Red, Blue and Green Neon lights illuminated the Habukicho street. Customers, Hostesses ran either side to escape the sudden attack on the rather peaceful night at the red light district.
Sora stood his ground grinning ecstatically, his blond hair and pink kimono flowing with the wind. His right hand went up alive in flames with a highly pressured 'whoosh' sound. The yellow-orange embers flying up into the sky crackling as they illuminated the posters and concrete buildings in its wake.
Infront of Sora, stood Adrik, replying with his own grin abiet more maniacal, his fingers tapping on the cane impatiently. The red neon sign illuminated his coat and hair giving Adrik a sinister look.
Then suddenly the two moved at blinding speeds. The two clashed: Sora's left elbow colliding with Adrik's cane. The clash caused the air around them to burst everywhere, cracking the road beneath them. Sora grunted, trying to overpower Adrik even at his 10%. Adrik just cackled, "Mmm... Interesting hehehe~". Sora's face contorted and he used his right hand ablaze in flame to punch Adrik right at his nose. In reply, Adrik grabbed Sora's right arm, twirling his body above and then below it. Sora barely had time to react before Adrik's legs extended with a grotesque crunch and kicked Sora through the same building he came out of.
WHAM
The building began to collapse in on itself, concrete and rubble falling down. Adrik extended his arms out embracing the destruction as if he was giving a performance. "What a splendid show... Oh... What's this?", Adrik remarked as he saw a young woman running off in the distance.
"Metamorphosis Art"
Adrik's right arm bursted in bubblish-veiny gray flesh that squelched around him as if it was pulsing with life, a tendril. It had red veins on its exterior. Adrik grinned at the raw power of his Senzai Art. Suddenly he whipped his arm towards the young woman and the tendril went cracking through the air, bursting through cars and bikes as it crunched through the woman's abdomen, lifting her up as a hook. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!", the woman screamed in agony, her eyes wetting up, blood pooled around the tendril and the street with each drop of her fresh blood.
"Delicious...", Adrik said, licking his lips as he whipped his arm back, the fleshy tendril retracting into his arm until the woman was right infront of him. She was struggling, twitching and convulsing. "P-please! I-ill do anything! Please! Don't kill me!", she begged her tears running down her creamy cheeks. Adrik narrowed his eyes before grabbing her chin, extremely close to her. His lips wet and plump. He wrapped his normal arm around her waist before coming close to her ear and whispering in his Slavic accent, "Ah... What a pitiful sight, miss... Pitiful indeed... Humans are pitiful, but... I can make you more... Perfect... Afterall, we humans don't like Eclipses, but be glad that your pathetic whorish life is being used as research for me to make humans perfect...".
Suddenly he grabbed her shoulder and dug his fingers into the flesh, blood splattered all around her and his face, he replied to the mess by licking it around his lips. The woman screamed again but in more pain, her soul threatening to leave her. Then he kept pushing his fingers into the flesh with sickening cracks of bone. Adrik didn't even react to it. He was so used to this. He simply smirked before licking the blood off her cheek then in a sick manner soothing her cheek with his bloody hands. "Aw... Don't cry... See? Humans are weak... You lack Senzai. All billions of us except a few... I'm only saving you, dear... Now transfom," Adrik began to suddenly pump her abdomen through his tendril with his blood. She began to convulse and shake violently in his grip.
Metamorphosis. Truly a sickening technique. It's Adrik Ivanov's innate Senzai Art. Through it, he can manipulate any sort of biological substance, solid or liquid. And this technique he was pulling off, disgusting.
"Transmutation"
Her body began to burst open into bubbling, veiny and bloody purple flesh. The heat was too much for her. She began to squirm and scream until her eyes melt leaving nothing behind. Adrik pulled his tendril out and her fleshy remains collapsed to the ground. His tendril came to his side and he looked down at her body with a satisfied grin.
Right infront of him, Sora stood in the distance, dust and ragging in his kimono. His eyes trembling at the disgusting sight. He had seen her transformation unfortunately. Sora would have vomited but he didn't. His mind immediately flashed back to the past. Adrik? No. He saw him. Tsukuyomi. Adrik wasn't an eclipse but Tsukuyomi's eclipse eyes flashed through Adrik in Sora's view. Below the sight, Sora saw Akane instead of that woman. Sora's eyes began to dilated in silent rage. "Akane... Akane... Akane...", the words whispered into his subconsciousness before he heard Adrik's sadistic laughter bursting through his mind. But it didn't register as Adrik. It registered as his. Tsukuyomi.
Sora's mind went blank. His body became silent. And then suddenly his mind sparked. Raging flames. Nothing but red. His body erupted in Senzai made flames that whistled ferociously, the heat melting the concrete below and around him. Sora's eyes turned white in rage. Everything was red to him.
Adrik smirked, his tendril twirling around him aching to pump another victim with his blood. Sora looked ahead before screaming extremely loudly, "YOU FUCKING BASTAAAAAAAARRD! AHHHHHHHHH". His flames went up in the sky raging brightly.
Suddenly, Adrik felt a burning sensation. A pressure. Did Sora's output increase? What's happening? Shouldn't he be struggling to regain power? The thoughts swarmed in his head before he saw Sora floating right infront of him, his burning hand infront of his face. A bloodlusted expression on his face.Adrik stepped back, his body leaning backwards in slow motion.
Everything seemed to have slowed. The sonic boom erupting from behind Sora. He was beyond that. Supersonic much. That Adrik knew. He was smart to judge speed. Even more so, his thought process was extremely faster than the current physical event unfolding infront of him. Sora's Abyssal Flames Art, that surrounded his entire body whistled ferociously before...
Through sheer luck, Adrik slipped backwards, still the scene in slow motion for him. Concurrently, Senzai began concentrating in Sora's hand into a flame ball of something. The flame ball whizzed and burned into life as it whizzed past Adrik's hairs with supersonic speed.
KA-BOOM!
The ball went up in the building behind Adrik and blew it up vaporising everything in it in flames. The heat struck Adrik's back: he felt every celcius of the burning heat within Sora's body. It seems like he had unwillingly awakened Sora's power even more.
Adrik swiftly acted in motion using his already tendril made arm to attack a mid air Sora. Simultaneously, his back erupts into six crab-like legs that are embedded with blades at its end with the aim to cut through Sora. However, Sora, still raging grabbed his tendril, his overwhelming strength backed by Senzai reinforcement twisting the tendril unnaturally with a crack. However, Adrik didn't whimper.
"What a sick joke! You talk about making Senzai accessable? You talk about fighting Eclipses and defending humans? Then what the fuck was that! You're no greater than an Eclipse! If anything, you're literally one!", Sora proceeded to grab Adrik's tendril with both hands and through sheer adrenaline and Senzai backed force pulls Adrik close to him before kicking him at the waist, causing Adrik's waist to crack open. Adrik's eye's widened at not the pain but the sheer strength Sora was displaying.
Adrik went crashing down in the street, his body friction contacting with the concrete, leaving burn marks behind. Adrik's body stayed there for a good second before his tendril warped back into his now skin-exposed arm: the clothing torn off after he transformed it. His crab like extensions also melted into bio mass, fusing back into Adrik's body as extra Senzai from his Technique.
At the distance, Sora stood there, his body crouched over. The flames had stopped burning. His pink kimono torn exposing a part of his chest. Steam emanated from his body. His body temperature had shot way up, the sweat was just evaporating the moment it beaded up. Suddenly, Sora brought his right arm out, his hand shaped into a claw as a bright orange fire erupted from it and shaped itself into a large fire-like claw, the flames dancing and twirling up into the night sky.
Adrik slowly got himself up, his face neither afraid nor smirking as before, but this time, he was ecstatic. In instant, his abdomen began to regenerate, the flesh squirming over it before his creamy skin draped over the patch.
"It seems like I flicked a switch in you, eh, Sora? Tsukuyomi? I've heard of that guy in books and research before. He's brilliant," Adrik comments as he checks his bare right arm. "Brilliant my ass, you bastard," Sore curtly replies taking another step towards Adrik, his eyes gleaming with murderous intent.
Adrik's eyes widened in confusion. He titled his head before he replied with a sly but calculated response, "Oh~? I believe you must have met that man in the Heian Era, I assume? Well, I assure you, the New Faith doesn't plan on making all humans Eclipse Hybrids, no no~ We simply want every human with the access of Senzai Energy... However, how we get it, where we get it, what methods, moral compass... it doesn't matter. That woman was nothing but a test for me to see how humans would need to be modified to handle Senzai... Afterall, only the lucky ones are born with Senzai Arts, am I right? And Tsukuyomi is damn smart. His research work is phenomenal".
Sora felt offended for a second, his arm twitching at every sentence begging for him to go and wipe Adrik off existence but he ate the anger. Maybe the New Faith is right... Maybe they can help families never be destroyed through eclipse attacks. Sons, daughters, fathers, mothers... All those people could be saved, but even Sora knew at the absurdity. Transforming humans into some bio mass to test? That's fucking disgusting. All for what? Amusement research? Even then, how sure was he that this NFO was going to be able help humans. They all seem vile. Sora licked the PPA a bit, but he also felt disgusted that he was contained in a lab for god knows what they'd have done.
"This era is absolutely cursed. You New Faith guys think Tsukuyomi is right? You'll follow his footsteps? Humans acting like gods. Factions that believe what they want to. And innocent people die? Have they and you have no care for people? Are you blind!? Eclipses are the real enemies!", Sora yelled in frustration as he got into position even more.
Adrik replied with a smirk, "Oh you dummy~ you really are uneducated... Yes, Eclipses are our true enemies, but they will continue to exist as long as humans continue thinking about them... Fearing them... And as long as Senzai exists in our universe... One method would be to kill all humans and make a world where Senzai masters exists, but that's so 'tasteless'~... Another method would be to do what Tsukuyomi did. Make Senzai Hybrids, but Lord Nakamura doesn't want that. The least brutal method which our group follows is, finding a way to make Senzai accessible for all... But me? I'm all in for research and experimentation. To me, there is no greater pleasure seeing pathetic humans like that bitch over there squirm as I pump them full of my essence~ I enjoy it... I'm good at it... That's what this nazi 'bastard' was made for... You see... Metamorphosis is change...".
"Metamorphosis:
Flesh Tendrils"
Adrik immediately whips out the same tendrils out of his back, four of them. Adrik mouth smiles creepily. Sora steps back in disgust again his claw still active. The flesh tendrils pulsate with blood, heave with life and bulge grotesquely. Then the lower two impale the street below and lifts meters Adrik up in the air, right at the rooftop level of the buildings in the Habachiko street. The upper two just float with Adrik in the air, rolling or pulsating as if they were their own life forms.
Adrik cackles for a bit before continuin, "And that change? I am that change. I am humanity's greatest cure. I am Metamorphosis. I am everything humanity wants to do, but our so called 'moral and beliefs' keeps us back. We can be so much more~ And you, Sora, you will be the one with front row seats to the artwork I will make!".
"Shut up. I'm going to rip you limb from limb.," Sora replies as he starts running towards Adrik. His feet burning up flames before causing a small explosion, launching Sora up, with a whoosh, a boom behind him, towards Adrik at high speed, the street below him breaking and cracking. "Maybe you'd fit better in my lab, SORAAAA!", Adrik laughs maniacally as his tendrils whip towards Sora cracking through the air.
-
A few city blocks away, in Shinjuku, near the PPA building a loud blue lightning strikes the ground.
"Haa... Haa... Haa... You... You... Why the hell won't you go down!"
Around Victor and Megumi, laid burn marks from lightning shots and numerous attacks and techniques Victor had used to beat Megumi down. Large building sized grooves were scattered all along the street, in the buildings and even the road beneath them from Megumi's relentless barrage of Water Pressure Slashes. Victor gasped for air almost as if he was on life support, his suit had burned up from overuse of his Power Surge. Megumi stood still, her hands on the polearm, blood, sweat and grime all over her, but her determination never left. She truly was an Executive Agent.
In reality, as Reserves start dying down, the Output of Senzai automatically decreases because the body tries to accommodate to the remaining energy. In this case, Victor's Power Surge Technique had burnt out from over abuse. He had forced his body to sustain 150% overdrive of Output and had burnt almost through his reserves and had also temporarily caused himself nerve damage from abuse of the Power Surge and the Lightning Shit technique. Senzai Techniques burn out from over use as well.
Megumi had also burned out her Water Pressure Slash, but her Senzai Reserves were plenty and her Output and Efficiency remained A tier. She smirked as she commented, "Looks like the blue haired zealot relies on his speed to the point he also burns his Senzai Reserves, his body and his fucking Techniques like it's paper... Do you finish that quickly? I feel bad for your girlfriends... That's if you even had one heheheh~". Megumi cackled at her own joke, her eyes never leaving his. Even Seong Ho, who was observing neutrally from aside placed a hand over his mouth face mask face to avoid laughing, his eyes shut close to show his amusement.
Chapter 11, end