A sweat drop ran down Victor's cheek and fell down to the road beneath him. Victor and Megumi began to exchange powerful blows, amplified by Senzai, in close quarter combat. Fists, hooks, kicks, haymakers, anything to bring eachother down, they did. However as Victor fought back and blocked her blows he began contemplating his past. It's as almost the entire world faded into darkness and it was just Victor and Megumi fighting eachother.
Suddenly, Megumi landed a powerful strike to Victor's abdomen using her polearm which through Victor away into a building with a crash. "Why do I want acknowledgement...?", Victor begged to himself internally as he remembers his past.
-
A decade ago, Amsterdam, Netherlands
"I grew up rich... filthy rich...", Victor said to himself as a younger Victor in European attire stands in a wealthy people ball. He walked around shaking hands with everyone and clinking his wine glass with unknown people or his father's business friends. A prince charming in the making. To inherit his father's business.
The Volt Family Mansion in the suburbs of Amsterdam
A fancy long table sprawled across the dining room. Victor's father, mother, associates and his large family ate their daily sustinence of the finest piece of meat there ever was. Glasses clinked, cutlery clinked as the apparatuses of symbol of high society worked to help the mogul family eat.
"Fine wine... Fine dining... Fine clothes... Everything was... Fine I guess...", Victor continued narrating as a younger Victor cut through a very expensive steak, medium rare. Just like his life. Rare for many but for him it felt medium. "Ugh... Steaks... For 18 years of my life, I've consumed the fatty flesh of the most expensive cow that exists... The taste is bland... Ugh! it's so tasteless... Everything is tasteless... I hate this...", the younger Victor thought to himself as he cut through the steak, the juices flowing out as he mechanically took a bite of the steak. His jaw's clenching in boredom at the same texture and taste. He broke it down into smaller pieces and gulped it with his Adam's apple bobbing. "Again... And again... And again...", Victor continued narrating his past.
Outside his subconscious, he was going head to head with Megumi even as his Reserves fell. Victor blocked another polearm attack by Megumi before Megumi grabbed his face and slammed him down against the concrete rubble. His body bouncing off, blood spewing out of his mouth. "Why...?", Victor murmured.
One day with his father at his working desk in the mansion as Victor remembers his past again
"Italian or French Coats, Steaks, Wine and elegance is the charm of high society, my son! You'll grow up to be the finest gentleman married to a duchess!", Victor's father said emotionlessly. He was singing documents that came to him. Victor sat across the table on a posh soft leather sofa, head down as he nodded to it. "Yes, father...", the young Victor replied with a stoic expression.
Victor began narrating his life again, "Father gave me everything in life, but what did he want in return? My 120%. He sent me to the finest boarding schools... I graduated... Top of my class... But all I got? A nod". The young Victor of his past took a bite of his steak again.
"I went to piano lessons, and played for his business magnate friends... But no applause...", Victor took a bite again.
"I started my own miniature company without the need of daddy's capital, but no one was proud...", Victor took a bite again.
"My brothers were more talented... My sister's were beautiful and smart... Some were perfect potential wives for the elite in the Netherlands whilst some were powerful women in father's company... But me? To him... I was sub par... I tried everything... I showed my best manners to his grand ball... I managed his finances but not even a single thanks..."
"I grew indifferent to the elite class... I grew astray from the sufferings of the peasants and the struggles of the middle classes...but I don't know why I cried that night..."
One night, as a young Victor came back from his small start up in his vintage car. He stepped out and saw that the mansion was eerily quite that night. He walked towards the door and opened it. Nothing. Darkness. Victor's breath hitched for a second. He wandered around the empty halls. His eyes shaking at the stains of blood on the walls and the Persian carpets, and tearing of the clothes scattered everywhere. He tiptoed to his father's workroom and saw the light was still creeping out of the almost shut door. The young Victor slowly opened it and his soul almost left his body.
An eclipse. Tall. Beastly. The fear of being eaten by a human - cannibalism. Naked. Both eye sockets clearly showing it's identification. The Cannibal Eclipse was mercilessly ripping his father's body, blood and guts splattered everywhere. Bone crunches and squelching of flesh againt it's teeth filled the noise in the room.
"Mmh~ gah~ grr ah~", the eclipse mumbled as it feasted on his father's internal organs - liver? Devoured. Lungs? Oxygen rich. His father's body was laid against the floor, the chest cavity opened.
Victor's eyes had narrowed in fear, his body shaking, his breath hitching, took a step back and then the floor beneath him made an unfortunate noise.
The Eclipse perked it's head up looking back almost instantly, it's mouth wide opened with blood smeared around its lips. Suddenly, the Eclipse dashed at Victor throwing him down against the floor with a shrieking hiss.
-
Next morning at 6 AM, local time
Police sirens echoed throughout the street. The entire mansion was draped with Caution tapes. Police officers, reporters and detectives assessing the situation. The PPA hadn't arrived yet at the scene.
Victor sat outside the mansion on the bench of his frontyard. His bloodstained white shirt dull and crusty under the gloomy weather in Amsterdam. Victor, slouched over the bench was staring at the ground observing ants take away a dead cockroach with their tiny legs. He had just given an interview. A mere interview with the news channels that just gave meagre 'condolences' and made profits out of his suffering to report the news.
Suddenly, a loud step knocked Victor out of his zone out and he looked up at a man whose face is seemingly unrecognisable at the moment.
Victor then narrated, "I still thank him... He saved me... gave me a chance... He acknowledges my power that awakened from that experience... He gave me a purpose".
At a coffee shop in Amsterdam
"So, Victor... I'm so sorry that I was not able to save your family and your father... He was a good man... We were close friends, but what happened has happened...", the man said sitting right infront of a gloomy and emotionless Victor. The man had a deep, masculine russian accent. He was quite tall. His face was blurred for Victor as he remembered these memories.
The man then continued with a more serious tone, "That thing you saw, it was an Eclipse. Your family could have been saved that night before I came, you know? Those powers you awakened and the power that I have they are possible by Senzai Energy, Victor... And the People's Protection Agency? They are tasked with dealing with these Eclipse related threats, however, they can't save everyone. Especially not some sorry to say irrelevant people like you...".
Victor looked up.
"If your family had access and capabilities to use Senzai, would they live? Definitely. What about the hundreds of thousands of families that have been destroyed by eclipses? They'd have lived too... That's why I want you, my child... I want you to join me on my crusade for all humans to achieve a 'Senzai-accesible' world... We can never rely on the beaurucracy to save our families anymore..", the man held out his hand for Victor to take.
Victor raised his hand towards his, hesitant. His palms crackling with electricity before he remembered what happened to his family. He remembers that he is getting acknowledged. "And so I accepted him", Victor narrated to himself.
The young Victor held the man's hands and shook it firmly, "I-I will join you, Mr Nakamura...".
-
Back in reality
Victor is standing weakly in the street of Shinjuku. His vision almost fading. His body battered and bloody from all the beatings by Megumi. He panted heavily. His Art had burned out from overuse, but he still had some reserves left. Steam whistled out of his body. Megumi was standing right infront of him, her hand on her polearm as she was about to end him off. "A Senzai User like you, a zealot like you doesn't understand how the world works! You want a Senzai free world?! Alright, fine! I'll send you to heaven - if they even let your kind in!", Megumi yelled as she swung her Senzai infused polearm, right about to knock him out on the head.
"A zealot? I don't understand? No, you don't understand! You guys are the real evil in this world! You fucking corrupt bastards!", Victor thought to himself as suddenly his body erupted in Senzai.
On instinct, Megumi stepped and drifted back in the air landing on her feet many meters away from Victor, her eyes wide in confusion at the sudden danger that made her go back.
"Electrokinesis Senzai Art:
Power Surge 300%!"
Thunder struck Victor's body from the night sky. Electricity roared to life as it crackled around Victor, damaging the buildings and light posts around him. The entire Shinjuku ward's electricity was flickering on and off consistently, some light bulbs and lamp posts bursted all around the city from the sudden interference in the electric power system of Shinjuku.
"You agents talk about saving the world, but you only save people who mean much to the world... Politicians, maybe a large city smashing eclipse... But what about families? You guys do nothing! That's why I want to make a world with Mr Nakamura and my allies where families don't die!", Victor yelled at Megumi from afar his eyes serious, the yellow irises shining from the surge. Megumi stepped back a bit, sweat dripping down her creamy shoulders and face.
Victor clasped his palms together as a sudden rush of Senzai made electricity pumped into the tight gap between his palms. His output was increasing by 300%! This was everything from his reserves. "If I die from overuse and my body not being able to handle this drastic output, so fucking be it!", Victor thought to himself clenching his teeth tightly as he extended his palms out. A ball of bright blue pure Senzai Energy mixed with electricity crackling around it got brighter and bigger.
"FOR THE NEW FAITH ORDER!", Victor yelled, his voice booming from the amplified output. Electricity sparking even brightly around him.
"Electrokinesis Art:
300% Plasma Wave! "
Before Megumi could even react, a bright blue flashing light blinded her. She placed her forearms in a cross infront of her to shield herself whilst using everything in her capabilities to enforce her body with Senzai. The Plasma Wave made a low pitched cosmic sound as it whirred towards Megumi at the speed of lightning. Too many machs for Megumi to run away, just react barely in time.
The Plasma Wave engulfed the entire street, near the Shinjuku subway station as the wave took over the entire city block of buildings on either side of the street. The first few buildings vaporised from the intense heat and the buildings near where Megumi stood got damaged extremely badly as it crumbled.
After an entire minute of pulse after pulse of energy pouring out of Victor slowed down, the wave diminished leaving behind sparks, vaporised street, buildings and the damaged buildings down the street. Victor's body was steaming profusely. His breath ragged as he tried to walk towards the smoke where Megumi must have been, his giat wobbly before his body gave out and he fell face first to the earth. His reserves had extinguished. His body damaged. His Art and technique burned out indefinitely from lack of mastery.
"I hope you are proud of me, Mr Nakamura..."
-
"Amazing!"
Adrik yelled freakishly, his voice echoing throughout Habachiko street. He was lit up in fire, his shirt and pants completely burnt and he was laughing as his skin regenerated from Sora's Abyssal Flames.
Sora panted lightly wondering, "What the actual fuck is this guy... We've been fighting for 10 minutes and all he does is regenerate through my attacks. He's a monster! Even that blue haired faggot is out of steam!".
Suddenly Adrik started laughing viscerally. The flames extinguished as his right half of his body started to twitch and grotesquely mutate into a bubbling veiny fleshy heap of uncannily large right arm and a same texture under his bare chest and below hiding his pelvis and legs in this armour of sorts. Four crab like legs came out of his back all armed with sharpy edges. His right eye turned black and began to spiral into a black and white kaleidoscope. Adrik looked up, his face a disgusting sight yet still handsomely devilish: veins protruding near his right eye, pumping full of thick viscous blood.
"Heh~", Adrik said as he slowly opened his mouth, the back of his throat exposed as suddenly a few cockroaches came out of his mouth, drool at his lips. Sora stepped back, his eyes widened at the sick sight. "Freaky bastard... What the hell is this.... It's like he looks like a damn Eclipse! Is he playing with me!?", Sora thought to himself as he extended his right arm infront of himself.
Then, with a clap, placing his left hand underneath it, Sora began to extend and harden his fire into a long blade and then pulled his hands out even more to shape the hilt and he had made a flame made katana. Sora grinned to himself as he held it tightly the wind around them getting windier.
"You see, Freakshow, I'm not known for my strength... Infact, I'm known for being the most skilled samurai of my time! I work better with katana's than swords. It's just how I work," Sora said grinning with ecstacy his katana brought back into a stance. Adrik just smiled at that a sheepish smile. "Well, I'm just getting started, Sora! I can do so much more!", Adrik yelled his tendrils bursting out with supersonic speeds as they went to either side of him to the buildings, bursting through them with insane strength.
His tendrils worked around and with a gruesome squelch he brought back two Hostesses.
"Transmutate!"
The women began to transmutate, their screams melting into gurgles as Adrik grabbed their melting flesh and shaped it into a ball.
Sora dodged. Almost instinctively. His eyes widened as he registered Adrik having shot those transmutated humans as large bullets towards him. The veiny fleshy mass flew past Sora crashing into the van nearby as it liquidified and melted the van. Sora was shocked by this, "What the-"
Adrik interrupted by maniacally laughing, two more tendrils bursting out of his already grostque body, "AHAHAHAHA! You see that! That's art! Humans are literally soft plant fleshes to be used to make art pieces! I call that the 'melting point'~! Heh~ if you want to fucking stop me! Then come and stop me if you can! ".
Adrik began to run down the road on his fours, his tendrils and crab legs moving behind him on its own, twitching or pulsating. Adrik began hunting down to find more innocents to toy with Sora. Sora, seeing the deranged threat by Adrik, whirred his flames back to life and dashed towards Adrik with his katana burning by his side, leaving a massive sonic boom that left an air burst behind.
Chapter 12, end