Seeing his doom darting at him, Ent narrowly counters, putting him eye-to-eye with Owan.
“You almost lost her there,” Owan taunts.
“I get the feeling I never had her,” Ent responds dejected.
“Hey, no, weren’t you listening?” Owan asks eagerly. “She’s still crazy about you, to the point she’s willing to kill me if you can’t. Don’t give up on a girl like that. That hottie J Tot is a babe worth DYING for!” The sick zeal in Owan’s eyes awakens Elfie to the reality of the situation. Regardless of his own pain, his friend needs his help. For that matter, Ent can’t give in to his anger against Owan as he is only being manipulated by someone else. Thus, the fighting continues with Ent giving his pain to God and asking for strength to rescue his brother.
With Elf getting his second wind, Owan quickly sees the main problem he was afraid of. While he can wield System Blades, he is not nearly as skilled using them as Elfie, which is also why his use of them is dangerous as anyone who carelessly misuses the Sword of the Spirit is a hazard to those around them. Seeing his inferiority here, Owan resorts to his other attacks, Razor Chains and Story of Red. These, as you have figured out by now, are not quite as effective as “Storyboard O” was hoping for. Also, if you’re wondering about Elf’s condition after his earlier fight in the Drawing Board, you can rest easy, because Ent and Gigi were healed before returning to school. So then, with Owan expending all of his resources and Ent not even halfway to being done with this bout, the verdict is soon reached.
Back with the others, Gigi has been putting the pieces of this preposterous puzzle together in her mind, and she has already figured out the disgusting details of what’s going on. The poor girl realizes what her big sister and boyfriend were doing behind her back, and it leaves Grace numb. While the others talk amongst themselves of Owan’s impending loss, Grace lifts her zombified head to the sky and watches the final moments of this contest. Her boyfriend has gone back to trying his luck with the blade, but he’s getting so careless now. You see, what might have been the toughest of all Ent’s opponents has been reduced to wasted potential as his affair with Faye took away all his focus in this past year, making this fight a clearly one-sided event.
The last assault is deflected and Ent finally succeeds in piercing Owan’s heart with the energy of his System Blade, thus expelling the wicked influence apparently put upon him by Faye.
As his mind is restored to him, Owan looks at his friend and says, “I betrayed you. Don’t make excuses for what I willingly chose to give up.” This is said quietly to Ent, but someone else responds first, with no need for anyone else to prompt or inform her.
“I forgive you, Owan Meyers, and I love you, no matter what you’ve done!” Gigi screams, wanting him to know that she’s already determined to move on with life, hopefully together. However, as she says this, whatever hope she has of a future together falls with Owan as the strike from the blade apparently took more than the infection away from him.
“NO!” Jocelyn Meyers flies forward to catch her son, finding that he has now officially died. “I don’t get it. The swords are supposed to cleanse good thoughts of defection, not kill them. Owan, you’re just in shock. Snap out of it!” Checking his vitals, however, and trying to revive him with her own powers, Jo has to finally accept what’s been done. Whether he meant to or not, Entoni has killed his best friend.
Everyone stands around the lifeless boy, trying to console each other while fearing this means his heart was farther gone than Cat was hoping for.
“So, does this mean that with this new monster, there is no cleansing? You either stay true or you die?” Kammy ponders this aloud as she thinks about what could have turned her uncle away from the truth like that. Only one answer comes to mind, but that villain is locked up in the Juniper District.
Inner Man Theatre 