Obsessed with a High-Ranking Esper (BL)-Chapter 161: Perpetrator turned victim

AN: I will be hand out bats at the end of the two Chapters because you will need them. I am also angry so lets fight the enemy together. Happy reading!

Jian Ci woke up to a severe pain. A deep, pulsing ache throbbed behind his eyes, radiating through his skull like a war drum.

His limbs felt heavy, his body sore in ways that told him he’d fought something—or someone—with everything he had.

The air was thick with the scent of scorched stone and blood. His vision blurred, the cave ceiling above him swimming in and out of focus.

He groaned, pressing a hand to his temple. He had another episode, but this one had been worse. It was more violent and more consuming. He couldn’t remember how it ended.

The last thing he recalled was the surge of power, the taste of rage, the moment before everything went black.

Did I take the TX506? He tried to remember. Had he injected it? Dropped it? Had someone else intervened?

Then he heard it. A voice—small, trembling, raw with fear. "Ci-ge..." His heart stopped.That voice. He knew that voice.

He turned slowly, every muscle protesting, and saw her. It was Alarna. She stood near the cave wall, arms wrapped tightly around herself, trembling like a leaf in a storm. Her eyes were wide, glassy with unshed tears, and when he moved, even slightly, she flinched.

Jian Ci’s breath caught in his throat. Her clothes were torn at the shoulder, dirt and blood smudged across the fabric. Bruises bloomed along her neck and clavicle—dark, ugly marks that hadn’t been there before. Her lip was split, her hair a tangled mess. She looked like she’d been dragged through a battlefield. No, she looked like she had ravaged by a beast.

Jian Ci couldn’t register what he was seeing and he did his eyes widened in shock. "No," he whispered, voice hoarse. "No, no, no..."

He tried to sit up, but the motion made her recoil, and that—that—confimed it.

***

A few hours ago, Alarna had gotten up and ran away from the cave. She had bolted into the trees, branches clawing at her skin, her breath ragged with panic. She hadn’t looked back. Not once.

She had made it halfway to camp before the guilt caught up with her.

You left him.

You know what you did to him and yet you left him alone.

She had collapsed in the underbrush, heart pounding and her hands trembling. Her lip throbbed from where she’d hit the ground during her escape, and her neck ached from where he had struck her with a massive psychic forced.

She had curled into herself, dirt streaking her arms, her shirt torn at the shoulder, her hair a tangled mess. She looked like a victim but she wasn’t. She was the cause yet she had left the man she loved to suffer. So she turned back.

She didn’t go into the cave. She didn’t dare. Instead, she crouched in the shrubs, hidden by the undergrowth, watching the entrance from a distance. She was waiting, hoping the storm would pass. That Jian Ci would come out, dazed and exhausted, and she could help him back to camp. Maybe he would be grateful to her for watching over him. Maybe she could take advantage and make him take responsibility for her.

But hours passed. The dark sky grew lighter. Her limbs grew stiff. She nodded off more than once, only to jolt awake at the sound of birds or the rustle of leaves. Then she saw him. Not Jian Ci but Yu Xi.

He emerged from the cave in a rush, his expression sharp, focused, like a blade drawn mid-motion. Alarna’s breath caught. She shifted, startled and snapped a twig beneath her boot.

Yu Xi’s head whipped toward her. Before she could speak, he moved. A flash of emerald light, filled with killing intent, tore through the bushes, slicing the air where she had been crouched.

She barely rolled aside in time, heart hammering. He was already advancing, blade drawn, eyes glowing.

Another pulse of psychic energy surged toward her, and she scrambled back, tumbling down a slope, branches whipping her face. By the time she righted herself, Yu Xi was gone—vanished into the trees, his communicator buzzing faintly in the distance.

Alarna stood there, panting, watching the trail of his departure. Her eyes narrowed. ’That heartless bastard!’

She had always wanted to get into it with Yu Xi. There was something about him—too perfect, too cold, too untouchable that had Jian Ci drawn to him. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew she couldn’t beat him in a fight. Not even close. The only way she could get back at him was to set up Yu Xi to be beaten up by espers more powerful than him.

Alarna had also seen the bruises, the split lip and the dark mark peeking through Jian Ci’s t-shirt collar. And the way he moved—tight, careful, like he was nursing more than one injury. Impossible, she thought. How could an esper guide another esper?

It defied all logic and biology. Espers needed guides. Guides couldn’t be espers. That was the law of their world. The foundation of their existence. And yet...

She turned toward the cave. Inside, Jian Ci lay curled on his side, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other resting loosely across his chest.

His face was peaceful, lips parted slightly, lashes casting soft shadows on his cheeks. He looked nothing like the beast who had attacked her.

Her heart twisted. She stepped closer, kneeling beside him. Her fingers hovered over his cheek, not quite touching. "You are not beast," she whispered. "Something’s wrong. I know it."

She looked at him—really looked—and felt something stir in her chest. Even now, bruised and shaken, she wanted to be with him. If there was something broken, they could fix it together.

And if Yu Xi had helped him... that meant there was a way. A cure. Her eyes flicked to her reflection in a shard of broken stone.

She looked awful—lip split, hair wild, dirt streaked across her face. But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.

She tore her shirt further, letting the bruises on her collarbone show. She raked her fingers through her hair, making it more tangled, more dishevelled. She didn’t have to fake the trembling in her hands. That part was real.

She sat beside Jian Ci, watching him sleep, her expression softening into something fragile and wounded. She looked like the victim.

Not the one who had drugged him.

Not the one who had run.

Not the one who had didn’t get help for him.

She reached out, brushing a lock of hair from Jian Ci’s forehead with a looknof obsession in her eyes. She leaned down and kissed the corner of his lips, the kiss possessive and tender.

"I am here now," she whispered. "I won’t leave you again." And in the quiet of the cave, Jian Ci stirred—just slightly, a breath catching in his throat. Alarna smiled. The storm had passed and he was about to wake up. Now it was time to rewrite the story.