*Note: sorry for the late update but his week I had a lot of work and I was very tired. The next week my contract will finish, specifically on Friday so we'll return to the normal schedule then until I find a new job I mean.
Anyway enjoy the chapter and have a good day :)
...
Minutes, or perhaps entire hours, ticked by while she remained paralyzed, her fingers digging into the cold, damp soil beneath the bushes. The air still carried that sharp, metallic tang of ozone and the smell of scorched earth, a physical weight that pressed against her lungs and reminded her that her eyes hadn't deceived her. It wasn't a hallucination brought on by the stress of her failing social life or a vivid nightmare; it was the raw, terrifying reality of the universe crashing down upon her suburban existence.
When her limbs finally stopped trembling enough to allow her to stand, Haruka rose like a ghost, her movements stiff and mechanical. She felt as though she were walking through a dream, or rather, a high-budget science fiction movie that had suddenly cast her as an unwilling extra. As she limped away from the park, she couldn't help but steal one final, terrified glance over her shoulder. The landscape was perfectly restored, the grass lush and the trees standing tall as if the cataclysmic battle between Akira and the dark-skinned girl had never occurred. But the memory of the ground splintering like fragile glass and the sky being torn apart by emerald energy was seared into the back of her retinas.
She dragged herself toward her house, her footsteps uneven and heavy. Every familiar sight—the glowing streetlamps, the distant hum of a passing car, the sound of a neighbor's television—felt fake, like cheap cardboard sets in a world that no longer made sense.
"So Lala is a princess... and Akira is a future king? This is madness... this is complete and utter insanity," she muttered to herself, her voice cracking with a mixture of fear and exhaustion.
By the time she reached the sanctuary of her bedroom, she was at her breaking point. She didn't bother to kick off her shoes or change out of her dirt-stained clothes; she simply collapsed onto her bed, staring at the ceiling with wide, unblinking eyes. The silence of her room was deafening, a vacuum that sucked in all her fragmented thoughts and spun them into a whirlwind of confusion.
"But... how is it even possible? Aliens are real. They aren't just stories or blurry photos on the internet," she whispered, the words feeling heavy and wrong in the air. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again: the blinding flash of the Omnitrix and Akira's body twisting, expanding, and hardening into those monstrous, powerful forms. "And Lala... and the others... they were aliens this whole time. Damn it, I really thought those tails were just some weird fashion choice. Everyone is wearing stuff like that these days!"
She began to obsessively replay every interaction she'd ever had with the Deviluke sisters. In Sainan, and especially within the otaku subcultures that permeated the school, seeing a girl with cat ears, devil horns, or a tail wasn't exactly an anomaly. It was a aesthetic, a way to look 'moe' or stand out in a crowd. In a world where girls dressed up as succubi for fun or because they liked a certain anime, Haruka had dismissed Lala's tail as nothing more than a high-quality prop. She had even admired the 'realism' of the accessory, never once suspecting that the pink, heart-tipped limb was a living, breathing organ attached to a princess from a star system light-years away.
"Is everyone in that house an extraterrestrial?" she wondered, a cold, prickly sensation crawling up her spine. If the sisters were royalty, what did that make the rest of them?
She started cataloging the faces of the girls who followed Akira like planets orbiting a sun. There were the two younger ones she had seen today: Kari, with her sharp bob and intense brown eyes, and Mikan, the one who seemed so quiet yet was clearly part of this inner circle. Kari's devotion to Akira during the fight hadn't just been a crush; it was the loyalty of someone who knew exactly what he was and what he was capable of. Haruka felt a pang of realization—she had been trying to 'conquer' goddesses and alien assassins while acting like the big fish in a very small, human pond.
She thought of Yami, the girl whose golden hair could turn into blades, and Dita, the blonde whose combat prowess was clearly not of this earth. It explained their physical perfection, their unnatural strength, and the way they looked at the world with a certain detached confidence. Haruka even thought of her friend Kotori, the red-haired loli who spent all her time talking about conspiracy theories and secret alien invasions. Haruka had spent months nodding along to Kotori's rants just to get close to her, laughing behind her back at the absurdity of it all. Now, the irony was a bitter pill to swallow: the 'crazy' girl was the only one who had been right.
"What do I do now?" she asked the empty room. "If I told them I knew... if I threatened to expose them... would they have to help me with Kouta?"
The idea of blackmail flickered in her mind like a dying candle. It was a tempting shortcut. She could force them to play the role of her doting girlfriends, humiliate Kouta, and regain her lost pride in a single stroke. But as she thought about Akira's transformed face—the raw, unbridled power he had displayed—the idea felt suicidal.
"No... even if I've been a bit of a scumbag with my flirting, I'm not a blackmailer. That's for people who have truly given up," she growled, punching her mattress in frustration. "And honestly, after seeing Akira turn into a one-eyed giant and then into that muscular warrior... making him an enemy is a one-way ticket to a graveyard."
She couldn't stop thinking about that final form—the Saiyan. He had looked absolutely unstoppable, a literal god of combat. Haruka realized that all her attempts to 'steal' his girls or assert her dominance must have looked like a comedy routine to him. He wasn't arrogant; he was simply existing on a level so far above her that she wasn't even a blip on his radar.
"And yet... god, he looked so cool," she whispered, her face heating up instantly. "He was so manly... so powerful..."
She immediately grabbed her pillow and buried her face in it, letting out a muffled scream of pure self-loathing.
"No! Stop it! What is wrong with you, Haruka?" she scolded herself, her muffled voice sounding frantic. "Is Lala right? Am I actually falling for a man? For that man?"
Her world was upside down. The envy she felt wasn't about wanting to be Akira anymore; it was a strange, hollow longing to be one of those girls by his side, protected by that terrifying power. If her old crew back home knew that the "Legendary Haruka," the girl who had sworn off men and built a reputation as the ultimate lady-killer, was blushing over a guy, they would never let her live it down. She tried to tell herself she was just confused by the trauma, but the way her heart skipped a beat when she remembered Akira's protective stance over the others told a different story.
It is worth noting that while Haruka might currently be one of the most polarizing figures in this story, she is undergoing a profound internal shift. There is a specific plan for her future, one that requires her to hit rock bottom before she can truly change. It will take time, but the goal is to transform that hatred into something far more interesting as she navigates her new reality as the only 'normal' human in a den of monsters and gods.
While Haruka was spiraling into a crisis of identity in the quiet suburbs of Earth, the gears of the universe were turning in a much darker direction. Thousands of light-years away, in a solar system tucked near the galactic core—not far from the prideful world of Biestirol—lay a planet that served as a grim monument to failure.
From the observation deck of a starship, the planet might have looked inviting, with swirling atmosphere and deep oceanic blues. But on the surface, the air was a toxic soup of industrial runoff and chemical ash. It had been home to a species that was brilliant, ambitious, and utterly self-destructive. They had reached the pinnacle of their technological evolution, only to burn their world to a cinder in a final, pointless war for resources just weeks before King Gid's ambassadors were scheduled to arrive.
Now, the only things that moved among the twisted skeletons of their cities were the wind and the scavengers. In the center of a ruined plaza, where statues of forgotten heroes lay toppled and cracked, stood a girl with deep maroon hair. Her hair was gathered into a single, massive braid that reached all the way down to the backs of her knees, swaying slightly as she walked through the carnage with a chilling, practiced indifference.
"Another world, another waste of potential," she sighed, her voice flat. "They always think they can own the stars before they can even manage their own backyard."
She wasn't a scientist or a diplomat. She was Mea Kurosaki, and she was there to collect a debt in blood. Despite her youthful appearance, Mea was ranked fourth among the galaxy's elite professional assassins. She was a weapon for hire, and her current contract was a particularly nasty piece of work: a mass murderer who had used the chaos of the planet's collapse to hide from the King's justice.
"I know you're breathing back there! You're making enough noise to wake the dead!" Mea called out, her eyes scanning the jagged skyline of the ruins.
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
"Fine, keep hiding. But I should warn you, I'm on a very tight schedule. I have a trip to prepare for, and every minute you waste is a minute I'm going to take out of your skin. Are you really going to cower like a dog after killing all those people? Where's that legendary cruelty now?"
A low growl echoed from the shadows of a collapsed skyscraper. A massive figure stepped out, his skin a mottled, bruised blue and his eyes wide with the desperate, cornered look of a hunted animal. He held a vibrating thermal blade in his trembling hands. He had known the moment he saw the maroon braid that his time was up. Mea was known as "The Executioner" for a reason—she didn't just kill; she made it a statement.
It should be noted that while this specific encounter wasn't part of the original historical records, in the world of this story, these are the moments that define the power balance of the shadows.
"I'll take you with me, you little monster!" the killer roared, lunging forward with a desperate, overhead strike.
"Predictable. You're screaming because you're afraid," Mea said, her expression never changing.
In a blur of motion that defied the laws of physics, her massive braid lashed out. It didn't just swing; it transformed. The biological matter of her hair shifted into a dense, metallic blade that met the thermal sword with a deafening clang. Sparks showered the ruins as Mea held the brute back with a single hand, her strength far outclassing his frantic muscles.
"Now, die. I have a long journey ahead of me, and I don't want to smell your fear any longer."
Mea delivered a crushing kick to the man's sternum, sending him crashing through a pile of rusted girders. Before he could recover, she was over him, her braid shifting again into a jagged, serrated edge. She didn't end it quickly. She wanted him to feel the weight of his crimes, slicing through his limbs with surgical precision as his screams filled the empty city.
"Ugh, you're leaking all over my boots," she remarked with a look of genuine disgust as the killer finally slumped into a heap of gore. With one final, casual flick of her wrist, her blade-braid detached his head from his shoulders.
"Honestly, why does the King insist on physical proof? It's so archaic," she grumbled, retrieving a containment unit from her belt. She handled the head as if it were a piece of rotten fruit, sealing it away with a click. "I am definitely adding a 'biohazard' fee to this invoice. A very large one."
Her work here was done. She looked up at the gray, smog-choked sky, her thoughts already jumping ahead to her next destination. The payment from this contract would be more than enough to cover the private transport she needed.
"Next stop, Earth," Mea said, a small, playful smile finally tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'm sure the King won't mind me visiting... as long as I play nice with his precious little heir."