Nomoro stared at the disheveled, floating Zackier, his chest heaving as frustration and a cold, creeping surprise warred within him.
He spoke directly to the frantic voice in his own mind.
"Damn it… my punch didn't do anything to him at all!"
He clenched his fists so hard the joints popped, his demonic knuckles white with tension.
"I felt the impact. It was a direct hit—a strike that should have shattered his ribs or at the very least knocked him unconscious. How is he still hovering there?"
Zackier, his eyes swirling with patterns reminiscent of shattered glass, glared down at Nomoro with a visceral disgust.
His gaze then shifted to Trizha, and the expression intensified into a cocktail of disdain and something that looked dangerously like self-loathing.
He wasn't just angry at them; he seemed offended by their very existence.
"...Who would've thought that the reason why I was here… no, the REASON why, starting from now on, everything will live, has been in front of me this whole time?"
Zackier hissed the words, his voice trembling with a humiliating realization.
"This is insulting… it's humiliating! It's all in the name, goddammit!"
In a sudden, erratic burst of movement, he began punching himself in the sides of his own head, the dull thuds shocking Nomoro and Trizha into a stunned silence.
"What the heck is he doing?!" Trizha asked in shock, dumbfounded.
They watched, paralyzed, as the antagonist they should've gotten in this story seemed to be physically beating his own composure back into place.
Eventually, the self-inflicted violence stopped.
Zackier calmed his breathing, his head hanging low as he panted, slowly reclaiming his poise.
When he lifted his head again, he looked down at the two minors with the cold, calculating eyes of a predator.
He compared them—Nomoro's raw, demonic power against Trizha's flickering, divine focus—immediately running variables to find the most efficient path to their graves.
Unbeknownst to them, Zackier had already adapted to Trizha's new rhythm.
「I was left with only ten Emoplotions before Trizha reappeared… and now I've used up all emoplotions of the first and second variables against Trizha after she appeared.」
He narrow-eyed the rusted pipe in her hand.
「The Hundred Propelled Thrust required me to split my resources. I had to shrink one hundred released Emoplotions down to 0.1% of their strength each just to execute the technique… and even that wasn't enough. She countered a hundred fated strikes with nothing but a piece of scrap metal.」
Meanwhile, Trizha felt the sweat stinging her eyes.
She kept her gaze locked on Zackier, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She was desperately reaching inward, trying to find the handle to that door she had opened earlier.
"Something's wrong… and it's not just that I can't find that power again!" She gritted her teeth, her knuckles white around the iron pipe.
"I don't have time to think about what the heck that 'state' was! I need to focus! I have to reawaken it right now, or we're both going to die on this roof!"
She squeezed her eyes shut for a millisecond, trying to force the bulging veins and the white-void irises to return, but her body felt stubbornly, terrifyingly human.
Nomoro remained perfectly still, his breath controlled and silent.
He felt like a man standing in front of a hungry bear, knowing that any sudden movement would invite a lethal swipe.
"Hitting his head didn't work. I've landed two massive strikes, and he's still standing. He's not letting me get near his vitals… it's like he's covered in invisible thorns. I can't touch him without getting thrown back or slashed."
He then glanced at Trizha out of the corner of his eye.
"Trizha gave us an opening by destroying his knife, but the air hasn't cleared. I don't feel like we're at an advantage. Something is still very, very wrong."
The atmosphere on the rooftop shifted.
It was a physical sensation, a drop in pressure that made their skin crawl and their spines tingle.
Zackier didn't falter.
Instead, he stepped forward through the air, his presence expanding with a new, eerie intensity.
The gap between the teenagers and the Alter Being, which they thought they had closed, suddenly felt like a canyon.
"She's right. Maybe I should've freed myself. Maybe I should've just continued doing what I want. Maybe I should've disobeyed him long ago. Maybe I should've just defied that guy…「THWAOWL」!!!"
Zackier's voice was hollow, devoid of its earlier frantic rage.
He extended his left arm, aiming the shimmering, unreleased Emoplotion in his palm directly at them.
"But now… maybe I shouldn't. Maybe my purpose is to ensure that history won't repeat its mistakes. Maybe I am the only thing standing between this world and a catastrophe I can't allow. Maybe i should prevent YOU from re-happening."
He looked at Nomoro first.
"Narasao… you are a footnote in a history meant to be forgotten. A threat to be ceased."
Then, his gaze locked onto Trizha.
"And you, Trizha… that power you hold is the very reason you must die. Because you are the reason why everything will live."
With those final, cryptic words, he unleashed the sphere.
It wasn't a normal attack; he had produced this Emoplotion by bartering away his own internal emotions, turning his psyche into a weapon.
The bomb moved with a speed that defied comprehension.
In less than half a second, the glowing orb was already inches from their faces, a miniature sun threatening to erase them from existence.
In that millisecond of impending death, the veins near Trizha's temples suddenly bulged.
Her irises vanished into an almost focused white void.
Simultaneously, Nomoro's Hybroth Hell armor surged, its dark obsidian plates snapping into place to cover his lower half.
They didn't move because they saw it.
They moved because a female voice, cold and authoritative, the same voice from earlier, whispered into their minds.
「Spread out, idiots.」
Racing against time, the two of them synchronized.
They turned toward one another, jumping and slamming their feet together in mid-air to create a makeshift platform.
Using the leverage of each other's strength, they launched themselves in opposite directions.
The Emoplotion streaked between them, missing them by a hair's breadth as they spread out to circle Zackier.
Trizha dove, her fingers closing around the iron pipe she had dropped, while Nomoro shifted his armor, the demonic plates flowing up his side to encase his right arm in a massive, clawed gauntlet.
Zackier's mind was already three steps ahead, calculating their trajectories.
"Nomoro is the heavy hitter. He will likely lead the charge." He shifted his weight, but then paused. "No. Wait. Between these two, who is the most reckless? The answer is simple; Trizha."
As if to prove his calculation, Trizha was already in the air.
She lunged toward Zackier with a feral scream, her pipe raised high for a crushing overhead slam.
Zackier stepped to the side with a fluid, ghostly grace.
The pipe whistled past him.
But Trizha immediately transitioned into a horizontal sweep with terrifying precision, forcing Zackier to lean back so far he was nearly horizontal.
He didn't show it on his face, but he was struggling.
Every swing she made felt like it was guided by an invisible hand.
"That 'state'… there's one easy way to counter it."
Zackier's lips curled into a devious, malicious grin.
Trizha didn't back down; she pressed the assault, the iron pipe coming at him from impossible angles.
But Zackier already saw his window.
He threw a lightning-fast right jab at her face. Trizha leaned her head away effortlessly, her focus entirely on his upper body.
Suddenly, her breath hitched.
A sharp, localized pain exploded in her gut.
She looked down and saw Zackier's foot buried in her abdomen.
He had kicked her mid-transition, a move she hadn't seen coming.
.
.
.
Trizha: 102
Fate: 0
.
.
.
Trizha: 102
Fate: 1
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.
.
「Harbinger of Downfall.」
"That was the name of the state she wielded. It was a conceptual achievement—a state that allowed the user to bring about the 'downfall' of an opponent by defying the very inevitability of death through sheer, supernatural focus. It was a state built entirely on awareness."
"Under normal circumstances, hitting a Harbinger of Downfall was a feat of near-impossibility because the state negated the "Fate" that guaranteed a hit would land."
"However, the term "near-impossible" was the key. It implies that, in some way, a hit can still be delivered on a Harbinger of Downfall."
Zackier's kick sent Trizha skidding backward across the rooftop, the first successful strike landed since her transformation.
"The way to hurt a Harbinger is simple." Zackier thought, watching her tumble. "You must bypass her awareness. You deliver an 'unexpected' secondary hit hidden behind the first. You strike the blind spot of her focus."
As Trizha caught her footing, gasping for air, Zackier watched for the damage to take hold.
And his eyes widened in a mix of surprise and fascination.
His kick had both succeeded and failed.
It had landed, yes, but Trizha had blocked the worst of the impact by slamming the palm of her hand against her own abdomen at the last possible microsecond.
.
.
.
Trizha: 102
Fate: 1
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Trizha: 103
Fate: 1
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.
"Tsk. As expected…" Zackier muttered aloud, his voice dripping with a newfound respect. "I am a professional when it comes to adaptation, but landing even a glancing blow against a Harbinger is an achievement in itself."
He didn't get to finish the thought.
Nomoro appeared at his flank like a thunderclap.
He swung his 'normal' left arm in a wide hook.
Zackier, anticipating the move, turned and swatted the punch away with his palm.
But the hook was a feint.
Nomoro used the momentum of the redirected punch to violently spin his entire body.
He twisted like a top, bringing his right demonic arm around in a devastating back-fist.
Zackier moved to counter, but Nomoro was already ahead of him.
As the demonic gauntlet swung, Nomoro snapped his armored fingers.
The friction ignited the potassium chloride laced into his armor, unleashing a violent burst of purple fire.
The explosion acted like a rocket thruster, propelling the demonic arm forward at a speed Zackier couldn't calculate.
CRACK!
The back-fist slammed into Zackier's guard, sending him hurtling backward across the roof.
Zackier managed to cross his arms in time to protect his face, but the sheer force of the propelled strike sent him spinning through the air.
Although, he was apparently sent flying straight toward Trizha.
Trizha gripped the iron pipe, her eyes briefly glowing with that eerie, void-like light.
And Nomoro had delivered him on a silver platter.
Zackier was mid-air, his back turned, and he had no footing to dodge.
She took her stance, the air around her pipe beginning to hum with the intensity of her enhanced focus.
This was a guaranteed hit.