Kenji
He stood back-to-back with Wendy, his chest heaving as he deflected another salvo of razor wires with a sharp flick of his hand.
The wires sparked and hissed, carving deep gouges into the ground where his feet had been a second ago.
"Himeko, how long until you get here?! We need reinforcements!" Kenji desperately yelled at the comms.
"Himeko?! Theresa?!"
But all he got was a harsh noise that filled his earpiece. He tapped the comms unit frantically, but there was nothing.
"They're probably jamming the comms," Wendy yelled as she summed another wind current to divert a barrage of missiles.
"We can't keep playing defense!" Kenji shouted over the roar of the engines. He ducked under a wildly swinging mechanical arm from a normal mech, smashing his heel into its knee joint with a sickening crunch of metal.
"We can hold off the normal mechs until backup gets here, but the Aesir is too dangerous. We need to destroy it first!"
He glared straight at the Aesir Titan towering over the backline. It was a monolith of destruction, its red eye scanning the battlefield.
"Cover me!"
Kenji dashed forward. He channeled One For All, red lightning crackling across his skin as the red veins flared to life.
'Full body 60%'
He kicked off the ground, pushing against the pain that was tearing his body apart. The concrete shattering beneath his feet, and he launched himself like a bullet toward the Aesir Titan.
The distance closed in a fraction of a second. The massive machine tracked him, raising a heavy arm to block his path, but Kenji was already winding up, twisting his hips to maximize the torque.
'SMASH!'
His fist collided with the Titan's body.
BOOM!
The impact should have crumpled the steel like wet paper. Instead, a deep thrum vibrated through Kenji's arm. The air around the impact point rippled like water, and the metal didn't even dent.
Kenji's eyes widened. 'Even 60%—?!'
The kinetic energy he had poured into the strike reversed. The Aesir's shield flared with a red hue, and a shockwave blasted outward from the point of contact.
"Gah!"
Kenji was hurled backward by his own power, tumbling through the air before he managed to flip and skid to a halt, his boots carving deep trenches into the dirt. His right arm throbbed with a searing pain.
"My attacks aren't working!" Kenji yelled, shaking the numbness from his hand. "Cocolia must have built it to counter my attacks specifically. My physical attacks are useless!"
"I don't think it's physical attacks, more like it's absorbing and redirecting Kinetic energy," Wendy noted, landing beside him. Her eyes narrowed as she analyzed the airflow around the giant machine.
"It's shielding itself with a kinetic dampening field. Punching it is useless unless you can hit harder than it can absorb."
Kenji's eye twitched in annoyance. 'This thing is my version of All Might's Nomu?! Are you fucking kidding me?!'
The thought did cross his mind to just try and overload the Aesir's Kinetic Dampening Field. But he decided against it.
One, because he could potentially flatten half the facility with a 100% punch, and his friends would get caught in the attack. The second reason is that even if he beats the Aesir, there's no telling how many more mechs Anti-Entropy has in reserve. It was just too risky.
"Great. Just great," Kenji muttered, watching the Titan vent superheated steam. "Wendy, I can't afford to use my full power right now. It would literally blow up all my limbs and shatter every single one of my bones."
Wendy actually flinched at his graphic description, "You really have a strange power… So what's the plan then?"
In response, Kenji actually smirked. "Since it absorbs kinetic energy, we just need another way to beat it."
He turned to look at her, "Remember those wind blades you threw at me before?" Wendy nodded before her eyes widened as she finally realized what he was asking for. "I need you to charge up one strong enough to cut right through the mech. Can you do it?"
Wendy's expression hardened, a flicker of the Herrscher's arrogance surfacing in her smile. "Give me one minute. I'll slice that mech clean in half."
"You got it!"
Kenji burst forward again, with the Aesir and surrounding mechs immediately locking onto him. But this time he didn't aim for a direct hit. He became a red blur, zig-zagging wildly across the battlefield.
He vaulted off the other mech's heads, crushing some along the way, dodging missiles and lasers before running along the side of a ruined pillar, avoiding another gravity attack, and leaping directly into the Titan's face.
The Aesir roared, its single red eye frantically tracking the lightning-fast target. It swiped at him, smashing and crushing smaller mechs in a desperate attempt to swat the fly buzzing around its head.
"Over here, you ugly tincan!" Kenji yelled. He smeared some mud on its single eye just to annoy it, then immediately backflipped away as a laser beam scorched the space he had occupied a millisecond before.
"Too slow! I thought Anti-Entropy was better than this?!"
The Titan, provoked, opened its missile pods. Dozens of warheads locked onto Kenji. He grinned nervously, sweat beading on his forehead.
'Not this again. Wendy, hurry up!'
While the Aesir focused its entire arsenal on the boy, the air pressure behind it plummeted.
Wendy floated motionless twenty meters in the air, her eyes glowing a brilliant, terrifying emerald.
The wind wasn't swirling anymore. It compressed and created a gale strong enough to disrupt any attack that came flying towards her.
She pulled the atmosphere taut, condensing a hurricane's worth of pressure into a single, razor-thin blade between her palms. The sound was a high-pitched shriek of air being pushed beyond its limits.
"Kenji, get down!"
Immediately after Kenji heard her, he slammed his foot into the ground, halting his momentum, and dropped flat against the pavement.
"Wind Blade!"
Wendy thrust her hands forward.
The blade screamed through the air. It was a blur of distorted light, moving so fast it was barely visible.
It bypassed the Titan's kinetic shield entirely, slicing through the air resistance and the metal with equal indifference.
It struck the Aesir Titan's right shoulder, the arm preparing to fire another salvo of lasers.
There was no explosion—just a clean, silent shing.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the Titan's massive mechanical arm slowly slid off its torso.
It crashed to the ground with an earth-shaking THUD, sparks spewing from the severed joint like a fountain of molten blood. The Titan staggered, its balance thrown off by the sudden loss of mass.
"Hell yeah!" Kenji cheered, scrambling back to his feet, adrenaline coursing through him. "That's what I'm talking about! Wendy, get ready to make another—"
He turned to give her another signal, but the words died in his throat.
Wendy wasn't celebrating. She had dropped to one knee, clutching her chest. Her face was pale, her forehead drenched in sweat.
The green glow in her eyes flickered and dimmed. That single attack had drained a massive amount of Honkai energy, far more than her already worn out body could handle.
"That… Took a lot more… Than I expected…" she wheezed.
Kenji's celebration turned to cold dread. They had taken an arm, but the Titan was still standing—and now their heavy hitter was running on fumes.
"Wendy!" He started to move toward her, but the ground shook violently.
The Aesir Titan righted itself. It ignored the sparks showering from its severed shoulder. Its single red eye swiveled, locking onto the girl who had hurt it.
Across the battlefield, Kiana and Mei fought side by side against Bronya and the army of mechs. But he could see with a glance that they were getting worn out. There were too many enemies to fight off, and they were losing stamina.
A jolt through his head made him quickly spin around just as the Titan raised its remaining fist. The air warped around it, gravity intensifying into a crushing singularity.
"Watch out!" He yelled just in time to alert Wendy as the two jumped back, avoiding the blow. The impact exploded the ground, creating a shockwave that slammed into them.
Kenji was thrown backward, tumbling across the debris. But he quickly got back on his feet, his vision swimming, just in time to see Wendy take the brunt of the aftershock.
She was lifted off her feet and hurled into a stone pillar. Her head snapped back with a sickening crack, and she crumpled to the ground, completely motionless.
"Wendy!" He quickly ran towards her just in time to send a shockwave at the missiles targeted at her.
The wind around the battlefield slowly started to fickle out, and the team suddenly lost their only support. Without Wendy's help, maneuvering across the battlefield became much harder, and the mechs quickly noticed this.
They surged forward, sensing the weakness. Lasers and missiles poured into the gap, forcing Kiana and Mei to abandon their positions and dive for cover near Kenji.
"They just keep coming!" Kiana panted, skidding to a halt beside him, her face streaked with dirt and sweat. "Where's Himeko?! Why isn't she answering?!"
"Comms jammed," Kenji said, his voice grim. He looked at Wendy's unconscious form, then at the army closing in. "We're on our own."
The Aesir Titan loomed over them, its red eye glowing. It raised its arm again, preparing another gravity attack.
He looked at the Titan. He looked at the ring of mechs. He looked at his friends, battered and cornered.
'Come on, come on! Think! There has to be a way out of this. Maybe we could try running away? No, too many mechs and we're already worn out. We also can't brute force our way through… Fuck!'
There was no other way out. They had used every card they had available… Except—!
The change of failure was high, but it was better than getting captured.
'Don't fail me now, OFA.'
He grabbed Wendy, hoisting her limp form onto his shoulder. He turned to Kiana and Mei, his eyes burning with a reckless, desperate fire.
"Guys, grab onto my body," he ordered.
Kiana blinked. "What?"
"Just grab on! Now!!"
They didn't argue. Kiana grabbed his left arm, and Mei grabbed his right. They clung to him, confused at what his plan was.
Kenji took a deep breath. He focused on the power in his legs, pushing past the pain, past the exhaustion, and focused into the deepest depths of One For All.
He summoned the feeling he had felt only a few times before, in the simulation room—the sensation of defying gravity.
"Here goes nothing!"
With a roar of effort, Kenji exploded upward. The ground beneath them shattered as they rocketed into the sky.
He had used only 50%, but without gravity's invisible hand dragging him back, he shot upward with ease similar to 90%. He didn't lose an ounce of speed. It didn't take long before the mechs were nothing but ants beneath them.
"KenjiwhattheFUCK?!"
"You'd better know what you're doing!!"
The wind whipped past their faces, tearing at their clothes. Kiana screamed, her eyes squeezing shut. Mei gasped, her grip tightening on his arm.
They kept rising. Higher and higher. Through the clouds until the facility was far enough below them.
Then, they stopped rising. But they strangely didn't fall.
They hung suspended in the sky, drifting like a cloud.
Kiana opened one eye, then the other. She looked down at her feet, dangling over nothing but air. She looked at Kenji, who was gritting his teeth, sweat pouring down his face as he held them aloft.
"Since when..." Kiana whispered, her voice trembling with awe and terror at the height. "Since when can you fly?!"
"I'm floating, actually! And technically just now, since I never got it to work before!"
"You mean you could have killed us?!"
"Better me than Anti-Entropy!"
"I can't believe you!" Mei shouted, but her voice was also tinged with a laugh of relief. They were finally able to breathe without being pressed by dozens of enemies.
Below them, the ruin of the facility shrank far enough that he was sure that the mechs couldn't get them. Kenji gritted his teeth, making sure not to ease his grip on his friends even a little.
He was suspended in the air, buffeted by high-altitude winds that tore at his clothes and roared in his ears.
Float was clumsy. It wasn't the effortless levitation he'd expected. Every gust of wind threatened to flip him over, every movement required a conscious, straining effort of will.
"Don't let go!" he shouted, though the wind snatched the words away.
"We're definitely not letting go!" Mei yelled back, her face pale as she looked down at the drop.
Kiana, however, was looking up, and Kenji felt Danger Sense jolt once again.
"Uh, Kenji?" she said, her voice tight. "We've got company."
Kenji craned his neck.
Emerging from the clouds above them were five shapes. They weren't the bulky ground mechs.
These were streamlined, winged drones—Anti-Entropy's air superiority units. Their engines burned with blue ion trails as they banked toward the floating group, missile pods opening.
"Oh, come on!" Kenji cursed. He tried to move his body, but only managed to run in place. He forgot that Float wasn't exactly flying.
'Shit!'
He quickly flicked his finger, sending a shockwave that sent them flying to the left as the first missile streaked past, missing them by feet.
The explosion buffeted them as the drones pursued them.
"I can't control this!" Kenji yelled, fighting the vertigo. "It's too hard with three of you!"
He looked at Wendy, still limp on his shoulder. He needed her. She was the only one who actually knew how to fly.
"Wendy! Wake up!" He shouted as Kiana and Mei both tried to shake her awake. "Wendy!"
She groaned, her eyes fluttering open. They were hazy, unfocused. She looked at him, then at the open sky around them.
Confusion flickered across her face, followed by a sudden panic as she realized she wasn't on the ground.
"What the hell!"
"We're in the air!" Kenji shouted as another laser bolt sizzled past his ear. "We're being chased! I can't outrun them! I need you!"
Wendy's gaze sharpened. She saw the drones diving for another pass. Kenji felt her slowly rise from his shoulder.
"All right, I'm ready."
"Be careful!" Kenji hesitated for a fraction of a second before he finally released her.
Just as he did, Wendy slipped from his grip and started falling from the sky. But the wind caught her instantly, and the glowing green wings appeared on her back once more as powerful winds manifested at her presence.
The Herrscher of Wind had returned.
She steadied herself in the air, her green eyes glowing with renewed power. She wasn't at full strength—her movements were stiff, her body tight with pain—but she had a grin on her face. The sky was her home, after all.
She raised her hands.
"Don't let go, this is gonna be bumpy!" she shouted at the girls.
A slipstream of concentrated air formed around them, a tunnel of wind that cut through the turbulence.
"Kenji, follow my lead!"
She shot forward, and the slipstream pulled Kenji with her. Suddenly, he was surfing through the sky.
The wind pushed him, guided him, accelerating them away from the drones with breathtaking speed.
"Whoa!" Kiana laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical. "Okay, this is kinda awesome!"
"Focus, Kiana!" Mei scolded, though she looked relieved.
The drones pursued, their engines screaming as they tried to match the Herrscher's speed. They fired a volley of tracking missiles.
"Bank left!" Wendy shouted.
Kenji leaned left, the wind guiding him seamlessly. The missiles shot past before another volley of wind destroyed them.
Kiana laughed out loud, "We're gonna make it!"
The facility was far behind them now, and Kenji could see the faint silhouette of the Hyperion not too far away, it looked like it was flying towards them too.
The drones were falling back, unable to keep up with the wind-assisted flight.
Kenji looked at Wendy. She was flying beside him, her hair whipping in the wind. She looked exhausted, but had an ear to ear grin on her face.
'We're gonna make it,' he thought, relief flooding his chest. 'We're actually gonna make it!'
But why was Danger Sense still going off?
Now that the drones were far enough and he could focus again, he only now noticed that Danger Sense was still sending him a faint warning about something.
Hostile intent that must have been muffled out because of the other enemies. He looked around and saw nothing, and only then did he realize that the danger came from his body.
But just as he finished the thought, the world turned white.
A scream tore from Kenji's throat, a guttural sound of absolute agony that pierced the wind.
Blue lightning erupted from his shoulder, arcing across his chest and down his spine. His body seized, every muscle locking rigid in a violent, uncontrollable spasm.
His back arched, his head thrown back, eyes rolling into his head as the electricity fried his nervous system.
"Kenji?!" Kiana and Mei cried out, the shock also coursing through them, but not nearly as badly.
Float deactivated instantly. Wendy spun around, her eyes widening in shock. The wind tunnel relied on Kenji's Float to lighten the weight. Without it, gravity took hold.
They fell.
The wind was no longer their ally. It was a roaring, chaotic force that tore at them as they plummeted.
Kenji's body was a dead weight, his limbs locked in a rigid, agonizing paralysis. The aftershocks of the electrocution still ravaged his nervous system, leaving him unable to move, unable to even scream. His vision flickered in and out, a strobing nightmare of grey sky and blue lightning.
Through the haze, he saw Wendy.
She was diving, her face twisted in pure panic. Her dress whipped around her like a tattered flag as she reached out, wind gathering in her palms to catch them.
But she wasn't alone. Above them, the drones pursued her. Lasers and tracer rounds filled the air between Wendy and the falling trio, a curtain of destruction designed to force her back.
Wendy flinched, forced to barrel roll to avoid a beam that would have taken her head off. She tried to weave through the fire, reaching for them again, but a missile exploded near her. The shockwave knocked her sideways, tumbling her through the air.
"Come on!" she screamed, her voice cracking. She tried to force the wind to catch them, but the distance was too great, and the suppression fire was too heavy. Every time she got close, the drones forced her away.
She couldn't save them.
Kenji drifted in and out of consciousness. The pain was a white-hot haze, but through it, a cold, clarifying thought pierced his mind.
'She can't do it.'
He looked at Kiana and Mei. They were clinging to his paralyzed body, trying desperately to find whatever it was that had shocked him. They were dead weight attached to a sinking stone.
If Wendy tried to catch all three of them while under fire, she would be captured. They would all get captured. Either that or they just die.
He couldn't drag them down with him.
A surge of adrenaline cut through the paralysis. He couldn't move his legs. He couldn't feel his left arm. But he was able to focus on his right arm, and it twitched.
He summoned the last dregs of his strength, fighting through the agony that screamed in his nerves. His muscles tore as he forced them to obey.
He grabbed Kiana and Mei by their harnesses, gaining a shout of surprise from them. With a roar of effort, he heaved them upward—throwing them toward Wendy.
"WENDY! CATCH THEM!"
Then, he raised his hand one last time. He didn't aim at the drones. He aimed at the girls.
He snapped his fingers.
An Air Flick exploded between them.
The blast caught Kiana and Mei, propelling them upward, straight into Wendy's waiting arms while also sending away the drones near them.
But the recoil slammed Kenji downward. He plummeted, falling away from them.
"KENJI!"
He heard their screams, which became distant and faded. He saw Wendy catch them, her eyes locked on him, filled with horror.
Then the drones swarmed over him, blocking out the sky. All of them focused on only him.
'That's good… everyone's ok.' His eyes slowly fluttered as darkness started to envelop him. Even as he felt fear at being captured, maybe even killed, there was an ounce of relief. Relief that at least his friends were ok.
It doesn't matter what happens to him.
He was never supposed to exist in the first place…
…
"H̶͐ͅó̴͇w̵̖̽ ̸̰̓p̸̙̓a̴̟̚t̵̡͗h̷̘͂e̵̞̐t̵͔̄í̷͖c̶̯̍"