Orosu lifted Nova's bloodied face off the platform as it dripped with the crimson liquid. Seeping into the cracks in the battlefield. Nova's body lay lifeless. But she was not dead; her breathing was shallow but dormant.
"You reinforced your face? Clever girl," He almost looked annoyed.
Before he even had a moment to process the avoidance of inevitability. Every single Captain from the teams present dropped from the top floor onto center stage like angels descending from heaven. I followed suit soon after, although my presence was anything but angelic.
"Orosu Kurashuu." Leah addressed him with a low and threatening tone. "You have violated the rules of the tournament and the law by attempting to kill another contestant and civilian. For this transgression, you shall be expelled from this competition and all the ones after it. Following: Your sentence, which you will begin serving once you have been taken into custody."
By this point, I was held up behind them as she continued to state the consequences of Orosu's actions. Atlas sensed something was amiss behind him. So he turned to find me, barely able to constrain myself. So he smiled and stepped out of the way. Leaving a clear path right to Orosu.
As soon as my body let me react, I dashed forward towards the open space and reared back my right arm. The strike that followed was not enhanced with Harmonic energy, no help from my attribute either. Just raw strength… and my own technique.
Supreme strength: 2fold!
Orosu took the full brunt of his own strength, multiplied by the power of 2. If a jar could hold emotions. You'd need one as big as existence itself to hold all the hatred that I poured into that punch. Leah and Hana were too late to stop it and were only able to restrain me after the blow had landed.
"Arashi Nakamura! Restrain yourself!" Hana ordered me.
"Yes, Please do." A voice that didn't belong to any of the People within earshot replied. "After all, we can have the Dragon running free now, can we?"
I gasped; a figure was slowly descending onto the battlefield. Wrapped in an ebony cloak with cables attached to his back, suspending him in the air that seemed to stretch to the clouds or beyond.
Atlas and Orosu quickly went on alert, readying their fists. "Who are you? State your name." Atlas asked him with hostility in his voice.
"Apologies. My manners seem to be on vacation today."
I knew without a doubt with a calm personality like his. Surrounded by high ranking captains. This guy was a problem. More so, he felt like he didn't have the tiniest shred of humanity in his body. I focused in on his cloak, as the rest of his body, including his face, were obscured by the enveloping darkness inside his hood. Memories flashed from the front of my mind all the way to the back as I remembered the same colour of cloth disappearing behind the corner, the pair of beady eyes watching me as I exited my home for the tournament. It was him, I was sure of it. I tried to break free from Hana and Leah's grasp in an attempt to confront this mysterious figure, but they held tight.
"Hey! Why the hell are you still holding on to me?" I questioned them, feeling anxious.
In response to my outburst, they only held me back tighter. Their strength seemed almost inhuman. Like hydraulics pressing into concrete.
My voice grew desperate. "Let me go! There is someone I should probably get away from right in front of us, so I would really appreciate it if you put me down!
"Unfortunately, that won't be possible. I have commanded them to stop you by any means necessary," the cloaked stranger's gruff but charismatic voice cut through the air.
"What do you mean commanded?" Atlas questioned him. "They are captain; they don't take orders from just about anybody. Let alone you."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken. They are very much my property." The mysterious figure snapped his fingers. In an instant, the mood shifted, and all the captains except Atlas, Leah and Hana turned and walked towards the man, turned around and in perfect sync, tore their right sleeve off their top. Human skin lay beneath. But then they pulled out knives made from glistening steel, each with a black hilt and began to slice into their forearm. I had to hold back my stomach from vomiting at the sight of this. Once they slashed a sizable cut in their arm. They pulled back the skin only to reveal perfect human muscles and bones.
"Unfortunitly. I had to make sure that they were exact copies down to the letter. Otherwise they'd get found out or spotted immediately. But make no mistake…" The man pressed a button on his wrist, and the exposed forearm on each of them disintegrated into grey dust and fell to the ground. But right before they touched the cold surface of the platform, they started to levitate just a few inches off the concrete, then suddenly shot up and reformed the missing limb with surgical precision.
I stared in pure shock and disbelief. Enhancing my vision, I saw thousands, no, millions of tiny little insect robots crawling around, and then once the arm was finished, they hid any trace of their presence.
"Nanites…" The man explained, his face still covered by the hood. "I was able to engineer them with quite limited resources, so they might be out of date where I come from. But for a primitive race like yours, they proved to be much more effective than planned. But that's not all. You see, I was never much of a minimalist."
The man spread his arms wide and tilted his head back, with a stoic but blissful expression crossed his face covered by the hood he wore. An intense, high-pitched whirring came over the stadium as all the members in the audience swung in the direction of the man, all in perfect sync. They all stood at the same time, heads cast high to the heavens, suddenly snapped down in unison, eyes glowing the same mechanical red as the former captains. They all collectively opened their jaws, and out came a robotic voice.
"Hello, Arashi," But those words had not come from the crowd. I felt a cold air run down my back. The voices that had nurtured me for years.
"Arashi… are you sad? Did somebody hurt you?" I slowly turned around, hoping it was not true. "Why are you afraid?"
Not them. Anybody but them.
"Come here, Arashi. Come home."
My mother and father stood motionless behind me. When they spoke, their mouths did not move; only their eyes flicked and glowed brighter and dimmer with the volume of their words. But my mother continued.
"That's right. You have no home, you never did. Just a worthless orphan with no family to call his own," she spat; her voice, despite sounding mechanical, held an immeasurable amount of emotion and distaste for me.
No measure of words or actions could describe the empty place in my chest where my heart would have been; all I felt was despair. My eyes cast downward as my once-father approached me; each of his footsteps hit the floor with a metallic clank. He stopped in his tracks in front of me, raised his hand, and brought it down on my head, slamming my face down into the concrete. It was as if the ground rose to bring me down, the cold and wet feeling of blood running down my nose as the metallic taste hit my lips. The captain's hold remained firm as I was brought to my knees by the robot that was once my father.
"You always were a failure. An incompetent excuse for a son," the Artificial voice said, mocking me further.
The memories we're flowing freely now. Pictures in my mind of my father teaching me how to ride a bike, helping me with my homework, and cheering me on when I scored a goal playing soccer for the first time. My mother, making me my favorite meal, or when I got sick or hurt, she was always by my side, helping me get better. The thoughts shifted to my Parents training me, making sure I knew how to handle a sword, educating me on the basics, the fundamentals, then the advanced forms of Harmonic energy and my powers. I could remember the look they had on their faces when I performed my first lighting blast. I wondered, was any of that real? The words kept repeating themselves; worthless, insignificant, a waste of space. And from them, a new emotion arose within me. Hate. Were any of my friends real? Nova? Was she? I manage to lift my head, looking over to where Nova was laying still, unconscious, guarded by Atlas and Orosu. My eyes softened as new memories replaced the others. When I was made fun of on the playground for my hair, she was there, her voice filled with genuine emotion. When we had to hide out in an abandoned house for a thunderstorm to pass. When a Mystic beast scared her half to death and she jumped into my arms, I felt her warmth. I realised my parents didn't have that same feeling. Always cold and distant. But Nova's energy mixed with mine when she did that, and for a split second, I felt something new.
My anger for her faded completely, but now it was focused on one man. None of us could take it anymore; the burning sensation of mystery and suspense clouded our minds with desire as Atlas blurted out my next words without pausing to think.
"Just tell us. Who are you really?"
The figure finally pulled back his hood. "You want to know who I am? You want to know who stands on the cusp of evolution and the most euphoric breakthrough of science?"
That's when we saw his face. His perfectly inhuman face. Fully bleached so pale that his bones shone through like an exoskeleton.
"My first name was stripped from me at birth, so apologies if I sound formal."
His crimson red eye shone in the light of the fading ball of bright fire, more drawing and enticing than the sunset itself. The other was covered by a device crossed with an eyepatch of some sort that emanated a pulsing red glow the same as the shade as blood. The man was bald but had spikes the same colour as his skin. Those same spikes took the shape of slicked-back hair. They faded from white to black at the ends, and the tips of each one were as sharp as needles. No doubt crept into my thought; this man was an alien.
"My name, you ask? It's Doctor Genial: Professor of the new age. The new age will be ushered in by my associates and me. Those who have devoted their lives to me, and I for them. Oh, what a glorious time to be alive. To be breathing in the same air as one of the greatest minds in the universe!" He declared boastfully.
I knew it just from his presence when he first arrived, and which was made even more clear just now. This guy… is insane.
"No, you won't! I'd never want to be in a world ruled by the likes of you!" I screamed, furiously pushing back against the grip of Leah and Hana.
Genial's eyes quickly pan over to me.
"Why is a rabid ape talking? Silence him please; his voice annoys me." Genial orders Leah and Hana to begin to crush my bones, grinding them into dust.
I howled in pain as I felt each snap as my arms were slowly becoming useless. But the way he just disregarded me like that. Who or what has the nerve to do such a thing and live to tell the tale? Don't misunderstand. It wasn't pride that was welling up inside my mind. Already clouded with pain, became denser with pure, unrestrained anger.
I forced my joints to push back against the near hydraulic press on them. It was like the boulder pushing against Sisyphus's wrist. But even through all that, as my muscles, bones, and every ligament I used snapped, I ferociously tore through the android's arms that were restraining me as I looked upon the metallic angel that had descended from the sky and his creations with nothing but unfiltered hatred.
Genial simply smirked. "Well now. It looks like it's finally showing itself. Sin of Wrath… Why have you hidden yourself away? Locked in this boy like an animal caged, the key thrown away." His smile got eerily wider as his eyes glowed; his arms spread like a conductor on his last note. "But… no need to worry. Because the new age wouldn't be the same without you. Because the unholy, the ones who have not been blessed, the unpurified… we all hold a piece of the devil within our souls. Do we not, Dragon of Wrath?
My mental landscape doesn't show any shifts in recognition or surprise. I could not hear any kind of sound or noise besides my own. 'Kill. ' Tear everything apart.' It said, over and over like a monologue on repeat.
"Don't you dare ignore me!" Atlas's voice rang out as he cracked his knuckles.
Genial's head swung to the side, and his smile only flickered for a split second, barely noticeable.
"Ah… who knew you'd be here too? I had planned to only find the Dragon.. But it seem i've missed the other powerful scaled beast,"
The professor tilts his head provocatively.
"Atlas Istoria… also known as The Hydra… Nice of you to show your face."
By this time, Irena, Isamu, Arthur and Haru had all rushed down the flights of stairs and made their way to the platform where all the action was taking place.
"Arashi!" Isamu yelled, trying to catch my attention and starting to walk towardsme,e but Arthur put his arm in front of Isamu and shook his head with despair.
"Arashi, at this moment, is no longer himself." He tried to explain.
"W-What do you mean? Haru spoke up, his voice shaky as he asked."
Arthur looked at the boy with sorrow. "He has been consumed by whatever beast resides in his soul. He will only listen to violence."