" In this world, strength is not a gift… it is the price one pays to stay alive".
"The Kara is the vital energy that flows through all things. Some shape it to create, others to destroy… but all depend on it to survive".
"When the breath of Kara fades, the heart stops beating, and the soul disappears into the eternal shadow".
During this brief moment of respite, Danky, who was lying in a pool of his own blood with broken ribs, opened his eyes. The pain was unbearable, but what he saw took his breath away.
Diana. The gentle, shy Diana was standing in the middle of a vortex of ice and light. Walls of ice rose at her command, deadly daggers floated around her. She wasn't fighting; she had become a natural disaster. A goddess of vengeance with the face of an angel.
His gaze shifted from this incredible sight to Raizen, unconscious and broken a few meters away, then to Ashley's lifeless body, pinned to the pillar. Shame and rage overwhelmed the pain.
She's fighting, he thought. She's fighting, and I'm here, crawling like a worm.
He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms until they drew blood.
Danky (panting, his voice broken):
I have to... get up...
He pressed his hands against the frozen ground, his muscles screaming in agony. Every movement was torture.
Danky (to himself, tears of rage streaming down his cheeks):
GET UP!
With a cry of pure willpower, he managed to get to one knee, then to his feet, staggering, his body shaking uncontrollably. He was standing. Ready to return to the fight, even if it meant dying.
But he didn't feel the cold from Diana's ice. He felt an oppressive presence, a shadow that had just slipped right behind him.
He didn't even have time to turn around.
Johan:
You're tenacious. I admire that.
Johan's voice was a glacial whisper in his ear. In a gesture of incredible brutality, Johan struck him. Not once, but several times. A punch to the back that made his spine crack. An elbow to the nape of his neck that made him see stars. And finally, a devastating kick to the abdomen, charged with the intent to kill.
Johan:
The finishing blow.
Just as his foot was about to finish Danky, a volley of sharp ice spikes, launched by Diana, shot toward him.
Johan, without even looking, pivoted and parried the volley with his forearm, his Black Kara nullifying the impact in a shower of dark sparks.
But the force of his kick had already been released.
Danky was thrown backward like a rag doll. He flew across the warehouse for several meters, his body violently hitting a pile of old metal beams. The already weakened structure collapsed on top of him with a deafening crash of twisted metal and dust.
A dead silence followed. Under the pile of debris, nothing could be seen. Just a hand, sticking out, before it fell back, limp.
Diana stopped, her ice rampage suspended for a second, her empty gaze fixed on the pile of scrap metal.
Johan simply shook his arm, as if brushing off non-existent dust.
Johan:
One down. Who's next?
Raizen, dazed, his vision a little blurry, had seen everything. He had seen Danky's courage. He had seen his brutal defeat. He had seen his body disappear under an avalanche of metal.
A fleeting image flashed through his mind. Danky's smile, a few hours earlier, in the streets of Kazemori. His silent promise to become stronger, to never be powerless again. And now... this.
Rage and despair threatened to overwhelm him. He gritted his teeth until he could taste blood and closed his eyes, unable to bear the scene any longer, letting a tear fall from the corner of his eye.
Meanwhile, the fight had resumed. Diana, though unleashed, lacked experience. Her attacks were powerful but predictable. Johan, now that he understood her power, danced between the ice spikes, parrying her attacks with surgical precision. He couldn't use his offensive Kara against her without risking retribution, but he was a far superior physical combatant.
He found an opening, dodged an ice wall, and struck. His fist, without Kara, hit Diana square in the chest. The force of the impact threw her violently backward, shattering her instinctive healing shield. She crashed against a wall, breathless, her ice rampage faltering.
Johan stopped, catching his breath. His cold, calculating gaze turned toward the pile of debris where Danky had disappeared. He was going to make sure the job was finished.
But suddenly...
The entire warehouse began to tremble. Not because of Diana's ice, but because of a deep vibration, coming from the bowels of the earth. The ground cracked. The metal beams above Danky began to levitate, as if pushed away by an invisible force.
(Flashback)
The image is blurry, shaky. A young, tearful Danky stands before his older brother, bedridden, his legs crushed. Despair and hatred have already begun to consume the elder.
Danky:
Big... big brother...
The older brother doesn't answer. His eyes are empty. But he raises his trembling hands and places them on Danky's chest. A faint glow, a remnant of his own Celestial Kara, shines between his palms.
Older Brother (in a voice that is only a whisper):
Don't... don't be like me. Be... stronger...
The light enters Danky's body, a dormant seed of power, a final gift born from despair.
(Return to reality)
A deafening explosion tore through the silence. The tons of metal debris covering Danky were pulverized outward, reduced to dust by a super-powered shockwave.
In the center of the smoking crater, a figure stood floating.
It was no longer the injured, staggering Danky. His body was enveloped in an aura of Celestial Kara so dense and powerful that it distorted the air around him. His red hair seemed to float, and his eyes shone with a red, intense, and focused glow. The Zenith mark on his hand was incandescent.
He was not healed. Blood still flowed from his lips, his arm was likely still broken. But he stood straight, as if the pain no longer existed.
He slowly raised his head, his red gaze fixing on Johan with an icy determination.
The cold and the heat clashed in the air... the massacre had just found its echo.
END OF CHAPTER 14