Shattered Hope Part Six

On the north side of Grava City, where Ego and Mr.Mink are fighting, Mr.Mink is currently running from block to block, chasing after Ego. Suddenly a surge of monstrous OGI engulfs the city, and Mr.Mink instantly takes notice.

Mr.Mink stops running and instantly activates the sense technique at full blast.

"This surge of OGI. It feels terrifying. Almost like a demonic beast has risen from hell! What the hell is this, and when did it arrive in the city? Wait, this doesn't make any sense. That smell and presence I'm feeling are too similar to...

Mr.Mink closes his eyes and increases his focus on the sense technique.

"Akira!"

At the same time, in the sky above Grava City, Principal Nixion is floating high.

"Now this is a surprise from her performance in the tournament. Who would think she was holding this much power within herself? She's ranked third in class one, but this surge of OGI—no, this surge of raw power makes me think she's been snubbed of the number one spot," Nixion says with a stern tone and expression.

In the east part of Grava City, nearing the fight between Mr.Alex and Death Paul is jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

"Akira? Was she hiding this much power the entire time? This OGI feels completely different from her regular flow of OGI, but based on everything else, it's still her. Maybe she's the one who could give me a challenge," Paul remarks with a stone-cold expression as he continues nearing the east corner of Grava City.

Now on the west side of Grava City, Akira, in her Lava Cerberus form, rushes forth, heading straight for Strout.

"Rahhh!"

"Holy fucking shit! I fucked up! All I was trying to do was break her mentally so she would be filled with too many emotions to continue fighting me, but this! This is way out of anything I could have imagined!" Strout thinks to himself as his heart races.

Strout gets up onto his feet and instantly points his right middle and index finger to his chest.

"I don't need to test anything out; I can't beat that monster no matter what I try! I need to focus all my efforts on defense, evasion, and escaping with my life intact! I'm not dying in a place like this!" Strout shouts with a face full of nothing but desperation as Akira gets closer to him.

Strout starts to swipe his fingers in multiple different directions.

"This body of mine will become immortal with regeneration for the next hour, but once the hour is up, I'll lose three hours of my life! Now curse!"

"Rarrr!" Akira screams with a reverb effect in her voice.

Akira gets in front of Strout and punches him directly in the gut, and then her knuckle releases a blast of lava, which forces a hole through Hunter's torso.

"Fuck!" Strout screams in pain.

Akira then tosses Strout through the sky with enormous force.

In mid-air, Strout's injuries regenerate, and he quickly looks around at his situation.

"Damn that brat, she's already delivered a deadly blow, and she's only been in that form for a mere minute!" Strout exclaims with a fearful expression.

Strout looks below him and sees that he's about to crash onto the top of a building.

"Ok, I've got the living part down now. I need a way to escape!" Strout says as he starts swiping his fingers in front of his legs.

At the same time, Akira, who is on the ground, creates a volcano around her and, with it, launches herself into the air to chase down Strout.

"Rahhh!"

As Akira flies higher into the sky, Strout creates another curse for his survival.

"These legs of mine will move faster than any beast to ever live for the next hour, but once the time is up, I won't be able to walk for a month! Now curse!" Strout shouts at the top of his lungs.

Strout slams onto the top of the roof under him, landing on his back first.

"Rahhh!" Akira screams from above.

"Shit! The curse worked now; I need to put it to use!" Strout says as he jumps onto his feet.

In the sky, Akira creates a ball of lava in her giant hands and points it at the roof Strout is standing upon.

"Rarrah!" Akira screams with lava pulsating through her entire body.

From the ball of lava in her hand, multiple giant shots of lava shoot out at great speed.

"What the fuck!" Strout screams as he jumps out of the way of lava.

With his increased speed, Strout starts running out of the way of multiple giant beams of lava.

"This is just way too much! Those lava attacks are blasting out of her hand like damn minigun bullets! No, even worse, they blast out even faster than bullets!"

Suddenly a beam of lava smacks Strout in the arm.

"Ahhh! Even with my new speed, I still can't dodge everything. I need to get off the top of this building!"

Strout starts running toward the edge of the roof and jumps off as the roof gets completely obliterated by lava.

"Come on, damn it, gravity, make me fall faster. I need to get completely out of that beast's sight so I can run!" Strout screams with sweat sliding down his face.

Strout clears the building, and when he looks behind him, he sees nothing but the building behind him.

"Good! That barrage of lava she was shooting had to distract her from me, and with me behind this building, it gives me more time to think! I'll be able to escape for sure once I land on the ground," Strout thinks to himself.

Strout smiles in relief as he puts his right index and middle finger to his forehead.

"I have the perfect curse in mind. I just need to get time to focus! I can escape!" Strout says in an excited tone.

The very second Strout calms down and feels hope his sense technique goes off like a blaring alarm.

"Her power? That damn girl's raw power is increasing!" Strout screams with terror on his face.

Suddenly the entire building behind Strout turns to lava, and through the lava, Akira appears with all three of her heads full of pure rage.

"Rahhh!"

With all six of her eyes glowing and flowing red lava boiling all the moisture in her body, Akira forms another ball of lava in her hand.

"No, not again! At this range, it will—"

Akira flinches her right hand, condensing the ball of lava, and then does it two more times.

"Raarr!" Akira screams as she blasts Strout with a giant beam of lava that is as big as five skyscrapers.

"Fuhhhh!" Strout screams as he feels over half of his body boil to nothingness.

The beam of lava blasts Strout to the ground, and then, with pure animosity, drags his body through the ground with the constant beam of lava.

"Ahhh! Sto—"

After causing massive damage throughout the area with Strout's body, Akira slams back down to the ground after Strout's screams of agony cease.

"Ruhh," Akira says as she looks around with all three of her heads looming in different directions.

Akira continues looking around aggressively for Strout, but she only sees giant pools of lava and slowly melting buildings.

"Rahh!" Akira screams in rage.

Akira jumps up into a skyscraper and, with her three noses, starts to sniff around the area.

On the other hand, behind a building a few miles away, Strout is completely in shambles. Both of his legs are melted into mush, his right arm is completely gone, his face is burnt to a crisp, and his entire body is smothered in lava.

"My body! It burns! It burns! Damn, it burns!"

Strout looks at his body as it slowly regenerates.

"For fucks sake, when does the pain stop? I can't even soothe the pain with my recover technique because the damn lava won't stop burning me! That must explain why I'm regenerating slowly as well," Strout exclaims to himself.

Suddenly Strout remembers the instance when Akira turned the building behind him into lava, causing him to instantly grab his head.

"Well, at least I know my brain is regenerating from getting out of a microwave at full blast, and I know I wasn't bugging out that monster keeps growing stronger! Damn, how does this girl's power even work? It can't just be lava!" Strout says in pain.

Strout lifts his right hand, which has only regenerated its bones.

Strout once again starts swiping his fingers in front of his head.

"This brain of mine will gain every bit of knowledge of Akira Sato's level two powers, but while my brain processes the knowledge, I'll be completely immobile! Now curse!"

The very second Strout chants his curse, his eyes dilate, and his body slumps onto the wall. Inside Strout's brain, every facet of Akira's level-two power, Lava Cerberus, gets revealed.

Akira's power Lava Cerberus starts simple; she can generate and manipulate lava any way she wishes. Alongside her lava manipulation, Akira can also transform into her lava Cerberus, which is her true form. In this form, she has strength beyond human limits, and her lava manipulation takes her to an entirely new level.

Also with this power, Akira gains a secret ability that gives her three lives every twenty-four hours. This secret ability lies within her three heads. Every head represents a life, and each time Akira dies, a head is removed and her power gets cut in half. Once all three of her lives are exhausted, she either won't be able to transform or be reverted to her human form, where her level two power won't be usable for twenty-four hours, and if she's killed, then there won't be coming back.

Finally, the last part of her power is that with her full three heads, her raw power will keep multiplying the longer she's in her monstrous form, but once one head is gone, her power will spiral down the longer she's in her transformation.

After the information on Akira's power floods through Strout's head, he instantly comes back to reality, and the first thing he sees is Akira standing over him with blood all over her hands.

"Fuhhh!" Strout screams in pain.

Strout looks at his body and sees that it's in shambles once again.

"What the hell, when did she show up? Don't tell me when I said immobile; it also meant that I wouldn't feel anything as I absorb the information as well," Strout says as he opens his eyes wide to avoid passing out from the great pain he feels all over.

"Rahhh!"

Akira kicks Strout through multiple buildings.

"Why do my curses always have to come back and bite me in the ass no matter how I use them? My damn curse from all those years ago really took my whole thing about limitless potential literally! Way too literally! As long as she has three heads, her power won't stop growing. She might as well be a never-ending nightmare," Strout shouts as his body smacks the ground multiple times.

Strout finally fully regenerates and instantly stands up completely out of breath.

"Yeah, that little info dump confirmed it; there's no way I'm beating her in this form. I could try exploiting that weakness where she grows weaker once she loses one head, but I don't have shit to kill her even once! She really held this much power back for all those years for her dumbass sister?"

After asking himself that question, Strout's entire body froze stiff.

"Wait, that girl stopped applying herself for over ten years just for her sister."

Suddenly Akira launches herself into the air, and Strout immediately notices.

"If that dumb girl really has been suppressing herself, how strong would she be if she kept up her training at 100%?" Strout asks with a shaken-up look in his eyes.

While Akira is in the air, she starts sniffing around with all three of her noses, and when she catches a whiff of Strout, she instantly acts.

"Raar!"

Two holes open up on the top of Akira's back, and two more holes open up on the bottom of her back. Out of the four holes on her back, beams of lava spray out like an out-of-control volcano, sending her flying at enormous speed toward the location of Strout.

"Rahhh!"

With Akira on her way, Strout instantly uses his enhanced speed to start running in the opposite direction.

"God damn it! I should have told that rich prick to suck my fat dick 17 years ago! If this girl kept her training up all those years, she could've been way stronger than this! Mr.Mink level? Nixon level? Shit, could she have been at the boss's level! I know I realized this before, but..."

Suddenly Akira flies over Strout and slams down onto the ground behind him, causing him to fall.

"Rahhh!" Akira screams with soot escaping from her mouth.

As Akira's scream goes for miles, multiple volcanoes start to spawn all across a 70-mile radius. With dread taking over his mind and his body trembling in fear, Strout yells out words that echo throughout the Grava Zone.

"I've created a monster!"

With Strout's life flashing before his eyes, Akira starts to scream louder with a reverb effect in her deep voice, and every volcano she created in the area erupts all at once, engulfing half of the west side of Grava City in molten hot magma.

Strout looks around him and comes to a critical realization.

"Everything is getting engulfed in lava! There's nowhere for me to run!" Strout exclaims with a hopeless expression on his face.

Akira begins to slowly walk toward Strout with a menacing look on all three of her faces.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Strout thinks to himself as he gets up and begins to run away in fear.

As Strout runs, a flood of lava pours into the street he's on.

"No! That was the only exit I had left; everything left is just lava!" Strout thinks to himself in a panic.

Strout looks behind him and sees Akira inching closer to him.

"No! No! No! This brat is actually going to kill me for real! I still have at least thirty minutes for my immortality curse to wear off! Is she actually going to sit here and keep killing me until I die for good?" Strout asks as he bites his fingers.

Strout looks up at Akira and instantly knows the answer to his question.

"She is! I'm doomed to thirty more minutes of this torture. No, I can't die here! think Strout! Think!"

Suddenly a light bulb goes off in Strout's head.

"It's all I got left; it has to work!" Strout shouts hesitantly.

Strout turns around to Akira and starts swiping his fingers in the air once again.

At the same time, Akira takes a strong menacing stance, and all three of her mouths start generating massive amounts of lava.

"This body of mine will get transported to somewhere far away from here, but once I arrive at my new location, my insides shall melt entirely, with excruciating pain included!" Strout chants.

Akira lets out a blast of lava from each of her mouths, but when the blast gets halfway there to Strout, all three of the beams of lava come together and create the biggest beam of lava yet.

"Rahhhh!" Akira yells so loudly it shakes Grava City to its core.

"Now!" Strout whispers with desperation on his face.

The blast of lava hits Strout directly, burning him alive inside and out.

"Ahhh!" Strout screams in agony while still standing his ground.

The blast of lava goes for miles, making everything it touches burn to nothingness.

Akira stops her blast of lava, and she sees Strout still standing with his entire left half gone, and every inch of the rest of his body is burned to the point you can see his bones.

As Strout's body begins to fall over with every bit of his remaining strength, Strout whispers something.

"Curse"

Strout suddenly disappears thanks to the curse he created earlier, successfully escaping Grava City.

Somewhere on an unknown island within the Snachro Zone, Strout appears in the middle of a forest in a complete mess.

Strout smacks into the ground, and instantly his body starts to regenerate.

"Yes, my curse worked. I escaped that monster. Now I just have to regenerate from getting my insides me— Ahhhh!"

Strout's curse instantly takes effect, and his insides start melting.

Back at Grava City, the second Strout escaped, and Akira started to sniff around for him, but even with her amazing sense of smell, she couldn't track him from so far.

"Rahhhhh!" Akira screams in rage.

With Strout gone, Akira began to take out her anger on the city. She created more volcanoes to erupt, shot beams of lava at everything in sight, and turned half of the west side of Grava City into a terrifying hellscape.

Akira begins flying across the west side of Grava City in search of Stout by obliterating everything in her way. Akira's out-of-control rampage continued for three minutes, but as she was in the air, she noticed Emiko, who was still unconscious in the center of creeping lava.

"Rahh!"

Akira abandoned her hunt for Strout and jumped to Emiko's rescue. Akira gets to Emiko, picks her up, and with outstanding speed brings her to a safe area on the west side of Grava City.

"Rah," Akira says in a sad tone as she looks at her unconscious sister.

As Akira carefully places Emiko on the ground, Akira returns to her human form.

As Akira stares at Emiko, the words of Strout cross her mind.

"You did this to her! You'll always cause Emiko's suffering for the rest of your miserable lives." 

The lava flooding the west side of Grava City starts to cool and become rock, halting the spread of lava. As this happens, tears start to flood Akira's face.

"I'm...sorry...for...being...such...a bad big sister," Emiko says in Akira's mind.

Akira puts her head on Emiko's chest with nothing but despair in her eyes, and with all the memories she has of Emiko flowing through her mind, she begins to break down physically, mentally, and most importantly, her heart goes on the verge of giving out.

"No Emiko. Please don't apologize to someone like me; please don't! You should just keep hating me! You were right the entire time! I don't deserve your love; I never did!" Akira screams as her heart slowly breaks to pieces bit by bit.

Akira starts to breathe heavily as sorrow takes over her facial expression entirely and her voice continues to get weaker.

"I'm sorry for being brought into this world just to cause you so much pain; I'm sorry for being the sister you should have never had! I'm sorry!"

Akira begins to hug her sister tightly with a face of guilt, which slowly eats way at her soul.

"I didn't mean to come and trample all over your life only if I didn't exist!" Akira yells in anguish.

Akira picks up her sister's body as Emiko's pulse begins to get weaker from her injuries and loss of blood.

"I just mess up everything like always; nothing has changed since we were kids. I'm nothing but a mistake. Damn it," Akira speaks to herself.

Akira jumps up to the start, jumping building to building, so she can get Emiko to the Grava Academy stadium.

"I'm sorry, Emiko."

Chapter 177 end