Author's Note: This is chapter two for hitting 100k views! Show some love. Without further ado...
Let's get into it:
The forest air was freezing, heavy with the scent of pine and damp earth. We'd left the city alleys behind to make sure the explosions and noise wouldn't attract some nosy hero. We were standing face-to-face in a clear clearing, surrounded by towering trees that blocked out most of the sunlight.
For my part, I decided to start by tossing a couple of basic spells into the air—short bursts of green fire that consumed the dry leaves in the blink of an eye, just to test the waters and sharpen my mind. The original Lich mastered death magic on an apocalyptic level, but the bastard never anticipated the need for hand-to-hand combat. Sure, I have great reflexes thanks to my nature and material control, but in this world of Quirks, I prefer to master something more human, more physical. I can't always solve everything by floating around and throwing curses.
Sora watched me with a raised eyebrow, tracking the green sparks as they vanished into the air without showing an ounce of fear. Instead, she slipped her hand under her jacket and pulled out a military knife—long, with a matte blade that didn't reflect the light.
"Ready?" she asked, twirling the weapon between her fingers with terrifying ease. "I don't go easy on kids," she added with a psychotic smile that tensed the muscles in her face.
As for me, I couldn't have cared less about her threat.
Anyone would wonder: why didn't I just take control of her mind like I did with Monoma and Momo? Why not force her to teach me, or just copy her Quirk and call it a day? Well, the answer is simple: humanity is complicated like that. Humans are driven by greed and survival instincts. If I mind-control her, her movements will have limits; she'll be a puppet following rigid orders. But if she does it on her own accord, for money or for the sheer, twisted pleasure of the fight, she can push past her limits and show me the true essence of dirty fighting. Rise and grind mindset, I guess. Plus, I'm obviously going to kill her later. She has an incredible amount of chaos inside her; once I'm done squeezing every bit of knowledge out of her, I'll either fuse with her or just kill her to absorb her energy. It's a win-win.
Sora didn't wait for a reply. She lunged forward with brutal speed, sweeping low to the ground, aiming to shatter my ankles.
Keeping my goal in mind, I suppressed any instinct to use destructive magic. I half-crouched and leaped backward, feeling the rush of air from her boot graze my sneakers. But Sora was already up; she used the momentum to drive a direct slash at my neck with the knife. My Eri-body reacted fast on pure physical reflex: I snapped my head back, feeling the edge slice through a few strands of my silver hair.
"Damn, you can actually move," Sora grunted, chaining a direct punch to my stomach.
This time, I didn't dodge in time. I flexed my abs, tapping into some of my body's passive durability. The impact was blunt and forced me back two steps, but instead of whining, I analyzed the move. The way she pivoted her hips to maximize power, the positioning of her feet... my millennial mind processed it all in a millisecond.
Taking advantage of her extended arm, I slipped under her guard. I tried to mimic her exact movement, driving a swift palm strike toward her floating ribs. Sora, caught off guard by the speed of my counter, had to force a block with her forearm. The collision of our bodies echoed through the clearing.
"What the hell...?" Sora muttered, feeling the bizarre density behind my strike.
I didn't stop. Using her own swaying technique, I spun on my axis and went for a sweep identical to the one she used on me at the start. My movements still felt a bit stiff, too calculated, but the adaptation was absurdly fast. My leg slammed into hers; I didn't manage to knock her down because her center of gravity was flawless, but I forced her to stumble.
Sora backed off a few feet, panting slightly, but the smirk on her face was gone, replaced by a scowl of pure frustration and stress. Her gray eyes darted from my feet to my hands, trying to wrap her head around how a little girl was absorbing her fighting style in under three minutes.
"Don't screw with me, you little brat," she hissed, visibly rattled by how easily I was copying her body language.
Suddenly, the atmosphere around her shifted. The ground beneath her feet seemed to vibrate, and a sort of optical distortion began to emanate from her body. It was her Quirk. Her perception and speed seemed to double in an instant; the air around her knife started buzzing as her eyes fully dilated. She wasn't going to hold back anymore; the frustration of being matched by a kid was forcing her to pull out all the stops.
I just maintained my stance, relaxing my shoulders in this vessel of flesh. I let a small, cold smile play on my childish lips as my reflexes sharpened.
"There it is..." I whispered, locking my eyes onto every single one of her tensed muscles. "Show me how a real human fights when they get desperate."
We went at it like that for two long hours. Two hours of pure physical exchange where I completely adapted to her rhythm, her feints, and her breathing pattern. Every time I analyze my own progress, I can't help but be amazed by how absurdly easy it would have been for the original Lich to kill absolutely everyone in the Land of Ooo if he had just locked in instead of standing around giving speeches. Though well, I guess I was lucky enough to drop into a good world to experiment with, full of weird abilities and fresh cannon fodder.
By the end, the forest clearing was a disaster of broken branches and overturned dirt. Sora ended up on the ground, completely spent, and I pinned her down to secure my victory. I felt a warm trickle run down my chin; a couple of drops of green blood were falling from my mouth. Yeah, in case you didn't know, now that I possess a living body, my blood turns green shortly after exposure. Apparently, it's a side effect from all the power absorbed from the mutagen bomb, but whatever, it gives me a pretty unique touch.
I spat the excess blood to the side. The second it hit the ground, the grass and dirt began to bubble and release thick smoke, dissolving like highly corrosive acid.
"Is that all?" I asked, looking down at Sora while forcing my skin to regenerate.
The process was a bit slow; it's not as effective or fast as a pure cellular regeneration Quirk, but it worked to close up the cuts. As I felt the tissue knitting back together, I couldn't help but recall a scene from the show: that moment when Finn chopped off the Lich's hand and the bastard just grew it back like it was nothing, with total indifference. Damn Lich, he really was a force of nature.
Shaking my head to clear the memory, I looked back down at the girl. That's when I noticed a stupid detail: Sora's cheeks were flushed, and she was staring right at me, completely blushing. Wait, blushing? Seriously?
I leaned over and placed my hand on her forehead, reading the surface of her mind to figure out what the hell was going through her head. The moment I saw the flow of her thoughts—the mixture of submission, twisted adrenaline, and an obsession with the appearance of the "little girl" I was using—a wave of pure revulsion shot down my spine.
"Fucking disgusting creep," I spat with absolute loathing.
I didn't waste another second. I drove my fingers straight into her chest, tearing through flesh with the brute force of my reconstructed body. I opened my mouth wide, letting that familiar dark mist begin to siphon her life essence directly from the wound.
Sora couldn't even scream; her gray eyes popped wide open as the energy that drove her was drained into me. The process was quick. Within seconds, her skin lost all color, turning completely pale and gray, like a statue of cold ash. I pulled my hand back with disdain and gave the empty shell a light kick; at the slightest impact, the body crumbled completely, turning to dust that the forest wind quickly scattered through the trees.
I wiped the residue off my hoodie and shoved my hands into my pockets, walking back toward the road while keeping my options in mind.
Before heading into the woods, I had given Giran a very specific task: use his contacts to find me someone in the black market with a Quirk for body recomposition, biological manipulation, or something as close to that as possible. I needed that ability urgently. While Monoma's copy Quirk let me use other people's abilities, it was mostly useful for fights or getting out of a temporary jam. What I wanted was a clean, permanent, biological way to absorb people and integrate their traits into my own structure without needing to rely on a time limit.
Clearly, I was having issues with my body. Sometimes I'd look at my chest and notice stretch marks, which, in case you don't know, happen when skin stretches. But as you should know, since I'm not fat, it's from the excess skin or the actual muscle and fat of the people I consume. Blood slowly seeps from those stretch marks and they give me aches—which are easy enough to tolerate, but I don't want anything getting in my way during a fight. So yeah, I need that Quirk. I'll fuse with it, use it on myself, and boom, I'll be the freaking Ghost Rider... I mean, the Lich, haha.
I thought to myself with a smirk. I took to the skies as I went off to create another bomb.
End of Chapter 12.