Finale Part Sixty Three
The air cracked as John's fist came down. Echo barely rolled aside, his suit defensive systems had kicked in but the ground where he had stood exploded in a shower of concrete and steel. The shockwave alone sent him tumbling, ears ringing.
He caught himself mid-fall, snapped his fingers, and unleashed a focused sound-burst. The concussive blast echoed like a cannon, hitting John full in the chest and hurling him back through a wall. Dust and sparks cascaded.
Echo rose, weapons drawn, his breathing sharp. "I know you, you're one of them."
From the rubble, a shadow shifted. John stepped out—slow, deliberate. Not a scratch on him. His eyes burned red, his breath steaming in the dark.
"Who sent you?" John asked, voice low and heavy.
"Make me talk," Echo dared, weapons drawn.
He blurred forward again, faster this time. Echo dropped to a knee, slamming both palms into the ground. Vibrations rippled outward, seismic resonance twisting the steel underfoot. The floor erupted upward like jagged spears, intercepting John mid-charge.
The retributor plowed through them. Shards of steel bent and snapped against his body, their kinetic force sinking into his flesh—feeding him. His movements grew sharper, faster.
Echo cursed under his breath.
He vanished in a blur of sound displacement, reappearing behind John. Twin daggers of hardened resonance materialized in his hands. He drove both toward the man's spine.
The impact landed—echoing like a thunderclap. But instead of piercing flesh, the force bent around John's back, absorbed into his muscles. His veins lit faintly, pulsing brighter as he twisted with impossible speed.
A backhand. Just one. It hit Echo across the chest like a freight train, sending him skidding across the room, tearing trenches in the concrete floor. His armor smoked, fractured from the sheer transfer of energy.
Echo coughed blood into his mask, forcing himself upright. "Alright… so we're doing this the hard way."
He tapped his gauntlet. Resonance fields flared to life, layering over his body in oscillating ripples. The air around him vibrated like a living shield, distorting the light.
"Come on, soldier," Echo growled, his voice splitting through a dozen harmonics at once. "Let's see if you can outrun sound itself."
John cracked his neck and stepped forward, each footfall heavier than the last, feeding on the battlefield itself. The rhythm was set. The fight was only just beginning.
The chamber vibrated with tension, dust trembling in the air with each of John's steps. He was no longer moving like a man — more like a force of nature winding up.
Echo didn't wait. His gauntlets pulsed, resonance surging, and he launched forward with blistering speed. Every step left sonic aftershocks that cracked the walls, his body moving faster than most eyes could track.
He struck. Daggers sliced in arcs too precise for any human. One buried into John's shoulder, the other into his side. Both detonated in concussive bursts.
The impact hurled John back through a column. Concrete exploded outward.
Echo didn't give him a breath. He clapped his hands — a thunderous resonance wave slammed down from above, collapsing rebar and steel into John's position. The assassin dropped low, eyes black behind his mask, every movement refined by decades of lethal precision.
And then—
The rubble shifted. John shoved the steel aside as if it weighed nothing. The wounds where the daggers had landed glowed faintly, veins tracing with energy. He dragged the blades out and threw them away, flexed his fingers, skin knitting back together in real time.
John grinned, almost gleeful. His pupils burned crimson, too wide, too wild.
Echo's chest tightened. He pushed harder.
His body blurred again, but this time not in straight strikes. He split his resonance into a dozen decoys — afterimages of sound and motion scattering in all directions.
To the untrained eye, twelve assassins rushed John from every angle, blades flashing.
John turned, snarling. His fist shattered one illusion — but the real Echo drove a resonant blade across his ribs, cutting deep. Another cut slashed across John's thigh, then a kick cracked against his skull. For a moment, the giant staggered.
Echo pressed on, pushing his body to its limit. Each strike carried vibrations tuned to disrupt muscles, tendons, even nerves. He was carving into John, destabilizing him from the inside.
"Fall, damn you!" Echo spat, hammering his palm into John's chest with a seismic burst.
The impact launched John across the room again. He crashed through machinery, sparks showering the chamber in red light. For the first time, silence followed.
Echo exhaled, shoulders trembling. His hands shook from the overuse of resonance, the gauntlets overheating. His body screamed in pain.
Then — the silence broke.
John stood from the wreckage,
grinned, sharp and unhinged, and launched forward like a living warhead.
The real fight was about to begin.
Echo braced, his body battered, lungs burning. His gauntlets hummed weakly, resonance sputtering.
His chest rattled with every breath; the sickness in his blood clawed up his throat. Still — he raised his blades.
John didn't give him the chance.
The brute was on him in an instant, a fist colliding with Echo's ribs like a sledgehammer. Bone cracked. The assassin flew back, skidding across concrete, coughing blood inside his mask.
He pushed to his feet, only to be caught mid-rise — John's hand gripped his throat and slammed him into the wall. Metal screamed. The structure bent under the force.
Echo struck back, blades sparking, stabbing into John's flesh. They sank deep — but John only grinned wider, eyes wild, teeth bared.
With a roar, he backhanded Echo, the impact snapping his mask half off, shattering teeth, blood spraying.
Echo staggered. His vision doubled, then blurred. The resonance inside him faltered, the gauntlets overheating, suit systems flickering. He was running on nothing but hate.
And still — he tried.
"I am taking you with me,"
With the last of his strength, Echo charged. He clapped his hands, detonating a seismic burst point-blank, a suicidal wave meant to collapse the entire chamber and bury them both. The ceiling groaned, debris raining down.
John took it head-on.
The blast staggered him — but only for a heartbeat. Then he straightened, growling, absorbing the force into his body, feeding the monster he had become. His aura flared brighter than before, violent and unstoppable.
"Who sent you," John growled, stepping through the storm.
"The storm is almost here," Echo managed to say.
He grabbed Echo by the chest, lifting him into the air with one arm. Echo clawed, slashed, his weakened blows scraping harmlessly. His suit whined, life-support failing.
John's other fist drew back — veins blazing, muscles coiling like iron.
The punch landed.
It was less a strike, more an execution. Echo's chest caved under the impact, his body folding around the blow. The sound was final — a sickening crack of bone and machine torn as one.
The assassin went limp. His gauntlets flickered out. His mask split in two. For the briefest moment, his eyes — pale, hollow, tired — locked with John's.
And then they dimmed.
John let the body fall, lifeless, to the ground.
The chamber was silent except for John's ragged breathing. He stood over Echo's corpse, fists still trembling with power, eyes burning, chest heaving like a beast that had devoured too much.
He looked at his hands — the blood, the glow, the destruction.
Meanwhile, Plukett arrived at Atsumori's HQ.
The tower was a furnace — flames licked its skin, steel groaned, glass rained down in molten shards. Heavy fire raged across the building, lit in orange and black. Sirens screamed. Fire crews shouted orders while service droids braced collapsing beams, dragging civilians to safety.
But while the tide of people surged outward, Plukett alone ran in.
Through the choking smoke, through emergency doors and shattered exits. Her lungs burned, her body screamed to stop, but her heart drove her forward. She passed a man in the chaos — someone familiar, someone who made her turn for just a heartbeat — but the crush of fleeing bodies swallowed him before she could see. There was no time.
She ran. Upwards. Dodging falling beams. Vaulting over burning rubble. Ash clung to her face, sweat streamed into her eyes, and still she climbed.
Until she reached it — the inferno itself.
Atsumori's office.
The great chamber was an open wound, fire consuming everything, walls bleeding sparks, the sky visible through holes in the ceiling. And at its heart —
A lone figure knelt in the smoke.
Red-hot armor glowed, cooling, smoking where flames had licked it. The smell of metal and blood hung thick. A great sword was buried deep — its edge sunk through the chest of the man slumped in his chair.
Atsumori.
Plukett froze, horror tearing through her.
"Father…"
The armored figure shifted, embers crackling from its joints, but it was silent. Only Atsumori stirred — his head lifting just enough to see her. A Weak Smile, His lips quivered, his voice weak, barely a breath through the roar of fire.
"…kid…"
And then his head fell, heavy, final.
Dead.
"No!" The scream ripped from her as she stumbled forward, falling to her knees at his side. She pulled him close, her arms wrapping him tight, tears blurring the burning world around her. She didn't feel the fire. She didn't feel the heat.
The only pain was the hole left inside her chest.
Plukett sobbed into her father's lifeless body as the building around them cracked, thundered, and began to collapse. Walls buckled. Beams split. Glass shattered.
But in that moment — nothing else mattered.
She held on, even as the world fell.