Aetheral Space

Chapter 547 17.19: Cold Hell Days

DAY 316 Years Ago?

That day, my mother led me by the hand through a crowded marketplace. We kept walking past the stalls, through the alleyways, until we ended up in a dark place out of sight. A man was waiting for us there.

He smiled.

I wasn't scared. In fact, I was actually very happy that day. My mother was in such a good mood, after all. That was rare for her. Because I was such an ugly and annoying child, she often lost her temper.

The fact that she hadn't hit me yet that day meant that she was in a very good mood. That made me happy too. I smiled back at the man.

My mother knelt down next to me and looked at me with kind eyes, and spoke in a kind voice. For the first time, I became worried. That wasn't what my mother was like, after all.

"Listen, Dragan…" she said gently. "This nice man is going to look after you from now on… okay?"

AETHERAL SPACE 17.19

"Cold Hell Days"

The four of them were frozen there, in the moment before crisis. Four people with the same face, the face of Dragan Hadrien, in the cold and silent desert of Nehr Müt. Bloodlust hung in the air like it was part of the atmosphere itself.

Nurarihyon.

Don Hadrien.

Dragoon de Fleur.

And, of course… the Dragon.

Anyone with a sense for combat would be able to determine the power dynamics at a glance -- this variant called the Dragon had clearly lived a life of constant battle. Skill, experience, ingenuity… they were all at a completely different level. But it was more than that -- this man had a hunger, a void within himself to be filled with the fight, an animal instinct to conquer every height he was presented with.

In short, he was a weapon forged for slaughter.

He moved. Actually, all four of him did.

The figures that had gathered in the cold wasteland vanished into blurs, rendered invisible for a brief moment by the speed of their movements. Four clouds of Aether, blue and angry, coiled around the air. The Dragon's bark of laughter echoed through the desert like the refrain of a gunshot.

He was upon Don Hadrien in an instant, the mafioso's wide eyes met with the Dragon's just-as-wide grin. Still cackling with the ecstasy of bloodshed, the Dragon thrust his hand forward --

Killing Arts: Oxygen Palm!

-- but his attack met not flesh but empty air. Just as quickly as the Dragon had appeared, Don Hadrien had disappeared -- no, much faster, in fact. Nigh-instantaneous.

The Dragon whirled around again, using not absent eyes but instead his Libra Imaging, and faced Don Hadrien's new position. The man in the white suit was now on the opposite side of the Fifth Contender, and a short distance away. There was no sweat, no shortness of breath. It was as if he'd been standing there from the very beginning.

There was one difference, though.

Click. Click. Crack.

Up until now, Don Hadrien had been holding a golden revolver in his right hand, even if he had yet to fire it. That was no longer the case. The revolver had deconstructed itself into its base components -- and those components were now fixing themselves around the length of Don Hadrien's arm, forming a strange golden gauntlet.

Don Hadrien vaguely wondered why it had taken so long for his beloved Aether Armament to fully manifest. Maybe it took Per Mutation longer to simulate and recreate an Aether Armament that didn't exist in the real world? Whatever the case, it boiled Don Hadrien's blood. Because of that deficiency, he'd been humiliated by that swordsman the other day.

Still no matter. He could make up for that embarrassment now.

Don Hadrien smirked as he raised his hand, the barrel of the pistol now square in the center of his palm.

"Golden Rule," he said.

Bang.

The gauntlet spat fire and fury, the blast loosing with such force that, if Don Hadrien hadn't been enhancing his legs with Aether, he himself would surely have been sent flying by the recoil. The attack slammed into the Dragon, who raised his arms to block -- but even then, the force and heat of the blast was enough to scorch his skin. He clicked his tongue as sharp pain radiated from his limbs.

But Don Hadrien still wasn't done.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Whatever it had transformed into, Golden Rule was still a revolver at heart -- it could certainly fire more than once. Pillars of fire were kicked up behind the Dragon as he sprinted across the dust, each shot just barely missing. Of course, the fact that Golden Rule was a revolver also meant that it had to reload after six shots -- and when Don Hadrien retracted his hand to do so, the Dragon took the chance to dash in.

But it wasn't to be.

As the Dragon had been avoiding the blasts from Golden Rule, the cloud of nehrcrows previously surrounding them had instead ascended higher into the sky, casting a collective shadow over the battle below -- and it was from that shadow that the Dragon's next problem emerged. The hand of Dragoon de Fleur lashed out of the darkness, snatching hold of the Dragon's ankle and keeping him firmly in place. It was as if the shadow were the boundary of an abyssal ocean, and de Fleur its premier diver.

Click - click - click - click - click - click.

It only took Don Hadrien a second or two to finish reloading his Aether Armament and, as he extended his hand towards the Dragon again, his lips were smug with victory. Using Golden Rule as a gauntlet not only increased its firepower, it made it possible to fire multiple shots at once. He'd already confirmed a single shot was enough to damage the Dragon's body -- all six combined would surely be enough to put an end to him.

"See ya~" he grinned.

Bang!

A dervish of destruction charged forth from Don Hadrien's hand, galloping across the barren earth towards the Dragon -- but before it could strike, the Dragon made his move.

Under any other circumstances, the action the Dragon took would have been utter nonsense, the precursor to a humiliating death. It would live on in the memories of onlookers only due to its sheer incomprehensibility. But right now, in this singular and unpredictable situation, the Dragon moved with confidence.

He reached down, seized hold of the shadow at his feet, and lifted it like a blanket to block the incoming attack. The blast was repelled by the solid dark, leaving not a scratch on neither the black mantle nor the usurper holding it. The Dragon's grin mirrored the one Don Hadrien had offered, if a little more beastly.

"Your ability is called Cancer Lock Box," the Dragon said to the hand on his ankle, using the shadow to wipe some of the saliva from his mouth. "It lets you move through shadows like they're portals and store things inside them… but more than that, it also turns shadows into flat physical planes that can be manipulated by yourself -- or others. That's pretty good. Thanks for the help, buddy boy!"

Splash!

The momentary victory offered no time for rest. Dragoon de Fleur pushed himself fully out of the shadow at the Dragon's feet, knife in hand, and thrust his blade right towards his enemy's jugular. The attack was nearly perfect, just as full of confidence as the Dragon's maneuver a moment earlier -- but unlike the Dragon's confidence, which was born of faith in his own ingenuity, this ease was the result of intense training.

Dragoon de Fleur. Oh, Dragoon de Fleur!

All that stuttering and stammering were gone. No movement was wasted, each stab a work of lethal art. His red eyes were dull, far away, lost in the mundanity of a procedure he must have repeated many times before.

As he jerked his head this way and that, death's blade missing him by inches each time, the Dragon licked his lips. He admired competence like this. It was good to know that at least one of his counterparts had led a worthwhile life.

He didn't know the story of this Dragoon de Fleur, but he could tell it ran along the path of an assassin.

They danced.

Dragoon de Fleur's entire body was an instrument to deliver his blade to its destination. He'd sunk the soles of his feet into the shadows below, allowing them to pull him this way and that to accelerate his movements. His arms up, the Dragon deflected the incoming knife again and again, blue Aether collecting around his hands to make them into shields.

The knife was the center of the world. Dragoon passed it from hand to hand, letting it spin in the air before catching it again, striking from every angle that became open the instant it became open. Faster and faster, he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and --

Click.

Dragoon de Fleur dropped back down into the shadows, vanishing from sight -- and, the reload sequence of his Armament completed, Don Hadrien fired. Six shots as one, a killing blow that carved a path of heat through the air itself. This time, Dragoon de Fleur had deactivated Cancer Lock Box the second after he'd escaped, preventing the Dragon from using the darkness as a shield.

Well, that was fine. He'd been dancing, after all.

Killing Arts: Graveyard Dance!

Aether sparking around his boot, the Dragon brought it down, crushing the tiny ball of condensed dust he'd collected underfoot. The sphere exploded outwards, sending a cloud of grey flying in every direction -- and the Dragon used the resultant propulsion to launch himself up into the air. The blast sailed past below, harmless, and for a brief moment the Dragon was free in the sky.

He wasn't alone there. The thing called Nurarihyon looked back at him, its expression utterly impassive. Up until now, it hadn't done anything, leaving combat up to its two comrades. Was it just observing, or was it preparing some ability? Whatever the case, the Dragon wasn't about to let it just sit this one out. He grinned as his target changed.

Killing Arts: Oxygen Stomp!

Originally, this technique had been designed as a simple equivalent to Oxygen Palm for those who preferred to use their feet in combat, but now the Dragon utilized it as a means of propulsion. Sending a blast of air backwards, he launched himself towards Nurarihyon, his laughter riding on the wind.

Nurarihyon made no move, but whoever was controlling the nehrcrows certainly did. A black cloud of the creatures rose up to block the Dragon's path. At first, it seemed a strategy so pathetic as to warrant contempt -- but as the shape of the cloud shifted, the Dragon saw what they were going for. Right before the Dragon collided with the mass, the nehrcrows reconfigured their swarm into the shape of a hollow cylinder -- a flying tunnel -- allowing the Dragon to fly inside and skid to a halt atop their backs.

The tunnel spun.

The Dragon ran along the backs of the nehrcrows in a spiraling advance as floor became ceiling and ceiling became floor, over and over again. It would have been simplicity itself to break out of this fragile mass and continue his airborne approach, but those would be the actions of a loser. If his enemy was going to present him with a game, the Dragon would surely play it.

Especially when such a delightful playmate presented himself.

Dragoon de Fleur's knife emerged from the shadows cast on the nehrcrows' backs first, the blade protruding from the darkness like the fin of a shark. The moment after the Dragon noticed that, the assassin was upon him. Blue light coursed through the knife as its master fully burst out of the shadow, putting his entire body into a thrust that surely could have skewered the Dragon's heart.

Dodging was not possible. Trying to fully block was a fool's errand. So, instead, the Dragon graciously offered his hand.

He thrust his palm forward -- and Dragoon's knife pierced right through it, the blade protruding from the back. Blood sprayed across the Dragon's grinning face, though not a twitch of pain made itself known, for the Dragon was far from done. He clenched his hand into a fist even as the knife still ran through it, and tore the blade out of Dragoon's grip.

His other fist, too, was ready.

From what the Dragon had observed of Dragoon de Fleur thus far, his strength lay in his speed and his immaculate technique. The fact that he'd developed agility and abilities with which to dodge attacks so fluidly suggested that his ability to withstand those attacks was somewhat lacking. Now, by relieving his foe of his weapon, the Dragon had created an opening with which to test that theory.

He slammed his fist into Dragoon's gut, the sound of impact like a shotgun blast…

…but that body did not break before the Dragon's knuckles.

His grin widened.

Ah… you really are the best…!

He could see it. The force of his punch has shredded Dragoon de Fleur's dress shirt, so he could see it underneath -- that smooth and inky darkness. Just like the Dragon had blocked Golden Rule, Dragoon had wrapped his own shadow around himself as body armour. That hidden layer had absorbed the force of the Dragon's punch magnificently, and Dragoon would take advantage of that without hesitation.

The dark-haired boy's hand lashed out -- plunging into a shadow at his side -- and emerged, disembodied, next to the Dragon's injured hand. It ripped the knife out of his palm like it was pulling a sword from a sheath -- and as Dragoon pulled his arm back out of the shadows at his side, he jumped into the ones below him fully, vanishing from sight. Blood pouring from his hand, the Dragon went to leap out of the spinning cylinder entirely, to return to the open air --

splash

-- but he could already feel the presence of death behind him.

The Dragon knew that, in the time it took to turn around, Dragoon de Fleur would land the killing blow. Against an opponent with an exposed back like this, all an assassin on de Fleur's level needed to do was confirm the kill with the softest touch of his blade. If the Dragon were to survive the next couple of seconds, he needed to act without hesitation.

Luckily for him, he'd discarded all of his useless hesitation years ago.

Blue Aether sparked, shone, swam -- and coursed, all of it, directly to the Dragon's throat. It concentrated further, into the side of his neck. It concentrated further, into his right jugular vein. It concentrated further, pinpoint Aether gathered into a 2mm section of that jugular vein where it would be most efficiently severed.

The Dragon put his faith into Dragoon de Fleur's beautiful aim, and was rewarded for it.

Snap.

Blood sprayed as skin and muscle were sliced through, but the vein was not cut with them. Instead, as the blade met a tunica adventitia infused past the point of steel, that which should have ended the Dragon's life instead gave way itself. The blade snapped away from the handle, flying high into the air -- and as the Dragon finally turned around, he caught the descending metal in his grinning jaws and crunched it into bloody shards.

Dragoon de Fleur did not stop to mourn the loss of his weapon, nor lament the failure of his killing blow. He was already leaping backwards, ready to fall into the shadows below and disappear from this place. But it was too late.

It was funny, how the Dragon had gotten his title -- it wasn't just a play on words based on his original name. There was a certain obscure Killing Art that he had taken a liking to. The original practitioners had used it to expel exhaustion from their bodies in the form of warm vapour, preventing their bodies from overheating and allowing them to continue fighting longer. That was the original usage of it.

The Dragon had tinkered with the technique, adapting it to his purposes -- and with the addition of Aether and creativity, it had become something else entirely. His grin widened, shards of metal stuck between his teeth. Within his soul, he offered a rose at his enemy's grave.

You did well to heat me up this much, Dragoon de Fleur.

His lungs shuddered…

His diaphragm danced…

His mouth snapped open…

Killing Art: Fafnir.

…and the Dragon breathed fire.

Every shadow was banished, every escape route cut off, and Dragoon de Fleur was frozen in the air for a moment -- before the wave of orange flames pushed him back into burning reality. His form set alight, he went flying out of the tunnel in the sky…

…and down towards the cruel, cruel ground.

16 Years Ago?

That day, when I came home, I found it empty.

It wasn't much of a surprise. It's only natural to abandon something that can't offer you anything. To be perfectly honest, I was only surprised that my mother hadn't left sooner. She'd been secretly saving money for ages, after all. I'd been skimming a little off the top, sure, but not enough to slow things down that much.

There wasn't any immediate need to do anything about it. I just made myself lunch and watched the videograph for a while. I certainly didn't cry or anything pathetic like that. There would have been no meaning to it.

Just as I had nothing to offer my mother, my mother no longer had anything to offer me. That was no different from being dead. That woman had disappeared from my life -- there was no point in wasting further thought on her.

She was used up. That was all there was to say.

So I sat there in the dark, waited for my show to end, then called Old Man Fix.

Don Hadrien wrinkled his nose in disgust as he looked up at Dragoon de Fleur's falling, burning body.

"Useless," he muttered. "Golden Rule."

He fired -- but not up towards the sky. Instead, he let loose a blast next to himself, the light from the discharge casting his shadow long and far, right under where Dragoon would land. If nothing else, the freak had worth as a distraction. It wouldn't do to let him die so easily.

Splash!

Dragoon de Fleur vanished into Don Hadrien's shadow the moment before the light faded. If Don Hadrien understood how the freaks ability worked, being submerged in darkness should suffice to extinguish those flames, but he'd probably still need a few minutes before he could leap back into the fight. The Don and Nurarihyon would have to step in, then -- that is, if Nurarihyon actually deigned to do anything anytime soon.

Don Hadrien scowled, lifting his hand and clenching it into a fist -- and the Guardian Entity he'd been given responded immediately to his non-verbal command.

Stolen story; please report.

The cylinder of nehrcrows became a sphere of nehrcrows -- their tiny writhing bodies pressing in on the Dragon from all sides to keep him fixed in place. To be frank, the level of restraint they offered was abysmal. Split up among so many bodies like this, Yatagarasu was hardly any more durable than a normal nehrcrow. With the slightest bit of effort, the Dragon would surely be able to break free within a few seconds.

That was fine, though. A few seconds were all Don Hadrien needed.

With a push of his hand, the nehrcrows responded again -- and the ball they'd become went even further and became a cannonball. They launched themselves -- and the Dragon -- towards the pale mesa on the horizon, leaving a trail of dancing blue Aether in their wake. A change of scenery would be nice for all involved.

Just as Don Hadrien had predicted, the Dragon broke free with a pair of air-tearing punches -- but by that point, momentum had already seized hold of him. He landed in a vicious heap atop the flat expanse of the mesa, rolling across its surface. His fingers even left long smoking indentations in the rock below where he tried to slow himself… without much luck. The nehrcrows had done nothing, but the impact with the mesa alone must have been painful for the Dragon.

Of course, that didn't mean he was done. Far from it. A deep, low growl poured out of his throat as he pushed himself off the ground…

…but he never quite managed to stand.

By all rights, based on his speed, it should have taken Don Hadrien a minute or two to reach the place he'd flung the Dragon. He'd been standing in place the entire time while the Dragon flew, too, so that should have added even more time. The Dragon should have been able to leisurely rise to his feet long before any enemies arrived.

But that isn't what happened.

Instead, as the Dragon stood, Don Hadrien was already standing behind him. One hand was in the pocket of his suit jacket, utterly relaxed, while the other was pointed at his enemy's back, clad in his golden gauntlet. It was as close to point blank range as you could get without actually making contact.

For the first time, the Dragon's grin faded a little. Don Hadrien smirked unseen.

"Golden Rule."

Bang!

Six-shots-made-one crashed into the Dragon's back, sending him flying across the surface of the mesa. He'd managed to focus all of his Aether into the target area at the last moment, so he'd avoided a fatal blow, but all the same the skin of his back was scorched and bleeding as he rolled back onto the ground. The Dragon poured that pain right back into his ferocity, though, kicking off the floor the second he landed and firing himself like a retaliatory blast directly towards Don Hadrien. He was a streak of blue light, coming to tear his enemy's head off.

Don Hadrien, for his part, just raised one arm and pulled back his sleeve as if revealing a magic trick. There, wrapped all along the length of his forearm, were countless pieces of jewellery. Bracelets, necklaces, even baubles tied with string… a collection hidden from plain sight.

In the last instant before the Dragon's fist reached his face, Don Hadrien's smirk spread into a grin…

…and the fist stopped.

It wasn't just the fist, though. Everything stopped. The wings of the nehrcrows. The flying rocks. Even the specks of dust in the air. All of it stopped completely, fixed in place, the world reduced to a snapshot in an instant.

All of it except for Don Hadrien.

Some of the pearls from a necklace on his arm dissipated into blue Aether as he casually stepped out of the path of the Dragon's frozen fist. He looked into his enemy's face with a sickly gaze of superiority, somehow managing to look down on someone who was the exact same height as him. It was the expression of someone assured of their own victory from the bottom of his heart.

"Scorpio Contract," he said aloud, his words the only life in this silent world. "Although… since time has stopped, I guess you can't see or feel it."

Aether was not actually capable of stopping time, of course -- and if it was, that was certainly a feat Don Hadrien himself wasn't capable of. Instead, what Scorpio Contract did was speed up both Don Hadrien's movements and his perceptions until everything around him was slowed down to the point of seeming frozen. All his ability asked for in return was a monetary offering, which Don Hadrien happily offered.

In short, Scorpio Contract was the ability to rent out chunks of frozen time.

Those pearls had bought him around thirty seconds -- and Don Hadrien now used those seconds to casually walk behind his frozen enemy, aiming once again for his exposed back. His laughter echoed without any other noise to smother it.

"Sorry," he said, the insincerity dripping from his lips. "I have no reason to play fair with you."

Scorpio Contract didn't allow him to make contact with his enemies or launch any attacks while time was frozen, but it was perfect for repositioning like this. The second time resumed, Don Hadrien would launch the finishing blow. He raised Golden Rule in anticipation.

Twenty-seven seconds have passed.

Twenty-eight seconds have passed.

Twenty-nine seconds have passed.

And…

Thirty.

Time resumed -- and the Dragon's foot slammed into Don Hadrien's stomach.

Huh?

Golden Rule's six-shot went wild, sailing up into the sky and illuminating the mesa like a camera-flash. The kick had been vicious -- vomit sprayed from Don Hadrien's mouth as he went flying, landing in a humiliating heap just a few feet away from the edge of the mesa. A little further, and it would have been a far longer fall.

Don Hadrien retched as he pushed himself up on all fours, his pupils quivering in fury as he looked up at his now-distant enemy.

"What… the hell…?!" he snarled.

The Dragon grinned as he turned in Don Hadrien's direction. He'd kicked him without even facing him, as if he were an afterthought, as if he were a chump. Fury roiled among the bleeding inside Don Hadrien's body.

"Scorpio Contract, huh?" the Dragon said calmly. "Yeah, that's okay, I guess. Stopping time is cool, but it'd be better if you could actually use it properly. Y'know?"

Don Hadrien's eyes widened further. This guy knew what Scorpio Contract did. How?! Had he just figured it out that quickly?! No -- he knew it's name, too. Even if he'd figured out how Don Hadrien was getting around, there should have been no way for him to know what the ability was called!

He ground his teeth together, every inch of his body yearning for violence. "Bastard…" he hissed. "Did you see…? Did you see while time was stopped?!"

The Dragon frowned. "No, dude, I'm blind," he said, sounding genuinely hurt. "What the fuck?"

"Then…" Don Hadrien finally got up on his shaking legs. "How?!"

Now that he thought about it, it had been the same for the freaks ability, too. This bastard had managed to name it -- Cancer Lock Box -- while he was showing off before. The name… how did he know the name? Did he have some kind of Aether scan ability?

"Oh!" The Dragon snapped his fingers. "Right, I haven't told you guys about my ability yet, have I? Sorry, sorry… heheh. It ain't an Aether scan if that's what you were thinking -- well, it's something that lets me do an Aether scan, I guess. Libra Imaging."

As he spoke the name of his ability, the Dragon stood a little taller, as if something were supposed to be happening. Nothing was happening.

"What?" said Don Hadrien.

"Muladhara. Svadhisthana. Manipura. Anahata. Vishuddha. Ajna. Sahasrara." The Dragon listed each word off on a finger. "I bet you're familiar with those, right?"

"What?" said Don Hadrien.

The Dragon frowned, putting his hands on his hips. "Seriously? You don't know? Man, you're kind of dumb, huh? Those are your chakra, dude, running up the length of your body. Your prana rotates through them to keep everything running nice and smooth. My Libra Imaging lets me read the chakra of those I look at, and manipulate my own. Pretty neat, huh?"

"What?" said Don Hadrien.

"Oho, I gotcha, you're still wondering how I was able to figure out your abilities," the Dragon chuckled, tapping a finger between his eyebrows. "Ajna. The Third Eye chakra. Well, for me, I guess the third eye is the only eye I've got, but you know what I mean. If I focus my prana there, I can read Aether like a book. Once I'm in close proximity to an ability activation, I can usually get the name and general gist of it pretty quickly. Of course, that's assuming that my prana is sweet when I try to do that."

"What?" said Don Hadrien.

"You know the five basic flavours, right?" the Dragon continued casually. "Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Well, it works the same for prana. I need the energy to be sweet in order for the effects of my chakra to be external-facing. I mean, you don't want bitter energy in your third eye, right? The trouble is, I can only shift my prana counterclockwise along the flavour wheel by cycling it through a chakra point. Like, if my energy is umami, I need to pass it through four different places to make it sweet again -- and that's assuming it hasn't gone inert from lack of stimulation, but that's a whole other thing."

"What?" said Don Hadrien.

"By reading the ratio of prana inside someone's chakra, I can usually gauge their personality pretty well. It's how I know you're kind of a worthless guy, and that thing flying around is even worse. Those, uh, those nehrcrows you've got, too? Man, their prana's so faint it's like they're hardly even there. It's that kind of thing where they divide up and their strength gets divided with them, right? Libra Imaging showed me that right away. But, uh, yeah. That's my ability."

Don Hadrien blinked. "What the fuck…" he said slowly. "...are you talking about?"

The Dragon cocked his head. "Huh? My Aether ability, Libra Imaging. I was just running through it for you. Did you not get it?"

Throwing his hands up, Don Hadrien looked at the Dragon like he'd revealed himself to be even more of a madman than they'd first thought. "What the fuck is that?! Prana?! Chakra?! There's -- there's a flavour wheel?! What are you talking about?! That's not -- that's not something your ability just shows you, right, you make it do that? You decided how the whole chakra system works?"

"Uh, well, yeah," the Dragon chuckled. "Chakra isn't real, obviously. Libra Imaging just makes it happen and shows me it."

"Then why is it so fucking complicated?!"

"It's not that complicated. Did I lose you when I started talking about the prana being inert? Because it's real simple. You know how when you don't ride a bike for a while --"

Scorpio Contract!

A bracelet vanished from around Don Hadrien's arm, but he paid it no mind. He couldn't just stand there and let this idiot continue to mock him. That grin on his face -- oh, he knew what he was doing. Well, they'd see if he was still grinning after he'd received his punishment.

Don Hadrien flexed the fingers of Golden Rule as he approached his enemy, still grinding his teeth. He raised his eyebrows as he saw something else at his destination, though. Behind the frozen Dragon was a frozen Dragoon de Fleur.

It seemed that, right before Don Hadrien had frozen time, Dragoon had leapt out of the Dragon's shadow and seized hold of it in one smooth movement. It looked like he intended to throw that shadow over the Dragon's head from behind and pull it taut like a plastic bag. Stabbing hadn't worked, so now he was trying suffocation.

Whatever. That freak probably would have fucked it up.

Don Hadrien stopped right in front of his foe. It was true that the Dragon had been able to read Scorpio Contract before -- probably he got a second or two of warning before it activated, but that shouldn't give him any knowledge of what Don Hadrien was going to use it for. He'd only known to attack behind him because he'd gauged that was where Don Hadrien was most likely to strike.

So this time he'd get him right in the face.

He curled his golden hand into a fist. It was also true that Don Hadrien couldn't attack while within the stopped time of Scorpio Contract -- even if he punched the Dragon right now, his fist would just bounce off without inflicting any harm. That meant that, when Scorpio Contract deactivated, the Dragon would have a split-second chance to react before Don Hadrien could actually launch his attack.

So this time he'd shorten that chance as much as possible.

He pulled his fist back, marking the finale of this twenty-second freeze.

Seventeen seconds have passed.

Eighteen seconds have passed.

Nineteen seconds have passed.

Twenty seconds have --

Don Hadrien threw a punch…

-- passed.

…and it landed right in the middle of the Dragon's face.

Bang!

There was the satisfying sound of crunching bone as the six-shot punch struck true, sending the Dragon flying backwards and knocking the freak over like a bowling pin in the process. Don Hadrien had timed his punch so that it landed at the exact instant Scorpio Contract's frozen time had ended, robbing the Dragon of any chance of countering. Letting out a sigh of relief, Don Hadrien took off his hat and swept his hair back with a hand.

That was so much better. Fist against flesh really was the best kind of stress relief. Not that it was over.

Scorpio Contract.

He had no reason to let this bastard land before continuing his attack. The Dragon's body froze in mid-air in the second before it would have hit the ground, limbs pulled upwards by the wind in a thoroughly comedic pose. Feeling more of his pilfered valuables fade from his arm, Don Hadrien strolled over, looking down at his enemy like a piece of furniture. Once Golden Rule had reloaded, he simply raised the golden arm like a hammer…

…and brought it down upon that hideous thing as time flowed once more.

Bang!

The Dragon's body slammed into the ground, the stone cracked, rocks flew up --

Scorpio Contract.

-- and rocks froze.

Don Hadrien's arm was bare as he brushed one of the mid-air stones out of his way. Anger was still pumping through his veins. That ridiculous ability. Explaining it to him like he was an idiot. This bastard had known what he was doing.

He'd been trying to make a fool out of him. Him!

Did the Dragon even know who he was dealing with?! Don Hadrien was a person who took everything in this world and made it his own! He was a human being who had conquered his own life! The winner! The winner in all things! The one and only true Dragan Hadrien in this world!

This piece of shit, this piece of shit, this piece of shit, this piece of shit…!

Click-click-click-click-click-click.

Time resumed…

…and Golden Rule struck again -- this time, the blast buried the Dragon's body deep into the stone, long jagged cracks spreading across the surface of the mesa.

Scorpio Contract.

The white fedora dissipated off of Don Hadrien's head, but he didn't care. Right now, he only had eyes for his retribution. Planting one knee against his downed and frozen enemy's chest, he brought Golden Rule up…

…and in the instant time resumed, again brought it down.

Bang!

Scorpio Contract!

Bang!

Scorpio Contract!

Bang!

Scorpio Contract!

Bang!

Scorpio Contract!

Bang!

Scorpio Contract!

Bang!

SCORPIO CONTRACT!

Don Hadrien panted for breath, very nearly foaming at the mouth. Through repeated uses of Scorpio Contract, he'd surrendered everything of value on his person -- leaving him with nothing but a pair of plain boxers -- but it had been worth it. The Dragon had been buried so deep within the ravaged rock below that he was barely even visible.

And yet… and still… he wasn't dead.

"You're surprised I'm still breathing, huh?" the Dragon's distant voice came up. "My wounds from earlier have already healed, too. Don't worry, it's not Panacea or anything freaky. I just channeled bitter prana into my Manipura while using the resonance factor of the rock to keep it --"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! GOLDEN RULE!"

Don Hadrien's fist came down as a golden cataclysm -- and finally, finally, the entire mesa they had all been fighting on shattered like glass.

And finally, finally… something deep below them began to stir.

In the days before the Forefall -- the revolution that had put Zephyr Pandershi in power -- the Foremen had used colossal Titan-class mining automatics to unearth the precious minerals from the depths of Nehr Müt. Titan automatics had been outlawed decades prior for their environmental destructiveness and their tendency to go haywire, but such laws had meant little all the way out here. The new regime had destroyed and recycled six of these seven great machines when they had taken over, but…

…one, it seemed, had slipped through the cracks.

Scorpio Contract was no longer active, but time seemed frozen all the same. Three of them -- the Dragon, Don Hadrien, and Dragoon de Fleur -- were falling through the air, alongside the rubble of their battlefield. One of them -- Nurarihyon -- floated above, looking down at the proceedings imperiously, slowly lowering through the air by its own will.

All, all was descending.

Until one thing began to rise.

The ground exploded upwards in an apocalyptic display -- the cloud of rubble and dust putting the destruction of the mesa only moments ago to shame. The three falls became wild rides through the air, blasts of discordant air pressure sending the warriors off in every direction. That cloud of dust, still rising, still rising, was more like a wall -- and through that wall a shadow the size of the world slowly came into view.

The Titan automatic was humanoid only in the barest sense, more like a walking fortress, huge pieces of mining equipment hanging off of its barrel-shaped torso like regalia. Jets of smoke blasted from the 'head' section -- in reality an exhaust vent -- reducing the visibility lights below them to a pair of ominously glowing red eyes. Glorious and terrible though it was, the machine had clearly seen better days -- with each movement it made, there was a discordant screech of metal like the roar of a paleobeast.

It ascended.

With each footstep, the earth shook -- and it only took two for the Titan to emerge fully from the hole in the ground. Thin blue sighting lasers ran their way over the landscape from numerous modules all across the mechanical mountains form, taking in the landscape around it. This thing had been dormant for decades -- reactivated by the nearby battle, it was now reassessing a world that had changed.

The Dragon landed first, grabbing hold of a protruding stalagmite and holding himself firm against the air pressure.

As he turned his head up towards the newcomer from his perch of rock, he let out a stream of high-pitched giddy laughter. Faced with this absurdity, he sounded more like a child in a theme park than a warrior facing off against death. The moment that noise left his throat, though, each and every sight laser locked onto him all at once -- and each and every one of them turned a bloody red.

Perhaps those notorious malfunctions led it to treat the first thing it saw as an enemy. Perhaps its last instructions before going dormant had been to destroy whoever it encountered next.

Whatever the case, the Titan saw the Dragon, and the Titan saw its target.

Unleashing a noise so potent it made the air shake, the Titan raised its arm -- ready to bring it down like a club -- and Don Hadrien saw his chance. He'd barely been saved from the fall by Dragoon de Fleur catching him with a shadow, but he had no time to spare for the freak. Instead, he reached out a hand and called inside his mind.

Guardian Entity: Yatagarasu!

The dark nehrcrows appeared once again, flowing as a mass of wings from the space above Don Hadrien's head. This time, though, they didn't target his enemy. This time they went right for the colossal Titan.

When Yatagarasu was split among so many bodies, its strength was reduced to basically nothing -- but those bodies would still work as fine vectors for Don Hadrien's infusion. If the Titan wanted to smash the Dragon into paste, then Don Hadrien was only too happy to help. As the flock approached the huge automatic, it began to split, individual nehrcrows latching onto its chassis at regular intervals. From there, the Aether Don Hadrien had bequeathed upon them was spread around the surrounding area…

…and the Titan shone blue, thoroughly infused.

The Dragon just laughed once more at the sight, fingers bared like claws as the shadow of the massive arm fell over him.

"Come on!" he cried out, voice barely audible over the whipping winds. "Bring it!"

And the arm came down.

16 Years Ago?

Laying on the floor of that apartment, I was only dimly aware that I was about to die.

Familial hands were wrapped around my throat. I couldn't breathe. An adult's weight was pressing down on my body. I couldn't move. Helpless, helpless, helpless.

I would die, lying here, my last word a choke.

So I fought, with everything I had, even if a child didn't have much. My tiny fists beat. My tiny legs kicked.

The woman strangling me responded in kind. This was a battle between me and her, after all. The hands that had been strangling me moved further up. Thumbs found their ways into my eyes. They dug, and the world turned black forever.

Pain became fury, and fury became motion. My tiny groping hands found a shard of glass, and gripped it tight. It whipped through the air. It found purchase in the flesh of a throat.

It was only when the heavy body that lay atop me turned cold that I realized I was laughing. My heart was dancing. My blood was pumping.

Ah! Ah!

Surely, I realized, this feeling was joy!

Don Hadrien had asked why Libra Imaging was so complicated. The answer was obvious.

The Dragon opened his mouth.

"ABSOLUTIAN!"

Blue light blasted right out of the Dragon's body -- a light so bright that everything around him was concealed for a few brief moments. The closest anyone in the area could get to perceiving the glory was to hear the sounds it made.

The sound of creaking wood.

The sound of groaning metal.

The sound… of something being torn free.

And then, when the light finally cleared, with it came the sight of the Titan's massive severed arm.

The Dragon was holding it in one hand.

Bark had formed all over his body to create a smooth and sleek suit of armour, with a layer of what might have been grass beneath to provide flexibility. The green whiskers of a dragon flowed from beside his nose, swaying in the wind. He looked at the world through grey mesh lenses, ringed by leaves. Small bushes and tufts of grass even began to sprout from the grey ground around him, as if in sympathy with the change.

Every inch of his skin was concealed by the transformation -- if they hadn't seen him standing there just a moment ago, it would have been hard for those watching to even tell this was the same person. He tossed that arm away, that arm the size of a train, as casually as if it were a feather.

And then he brought his finger up towards the heavens… towards the floating foe that had yet to make a move, Nurarihyon.

"Yep," he said, his voice resonant through the bark. "I'm hard now. C'mon, buddy -- it's your turn."