Rale Nightsong had been living miserably for a while now. So much so that he couldn’t even remember when was the last time he had been happy. He only knew it had been too long ago and something needed to be done to change that, namely – replace his wife and daughter with better ones.

Ukris, someone who he used to love more than anything, had turned into a power-hungry, callous and extremely violent person over the years, even toward her family. And Rale knew better than anyone that his wife’s change of behavior had nothing to do with the succubus sealed in her. He had simply been blind to Lady Nightsong’s true nature and by the time he realized what kind of person he had chosen to spend his life with, she had become too powerful for him to simply leave her.

Ulura, his only child and the person he hoped would’ve been his salvation, on the other hand, had always been too soft for Rale’s standards. She had even had a sweet side to her when she had been younger, before Ukris had broken that with her merciless training mixed with everyday torture. While the black-haired brute’s daughter had become quite evil over the years, there was still too much kindness in her – something she couldn’t hide from her father no matter how hard she tried.

In the end, both Ukris and Ulura had turned out to be disappointments for Rale, the poor man being stuck between dealing with the one and the other to a level where he could no longer stand to be in either one’s company. Then old allies of the family who the Nightsongs thought were exterminated contacted Ukris again, those allies having big plans for not just Deckstoru, but all of Barilia. While both Ukris and Rale agreed to help these allies achieve their goal in return for sharing the power they would gain in the end, the husband had kept a separate agenda of his secret from his wife.

The allies mentioned had equipment more advanced than any other, being able to go as far as revive dead people and bend those corpses to their will, the amount of personality the undead would preserve from the time they were alive varying. It was precisely that tech Rale was planning to use to bring back his family from the dead after murdering them, transforming them into the best versions of themselves. Or at least the best versions according to him.

All that was left was to kill his wife and daughter with Rale playing as small a role in their demise as possible, as he was no monster. A clash between Ulura and a member of the class of the Summerbolt family’s descendant, Hikaru, had provided the opportunity Mr. Nightsong had been waiting for.

Rale couldn’t even dream of being able to defeat Ukris, especially if she went all out, but if he could get the Summerbolts to battle her, they could surely weaken her enough for him to deliver the finishing blow. So he convinced his wife to use her connections in Sunbird and arrange a Class Battle between Ulura and Hikaru’s class with the Summerbolts serving as observers for the event.

The members of the enemy family themselves needed to be eliminated as well so Rale asked the Nightsongs’ allies to provide them with two companies of ordinari soldiers to ensure both the Summerbolts’ and their allies’ demise. With that being arranged, all that was left was to dispatch Ulura.

While defeating her would be no challenge for her father, Rale couldn’t bring himself to kill his only child like he was willing to do with his wife. Someone else needed to do it. The person selected for that job was Tenji Line, an agent for the Nightsongs in the Earthlings’ ranks for years and someone who had no issue with murdering children.

Tenji was deliberately made co-leader of the same company Ulura was put in charge of, so he could stay close to her and once the enemies around them had served the purpose of weakening her and had been eliminated, he was to make his move. Ulura’s class would serve as nice executioners for the Earthlings, the ordinari soldiers taking care of the rest with only Ukris remaining at the end for Rale to finish off personally.

That was this desperate man’s plan and at the present moment that plan had reached its climax. While the Summerbolts and their allies couldn’t be killed to the last one at this point given the state of the Nightsongs’ forces and the Martians’ betrayal, murdering Ukris and Ulura and then taking their bodies was still an option. And for Rale precisely doing that was what mattered most, following his wife’s battle with Yuki, Hikaru and Seiren from a distance while attempting to kill at least one member of the Summerbolt family.

The black-haired brute couldn’t succeed in killing any enemies, but saw an opening to finish off the love of his life at one point, slipping away from his attackers in the chaos of the battle to reach Ukris. He had noticed the wound Saya had left in his wife’s chest earlier, knowing that was going to be the key to his success.

In order for the bat-winged lady to keep the succubus in her under control and freely use its illusion-making abilities, she needed to maintain a 100% focus at all times. The moment that concentration was broken by something like a serious wound, for example, she would no longer be able to use her illusions or even stay in her demonic form. That was the reason she had gone as far as releasing over a 100% of her power to increase her regeneration speed and heal her wound before losing control.

She couldn’t have possibly fully healed damage that severe even with an increased output, however, so all Rale needed was for Ukris to tire herself out a bit more by fighting the three brats she was currently faced with. When Seiren was defeated and there was some distance created between Yuki and Hikaru and Mrs. Nightsong, Mr. Nightsong knew the time had come.

One stab in the back with a wide dark blue laser beam was all it took to reopen his wife’s wound and finally bring her to her knees or rather to her face as she was crushed straight in the ground after her husband stabbed her. Without the ability to make illusions and in her weakened state, another hit would kill her for good, the only thing left to do being to signal Tenji so he could kill Ulura.

Ukris Nightsong was not as defenseless as Rale thought, however, clearly being infuriated by the reveal of her husband’s intentions and springing back to her feet with lightning-laser nails around her fingers ready to carve out a piece of his face.

(Ukris) ‘-So that was your plan all along!! (Rale dodged the swings, teleporting away from the black laser beams clad in purple electricity formed in the air next to the fingers and appearing behind Ukris now as she started turning back to her human form) And meanwhile it hadn’t even crossed my mind to have you killed so I could resurrect you as a proper man afterwards!’ (Rale squeezed the black empress from the back with all the strength left in his arms which was enough to break at least a few of her bones in her present state, their eyes meeting as she partially turned to him)

(Rale) ‘-You’ve become so drunk on power and overly confident that you failed to notice the threat closest to you. Me, beloved wife.’

Ukris didn’t say anything now, Rale feeling as if the main emotion in her eyes was no longer anger or hatred. Those seemed to have been replaced by a mixture of disappointment and as shocking as it was, sadness. Sadness – something the black-haired brute didn’t think his wife could feel anymore.

He realized with some delay he had been staring at not just her eyes but her face without doing anything else. Even now, when covered in blood and in the ugliest stage of a transformation between a demon and a human, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And her behavior in her final moments was not what Rale had expected at all.

The silence between the two only lasted for so long, though, as suddenly the blue hammer felt a pain deep in his chest, coming from the stab wound left in it by the spike at the end of his wife’s tail, used before that appendage fully disappeared. The disappointment and sadness had only been a con to fool Rale, the man blaming himself with all the self-loathing he was capable of for being too soft in this decisive moment. That softness, the same one he saw in his daughter and despised so much, was exactly the thing that had always been in the way of him attaining true freedom and greatness and right now, it had cost him his victory.

(Ukris) ‘-You loosened your grip, beloved husband. (electricity was run through the tail, burning up Rale and before he could respond a black laser beam was shot from the spike that had pierced him, ripping a hole through his back) You’ve never been able to do anything right in your life and that’s why you couldn’t assassinate me now. A failure like you couldn’t possibly be the end of me.’

Ukris’ husband winced from the pain, the next time he opened his eyes seeing a glimpse of the girl the twisted monster in front of him had been once. With all the radiance she had had about her back then that captivated Rale unlike anything else ever had or ever would. The girl that would one day become his doom – with the same long and shiny black hair like Ulura, skin much paler than her daughter’s and dark purple eyes full of disdain even at that time. No horns, though, nor wings. Just a normal young woman. Ukris Nightsong, the love of this miserable fool’s life.

He had been so captivated by her that he hadn’t even realized someone else had appeared behind her. By the time he did register the other person’s appearance, Yuki Iceflame successfully did what she had told Rale she yet wasn’t able to do during their battle earlier: splitting up her armor in separate independent clones. All the clones detached from her entirely with the original preserving only a standard ice armor now, thus making her indistinguishable from the copies. Then they surrounded Ukris and lunged at her from all sides.

The black empress finally lost control of herself, probably not even being aware of the number of attackers closing in on her or the fact each of the ice maidens was clad in a cloak of lightning that appeared almost white in color. Ulura’s mother simply fell to her knees with both terror and insanity in her eyes as she grabbed her head and started pulling her hair, now having fully returned to her normal appearance. But just before the octahedron lances each of the clones held could reach their target, an orb of black lasers with purple electricity run through it formed between Ukris’ horns.

This was something even Rale hadn’t seen, supposing it was some kind of final self-preservation response before the pain from her wounds would totally cut off the usage of her succubus-empowered abilities. The orb broke apart into a miniaturized spherical version of ‘Black Sky’s Melody of Torrents’, hitting all the Yukis with such force that it pierced straight through their thick cloaks of electricity.

Each version of the girl with white hair started falling apart, the husband’s hope for seeing his wife die disappearing as he felt his consciousness was already slipping out of this realm's reach, barely being able to stay awake. Yet in defiance of Mr. Nightsong’s own expectations, there seemed to be enough life left in him to goggle his eyes when he saw the cloak of one of the ice maidens starting to change shape.

That cloak transformed into the further bloodied Hikaru Summerbolt, who with a final roar that felt like it carried the will of all the living and dead members of his family crushed his fist in Ukris’ face, slamming her against the ground.

Thunder echoed through the heavens as a single bolt cut through the summer sky and basked in the light of the sun that had risen between a few clouds for a moment before merging with the boy’s fist to knock out the commander of the Nebula forces.

A mini-crater was left in the ground where her head had been hammered in after the final strike, Hikaru falling down next to her and near the original Yuki, the barely conscious Seiren still lying next to Rale who was in pretty much the same condition.

As unlikely as it seemed, the battle had finally come to an end.

With that, the hammer maker’s trained mind reminded him of a final precaution he needed to take before blacking out, reaching for his belt to press a button on the device hanging on its side.

The activation of that device would lead to the instant disintegration on a molecular level of the only ordinari soldier left in the park who the Summerbolts were supposed to currently be dealing with, ensuring no loose ends would be left. Tenji Line knew next to nothing about the master plan the whole Nebula mission was a part of, the same being valid for Ulura, while Rale was about to die and Ukris would never break. If nothing else, at least no information would leak from the Nightsongs, allowing them to preserve some of their dignity.

Then the black-haired brute heard a sound he knew birds could make, the sound drawing closer while the ambient temperature rose, a mass of flames suddenly landing next to him. Out of those flames were thrown the now unconscious Ulura and Tenji, soon enough that fire disappearing to reveal the last person the unfortunate husband was expecting to arrive on this field – Zoran Lawell, Sunbird’s headmaster.

As stern as ever, his eyes found Rale’s which were looking at him, the phoenix-morph kneeling by the side of Mr. Nightsong’s face. It was ironic how not too long ago Rale had squatted next to Yuki after he defeated her in the same manner as what Zoran was doing with him now. At that point he had been certain of his victory, but things had really turned out in a very different way than expected.

(Zoran) ‘-Due to the observers being incapacitated, I announce Earthling Class #1 as the victors of this Class Battle.’

(Rale) ‘-Y-you had to come to me to say that, Lawell? Give me a break and let me die without having to listen to your witty remarks.’

(Zoran) ‘-You’ll have to listen to them a bit longer, I’m afraid, as I can’t allow you to die yet. (he narrowed his eyes) You see, Rale, I paid a visit to your mansion earlier and came across quite a few disturbing discoveries. With what I did there and what you’ve done here, we have a lot of punishment to share between us. So stay alive and look forward to the pain to come.’

Zoran may have continued talking after that, but Rale could no longer hear him. The abyss of infinite black had finally swallowed what was left of him.