Hikaru’s head had felt like it was about to explode several times already since the start of the Dreadblade Fortress Battle. That feeling’s latest instance was when he looked away from Gudard Beo and Obur Segune as they fell and saw that at the same altitude, but some distance away from him, Ouzu was crushing the Stormbringers.

The same Stormbringers Gudard has made him commander of until Obur was in a condition where he could take that post again. So he had to choose between saving his teachers and saving his schoolmates.

Knowing Gudard and Obur as well as he did and having just seen Gudard in action like never before, the young Summerbolt ultimately believed those two would have better chances at surviving their descent than the Stormbringers – at surviving against Ouzu for much longer. The head of the Gurahorn Clan did after all consider them only obstacles on the way to his real target, which was Hikaru himself.

Thus, the mad genius flew right at the demon just as he was about to send a massive multi-horned and multi-eyed centipede to cut through tens of the students who were a part of the Stormbringers, Ouzu not failing to notice his prime target and taking action immediately. Namely, the centipede was redirected toward the spiky-haired teenager, multiple massive bolts falling from above to impale it and clear a path to the clan leader himself.

(Hikaru) ‘You wanted me, right?! I’m back to finish this, so if you don’t want to die, focus only on me and not my schoolmates, demon!!’

All the centipede’s eyes detached themselves from its impaled body then, firing condensed orange flame beams at Hikaru to the last one. Seeing this attack made him think a good opportunity to test Gudard’s suggestion from before his fall had just presented itself.

So the young Summerbolt increased the size of the cloak around his body to block all the beams, at the same time trying to calm his mind as much as possible by thinking peaceful thoughts. This helped him channel the Order energy within him he was able to use a bit now though his cloak’s surface, attempting to restructure the beams and through them – the eyes that were firing them as well.

While the beams were indeed weakened enough via restructuring to then be overwhelmed by Hikaru’s continuously growing lightning cloak, the formulas meant to restructure the eyes disappeared before they could reach their target. Apparently, mastering the Balancer powers he had just awakened was going to take a bit longer, but at least he had confirmed that using Order-based attacks could work against Ouzu.

Or at least so the mad genius thought until he felt a disturbingly high increase in his opponent’s power as an orb of hellish flames started forming above his middle horn and between the two side ones. No doubt this was a result of the Gurahorn monster’s fury having reached an even greater apex, as was made evident by his now twisted face.

(Ouzu) ‘What you did just now … that was restructuring, wasn’t it, boy? Getting the hang of your Balancer powers, are you?

THAT JUST FURTHER PROVES YOU HAVE TO DIE RIGHT AWAY!!!!’

The centipede eyeballs clustered to form three much bigger constructs of the same type, orange fire beams being fired by them from three of the cardinal directions at the same time as another beam that was even wider and more destructive was shot from the flaming orb between Ouzu’s horns.

(Ouzu) ‘UNHOLY ANNIHILATION CROSS!!!!’

Deciding to take a bit of a risk to try and ensure his victory, Hikaru ran restructuring formulas though his expanded cloak’s surface once again to block all four beams while dedicating some his attention to manifesting colossal lightning sabertooth heads behind the centipede eyes and Ouzu. The restructuring effect of the cloak was able to hold back the beams just long enough for the heads to crush the Gurahorn head and his creations between their jaws.

Right after they were bitten, a nonverbal order was given by the young Summerbolt for immense amounts of Order-based lightning to be channeled through the eye clusters and their maker.

Even that would probably not be enough to finish off Ouzu, but it could at least wound and slow him down long enough for Hikaru to go and rendezvous with the Stormbringers, leaving many of his clones overlapping with each other into a single one that granted it a higher survivability rate as an additional diversion just in case.

From there, he teleported on the crumbling multi-elemental platform his schoolmates were using to stay in the air, immediately reinforcing it with electricity and going to the group among the Stormbringers the rest trusted the most to check their state first.

All had suffered multiple burns and had cut- and stab-type wounds here and there, one of the girls in their ranks being in a particularly bad state. Seeing this made Hikaru decide to try and do another impossible thing – create a restructuring lightning cloak around that girl in order to revert her to a healed version the way Neana did with her deva.

The mad genius’s fellow Stormbringer suddenly started screaming in pain, turning out he had indeed managed to restructure her, but not in the way he had wanted.

Instead of the deep cut in her abdomen being removed, pretty much all of the abdomen had been made to disappear and leave a bloody gaping hole in its place.

A more tranquil state was needed to be able to pull off healer-type restructuring, so the young Summerbolt thought even more about Yuki. For maximum efficiency, the thoughts of all the relaxing experiences they had had together were combined with imagining how he slowly painted a beautiful landscape on a big canvas set on the Summerbolt Family Residence’s terrace from the time it had still been intact.

The other main Stormbringers were shouting something at Hikaru, but he tried to ignore them as much as possible so as to not break his concentration, as the image of the landscape painting and the sound of Yuki’s voice in his head became clearer and clearer, his schoolmate’s screaming suddenly stopping. As soon as that happened, the pseudo-healer opened his eyes which he had instinctively kept closed to ensure a better focus, seeing his patient’s abdomen had been returned to a completely healthy and undamaged state.

Which was probably the reason why instead of pain, there was only surprise written all over the girl’s face – something valid for the other members of the main Stormbringer group as well as many more around.

(Stormbringer No. 1) ‘Hikaru … how in the hell did you do that?’

(Hikaru) ‘I don’t have time to explain now, but I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off too many times because it’s really hard to do.’ – with a wave of his hand and more peace-oriented thoughts, he created restructuring lightning cloaks around all the Stormbringers to further surprise them as everyone gathered around him – ‘This much I can do, though. As long as you’ve got these cloaks around you, you won’t get hurt as bad by that demon’s attacks.’

(Stormbringer No. 2) ‘Thanks. What about Beo- and Segune-sensei, though? Where are they?’

(Hikaru) ‘We managed to turn Segune-sensei back to his human form, but he wounded Beo-sensei pretty bad before we were done. Both of them fell, but before that, Beo-sensei promised he would take care of Segune-sensei, so I think they’ll be OK.

Beo-sensei … he … he also made me deputy commander of the Stormbringers.’

Hikaru paused at that point, because he wasn’t sure how the members of the unit that was supposed to be under his command would take the latest news he had told them. They were surprised without a doubt, but at least they didn’t look annoyed, angered or worried in any way that the young Summerbolt would be in charge of them for the time being.

That was a great relief for him, considering he had never asked to be made commander of anything and had never had to lead a force of roughly 150 people, much less so against a maddened demon.

(Stormbringer No. 3) ‘Got it. Since you helped save Segune-sensei and can heal people all of a sudden, beating that thing won’t be too hard, right?’

(Hikaru) ‘The good thing is we know Ouzu’s after me, so I can be the bait.

He’ll focus all his attention on me and while he does that, you’ll hit him hard with a big-scale technique hiding a smaller and a more precise technique inside.

Let’s say, the big technique can be used by the active elemental deva users and the flying morphs can handle the smaller one.’

Now there was an outrage among many who heard Hikaru’s suggestion, but he had expected as much. From here started the part where he would have to convince and also lie to them a little.

(Stormbringer No. 4) ‘We tried things like that against the demon already and they didn’t do shit!! There’s no way we can finish him off!!! I don’t think anyone here can!!!’

(Hikaru) ‘Just listen for a moment. Please.

With these powers I have now, I can weaken him. To a level where your attacks will actually be able to hurt him.

As soon as he comes in, I’ll take Ouzu on and draw him away from you. Start prepping the techniques then and his us with everything you’ve got when you’re ready.

You’ve got to make sure the attack counts. Do it as if it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. Pour every single ounce of your strength in it. That’s the only way we’ll be able to beat him.’

Some seemed to have been inspired by the spiky-haired teenager’s words, including the main Stormbringer group, but the majority of the force still had rather skeptical looks on their faces. This complicated things, because Hikaru guessed they didn’t have more than a minute before Ouzu came in with a more destructive attack than all the ones he had used up until now.

(Stormbringer No. 5) ‘And what happens if you haven’t been able to weaken him enough by the time we’re ready?’

(Stormbringer No. 6) ‘And you’re telling us to go all-out in a single attack? We’ll exhaust our devas with that and will fall down as soon as we’re done!’

(Stormbringer No. 7) ‘You think you’ll be able to keep us in the air? You couldn’t do it with Beo- and Segune-sensei.’

(Hikaru) ‘I didn’t help them because of YOU!!!’ – his angry roar startled his schoolmates enough to silence them, Hikaru doing his best to maintain control over his emotions because he needed to be as calm as possible for the coming clash with Ouzu – ‘Beo-sensei transferred what power he had left to me so I could keep fighting and ordered me to use that power to keep you alive and make sure we beat Ouzu.

I want to go down there and help him and Segune-sensei as much as all of you, but I was given other orders.

And not only that – I trust those two.

So I understand this plan isn’t what all of you want to do, but I’m asking you to trust me and follow my order they way I did. We can take him down like this. I promise.’

The Stormbringers looked at each other, but this only lasted for a moment, because right after, their gazes all turned to Hikaru and dread filled their eyes. That made him realize no one was actually looking at him, but at whatever was behind him.

And even before he had turned around all the way, he noticed the clouds in the vicinity had burst into hellish flames and started crumbling. Or rather changing their shape.

Ouzu was indeed coming, riding a wave of gigantic multi-horned multi-eyed centipedes made of his deva that numbered probably tens of thousands, the wave quickly engulfing everything in the vicinity to channel more flames through and also transform into centipedes to add to the army the villain already had. And judging by the direction they were heading in, Hikaru guessed all these demonic animals hadn’t been made to deal with him, but to utterly obliterate the Stormbringers.

The strongest Gurahorn had chosen a much different approach than expected for focusing on his main target – rather than simply push aside his other opponents while attacking mostly Hikaru, he had made a force great enough to ensure no one would be able to come to the young Summerbolt’s aid. Which only further proved how experienced and intelligent he was – and how dangerous.

(Ouzu) ‘We’ve had enough distractions during our fight, boy!!! But now, no one else will intervene!! It’s time to finish all of this!!!’

Just before the hellish flame beam Ouzu fired from the orb he had made between his horns again hit Hikaru, he looked and roared at the Stormbringers. Hopefully, these weren’t going to be the last words he would say to the unit he had just become commander of.

(Hikaru) ‘The cloaks will protect you from the centipedes!! So meet them head on, take them out and continue with the plan from there!!!’

The beam reached him then, sending the spiky-haired teenager a long way across the burning clouds until he reached a point where he managed to calm himself enough to run restructuring formulas through his lightning cloak again and restructure away Ouzu’s latest attack. Out of the smoke left in its aftermath came the demon himself, swinging with his and the claws of the five clones coming out halfway from his back clad in almost blood red flames while firing orange fire beams from the demonic eyeballs still floating by the dozens around him.

All the claws were blocked by the young Summerbolt’s cloak while multiple lightning bolts, some shaped like spears, halberds, naginatas and the like, were fired at all the beams, not only managing to restructure them away, but to reach the eyes out of which they had come to stab them right in the pupil. Each pierced eyeball blew up magnificently right after to provide a background combining different shades of purple, red and some of orange and blue for the scene of Hikaru pushing back his opponent with his cloak’s sheer power and then crushing a full-force fist in his abdomen.

At this point in the battle, where both he and Ouzu had to split their attention between dealing with the other and controlling their centipedes/protecting their comrades elsewhere, no more energy could be spared for totem manifestation, structure making or clone creation on the spot. So after the lightning spears that had survived the demonic eyeballs’ demise went through the clones coming out of the clan leader’s back to cut them to pieces and the mad genius’s fist obliterated all the centipedes Ouzu had wrapped around his torso, the two fighters switched solely to two-style fighting.

That fighting consisted of using cloaks to defend from any enemy attack reaching the inside of their body and channeling hellish flames or Order-based lightning with each fist, kick and the like in order to finish off the other. In short, it was an all-out brawl to the death.

Hikaru spat blood aside after feeling some of the hellish fire channeled through the uppercut crushed in his jaw by Ouzu managed to go through his defenses and burn his body from within, coming back with another attack right after.

The strongest Gurahorn had teleported behind his opponent to use his tail to strangle him while directing two fists toward his back and firing a condensed fire beam from them to punch a hole through both the young Summerbolt’s lightning cloak and his body, but neither of those attacks came through.

A multi-directional volley of bolts forced the monster to retreat a little, in light of that Hikaru grabbing one of the bolts closest to him to throw right at Ouzu, who quickly incinerated it via another beam from the hellish flame orb between his horns.

That too had been a distraction to close the distance between the two of them, of course, so the junior Balancer could unleash a barrage of fists and kicks meant to land faster than it was possible to comprehend through the highest-speed teleportation currently achievable for him.

He hit and kicked with coldhearted mercilessness and singular focus again and again. And again. And again. And beyond even that again.

To not leave any openings for a counterattack from Ouzu. To restructure his whole being away into nothing. Or at least to weaken him enough to make controlling his centipede manifestations fighting the Stormbringers impossible.

After passing beyond the limit of the limit of strain he could put his body and deva through, Hikaru finally stopped attacking to let out perhaps the heaviest and longest sigh in his life. So much so, that he felt his lungs hurt even more than they already did, right after that feeling an acute pain come from his heart as if someone had just broken it to pieces with a hammer.

A level of exhaustion beyond compare had definitely been reached, but yet, the young Summerbolt would not go down. Not because he didn’t want to, however, or because he still had the strength to stand up.

It was because the horribly mangled, burned almost to the bone and viciously grinning Ouzu grabbed him by the throat with one hand to keep up in the air, the monster barely being able to maintain a hellish flame platform to stand on.

(Ouzu) ‘That really was a splendid barrage, boy. Probably no one else but Lord Deathaxe himself has managed to get me in a state like this until now.

But I see the same trick I used against him will work against you – let you wear yourself out until you can’t hit no more and then release all my power in a single hit to make up for what you’ve done to me.

Like this. GURAHORN ALL-STYLE SECRET TECHNIQUE: CENTIPEDE KING’S FIVE-TORTURE-HELL FIST!!!!!’

He hammered his other hand’s fist in the young man’s skull, the burst of hellish flames spawned by that having a simultaneous quintuple effect.

Hikaru’s lightning cloak was clad in flames to be eaten away so the skin of its maker could then be melted to the bone.

The same flames were channeled through the inside of his body to do to it what the cloak-eating ones were doing with the exterior.

Multiple fire centipedes wrapped themselves around him and started tearing off and ravenously consuming his flesh.

Tens of Ouzu’s blaze clones beat him up with their fists, crushed him under their feet or whipped him with their tails.

And finally, thousands of demonic eyeballs formed a dense sphere around him and pierced what remained of the young man with orange flame beams.

Although Hikaru felt a great many things at the same time, surprisingly enough, his first thought after being hit by the demon had nothing to do with him. He just instantly realized he had lost control of the protective cloaks he had made around the Stormbringers and thus left them defenseless against Ouzu’s centipede hordes.

And that realization made the agony of the tortures both his body and soul were being put through all the more unbearable. If it could get any more unbearable, that was.

Without a doubt, the mad genius could say he had never felt this much pain in his life. He had never even known such a level of pain existed and thus could not fully comprehend it in the present. All this time only his physical body had been hurt, but having one’s soul tortured by a demon was a different experience altogether.

It was as if every single layer of him – skin, muscles, bones, organs – was being burned, stabbed, cut and torn apart, but not once. Each part of his being was destroyed only to be reverted back to a healthy state through some twisted version of restructuring, which was plenty painful in its own right and then the tortures would start anew.

And this cycle felt like it had repeated a thousand times already through an eternity in which Hikaru went from a broken old man to a baby just as weak and defenseless in a matter of seconds, just so the pain he experienced could become that much more excruciating.

He even found himself laughing at a certain point because he had lost his mind and any form of reason, the ridiculousness of his endless torment making everything feel like the most hilarious comedy he had ever imagined, albeit twisted beyond the tenets of logic possessed by any race in the cosmos.

There was only one companion for the disappearing soul of the old man/baby – Ouzu’s voice that sounded both as a whisper and an echo – something his victim found even funnier and started laughing even more, to the point where he thought he might actually die as if being tickled too much. Only in this case, the completely exposed nerves of his spirit where being teased beyond the threshold they could bear.

(Ouzu) ‘You’re now experiencing the five tortures my clan was charged with putting sinners through while we were in hell. It’s usually done only to the soul and only to a level where it is ensured it would get really close to its breaking point, but never beyond it.

In your case, I’m doing the same to your body, though, and am not taking any care of preserving your soul, so every physical and mental aspect of your being will crumble really soon.

Your very existence being as sinful as it is, you should actually thank me. By destroying you, I’ve spared you an eternity of this and worse in hell. I’ve spared you from the fate I and my own clan suffered. And that’s far more than a pseudo-Balancer like you deserves.

Since you can’t talk, I’ll just take your laughter as a sign of gratitude … so thankfully decay away.’

Ouzu didn’t say anything more after that. Or rather, he might have, but something drowned out his voice.

A sound it took the baby/old man a little while to recognize. It was the crack of thunder.

A crack that spread an echo louder than perhaps Hikaru had ever heard. And then pure white enveloped everything, blinding and numbing him completely.

Blackness soon replaced all the white, some normal feeling returning to both the mad genius’s body and soul. The roaring thunder’s echo was gone as well, so his sense of hearing began returning to normal, even managing to register many voices eventually.

Voices that were shouting.

As soon as he regained enough of his reason to understand what the voices were saying, he opened his eyes. The sun was shining right in his eyes and so the images around him were blurred, at first seeming like gathered around were Yuki, Seiren, Reimei, Vega, King, Exo, Tokura, Saya, Iziya, Graid, Rose, Zoran, Neana, Obur, the rest of Earthling Class No. 1, the other students and teachers from the Sunbird School Force, as well as all the members of the Sunbird Complex Force.

Then the young Summerbolt, now turned back to his normal age and appearance, fully regained his eyesight, realizing he was actually being supported by one of the members of the Stormbringers’ main group, all other students from that force having gathered around them on a multi-elemental platform in the clouds.

All the members of his unit, especially those closest to the spiky-haired teenager, were shouting at him, managing to calm down a little after he fully opened his eyes and looked at them.

(Stormbringer No. 8) ‘You sure gave us quite a scare there, commander. We thought you were dead. And you can’t die until at least we beat that demon.’

(Hikaru) ‘T-this … this isn’t heaven? All of you … you … you’re really alive?’

(Stormbringer No. 9) ‘Well, yeah. You worked as even better bait for Ouzu that we expected.’

(Hikaru) ‘W-what does that mean? After that last hit … your cloaks … I couldn’t maintain them anymore.’

(Stormbringer No. 10) ‘Yeah, we lost the cloaks, but just before that happened, all the centipedes that were attacking us stopped moving all of a sudden. I don’t know if it was because that demon focused too much on you or what, but whatever the case, once they stopped, we finished them off in no time.’

(Stormbringer No. 11) ‘And then we came to hit Ouzu with our two-stage technique the way you told us to earlier.’ – the Stormbringer who had said that turned serious then, pointing at something, which after Hikaru turned around realized was the further torn-up, tailless and hornless Gurahorn leader barely being able to stay afloat amid a bit of hellish flames nearby – ‘But even that wasn’t enough to finish him off. We told you it wouldn’t work earlier, didn’t we?’

(Stormbringer No. 12) ‘We won’t be able to stay in the air much longer cuz we had to channel our devas through you to make sure you stayed alive, so I say we get out of here. Run away and let someone else deal with Ouzu before he kill …’

(Hikaru) ‘No. Just send me to him. I need one last push from you guys and that’s it.’

(Stormbringer No. 13) ‘But you … you couldn’t possibly finish him off the way you are now! None of us could!!’

(Hikaru) ‘I, um … I kind of lied earlier … I do actually have a new technique I know can finish him off, but it’s a one-shot thing and I was saving it for Deathaxe.

That’s why I told you only your attack can finish him off – so that you would really pour your heart and soul into it – and I hoped that would be enough. Only in the case it wasn’t would I use my final trump card.’

Now all the Stormbringers got very angry, but before they could start quarreling with their leader, Ouzu let out a blood-curdling howl and flew at them with a continuously crumbling body while forming his final storm of an attack.

It was full of hundreds of gigantic clones with only a massive demonic eyeball in place of a head and a massive multi-horned centipede in place of a tail, the lower half of their arms and legs being clad in intense hellish flames and the rest of their bodies having enough of the same deva channeled through them that all their black bones became visible against a purplish-red background.

As the creations roared along with their creator, multiple bright purple eyes suddenly opened across their skin, thin flame beams being fired from them while much wider ones were launched from the eyeballs they had instead of heads and lastly – fire roars were blown out between the jaws of the centipedes serving as their tails.

(Ouzu) ‘ALL OF YOU BASTARDS COULDN’T GET KILLED BEFORE I FINISHED HIM OFF?!! I GUESS I’LL JUST HAVE TO ANNIHILATE YOU ALONG WITH THAT BALANCER PIECE OF SHIT YOU WANT TO PROTECT SO BAD, THEN!!!!

TRUE HELLISH FLAME DEVA: GURAHORN’S IMPERIAL LEGION OF NIGHTMARES UNLEASHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

The Stormbringer holding Hikaru suddenly ran his lightning deva with a light green color through the mad genius then, looking at all the others and all of them cladding their commander in their devas. Before the young Summerbolt could say anything, a gigantic arm was created of different elements to throw him at the coming demon storm with an impossibly powerful swing, along the way being further sped up by all the aerial morphs in the Stormbringers’ ranks. They had merged together using the elemental devas of those among them that possessed such to form Obur Segune’s totem animal – a harpy eagle – that eagle carrying the spiky-haired teenager right to Ouzu and his legion of twisted giant clones.

(The Stormbringers) ‘GO AND KILL THAT THING ALREADY!!!! WE’LL BEAT YOU UP FOR LYING LATER!!!!!’

Finally, Hikaru could grin with as much confidence and joy as he had ever thought possible, focusing his thoughts on Yuki right after so that he could infuse his final attack with an Order charge. A bolt was formed in his hand that he threw toward the higher heaves, continuing to meet the Gurahorn monster head-on from there as his storm encircled his opponent on all sides in order to ensure his obliteration, but also move past him and destroy all the Stormbringers as well.

Before the storm could reach any of its targets, a massive orb of lightning suddenly cut apart some of the clouds above the two foes, having an almost black internal area because of how much electricity was condensed in it while the exterior was almost completely white.

Ouzu kept moving forward despite noticing that, but then, a second orb formed not too far from the first one. And then another. And another.

And they kept forming faster and faster. Until a circle of twelve had appeared above Dreadblade Fortress, a bolt being shot down from the center of each orb that now turned completely white.

All those bolts formed a sort of cylindrical mold, its interior being blasted beyond space, time and reason into pure white as the biggest imaginable lightning typhoon filled it up in an instant, roaring throughout Saiten and the cosmos beyond. Thus, no one probably heard Hikaru shouting the name of his technique:

‘TWELVE COSMIC STARS’ MIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

As quickly as the typhoon had formed, it vanished, all the bolt orbs in the sky vanishing and a silence falling over the entire area, amid which the inhumanly exhausted commander of the Stormbringers started to fall.

His eyes were barely able to register the charred and completely black remains of Ouzu’s skeleton disintegrating away so their ash could be carried on the wind, which somehow gave Hikaru just enough energy to smile.

He had fulfilled his promise to Gudard – to take down the Gurahorns’ leader while keeping everyone from his unit alive.

Or at least that’s what he thought, because looking down, he realized the other Stormbringers were all in a state of free fall and were already much closer to the ground than him. Most likely that push they had given him to get to Ouzu had completely drained their devas as well, so now none of them could make a platform of their element or turn into a flying animal to at least grab and save a couple of their comrades.

A swarm of something started forming right in the area where Hikaru and co. were supposedly going to crash then, after getting close enough to it, turning out this mass was made of arms, legs, torsos, heads and other body parts multiplied millions of times. The fall was still painful, but survivable thanks to the swarm of limbs, as the mad genius and the others rolled down from it and on the dirt, the Stormbringers’ leader seeing someone’s foot had stepped right next to his face.

Upon looking up, he wondered once again if he hadn’t died, because in front of him was standing a person he had been thinking about all along. A person who though looking slightly disturbing because of the bloody bandage covering her right eye had the same sweet smile on her face than never failed to calm him down.

It was Yuki.

(Hikaru) ‘Am I … am I really dead now? Or is this real?’

(Yuki) ‘Since I’m saving your ass as usual, I’d say you are pretty alive and this is pretty real.’ – she then squatted next to the young Summerbolt to give him a hand – ‘Just as real as the fact our battle’s far from over. So come on. Let’s go meet up with the others and kill Deathaxe.’

As he took her hand and their eyes met, Hikaru managed another smile.

(Hikaru) ‘You gonna carry me?’

(Yuki) ‘All the way.’