Kusari walked outside on the cool November day, the clouded sun produced rays of illuminating light through the thick fog that was rolling through the land. In a moment of retrospect he pondered on how he ended up in this situation, exiting a house that he had just killed two men in. From the very beginning he had been a violent child, whenever things didn’t go his way he would throw fits of anger and try to destroy whatever was in his reach. Despite that, his parents had done the best to raise him and give him a befitting childhood, perhaps they believed it was just a phase and he would grow out of it. At the time, it seemed like their efforts had paid off as he managed to gain control of his temper both at home and in school.

But, the damage had already been done and none of his classmates would dare approach him, lest he lash out and hurt them. Although the social isolation hurt, he understood why his classmates would do such a thing and respected that choice on their part. The ten year old boy was thinking about asking his parents if he could be moved to a new school, as a way to start over, yet that idea never manifested into reality. Around that time a new boy transferred to his school, the new student was obviously the odd-one out and desperately tried to fit in with his new peers. So he took the easiest path to social approval, he made fun of the only other person who could be seen as an outcast in the class. Although Kusari found his newfound position as the class’s unwilling clown painful, he convinced himself it was retribution for the pain he had brought upon others. He was very vocal about wanting to change schools at this point to his parents, but, being adults they knew how hard that was as the family would need to move to another town for it to be possible.

On a particular day, there was nothing especially unique about it to set it apart from any other, except for the fact that Kusari’s class was on a school trip to a nearby forest. Like usual he was alone for most of the trip, doing his own thing a bit away from the other children. That was when three boys approached him, one of them being the new kid; his personal grade-school bully. In his left hand he held a squirming, tiny, creature. It was a worm, the type you could find anywhere and were especially common on rainy days when they are forced out of the ground. With tiny steps he would slowly approach the young boy. “Hey, why don’t you eat it?” He would say, clearly trying to torment Kusari. Taking a step towards the boy, he would try and push the squiggly creature into his face with a swift motion. In response, or more as a reflex, Kusari would push away the lighter kid causing him to almost lose balance. An expression of anger would appear on the bully’s face and he retaliated with an even greater push, causing the blue-haired kid to lose balance and fall down on the ground. That was when everything went black.

The last thing that he could remember was being dragged away from the mangled corpse of what had once been his school-bully. Kids, adults, everyone was running around, shouting and screaming, unable to deal with the terrible reality they had suddenly found themselves in. As he recalled that memory, Kusari would sigh. There was no going back after that, regardless of what he tried to do or how hard he tried to start over he would always be seen as a murderer by the people of this society. Perhaps if the media hadn’t decided to print his class-photo on the front page of every newspaper for several weeks it wouldn’t have been that bad. But, what had happened had happened and there was no going back. Kusari had managed to figure that out a year ago, as he ran away from home. He thought that it was it, but then a certain someone had appeared and offered him a new opportunity.

Not an opportunity to start over, but an opportunity to end it all, for everyone. A smug smile would appear on his face, he would show them, all the people who looked down on him would be turned into dust before him. Suddenly, a cold shiver would run down his spine, quickly turning around back to the house that he just came from, Kusari would see a demonic figure. Standing on the porch of the run-down building, a jet black creature that looked like a hellish fusion of beast, man and armor, along its body several golden veins that glowed softly could be seen. The blue-haired man would simply stand there, dumbfounded about how he ought to react. But he was not given the luxury of making the first move as the hellish creature leaned forwards, causing his upper body to be almost parallel to the ground, before launching itself with immense power towards the man.

As it shot through the sky, Kusari found himself unable to react, it simply being too fast for him to get out of the way. The force of the impact sent him flying while the creature ended up getting deflected by his steel-like skin and crashed into the ground nearby. Despite being sent flying like a fired arrow, the blue-haired man possessed both the strength and finesse to reconquer his balance and after a mere instance of sliding on the wet-dirt he completely stopped his involuntary momentum. Shortly after regaining his balance he would focus his attention on the beastly opponent he was now facing, he had no idea where it could have come from but he knew that it was here now and if he didn’t do his best to defend himself he would end up getting torn to pieces. As such, Kusari entered a fighting stance in anticipation for his opponent's next move.

Assuming the same stance as before, the demon would launch himself at Kusari yet again with the same ungodly speed but this time the man was prepared. Using his own strength, upon impact he would grab his opponent and do his best to try and cancel the force it carried. Although he ended up gliding back several meters the two eventually came to a stop, the beast had clearly not anticipated this and the time it gave Kusari to act was enough to land a powerful knee towards the bottom of its chin. The beast was clearly affected by this attack, stumbling backwards as the man let go his grip, the effect only lasted for a split moment though as the beast tried to claw at the man before it in retaliation. Only through pure reflexes was Kusari able to avoid the powerful attack, watching it swipe in the air where he had been just a second before. He could tell that the beast’s attack carried enough force to rip him apart if it had landed. Like lightning, his leg shot out to crash into its abdomen and ended up sending the beast several meters backwards, but its durability was far too high for the kick to deal any real damage. Realizing that he would have to use all of his power if he wanted to fight against this beast, Kusari clenched his fist as a light-blue light would begin to faintly emit from it.

As the monster got back up, he would immediately perform another lunge towards the blue-haired man. In that instant, the power that had been focused in the fist would be unleashed on the beastly creature, a straight punch connecting with its chest. At that moment, the destructive energy of man's manifestation was unleashed into the world as blue rays of light that emerged from the spot of impact. Like from an explosion, the beastly form was sent backwards through the woods, crashing through multiple trees before finally coming to a halt no more than fifty meters from where he had taken the hit. The best looked down, a large hole was now in the place where its heart ought to be, feeling with its monstrous claws that what it saw was indeed the truth it would let out a painful scream into the chilly evening.

Then, something that even the monster didn’t know was possible started to happen before its eyes, the hole in its chest started to close up. At first it was slow, barely noticeable, but as it kept going it grew faster and faster like a child learning to walk for the first time. The fear and anxiety of having its body destroyed left the creature in an instant and all that filled its mind was vengeance towards the one who had caused the damage to it in the first place. Getting back on all four, it would leap back from where it came, passing felled trees one after another as it moved along the path that had previously been created. Kusari saw it coming from a mile away, he couldn’t believe that there existed something in this world who could take a full-power attack from his manifestation and still live. But, he had little time to process that train of thought and what it implied as the beast was drawing closer with every microsecond. He prepared another strike, his fist glowing blue once more, but this time the beast had grown and instead of approaching the man in melee combat it opened its mouth as it approached him. In terms of advancement, if the beast had just learned how to walk moments ago this was akin to opening its mouth and saying its first complete word. But, what came out from between its disastrous jaws were not speech but a blast of pure destruction.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was like a ray of golden light, speeding towards Kusari and enveloping him before he was able to even perceive what was happening. The power of the blast burned his entire body, in a desperate attempt to shield himself from this continuous assault he put his own arm in front of him but all that caused was for it to be torn-off by the power of the blast. Soon thereafter, the rest of him was sent flying as well. The beast, exhausted, closed its mouth for a moment and the destructive beam disappeared. When it opened it again, the monstrous creature was clearly panting, being tired from unleashing such immense power. Yet, it was going to keep pursuing its prey, for this beast did not rest until it had ripped out the throat of whatever had caught the misfortune that was its ire. But, as the monster was about to perform another leap something grabbed onto it from behind, putting it in a sturdy chokehold. Panicking from this sudden disturbance, the beast would flail wildly in a vain attempt to free itself. “Oda calm down!” Something that was undoubtedly Mifuyu’s voice rang out in the empty area, upon hearing it the beast would calm down for a moment, stopping its wild flailing. Noticing that he was getting through, the white-haired man would loosen his grip for a moment. Although it was nothing more than a split instant it was enough time for the beast to release itself with a mighty push.

Barely avoiding its deadly claws as the beast attacked him while making some distance between the two of them, Mifuyu had an anxious expression on his face as he reached down towards his waist, a white scabbard now hanging there. He didn’t want to unsheathe his sword towards his own friend, but given what Oda had transformed into it seemed like he did not possess much of a choice. To think that the man possessed such a terrifying manifestation, what kind of darkness must rest within someone’s soul to give birth to something like this? In a nigh-instant the monstrous creature that was Oda leaped towards Mifuyu ready to claw his organs out at a moment’s notice. But, even faster than the wild beast, the samurai drew his blade. Before its claw could reach his body it had been severed from the armored appendage that it had been attached to a mere instance ago, the warriors blade seemingly moving faster than even lightning itself as it soared through the air. Even though it was taken aback by losing a limb, the beast did not cease to attack, aiming its other claw towards Mifuyu’s throat. But like the last time, the body part was easily severed.

With his keen vision, the samurai was almost instantly able to discern that the limbs he had severed just moments ago had already begun regenerating. The speed of the healing was so great that he could see the body parts starting to take form with his naked eye and with that Mifuyu realized that he would need to come up with some other strategy rather than pure force to take the beast down. With a swift step, he closed the small distance between the two of them before his adversary had any time to react. Instead of using cutting force, he had chosen to use blunt force as a powerful strike was delivered to Oda’s temple using the sheathe of his sword. Almost immediately after performing the move, he would jump backwards and watch with anticipation as the beast slumped down on the ground. While normally, a strike to the forehead like that was bound to knock anyone out, but within the worlds of superhumans that the two of them now resided in recovering from something like that was possible. As he watched the beast lying on the ground, its arms would keep regenerating until any hint of ever having been severed in the first place completely disappeared. Eventually, seconds turned into minutes and Mifuyu breathed a breath of relief, for he could see hints of Oda starting to emerge from the black abyss that was the creature's hide.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Kusari was shambling on the ground as blisters and burn marks covered his body. Trying to use his right arm to support his weight, a terrible realization dawned on him as he looked down on the burnt stump that had once been his right arm. Looking around, desperately trying to find the piece of his body that had been lost, the once blue-haired individual eventually found himself staring at a badly charred piece of meat that lay on the ground not far from him. But in the next second, he was staring at the visage behind it. From the shadows a smaller visage appeared, it was Maru-Maru, her face twisted into a grim smile. “It seems like you have been defeated, Kusari…” As she spoke she walked towards him, grabbing the severed arm from the ground while moving.

Using a part of his last dying power to speak, Kusari tried to reassure her that he would be able to overcome this challenge as well. “Heh, it’s just a temporary setback. I’ll take him the next time I’ll-” before he was able to finish his sentence he was interrupted by the white-haired girl. “No, that isn’t going to happen.” As soon as she said that she bit a huge chunk out of his severed arm, swallowing it almost instantly. “I have decided, I am going to eat you now.” Cold sweat ran down the man’s burnt forehead as he heard that, if anyone knew exactly how monstrous Maru-Maru could be it was him, yet he had for some reason thought that she would spare him for some unknown reason. He had realized he wouldn’t be able to make it out of this alive.

Sitting and panting on the cold ground, both Oda and Mifuyu were exhausted. Despite having been in a life or death situation just a few minutes prior, the blonde had no recollection of what had just gone down, the beast within had suppressed all of his memories. He looked at Mifuyu, unsure about whether it was an appropriate situation to speak. Eventually, he decided to just go ahead and ask anyway since he wanted to know what had just happened so badly. But, just as he was about to ask about what had transpired, a rustling could be heard from some of the nearby trees. Swiftly turning their heads around in unison, the two men laid gaze upon a female visage. From within the forest, a white haired girl carrying a severed arm in her mouth appeared. “Your scents aren’t familiar, I guess an introduction is in order.” Removing the arm from her mouth to speak, but the words she uttered next carried little importance, for the two fatigued men could feel from her menacing aura alone that she was the monster in human skin that they had been searching for. “Maru-Maru, I hope we can become great friends in the future…” There was no malice in her words, they were as pure as those of a young girl yet to know pain or fear. But, what she said next would fill any sane man with terror. “... like Kusari over here!” She said, proudly displaying the severed arm like she considered it to be a genuine friend that she was introducing.

Looking up towards the darkening sky for a moment before reverting her gaze to the two men before her, the white haired woman would begin speaking in her usually, high-pitched, almost childlike, voice. Although the two of them wanted to strike her down where she stood right then and there, neither possessed the stamina to get up and fight, especially against a foe as tough as Maru-Maru. For even though she was smaller, and clearly had less muscles than the man whose arm she was waving around like some sort of toy, the two of them could feel on some instinctive level that she possessed a far greater threat than the man who had just been annihilated. “Well, it’s getting late so I think I’m gonna head home for the day. I hope we get the chance to play some other time, bye guys.” With those words, the monstrous girl would open her mouth wide, revealing a set of teeth that looked more like something you would find in a canine rather than in a human and tore a large chunk of flesh from the arm she held. Almost immediately afterwards she would turn around, revealing the back of her gray hoodie to them as her visage disappeared into the dark forest. Neither possessing the confidence or the stamina to go after her, the two men would sit in silence on the cold ground for what felt like an eternity.