AN:Merry Christmas and no I'm not quitting it. Just didn't write 11-12 so straight from the oven if you like. Other goal was hit so I can write a couple more for yall or let's see if yall see this. Give me a number before tonight for this week number yall want. Let's go 5-10
Rant over let's eat good and best wishes
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I'll just give it more power.
That was the thought that got the motor killed.
I hovered above Baam's group, watching the black-haired girl press her hands to the machine like she could bully it into obedience. Shinsu gathered around her palms—clean, natural, the start of an elemental transformation.
It wasn't hot enough to bother me.
It was more than hot enough to ruin whatever delicate, half-Tower, half-Workshop nonsense was keeping that motor together.
The metal shrieked once.
Then it detonated.
Everyone below snapped their heads toward the blast—horror, confusion, guilt hitting the girl's face a beat too late—
—and my instincts screamed.
I shot sideways.
A massive shape flipped through the air where I'd been, bursting out of the water like a whale throwing a tantrum, flooding the space with a roar of pressure and spray.
A beast.
A test.
And… something else.
Because inside that monster, under the Shinsu and the meat and the panic, I could feel a presence.
One of us.
If I had to guess.
I dove.
The hole in its body yawned open like a torn throat, and the moment I crossed the threshold I willed my frame back into my natural state—feathers collapsing into flesh, the disguise folding away—then shifted again, settling into the identity I actually used when I didn't feel like being stared at.
Shinsu flowed into my eyes.
The inside of the monster wasn't just flesh.
It was a system.
Antibodies—centipede-like things made of living pressure—crawled across the walls and surged toward me like the beast had decided I was the infection.
I sighed.
"I guess even bugs forget their place on the pecking order sometimes."
I let my will spill.
Not all of it.
Just enough.
The old pleasure tried to rise—something I'd learned from Rocks, something I kept leashed most days because it came with headaches and consequences.
Today? I was feeling generous.
The centipede things froze.
Then they crushed.
Not sliced. Not burned. Not "defeated."
Crushed—like someone shut a fist around the concept of them.
As I walked, fires sparked in my wake, little pockets of heat igniting wherever my presence passed. I didn't bother pulling my hands from my combat pants pockets.
If the High Rankers hiding in the surrounding waters wanted to pretend they weren't watching?
Fine.
I'd pretend I wasn't enjoying it.
I spread my senses.
Baam and his team were entering behind me.
The largest presence on this floor sat deeper, quieter—at the center of the beast.
The "heart."
I wasn't here for hero points.
I was here for the flower.
If the flower was tied to the beast's life force, I'd leave it alone.
If it wasn't?
I'd gladly accept a free priceless treasure.
It took… too long.
The inside of a monster is never as small as it looks from the outside. Shinsu distortion, pressure tunnels, organs layered like corridors. An hour of travel that felt like the Tower laughing at my sense of time.
Then—
Movement.
A small creature, scampering like it had just won a race, a bright flower bobbing above it like a crown.
I stopped.
And grinned.
There it was.
The creature noticed me.
Turned.
Locked eyes.
Fight-or-flight poured off it so hard I could taste it.
It chose the worst option prey ever chooses.
It stared.
"Aren't you the creative little devil."
It trembled, clearly trying to decide whether I was predator, disaster, or something that didn't fit into instincts.
"Quit freaking out," I said, stepping forward. "I'm not an uncontrollable—"
I paused.
"…Well. That's a lie."
The creature flinched.
"I won't hurt you either way."
Another step.
I folded Shinsu—tight, clean—appearing beside it like I'd always been there. I scooped it up before it could bolt and gently petted it like it wasn't the most valuable thing in the room.
It went rigid.
I ignored that and looked inside it.
Not with a knife.
With senses.
Core structure. Flow. Connection points. The flower wasn't just decoration—it was linked, but not in the way I feared. Not a life-line that would kill the beast if removed.
More like… a key.
A signal.
A prize someone wanted the Tower to think was a prize.
Interesting.
I set it back down.
Then shifted, feathers rolling across my skin—bird again, light enough to drift—
—and that's when the little girl came running.
The creature saw her and bolted like it had been waiting for her the whole time.
I followed.
Not because I cared about the girl.
Because the worst possible scenario was unfolding, and I could feel it before it happened.
She didn't look around.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't think.
She jumped straight through the exit—
—right into what my senses screamed was a fight.
I was half a second late.
I burst out of the monster and saw the ending already written.
A man stood at the edge of the space, holding the flower up by the little girl's ear like it was bait, like it was leverage.
Baam was on the ground, covered in blood, his body curled around the child like a shield.
He was still breathing.
Barely.
I nodded once, satisfied, and made my decision without looking at the others.
Baam's group could panic.
Baam could bleed.
This was the real problem.
I followed the man.
"So you're targeting this flower as well?"
His voice was calm, almost curious, as he paused in the exit corridor like he'd been waiting for me to catch up.
He'd already sensed me.
And he was strong.
Stronger than Jinsung.
I undid my transformation and landed in front of him.
Pale yellow eyes.
A grin that looked like it belonged to someone who'd never been told "no."
And then he spread something—subtle, invasive—an energy Baam probably couldn't even perceive.
A mental technique.
An error in the mind.
A trick that made you fail to understand him so you couldn't fundamentally harm him.
I exhaled and answered with my own pressure.
Haki surfaced.
Shinsu surged with it.
Two worlds stacking into one stance.
The air thickened.
His grin widened.
"Nice trick," I said. "If they can't understand you, then they fundamentally can't harm you. Quite the armor."
He tilted his head, amused.
I smiled back.
"Wanna see mine?"
Something flickered in his eyes—interest sharpening into focus.
So I collapsed everything inside me.
Measured the distance.
Raised my hand like I wanted a handshake.
And stepped.
My Sun Steps weren't just movement anymore.
They were ritual.
They were the way I established a domain.
A King's boundary drawn in footfalls.
"Within the first step," I said, voice low, "I was a bird."
The air shifted.
He watched, attentive.
"Within the second life, I died on a table."
Heat rose.
Faint drums began to beat somewhere under reality.
"Within the third leg of the crow, I became the golden one."
Shadows pooled beneath me—three ravenous silhouettes, moving like living nightmares, dancing along walls like hunger given shape.
"Within the fourth cycle, the crow stopped dying to save a rabbit."
The space brightened—
—as if a sun had remembered it belonged here.
Shinsu orbs—moons—littered the air around us, pulsing like a constellation of loaded weapons.
"On the fifth turning, my master retrieved his daughter."
The drums drowned under laughter.
A rabbit's laugh.
A girl's laugh.
And then—
I choked.
Pain snapped through my skull like a whip.
The ritual buckled.
I was launched into a pillar hard enough to crack stone.
Blood climbed my throat. I forced it back down, eyes narrowing.
The man wasn't grinning anymore.
He was staring at me like I'd stepped too close to something forbidden.
Like I'd shown him a face he couldn't unsee.
He spoke quietly.
"…Don't."
I laughed anyway, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
"Damn. You couldn't let me say my title." I rolled my shoulders. "Oh well. Fist it is. Shinsu or no Shinsu."
His grin returned in a flash—sharp, delighted, almost childish.
"No Shinsu," he said.
Like he was offering me a gift.
"Or it'll be unfair."
I snorted.
"Don't worry. I won't cry if you win against a kid." I tilted my head toward the direction we'd left. "You might be better than the baby back there, but I'm still eons above you."
He liked that.
I could tell because his grin matched mine like a mirror.
He vanished—
—and appeared in front of me mid-punch.
I parried.
Tried an uppercut.
He parried back.
I snapped a head kick—
He caught it.
Swept for my leg—
I rotated, switch-kicked him off balance and flowed into a spin, hands touching the ground to re-center my weight—
—and slammed a heel into his blind side.
I got rewarded for it.
A gut kick that made my ribs sing.
I used the force to push off, rolled back, rose—
reached for his fist—
and decided against it at the last moment, because something in his stance told me the world was about to punish mistakes.
I moved away instantly.
Good choice.
He tucked—coiled—
and launched like a cannon.
Pressure hit like gravity had decided to become personal.
I couldn't take it head-on.
So I didn't.
I reused Shiki's lessons—flow, current, redirection.
I caught the "stream" of his pressure with my will, guided his fist with hands above and under, turned it into an elbow line—
and tossed him into a wall.
He laughed, bright and honest.
"That was a really nice trick."
Then he straightened like he'd been waiting to do this part.
"I'll show you one I stole from my uncle."
I condensed Shinsu into a tight orb, wrapped it in Haki until it felt like a star with teeth, and closed my fist around it.
Locked eyes.
Took the same stance.
He mirrored me.
Power surged out of him like an idiot deciding to match a disaster for fun.
"Usurpers—" he started.
I smirked.
"Galaxy—"
We launched at the same time.
Fist met fist—
—and I got launched.
Harder than anything I'd felt in a long time.
Stone exploded around my back. My bones rang like bells.
I didn't even get to finish my damn line.
"—Inferno!" he finished, and the impact carried heat—an ugly burn that wanted to sink into my frame.
I swallowed, eyes twitching.
Yeah.
If I kept going, he'd work himself up into a superior battle fanatic state.
And I'd be the idiot who helped him get there.
I exhaled.
Then raised a hand.
"That's enough. We're done. I call quits."
He froze.
Then grinned like a kid who'd just won a game.
I waved him off, ignoring the way my brain cells were trying to fistfight each other inside my skull.
"Let's just grab a drink or something. You earned my respect."
His eyes gleamed.
"Respect?"
I sighed.
"Yeah. Respect. Don't make it weird."
He chuckled, satisfied, and turned as if the fight had been a warm-up.
I stood there a moment longer, letting the headache settle into something manageable, and glanced back toward the broken exit—toward Baam, the bleeding, the flower, the girl.
I'd made my choice.
Baam would live.
But the Tower just introduced me to another irregular—
—and for the first time since I arrived, I felt something that wasn't boredom.
I felt interest.
Real interest.
And that was more dangerous than any monster.