Back at the arena, Anjero was running on fumes. Sweat poured down his face as he gathered the last reserves of his spirit energy, feeling Aalto's power surge one final time.
"AALTO GEYSER BAZOOKA!" A massive column of water erupted from his hands, spinning like a drill as it hurtled toward Jeremi.
The attack struck dead-on, engulfing Jeremi in a torrent of pressurized water. For a moment, Anjero dared to hope. But as the water dissipated, Jeremi stood in the exact same spot, barely even wet.
"Is that all you have? I barely felt that one," Jeremi said coldly.
*I'm running out of energy and fast. I need help...* Anjero's vision swam as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. He spotted Devanga's unconscious form nearby and had an idea. "Devanga, get the hell up, fatso!"
"WHO'RE YOU CALLING FAT?!" Devanga's eyes snapped open, fury overriding his dazed state.
"Look, I'm sorry, I just had to get you back up, man," Anjero explained quickly.
Devanga pushed himself to his feet, rolling his massive shoulders. "Oh yeah, I remember. Shadow boy powered up and knocked me clean out. I got a bone to pick with this bastard."
"Thanks for your help," Anjero said with genuine relief.
"Don't think I'll let you slide with that comment either, because you're next after we kick this guy's behind," Devanga warned.
"Hm, let's just focus on this first..."
Jeremi's expression remained unchanged as he faced both of them. "You can both come at me at once!"
"ROCK ARMOR!" Devanga's body became encased in stone-like protective plating as earth energy surrounded him.
"VAPOR FISTS!" Anjero's hands glowed with blue energy once more.
They charged together, but Jeremi was ready. As Devanga took the first hit, attempting to create an opening with his enhanced durability, Jeremi's shadow-enhanced fist plowed into his gut.
"Bleh..." Devanga spat blood, the force of the blow cracking his armor.
*No better place to try this now...* Anjero thought, recalling a technique Raf had shown him. "TORRENT COMBO!"
He launched into a devastating combination of kicks and jabs, each one flowing into the next like water. His movements became fluid, unpredictable, and for the first time, Jeremi seemed pressured.
"Stop it right now!" Jeremi growled, throwing wild counters.
But Anjero was in the zone, dodging each attack with the grace of a flowing stream. "Devanga, follow all my movements!"
"Don't tell me what to do!" Devanga shouted, then grinned. "Huh... skip it!"
The two worked in perfect synchronization, their attacks complementing each other. When Anjero created an opening, Devanga exploited it. When Devanga drew Jeremi's attention, Anjero struck from an unexpected angle. Finally, Anjero saw his chance and delivered a devastating uppercut that sent Jeremi sailing into the air.
"I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!" Jeremi screamed from above.
"You're welcome to try after this!" Devanga leaped into the air with surprising agility for his size. "AERIAL LANDSLIDE BLITZ!"
He grabbed Jeremi mid-air and drove him into the ground with earth-shattering force, creating a crater in the arena floor.
"Pant... pant... great job following. I have no more energy left," Anjero gasped, dropping to one knee.
"Yeah, same..." Devanga wheezed. "Oh no."
From the crater, Jeremi rose slowly, his body wreathed in dark energy. "I told you both that I'd kill you, right?"
His earpiece suddenly crackled to life.
"Jeremi, we all need your help!" Space's voice carried a note of panic that hadn't been there before.
"What? But I'm not done..." Jeremi touched his ear. "What do you mean?"
"Yeah, we're all getting overwhelmed here! Help, please!"
Jeremi looked between the earpiece and the two exhausted fighters before him. "Don't go anywhere, you two. We'll finish this momentarily."
As he disappeared in a swirl of shadows, Anjero collapsed fully. "I hope... he doesn't come back."
**Twenty Minutes Earlier**
The medical pod hissed as pressure equalized. Inside, Kamira's eyes fluttered open.
"Ouch, my everything hurts," she groaned.
"You'll be okay. Just keep drinking the juice and you will be up in no time." Mari held up a glowing blue beverage. "S.E.I.D, open the pod... S.E.I.D?"
Silence greeted her command.
"Huh... this is why I don't depend on machines. I'll do it myself," Kalira said, wheeling forward and manually overriding the pod's locks.
The glass slid open and Kamira sat up, coughing. "Cough, cough... Kalira..."
"Don't talk so much," Kalira said gently.
"How are you feeling, Kam?" Mari asked, scanning her vitals with a handheld device.
"Like my body is blistering all over."
"I guess that's a good sign for now," Mari replied, though her expression remained concerned.
Kalira's voice became more serious. "Kam, who taught you to use the Anger Shroud?"
"While meditating, Histeri told me it was their current strongest technique, so I used it," Kamira answered simply.
"So it's true... Histeri actually talks to you."
"Yeah... He never talked to you?" Kamira looked genuinely surprised.
"No... He..." Kalira began, but her words were cut off by a massive explosion that rocked the entire medical wing.
BOOM!!!
"What was that?!" Mari screamed as equipment toppled from shelves.
"Something just exploded!" Shinkei, who had been recovering in a nearby bed, jumped to his feet despite his injuries.
"The control room is on fire!" Kalira pointed through the window where flames and black smoke billowed from the North wing.
"What? Shinkei, we gotta go and make sure everyone is okay!" Kamira swung her legs off the medical bed.
"Yeah, I'm right behind you!"
"You two haven't even healed fully yet," Mari protested.
"Mari, let them go..." Kalira said quietly, then fixed Kamira with a stern look. "But don't use the Anger Shroud again. Kam, you hear me?"
"Yeah, I won't... Shinkei, let's roll."
The two of them split up to investigate different sections of the arena, Kamira heading toward the eastern exits where she could hear sounds of combat.
"Well, hello, Kamira Yusei," a smooth voice greeted her.
Kamira found herself facing a lean young man with purple-tinted hair, surrounded by a noxious green mist. Behind him, dozens of students lay paralyzed on the ground.
"What are you doing to these people?" she demanded.
"I'm not doing anything. Kam, can I call you Kam?"
"Only my friends and family call me that, and it seems to me that you're neither."
"Oh, don't be so harsh... what if I wanted to be friends?" Ruisu smiled, but it didn't reach his cold eyes.
"Sorry, buddy, that ship sailed when you took these people hostage."
"Okay, if you say so. TOXIC PARALYSIS!" Ruisu thrust his hands forward, and the green mist surged toward Kamira.
"What is this? Oh god, it stinks!" Kamira covered her nose and mouth.
"It's just a little bit of my non-lethal poison that I wanted to share with you."
*Crap, don't breathe it in, Kamira. Just beat him and it'll disappear, right? Wait, is that...?*
"Romaji?! Why are you on the ground just laying there?!?!"
Among the paralyzed students, Romaji's eyes gleamed with awareness. "Damn it, Kamira, I was waiting for an opening to hit him!"
"What the hell?" Ruisu's confident expression faltered.
"Looks like all that training with the elders paid off. You should've done your research, you third-rate villain. I'm immune to most poisons," Romaji said, springing to his feet in one fluid motion.
"Who are you calling third-rate?"
"Me, the main character of this story! Romaji Jonzu!" He struck a dramatic pose.
"I still don't know what he's talking about..." Kamira muttered.
"Anyway, you might be immune to my poison, but it doesn't mean I still can't kill you. Same goes for you, Kam," Ruisu warned, his hands.
The air over the ruined plaza shimmered with heat that had nothing to do with the sun.
Kamira planted her feet against the cracked stone, fists raised, the wind from the last exchange still tugging at the ends of her hair. Across from her, Ruisu rolled his shoulders like a man stretching before a leisurely walk, not a fight that had already cracked three support pillars behind him.
"Bring it!!" Kamira called, and there was no fear in it — only the high, bright challenge of someone who had been waiting for this exact moment.
Ruisu's grin widened. Violet light bled up through the veins of his forearm, pooling at his fingertips like ink dropped in water.
"Venom Point!!"
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Beside Kamira, Romaji's whole body went rigid. He knew that stance — had seen it in a debrief photo, grainy and second-hand, pulled from the wreckage of a mission that had nearly cost their friend Anjero his life.
"Kam — don't let him touch you with that." His voice was low, urgent, eyes never leaving Ruisu's glowing hand. "I think this is the guy who almost took out Anjero."
Kamira's jaw tightened, but her eyes never lost their fire. "You don't say…" A beat. A breath. Then she moved — fast, low, a blur of motion across the broken stone. "FURY FEET!!"
Her kick caught Ruisu square in the torso before he could even finish raising his guard. The impact cracked through the plaza like a gunshot, sending him skidding backward in a spray of dust and shattered tile.
"And he's down!!!" Kamira's voice rang out, equal parts triumph and command. "Romaji, start the count."
"Yes ma'am." Romaji's eyes locked onto the fallen figure, jaw set. "One…"
Ruisu didn't move right away. Then, slowly, his shoulders began to shake — not with pain, but with laughter, low and wet and wrong.
"You two think this is funny?" His head lifted, grin stretched too wide across his face. "Hahaha — it is funny… Bleh…"
A thick stream of liquid spilled from his lips, hitting the stone with a hiss that ate small craters into the tile.
Kamira's nose wrinkled, half disgust, half disbelief. "Ew… is he throwing up poison? Why is it *purple*?"
"It's my favorite color." Ruisu rose to one knee, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, utterly unbothered. "So why not?" His gaze slid sideways, locking onto Romaji with lazy malice. "Yo. Animal Kingdom. Catch this."
He spat.
The glob of violet venom hit Romaji square in the chest before he could so much as flinch.
"Bro—" Romaji's voice cracked with disbelief, staring down at the smoking stain spreading across his shirt. "What in the *hell* did you just spit on me?!"
"Just some poison." Ruisu shrugged, almost bored. "But since it doesn't affect you, you might as well treat it like spit."
That was the wrong thing to say.
Something in Romaji's expression shifted — the easy confidence of a moment ago curdling into something darker, hotter. His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles whitening.
"I'm… gonna kill him." The words came out flat, final. Then, louder, fury breaking through like a dam giving way: "**BEAST TRANSFORMATION: CHEETAH!!**"
Fur the color of burnished gold rippled up his arms. His pupils thinned to vertical slits, and when he moved, he *moved* — closing the distance to Ruisu in something less than a second.
"Romaji, don't — it's a trap!!" Kamira's scream tore through the air, but it was already too late. Rage had taken the wheel, and Romaji's body was committed to a path his mind hadn't finished thinking through.
Ruisu's smile didn't waver. If anything, it sharpened.
"I'm glad you saw through it." His hand snapped up, violet light condensing into a single, screaming point. "But it's too late, Kam. **CORRODED SHOT!!**"
The bullet of pure venom screamed through the air toward Romaji's exposed side — and he couldn't stop. Not at that speed, not with that momentum already spent. His enhanced reflexes screamed at him to twist away and found nothing to grab onto. There was no time.
So Kamira gave him time the only way she had left.
She threw herself into its path.
"Ah!!! My eye!!!"
The world snapped sideways for Kamira — a flash of violet, a burning so total it erased every other sensation, and then she was on the ground, one hand clawed over the left side of her face, blood and something darker leaking between her fingers.
Romaji's transformation evaporated the instant he turned and saw her. The cheetah-quick fury that had carried him forward collapsed into something far colder and far more devastating: guilt.
"Kam…" His voice had gone hollow. "I'm so sorry."
Above them, Ruisu's laughter spilled out again, delighted, cruel. "Aww. Look what happened to *Kammy* — all because you couldn't control your temper."
"Shut up." The words came out barely audible.
"What was that?" Ruisu leaned in, cupping a hand to his ear in mock concern.
The air around Romaji began to *boil*.
"**Shut up!!!**" His whole frame shuddered, fur rippling along his arms again — but this time something else moved beneath it, thicker, heavier, a second shape fighting for the same skin. "**BEAST…**"
"Those little power-ups won't do anything for you," Ruisu said, almost gently, like he was explaining something to a child.
He was wrong.
"**BEAST COMBINATION: GORILLA AND CHEETAH!!**"
The transformation hit like a detonation — speed and brute mass fusing into something that shouldn't have been able to exist in the same body, let alone move with the fluid violence it did a heartbeat later. Romaji didn't so much cross the remaining distance as *erase* it.
"Well," Ruisu managed, right before the first blow landed, "this is new—"
After that, he didn't get to say much of anything at all.
Romaji didn't let up. Didn't pause. Didn't think. Every strike was guilt given shape, grief turned into kinetic force, and Ruisu's smug confidence shattered somewhere around the third hit, replaced by something closer to genuine alarm.
"Romaji — stop." Kamira's voice, raw and thick with pain, cut through the storm of violence like a blade. "Don't kill him."
The beast-shape froze mid-strike, fist trembling inches from Ruisu's already-ruined face.
"But your eye—" Romaji's voice cracked, the rage finally bleeding out of him, leaving something younger and more frightened underneath.
"I'm okay. I just—" Kamira's composure broke at last, tears cutting clean tracks through the dust and blood on her cheek. "Can't see out my left eye anymore."
"Kam. I'm sorry." The words felt insultingly small for what had happened, and Romaji knew it. He said them anyway, because there was nothing else to say.
On the ground, Ruisu wheezed out something that might have been another laugh, if laughter could sound like wreckage. "I… I… need… b-backup…"
A new voice answered him — calm, unhurried, and far too close.
"You too?"
Romaji turned. Kamira, even half-blind, turned with him.
Neither of them had heard anyone approach.