While knowing it was dangerous to do so during the battle, Hikaru stopped to let himself fully feel the admiration for his friends (and enemies, if counting Seiren) as he watched them fight around him. Yuki, Seiren, Reimei, Vega, King, Exo, Tokura – all of them had followed him in the madness of war. He hadn’t made the hot heads do that, of course, and he would never ask such a thing of any of them, but had carried the hope that at least some would join him once he went back to support Graid and Zoran.

After all, if he was alone, the mad genius wasn’t that great a threat. Only when there were enough mad people around could his might truly shine as each of them made the other go truly cray. As long as that bond between the oddballs existed, none could stand in their way, even the numerous soldiers armed with high-tech weaponry serving the shadowy organization that was currently attacking Deckstoru. Once a deviant attacked Vega in the back with a projectile of white energy, however, the young Summerbolt’s opinion on the matter changed slightly.

Looking over in the direction of the attacker while giving the drunkard a hand to get up, it turned out there were hundreds behind him wearing the same uniforms that were partially different from those the rest were wearing. Apart from having no weapons and therefore no magazines on them, parts of the fabric on their outfits resembled chain mail, not all of these warriors wearing helmets. Also, they wore tabards consisting of two pieces on the upper half of their bodies and a cloth that reached under the knees covering the back and the sides of their legs on the lower half. Both articles of clothing were attached to their belts, having vertical black lines along the inner edges for the lower-body cloth as well as the tabards. If that was to be considered the standard attire for all deviant members of the enemy forces, the hot heads were indeed in a lot of trouble as Vega had said earlier.

Fighting ordinari, even ones armed with such an advanced anti-deviant arsenal, while not having free use of a 100% output was one thing. Fighting deviants who most likely had no or a minimal restriction on their output was something else entirely and it was nigh impossible, especially for a bunch of kids.

Zoran and Graid who were now supported by Saya and Iziya could spare no thought to the brats on the beach at present due to how busy they were dealing with the enemy aircrafts, so it was up to only the eight of them to take out this force. Eliminating all the ordinari soldiers and their ground vehicles no longer even qualified as an option. With so many undead deviants it was impossible to get to the ordinari and even if they could do that, it would be pointless. They weren’t the real threat anymore – the deviants were as they could do ten times the damage any ordinari unit was capable of bringing down.

Being well aware of their overwhelming advantage, the deviant soldiers without helmets smiled at the unlucky eight they were about to face, the hot heads standing back to back in a circle now. Exo’s whimpering made it unnecessary for Hikaru to look at his face as he could picture it quite well and while the others were most likely not showing any signs of weakness, they were certainly as afraid as the mad genius. Having involved them in this, it was now the lightning-using warrior’s duty to take charge and find a way to ensure his friends’ survival.

As he pondered over his alternatives, the deviants closed in on the oddballs’ group much like predators did with prey that had nowhere to run, only the inevitability of death awaiting it in the very near future. The same one who had attacked Vega came closest to Hikaru and co., while all the soldiers had a set of lines to indicate their rank, either only white, only black or both, on the lef half of their tabards, he alone having the combination of one white line and three black lines. The man’s long hair was silver blonde and tied in three long plaits, his skin – very dark brown, his lips – very full, his eyes – the typical pale green color for all undead. Most likely he was the one in charge of these troops, judging by the numbers under his command his rank being at least a lieutenant colonel.

(The White Lieutenant Colonel) ‘-Were only the eight of you tasked with protecting this beach? Because that won’t even be a warm-up for my boys and girls!’

(Yuki) ‘-No one tasked us to do anything! We chose to stay and fight to fend off the ordinary, but had no idea we would have to fight deviants as well! Would you do such a thing? Would you attack your own while protecting the enemies around us?’

The deviants laughed at the baby doll’s poor attempt at negotiation, Hikaru being reminded that Yuki was still a bit too naïve. Whatever allegiance any of the soldiers around them had had in life, it didn’t matter now that they were dead. Their will was no longer their own, which meant they would attack and defend whatever the one who had resurrected them ordered them to.

(One of the Lieutenant Colonel’s Men) ‘-Only the members of our organization are our own, child, whether deviant or ordinari! We don’t discriminate on the base of species, only on the base of belief. And your belief is wrong, making each of you brats an enemy!!’

(Exo) ‘-It’s pointless to negotiate, Yuki! I knew we were going to die right from the start!!’

(Vega) ‘-Why did you come back, then?!’

(Exo) ‘-Because I wanted to help!!’

(Tokura) ‘-If we’re gonna die, you haven’t been very helpful, Ex, have you?! At least cover us while we drag as many of these bastards as we can to hell with us!’

(Seiren) ‘-I don’t want to die without having properly groped a nice pair of breasts, though! Yu, Mei, it’s now or never!!’

(Hikaru) ‘-Blackscale, I swear to all the gods in the cosmos, I’ll kill you before the enemy does!!’

The group’s banter and the attack their opponents had already launched were suddenly interrupted by a number of waves, all of which created by the lethally serious Reimei, her allies turning to her.

(Reimei) ‘-I will never allow your filthy hands to come near me, Seiren! Such honor is reserved for Hikaru alone!!!’

(King) ‘-Bless your fits of violence, Mei!! Those are the tsunamis I was talking about!!’

Hikaru was no less surprised by the scarlet-haired beauty’s outburst, but while the reason for it shocked him, something else about her brought him even greater amazement. It had been so obvious, yet he had not been able to realize it in the midst of the battle. The eight hot heads had a secret weapon of their own. Actually, they had two of them.

Reimei could manipulate the waters of the sea to her heart’s content while Vega was able to charge himself up with whatever sources of pale green energy were left in the vicinity. With that kind of power at their disposal, they could turn the tide of the conflict in their favor even while having a limited output. A strategy based on this had already formed in the mind of Martian Class #1’s genius, needing to relay it to his teammates before the opposing forces could recover from the flood they had been hit with.

(Hikaru) ‘-That was great, Mei! We’ll need you to bring in a lot more waves like that, but even stronger!’

Miss Scarlettail’s pale face lit up like the brightest of stars upon receiving praise from Hikaru, turning to him with a dreamy look in her eyes.

(Reimei) ‘-I’ll do anything you want, Hikaru! Since you’re pleased with me, I guess you’ll grope me now?’

Seiren’s mighty roars of jellous anger echoed behind his eternal rival then, the mad bolt’s reaction not being fast enough, but luickly Yuki’s being faster. She stopped the firework-clad fist of the pervert aimed at the back of the young Summerbolt’s head by the time he turned around, the three looking at each other.

(Seiren) ‘-Step aside and let me blow this bastard’s head off, Yu! I’ll be dead before I let him touch Mei!!’

(Hikaru) ‘-I had no such intention in the first place, you sick shit!!!’

(Yuki) ‘-That’s good to know, Hikaru. And you need to calm down, Seiren. Hikaru’s our strategist, so whatever scramble you two plan to get into this time, you’ll have to leave it for after we’ve won.’

(Hikaru) ‘-Thanks, Yu. I did just manage to think of a plan, as a matter of fact.’

(Vega) ‘-Give us the shortest possible version, cuz those corpses are gonna start moving again soon!’

(Hikaru) ‘-The rest of us need to provide cover for you and Reimei so you can use the environment to charge up as much as possible and unleash a combined attack on all these deviants.’

(Reimei) ‘-Just the two of us taking all of them out? Even with the environment’s help, we can’t bring down so many numbers at once.’

(Exo) ‘-We’ll destabilize them while drawing their attention away from you, so it should …’

Their foes attacked then, Reimei using her waves to split them up into smaller groups, Hikaru sneaking in by her side with a lightning teleportation, Yuki and Seiren joining him soon enough. The defense of Vega was left to King, Exo and Tokura, the match-up for the two secret weapons and their protectors being almost too ideal in Hikaru’s opinion.

Only time would tell if this was destiny or not. There was no room left for distraction at the moment, however, as someone needed to keep the villains away from Martian Class #1’s scarlet calamity while she prepared her finishing move.

Yuki immediately shielded Reimei in a full-body spiky ice armor by directing one of her palms at her, the amnesiac’s other palm being directed at the coming deviants, using an attack like Exo’s from earlier where she made huge ice blades come out of the sand and pierce or cut them. They all enveloped themselves in energy of different colors, though the most prominent color was white, teleporting away from or breaking the ice to reach its creator.

Others were befallen by Seiren’s wild barrage of vermllion firework projectiles that turned into minihydra heads before hitting ther targets, each one causing a more glorious explosion than the next. Several soldiers still managed to teleport right next to him, their minityphoons of multi-colored energy needles being countered by the explosive hydra wings and tail the pervert had created on his back and under his waist.

Hikaru himself tried electrocuting a few opponents, but they all managed to dodge his lightning with a very fast energy-type teleportation, at the same time many others launching chains that were also made of energy from the side. The mad genius managed to break them apart by unleashing a wide-range electric pulse, the cost of that being quite a bit of pain. Apparently he had subconsciously gone beyond a 50% output – his current painless limit – due to getting carried away. The boy was distracted enough by this to be successfully chained-up after a second attempt, by the time he felt the grip of the chains around his torso tightening, the enemies that had teleported away from this first attack moving past him. 

Someone needed to stop them, but Yuki and Seiren were plenty busy in their own right. Exo had covered Vega in metal plates while raising walls and different cold weapons of his deva all around to protect the drunkard, King and Tokura both fighting enemy deviants and moving in the way of attacks meant for their secret weapon or teleporting those attacks away. No one else could defend Reimei now and she was the key to the success of this whole plan. The plan Hikaru had thought of. If he wasn’t willing to risk everything to ensure it would work, who would?

That’s what he thought as he consciously released as much power as he was able to, trying to prepare his body for the suffering that was soon to come as best as he could. The same suffering that had wrecked every single one of his cells when he had fought Hock during the Class Battle. With his current power level, going at a 100% for a short period of time would be sufficient to do what needed to be done, but that still amounted to an immense amount of strain. Strain that was to be suffered not long after Hikaru’s recovery, making it all the more risky.

But there was no better way to help Miss Scarlettail, so he focused his will on battling the agony that threatened to immediately render him unconscious once he felt it long enough to utilize his increased abilities. His extremely dense white lightning cloak steadied itself while his hair became spikier, his eyes turning into orbs of whie lightning and his skin and little amount of clothes starting to burn. The chains around his body were shattered into oblivion, their creators being slammed in the sand with a crack of thunder, the next one being heard over the heads of Reimei’s attackers.

The burned bolt descended upon them with a roar that was a mixture of all his pain, all his anger and all his will, those being pooled together to lead to the manifestation of hundreds of gigantic lightning halberds. The soldiers sensed the coming weapons, some of them turning around to prepare a blocking wall while the rest moved forward. All ended up being swept away by the defeaning ministorm the spears brought with them within seconds, their bodies being impaled all around Reimei with not one having been able to reach her.

Hikaru’s smoking body fell at her feet as the last bolt of lightning died away, his output being decreased right after that, partially because the young Summerbolt had willed it, but also because he didn’t have the stamina to sustain such output any longer. The shouting of the combatants, the roar of the blasts, the crushing of the waves – all of it sounded muffled to his ears, his vision being blurry, his nose barely being able to distinguish any smell and his mouth – any taste. The only clearly discernable sensation for the young man was the torment his skin and everything underneath it was going through, that being made worse by the rough sand adhering to his burned flesh.

He didn’t know it it had been worth it at that moment. He forgot what he had even been trying to do in the first place. Only the pain was real to him and it showed no signs of going away. Not until it rent his soul from his body.

The burned bolt’s vision suddenly cleared, but that was mostly due to shock rather than his condition improving as the white lieutenant colonel leading the deviant soldier force jumped at Reimei from the side, having managed to go through all other defenses placed in his path. The last line of defense was the mad genius’ eternal rival who landed between the villain and his target mere seconds before he managed to grab her, the sleeve on his left arm and the stocking on his lower left leg melting away.

Tangerine and flaming fireworks flowed from the black flesh covered with cracks under those articles of clothing, mixing with the pervert’s vermillion fireworks to form five hydra heads in a circle. As all the heads blasted forth explosive roars from their mouths, those triple-firework attacks were mixed with a roar that came from Seiren’s very mouth through the inside of the circle, all six seeming to eradicate the villain or at least to send him far enough to not be visible at all.

The young Blackscale fell right next to Hikaru then, having suffered haemorrhages and burns as well, both of them seeing the skies darken above them while registering something was falling from that darkness. The source of the darkness were actually the massive waves Reimei had summoned, drops of water from them falling down when her attack was unleashed at the same time as pale green energy burst at the other end of the battlefield.

The roar of the waves was even more deafening than that of the ministorm Hikaru had created to protect the scarlet-haired beauty a minute ago, being empowered by all the energy Vega had released and consuming the undead hordes. Due to the water of the waves taking on a much brighter hue of green after the drunkard’s energy reserve was channeled through it, one could see all that transpired within.

In the present every attempt of the soldiers to escape was thwarted by the water cocoons formed around the silhouette of each of them, the water inside the cocoons taking the shape of multiple rings. Those rings cut them up, the pale green energy put inside each cocoon making holes of the eyes of the victim there as its body cracked and disappeared amid pale green light. Thus, the secret weapons’ combined attack came to an end, the eternal rivals looking and smiling at the other during the aftermath.

(Hikaru) ‘-Look at you. Déjà vu from the Class Battle, eh, Blackscale?’

(Seiren) ‘-I didn’t blow myself up this time, Summerbolt, so I’m ahead of you.’

(Hikaru) ‘-The hell with it. I’ll let you have this one so long as the plan has worked.’

As the two kept smiling, Hikaru wondered how bad his state was this time, considering he still couldn’t hear cheering from any of his friends and at least one of them (Vega) was bound to cheer hard and loud. When he heard someone’s voice, he realized that sadly his senses were coming back to normal and the now interrupted silence around had been caused by something else.

The reason was the mass shock the hot heads were overtaken by, observing the white lieutenant colonel stepping forward amid the smoke left as a memory of Vega and Reimei’s attack without a scratch on him, apparently Seiren’s attack from earlier now having hurt him as well. What was worse, a number of soldiers around were also unharmed, all of them having clad themselves in immense amounts of white energy, pale-green-colored veins having appeared on their skin, their eyes having burst in energy of the same color. The lieutenant colonel in particular had one of his arms held in a sort of blocking gesture, the other having injected the contents of a syringe in the side of his neck. Whatever that syringe contained, it was the likely cause for the change in appearance the villain and his men had undergone as well as what had helped them survive that last attack.

(The White Lieutenant Colonel) ‘-You didn’t think you’re the only ones with aces up your sleeve, did you?’