"No—! Your eyes… they're terrifying!"
Her voice cracked.
For just an instant, the psychic girl—eyes glowing with unstable energy—felt her entire consciousness twist as if it were being dragged into a bottomless illusion.
She yanked her Psychokinesis back on instinct, chest heaving. Fear rippled across her face.
Quicksilver hadn't exaggerated.
This man—Ryuuto—was a monster.
The strongest enemy she'd ever encountered.
Ryuuto stood relaxed, hands clasped behind his back, Mangekyō Sharingan spinning with casual menace. He stared at her and the other Mutants as if they were nothing but background noise.
The street fell silent.
Heavy. Suffocating.
A tension thick enough to choke on.
"L-Let go of me! What are you doing?!"
Bob thrashed violently against the Mutants dragging him away, his earlier bravado long gone. Now he was nothing but a panicked animal.
"Shut it!" one Mutant barked. "We're saving your useless hide. Move unless you want to die here!"
But—
Slick.
A shuriken punched through the Mutant's chest and buried itself to the hilt. Blood sprayed across Bob's face.
"You?!"
The survivors froze, eyes wide, unable to comprehend how Ryuuto had moved so fast.
He smiled thinly.
"Still standing together? Admirable. Pointless, but admirable."
Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!
The air filled with spinning steel—seven, then twenty-one, then dozens—splitting and multiplying mid-flight like a metallic storm.
"Move!" the psychic girl barked, bracing with her alloy bracers.
She slid in front of them, deflecting every spinning blade with desperate precision.
"Drag him! Now! Unless you WANT to die!"
Her scream jolted the others back to life. They dragged Bob in a frantic retreat.
Ryuuto sighed as if bored.
"Trying to grab someone from right in front of me? Cute."
Wood Style — Four-Pillar Prison!
The ground bulged violently.
A massive wooden cage erupted around Bob and the fleeing Mutants, slamming shut like a titan's jaws.
"No… no no no—!"
Bob clawed against the wooden bars, but it didn't budge an inch.
"If that's how it is—then I'll kill you first!"
The psychic girl lunged, her body flaring with crackling Psychokinesis. Space warped around her as pressure waves sent debris floating into the air.
"Oh?" Ryuuto tilted his head.
"The little girl's got a temper. Let's see what you've got."
Mangekyō Sharingan — Tsukuyomi.
Their minds collided invisibly.
The shockwave alone made Bob and the trapped Mutants scream and clutch their heads, forcing themselves to look at the ground so their brains wouldn't melt.
The girl choked, blood spraying from her mouth as the illusion shred her mental defenses.
Her legs trembled—but her eyes sharpened.
"Good. You're strong," she panted. "But I won't—run!"
Her fighting spirit surged like a wildfire.
Ryuuto scoffed.
"Ignorance really is fearless."
He vanished.
She gasped—
Ryuuto was already behind her.
"Die!"
Her Psychokinesis surged violently, a condensed storm of psychic force that could crush a tank—
—but she struck nothing but wood.
A broken training log spun where Ryuuto's body should've been.
"A substitution…?!"
Her stomach dropped.
"Behind you!! Stop him before—"
Too late.
A crimson blur ripped through the wooden cage.
Ryuuto appeared among Bob's protectors like a reaper descending for harvest.
"You wanted to witness cruelty? Watch closely."
SHUNK—SHUNK—SHUNK!
Heads fell like cut vegetables.
Screams ripped across the street.
Blood sprayed the cage walls.
Bob collapsed, shaking uncontrollably.
"S-stop… I surrender! I surrender! PLEASE!"
He slammed his forehead into the ground over and over, dignity abandoned.
"That's better."
Ryuuto wiped blood from his blade.
"You could've saved my knife the extra work."
"You coward—!"
A psychic roar exploded behind him.
The girl charged with bloodshot eyes, hatred painting her face.
Her Psychokinesis surged like a tidal wave—
And then she did something Ryuuto didn't expect.
She turned it on Bob.
"What are—"
Bob's body convulsed violently as psychic force invaded his brain.
He screamed—a horrible, high-pitched wail—until blood gushed from his mouth and nose.
Then he collapsed.
Unmoving.
The psychic girl shook, tears streaking her cheeks, but her gaze never left Ryuuto.
"You… you'll pay for this."