An explosion went off behind her. Slowly she turned her head, her expression grave...
She sensed that something worse was coming. Her breathing grew ragged. Her body felt restless, and she could perceive an energy. But before she could react, a blow struck her face, and her heart began to beat faster than normal as she was shoved back a few centimeters.
When she looked up, she saw a man with a glowing blue shield on his arm. The man followed her gaze. In an instant he drove a punch into her stomach and sent her crashing into Worh's body. She hit the ground with a dull thud and felt Worh start to grind his teeth in his unconscious state. He wanted to wake up but couldn't yet. She noticed and placed a hand on his chest...
Meanwhile, farther from where she lay, the others approached and saw the chaos. Eduin arrived a minute later, noticing the blood and a mysterious figure. The figure's presence commanded respect at once.
"Have you come to save them, or are you just another man who thinks he's a hero?" the figure asked, his voice deep and low.
The question wasn't born of arrogance, only pride. He didn't attack right away. He studied the protagonists who had arrived. As for these supposed "heroes," he saw them as ordinary humans who had been handed powers. *You can't give powers to a being who doesn't need them, but you can't give great power to others either.* That was what ran through his head.
Kiro was the first to try to approach, but he noticed a movement and stopped. Seeing the man's firm stance, he felt uneasy about what the man might do to him if he came any closer. Swallowing hard, he instinctively took a step back, not because he couldn't fight, but because he couldn't beat someone more powerful than himself alone.
Around them, the leaves kept falling, only much more slowly, as if bracing for the start of a great battle.
Eduin, brimming with confidence, stepped forward and planted himself face to face with the figure. He studied the scar on the man's face, raised an eyebrow, then settled into a serious expression.
Slowly he drew his sword. Not one, but a second. Ready to get truly serious, he met the figure's eyes. The man's gaze was calm and mature, and the protagonist's face was grave and firm.
Without waiting any longer, Eduin threw a slash that looked like a bolt of lightning.
The figure dodged it at once. He formed a small ball of energy and detonated it, and the explosion swiftly filled the area with smoke. Eduin, however, took five steps back before launching a slash that lit up exactly where the figure stood.
Seeing that the boy might be a worthy rival, the man clenched his fists and turned them to electric energy.
The ground gave a slight tremor, and the figure threw a punch at the boy. But Eduin stopped the blow with his sword.
Still, it forced him back. Eduin stamped the ground, cracking it, and left air clones around himself. Moving at great speed, he landed a blow on the enemy's face and forced him back a step, just before the surroundings turned blinding for Eduin.
Eduin narrowed his eyes and took a punch to the stomach that sent him flying. He quickly put on a pair of glasses and charged again.
The figure flicked a finger upward. Eduin dodged without difficulty, then drove his sword into the ground and twisted his body to the right, his feet hovering in the air.
In a millisecond, the figure had sent a rain of circular slashes at him. They passed within millimeters of Eduin's arms. He already knew this position gave him something like a magnetic field: the slashes came forward in a circular shape, but because they were really more like lines, they warped and passed overhead without hitting him.
He spun 80 degrees, dropped to the ground, and without wasting time sent ten slashes, quickly diverting two of them to either side.
Two projectiles were destroyed, and the silhouette realized his surprise attack had been foreseen.
The figure conjured a shield and drove it forward, running behind it as the slashes struck. Eduin sent a slash into the ground, carving a large hole, and dropped into it. The shield passed over the pit.
The silhouette leapt backward, and Eduin hurled a slash at him as the shield passed a few millimeters ahead of where Eduin had been.
Without wasting a moment, the silhouette pulled out a small orb and detonated it, shoving the protagonist back. But Eduin quickly threw his sword. Its pommel bounced off a tree and flew straight at the man's back. It was his first sword, turned against him.
The silhouette moved with agility. When the blade was barely a centimeter from piercing him, he sidestepped by a single millimeter. The tip just grazed him, but it left a scratch.
Eduin followed up with a slash into the ground, and the silhouette made a lateral leap and put one hand on the floor.
The slash left a crater, but where the man's hand rested, there was solid earth, shaky but stable enough to bear his weight.
The figure rose slowly, gripping his knee as he did. Eduin noticed the gesture, snatched up a piece of stone, and tossed it in front of him. A powerful attack struck the object. It was electric energy the man had gathered in his knee. The blast pushed Eduin back, but he regained his balance, took off his broken glasses, and left them on the ground.
"Wow, and wow again. You seem to know every pattern of my attacks," the figure said, with malice and a little pleasure at seeing him read his moves yet again.
Eduin stayed silent for a moment before speaking.
"My slashes bounced off your shield, which means they're behind you," he said, his voice turning satisfied at the end.
The slashes reached the figure from behind. His skin took the hits, and they landed on the same scratch as before, cutting it deeper. The figure felt a faint pain and realized that his flank was now more vulnerable, his shirt already torn on that side. Small drops of blood began to well up.
"You made me bleed. Congratulations," he said, looking at him.
But he realized Eduin was no longer there. He had let himself get distracted.
Suddenly an energy attack struck his flank, this time from the hybrid, who had already recovered from the earlier blow.
The figure turned toward her, blood now flowing faster and his arms more scratched. The girl stared back at him gravely, thoughts of finishing him as fast as possible rising in her mind.
Eduin walked to a dark hole and sat down, taking advantage of the figure's distraction.
"Damn animal. Who invited you?" the figure said, annoyed.
The girl simply charged a new attack. The man quickly landed a punch to her abdomen, but she held her ground firmly.
Without losing her composure, she unleashed the attack, and the energy spread over his body like snakes trying to devour their prey. The weapon on the man's arm began to vibrate, and without wasting time, he fired it at her.
The weapon had absorbed the energy and sent it back at her. She leapt up, narrowly dodging it.
Behind her, she saw that the energy was heading toward the city.
"See what you cause?" the man asked with a smile.
But her ears caught a movement, something human moving at great speed. It was Kiro.
The protagonist planted himself in front of the attack and hit it with a Reverse Strike. The energy instantly turned harmless, since the strike was the counterpart of the destructive force, and it faded into the air.
Kiro looked toward them, clenched his fists, and launched himself upward with determination.
He smiled. A great gust of wind pushed the two of them back a little, though using it at a moment like this was better than nothing.
The wind howled. Kiro had struck both of them with heavy blows at the same moment, and now stood with his back to them, fists extended forward.
The man staggered. The girl spat a little saliva, but a strange instinct stirred in her. She looked toward the place where Worh still lay unconscious and walked over to his body.
Kiro watched her, and the man seized that moment, charging a punch at the protagonist, who had no time to react. A sudden chill ran through Kiro's body, and before it passed, the man headbutted him and fired his weapon.
It sent Kiro flying. He kept his arms crossed, his mind spinning but his heart beating faster than normal... Hahahahaha... A laugh escaped his throat, unsettling the man.
His body felt dizzy, and he sensed a pulse. An invisible ring slipped free from his left wrist, something yellowish in the shape of an "O," and fell to the ground... The earth reacted. The object landed on a leaf, and the leaf quickly died. Anyone who picked it up could die.
A powerful electric shock surged through his body, a stabbing pain. Paralyzed, he felt blood begin to pour from his mouth. A reddish circle of blood bled around his wrist.
The silhouette shot at him without blinking, hitting the protagonist's arm and making the pain unbearable.
But he stood firm, thoughts racing through his mind: *I won't fall. I can't fall before I defeat him... He is Kiro, the hero.*
Suddenly his brain sent a signal. Kiro closed his eyes... Inside his mind:
"You can do it, Kiro-kun! Move that tire, don't give up!" a girl's voice said. Was Sukori as a child, cheering him on.
His body took the blows from the man's weapon, and the man had not stopped, nor even considered stopping, until he brought him down.
Kiro's eyes snapped open. A sky-blue aura, the same color as his eyes, began to wrap around his body, and the shield it formed stopped the attacks.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" A cry, almost animal, tore from Kiro's throat... Inhuman.
A vast energy shot into the sky, his body sheathed in a cylinder of light as the energy kept pouring out. It pierced the clouds and dispelled every rainy day anywhere in the world.
Slowly the energy faded...
Kiro opened his eyes. His sky-blue eyes were now a medium-dark blue. A bluish mark circled his left wrist like a scratch, and his pupils were yellow.
Time seemed to stop. Kiro appeared in front of the man before he could react and drove a punch into his abdomen, sending him flying. The air left him instantly, and he spat out a mouthful of saliva as he was carried once around the entire world.
Kiro caught him by the throat when he arrived back at the spot.
The figure's eyes went wide, bulging and bloodshot.
"You can only win with a new power. Pathetic," the man said between ragged gasps.
"I don't need to use it against you. My friend will take care of killing you," Kiro said with a smile.
Kiro let go, and a great gust of wind hurled the man backward.
Worh had woken up. The girl had given him her energy. Why, it wasn't clear, but she had done it.
Worh reacted fast. As the man's body nearly slammed into him, he unleashed an Ultra Strike Plus, a punch that demanded a massive amount of energy. The girl had given him enough to throw it, and he drew on his own as well.
The blow was so devastating that it destroyed the man's body and made him scream in pain as his entrails flew out and his stomach vanished, blood spattering the ground and Worh's face.
Worh dropped to his knees, spent, his legs trembling, his breath cut short... He passed out again.
Kiro had already returned to his normal form. The ring around his wrist dissolved like foam, leaving no trace, though it was clear it hadn't ceased to exist, only gone into hiding again.
The protagonist approached cautiously. Eduin finally emerged from the darkness and realized the enemy had been defeated, but the girl was still there, sitting and breathing deeply.
Without thinking, he lunged at her and pressed his sword to her throat, ready to kill her, but he was met by a ball-form attack.
It was Sone. Eduin was knocked back about twenty centimeters, one eyebrow raised.
"Aren't we supposed to kill her, or what?" Eduin asked, annoyed.
Sone sighed and shook his head.
"She gave Worh the energy for that attack. I saw it from a distance. It's not that I didn't want to help, but it wouldn't have done any good, since I don't have your tactics or battle intelligence, or your strength," Sone answered, raising a hand to his head and smiling a little.
Eduin stared at him in disbelief but said nothing more. Kiro walked over to the girl and held out his hand.
Boss 19 eyed him with distrust, but she took it.
Kiro gave a thumbs-up.
The sky regained its color, as if calm had finally settled in, though the world would go on with its crimes... But that isn't what matters. It doesn't have to be perfect. Flaws are what make it special. A rose petal can fall at any moment, but another can bloom... The world will have both peace and chaos, but with the new heroes, it may be calmer than in other years. Conflicts will remain, but there will be more peace for the people who lived in fear, and crime may go down...
Slowly the sun sank, announcing the sunset. Kiro hoisted Worh onto his shoulders and started to leave the place... The other protagonists followed him. The girl stayed behind, watching their backs grow smaller.
Sone turned and waved for her to follow... The Boss thought at once of the unknown voice, unsure whether it would punish her for straying, but Sone spoke up first.
"Put the thoughts aside. Come ooon!" he said in a cheerful, confident tone.
The girl shook her head and followed the protagonists, though she kept her distance. As she walked, she looked at Worh and felt something stir in her stomach, but then something else came to mind: Food! She also remembered how he had pretended to kiss her.
That part of the world regained its peace, as the world always does... A dead flower here, a flower that will be born in its place... Like beautiful landscapes, and maybe love too, if it can be called that. I suppose it's only instinct.....