From that touch, everything was destroyed.
A dark explosion replaced the clouds.
No matter how hard Carolina and Carlos tried to focus on their own battle, Satan also watched.
"A beautiful scene, isn't it? A shame it will be the last one you'll ever see."
He said it before advancing.
When the dark smoke gave way to the air, both bodies were in free fall. Their systems beeped in alert, but neither of them moved at all.
Upon landing on a distant mountain, the mechanical body sank into the rocks while the smaller one sank into the trees.
And, within a few seconds, one of them opened their eyes. Aurora.
She looked at her own hand. The wires were mixed with ash. Pieces of branches caught in short gaps, causing sparks.
She tried to sit up, but her body did not obey. She lay there, watching the unconscious mechanical monster on the mountain that had once belonged to a friend's home.
For a moment, that man had not been bad to her.
Her memories of him were few.
It was not the intense love of a father. It was more like a man fulfilling a duty. On some days, Aurora would sit with her legs pressed to her chest in a corner of the house while Rito cast brief glances in her direction from the kitchen, handing her food with a simple:
"Eat."
There were no promises that the past would not repeat itself, but he never touched her without being certain she wanted to come closer.
Overall, there had never been a connection.
When she began working, she grew distant. When she had her own place, they became nothing more than employer and employee.
Her memories searched deeper for moments, but there was nothing. By comparison, it came nowhere near her parents.
But why... why, in such a critical state, did she feel pity?
It was incorrect. But she could not control it. Her logical core faithfully believed in what it proposed. When she finally opened her eyes again, the eagle (even being made of iron) had been so alive, and now lay fallen.
She tilted one side of her body. She slipped. She crawled. Mud struck her face, her fingers dug into the stone, and her eyes grew brighter as she drew closer.
And when she arrived, she lay down beside it. She gently touched the eagle's eye, broke through the covering, and soon saw human pupils. The same color, the same expression. The distance between them had grown, and beneath the ocular orbit, there was only flesh.
"Rito... you have also become a monster."
The pupils sharpened into a reddish light. The wings rose and came down against the ground. The mechanical structure climbed into the sky, a screech escaping from its beak like a thunderclap. Aurora was pressed against the earth, which sank down to the rocks, cracking gradually. In one surge, Rito (the eagle of Libretãnhya) buried himself into the mountain.
They sank. The mountain collapsed over them. They soon escaped, with Aurora hanging from the slightly golden beak. As it climbed into the clouds, the eagle shook its neck, opening its mouth toward Aurora's entire body.
However, Aurora opened her eyes. With a movement of her left hand, she paralyzed the animal's motion, and it began to fall. Raising her right hand, a dark sphere molded itself into pointed shapes, and she launched it toward Rito.
Yet, as it fell, the wings moved again, pushing the dark matter with such speed that it came back against Aurora's face.
Explosion.
The mechanical eagle escaped the shockwave in an instant. The rubble of the mountain turned to ash. Clouds were erased from the blue sky and flying Renkai Creatures were evaporated.
As it escaped, it directed itself toward the battlefield.
***
"I am holding back in this battle, and you're already out of breath? The human race has never been so disappointing. Or perhaps I'm simply in a body far stronger than my old one. What is the truth?"
Krythos lifted Carolina above the ground by her hair. Amid her damp face, her eyes revealed pure hatred. Carlos, kneeling and watching the ice gauntlets and the Renkata crumble to pieces, looked up and reached out his hand with a groan. However, Satan stepped on his face, his bare toes closing around his skull, resulting in a desperate cry and a sequence of blows that grew weaker and weaker against his leg.
"Depressing. Goodbye, queen of ice."
He positioned two other fists beside her head, preparing to crush it. But he stopped. He looked to the right and smiled.
"Consciousness is a gift, but it is also a curse."
Kicking the man aside and hurling the woman away, he opened his arms, receiving Rito's blow. The tip of the eagle's beak pierced him through the chest, but he caught part of it. He gripped it. With a shout, he swung the mechanical body above his head and slammed it into the ground, bringing down entire buildings.
He climbed slowly up to the eagle's head. He drove his fingers inside the carcass and tore it away, revealing wide eyes beneath the armor that shielded them. He crouched down, pressing all of his hands against the flesh, and began to laugh.
"Ridiculous! What have you become?! It's disgusting! I thought you would merge with this thing, but you simply expanded? My God, no! I wanted a real Mechanical Destroyer, not some kind of literal demonic eagle with armor. You are the worst."
Before he could use all of his arms, something made him pull back swiftly. Aurora (half her face revealing the endoskeleton) was dragging Krythos along the ground as she flew. The Devil roared, wrapped his hand around Aurora's face, and drove his fingers into her eyes. She held firm, her teeth clenching her jaw shut. Then Satan, screaming at her to stop, began punching her until one of his hands caught the back of Aurora's head and reversed the motion, slamming her face into the ground.
"Enough playing around. God forgive me for this."
However, there was a cut. All of his arms separated from his body. Half of his face fell to the ground. Beside him rested a woman with purple hair.
Before she could close the gap between the great sword and Krythos's neck, something stopped her. A hand, from a regenerated arm. He laughed. Morgana pulled back, keeping the blade steady, her lips pressed tight. The Devil moved closer, gripping her chin.
"Did the electricity burn you by any chance? Well... for that, I will now set this country ablaze."