Ryusuke let go of the radio button with an amused grin. That Hyrin… He was pretty sure she came from the same place he did, which meant she had the potential to make it pretty far, but he had never in his wildest dreams imagined that she’d be able to survive against a humanoid.

How did she even do it? There was no way she could’ve won if she had fought it, so that was out of the question. Then what? She won it over somehow by being interesting? He wouldn’t exactly put it past her, she was interesting, but she was also stubborn and kind of blunt. He couldn’t imagine a lot of intelligent enemies loving to have to put up with that, much less spare her life because of it.

He sighed and turned the radio to a different frequency.

“Ley.”

“Yessir,” his Vice Captain immediately responded the way she always did.

“I need you to get everyone out of here.” He lowered his hand as a true monster landed at the end of the street, right in front of the sky class drake he had just defeated. It straightened itself, its purple eyes lighting up in between the dust and smoke.

“Captain Harumi…”

He barely ever heard Ley’s voice tremble. It sounded cute.

“I’m sorry, Ley,” he told her, tightening the grip on his heavy sword, “but that’s an order. I’m the only one who can stop this thing, so I’ll be the only one fighting it.” He clenched his jaw. “Don’t get in my way.”

“Y… yessir.”

He lowered his hand and welcomed his opponent with the kind of smug grin he knew people hated.

“A humanoid class, just for me,” he said in a sugary sweet voice, although he couldn’t stop a cold shiver from running down his spine. Even from this distance, he could feel a pressure pushing down on him, warning him just how strong this monster was.

“It’s been a few years since I faced one of you,” he added. “Got a name or anything you wanna tell me before I end your miserable life?”

The humanoid stopped about five meters away from him, his purple eyes quietly, slowly moving over him.

“You should use that to say goodbye to your loved ones,” it told him in a weirdly human voice, his gaze focused on the radio around Ryusuke’s neck.

“Why would I say goodbye to someone I’ll be seeing again in a second?” Ryusuke scoffed, although he made a mental note that this humanoid knew what a radio was and what it was used for. How much more did it know about humans? About the D.A.F.? It had known exactly which team to target to get in the way of finishing the sky class drake, even if it had messed up and they had managed to do their job anyway.

Before he killed them all, he thought, clenching his fist around his sword.

“You seem a little tense,” the humanoid grinned. “Don’t worry, this’ll be over with a squeeze and a bang.”

“A what and a what?” Ryusuke repeated with a snort and tilted his head. “Are you hitting on me?”

The humanoid burst out laughing, pressing his hands against his narrow stomach. “Now wouldn’t that be interesting?” It asked, still chuckling.

The Captain raised his sword. “I’m done with this now,” he answered coldly. “If you’re not interested in talking, I’m going to carve out your heart and cut it to pieces.”

The humanoid shot forward, appearing right behind Ryusuke in a flash of a second, a small ball of fire already in his hand. The Captain disappeared, popping back up a few meters farther, swinging around so he could see the humanoid’s shocked face. It didn’t even seem surprised, however.

“Teleportation is pretty rare among drakes,” it told him with a tilted head. “You must have mowed your way through a lot to finally find one that had it so you could absorb it.”

Ryusuke scoffed. “You pissed off I killed a bunch of your friends?”

The humanoid burst out laughing. “Friends?” It repeated, still snickering. “These mindless drones?” He pointed his thumb to the sky class behind him. “Why would I care if they die? We just use them for grunt work, we can always make more.”

“Make?” Ryusuke repeated and the humanoid pressed his long-fingered hand against his mouth, as if had said too much, although the amused look in his eyes told Ryusuke he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I take it that with grunt work you mean destroying our cities and terrorizing our people?” Ryusuke asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could. “If they got that covered for you, then why did you suddenly decide to show your ugly face?”

The humanoid narrowed those big, purple eyes and Ryusuke shuddered.

“Because somebody keeps getting in our way,” he answered in a low voice. “Do you know what someone like you is called in our neck of the woods?”

Ryusuke gave him a crooked grin. “A handsome strong hero?”

“A problem.” The humanoid rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. “And I’m someone that was promoted to fix problems.”

“Promoted?”

The humanoid shrugged. “Well, technically I was allowed to absorb one of your little buddies before coming here.” He pointed at his left eye. “A lady with a scar running from here to here. A real loud one.” He grabbed his head with a groan. “I can still hear her screaming in here even now. That’s gonna take some time to calm down.”

Ryusule gasped softly, images of Relra, the captain of the waterbase flashing through his mind.

“You’re lying,” he whispered in a low voice, although something told him that it wasn’t. But how? Relra was strong. Stronger than him. She was faster, smarter, had more experience as a captain. How often hadn’t he challenged her during their training and lost?

Before he even realized it, he moved one foot slightly back, as if getting ready to retreat. Relra had the kind of water based powers that they probably needed to defeat this monster’s fire power. If she had lost to him…

“Aahahah,” the humanoid moaned and sucked air in through his teeth as if he were trying to taste it. “That fear…” he groaned and suddenly shut forward, slamming his fist against Ryusuke’s chest, sending him flying.

Unable to move, to even activate his teleportation, Ryusuke slammed into one of the buildings surrounding them. His back hit the concrete, the force of his speed making him spread out flat against it. He heard the sound of glass shattering and concrete cracking and breaking as he got pushed several centimeters into the outer wall before he actually came to a stop. 

His entire body felt so broken he was scared to even try to move his arm, but somehow he still managed to push it forward, pulling it out of the concrete and using it to push himself out completely, falling to the ground.

What are you even doing, you moron? He cursed himself as he got to his knees, leaning on his sword. Somehow, his legs weren’t broken, neither were his arms. He was pretty sure several bones were covered in fractures, but he would still be able to move.

“Are you realizing the mistake you made when you picked teleportation over super speed?” The humanoid came to a stop right before him in a flash, leaning in to whisper in his ear, his arm already stretched behind him, ready to send him flying again.

This time, though, Ryusuke avoided it, feeling the blast of air pressure rush right past his face before he jumped up and sent a burst of flames into his sword, which lit up like a bonfire. The humanoid immediately jumped back, stopping a few meters away from him.

“Yeah,” Ryusuke grinned to hide the pain he felt all over his body, “super speed seems to have the upper hand since you don’t have to calculate where to appear safely, I suppose, but teleportation isn’t the only trick I’ve gathered over the years.”

He slammed his sword down on the street, sending a line of fire towards the humanoid, who jumped away from it, leaving his back open for Ryusuke to teleport to and swing his sword against the monster’s legs.

The humanoid screamed as one of its legs flew off, while the other one stayed attached with nothing but a few muscle fibers. The monster fell to the ground and Ryusuke pushed his sword down, intending to stab it straight through the humanoid’s heart, but before the point even reached its chest, its half attached leg had already regenerated and he swung it up, kicking Ryusuke against his side, sending him flying for a second time.

Still in the air, the humanoid appeared behind him, slamming his fist down on his back, slamming him in the street.

He groaned as he bounced off it, rolling over a few times, his sword still smoldering on the asphalt where he had dropped it. 

He forced himself to slow his breathing, focusing all his energy on his regeneration. Something inside of him was bleeding profusely, he could tell by the way the world spun around him, by how blurry his vision got, and how tired he suddenly felt.

“Why isn’t this regenerating as fast as it should?” The humanoid jumped on an abandoned car a few meters away from Ryusuke, the roof creaking and bending under the weight of that landing, and pointed at the leg he had lost. It had started growing a new one. A sparkly white bone stuck out halfway from his right knee, flesh, blood vessels, muscles, and tendons forming around it, but Ryusuke was pretty sure that under normal circumstances, that leg would have fully grown back a mere few seconds after it had been cut off.

He snickered and pushed himself up. The bleeding had stopped and his vision had become somewhat clear again. His regeneration probably wasn’t as fast as this monster’s was, but it was still faster than most drakes he encountered. The downside, however, was that it took much more energy than any of his other powers. He wouldn’t be able to keep going like this for much longer.

He disappeared from where he was standing, wanting to reappear right next to his sword to grab onto it, but the humanoid wasn’t stupid. It had asked a question it had already known the answer to. 

It jumped to the sword a flash of a second before Ryusuke appeared and grabbed it, picking it up as easily as if it were just a toy sword, even though Ryusuke always had to use his absorbed strength to lift it and swing it around, despite all his training.

“Is it the sword itself?” the Humanoid asked, inspecting it up close. “Or the fire you poured into it.” It pressed his finger against the still glowing blade and pulled it back with a hiss. “The fire, then.”

He looked up at Ryusuke with an amused grin. “But look what I can do now.” He put the sword’s point on the street and water suddenly streamed down from the hand he held it with. It ran down the blade, hissing and turning to vapor as the smoldering glow disappeared, turning it into a regular sword again.

He lifted it up and swung it back, letting go while casually staring Ryusuke in the eye. The sword flew back, cutting through the wall of a nearby building and disappearing inside as half the building crashed down around it.

“Now,” the humanoid turned back to Ryusuke with a loving smile, “time for you and I to become one in a beautiful, intimate moment.”

Ryusuke shuddered and moved back. “That’s the most disgusting way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.” He jumped forward. “Although I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on that super speed of yours!” He swung his fist and hit it against the humanoid’s chest.

The humanoid didn’t even blink. It burst out laughing, fireballs appearing in his hand, until suddenly, three enormous cuts tore his torso in four pieces.

Ryusuke straightened his back, raising his head so he could look down on the humanoid. “You thought I needed my sword to be able to cut you?” He asked with a sneer. “You should have done your research about what I exactly absorbed before you dared to face me, scum.”

His eyes moved over the torn apart humanoid. Only one of those cuts had torn through his heart, but it didn’t matter. When they got torn apart like this, Ryusuke knew they couldn’t regenerate by putting the pieces back together, they had to regenerate from their hearts.

He grabbed the piece of its body that had one half of its heart and set it ablaze, already jumping towards the other part when two balls of white hot fire hit his shoulder and left arm. He cried out and jumped back, the fire burning so hot that his arm instantly melted away.

“You will pay for this,” the humanoid hissed as a small, brick class drake appeared from the smoke behind him, taking the part of its torso that still had the intact half of its heart in it in his mouth and running away.

“No!” Ryusuke bit away his pain and ran after him. He teleported toward it, but the little monster was almost as fast as the humanoid had been, slipping right out of his reach.

“I’ll be back for you soon, my next meal!” The humanoid’s head still screamed behind him, even though the drake class that carried his heart had already disappeared.