Eraser: "She was not Gomi."
Yuna: "I know that already!"
Eraser: "I mean physically. She was just some random teenager who looked a little like her."
Mitone: "So she was cosplaying as Gomi?"
Yuna: "What did she want from me?"
Eraser: "Probably the same thing those kidnappers wanted."
Yuna: "What was that white thing that flew out of her?"
Eraser: "An essence, maybe?"
Mitone: "Her soul?"
Yuna: "Ugh..."
Mitone: "Hey, it's okay. You couldn't catch it for a reason. It had an escape plan."
Yuna: "An escape plan? Then what's the point in trying to approach me anyway?"
Mitone: "Maybe it thought you were naive?"
Eraser: "Or it was just dumb enough."
Yuna: "We have to do something."
Mitone: "It's probably nothing serious. If it were, Unizard and Ria would do something."
Yuna: "You trust them that much? They're not heroes, they're lazy! Lazy people aren't qualified to be heroes!"
Mitone: "About that, I have something to cheer you up."
He took them to a room. There were several crates, with three bottles on top of one of them.
Mitone: "Ria rewarded us with 7-Up doses."
Yuna: "Wait, really?"
Mitone: "She said we were worthy."
Yuna: "And who is she to decide who is worthy or not?"
Eraser: "What's the level?"
Mitone: "Mine is 4, yours is 5, and Yuna's is 6."
Eraser: "Do you think our bodies can take that much?"
Yuna: "As you said, Ria will save us if we are in mortal danger. Let's dig in."
They drank the potions from thermoses. They winced in pain, but after a while their bodies and minds adjusted.
Mitone: "We can now defend ourselves."
Yuna: "The enemy must also be prepared."
Mitone: "Hey, relax just a little. Living in constant paranoia is a pain in the ass."
Yuna: "And let them kidnap one of us again?"
Eraser: "Yuna, if I may ask, what did they want from you?"
Yuna: "The 7-Ex... why didn't it work at the factory?"
At a garage...
Yoroi: "Masara 'Yoroi' Jinichi, reporting for duty!"
Sunshield: "Katsudou Satome, hero name Sunshield. You're a Level 5, right?"
Yoroi: "Correct! I'm here to help you on your mission!"
Sunshield: "Our job is to protect this truck that contains a special blend of 7-Up. However, we cannot draw any attention to ourselves."
Yoroi: "Is that why you're not wearing your armor?"
Sunshield: "Correct. But my sword and shield are in the truck, in case we need to fight."
Yoroi: "That's great! My equipment only appears when I die, so I don't have to worry about being discreet!"
Sunshield: "Let's hope none of us need to activate their power."
Yoroi and Sunshield were the Level 5 and 6 heroes called to investigate the massacre at the abandoned building committed by Tatsuya. Yoroi was a red-haired boy in casual clothes. Sunshield was a blond knight woman with blue eyes.
They got into the truck, with Sunshield on the steering wheel.
Yoroi: "Do you know how to drive a truck?"
Sunshield: "My 7-Up helped me learn the basics."
They left the garage and took the avenue. It was night.
Yoroi: "That's awesome! I was a little nervous about this mission since it was top secret, but now I feel safe having you on our side!"
Sunshield: "Don't get your hopes high, boy. I'm not a Level 7."
Yoroi: "There's no way the enemy would be able to take both us down. Wait, can't people recognize us if they look at the truck?"
Sunshield: "The windows are tinted. But if we have to go out, it's better to wear normal clothes."
Yoroi: "I see. Well, no one would know that our truck is carrying special cargo, right?"
Sunshield: "That's one of the objectives of this mission. To identify the enemy. If we can't fight, we must run."
Yoroi: "Hey, do you think that creature over there looks suspicious?"
A few hundred meters ahead, there was a strange monster standing. It was brown and had an elongated head forward, like an anteater, but with several eyes on the sides. Its mouth was watering and it was bound by chains around its wrists. Beside it was a cloaked man holding his chains.
Sunshield narrowed her eyes in concentration.
Sunshield: "Act naturally. They may be able to see through the windshield."
The two mysterious men were blocking traffic. Several military vehicles were waiting in front of them. As the truck passed, the monster grabbed the front of the vehicle and flipped it over.
The soldiers began shooting at them. The monster advanced and pierced through all the reinforced vehicles, causing them to explode and setting the road on fire. The hooded man swung his hand and the soldiers' heads revolved around their axes and then left their bodies.
Sunshield grabbed her sword and shield and kicked the door above her open. Yoroi followed her. They stared at the monster for a few seconds, assessing its power level.
It began to scream, causing a small earthquake nearby. Then, it almost instantly charged towards Sunshield, who blocked its attack with her shield, causing the metal to vibrate and sending them in opposite directions.
Sunshield: "What is this strength? It can easily be considered a Level 5..."
Beneath their feet, a magical circle appeared. Sunshield quickly advanced towards the cloaked mage and swung her sword when close enough.
The old man effortlessly grabbed the blade and smashed it into tiny pieces. Even so, the blow hit his face, causing a small cut. While he was stunned, she slammed onto his body with her shield.
The monster tried to throw a punch with both hands from above. Yoroi dodged it and kicked it towards a building with little force so as not to kill anyone inside.
The monster got up and advanced so fast that he couldn't react in time. He was hit, as were dozens of buildings in his path, causing enormous chaos.
Yoroi died the first time. The red armor activated. It was futuristic, metallic, and didn't cover his head. He jumped and threw a fireball from his hand, causing an atomic explosion, which didn't stop the monster from jumping and punching him with full force.
Yoroi fell to the street and punched the ground to slow his momentum. Then, the asphalt turned into lava, which gushed into the sky. The berserker didn't stop running. He then fired two solar beams, trying to slow the monster. Still, it wasn't enough.
Sunshield threw her shield at the mage and slid across the ground to kick his legs. A spike pierced her leg from below. She punched the ground and pulled it toward her, causing a huge block of asphalt to tilt. The mage lost his balance and fell.
She destroyed the thorn and fell, trying to hit him in the face, but he dodged by rolling to the side. He cast a magic circle that hit her and pushed her against a building, quickly destroying it.
She pierced the circle with both hands, dealing damage to the mage while also activating her power to replicate the attack on his face again. His head was knocked back, but he still threw an ice spear and made the circle disappear. It hit Sunshield, freezing her and everything for kilometers.
Yoroi's second armor was activated. This time, it was white, aesthetically similar.
Yoroi: "I'm sure Sunshield can survive on her own for a few minutes... I have to run and ask for help."
As he turned and started running, the berserker chased after him. It was keeping pace until Yoroi sped up his step. He was moving at ten times the speed of sound. Suddenly, a huge translucent wall swept through the city, sweeping away all the buildings for dozens of kilometers.
Yoroi crashed into the wall, losing consciousness for a few seconds. He woke up to the monster punching him in the head repeatedly. He held one of the fists with both hands, struggling to win with sheer strength. The berserker tried to hit him with the other hand, but Yoroi dodged it by moving his head to the side.
He then kicked the monster's body up into the air with both legs. He also jumped up and threw it back to the ground with a punch, creating a huge crater. He no longer cared about the casualties. He began running circles around the monster to disorient it. At first, it followed it with its eyes, but it became confused.
Yoroi threw thousands of debris at it, which it dodged with increasing difficulty. The speed was so intense that a tornado formed, causing everything around to fly away.
The monster punched the ground with both hands and tore off a chunk of asphalt. Then it swung it around in the hopes of hitting the boy. Yoroi charged toward him, dragging him through the city for dozens of kilometers.
Sunshield melted the ice, raising her body temperature. The mage was distracted, so she took the opportunity and punched him in the head, repeating the same damage with her power. He was thrown across the city, landing inside a restaurant.
There were people inside. He drained all the blood from their bodies and fired millions of blood bullets at Sunshield, who was coming at full speed. She deflected the attacks with her shield, which she swung in the air and hit his head again, causing another cut and rendered him unconscious for a moment.
She didn't waste a second and threw a few extremely powerful punches at his face. Without her noticing, he casted his blood dripping on the ground into a spear and impaled her from behind. The attack disturbed her concentration, so her next punch ended up pushing the mage away.
Yoroi lost his second armor. Now it was time for the third and final one.
Yoroi: "No matter how fast or strong I am, this thing always beats me! It adjusts to my level before I can deal enough damage..."
His final armor was black. He took a slow breath and narrowed his eyes.
Yoroi: "In hero training, they teach you not to care about casualties as long as you do your duty. Now I understand why that rule exists."
He jumped into the sky and immediately threw a black hole that consumed the city as it passed. The monster was about to jump at him regardless, but the mage quickly summoned a storm above Yoroi and casted a huge lightning on him, stunning him for a few seconds.
The berserker dodged the black hole and threw a skyscraper at him, entered the building while it was still in the air and tried to punch the hero, who grabbed it with a his fist and crushed it. He then punched the monster in the stomach, sending it to the other side of the city and releasing a black laser that cut through the skyline.
The wizard was quick enough to pull the monster down with a magical whip. He made all the nearby buildings levitate and threw them at the boy, who jumped from one to the other until he reached the old man, who clasped his hands together and teleported behind Yoroi, landing a surprise punch on his head.
The hero didn't budge. Instead, everything around him suddenly disappeared and turned into darkness. The old man managed to teleport away. Yoroi was standing on a small area of land that remained from his own attack.
The berserker slammed into his body, grabbing his neck and dragging him through the city for a hundred kilometers, until the hero tried to grab his arm. The creature, however, was replaced by the mage, who was about to strike his eye with a holy sword.
Yoroi tried to block the eye, but then the old man attacked the other, piercing it and hitting his brain, killing him for the third time. Anticipating a counterattack, he and the monster teleported away. A chunk of the city was swallowed by a black hole that came out of his body.
They vanished for a moment. Jinichi was still alive, as this was the last resurrection of the cycle. He had to wait a minute for his power to work again. However, he was tired. He was in the middle of the huge hole.
He felt presences lurking in the shadows. As he turned, the mage appeared behind him and decapitated him with the holy sword, killing him permanently this time.