Chapter 155: Mizu Is Mine, So I Will Be The One To Protect Him
Mizuki had been violently expelled into this desolate dimension without a single word of warning, the dimensional rift sealing shut behind him. There was no turning back.
His only solace lay in the contingency plans he had left behind for BlackAgumon. The encrypted data packets concerning NeoCrimson... He could only hope those fragments of code would be enough to guide the chosen children through the impending storms in his absence.
Shaking the lingering nostalgia from his mind, Mizuki forced his focus back to the grim reality of the present.
Dust and ash choked the air. In the ruined wasteland stretching out before him, a standoff of apocalyptic proportions was unfolding.
On one side stood a towering knight clad in pristine white armor, his tattered cape billowing in the ash-laden wind. Omnimon. The enforcer of the Royal Knights, the absolute blade of the host computer, Yggdrasill.
Opposing the holy knight were two warriors who had thrown themselves into the line of fire to shield the weak. WarGreymon X and MetalGarurumon X. To call them ordinary Mega-level Digimon would be a grave insult. Their armor was jagged, hyper-improved, and thrumming with the raw, desperate survival instinct granted only by the X-Antibody.
Mizuki narrowed his eyes against the biting wind. Digimon X-digivolution: The Thirteenth Royal Knight. In his past life, this hadn't been a serialized anime, but a standalone CG movie. Because he had never watched the film in its entirety, his knowledge of this specific universe was dangerously fragmented.
He knew only one crucial detail: the administrator of this digital world had gone completely rogue. Yggdrasill had initiated a merciless purge, commanding the Royal Knights to slaughter innocent Digimon under the guise of maintaining order.
"Alright, Mizu. Let's go back."
Belle's voice broke through his thoughts, soft but laced with an obvious edge of anxiety. She stepped closer, her presence a warm contrast to the freezing wasteland. "I'm telling you, it's not safe out here."
"Go back..." Mizuki murmured, the words hollow. His gaze drifted involuntarily past the clashing titans, landing on a pile of shattered debris.
There, half-buried under the rubble, lay two small, defenseless Digimon. Their bodies were battered, data leaking sluggishly from deep lacerations across their forms.
Catching the direction of his stare, Belle's brow pinched into a tight, distressed knot. She stepped directly into his line of sight, forcing him to look at her.
"Enough, Mizu. You've already done enough for the Digimon of this world." Her voice trembled slightly, betraying her fear. "Do you remember? Do you remember the state you ended up in the last time you pushed yourself to save them?"
She reached out, her fingers hovering just inches from his arm, as if afraid he might shatter. "Until this world's rejection of your existence is completely resolved, I... I absolutely forbid you from throwing yourself into danger to rescue anyone else. I'm telling you, I won't allow it!"
She gestured sharply toward the battlefield. "Besides, with those two Mega-levels holding the line, they don't need you to step in."
"Two Mega-levels..." Mizuki shook his head slowly, his eyes tracking the high-speed collisions in the sky. "Even armed with the X-Antibody, they are no match for Omnimon."
Belle's pupils contracted. "What? How is that possible? I clearly saw—"
"You saw Omnimon being pushed back by their combined assault?" Mizuki interrupted gently, his tone analytical and calm. "Belle, it isn't that Omnimon is weak. He's drowning in his own hesitation. His internal conflict is creating an illusion of parity."
He turned his steady gaze back to his partner. "Don't you know Omnimon's true strength better than anyone?"
Faced with his piercing logic, Belle fell into a heavy silence.
He was right. Shortly after they had crashed into this hostile world, she had crossed blades with this very Omnimon on multiple occasions.
To describe those encounters as 'battles'felt generous. Without activating her'Final Mode', Belle had been systematically dismantled. Omnimon eclipsed her in every conceivable metric: speed, raw kinetic output, technique, and centuries of lethal combat experience.
Even when she pushed herself into Final Mode—igniting her ultimate power—her base statistics were still vastly overshadowed by the Royal Knight. She had only managed to scrape together a desperate stalemate by leaning heavily on the reality-bending authority of her unique data structure.
Yet, those brutal beatdowns had a silver lining. Surviving Omnimon's onslaught had sharpened Belle's combat instincts at a terrifying pace.
While Belle chewed on her lower lip, frantically searching for the right words to drag Mizuki back to safety, the atmosphere itself seemed to shatter.
A deafening explosion ripped across the distant ruins.
Belle whipped her head around. High above, Omnimon raised his left arm. The air screamed as a blade of absolute holy energy materialized, extending into the heavens. The sheer pressure of the gathered sword qi threatened to cleave the very earth in two.
[Grey Sword!]
The colossal blade swung down in a blinding arc of destruction.
Oh no! Those two injured Digimon!
Realizing the trajectory of the blast would instantly vaporize the helpless survivors in the rubble, Belle's muscles coiled tight.
But a shadow blurred past her.
Mizuki was already moving.
There was zero hesitation in his stride. Just as he had done countless times before—the absolute second he witnessed an impending tragedy, his body reacted faster than thought.
"Data Conversion..." Mizuki's voice rang out, cutting through the roar of the descending blade. "Show your power, BryweLudramon!"
As Mizuki materialized directly in the path of the annihilation wave, his body erupted in a maelstrom of roaring, crimson flames. For a singular, stunning fraction of a second, the towering, majestic silhouette of a colossal red dragon manifested behind him, its wings spread wide in defiance.
A massive, blazing barrier forged from intense fire materialized, violently slamming into Omnimon's descending holy blade!
"What?!"
MetalGarurumon X skidded to a halt, his metallic claws tearing deep trenches into the earth. He had fully intended to throw his own cybernetic body into the blast to shield the weak, but the sudden appearance of this human left his tactical processors reeling in shock.
The shock lasted only a microsecond.
His optical sensors flared with renewed, burning determination. The stranger's fire barrier was already fracturing, a web of glowing cracks spreading across its surface under the apocalyptic weight of the Grey Sword.
MetalGarurumon X didn't care who this stranger was or where he came from. He only registered one absolute truth: this person was bleeding to protect the innocent.
And he refused to stand by and watch.
In the past, paralyzed by doubt, he had failed to stand alongside WarGreymon X against the Royal Knights' tyranny. He had hesitated.
Now was the time to carve that mistake from his soul!
If the price of my hesitation is my life, then take it!
After all, a life only truly possessed value when it burned brightly for a purpose!
"MetalGarurumon!"
Seeing the massive cyborg wolf ignite his thrusters and charge directly toward the collapsing center of the barrier, Mizuki instantly deduced his suicidal intent. He shouted over the roaring flames, trying to wave the Digimon back.
But how could MetalGarurumon X, his core burning with absolute resolve, abort his charge now?
Hearing the human's voice only fueled his engine. He pushed his X-Antibody to the absolute redline, venting exhaust in a blinding blue streak. He would throw every ounce of his remaining power into reinforcing the stranger's shield—
Just as the flames of martyrdom reached their peak within MetalGarurumon X's chest, a completely different, fiercely annoyed voice cut directly into his audio receptors.
"You just stay back obediently, I'm telling you."
A shadow fell over the charging wolf.
"Mizu is mine. The only person allowed to protect him is me—I'm telling you!"
Before MetalGarurumon X's combat subroutines could even process the threat, a terrifying, overwhelming physical force clamped onto his heavy cybernetic chassis. With a grunt of sheer exertion, Belle hoisted the massive Mega-level Digimon and hurled him violently backward into the dirt, entirely out of the blast zone.
In that exact same millisecond, the Grey Sword shattered Mizuki's crimson barrier into a million dying sparks.
"Tch..."
The shockwave washed over Mizuki, forcing a sharp click of his tongue as he braced his boots against the cracking earth. His brow furrowed.
His innate Digi-Soul had been severely suppressed by the world's constant, grinding rejection of his existence. But even without that handicap, the harsh reality remained: his personal power output was currently capped at the Ultimate level.
Even channeling the defensive data of a Legend-Arms like BryweLudramon, stalling a Royal Knight's ultimate execution for even a few seconds was the absolute limit of his physical vessel.
Yet, as the holy blade descended toward his unprotected form, Mizuki's heartbeat remained perfectly steady. There wasn't a single drop of panic in his eyes.
Because if he couldn't block it, he knew exactly who could.
"Belle," Mizuki called out, a faint, confident smirk touching his lips. "Show him your power."
"Let me correct you," Belle's voice purred right beside him, dripping with dangerous confidence. "It's not my power, but—"
As the words left her lips, the twin pistols gripped in her hands began to violently glitch and rewrite.
In the span of a single breath, the firearms elongated, their data structure expanding and solidifying into two massive gun-blades, each stretching over a meter in length. The edges of the blades ignited with a searing, holy fire, while complex, archaic runes carved themselves deep into the glowing metal.
Anyone looking closely would recognize those glowing inscriptions instantly. They were a flawless, one-to-one replication of the digital runes etched into Omnimon's own Grey Sword.
"Final Mode, analysis complete."
Belle raised the twin gun-blades, her eyes locking onto the descending pillar of light.
"Now, have a taste of your own ultimate move!"
Staring down the apocalyptic slash that threatened to pierce heaven and earth, Belle didn't flinch. She stepped in front of Mizuki, swung her blazing gun-blades in a vicious cross-slash, and met the Royal Knight's execution head-on!
[Grey Sword: Modified!]
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