Ash and silence.
Mai stood in the middle of a razed camp. Bodies lay strewn in unnatural shapes, limbs bent the wrong way, smoke curling from cracks in the soil. Her orange aura still raged, uncontrolled, feeding off the last sparks of her rage.
A single voice broke the void.
"You're not even aiming anymore."
Mai turned. Fast. Too fast.
But the man standing before her didn't flinch.
Michael.
No flower. No aura. Just folded arms, calm eyes, and denim soaked in ash.
"I didn't come here to fight," he said. "But I knew you'd ignore that."
She lunged. A blur.
Her fist screamed through the air and hit something solid.
His palm.
Michael turned with it, redirected her blow, and landed a clean elbow into her ribs. The impact was so precise, so sharp, her aura flickered. She staggered.
"Your moves are sloppy," he said. "Too loud. Too wild."
Mai roared, spinning with a heel kick that could crush concrete.
Michael ducked and swept her leg, sending her into a full somersault, crashing through a tree.
She rose, bloodied—but laughing.
"You think your little tricks scare me?"
Michael's gaze narrowed. "No. But you used to care what you were becoming."
She hesitated.
"What did Yamura say to you the first time you drew blood without thinking?" he asked.
Silence. Her fist lowered an inch.
"He said, 'Only monsters strike before they feel.'"
Mai blinked. The orange in her eyes dimmed.
Michael stepped forward. "You've become the thing that made you scream at night."
Her aura surged. Then cracked.
For the briefest second, her red self flickered underneath.
She screamed in rage and vanished again, this time not to fight—but to run.
Michael dropped to one knee.
He coughed up blood.
"You taught her well, Yamura," he whispered. "But not to listen. That was always me."
Behind him, the bodies began to disintegrate.
And high above, in a black ship flying the Aqua emblem, Tiffany lay unconscious, chains glowing.
To be continued.
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