The purple aura surrounding Violet intensified all at once as she shot through the forest in a straight line toward the Nomu. The air around her parted to make way for her passage, and the trees around her simply bent under the pressure of her movement.
And in the very next instant, she was already in front of the Nomu.
Her fist slammed into the creature's chest.
The impact bent the monster's body around her knuckles before the force exploded outward in a violet shockwave. The Nomu was launched backward like a missile, tearing through the forest at high speed and carving a straight path of destruction through the trees.
Violet didn't give it any time to recover and raised one hand.
Several purple blasts fired from her palm, chasing the creature and striking it one after another. Each impact detonated against its body, growing in brightness and violence as the explosions overlapped, until the end of the trail transformed into a gigantic violet fireball that swallowed everything around it.
For a brief second, the forest fell silent beneath the echo of the explosion.
Only for the Nomu to burst out of the cloud of dust and smoke the very next second, leaping from it with such violent force that the smoke itself split apart behind it. Its two gigantic arms rose above its head and came crashing down in a double-handed hammer strike aimed directly at Violet.
BOOM!
The impact explosion threw up an absurd cloud of debris in the middle of the forest.
Violet burst out of it, flying upward high above the smoke while enormous boulders were hurled at her from inside the impact crater.
She dodged the first effortlessly, twisted her body to the side, and destroyed the second with a short burst of her purple aura. More came immediately afterward. She continued moving through the air, fast and precise, shattering some and weaving around the larger ones.
But then came a larger rock, thick enough to hide almost everything behind it.
Violet split the boulder in two.
And it was at that exact moment that the Nomu burst through the gap between the two halves of the rock, launching through the newly opened opening like a cannonball.
He slammed into her before she could react.
The two became a streak cutting across the horizon, ripping through the air until they slammed into the side of a distant mountain.
The explosion shook the entire forest.
A massive crater opened in the mountainside, with dust and fractured rocks cascading down the slope like an avalanche. The Nomu was the first to rise within the crater, breathing heavily through its deformed mouth.
Then it started punching downward.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Each blow produced a violent yellow flash. The mountain trembled with every impact, cracks spreading outward from the crater in long jagged lines. The ground gradually began to give way beneath the relentless violence.
Then, a small purple glow appeared beneath the Nomu.
It grew brighter until a beacon of violet light erupted beneath its feet.
The light swallowed the Nomu's vision.
And a gigantic purple blast exploded upward.
The attack completely engulfed the creature and hurled it out of the crater, sending it spinning through the air before it crashed into the forest below.
Violet emerged from the crater, floating upward slowly, completely unharmed.
Her purple aura still surrounded her body like a perfect shield. Her clothes were covered in dust, but she didn't have a single wound or scratch.
She looked at the smoke rising from the forest and sighed.
"Those punches weren't even enough to give me a proper massage."
The creature began rising from the wreckage and smoke.
It forced itself up from the shattered earth, its body trembling violently. Several violet stakes were embedded deep into its chest, shoulders, arms, and stomach. They glowed within its flesh, pulsing like crystals of energy.
The Nomu looked down at them and growled.
Violet appeared above it, hovering in the air with one hand raised.
"Did you like my present?"
The Nomu tried to move.
But the stakes reacted.
More violet spears burst outward from inside its body.
They pierced through its back, ribs, arms, legs, and throat like roots. The Nomu screamed as its entire body was impaled from within, muscles stretching and tearing apart around the energy constructs.
Violet slowly descended, her expression cold.
"Save some of that air," she said. "You still owe me a lot for what you did to my brother..."
She gently closed her fingers.
Even more spikes grew.
The Nomu arched backward and roared at the sky as the violet crystals spread throughout its body. Its form twisted unnaturally, swelling and shifting as though something was trying to take the place of its own internal organs.
Violet's eyes widened the moment she noticed the spikes stop growing.
The violet light embedded inside the Nomu flickered.
Then the purple crystals darkened, shone once more, and slowly took on a yellow hue.
Violet's expression hardened.
"You're... absorbing them?"
Yellow electricity erupted from the Nomu's body in violent arcs. The ground around it was torn apart as thermonuclear heat emerged through its skin. Steam escaped from the holes in its body, distorting the air around it.
The stakes began fusing with its skin, sinking into the monster's flesh.
The Nomu lowered its head.
Its mouth opened in a sudden, unnatural motion.
A blinding yellow glow formed deep within its throat.
Violet's instincts screamed.
She moved the instant a thin beam of concentrated yellow energy fired from the Nomu's mouth.
The beam crossed the forest in a perfectly straight line and struck the mountain behind her.
For one terrible moment, nothing happened.
Then half of the mountainside exploded.
The rock turned white-hot. The point of impact liquefied instantly, collapsing into lava as the entire area was consumed by an explosion of heat and force, while the resulting shockwave swept through the forest.
Violet stared at the destruction for several seconds.
Only then did her eyes slowly return to the Nomu.
"Where did all that energy come from...?"
Smoke escaped from its mouth. More smoke poured from the holes scattered across its body, which closed one by one. Its mutated flesh repaired itself with wet, brittle sounds, the yellow energy beneath its skin burning intensely.
Its body had undergone a forced mutation due to the radiation.
Its regeneration was the key factor that made such a thing possible, preventing its structure from collapsing.
Resulting in an extreme adaptation to this harmful, self-destructive state.
And, consequently, to the other phenomena surrounding it.
The Nomu turned toward Violet.
Its broken jaw trembled.
Its eyes locked onto her with pure hatred.
"i..."
Its fingers dug into the ground.
"wIlL..."
Yellow lightning crawled up its arms.
"cRuSh..."
Its entire body tensed before it roared.
"—YOU!!!"
The air split apart as the creature launched itself toward Violet with a distorted roar, tearing through the ground with every step.
Violet raised her hand, and dozens of purple hexagonal plates materialized before her, interlocking one after another.
The Nomu crashed into them.
The first layers buckled immediately.
Violet grunted as the pressure reached her, her feet sliding backward through the air. Her eyes narrowed, and more plates formed behind the previous ones, reinforcing the barrier in succession.
Even so, the Nomu kept pushing forward through sheer brute force.
"Stubborn..."
Violet closed her fingers.
The plates folded around the Nomu's body, forming a spherical force field that trapped it at the center. The creature slammed against the inner wall immediately, punching without pause, each impact making the sphere tremble in the air.
Violet compressed the field.
The sphere shrank.
The Nomu roared as the pressure began crushing its arms, legs, and torso. Bones cracked inside the mutant flesh. Its skin split open in multiple places, releasing yellowish steam.
Its arms and legs dug against the inner walls of the field before it started pushing, forcing the sphere to begin expanding again.
Violet's eyes widened slightly.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
She raised her other hand and created new outer layers around the prison, one after another, until the sphere resembled a small violet planet suspended in the air.
Then she began crushing them inward.
The outer layers compressed the inner ones, and the inner ones compressed the Nomu.
The space around the creature hissed under the pressure.
The monster's body looked as though it were about to collapse until it opened its mouth.
A yellow glow bloomed inside its throat, making Violet's eyes widen as she reacted in the same instant.
She swung her arm and hurled the entire sphere toward the horizon.
The Nomu was launched along with the force field, but the beam escaped its mouth before it could close its jaws. As its body spun uncontrollably inside the prison, the yellow beam carved through both the field and the air in violent arcs, completely ripping them apart along with trees, rocks, and hills in blazing lines.
The creature slammed into the ground.
The Nomu dug its hands and feet into the earth, dragging itself for hundreds of meters while still firing the beam downward. The blast carved a glowing trail of heat, melting the ground beneath its body and leaving a red, smoking scar across the forest.
The beam ceased as soon as it closed its mouth.
Smoke escaped from the corners of its jaws.
The Nomu raised its head only to find Violet already standing before it.
Her punch struck its face and sent it flying backward, but before it could disappear over the horizon once again, a purple cylindrical restraint locked around its waist and arms.
A rope of energy extended from the structure before Violet yanked it toward herself.
The creature was pulled back at high speed before Violet landed another punch.
BOOM!
The impact hurled it away again before Violet pulled it back once more.
Another punch.
BOOM!
Then another.
And another.
She also began using the Nomu's body like a weight attached to a whip, hurling it from side to side across the forest. The monster tore through tree trunks, boulders, and clouds of dust while Violet reeled it back each time, landing precise strikes whenever it returned within reach.
The Nomu's eyes darted frantically in every direction.
The forest spun around it in chaotic fragments. Its body was pulled, thrown, struck, and pulled again before it could stabilize itself. For a few seconds, it seemed like nothing more than a confused animal, trying to understand where the danger was coming from.
Then its eyes locked onto the source, and its pupils dilated.
The next time Violet pulled the energy rope, the creature tensed its neck and hurled its head forward.
The headbutt struck Violet squarely.
The purple aura absorbed most of the impact, but the blow still threw her off balance for a brief moment. Her body was pushed backward, and the energy rope unraveled.
The Nomu roared as dense yellow electrical arcs burst from its body once more. It spread its arms wide, puffed out its deformed chest, and shattered the violet restraint in a brutal surge.
Energy exploded from its skin as it threw its arms outward.
Violet looked up.
And the Nomu slammed its palms together in front of her, unleashing a thermonuclear explosion that swept across the entire area.
BOOOMM!
The forest vanished inside a sphere of yellow light.
The shockwave followed immediately after, tearing through and incinerating everything around it.
Violet was blasted out of the towering column of fire and smoke.
She had created a force field at the last second, managing to shield herself from the explosion. But it vibrated violently, surrounded by yellow remnants that crackled against its surface.
She crashed through several trees before finally managing to stop herself.
"What the..."
Before she could finish processing what had happened, the Nomu burst out of the massive pillar of smoke.
Each step left behind a crater. Every movement sent dust and debris flying. The creature sped past Violet before intercepting her from behind with a hammer-like blow that came crashing down onto the force field.
Striking it and driving it violently into the ground.
The impact blasted open a crater and unleashed a shockwave laced with yellow lightning that intensified as the Nomu continued hammering the sphere relentlessly.
Each punch was heavier than the last.
The yellow flashes grew brighter, as though the creature were using every impact to learn the barrier's frequency. Fine cracks began spreading across the force field.
It raised both fists once again, but before the blow could fall...
Violet deactivated the force field, planted her hands on the ground, and kicked both legs upward, landing a double kick squarely against the Nomu's torso.
The resulting shockwave raised a vertical pillar of dust, and the creature's body was launched high into the sky, spinning through trails of yellow electricity as it climbed nearly to the clouds.
Violet shot after it immediately, her arms raised, and unleashed a relentless barrage of strikes from every direction.
From the ground, nothing could be seen except a violet streak slicing through the sky and repeatedly striking the center of the monster's body. Violet moved far too quickly to follow, attacking with fists, knees, elbows, and energy constructs that appeared and vanished within fractions of a second. The sequence was so rapid that it resembled a single beam pulsing in rapid bursts.
The Nomu was beaten through the air without ever being allowed to fall.
Its body was folded, hurled, twisted, and struck again before gravity could decide where to carry it.
Then it turned its head.
Its eyes tracked the next violet flash.
Violet appeared on its left with a punch that it evaded. It twisted its body and intercepted Violet with a heavy backhand across the face, sending her plummeting downward.
But before the blow could send her away completely, the creature grabbed her leg.
The Nomu spun through the air, using its own weight and the fall to build momentum before hurling Violet with all its might toward the forest below.
She struck the ground like a meteor.
BOOOMM!
The explosion raised a massive column of dust, shattered stone, and splintered trees. The crater expanded outward in concentric rings, cracking the surrounding earth.
For several seconds, everything vanished inside the smoke.
Violet stood embedded at the center of the crater, slowly rising out of it.
The purple aura burned more fiercely around her body.
Slowly, she lifted her head only to see the Nomu descending toward her from above.
It ran on all fours across the boulders launched by the explosion itself. It leaped from rock to rock like a beast hunting its prey, shattering each foothold the instant it left it behind.
Violet grimaced in irritation.
Her aura intensified.
The millions of microscopic shields surrounding her glowed simultaneously until her body seemed wrapped inside a violet star.
"Enough! This ends now!"
She launched herself upward with everything she had.
The Nomu leaped from one final boulder, destroying it through the force of its takeoff.
Violet came from below, her arms extended forward, enveloped by a spear of purple energy forming around her body.
The Nomu descended from above, feral, its arms spread wide and curved forward, claws poised to seize her, its mouth stretched open in a roar that distorted the air.
The two crossed the distance between sky and earth.
Purple rising.
Yellow descending.
And then they collided.
----------------------------------------
No one at the lodge could ignore the forest trembling in the distance, the purple and yellow explosions lighting up the sky between the trees. Every impact made the ground vibrate beneath the students' feet, as if two natural disasters were trying to decide which one would destroy the mountain first.
But at that moment, no one there was looking toward the horizon.
Everyone was looking at Dash.
The boy still lay on the ground, surrounded by Pony, Kirishima, Aizawa, and Tiger as they monitored him.
Pony remained kneeling beside him, holding one of his hands with trembling fingers.
"D-Dash... please..."
Kirishima was on the other side, motionless, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails nearly pierced his palms.
Then a blue blur shot across the path back to the lodge.
Iida returned at full speed, nearly skidding as he stopped in front of Aizawa. Clinging to the back of his uniform was Jack-Jack.
The five-year-old boy looked half-asleep.
His eyes were half-lidded. His hair was a mess. One cheek was marked from sleeping. He still wore the confused expression of someone who had been pulled out of bed in the middle of a dream.
"Sensei!" Iida said, panting. "I brought him!"
Jack-Jack blinked slowly.
"Mmm... Where did we go...?"
Then his gaze lowered until he saw his brother.
The sleep vanished from his face completely in an instant.
Jack-Jack climbed off Iida's back without saying a word. His feet touched the ground, and for a moment he simply stared at Dash.
The air changed as an overwhelming pressure engulfed the area.
A crushing sensation fell over everyone around them, as if something invisible had wrapped its fingers around the throat of everyone in the clearing. The students froze. Even Mandalay and Pixie-Bob tensed up without realizing it.
Jack-Jack slowly walked toward his brother.
His small eyes traveled over Dash's face, his injuries, the blood, the broken limbs, and the bruises.
Then his gaze shifted to the students around them.
His expression hardened in a way that didn't belong on the face of a five-year-old.
"Who... did this?"
Jack-Jack's voice was quiet, but the pressure in the air intensified.
"Who hurt my big brother?"
Aoyama started trembling among the group.
He tried to take a step back, but his legs nearly gave out. His face was pale, his eyes wide and fixed on the ground. Guilt seemed to scream through his ragged breathing.
Jack-Jack turned his head toward him.
Aoyama held his breath.
For a second, the entire clearing seemed to stop until Aizawa stepped in front of Jack-Jack.
He crouched down slightly, bringing himself closer to the boy's height, and spoke calmly in English.
"Jack-Jack. Don't worry."
The boy didn't take his eyes off the students.
Aizawa continued:
"Your older sister is... beating the one who did this to Dash."
The words seemed to reach him slowly.
Jack-Jack blinked, still breathing heavily.
The pressure in the air eased a little.
"Really...?"
"Yes," Aizawa replied. "She is teaching him a lesson right now. But Dash needs you now, he is hurt..."
Jack-Jack looked at his brother again.
The anger was still there.
But then Pony squeezed Dash's hand and looked at Jack-Jack with tears streaming down her face.
"Please..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "Please... save him..."
Jack-Jack stood motionless.
Pony lowered her head, crying.
"He needs you..."
Jack-Jack looked at her.
Then at Dash.
The pressure vanished all at once, as if someone had opened a door inside the clearing.
The boy stepped closer and knelt beside his brother. His small hands hovered over Dash's chest for a moment, hesitant, trembling slightly.
Jack-Jack took a deep breath to calm himself before his hands began to glow.
A warm light spread through his fingers, flowing over Dash's body like golden threads, slipping into the wounds, closing torn flesh, rebuilding broken bones, and soothing his faint breathing.
Dash flinched slightly.
Pony caught a sob.
"Dash...?"
Jack-Jack squeezed his eyes shut.
"Dashie... Wake up..."
The light grew brighter.
Dash's chest rose with a deeper breath, making Pony's eyes go wide.
Kirishima leaned farther forward.
Jack-Jack kept his hands on his brother, his lips trembling as he remained focused.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then Dash's eyes flew open.
"I DIDN'T EAT THE LAST PIECE OF CAKE!"
Dash shot upright into a sitting position with a start, breathing rapidly, his eyes wide and completely lost. He looked to the left. Then to the right. Then down at his own body.
"Where am I? What day is it? Why is everyone staring at me? Did I die? Am I in the afterlife where I'm separated from the physical plane as a wandering spirit like Supernatural?"
The silence around them lasted less than a second.
Pony threw herself at him in a tight hug.
"Dash!"
Dash's entire body froze instantly.
"P-Pony?"
She held him tightly, crying into his shoulder.
"You idiot... you idiot... I thought you..."
Her voice broke before she could finish.
Dash blinked several times, still confused. Slowly, he looked at Kirishima, then at Aizawa, then at Jack-Jack kneeling beside him with his hands still glowing.
"Did I... miss something?"
Kirishima let out a short, choked laugh, wiping at the tears that wouldn't stop flowing with his forearm.
"M-Man... you... have no idea."
Jack-Jack stared at Dash for a second.
Then, with all the seriousness a five-year-old could possibly muster, he gave him a small slap on the arm.
"Stupid!"
Dash looked at him.
"Ow! Hey, what did I do to you!?"
Jack-Jack immediately wrapped his arms around his brother's waist, burying his face against him.
Dash froze.
The confusion on his face faded.
Slowly, he raised one hand and rested it on Jack-Jack's head. The other settled on Pony's back as she continued crying while clinging to him.
"...Okay. I think I missed a lot."
Before he could truly enjoy that moment.
An intense purple light engulfed the entire clearing.
The shadows vanished for an instant. The trees and the students' faces were bathed in that overwhelming violet glow. Everyone turned toward the source of the light at the same time, their eyes wide, their breath caught in their throats.
On the horizon, above the devastated forest, something gigantic had appeared.
It looked like a colossal pin made of purple energy, so immense that it pierced through the sky and forced the clouds to part around it. Its tip shone with blinding intensity, aimed directly at the earth as though the heavens themselves were about to pierce the ground.
Dash stared at it in silence, his eyes wide.
"Is that... Violet?"
----------------------------------------
Two glowing streaks zigzagged across the sea of trees, colliding over and over in successive explosions that lit up the night like lightning trapped on the ground.
Violet and the Nomu looked like two natural disasters trying to crush each other.
The creature opened its mouth in the middle of its charge.
Violet reacted to the attack immediately afterward.
The beam fired, and she instantly raised both hands, creating layered hexagonal shields in front of herself. Violet gritted her teeth as she pushed the attack aside with everything she had.
The beam veered off by only a few meters.
It tore across the forest, ripped through the ground, and exploded against a distant hillside, turning stone into lava.
Violet barely had time to breathe before the Nomu was already in front of her.
The creature's fist slammed into her body with tremendous force, sending her flying forward like a purple projectile, tearing through the forest in a straight line. The Nomu immediately gave chase, sprinting at incredible speed while each of its footsteps sank into the ground.
It intercepted her mid-flight with a punch.
BOOM!
Violet was knocked sideways before being intercepted again.
BOOM!
Her body spun through the air.
The third punch came straight for the side of her head.
But this time, a violet wall appeared beside her.
The Nomu's fist crashed into the force field, making its entire surface vibrate like glass on the verge of shattering.
Violet's eyes shone intensely.
She extended her palm forward, and a purple light concentrated into a single point on it.
Then everything exploded.
A violet explosion engulfed the entire forest in that instant, launching the Nomu into the sky with such force that its body blasted through the treeline and shot across the horizon.
The very next instant, Violet appeared behind it in midair.
She brought her hands together before separating them a second later.
Between her fingers, a glowing purple structure began to form, lengthening, condensing, and taking shape until it became a double-ended spear, sharpened at both tips.
Violet gripped the spear firmly and launched herself at the Nomu.
The purple tip sliced through the creature's flesh and skin, opening deep wounds that closed almost instantly. She pierced one shoulder, then its chest, then its flank, each thrust accompanied by a short strike that tore chunks from the monstrous body, causing them to explode into purple particles upon contact with her energy.
The Nomu tried to grab her.
Violet disappeared before its fingers could close.
She reappeared above it.
She spun the spear with both hands before hurling it downward with all her strength.
The weapon pierced the Nomu's chest and dragged the creature along with it, streaking through the sky like a meteor before crashing into the ground.
BOOOOM!
Dust rose in a massive pillar.
A few seconds later, the Nomu climbed out of the wreckage, staggering, with the spear still lodged in its chest.
It growled and tried to grab it.
But the instant its fingers touched the weapon, it fell apart.
Violet particles drifted upward like glowing ashes, returning to Violet as she hovered above.
The creature looked up.
The sky was covered with thousands of spears.
Violet subtly moved her fingers.
The spears split apart, again and again.
Until the entire sky had transformed into billions of suspended violet needles surrounding her.
Violet smiled, breathing heavily.
"Then try absorbing this."
She lowered her hand.
And the storm fell.
The Nomu vanished inside a purple and violet tornado that devoured the entire area. The wind spun with unimaginable violence, but it was more than just wind. It was billions of needles slicing, piercing, and tearing apart everything inside the vortex thousands of times every second.
Trees turned to dust.
Rocks were ground to powder.
The ground was scraped away layer by layer.
Inside the tornado, the Nomu's body was pierced, shredded, and rebuilt over and over by its regeneration.
Violet kept her hand extended, the victorious smile still on her face.
Until she saw the Nomu's silhouette moving within the storm.
It walked calmly through the tempest surrounding it.
Its flesh was torn from its body with every step. Muscles were ripped open, bones exposed, skin destroyed.
But everything rebuilt itself moments later.
And with every passing second, the damage lessened.
Its body was adapting.
Growing more resilient and learning to withstand the phenomenon.
Violet clenched her teeth.
The tornado stopped abruptly.
The Nomu stood still, confused.
That was when two thick stakes pierced its shoulders and slammed it into the ground.
BOOM!
Before it could react, two more struck its forearms.
Then another four pierced its legs.
The creature was completely pinned to the ground, roaring against the restraints as cracks spread through the earth beneath its body.
Above it, the billions of needles used in the tornado began gathering together.
They spun around one another, compressing, merging, and growing larger and larger until they formed a colossal structure in the heavens.
A gigantic violet drill.
So enormous it seemed to pierce the clouds.
Violet raised her hand.
"Then try surviving this!"
She twisted her fingers, causing the drill to begin spinning.
The structure rotated so quickly that the air around it distorted, creating rings of pressure that spread across the sky.
Violet thrust both hands downward.
And the drill fell.
The violet drill slammed into the Nomu with an impact powerful enough to swallow every sound around it for a full second. The structure bored through the creature and plunged into the earth, digging an enormous hole as it spun, crushing, grinding, and forcing everything downward. The ground split open around it like a gigantic wound, hurling rocks, dust, and pillars of steam in every direction as it burrowed deeper.
The drill disappeared into the depths.
Violet stared at the smoking crater, breathing heavily.
Her body trembled as she brought a hand to her head the moment a violent wave of dizziness struck her.
"I... used too much power..."
A splitting headache followed.
As though something inside her skull were being squeezed.
Her eyes widened as she remembered leaving Ryo behind.
Violet quickly looked around. Her battle with the Nomu had carried them in a wide circle through the devastated forest, bringing them back near the place where Ryo had remained.
She flew there.
The ground had already cooled, transformed into a black, brittle surface. At the center of the devastated area, Ryo sat curled into the fetal position, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.
The aura surrounding him had turned green again, though it remained just as violent as he continued trembling.
Violet landed in front of him.
"Hey, are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"
The only answer was quiet, broken sobbing.
Violet remained silent for a moment.
Then she took a step toward him.
"Hey... don't be like this. We should—"
She stopped the instant she felt something running from her nose.
Violet touched her face with her fingers.
When she looked at her hand, she saw blood.
"Is this... some new side effect?"
Before she could think any further, an explosion echoed on the horizon.
Violet immediately turned.
The light was coming from the crater.
The color drained from her face.
"No way..."
She had barely finished speaking when something crashed down a few meters to her left, striking the ground with enough force to raise another cloud of dust and debris. A yellow glow appeared inside the smoke first, then began alternating with purple, as though the body at the center of the cloud were shifting between states.
Heavy footsteps began to echo.
Each one made the ground tremble.
The Nomu's silhouette emerged from the cloud, advancing slowly.
Now a purple aura surrounded its body.
Violet electrical discharges leaped from its shoulders, arms, and back, tearing through the air like living wires. Its body still bore grotesque deformities, but something about it was different.
Somehow, it had absorbed part of Violet's power.
And it kept walking toward her and Ryo.
Violet quickly turned.
"Hey!"
He didn't respond.
"Hey, wake up!"
Nothing.
She tried to go to him.
On her fifth step, the pain in her head exploded.
Violet staggered but kept moving.
A few more steps, and the blood from her nose began flowing even more heavily.
She gritted her teeth.
"Hey..."
When only a single meter remained between them, Violet's legs gave out.
She fell to her knees.
Her hands hit the ground to support her body.
Then she coughed up blood.
Her thoughts raced in panic.
"What's happening to me?"
She looked to the side weakly.
The Nomu was getting closer and closer.
Violet forced her body to move.
Unable to stand, she began crawling toward Ryo. Blood now streamed from the corners of her eyes, staining her face as she reached out with a trembling hand.
Her fingers touched his shoulder.
Ryo kept crying.
"It was my fault..."
His voice barely came out.
"It was all my fault... I... I couldn't do it... I'm sorry..."
Violet looked at him, confused and worried.
Even so, she moved closer.
With what little strength she had left, she wrapped him in a weak embrace, resting her head against his shoulder.
"It's okay..."
Her voice came out quiet and ragged.
"You... didn't do anything wrong..."
She coughed up more blood.
"Everyone... is okay..."
Ryo froze.
Violet smiled weakly.
"Dash... is... okay..."
The strength left her body.
And Violet collapsed onto her side.
The Nomu arrived before them, raising its fist.
The purple and yellow aura crackled around its arm before it brought the blow down toward them.
But a hand reached out and caught the creature's fist.
Stopping it instantly.
Half-collapsed beside him, Violet looked up through eyes heavy with pain and exhaustion—
Ryo was standing.
The green aura around him diminished, stabilizing into a calm, controlled layer. A tear ran down the corner of his eye, but his expression was no longer sad and empty.
One of his arms was extended toward Violet, emitting a gentle light that began healing her body.
The other held back the Nomu's strike without moving even a single inch.
"Thank you..."
The green light surrounding Violet finished enveloping her before Ryo stopped healing her.
His eyes rose toward the Nomu.
"I'll take it from here."
Ryo's fist struck the creature's torso in the very next instant.
The Nomu's body folded around the impact. Its internal bones cracked one after another, its chest deforming and caving inward like crushed metal.
The next moment, it was launched into the distance, tearing through the forest at tremendous speed.
Ryo looked toward where it had been sent.
Then he raised one hand near his face before taking a deep breath.
In the distance, the Nomu burst out from the wreckage.
The creature charged back, roaring as it crushed the ground beneath every step. Its purple and yellow aura expanded in violent arcs, tearing apart the landscape around it.
Ryo did not move.
He simply focused.
The Nomu drew closer.
Closer.
Then it leaped forward with everything it had.
Ryo slowly opened his eyes.
His hand moved.
In a simple, perfectly calm gesture, like a blade being drawn vertically.
Enten—
For an instant, it seemed as though nothing had happened.
Then a thin green line appeared, running through the Nomu's body, continuing across the ground behind it and extending all the way to the mountain in the distance, dividing the world before Ryo's eyes with a perfectly straight, luminous boundary.
The very next second, the atmosphere erupted in a blinding flash, and an incandescent scar opened in space itself.
The air and every particle of matter touched by the green line underwent extreme ionization, transforming into plasma with temperatures equal to or greater than those of the Sun's photosphere.
The Nomu was split in two.
The forest was split in two.
The mountain behind it was split in two.
A gigantic rift of plasma carved its way along the entire path of the strike, deep, radiant, and impossible to ignore.
The two halves of the Nomu's body passed on either side of Ryo.
They landed several meters behind him.
Smoke rose from Ryo's hand.
White vapor escaped from his mouth as he remained motionless, staring straight ahead.
—Suishiki
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(A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating. I ended up having to do some extra work at my job, and that took away some of my free time.
I really need to stop making promises I can't keep...
Maybe I'll start using the word "probably" more often from now on.
About a few things in this chapter.
Yes, the Nomu developed an adaptation ability as a consequence of the mutation caused by radiation. The super cancer and regeneration entered a constant cycle of cellular destruction and reconstruction, where only the cells capable of surviving those extreme conditions continued to exist, forcing the organism to develop a sort of continuous adaptation mechanism. Initially, this ability only served to reorganize its internal structure amidst the biological chaos, but it eventually evolved to the point where its body could also remodel itself to withstand the external phenomena that threatened it.
As for what Ryo did, he basically used electromagnetism to create a path of extreme ionization that ended up transforming all matter into plasma, resulting in the vaporization of that matter while also generating extreme heat that reaches temperatures of around 5,500 to 6,000 °C.
I hope that clears things up.
See you all in the next update!)