The silence that followed Kaiju No. 9's whisper was worse than any sound. It was the silence of a tomb being sealed.
Then, the world came apart.
The spatial prism didn't explode. It imploded. The air within their prison folded inward, reality itself screaming as it was compressed into a single, infinitely dense point of nothingness. There was no blast, only a violent, silent suck of vacuum that ripped chunks of the ground, twisted steel, and the very light from the air into oblivion before vanishing.
The recoil was a physical slap from God. The released spatial tension threw them apart like leaves in a hurricane.
Akira felt his body become a puppet with its strings cut. He slammed into the base of a shattered wall, the impact driving the air from his lungs in a wet, painful gasp. His vision flickered, a film of red over everything. The taste of copper filled his mouth.
[Ravan: Host integrity at 42%. Internal bleeding detected. Neural stress exceeding all recommended limits. One more synthesis overload will result in catastrophic systemic failure. Cease combat immediately.]
The warning was a distant scream in a room that was already burning down. He forced himself onto his elbows, his body a symphony of pain. His fingers, trembling and bloody, found the hilt of his katana. He would not let go.
Across the crater, Kafka moved on an instinct deeper than thought. As the force of the collapse hurled Reno through the air, Kafka twisted his body, becoming a human shield. The invisible, spatial backlash washed over him in a wave of searing, non-fire. His uniform scorched and blackened. His skin erupted in painful, shimmering burns that looked like cracked glass. He took the hit meant for Reno, the impact sending them both tumbling across the rubble.
Reno grunted as they skidded to a stop, his left arm screaming in agony, the skin badly scorched and bleeding, but miraculously intact. Kafka rolled off him, his body wracked with coughs, each one bringing up blood that sizzled and steamed on the hot ground.
Through the settling dust and shimmering air, Kaiju No. 9 emerged. It was untouched. A pristine monument of perfected malice amidst the ruin it had authored. Its multifaceted eyes scanned the devastation before locking onto Akira. It saw the blood, the tremor, the crumbling vessel of his body. It was studying a fascinating specimen pushed to its limit.
"Your degradation parameters are… enlightening," it rasped, taking a single, ground-cracking step forward. "Let us conclude the experiment."
It ignored the wounded Reno. It dismissed the coughing Kafka. Its entire world had narrowed to the "variable." Its claws rose, and the space around them distorted, forming a lens of pure annihilation aimed directly at Akira's heart.
Akira braced, Ravan screaming a dozen impossible evasion vectors. But his body was too broken to follow any of them. This was it.
A blur of blue and black shot in front of him.
Kafka didn't roar. He didn't transform. He simply planted his feet, crossed his arms, and pushed. A wall of brilliant, desperate blue energy erupted from him—not an attack, but a declaration. A final, desperate "No."
No. 9's spatial strike hit the barrier.
The sound was a deafening, screeching tear of reality against an unbreakable will. Kafka's boots slid backward, carving deep trenches in the concrete. The bones in his arms audibly creaked, the skin splitting open as blue-tinged blood welled up and instantly cauterized from the raw power pouring out of him. He held. His face was a mask of agony, his teeth bared in a silent scream.
Kaiju No. 9 paused, its head tilting. The intellectual curiosity momentarily overrode its murderous intent.
"Curious," it mused, its psychic voice laced with a scientist's cold fascination. "A wall that bleeds."
The moment of distraction was all they had.
Reno, clutching his scorched arm, moved through the pain. He didn't try for a killing shot. He knew it was useless. Instead, he brought his rifle up and fired a series of wild, erratic shots—at its feet, at the air beside its head, at the rubble behind it. A maddening, distracting buzz.
"Left knee joint! The alloy plate shifts on impact! There's a gap! A fraction of a second!" he yelled, his voice hoarse but razor-sharp. "Now, Akira! NOW!"
His eyes, honed by desperation and a genius for observation, had caught it. The microscopic delay, the fleeting weakness in the perfect armor that appeared for a millisecond after each of No. 9's powerful movements.
Akira's mind, hazy with pain, latched onto Reno's call. It was a thread of hope in a darkening room. He had one chance.
[Ravan: WARNING. Proposed action: Triple-stack synthesis (Tiger Beetle Acceleration, Mantis Precision, Carapace Reinforcement). Neural load will exceed tolerance. Probability of host collapse: 88%. ABORT. ABORT.]
He embraced the pain. He accepted the risk.
He poured every shred of his will into the synthesis. His legs coiled with the Tiger Beetle's explosive power. His eyes sharpened with the Mantis's inhuman focus, locking onto the specific seam in the alloy on No. 9's chest. His arms hardened with the Carapace's stony resilience.
It was agony. His nervous system felt like it was being fed through a shredder. But he moved.
He was a phantom, a bolt of pain-driven lightning. He bypassed the distracted No. 9's guard. His katana, devoid of any energy but his own desperate, dying strength, found the flaw.
SHIIINK!
The blade bit deep into the alloy-biological seam. A shower of alien sparks and a spray of dark, viscous ichor fountain into the air. It wasn't a killing blow. But it was a wound. A real, tangible insult.
Akira landed, his body screaming in total revolt. He collapsed to one knee, his vision tunneling, his fractured arm hanging uselessly. But he had done it.
Kaiju No. 9 looked down at the gash in its chest. It touched the flowing ichor with its claws, then looked at Akira. The cold curiosity on its face melted away, replaced by something infinitely more terrifying: a wide, grotesque smile of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
"Perfect," it whispered, the word slithering into their minds with intimate delight. "Adaptation requires resistance. Thank you, variable. You have provided excellent data."
The pleasure vanished, replaced by brutal, efficient retaliation. Its claw shot out, too fast to truly see. Akira brought his good arm up, Carapace reinforcement flaring one last time.
CRACK.
The block held, but the force behind the blow was astronomical. The bones in his already-fractured arm snapped completely. Akira cried out, a strangled sound of pure agony, as he was thrown backward like a discarded toy.
Kafka was there again, moving on fumes and instinct. Another shield of blue energy flared to life, blocking the follow-up strike meant to finish Akira. But this time, the impact was too much. The shield shattered completely, and Kafka was thrown off his feet, crashing down next to Akira, blood streaming from his nose and ears. The blue glow under his skin was pulsing erratically, a dam about to break.
Reno dove, grabbing Akira's good shoulder and dragging him back from a third spatial swipe that carved a deep furrow in the ground where his head had been.
The three of them lay in a broken heap, their strength spent, their circle of defiance finally, completely broken.
Kaiju No. 9 observed them for a moment, a artist considering a finished piece. Then it raised both of its claws. The air around them began to hum with a new, doubled distortion, promising a end that would be both final and meticulously recorded.
And from the shadows of the ruined buildings, two figures stepped forward.
They were smaller, sleeker, imperfect copies. Their forms were jerky, their features blurred, as if made from half-remembered blueprints. But their claws crackled with the same spatial energy. They were derivative horrors, forged from stolen data and a desire to test it.
[Ravan: Alert! Two derivative bio-signatures detected. Composition: partial clones of No.9. Purpose: field testing and exhaustion of host resources.]
Akira, Kafka, and Reno could only watch, barely able to stand, let alone fight. They were ringed in. The trap had not been sprung; it had simply been upgraded.
No.9's voice filled the crushed air, calm as ever, final.
"Let us test your endurance… variable."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T/N :
Access 25 chapters in Advance on my P@treon: [email protected]/GodFic