Ren got dragged out of the building's floor, and now they were falling from Duke's apartment, which was on the fourth floor.
The fall was far enough to kill, but not far enough for him to calmly think of a way out—so Ren tried something out of instinct and formed two shade jabs to try and hold onto the building, but that was unnecessary.
Because he suddenly felt the arm that was grabbing him bulge, growing bigger.
The second friend's body started to grow, but Ren—because of the angle he was in—couldn't see what was exactly happening. But eventually they crashed into the building's lawn, and Ren was fine.
This time he wasn't being held in the second friend's arm.
He was being held in his palm.
And his larger fingers were wrapped around Ren's body.
But now Ren could finally see what was happening with the second friend.
He got bigger. His legs remained the same, but they were much more muscular and bigger his pants seemed to stretch naturally—so it was probably custom-made for his transformation.
His torso had patches of fur all around it, and his skin turned brown.
And his head…
He had horns, and his face structure changed into a bull.
The second friend had the ability to turn into a minotaur—at least from the upper half.
The minotaur roared into the sky.
That roar snapped Ren out of his shock, and he released the two shade jabs he had already prepared. They hit the minotaur's face, and the hit was strong enough to make him open his palm unconsciously.
Ren dropped to the grass, immediately got some distance, and only then looked clearly at what he was facing.
A minotaur.
And boom—clank, swish—John and Duke were fighting on the same giant lawn, and a couple of students were watching and recording from their windows or railings.
This might be a problem, since if any rubble flew toward them, they might get hurt—
And as soon as he thought that, an alarm kicked in, and the windows and rails got covered by metal shells, protecting the students, blocking their view, and not allowing them to see what was going on.
Well… that fixes that problem.
Then Ren focused back on the minotaur.
This could be tough.
This was his first time ever fighting someone on this level of strength. Mark was skilled, but he could handle him. Iris's ability was weak, so it wasn't overwhelming. The Gunshot leader… they didn't even know the difference until the end.
So Ren doesn't know how well he will do against someone with a truly strong ability.
But he wasn't going to run away in fear.
Ren got into a fighting stance.
The minotaur put his attention back on Ren and ran toward him. Ren put quite the distance between them, but the minotaur was fast and almost reached him instantly—until Ren summoned three shades from the grass shadows and made them grab the minotaur.
Once they grabbed him, it stopped him for a second… but he almost tore the shades apart, which was saying a lot, since the strength of Ren's shades now was equal to a normal rope.
Ren, who was trying to hold back the minotaur with his shades, launched another shade jab. The fourth shade landed on the minotaur's chest—but it didn't seem to bother the minotaur at all.
In fact, it just seemed like it tickled him a bit.
That stunned Ren for a moment.
Then the minotaur broke the shades and tried to swing his fist at Ren, which Ren managed to dodge. The minotaur did it a couple more times, until Ren sneaked behind him and started hitting him all over the place with his fists.
Even though it wasn't that effective.
The minotaur tried to catch him and put him in his line of sight again, but because his body was so huge, whenever he punched and Ren dodged, his massive arm created massive blind spots for the minotaur.
But he quickly adapted to that.
He started punching in ways where his arm wasn't going to interfere with his line of sight.
This guy was really skilled.
It was terrifying—especially since Ren kept trying to throw attacks at him, but they weren't working very well.
Ren tried to restrain him, but he kept breaking his shades, which started to tire Ren out. The only thing that seemed to work was whip attacks… but that was more because of the pain it caused than actual damage.
But even though things weren't going very well, Ren still kept fighting—especially since the minotaur seemed irritated.
"This is getting annoying. If you don't give up now, I'm going to crush you, little shit."
The minotaur spoke with a normal kid's voice, which was shocking—but that didn't shock Ren.
What shocked him was the words of the minotaur, and the tone he said them with.
The words had the tone of someone who wasn't frustrated because of a fight or anything.
It has The tone of someone who was annoyed at something insignificant.
…Is this guy holding back on him?
Is he so weak that this guy is just annoyed from our fight?
The thought made him remember the argument that he had with John.
Give up your martial arts. It's only a waste of time. You will become stronger if you abandon your martial arts and fight with your shades in the way that I told you.
That memory made Ren angry—at John, and at the minotaur.
So he summoned two shades at each hand and started throwing whip attacks wildly with full power. Even though it didn't cause any damage to the minotaur, it caused a large amount of pain.
And that was a mistake.
The pain irritated the minotaur to the point that he stopped holding back for a second. His hand moved so fast Ren couldn't react, and grabbed him, holding him up in the air, staring him down.
"THAT FUCKING HURTS!" the minotaur yelled out.
And even though his voice was still a normal boy's voice, his intimidating appearance was still there—making Ren scared a bit.
Until—BANG!
Something hit the minotaur sending him flying, and that made Ren fall out of his grip and onto the ground.
When Ren looked at who it was… it was John.
And John was also looking at him.
"See? I told you. You focusing on martial arts didn't help you at all in this fight. You could have probably won if you listened and focused your attention on controlling and fighting with your shades from a distance."
That made Ren—who was already in a bad mood—even more angry.
"Shut the fuck up," Ren said.
"Excuse me?" John said, frowning.
"You heard what I said. You talk like you know what the fuck you're talking about when you're the one who caused this whole mess," Ren said while getting up from the ground. "You caused the fucking fight. When we could have talked Duke down instead, you decided to cause the fight. What brilliant thought process made you think that this was a good idea?" Ren mocked John.
John just frowned, turned back, and walked away.
"That doesn't change the fact that I was right about the way you fight," John said, not even defending himself.
Ren just gritted his teeth in anger.
And later, when they got back to the SIED office, Ren reported John's behaviour during the mission.