???: [Damn it all… That bastard beat out my own strength…]

After crashing into a different room from the main hall, an incredibly tall, muscular kitsune with black hair and two tails of the same color now sat firmly between several pieces of the collapsed wall. The rubble left on her maroon skin was shortly swept off as she propped herself up by using the debris around her. Along her body were several injuries, many from a past she refused to remember, but the remaining bruises had been fresh. After being told to support the others following her encounter with the Ryoma siblings, the Strong Second, Kiyomi, had chosen to help a member of Shiro Fuloreen’s team. The genius mechanic, Migi Paribozijiou. While Migi gladly accepted her help, the foe they were up against was unknown to them. They had not heard or seen this member of Nero Virtuoso’s army nor were they given a name during the battle. In fact, the “gladiator”, which they deemed was the more appropriate way to refer to the soldier, only spoke in grunts and roars.

While the two of them faced off against such a mighty beast, Kiyomi had attempted to use her ability against it. Her skills were centered around countering attacks, giving the same force right back to her foe. Thus, this was the perfect opportunity to use such a thing when dealing with an opponent focused on brute force. Her first counter had hit the gladiator directly in the face, providing a loud thud similar to a cannon being fired as it connected. There was one glaring issue to this however. Not only had the damage shown little effect to the beast’s body, but the attack had been tanked in its entirety with a second being thrown back at Kiyomi. Though she blocked the follow up, she was shocked by the lack of response from her own hit, and was sent flying straight into the room where she now sat. Luckily, Migi had still been okay and continued the fight on his own.

Shaking the rubble off of her hair, Kiyomi gnashed her teeth together in frustration.

Kiyomi: [I’ll need to thank Miss Shiro when I can… If it weren’t for that Migi guy, I’d be dead… With that said, I’m real pissed now… That’s twice today that I couldn’t fight back as well as I wanted to, in the middle of our most important battle of all things… Fuck…]

The large chunk of wall she held onto was crushed by her enraged hand.

Sitting there, in a dark room all alone, Kiyomi could not help but despise herself.

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Smashing down against the gladiator’s helmet with his large mechanical arm was the dazzling incubus from Shiro’s crew. Though this was a challenge that would require much more than force alone to conquer, Migi’s mechanical arm managed to successfully push them to the floor. After all, even if they were large, his arm was much bigger than the chipped helmet attached to their head. As they neared the ground with their face, Migi forced his body to plummet back down and struck back into position with a rising uppercut.

Migi: [Come on, come on! Surely you’ve got more than that! I know you can dish out some hits rather than eating them!]

Gladiator: [Roah!]

The beast had unleashed a powerful swing from the side with his long battle ax. As it drew close to Migi, the mechanical arm was opened, with the fingers clutching the ax once it was in range. However, this did not stop the force behind the strike, as Migi drifted across the ground and stopped firmly as soon as he touched the wall. The gladiator tried to pull his ax back for another strike, but struggled due to the mechanical arm’s tight clutch.

Migi: [You like that? There’s a few upgrades I made to this thing since I last used it! Of course, you wouldn’t know that, but I felt like you should know anyways! I can change out the arm real quick now, along with the grip it has on things being a whole lot more powerful! If I really wanted to, I could make it as tight as a hydraulic press! But those aren’t the only new things here!]

At that moment, between the pipes of Migi’s arm were several small cannon barrels that sprung out. After clicking a trigger inside the arm, each of the cannons shot at the hulking monster with powerful, tiny explosions. The gladiator moved its arms up frantically and stepped back, likely hoping to stop the attacks from hitting its face. All the while, a gleaming smile was on Migi’s face.

Migi: [I made a few secret weapons that neither Rockin’ Lady Shiro or Rockin’ Miss Kōkatsu know about! These cannons are a nice example of that! But it’s not just small stuff either! There were a few changes to my arm shifts that I decided to make as well!]

Allowing the cannons to retract back, Migi flung the mechanical arm behind him before aiming it in the direction of the gladiator’s face. The hand was shot out with a wire attached behind it, clinging onto the target. With the flick of a switch, Migi was pulled by the wire and swung the arm in the giant’s face again. Using the air time he had, Migi performed an impressive backflip and landed safely on the ground, pointing at his foe.

Migi: [That’s my rockin’ style for you!]

With that, his foe was–

Gladiator: [Moraaaah!]

Migi: [Hk!]

–was unharmed. With a single punch, gears from Migi’s arm went soaring through the air as it blocked the oncoming attack. Much like Kiyomi before him, Migi crashed into a wall in the distance, the only difference being that he had not destroyed the wall entirely due to the much greater travel. Past his sunglasses, Migi looked on at the towering beast with confusion.

Migi: [What the hell is going on?! That did nothing?! It should have had an effect… Even if Kiyomi’s counter earlier didn’t work that well, this thing should have tumbled as soon as I hit it with my arm there. The cannons would be enough as is, but I made sure to add a little extra and everything. Yet that goliath is standing there, completely fine.]

As the creature made its way to Migi with the ax now abandoned in a nearby wall, its pace slowly increased until it performed a charging tackle towards his position. With a swift jump, Migi moved into the air behind and aimed his arm towards his foe as it crashed into the wall.

Migi: [How about one of these!]

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Swapping to his cannon, a beam of light was shot with little to no time between the shift, causing a massive explosion as it made contact. He had barely used any stamina, but Migi had already started to pant as he landed. With both arms hanging low, he prayed that this would lead to the hopeful result he desired.

Migi: [Hah… Hah… Surely… that did something… right?]

As it was before, so it was again–

Gladiator: [Rooooagh!]

Migi: [You’re kidding me…]

The monster reappeared without a scratch on its body. At this point, Migi viewed only one possible choice to find a weakness. His heavy strikes from his arm were good, but he was unable to see what the structure of this being was. His beam was powerful, but he was unsure if the armor had protected it or something else entirely. Thus, a third option appeared. He had created a shift for his arm to become a mechanical sword of light, in a sense. It was made to be used for close combat encounters, but it was a necessity here. Creating the sword from the arm, Migi dashed forward with all of his might. Fury displayed even past his sunglasses, he brought the sword high up into the air and slashed down at the gladiator. The ground in front of his blade split apart from the radiant attack. However, as he looked up, his eyes widened as he was welcomed to a fist directly to his gut.

Migi flew several feet back, his body swinging in the air and crashing along the ground on occasion before he eventually met the opposite wall, once again stopping short of breaking it entirely.

Struggling to stand, he looked at the beast from the distance as it slowly made its way towards him.

Migi: [What the hell… is this thing…]

???: [I think… I might have an idea…]

Migi moved his surprised eyes over to the side to notice a familiar, broken wall from before. Slowly making their way out was a muscular kitsune with long black hair. She stumbled as she moved, before ultimately falling down to her knees, leading Migi to pick himself up and run to her side to support.

Migi: [Miss Kiyomi!]

Kiyomi: [T-Thanks…]

Supporting her arm with his non-mechanical left one, the two looked towards their foe from afar.

Migi: [You said you might have an idea, right?]

Kiyomi: [Yeah… I was racking my head over it a bit and realized something… It tanks hits like nothing, it dishes them out with a whole ton of force, but most of all, it doesn’t feel like that freak gets hurt in the slightest… I was really confused by that last part, but it all made sense when I added it together…]

Migi: [What’re you thinking? Is it a dragon? I heard they’re pretty tough due to their skin. It would make sense considering my sword didn’t seem to work at all.]

Kiyomi: [No… Nothing like that… A dragon I could see, same with a shark, an oni, or an insectoid… but it’s none of those things… There’s one thing that all of them share… Even if they’re tough, they’ll still take pain as pain… There’s no stopping it… They might be more durable, but that won’t stop something that hurts like a bitch to hurt the way it does… Oni however aren’t entirely far off… There’s a separate kind of demon, a kind that doesn’t take an ounce of that pain into their body… They live until they die, simple logic to follow…]

Though she was hesitant with providing the name, Migi’s brain was able to quickly deduce what Kiyomi had vaguely hinted at. Shock filled his eyes again as he looked to the fox ally beside him.

Migi: [You’re telling me that thing is a demon beast?!]

Kiyomi: [It would explain all that annoying groaning it makes… plus the fact that it doesn’t respond to pain…]

Migi: [But that’s impossible, Miss Kiyomi! Demon beasts can be big sometimes, but not that big! Even if they’re bipedal, they never come in that size! Its attacks are way more brutal than the average demon beast as well!]

Kiyomi: [I’d agree with you if I didn’t already know about something like this…]

The kitsune’s sudden response made Migi stunned again.

Migi: [What do you mean?]

Kiyomi: [Way back, I was working, or rather forced to work under Daroma the Dark… I didn’t hear much of what was going on with his orders at the time, but supposedly, he was looking into experimenting with different races to create stronger soldiers than what he already had… He never really followed through with it, but maybe that could be viewed as Miss Shiro stopping him just in time… Regardless, the idea of experimenting to create a super soldier was something that even he had in mind… Now think about it like this, if Mister Nero wanted to make a super soldier of his own, wouldn’t it be smart to experiment using demon beasts on themselves and creating the largest, most fierce one of them all?]

Migi: [... B-but even with that in mind, how the hell is this thing under his command?! Demon beasts don’t follow any rules!]

Kiyomi: [You saw the beasts outside, didn’t you…? His matōki alone keeps them under a leash… It’s like a reminder that they can be killed at any moment if they don’t comply… If they act out, they notice a change from him and move back to their spot… They’re dogs basically… Beasts that are forced to work under his command without a word exchanged between the two… This bastard is the same as the rest, only bigger and a hell of a lot more tough…]

A moment of silence existed between the two as they accepted this reality. This demon beast gladiator was still approaching, and soon, they would need to engage in battle with it again.

Migi: [Can you stand?]

Kiyomi: [Yeah… I’m good… Let’s hold this area down so the others don’t get hurt…]

Moving back into the center of the room, the two stood in front of the staircase that had both ascended from at the beginning of the battle. Though they were nervous, Migi had a question on his mind to remove the tension.

Migi: [You still refer to that guy as Mister Nero, huh?]

Kiyomi turned to him, her mouth slightly open, only to then close it and tuck her fluffy ears down.

Kiyomi: [... Yeah. Mister Nero was a close friend of our family for a while… I guess I shouldn’t call him that name, nor a friend anymore but… part of me still remembers him as that… I met his daughter a few times, you know… She was nice… Shy, but nice… Reminded me a whole lot of myself when I was younger… Made me realize that, when I get back home… hopefully get back home, I should say, I’d like to have a kid with my husband…]

Migi: [Mm. I see. It would be odd to say that I get you, but I’m in a bit of a similar, gloomy place myself. I wanna be able to prove myself to Lady Shiro. She showed me around her office after our plans for my arm were done and it really was a mess. It wasn’t nearly big enough to house what she wanted to have nor could her own room contain all the papers and files she had. I wanna be able to make a whole bunch of improvements as well as some other facilities. But most of all, I wanna prove that I can help her out when a battle like this comes up. Having her say stuff like “I’m counting on you, Migi!”.]

Kiyomi: [Heh… I feel the same when it comes to Lady Kōkatsu… Kaoru is a great little sister… I love her a ton… but I always get lumped in with her when it comes to fighting… Maybe it’s because Lady Kōkatsu worries about us a lot, maybe it’s because my ability is a little dangerous for me, but I wanna be able to stand up on my own…]

Changing his mood entirely, Migi beamed a smile back at Kiyomi.

Migi: [Well, you know what we have to do then, right?]

Kiyomi: [Huh? N-no… Not entirely…]

Migi: [We’re both crew members of the strongest women in the world! Not two who want to become the strongest or two decently strong ladies, THE strongest! They don’t need any comparisons to any other, because they both stand at the top!]

With his enthusiastic words spoken, Migi’s own smile caused Kiyomi to reflect a toothy grin back.

Kiyomi: [R-right! We don’t need to worry about proving ourselves or showing how useful we are, because we’re doing that here and now!]

Migi: [Exactly! My rockin’ self, and your rockin’ kitsune self are gonna take down this giant beast together!]

The two nodded, followed by a powerful fist bump with Migi’s mechanical right arm and Kiyomi’s flexed left. They then pointed the index finger from the same hands back to the monster.

Migi and Kiyomi: [Listen well, freakshow! We’re not letting you another inch further from here! Everyone behind us, along with the rest that are ahead are gonna be just fine! That’s because, here and now, we’re gonna kick your ass!]

Again, their hands were clenched into a fist and pointed at the gladiator.

Kiyomi: [In the name of Lady Kōkatsu!]

Migi: [And in the name of Lady Shiro!]

Migi and Kiyomi: [We’ll send you to hell with our own two fists!]

Their determined looks morphed into a smug grin.

Migi and Kiyomi: [... So you’d better prepare yourself!]

Though their foe was mighty. Though their foe did not respond to pain. Though their foe could barely speak or even think, their declaration to this foe was made.

Without a doubt, they would prove themselves to the ones they served.

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