[FLASHBACK: Skyscraper Rooftop, Lagos]
The memory surfaced, crisp and tactical.
"Well, according to him, their next target is a national quiz final in Abuja," Toshiro said, his voice low. "He mentioned it is between two schools, Good Hope and Zonobia."
Pathro paced, thinking several steps ahead. "We can't just stop the snatch. We need the trail. We need to see where they take the people to find the base."
"Agreed," Toshiro nodded, his analytical mind working. "But there's another factor. You felt it too. Even with our unrefined sensory skills, we should have gotten a ping, a concentration of thousands of life-forces from the missing in a location. But there's nothing. That leaves two possibilities, they're not on Earth, or someone is actively concealing them here on Earth" He met Pathro's eyes. "You see the implication."
Pathro's expression hardened. "Yeah. It means a fellow Zunan Fighter is probably running the show."
"Exactly. And a rookie couldn't manage an operation this size or a concealment this strong. We're looking at someone with experience. If they're on the level of Captain Hayate or Instructor Kamir…" Toshiro let the grim possibility hang. "We need to report this. Immediately. And we need our combat suits."
[PRESENT]
On the desolate, crystalline plain under the twin purple moons, Toshiro's mind raced, analyzing their new environment, the thin air, the alien mineral compositions, the absolute sensory void where Earth should have been.
He can generate portals, just like Hayate and the instructors at the academy. To be able to do that, his power must be close to the likes of them, The power gap is definitely big between us and him. We can't win a direct fight. Worse, he's our only way back. Unless external help finds us where ever we are, we're trapped. We can't afford to kill him, even if we could.
His jaw tightened. Pathro, meanwhile, radiated a singular, burning focus that scorched past tactical concerns. The man before them was the only thing in his universe.
"A murderer?" Pathro's voice was a low, dangerous rasp. "There's no sob story, no 'hard times,' that justifies helping butcher children. I heard your guards. You spread money around to buy silence. You're a poisoner, not a provider. Don't you dare compare yourself to me."
The boss chuckled, a dry, soulless sound. "I really got under your skin, didn't I? Here's a cold truth, humans aren't logic engines. They're beings with emotions. They'll rationalize any horror for what they love. Your refusal to 'hear their stories' assumes a robotic morality humans never had." His eyes gleamed with cruel insight. "Or maybe the soldier's conditioning has already carved out your humanity… Tell me, boy. Did you ever even have a family to lose?"
The verbal strike hit a nerve Pathro didn't know was exposed. A flash of something raw, a void, a missing foundation, flickered in his eyes before it was consumed by incinerating rage.
He vanished, the air cracking with the force of his acceleration. His fist, sheathed in a corona of searing crimson energy, aimed to erase the mocking face.
Now, far from any human life, the Law of Zutra had no jurisdiction. Their Life Energy had instantly, violently, reverted to full, unrestrained Meta-Energy.
The boss's eyes widened a fraction, not in fear, but in assessment. He blurred, not with a portal, but with pure, impossible speed, letting the red-hot fist tear through the space where his head had been.
"A red glowing punch?" he mused aloud, as if analyzing a lab specimen. "There is more to it than just the visuals, best avoid it than try to find out." He dodged out of the way, Pathro's momentum carried him away, he had to sink his hands into the ground to slow himself down.
As he finished the thought, Toshiro was there, his spear a silver streak aimed at a kidney. The boss didn't dodge. His hand snapped out and caught the shaft an inch from his body, the impact soundless but for a shockwave that flattened nearby crystalline spikes. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he hurled Toshiro and the spear back across the barren landscape.
"You struggle so hard to justify yourselves," the boss continued, his voice carrying easily over the distance. "It's because you judge from a throne. We soldiers cling to the idea of humanity. We even created that quaint 'Law of Zutra' to protect them from our divine powers. But it's a pretense. We are not humans, not any more. We are gods choosing to play at being shepherds. How utterly pathetic."
Pathro, enraged, bent and tore a massive spire of purple crystal from the ground. He didn't throw it like a rock; he loaded it. A flash of red energy seeped into the mineral matrix. Then he launched it, not at the boss, but in a high arc towards the empty sky between them.
The boss caught it easily. "A rock, whats that going to do?"
"NOW!" Pathro yelled.
He and Toshiro shot straight upwards, becoming specks against the moons in an instant.
The boss looked at the crystal in his hand. A microsecond later, he understood.
The embedded energy detonated.
It was not an explosion of nuclear power, but a silent, furious eruption of pure fire power . A sphere of annihilating red light bloomed from the crystal, not expanding, but instantly consuming. The ground, the atmosphere, the very structure of the planet, twice the size of Earth radius, vanished into the blinding heart of the blast. It was gone in a single, shuddering pulse of light.
The recoil of the cataclysm slammed into Pathro and Toshiro even in the high exosphere, hurling them backward like leaves in a hurricane. They crashed onto the surface of the smaller moon, skidding for miles.
"You need to focus, Pathro!" Toshiro shouted over the psychic echo of the planet's death. "He's in our heads! Here!" He tossed a cube. The nanotechnology unfolded in Pathro's grip, weaving into the sleek, blue-and-black armored suit that was the standard of their division. Toshiro's own blue and black suit sealed around him. The suits hummed, syncing with their Meta-Energy, becoming as much a part of them as their skin.
At the epicenter of the void where a world had been, the boss floated, unharmed. His expensive civilian clothes were unscathed. A slow, appreciative smile touched his lips.
"Impressive," he thought. "Total planetary annihilation with a single, transferred energy charge. Far beyond standard rookie powerlevel. A normal rookie would be utmost able to destroy multiple countries, barely a continent. He's a prodigy. And the other has a spear, it must have some special ability to it, I guess it's best to avoid getting hit by it."
He tapped a device on his wrist. In a fluid, silent motion, nanites streamed from it, encasing him in a combat suit of a far more aggressive, older design,all angular grey plates and black under-suit, built for war, not ceremony. "He can transfer explosive energy to objects he touches" He thought recalling the rock that exploded in his hand. "An annoying ability but manageable."
He reappeared on the moon before them, the transition instantaneous. "A commendable effort for a rookie," he said, his voice now modulated slightly by his helmet. "The power you've cultivated… for what? To parrot the lie of 'protecting humanity'?" His helmeted gaze turned to Toshiro. "And you, not far behind him. Chasing strength. So, answer me, what is the defining difference between a god and a human? A god has the power to enact its will as law. Just as you did in my base. You passed judgment and execution without a second thought. That is divine prerogative."
"SHUT UP!" Pathro roared, a fresh wave of crimson energy wreathing him. "We were given power to defend, not to rule! That's why the Flaming Being left us the Noosphere!"
"And yet the Flaming Being left," the boss cut in, his voice a hammer blow. "Ultimate power, and he chose to abandon humanity to its fate. Why? Because they aren't worth the eternity. We are his heirs. This power grants us authority over the human flock, as humans have authority over livestock. Your denial is the only lie here."
He moved.
Pathro didn't see it. He felt a universe of pressure erupt in his abdomen. The world became a streaking blur as he was launched across the interstellar gulf, a human bullet fired from a divine gun. He smashed through the crust, the mantle, and impacted the molten core of a planet a billion kilometers away, his suit screaming in protest.
Before Toshiro could even twitch, the boss was back. He caught Toshiro's spear-thrust once more, but this time his grip was final. "What's so special about this, I wonder?" He drove a kick into Toshiro's torso, launching him in the opposite direction, a silver streak lost in the starfield, and tossed away the spear.
"One pest at a time," the boss murmured, and vanished.
He appeared in the searing hell of the planet's core. Pathro was struggling to push himself out of the molten rock. The boss kicked him again. This blow tore Pathro from the core, sent him screaming back through the planetary layers, and ejected him into space, only to slam, bone-jarringly, into the surface of another barren world millions of kilometers distant.
Pathro collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood. It spattered the inside of his helmet. Every breath was agony; ribs were shattered. Too fast… too strong… I can't track him… Can we… even…?
The boss materialized before him, pristine. "A shame. Such potential, wasted on a childish delusion. A god who denies his divinity deserves only extinction." A casual, almost gentle kick to Pathro's helmeted face sent him tumbling across the alien rock.
---
Toshiro hauled himself from the crater he'd made in a wandering asteroid. His sensors were scrambled. I can't lock onto their energy signatures. They are simply too far away for my range, If we were just in a distant sector, Hayate would have found us by now. Then perhaps we're not in the universe. We're might be in his pocket dimension or something. There's no escape unless he opens the door. This is bad.
---
On the foreign planet, Pathro forced himself up. He channeled everything into one last, desperate strike—the Crimson Fist. He threw it.
The boss sidestepped it as if it were a tutorial exercise. He drove a knee up into Pathro's broken ribs. The sound of further fracturing was audible. As Pathro choked, the boss seized him by the hair, holding him upright.
"You're no different from the High Command," he hissed. "Power in your hands, and you let it rust. If you won't wield your authority, you never deserved the strength." A brutal flurry of blows hammered Pathro's torso and head. A final, spinning kick launched the broken soldier across the planetary plain and up, up, until he cratered into another of the system's lifeless moons.
Pathro lay in the ruin of his own impact. Vision swam. Blood filled his mouth. Too strong… Different league… Can't win…
The boss appeared at the rim of the crater. In his hand, a blade of condensed, glowing red energy formed. He walked forward, calm as a surgeon.
"Once I finish with you, I'll collect your friend. A fitting end for a murderer who clung to a soldier's uniform instead of a god's mantle. Pathetic."
He thrust the blade down. It pierced Pathro's combat suit and the flesh beneath, sliding between ribs with a sickening precision and punching through his heart.
Pathro gasped, hands flying to the burning blade, but his strength was gone.
"What are you doing?" the boss asked, almost conversationally. "Pull it out, and you bleed out in agony. Allow me a cleaner mercy." His free hand clenched, gathering a swirling, sun-bright vortex of orange Meta-Energy—a density of power meant to erase matter from existence.
Pathro's eyes widened behind his visor. The sheer, condensed magnitude of it was beyond anything he'd felt. I can't stop that…!
The fist descended.
There was light.
Then, nothing.
The boss stood over the remains. The head and upper chest were simply gone, vaporized by the focused stellar fury of his punch. Only a scorched, headless torso remained, the red energy blade dissipating from within it.
"A waste," he stated, turning away. "Now, for the other one." A portal swirled open, and he stepped through, leaving the corpse cooling on the silent moon.
---
Pathro opened his eyes.
He was lying on a surface of perfect, still clear water that stretched to infinity under a starless void. A deep, resonant silence pressed in on him.
Am I… dead? The last memory was the blinding light, the utter dissolution. This place… the dream. After he had faced the Variant zunan with Kobayashi, this was the same place.
"Well, look at you. Dying this early in the game."
The voice came from behind him, cosmic, familiar, and utterly devoid of place. Pathro rolled over. There, standing on the water as if it were glass, was the same featureless black silhouette from his dream. It cast no reflection. It emitted no energy signature. It was like a hole in reality.
"You… It was real."
The silhouette ignored the question. "Your opponent outclasses you. Your current strength is too weak against him. The conclusion was inevitable. His speed is same as light and his strength beyond your grasp."
"Yeah, no kidding," Pathro growled, pushing himself to his feet on the water. "I'm dead. Why are you talking like there's a next chance?"
The silhouette's head might have tilted. "You believe you terminated. How ironic. Since you have proven ineffective, I will assume direct control of this engagement."
Pathro stared, confusion cutting through his despair. "What the hell are you talking about? Start making sense or—"
"Do you wish to save your comrade and defeat this adversary?" The silhouette's question was simple, absolute.
Pathro's fists clenched. The image of Toshiro, alone against that monster, flashed in his mind. Then the girls in the cell. The harvested organs. The boss's mocking smile. "Yes. If I could, I would. But I'm—"
"Then remain here," the silhouette interrupted, its tone leaving no room for argument. "I will handle it."