While there is an official ranking system for maestros to gauge their strength, only one feat truly separates the ordinary from the divine, and that is Genten. First discovered by a member of what is now the Rose Family, Genten is considered the highest application of atma usage. Considering the idea that proficiency as a maestro comes from one’s progress in linking the mind to the soul, using Genten—or origin— temporarily achieves this connection, advancing the technique to its highest and most powerful form.
On the other hand, there may be nothing worse for a maestro than to be on the receiving end of one. And Soji, now 44% bloom, was the sole target for Xander’s Genten, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Standing on the outer fringes of the lecture hall, he was unable to react in time to the screech of a massive bullet train warning of its arrival. By the time he turned his head, Elsabet had already grabbed Dione out of the way, leaving him to take the full force of its 715-tonne, 320km/h moving body.
The train, having appeared from the wall behind Soji, began to dematerialize soon after catching him in its path. As it returned to the realm from which it came, the bullet train took the boy along with it.
“What just happened!? What did you do?” Dione yelled, attempting to shake herself free from Elsabet’s hold.
“Can I sleep now?” Xander yawned.
Dione increased her mass, forcing Elsa to drop her.
“Dione, don’t you dare! If that one can use Genten, then he’s the most dangerous one in this room, even if his technique is now on cooldown!”
“Not to mention, as I am right now, I’m not in a position to fight either of these two. I need to get to Annabeth!”
“But Soji!”
“Our orders are to protect Eden maestros if something happens. Soji is not a maestro. Get behind me, now!”
Elsa’s tone weighed heavily on the young girl, freezing her in her tracks.
“You better listen to the old bat. I’m already annoyed that I had to wake up for this, so I could use something to take out my frustration.”
Dione stepped back. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled shakily. Naga tightened around her arm.
Atlas Alchemy: 10,000.
The floor cracked under her rapidly swelling mass. Xander smiled at the same time that Capybara sighed in irritation.
“I was hoping you’d do tha—” Before he could finish his sentence, the floor gave away beneath his feet, taking Capybara and Elsabet with him. As he fell, he saw Naga extended all the way up to the ceiling’s beams, holding a lightened Dione up in the air.
Elsabet couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s ingenuity, and grew increasingly excited when she saw that they were falling into the lecture hall below, where Annabeth and Alina exchanged blows.
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:26am
Lecture Hall 1, First Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
Kuro frantically evaded a silver-colored ball crashing into the people and walls around him, shuddering each time bones crunched and blood splattered next to him. Without a weapon, all he could do was run down the maze-like hallways, avoiding the two maestros who relentlessly chased after him. He heard a loud crash in the lecture hall, further increasing his worry.
Israel, who’d been running next to him, stopped suddenly and unraveled his hand-shaped wraiths into a net with spaces too small for the ball to pass through. Before they could fully close, however, Machiavelli slid past him, cutting his ankles and crushing a white witch moth of mysterious origin. Israel fell to his knees, and as the Hooligan was about to swing around to cut his neck, Esme’s fist smashed into his face, knocking him into Israel’s net.
She pulled out a small knife from her boot, and stabbed the stunned Machiavelli multiple times in the chest. As he fell to the ground, Esme pulled Israel away from the dissipating net, and slid him across the floor, decreasing its friction with her technique. Kuro caught him.
“How bad is it? Can you move?”
“I don’t know…I’ve been practicing sutures with my technique but I’d need time.”
“Any chance taking your mask off would speed it up?”
“Maybe…that other version of me isn’t reliable. He chooses aggression, even if it’s detrimental to our body.”
Kuro nodded, then dragged Israel into a nearby classroom. He ran out of the room just in time to see Esme beating her sense of justice into Javier. He attempted to call Faithful Rebound, but it was stopped by Esme’s friction technique. Gathering as much atma as possible into her leg, she kicked the boy back, hoping to cross defenestration off her bucket list, but he stopped just short of the window with a smirk.
Another moth floated up from Machiavelli’s dying body, just for the boy to reach up and crush it. Instantly, he reset to a position just a few inches away, jikdo in hand, and mid-slide. Kuro stepped back in surprise as the boy stood up, atma flaring menacingly. He crushed another moth.
“That was seriously scary! I thought you guys weren’t supposed to have weapons,” Machiavelli rubbed his neck, then slid his fur-hooded jacket off, letting it soak blood from the floor.
Kuro punched the locker next to him, then pulled its door off the hinges. Using both hands and reinforcement, he compressed the bottom quarter of it to form a handle. He began spinning together a basic idea of how to approach this fight.
Machiavelli lunged at him while Esme and Javier continued their fight. With his reinforced straight sword, he swung at Kuro, who evaded, using the malformed locker door as a shield. The sword cleaved through the thin steel, carving out a sharpened edge for it.
“Perfect,” Kuro smiled. His atma washed over the impromptu sword, meeting the conditions for his technique. Without wasting a moment, he erased the space between himself and the end of the hallway, away from the rest of the fighting, hoping to lure away Machiavelli.
“I doubt I’ll be able to injure this guy with this flimsy prop. Not to mention, his technique seems to reset him? If I want to stop him, do I have to…?” Kuro shuddered at the thought. He would not be made into a killer. There had to be another way.
Just then, Niko flew through the window behind him, dropping a familiar black case in front of him. Without stopping, she dashed past Esme and left her chain-linked knives as she blasted out the window. The girl then twisted upwards to fly into the second floor to finish off her express delivery.
She saw Angelo standing over Penguin, victorious. She also saw the bodies full of bullet holes that turned the hallway into a crimson river. As tempted as she was to check on her friend, the situation was far too urgent for that, so she dropped off his staff and Dione’s slingshot without saying a word.
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:32am
Lecture Hall 3, Third Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
Monika, despite the chaos all around her, was having fun. Guns scared her, sure, but whoever this maestro was made the experience incredibly entertaining. She’d closed the gap between them, forcing Bonnie to engage in hand-to-hand combat, but the girl was relentless, and used her semi-automatic rifle as a melee weapon, firing off shots when she got the chance.
Based on Bonnie’s behaviors, and the sound of her swaying atma, Monika had deduced how her attacker’s technique worked. Each of her bullets would become small bird-like wraiths with weak homing abilities. They exploded on impact, with the power increasing if more atma was used to defend against them. Angry Birds, she’d dubbed them.
Niko came crashing through the window, spear in hand. Monika grabbed Bonnie, risking getting shot, and threw her into the air where Niko struck her with the pommel of her weapon. Bonnie spun around in the air then collapsed to the floor, limp.
“Where’s my axe?” Monika asked.
“Your room is a mess, and I was in a rush.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Let’s go help Penny!”
As though she’d heard her name, the shadow-swimmer popped out of Monika’s shadow, drenched in blood and sweat.
“That guy is too much! He just won’t go down.”
“Billy is like that,” Hyeseong Lee said. The girls jumped away from the man’s sudden appearance as he tended to Bonnie’s unconscious body. Careful not to move her, he brought his ear close to her mouth to check her breathing. With a smooth motion, he pulled gauze and medical tape from the inner pocket of his blazer, and treated the girl’s bleeding head wound.
Satisfied with his work, he stood up, pocketing away his medical supplies. He had no smell, and somehow made no sound approaching them.
“Nobody’s ever snuck up on me! This guy has no sound at all!” Monika panicked.
Penny attempted to dive into her shadow, but Lee instantly closed the gap between them, grabbed her by the leg, and pulled her out of it, tossing her at the wall of lockers beside him.
“Two of you are here. That’s ₩100 billion.” He approached Penny, meaning to incapacitate her as he ignored Monika and Niko completely. Monika pressed her atma into his back, expecting an explosion, and was dismayed when nothing happened.
“Does he have no atma? How did he sneak up on me and suppress my trait!?”
Lee didn’t seem to notice the attempt.
Niko, dragging her Cloud Diamond’s tip across the floor for an upward swing. It was only then that the man dodged. He sighed.
“I wanted to keep it professional, and obtain my targets before lashing out for what you’ve done to my comrade. But, it seems you Eden maestros yearn for death. I will oblige you,” he said.
In the time it took Niko to blink, Lee erased the distance between them, fist raised. She was barely able to raise her spear to defend against the attack, and was launched into a set of lockers when he made contact. As she crashed through the metal, the wind was knocked out of her, and she dropped her weapon.
Lee ran at her, but a loud BOOM guided a balled up locker door into his face. He staggered back from the impact, and turned to Monika.
“It’s like I thought…he only bothered to dodge Niko’s spear, and this locker just now had an effect on him. He’s only immune to attacks made of atma!”
“I’m not supposed to kill you…but I can break you, Rose.”
Just then, Penny shot up, breathing heavily. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she struggled to keep her stance solid only a few feet away from Lee.
“I can’t feel my atma,” she whimpered.
It was then that Monika realized that Penny’s atma had, indeed, gone quiet. Hyeseong used the distraction to barge at Monika and backhanded her into the wall. Her eyes rolled back from the pain as her own atma entered Staccato.
Blood rushing and heart pounding, Penny turned and ran. She hadn’t felt fear like this since she was a child. Images of men in lab coats, tubes running with atma, and her abdomen cut open on an operating table forced tears from her eyes as she cut a sharp left into another hallway.
Amused, Lee walked after her, knowing she wouldn’t be able to use atma for at least another minute. He had a few seconds to spare before he had to start exerting himself. However, when he finally reached the hallway she’d turned into, he found it surprisingly empty.
Penny held her hand over her mouth to silence her sobs and panicked breaths. By some stroke of luck, or maybe because of the building shaking from the chaos, she happened across an open locker and hid herself in it. Lee’s movements remained inaudible, but his passing was signaled by a looming silhouette moving slowly past the slits in the locker.
Her hand shook as she brought out her phone and went to her messages with Dione.
“No matter what happens, I really love you,” she wrote. Exhaling quietly, she whispered something under her breath. Suddenly, Hyeseong’s silhouette stopped, and his hand slammed through the thin sheet of metal separating them. Again, he was disappointed to find the locker empty.
“That’s weird…I definitely heard something. She shouldn’t be able to use her technique yet….Whatever, I’ll deal with that later. The Rose girl is my priority right now.”
He turned back to finish off Monika and Niko, just in time to see a spear shoot into him faster than he could blink. As soon as he felt the tip touch his flesh, he flexed his abs, and brought his hands down on Cloud Diamond’s shaft to stop its trajectory. To his surprise, the weapon continued to drive into him furiously.
Niko poured as much atma as she could into the two pairs of wings on her Instrument. For this man to be able to stop it from piercing him and just barely slide back in one place was a feat of strength she’d never seen before. The skull-masked man was truly terrifying.
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“So this is the girl’s technique? Some sort of telekinesis? It would be easier to dispel if I could actually see atma. This is bad. Dee is still busy, Bonnie is down, and Billy passed out shortly after that shadow girl left him. If this spear manages to miss my vitals somehow, I could heal in about an hour. But do we have that kind of time?”
Fate is a fickle thing. It cares for naught, and wants for nothing but the most enticing of tales. And in that moment, it slapped Bonnie awake, just enough for her to tear another paper to bring out six rounds for her revolver. Slowly, as Monika, too, turned to face Hyeseong Lee, Bonnie loaded her holstered weapon and took aim at Niko. Although balancing on the line between unconsciousness and wakefulness, she smiled at the current situation.
A huge part of Bonnie’s technique was a mechanic that rewarded her for missing unintentionally. For every shot that she missed, the power of the explosion of her next shot was multiplied by that amount. And as she had unloaded and missed eighteen shots from her Ruger LC Carbine, she was thrilled at the thought of how much power would be unleashed when she hit her next target. Hardly able to hold the weapon up with her remaining strength, she squeezed the trigger.
A split second later, Niko’s right leg was blown clean off by the resulting force. Her mind could hardly comprehend what happened when she saw her own flesh flying off into the window behind Lee. She only felt herself release her technique and fall over, passing out immediately. Next to her, Monika screamed in terror. She felt the Staccato on her atma end, and immediately flung as much as possible in Bonnie’s direction.
Before she could let it go, she felt Lee’s grip once again dissipate her atma as he clamped down on her shoulder.
~
August 8, 2022 - ?:??
???, ???, ???
Soji crashed through the train’s self-repairing window and through several empty seats of its first three cars. He slid for another few meters, ears ringing when he finally came to a stop. Bloodied and broken, his bones poked at organs, and his limbs bent in unnatural ways. He could feel his brain still rattling and the sting of atma all over his body.
To his horror, he felt how slowed his healing was, and remained unable to move. Tears of pain and anguish streamed down his face.
“Why is this happening to me? What did I do? Is this hell?”
As he listened to the roar of the train moving, two figures suddenly blocked out the light as they towered over him. One wore a blue suit and had a giant tangerine for a head, while the other wore a denim jacket over a dress shirt and tie, with a lemon in place of a head.
They bent down to look at the boy, then looked at each other, then looked back at him.
“Kill me already,” Soji said. The sparkle had since left his bloodshot eyes as he stared straight at the ceiling.
“As you wish, Ladybug,” the tangerine said, aiming a pistol at Soji’s head.
“Wait…Ladybug?”
Suddenly, it all made sense. The tangerine, the lemon, the train, and now being called Ladybug. This was a movie he’d seen just a few days ago, Bullet Train. If he was Ladybug, he just had to make it to the end, right? But what would happen if he made it back to the outside? What was there for him besides more suffering?
A memory of Monika and himself rapping at Kuro at six in the morning surfaced. Laughter echoed in the back of his head and sent shockwaves down his body, forcing him to roll away just as the tangerine shot at him.
Pushing through the pain of his body’s slowed recovery, he grabbed onto the lemon-head’s exposed belt, and pulled him in to throw him at the tangerine. The boy sat up, still unable to fully stand. The two men quickly recovered, pointing their guns at him. Panicked, he raised his hands and body temperature to protect his vitals. To his surprise, the bullets only peppered him like paintballs would’ve.
“What the hell? I thought they’d be made of atma!”
Soji certainly wasn’t complaining. He pulled himself up using a seat, away from his attackers’ field of view. The tangerine yanked his leg back, ignoring the pained yelps it evoked. He climbed onto Soji’s chest and squeezed on his throat. His eyes bulged as he struggled to push the man off of him.
The bloom reached for the tangerine’s head, but was only able to scratch him with his elongated nails. His fingers trailed downwards, towards the man’s throat. Heating himself up, Soji slashed at his attacker’s neck. Expecting threads of atma to start dissolving, horror washed over Soji when warm streams of blood came pouring out of the wound.
“You fucking bellend!” The man rasped, holding his neck.
“I-I thought you were a wraith! You guys are people?”
The lemon-head immediately went after Soji, firing more shots as the boy blocked them. He finally felt his legs snap back into place, and the excruciating pain subsided into a dull ache. He kicked at the lemon-head’s knee and grimaced at the sound of it snapping.
“I killed another person…I can’t…I…I…”
As he hyperventilated, Soji recalled everything that had led to this point. Bit by bit, people chipped away at his humanity, and this world of maestros seemed to want to push him towards the alternative. A child like him should not have found the smells of death so familiar. And although he couldn’t see it that way, that was a sin of adults, not his own.
“I get it now. Everyone was right. I’m a bloom, through and through. I’ll be a bloom, then.”
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:19am
Hall of Saints, Eden City, New Eden
Victor skipped happily down the vast hall, taking in its paintings, statues and monuments to former Saints. Although he was grossed out by the M.I.I.’s usual white interior, he ironically matched it with his bleached windbreaker and its faded logo. He thought it a clever mockery to wear it every time he intended to engage with anything Institute related, and he was right. The atrocities he intended to commit in the name of godhood would be made worse if the Elders could see their bright white shame at the center of it.
Lucia walked beside him, much less enthusiastic, but still anticipating getting her hands on the Arias. The two of them only had the simple task of retrieving these powerful Instruments while David King went to retrieve Iosef’s remains with Sweet Pea, and Daisy dealt with the recovering Saints.
As they made their way down the cavernous hallway, Victor saw a guard standing in front of a steel door fortified by atma. Before Lucia could unsheathe her weapon, the boy excitedly leapt at the man, lightning crackling in his wake. His signature blue flame roared around his hand as he flicked his wrist to tear the guard’s throat out.
Lucia ignored the gurgling as she approached the door’s keypad and input the code she was given. Her fingers twitched excitedly when the door hissed open to reveal the stashed Arias.
“Connections really do make everything easier,” Victor said, wiping his bloodied hand on his victim’s clothes.
“You can head to the rendezvous point. I’ll place the tattoos and send them back to Omen.” She brought out stickers bearing the same symbol the two of them had inked on their flesh.
“Nah, I think I’ll walk around for a bit. There’s someone I want to meet.”
“Victor…we’re on a job.”
“Bah! You’re only volunteering to do the tattoos so you can do some snooping after.”
“That’s none of your business. And this plan hinges on us being quick and discreet.”
“Well, if you want an obedient sidekick, bring Omen next time,” the boy shrugged, walking away.
“Tch. I would’ve if she wasn’t busy setting up the new base with Iosef and Venus,” Lucia muttered under her breath.
“Whatever. I actually kind of hope that idiot gets killed…being around him is unsettling.”
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:35am
Lecture Hall 1, First Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
Kuro and Machiavelli’s blades clashed violently against one another, sparks flying everywhere. Both refused to relent, but Kuro’s technique gave him an edge as he was free to disengage and re-engage as he pleased. Or so he thought.
With every grave injury he gave his opponent, a moth would appear, then be promptly killed, resetting Machi. Kuro had surmised that every time his attacker used his Dustwork, he had to immediately crush another moth to create a checkpoint. He tried to time his attacks to interrupt him, but Machiavelli was too quick.
Esme, meanwhile, continued to give Javier a beatdown. Now equipped with her Wild Jade, she’d removed the boy’s ball Instrument as a viable option. He tried time and time again to rotate her around and disorient her, but by reducing the friction between herself and the floor, she rendered the effects of his technique moot.
Using her chained knives, she subdued the boy, wrapping the chain around his neck. He bled from several cuts along his body, but held his head high.
“How many of you are there? What is your aim here?” She demanded.
“Why should I tell you?”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t…”
“Not everyone fears death as you do. I can see it in your eyes…you can’t kill me.”
“I became a maestro to punish evildoers…”
Esme steeled herself as she kicked the boy out of the window. Had he been in freefall, he’d have survived, but with her chain wrapped around his throat, she prepared herself mentally for the sound of a neck snapping.
The girl felt him struggling at the end of the chain, and almost let go, but sighed when she felt him go still. Slowly, she pulled her weapon back up, and gagged as she unwrapped it from Javier’s neck. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the body.
She wanted to curl up and go to sleep, to hide from it all, but people needed her. Esme thought of Niko, who she knew to be on the third floor. If she took the emergency stairs, she could get there without running into anyone…
“What am I thinking?!” The girl slapped herself. Kuro and Machiavelli were still locked in an intense sword fight, and Israel was still recovering.
“Esme! Go ahead, check on Soji, I got this guy!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Esme immediately ran for the emergency exit.
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:42am
Lecture Hall 2, Second Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
Angelo sat against a classroom door, holding his arm. He didn’t care about the blood soaked floors, or the unfortunate bullet wound in his tricep. His panic had a little more to do with the bashed in skull of the Hooligan he defeated.
“Angelo! Ange—Jesucristo!” Esme covered her mouth at the sight of bodies littering the vast hallway.
“Esme! You’re okay…” He smiled behind his mask.
“You’re not! Where are Soji and Dione?” She tore her sleeve to begin wrapping up his wound.
“Dione’s in this classroom behind me. I told her to block the door and not let anyone in unless she hears our knock. As for Soji…”
“What happened?” Esme’s voice wavered.
“I’m not quite sure, Dione was in hysterics. She said something about Soji getting hit with a Genten, and disappearing.”
“Seriously!? But if he’s a bloom, and he got hit with that much atma…”
“Yeah. Esme…I killed someone. For real this time.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I did too. These guys just won’t stay down.”
“It’s not your fault. They killed so many. They were trying to kill us. We had to.”
“Are you trying to convince me or you?”
“Both? Is it working?”
“No. I knew that it would come eventually. It’s a surprise it didn’t come sooner. But I still feel like I chose the easy way out. Like I could have put him down temporarily.”
“Maybe we could’ve. This one,” Angelo nodded at Penguin, “before they attacked, he was speaking with another one wearing a onesie. They’re brothers. They’re…people. I signed up to get rid of blooms, not people.”
“I can’t say the same, and still I feel guilty. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But right now we have to put an end to this. Catch your breath, I’m gonna go help Monika and Niko.”
“Where’s Alex?”
“I’ll have to ask Niko, she flew through this entire building.”
Esme turned and ran back to the exit.
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:46am
Outside Lecture Hall 3, Third Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
Monika ran as fast as she could from Hyeseong Lee. He played a cruel game of tag with her, slapping the girl around to force her atma into Staccato, then letting her run until it ran out.
“This isn’t as fun anymore…aside from that octopus chick, none of these maestros are particularly interesting.”
The clinking of a chain flying through the air caught Lee’s attention, causing him to turn around and catch the emerald blade on the end of Esme’s Wild Jade. He pulled the girl in, expecting her to resist, but Esme reduced the friction to slide forward at high speed, bloodsoaked soles making for fine skates. Just before reaching him, she bumped the friction around her feet back up as she ran along the walls, then leapt at Lee to wrap his clasped hands closer to his head.
He dropped the blade to prevent it from being embedded into his neck. As Esme landed, she launched the second blade at the spot of blood on his torso. Hyeseong grunted as the Instrument sank into his flesh.
“Oh? Another interesting one?”
“What did you do to Niko!?” The girl roared. She jumped at Lee to punch him.
“No!” Monika yelled. It was too late. Esme’s unprotected fingers broke against Lee’s rock hard body. She looked up at his horned skull mask with dread as she realized her error.
The man kicked her in the chest, cracking several ribs. Monika pressed an explosion into the air around him, knocking him away and breaking the nearby glass. Before he could recover, she launched herself out of a window. She directed her blasts to land herself on the roof of the building.
On the inside, Lee jumped up and punched at the ceiling, yielding a crack on the roof.
“Thanks for the idea,” Monika thought. She was tempted to use her technique, but was unsure of how it would behave if her atma was under Staccato. Her cells would be full of that explosive energy, but what if the technique was released prematurely? She couldn’t take that risk. Instead, she spun an intricate web of atma around the rapidly growing crack.
She let her atma cross circuits, setting off a powerful explosion to break through the roof.
Peppered with fast-flying debris, Lee finally took visible damage as the bits of stone tore through his suit and skin. He expected Monika to fly through the freshly made entrance, but was caught off guard by two more explosions sending debris down on him. He backed away from the girl.
“Not bad…”
Hyeseong picked up a bit of stone, then launched it at Monika. As soon as she stopped flinging her atma to evade it, he hopped up at the ceiling and grabbed her leg to pull her down. She hit the floor with a groan. The man pulled her up by her windbreaker and propped her up against a locker.
“I’ve spent too much time here. My comrades have the bloom boy, and the anomaly is soon to be captured. The Filipino was just a bonus. Let’s get going, shall we?”
Lee backhanded her before she could respond, and threw the girl over his shoulder. He walked back to the main hallway just outside the lecture hall, and took a peek inside. Miguel and Dee still fought against each other with great intensity. It was impressive that he could keep up with Dee for that long, especially with her hammers flying all over the place. However, the farmer maintained his composure and gave Dee a hard time.
“Shame…he at least looks interesting…”
Hyeseong pressed down on his earpiece.
“Diana, hurry up, will you? We’ve only got one more left.”
“Easier said than done,” Dee replied, “This guy’s output is ridiculous. He doesn’t even need his technique. If it wasn’t for my hammers, I’d die!”
“Do you want me to get involved?”
“As if!”
“And how is everyone else doing?” Lee addressed the Hooligang from his earpiece.
“The Crowe sisters are tough,” Alina said, “Machiavelli didn’t put his mask on, and I think Penguin and Javier are down.”
Lee paused, then sighed heavily.
“So we’ve lost two of our own…”
“Billy and Bonnie are down too. But they’re alive. Capybara, get your hands on Faithful Rebound so we can leave. As for the rest of you, wrap it up.”
“Yes, boss!” The Hooligang shouted.
~
August 8, 2022 - 9:54am
Outside Lecture Hall 2, Second Floor, Eden Campus Building 8
The realm of Xander’s Genten cast Soji out into the real world at the same speed the train had been traveling. The boy flew through the lecture hall’s doors and into a set of lockers next to Angelo, who jumped at his sudden arrival.
The bloom boy stood up, more bloom than boy, irises red, skin blackened, and mouth widened. Black smoke rose from his hair, while shadowy wisps obscured most of his face. Horns protruded from where his cross-shaped scars used to be.
As much as the form shocked Angelo, he was more put off by the blood under Soji’s nails, the bits of flesh clinging to his body, and the look in his eyes.
“What’s the situation?”
“Dione is here in this classroom, I’m keeping guard. There are more attackers upstairs, and downstairs.”
“I see,” Soji closed his eyes, and felt for sources of atma, familiar and unfamiliar alike.
“Kuro’s fighting someone, and I just sensed a flare of atma from Israel. It looks like Money might clash with the guy with the onesie. Those Crowe sisters are equally matched by whoever set up this barrier and the one who hit me with his Genten,” Soji walked a few feet away from Angelo.
“You need to go to the ground floor, Alex, Anish, and Otta are very close to death. I can sense their atma fading. My guess is that Money went to fight to get his mushrooms. He’ll need your help.”
Angelo stood up, holding himself up with his staff.
“Soji…Esme went up to help Monika and Niko. It went quiet a few minutes ago but none of them have come down.”
“I know. You’re in no condition to help them. Niko’s in a very bad situation, and Penny’s missing. Whoever it is that's upstairs is incredibly dangerous.”
“And what can you do about it?”
“I’ll do what blooms do; kill.”
Angelo didn’t know how to correctly respond to that. Something had clearly happened when Soji was trapped in that Genten. Right now wasn’t the time to question it, or even protest that he wanted to go up and help Esme. He hobbled for the exit door.
Soji, meanwhile, walked to the spot he believed to be right beneath Lee. It took him intense concentration, but he could hear two heartbeats, one strong and one slowing. The tug of Monika’s atma helped. He jumped onto the ceiling, using his clawed hands to stick to it, and with his left, began burning through the plasterboard tiles. His palm met the cool stone of the floor above him.
Enraged, Soji raised his body temperature as high as he possibly could, and punched through. With his growing strength, he lifted his body up, melting the stone as Hyeseong Lee backed away from the sudden commotion. The Hooligang boss, the one they called Mother, placed Monika down, intrigued.
Soji clambered to his feet, and quickly pivoted to block Lee’s surprise kick. He clamped down on the man’s leg and threw him into the classroom opposite the lecture hall.
“How did you do that?” Lee took off his mask, smiling, “None of these other maestros were any good once I touched them.”
“I’m not a maestro,” Soji whispered.