Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  The sound echoed through the infinite expanse of Hikari's mindscape, a realm where thought became architecture, where consciousness shaped reality itself. Each footfall resonated not just as sound but as ripples across the fabric of mental space, disturbing the delicate equilibrium between dream and awareness.

  A woman walked through the darkness with deliberate grace, her hands clasped behind her back, eyes closed in serene contemplation. A small smile played across her lips, the expression of one who knew secrets that could unmake worlds, yet chose to guard them with infinite patience.

  This was no ordinary darkness. The void surrounding her pulsed with latent potential, pregnant with unmanifested thoughts and dreams yet to be born. Shadows here were not absence of light but presence of possibility the raw material from which consciousness itself was woven.

  Kairyū, the Mindborne Sovereign, walked through the cathedral of another's mind as if it were her own.

  Her long, flowing black hair cascaded down her back, the strands gradually transitioning to luminous teal at the tips, a visual metaphor for the journey from unconscious void to illuminated awareness. The teal gradients pulsed with subtle psychic energy, creating an aurora-like effect that painted the darkness with shifting patterns of thought made visible. Each strand seemed to carry its own consciousness, responding to mental currents invisible to lesser beings.

  Two upward-curving teal horns emerged from her head like a crown forged from pure psionic force. These were not mere adornments but amplifiers of cosmic consciousness, focusing and directing the vast mental energies that flowed through her like rivers of liquid thought. Their curved shape suggested both organic growth and deliberate design, the natural evolution of consciousness bound by purposeful will, chaos refined into instrument.

  Her pointed, elf-like ears twitched slightly, perceiving frequencies beyond sound, the whispers of neurons firing, the symphony of synaptic connections, the music of a mind under siege. Her vivid aqua blue eyes, though currently closed, seemed to see more in darkness than most beings could perceive in light. When those eyes opened, they would reveal depths that contained entire universes of mental possibility, windows into the infinite expanse of consciousness itself.

  Her ornate outfit, shades of teal, white, and gold woven into patterns that hurt to look at directly, represented the eternal dance between chaos and order that defined her existence. The form-fitting top with its plunging neckline and flowing, open sleeve drapes created a sense of controlled freedom, structure that enhanced rather than constrained. Gold and jewel accents caught light that shouldn't exist in this place, while floral-like embellishments bloomed and withered in response to her emotional state, each petal a crystallized thought.

  The leg garter on her right thigh, adorned with matching teal and gold designs, contained fragments of pure psychic energy compressed into crystalline form—emergency reserves of power that could reshape reality if deployed. Her short, stylish black boots with gold and teal details clicked against the non-existent floor, each step a declaration: I walk between worlds, neither fully of matter nor purely of mind, and I am sovereign in both.

  She stopped, opening her eyes to gaze at something only she could see. A window into the waking world, a connection to her precious apostle who even now faced a threat that could end everything.

  "Oh Hikari," Kairyū's voice resonated through the mindscape like a bell cast from starlight and sorrow, "my sweet, sweet apostle. You're about to face your hardest challenge yet." Her smile faded, replaced by an expression of genuine concern that seemed almost alien on features so cosmic. "I fear it might be worse than that Gyo man."

  The name hung in the air like a curse, carrying with it memories of blood and broken bones, of a girl forced to become a killer to save a world that would never know her sacrifice.

  Kairyū turned on her heel with fluid grace, her hand sweeping through the air in an arc that left trails of cyan energy in its wake, the visible manifestation of thought given form. Where her fingers passed, reality rippled and reformed, responding to her will as clay responds to the potter's touch.

  A massive cyan veil materialized before her, expanding outward until it dominated the mindscape like a screen woven from pure consciousness. The veil shimmered with impossible colors, its surface displaying not mere images but direct sensory experienc—Kairyū was seeing through Hikari's eyes, feeling through her nerves, experiencing her reality as if it were her own.

  The view showed Hikari's current perspective: standing before KJ, the Demonic Heart, one of the Sect's most terrifying warriors. Kairyū's cosmic awareness focused on him with the intensity of a star collapsing into a black hole, analyzing every detail with the precision of eons of accumulated knowledge.

  His skin, dark, ashen gray with faint crimson lines pulsing like veins of molten lava—created an eerie, rhythmic glow that spoke of demonic transformation completed. Those iridescent red pupils burned with an intensity that transcended mere sight, drilling into Hikari's consciousness with predatory focus. This was not the gaze of a man but of something that had consumed a man and worn his shape like a trophy.

  "Oh, Astraea," Kairyū whispered, using Hikari's true name, the name that connected her to bloodlines of legend, to destinies not yet fulfilled. She closed her eyes again, as if the sight pained her. "I hope the power I lend you will be enough."

  When her eyes reopened, they blazed with determination that could have ignited galaxies. She studied KJ through the veil with the analytical precision of a cosmic surgeon examining a particularly virulent cancer. His form was a masterwork of demonic evolution, two short, jagged horns protruding from his forehead like weapons forged in hell's foundries, nails sharp and claw-like, designed for rending flesh and spirit alike. His attire mixed functional battle gear with ritualistic armor, every surface adorned with runes and symbols that amplified his already formidable demonic powers.

  But it was his Authority that made Kairyū's expression darken with genuine worry. She could sense it even through the veil—the Authority of the Demonic Heart, a power that granted absolute dominion over demonic energy itself. This was no mere curse user or possessed human. This was a being who had become the very essence of demonic force, who could manipulate that primal energy with the same ease that she manipulated thought.

  "An Authority wielder," she murmured, her voice carrying notes of ancient recognition and fresh concern. "I haven't seen one of those in seven hundred years..." Her fingers traced patterns in the air, each gesture pulling up layers of information from her vast cosmic memory. "I don't want to have to manifest to protect you, my precious apostle."

  The threat was real. If Kairyū fully manifested in the physical world, the consequences would be catastrophic not just for the battlefield, but for the delicate balance of power that kept the outerverse from tearing itself apart. Her presence would draw attention from entities that should remain sleeping, would trigger responses from cosmic forces that operated on scales beyond mortal comprehension.

  "You won't need to, Mindborne Sovereign."

  The voice emerged from the shadows like smoke given speech. Masculine, confident, carrying undertones of ancient power and paternal pride. It belonged to no visible form, yet its presence filled the mindscape with warmth that contrasted sharply with the cold analysis of the moment.

  Kairyū didn't turn, didn't show surprise. She had sensed his arrival the moment he entered her domain, had permitted his presence because she knew his connection to the girl whose mind they now inhabited.

  "My descendant will do amazing," the voice continued, a smile evident in its tone. "After all, she is Yuki's daughter~"

  The name struck like lightning, Yuki Orionis, the Raging Star, a woman whose legend had been written in the blood of three thousand supernatural entities. A warrior whose stellar manipulation had made her a force of nature, whose love for humanity had driven her to wage a one-woman crusade against the darkness.

  Kairyū placed her hands behind her back again, her posture shifting to something more contemplative. "I suppose," she conceded, though her voice carried notes of lingering doubt. "While she has gone up against that brat Blare and her Cabal, she's never faced an Authority wielder." The distinction was crucial, Blare was powerful, dangerous, a threat that had pushed Hikari to her absolute limits. But an Authority wielder operated on a different level entirely, wielding power that could rewrite the fundamental rules of reality itself.

  "Which is why we must believe in her," the mysterious figure replied, his voice carrying the weight of absolute conviction. "Remember, she has the Adrenaline Boost ability. An ability so rare it's a one in ten trillion chance of being born with it."

  Kairyū nodded slowly, her cosmic awareness processing probabilities and possibilities at speeds that would shatter mortal minds. The Adrenaline Boost. That terrifying multiplication of power that transformed Hikari from formidable warrior into apocalyptic force. When activated, it amplified her abilities by factors that defied conventional mathematics, turning her into something that could challenge entities far beyond her normal weight class.

  But even that might not be enough against an Authority wielder.

  "You have a point," Kairyū admitted, her gaze never leaving the veil where Hikari and KJ faced each other in the moment before violence erupted. "I just hope she survives this fight."

  The words hung in the mindscape like a prayer offered to forces that might not be listening. Around them, the darkness pulsed with unspoken fears, the terror of losing an apostle, of watching potential unfulfilled, of seeing a girl who carried the hopes of multiple bloodlines cut down before she could fully awaken to her destiny.

  The mysterious figure in the shadows said nothing more, but his presence remained—a silent guardian watching over his descendant through the veil of consciousness, ready to intervene if the worst came to pass, yet hoping desperately that such intervention would prove unnecessary.

  In the waking world, Hikari stood before KJ, unaware that in the cathedral of her own mind, two cosmic entities watched and worried and hoped. She didn't know that her every move was being analyzed by beings who had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, who had seen heroes born and legends die.

  She only knew that before her stood a monster wearing human shape, and that she would have to become something more than human to survive what came next.

  The veil shimmered, reality holding its breath.

  And in the mindscape, Kairyū whispered one final prayer to forces older than gods:

  "Please, let her be enough. Let the power I've given her, the bloodlines she carries, the will she's forged in fire and blood. Let it all be enough. Because if it isn't..."

  She didn't finish the thought. She didn't need to.

  The darkness understood.

  Before Hikari could fully process what KJ had just revealed about her bloodline, the world exploded into violence.

  BAM!

  The sound came after the impact. Physics bent backward. Her brain registered pain before movement, registered flight before the strike that launched her.

  White hot agony erupted across her ribs. The world became a blur of concrete and sky and shattered glass. She was airborne, ragdolling through the first building, then the second, then the third. Each impact sent fresh waves of pain cascading through her nervous system. Blood filled her mouth, hot and copper, spattering across her shirt as she tumbled through the air like a broken doll.

  Her eyes snapped open mid flight. Training kicked in through the haze of pain. She twisted, trying to regain control of her body, trying to orient herself in the chaos of motion and destruction.

  She looked up.

  KJ was there.

  No. Wait. He was over there too. And there. Multiple positions simultaneously, afterimages bleeding across her vision, each one more real than the last.

  She couldn't process what happened next.

  Something cold wrapped around her waist. Not metal. Not rope. Something organic and wrong. A chain materialized from nothing, fleshy and pulsing with demonic energy, its surface slick and warm like freshly flayed skin.

  The chain yanked.

  Hikari's trajectory changed violently. She was dragged across the ground, concrete tearing at her clothes and skin. Civilians scattered, screaming. She plowed through them, her body a wrecking ball of flesh and bone. Buildings loomed and shattered as she was whipped through their foundations like a child's toy on a string.

  The world became streaks of color and pain. Sky. Ground. Blood. Concrete. All blending together in a nauseating kaleidoscope.

  Then she was airborne again.

  The chain released. Momentum carried her upward, spinning, the city sprawling below her in dizzying perspective.

  KJ stood on a rooftop, perfectly still, perfectly composed. The chain dissolved into red mist in his hand. He looked up, tracking her arc with those terrible red eyes.

  "Is that it?" His voice carried across the distance, conversational, almost disappointed. "If you can't even react to an opponent moving at 900 miles per hour..."

  In an instant, massive fleshy black wings erupted from his back. They pulsed with crimson light, veins of demonic energy threading through the membrane like a diseased heart's circulatory system. The wings beat once, twice, and he was gone from the rooftop.

  Four seconds.

  That's all it took.

  Four seconds for him to run off the building's edge, for those grotesque wings to catch air, for demonic energy to warp the atmosphere around him into a propulsion system that defied physics.

  Four seconds to close the distance between them.

  Hikari heard the wind scream before she saw him. Survival instinct overrode conscious thought. Her hand shot up, psychic energy erupting in a desperate shield.

  KJ materialized mid flight, a massive fleshy black trident forming in his grip. The weapon was wrong, all wrong, its surface writhing with the same organic wrongness as the chain had been. It looked grown rather than forged, like something that had been carved from the corpse of a god.

  He shot past her psychic shield.

  Through it.

  The barrier shattered like glass, cyan fragments dissolving into nothing. The trident's edge kissed her shoulder as he passed, drawing blood, the wound burning with demonic corruption.

  Hikari used her telekinesis to push against her own back, forcing herself away from his trajectory while simultaneously falling. The maneuver was desperate, inelegant, but it bought her distance.

  "Fuck, why is he so fast?" The words came out between gasps. "Wait, those authori—"

  She saw him.

  One hundred feet away. Also in the air. Also falling.

  But where Hikari tumbled on her back, limbs flailing for purchase that didn't exist, KJ fell standing upright. Perfectly vertical. Perfectly still. As if gravity was a suggestion he'd chosen to partially ignore.

  "Tsk tsk tsk, Hikari."

  His voice filled her head. Not spoken aloud. Telepathic. A violation of her mental space that made her skin crawl.

  "I expected so much more from the daughter of Yuki and Takeshi. Being an apostle should have made you stronger. But I guess..." A pause, heavy with judgment. "I was wrong."

  Hikari's mind reeled. "How can I hear you?" She spat back mentally, blood still leaking from her mouth. "And what the fuck are you even talking about? Those aren't my parents' names."

  "Really?" KJ's mental voice carried genuine curiosity now. "If you don't mind me asking, what are your parents' names?"

  "Masaru and Noriko Sato."

  The telepathic link went silent for a heartbeat. Two. Three.

  When KJ's voice returned, something had changed in it. Surprise. Confusion. The first crack in his composed demeanor.

  "That's... odd." He placed a hand on his chin, the gesture absurdly casual given they were both plummeting toward the earth at terminal velocity. "From what I read about your bloodline, your parents would have been named Yuki and Takeshi."

  The ground was getting closer. Hikari could see individual cars now, people pointing up at them, the geometric patterns of streets and buildings rushing up to meet them.

  KJ pointed at her across the distance, his finger aimed like a weapon.

  "Your mother was the Raging Star. She personally slew three thousand supernatural entities by the age of twenty four. Started her crusade when she was thirteen or fourteen." His voice took on a lecturer's cadence, reciting facts like he was reading from a textbook. "And your father was Takeshi, the Thunder Sage. He was known to be very protective of his clan. If I'm not mistaken, it would have been..." He paused, as if accessing a mental database. "The Katsuki clan."

  Hikari's eyes widened.

  Katsuki clan.

  The name hit her like a physical blow. Sutaro's last name. Sutaro Katsuki.

  "What the fuck are you saying?" Her psychic energy spiked, cyan light erupting around her body in jagged, unstable bursts. "You don't know anything about me!"

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Ah, there it is." KJ's mental voice carried satisfaction now. "The famous power surge you adrenaline boost users are known for."

  The ground was so close now. Seconds away. Maybe less.

  "And now that I'm thinking about it, Takeshi was also—"

  KJ stopped mid sentence.

  His expression shifted. The casual curiosity vanished, replaced by something sharp and immediate. Alarm. Realization. The look of someone who'd just connected dots they should have seen earlier.

  He used his Authority.

  The air around him rippled. Demonic energy exploded outward in a shockwave that bent reality. He dashed through the sky itself, treating atmosphere like solid ground, closing the distance between them in a fraction of a second.

  Right when they were about to hit the ground, when Hikari could see the terror on civilians' faces as they scattered, when she could read the street signs and count the cracks in the pavement, KJ reached her.

  His body slammed into hers.

  Not a strike. A tackle. Full body contact that drove every molecule of air from her lungs.

  They hit the apartment building together.

  Fifteen stories of concrete and steel and human lives. They punched through the exterior wall like it was paper. Kept going. Through apartments, through furniture, through the lives of people who'd been eating dinner or watching television or putting children to bed.

  They carved a tunnel of destruction through the building's heart, each floor offering no more resistance than tissue paper, until finally they exploded out the other side in a shower of debris and dust and shattered dreams.

  Hikari's world was pain and motion and the terrible certainty that something fundamental had just changed.

  KJ's last words echoed in her mind as darkness crept in at the edges of her vision.

  

  Takeshi was also...

  Also what?

  What had he been about to say?

  And why did the name Katsuki make her heart ache with a recognition she couldn't explain?

  The impact zone was chaos incarnate.

  Hikari and KJ crashed through the final wall and landed in what had once been the apartment building's lobby. The floor buckled beneath them, tiles shattering into a thousand glittering fragments. Support columns groaned. The ceiling sagged, raining plaster dust like toxic snow.

  People were already running.

  Screaming. Stumbling over debris. Parents clutching children. The elderly moving too slowly, terror etched into every line of their faces.

  But some stopped.

  Some couldn't help but stare at the two figures rising from the wreckage.

  Hikari pushed herself up first, spitting blood. Her entire body was a symphony of agony. Ribs screaming. Organs protesting. Neural Stitching already working overtime to keep her functional.

  KJ stood across from her, brushing concrete dust from his shoulders like he'd just walked through a mild inconvenience. Not even breathing hard.

  "Did those two just come flying through the wall!?" A man in a business suit pointed with a shaking hand, his briefcase forgotten on the floor.

  "How are they even still alive!?" A woman backed away, her shopping bags spilling groceries across the ruined floor.

  Then someone noticed KJ.

  Really noticed him.

  "Oh, oh my GOD!" A middle-aged woman in a floral dress clutched her chest, eyes wide with horror. "Look at him! He's a fucking yokai!" Her voice pitched higher, hysteria bleeding through. "And I think he's trying to rape that girl!"

  The lobby went silent.

  Every eye turned to KJ. To his ash gray skin. His demonic features. His predatory stance over Hikari.

  "Hey, woah." Multiple voices overlapped, uncomfortable, uncertain.

  An older man with graying hair stepped forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. "Just because he's a yokai doesn't mean he's about to sexually assault someone. That's a hell of an assumption, lady."

  "Yeah!" A teenage boy with a backpack chimed in, his voice cracking. "If anything, they could've been hit by a car and flew into here. Right? That makes more sense than... that."

  Another teen, this one with dyed blonde hair, nodded vigorously. "Yeah, false accusations aren't cool, y'know. You can't just say stuff like that."

  The woman in the floral dress jabbed a finger at KJ, her face flushed. "Well, how do you explain his appearance!? Look at him!"

  The crowd paused.

  Looked.

  Really looked at the demonic entity standing in their destroyed lobby.

  "Oh yeah," someone muttered. "He does look weird."

  "Super weird," another agreed.

  "Like, really, really weird," a third voice added.

  The murmurs built. Agreement spreading like wildfire. Fear crystallizing into consensus.

  KJ's expression didn't change.

  He simply raised his hand.

  Palm open.

  Ash gray fingers spread wide.

  Aimed at the crowd.

  "Enough of this."

  The demonic energy that erupted from his palm was invisible. Silent. Instantaneous.

  One moment, fifteen people stood in that lobby. Arguing. Afraid. Alive.

  The next moment, their heads exploded.

  Not metaphorically. Not dramatically.

  Literally exploded.

  Skulls detonated from the inside out with wet, meaty sounds that echoed off the ruined walls. Brain matter painted the ceiling in abstract patterns. Eyeballs launched from sockets like grotesque projectiles, bouncing across the floor with soft, sickening thuds. Fragments of bone embedded themselves in the walls. Blood misted the air, turning the dust-filled lobby into a crimson fog.

  Bodies stood for a heartbeat longer than they should have. Headless. Necks ending in ragged stumps that fountained arterial spray. Then they collapsed, one after another, like puppets with cut strings.

  The sound of fifteen bodies hitting the floor simultaneously was worse than the explosions.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  A rhythm of death.

  The floral dress woman's body twitched. Her hand still clutched her chest, frozen in that final moment of accusation. Blood pooled around her, spreading across the broken tiles in a slow, inexorable tide.

  The businessman's briefcase lay open, papers soaking in the spreading lake of red.

  The teenager's backpack had burst open, textbooks scattered among the carnage.

  Hikari stared.

  Her mind couldn't process it. Couldn't reconcile the casual brutality. The absolute disregard for human life.

  They were just people.

  Scared people.

  Stupid people, maybe. Ignorant. But they didn't deserve this.

  Nobody deserved this.

  KJ lowered his hand, expression unchanged. As if he'd done nothing more significant than swatting flies.

  Then he turned back to Hikari.

  His boot came down on her chest before she could react.

  The weight was immense. Crushing. She felt her sternum creak, ribs threatening to snap all over again. Her psychic energy flared instinctively, trying to push him off, but his demonic power pressed down harder, smothering her attempts like a wet blanket over flame.

  "I should've known you'd be related to *HIM*."

  KJ's voice was conversational. Almost friendly.

  He grabbed her arms.

  Both of them.

  His grip was iron. Unbreakable. His fingers dug into her flesh hard enough to bruise, hard enough to feel bones grinding beneath skin.

  He pulled.

  Not hard. Not yet.

  Just enough to make his intentions clear.

  "I've tested you enough, Hikari." His red eyes bored into hers, pupils dilating with something that might have been disappointment. "And you've failed. You weren't worthy to wield that Authority. To be an apostle. To be an heir to TWO legendary clans."

  Two clans?

  What was he talking about?

  "So unfortunately..."

  His Authority flared.

  The Authority of the Demonic Heart.

  Hikari felt it surge through him. Felt his physical prowess amplify beyond supernatural into something approaching divine. His muscles swelled. His grip tightened. The pressure on her chest increased until she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but feel the terrible certainty of what was about to happen.

  He pulled.

  Harder.

  Hikari's shoulders screamed. Tendons stretched beyond their limits. Ligaments tore with sounds like wet rope snapping. Her psychic energy exploded outward in a desperate, instinctive shield, but it was too late, too weak, too unfocused.

  "GRHGGGGAHHHHHHHHHH!"

  The scream tore from her throat, raw and primal. Not words. Not even human. Just pure, distilled agony given voice.

  Her right shoulder dislocated first.

  Pop.

  The sound was almost gentle. Deceptive.

  The pain was not.

  White-hot fire erupted through her nervous system. Her vision whited out. Every nerve ending in her body lit up simultaneously, a cascade of suffering that made her previous injuries feel like papercuts.

  Then her left shoulder.

  Pop.

  Worse, somehow. Because she knew it was coming. Because she felt every microsecond of the joint separating, the ball pulling free from the socket, the muscles tearing, the skin stretching.

  But KJ didn't stop.

  He kept pulling.

  The muscles in her shoulders began to tear. Not clean breaks. Ragged, messy separations. Fibers ripping apart strand by strand. The sound was obscene. Wet. Organic. Like tearing apart a roasted chicken, but amplified a thousand times, echoing in the ruined lobby.

  Her skin stretched. Impossibly far. White and bloodless where it pulled taut, then splitting. Crimson lines appearing like cracks in porcelain. Blood welling up, running down her arms in hot rivulets.

  The bones came next.

  Her humeri, the long bones of her upper arms, began to separate from her shoulders. Not breaking. Separating. Pulling free from the joints entirely, taking chunks of cartilage and ligament with them.

  Hikari's scream had devolved into something beyond sound. A continuous, breathless keen that vibrated in her chest, in her skull, in the very air around her.

  Then, with a final, terrible wrench...

  CRACK.

  TEAR.

  SPLATTER.

  Her arms came off.

  Both of them.

  Simultaneously.

  The separation was catastrophic. Not clean. Not surgical. Ragged stumps where her shoulders had been, bone fragments jutting from torn flesh, blood vessels severed and spraying arterial jets that painted KJ's gray skin crimson.

  Red mist filled the air.

  Chunks of tissue flew.

  Her arms, still clutched in KJ's hands, twitched with residual nerve impulses. Fingers spasming. Muscles contracting uselessly.

  Hikari's scream cut off.

  Not because the pain stopped.

  Because her body went into shock.

  Her vision tunneled. The world reduced to a pinpoint of awareness surrounded by encroaching darkness. She saw KJ raise her severed arms above his head like trophies. Saw the blood dripping from the ragged ends. Saw her own hands, still wearing the rings Lila had given her, dangling limp and lifeless.

  The pain was beyond description.

  Beyond comprehension.

  Every pain receptor in her body fired at once. Her nervous system overloaded, trying to process an injury it wasn't designed to survive. Neural Stitching kicked in immediately, but even that supernatural healing couldn't keep pace with the catastrophic damage.

  Her stumps fountained blood. Pulsing jets that matched her racing heartbeat. The concrete beneath her turned red. Pooled. Spread.

  She was going to die.

  She knew it with absolute certainty.

  This was worse than Gyo. Worse than Lirael. Worse than anything she'd ever experienced.

  Even worse than when Blare had destroyed her liver.

  Because this time, she could see what she'd lost.

  Could see her own arms, severed and held aloft like grotesque flags of victory.

  "YOUR GOING TO DIE NOW!"

  KJ's voice seemed to come from very far away.

  His hand clamped around her throat.

  The pressure was immediate. Total. Her windpipe collapsed. What little air remained in her lungs was forced out in a pathetic wheeze.

  Then they were moving.

  Up.

  KJ jumped, and the world fell away beneath them.

  Blood sprayed from Hikari's stumps in twin arcs, painting the air crimson. The wind caught it, turning the droplets into a gruesome contrail that marked their ascent.

  Fifty feet.

  One hundred.

  One hundred and fifty.

  The city spread out beneath them. Tokyo's neon lights blurred through Hikari's fading vision. She could see people on the streets below, tiny as ants, looking up at the spectacle. Could see cars stopping. Could see the apartment building they'd destroyed, smoke rising from its wounds.

  KJ spun.

  His entire body rotated, building momentum, turning Hikari into a projectile.

  Then he released.

  She flew.

  Not gracefully. Not heroically.

  Like a broken doll hurled by an angry child.

  The world spun. Sky and city traded places in a dizzying kaleidoscope. Wind screamed past her ears. Blood continued to spray from her stumps, leaving a spiral trail through the air.

  She was going to hit.

  Going to die.

  Going to—

  Her psychic energy exploded.

  Instinct. Pure, desperate, survival instinct.

  A shield materialized around her back. Cyan light solidifying into a cushion of pure force. Not strong enough to stop her momentum entirely, but enough to soften the impact from instantly lethal to merely catastrophic.

  She crashed through a window.

  Glass exploded around her. Shards embedding themselves in her skin, adding a thousand tiny cuts to her existing injuries.

  She tumbled across a bedroom floor. Bounced off a desk. Slammed into a wall hard enough to crack the drywall.

  Finally, she stopped.

  Lay there.

  Bleeding.

  Armless.

  Dying.

  The room swam into focus slowly. A teenager's bedroom. Posters on the walls. A laptop on the desk. Clothes scattered across the floor. Normal. Mundane. A life interrupted by violence.

  A girl stood in the doorway.

  Maybe sixteen. Wearing pajamas. Hair in a messy bun. Eyes wide with absolute horror.

  She stared at Hikari.

  At the blood.

  At the stumps.

  At the impossible, nightmare reality that had just crashed through her window.

  "Ahhhhh oh my god, what the fuck, where the, ARE YOU OK!?"

  The girl's voice cracked. Pitched high with panic. She started down the stairs toward Hikari, hands outstretched, wanting to help but not knowing how, not understanding what she was even looking at.

  Hikari tried to speak.

  Tried to warn her.

  "N-no."

  The word came out as a wet gurgle. Blood filled her mouth. Mixed with spit. Turned her voice into something inhuman and wrong.

  She tried to push herself up.

  Instinct. Stupid, pointless instinct.

  Her arms weren't there.

  She had no arms.

  Her stumps pressed against the floor, and the pain that exploded through her nervous system was so intense that her vision whited out completely. She collapsed again, face-first into her own blood.

  Through the broken window, she saw him.

  KJ.

  Flying toward the hole she'd made.

  Coming to finish what he'd started.

  "P-please stay back!"

  The words were barely intelligible. Choked. Desperate.

  The girl didn't understand.

  Didn't see the danger.

  Kept coming.

  Then the world split open.

  A wave of demonic energy swung through the building.

  Not an explosion. Not a blast.

  A slash.

  Invisible. Instantaneous. Absolute.

  The building didn't collapse.

  It separated.

  A perfectly clean cut, horizontal, slicing through concrete and steel and wood and flesh with equal ease. The upper floors began to slide, slowly at first, then faster, the entire top half of the structure shifting sideways like a grotesque magic trick.

  The girl was in the path of the cut.

  Hikari saw it happen.

  Saw the line of demonic energy pass through the teenager's body at waist level.

  Saw the girl's expression change from concern to confusion.

  Saw her look down.

  Saw her realize.

  The girl's upper body remained standing for a moment. Her legs, severed cleanly at the waist, stood separately. No blood yet. The cut was so clean, so precise, that her body didn't immediately understand what had happened.

  Then gravity asserted itself.

  Her torso toppled forward.

  Her legs collapsed backward.

  Blood erupted from both halves simultaneously. Intestines spilled from her bisected abdomen, coiling on the floor like obscene ropes. Her spine, severed cleanly, jutted from her lower half like a grotesque flagpole.

  The girl's mouth opened.

  A scream tried to form.

  But her lungs were in the wrong half of her body now, separated from her throat, and all that came out was a wet, bubbling gasp.

  Her eyes found Hikari's.

  Still conscious.

  Still aware.

  Still alive, for a few more seconds.

  Watching herself die.

  Hikari watched too.

  Couldn't look away.

  Couldn't process.

  Couldn't do anything but witness as the light faded from the girl's eyes, as her bisected body twitched and spasmed, as blood pooled around both halves in an ever-expanding lake of red.

  The girl had been alive thirty seconds ago.

  Had been worried about Hikari.

  Had tried to help.

  And now she was dead.

  Cut in half.

  Because Hikari had led a demon to her doorstep.

  Something inside Hikari broke.

  Not physically. Not even psychologically.

  Something deeper.

  Something fundamental.

  The ache in her stomach that she'd felt when fighting Gyo returned. That same hollow, gnawing sensation. But this time it didn't stay in her stomach.

  It bloomed.

  Spread.

  Consumed.

  Every cell in her body ignited with it. Every nerve ending. Every molecule of her being.

  Not pain.

  Worse than pain.

  Rage.

  Grief.

  Guilt.

  Power.

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

  The scream tore from her throat with physical force. The windows that hadn't already shattered exploded outward. The walls cracked. The floor buckled.

  Cyan light erupted from her body.

  Not the controlled, focused energy she'd learned to wield.

  This was primal. Chaotic. Absolute.

  Her stumps exploded with agony beyond agony.

  Flesh writhed. Twisted. Grew.

  Bones erupted from the ragged ends of her shoulders. Not clean, white calcium. These were wrong. Crystalline. Glowing with inner cyan light. They extended, branching, forming the framework of new limbs.

  Muscle followed.

  Strands of tissue weaving themselves into existence like some grotesque loom. Red and wet and pulsing. They wrapped around the bone framework, layer after layer, building mass, building structure.

  Nerves threaded through the growing flesh. Each new connection sent lightning bolts of sensation through her body. Not pain. Not pleasure. Something between and beyond both. Every nerve ending firing, learning, connecting, becoming.

  Veins and arteries sprouted. Wormed their way through the new tissue. Connected to her circulatory system with wet, organic sounds. Blood began to flow, turning the pale new flesh pink, then red, then the proper color of living tissue.

  Skin formed last.

  Starting at her shoulders and spreading outward like a tide. Smooth and perfect and completely unblemished. No scars. No marks. As if her arms had never been severed at all.

  The entire process took maybe five seconds.

  Five seconds of the most intense, visceral, horrifying regeneration imaginable.

  Five seconds that felt like five eternities.

  When it was done, Hikari had arms again.

  But she was changed.

  Her eyes blazed pure cyan. Not just glowing. Burning. Twin stars of psychic energy that cast shadows in the ruined bedroom.

  Her hair lifted, floating around her head as if she were underwater. Strands crackling with visible energy.

  Her entire body was wreathed in cyan light. Not an aura. Not a shield. Something more fundamental. As if her very existence had become partially energy, partially matter, existing in both states simultaneously.

  She stood.

  The motion was fluid. Effortless. No pain. No hesitation.

  She looked at her new hands. Flexed her fingers. Felt the power coursing through them.

  Then she looked at KJ.

  He hovered outside the broken window, eyes wide with something that might have been surprise. Might have been respect.

  Might have been fear.

  Hikari didn't care which.

  She launched herself.

  Not flew. Launched.

  Like a missile. Like a bullet. Like a force of nature given human form.

  Mach 3.

  The sound barrier didn't just break. It shattered. The sonic boom that erupted from her acceleration was visible, a cone of compressed air that tore through the building's remains and sent debris flying in all directions.

  She tackled KJ mid-flight.

  Her shoulder drove into his chest with the force of a meteor impact. His demonic shield tried to form, tried to protect him, but her momentum was too great, her power too overwhelming.

  They flew.

  Across Shinjuku. Buildings blurred past, reduced to streaks of light and color.

  Across Shibuya. The famous crossing disappeared beneath them in a heartbeat.

  Across Tokyo. The entire city became a smear of neon and concrete.

  Across Japan.

  Mountains. Forests. Rivers. Coastlines. All of it passing in seconds, meaningless, irrelevant.

  Hikari didn't slow down.

  Didn't stop.

  Didn't think.

  Just flew, carrying KJ with her, her arms locked around him in a grip that would have crushed steel.

  Finally, they reached it.

  The geographical center of Japan.

  A small town. Unremarkable. Peaceful.

  They hit the ground like a comet.

  The impact crater was massive. Fifty meters across. Twenty meters deep. The shockwave leveled every building within a hundred-meter radius. Windows shattered for kilometers. Car alarms shrieked. The earth itself groaned.

  Hikari released KJ.

  Threw him.

  He tumbled through the air and crashed through a building. Then another. Then another. Each impact sent up clouds of dust and debris. Each collision left a KJ-shaped hole in concrete and steel.

  Finally, he stopped.

  Embedded in the wall of what had once been an office building.

  He coughed.

  Blood.

  Actual blood.

  The first time she'd seen him bleed.

  "There it is..." His voice was rough. Pained. But underneath, there was something else. Excitement. Anticipation. "The famous adrenaline boost that multiplies your power three hundred fold."

  He pulled himself from the wall. Dropped to the ground. Straightened.

  Looked up at her.

  Hikari floated above him. Cyan aura swirling around her body like a miniature storm. Her eyes blazing with power that threatened to burn holes in reality itself.

  She didn't speak.

  Didn't need to.

  Her presence said everything.

  KJ's lips pulled back in a grin. Sharp teeth gleaming. Red eyes reflecting her cyan light.

  "Hehehe, should've known that would activate it." He rolled his shoulders. Cracked his neck. Demonic energy began to swirl around him, red and black and wrong. "Now, let's really get the fight started~"

  To be continued...

  Created by Figures

  ? 2026 Veilbound Press

  A Veilbound Productions Division

  — Figures, The Architect