from behind her.

Evelyne did not announce her presence. She said nothing. She simply appeared behind her and threw the punch with all the strength of her right arm, the metallic one, the one with no nerve endings to ask for restraint.

The impact connected with Inori’s cheek. The sound was dry. Inori was sent flying to the side, her body spinning through the air before crashing against the wall of the rooftop machine room.

The blow shook her from head to toe. She fell facedown onto the concrete, arms outstretched. Her mouth was bleeding. Evelyne jumped toward her, but before she landed, the whips came out.

Black and dense, they coiled around Inori’s body from every angle at the same time, forming layer after layer until she was completely covered.

It was not an active defense. It was a reflex. The gift responded to the threat even when the mind no longer could. Inori’s pupils trembled.

’I’m about to... pass out... I have to stay conscious. Damn it, don’t... I have to—’

She could not.

Her consciousness faded slowly, like a light going out without warning. Her body remained motionless on the ground, completely covered by the black whips that stayed active, solid, and unyielding.

Evelyne landed in front of her. She lifted her right leg higher than her head, in a perfectly straight pose, and brought it down in a guillotine-like kick.

The whips did not move.

She struck again with her fists. Each impact of her prosthetic against the barrier produced a metallic sound that echoed across the empty roof, but the surface did not give way. It was like striking iron.

She stopped, looked at the barrier for a second, and muttered:

"I could do it from below, but it would cause too much damage."

She sighed and rested her prosthetic against her waist, while her other arm fell naturally.

’The point of this mission is not to cause a commotion, so destroying a building does not fit into a prudent plan. I already have enough to deal with from the damage I left on the sidewalk.’

She took her phone from the inside pocket of her jacket, opened the group chat, and sent the building’s live location. She sent it without adding anything else.

She put her phone away.

She sat on the edge of the roof with her feet dangling over the street and waited, looking at the black whips covering Inori’s unconscious body, with the patience of someone who had no problem at all with silence.

Her blond hair was stirred by the wind high above.

’I never thought I’d spend my free time subduing a student. It’s unpleasant for me, and for the reasons I became a heroine in the first place... but I suppose I don’t have any other choice now, do I? Now I’m just a slave who has to follow orders.’

While Evelyne waited, Seraphine, Freja, and Ashley drew closer.