Unexpected Struggle

Dino leapt into the air with a grunt, covering several dozen meters of distance with a single leap.

Asher narrowed his eyes, calculating the right moment to jump back.

Suddenly, the tattoos snaking around the man's arms began to glow blue. Dino's figure blurred as he accelerated to the ground much faster than normal gravity could allow.

"-!"

"Earthquake!" Dino's tattoo's glowed orange as his fists slammed into the ground, shattering the concrete floor in a one-meter impact radius.

Asher made a small noise of surprise as his balance was disrupted.

He twirled the club in his fingers.

Dino stood up, now only two meters in front of him.

"A taste of what's to come." The man flicked his finger at him in a taunting gesture.

Asher ignored the man, glancing at his side.

Sophie seemed to be faring well enou-

"Turning away?"

Asher's eyes shook with surprise as Dino's fist caught him in the stomach before he could react. With a shout, Dino knocked the boy off his feet.

Asher's skin tore and flayed as he skid a few meters on the rough concrete.

Dino scoffed.

"You'll regret underestimating me." The man's entire body was outlined with glowing purple tattoos.

Asher coughed up a bit of flesh as he trembled to his feet.

"Need help?" Sophie called out to him, concern touching her voice. Her neck snapped backwards, narrowly avoiding a forearm to the neck from Zulu. Her own knife twitched forward, inflicting a shallow but painfully long cut across the man's chest.

*Cough Cough*

But Asher was in his own world.

"C'mon, how often will this happen...?" He seemed to be talking to an intangible something.

Dino stopped his assault. Was it going to be this easy?

But then again, that boy was slouched carelessly as if nothing happened. From a punch straight to the liver, no less.

An ordinary person would have died from the pain alone.

Asher raised his eyes, baring his teeth slightly.

"You've... hit me." His voice had inexplicably changed tone.

He clenched his hand, and two fairies rose from the floor.

"Ready for another, then?" Dino exhaled a breath of steam as he prepared for round two. The man felt that this time Asher would go all out.

Dino tilted his head as Asher did not move a muscle. Instead, the boy merely pointed at him.

The two fairies snapped to attention. Their eyes turned blood-red.

"Heal."

The fairies chittered as they rushed to consume.

Dino lazily flicked one away.

Only to have his finger phase through it.

"-!" The man flinched as a set of jaws clamped onto his flesh. It stung a bit, but not enough to hurt.

But when Dino looked up again, his jaw went slack.

In the instant he was distracted, Asher's outfit had inexplicably changed, from blue green to soft pink.

Now nearly unrecognizable, Asher giggled as he opened his fan, hiding under a recently bought bamboo umbrella.

Asher took in a deep breath.

With his eyes hidden in shadow, he exhaled. Nauseating pink smoke billowed from his mouth, wreathing the space between him and Dino with sweet pink pollen.

The only thing visible in the cloud was a shadow of a figure under a bamboo umbrella.

And in an instant, even that shadow disappeared.

Dino snapped out of his surprise as a whiff of pink approached his nose.

Just a small breath of it made him feel woozy.

Blood leaked down the man's mouth as he sealed it shut.

Dino leapt to the ceiling, where the poisonous gas had yet to spread.

"-!" The man grabbed to a steel beam, yanking himself out of the way as Asher slashed his fan where his neck would have been.

"Oh, you found me~"

Dino looked at the figure. It balanced on one of the beams beside him, smiling.

"Playing dirty, eh?" Rolling his eyes, Dino spat downward as Asher's skin began to leak that same pink smoke from earlier.

He flipped himself backwards, landing on a beam a few meters away from Asher.

The man reached into his pockets, pulling out a throwing knife from each one.

"Ha!" With a jerk of his arms, Dino infused the knives in his hands with a searing velocity.

The two steel blades cut through the air to pierce Asher's chest.

Asher twirled his fan, jumping back a beam. The two knives crossed paths before sailing harmlessly past him.

But just as he thought he was safe, the knives changed directions.

Dino grunted as he yanked the invisible strings attached to the knives, causing them to wrap around Asher's body like a pair of snakes.

"Oh~?" Asher released his umbrella, letting it float harmlessly to the floor as his wrists were seized in the strings.

He tested the wires a bit, spreading his arms out.

Only when the dull steel wire cut into his marrow did he finally stop. Shards of bone stuck in his flesh, remnants of sheer, inhuman effort.

Asher's arms dripped with pink cherry blossoms.

As the man pulled him closer with his left arm, readying his fist, Asher maintained his smile.

However, there was no hidden plan underneath his carefree expression. The boy twirled his fan once more, but Dino's tattoos simply glowed brighter in response.

'I underestimated this guy. Urban Legend is still tough without that skill.'

And even with that skill, a Capo was still able to absolutely stomp him.

God, was he still so weak?

But this time, Asher didn't make the mistake of calling onto his past self.

Well, even It couldn't really do anything in this impossible scenario.

[Frenzy] really was such an overpowered skill. It gave him the power to do the impossible.

"Break for me!" Dino's arm glowed white, sizzling with steam as his body blurred forward, just a meter away from Asher's nose.

Asher sighed.

Before the hit, he lowered his head, so the fist would hit his forehead, thus mitigating the damage.

*BOOM*

But that didn't really help in the end.

A sound unbefitting of flesh-on-flesh rang out as Dino's fist caved his skull in.

Dino released the strings in his other hand, allowing Asher's body to plummet downward like a shooting star.

"Was that... a scapegoat? That was too easy, right...?" The leader of the Stray Dogs mumbled himself as he watched Asher's body slam to the floor.

Because if he knew it would be that easy, he would have taken the fight himself, instead of letting his subordinates take the glory.

...

"Ah..." Sophie whispered as she felt Asher crash into the ground beside her. She twisted her spine, dodging a fist to her stomach as she stared at his mangled body.

"...Dead?"

[The Host has died. In thirty seconds, all shelled Synchronizations will also be reabsorbed. Please refrain from dying during this period, as deaths before reabsorption will result in 'Cracked Soul' status.]

The System warned her with a prompt, the first she had seen ever since she bound to Asher's soul.

"I see."

Her eyes leaked out a single line of blood.

Zulu backed off, returning to his leader's side.

"Ha, look at the bitsy mascot girl! Sad that your little friend bit the dust?"

The leader grinned as another stream of blood touched Sophie's cheek.

[The Host still has 'Little Red Riding Hood' punishment mission to complete.]

"I know he's alive, but..."

A hint of burnt flesh billowed from her dress.

"Allow me to show you."

Dino and Zulu gulped as Sophie's voice became ice.

"How you will die."

Sophie's body burst into blue flames.

A pure, scorching heat emanated from her body, melting the concrete below her. As her feet sunk into molten concrete, another stream of blood evaporated from her flaking skin.

The girl's gaze was so hateful, so unbelievably malice driven.

An 'attack' on the mind. Infinite attacks a second.

The flame's intensity rose exponentially. In a single second, the air itself began to crack with unbearable, whitish heat.

Sophie ripped her legs out from the molten concrete.

"System. Unseal some of my power. Is my authority sufficient?"

[Checking parameter 'Us, We'... Authority sufficient. As no lasting effect will be done: Granted. Twenty seconds.]

[This outburst will never be known to Host. Do you wish to take advantage of your authority for a petty moment of rage?]

"Yes."

Sophie's flesh regrew.

She listened to the sounds of screams. She concentrated her gaze on Dino's writhing, immolating body.

The warehouse walls began to melt around her.

"Not enough."

She concentrated her gaze on the glowing lava which Dino's body used to be.

Molecules and atoms unraveled under the sheer heat.

And for fifteen seconds, the Section knew of a second sun.

...

Sophie shut off her flames.

In the center of the crater, she began to crumble.

First it was her feet, disappearing with a sweep of the wind.

Then her legs, grinding into powder on the lava bed below her.

"Wonderful." The girl's eye sockets swirled. Inside them were grainy, black-and-white vortexes.

She turned her head as the crunch of boots on char alerted her attention.

"It seems the mutts brought back a gem. Boss?" Boris used his boots to kick away the last remnants of the Stray Dogs, their leader's silverish chain and onyx rings, all melted into slag.

The Capo's face had completely burnt off. The blood in the boy's body sizzled as he stepped on molten stone and rock. Only the coat was untouched; the gold engravings on it shimmered with an inexplicable, protective glow.

By his side was the Sottocapo.

Kalo was untouched. He snuffed out a smoldering ember on his beard with a pinch.

"You said: 'That kid will tear them apart'. I'm disappointed."

Boris bowed as his boots burst into flames.

"I have failed. Give me my punishment."

Sophie looked at them wordlessly as they approached her.

"Still, this is an unexpected find. You have not entirely failed." Kalo boomed with laughter.

"I implore you sir, give me my punishment."

The Sottocapo glanced to his side, amused. What a stickler for rules. As expected from one of Ibzan's.

"Which arm did you hold your report with? Take it off."

"Yes, Boss."

Boris nodded, twisting his arm off. The boy tossed it aside haphazardly.

"Now-" Boris blinked. The girl in the center of the crater had melted into black goo, seeping into the ground.

Not even the Sottocapo knew what to make of this.

The man's eyes narrowed as he could not sense a presence underground. Did she die?

"Death cannot take this soul. The Law does not permit it." He clenched his fist, and his eyes flashed with gold.

The sludge trembled, reforming into a blackish, shadowy figure.

As if death itself was cowed into submission.

Boris let out a breath of amazement. This was the man that even his previous Sottocapo, Ibzan, treated as an equal.

A veteran of the Smoke War, fame forged from blood and steel.

Both sides of the conflict only knew the man under one title, a true testament to his unshakeable strength.

'The Law'.

Sottocapo Kalo frowned as the black sludge lost its form, dripping downward despite the chains of law that bound it.

"This fish... No, a shark. I've never seen such a thing. The Capo dei Capi must know more. Let us leave this place."

The boy nodded, taking position next to his Sottocapo.