Yuuta walked slowly toward Hemanth, each step deliberate, measured, inevitable. His crimson eyes had narrowed to something that didn't look human anymore—the eyes of a wolf tracking prey, of a predator who had forgotten he was prey. His killing intent was absolute, radiating from him like heat from a fire, like cold from a glacier. If he didn't stop himself soon, he might go completely insane—become a beast without thought or reason, driven only by the need to destroy.
He didn't feel any pain.
Didn't feel anything at all.
His senses had shut down, overwhelmed by the red haze that consumed his vision. There was only the target. Only the man who had hurt his daughter. Only the need to make him stop existing.
Hemanth's hand remained in his pocket, fingers wrapped around whatever weapon he had hidden there. His eyes darted between Yuuta and his fallen men, calculating, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Then a voice stopped Yuuta.
Not Hemanth's voice.
Something else.
He turned toward the sound.
Ban lay on the ground like a lifeless body, his massive form crumpled and still from the punch that had shattered his jaw. But in his hand—his massive, unconscious hand—Elena was still trapped, still trying to free herself, pushing at his fingers with all her tiny strength.
And then he saw her face.
His daughter's face.
Scared.
Confused.
Wanting her Papa.
The red haze began to clear.
Yuuta blinked once.
Twice.
Then all at once, the pain hit him like a freight train.
His hand burned—the skin torn, the bones aching from the force he had used to crush the bald man's grip. His head throbbed where the lean man's punches had landed, each pulse of blood a spike of agony behind his eyes. It was like waking from surgery, like being a patient who had felt nothing during the operation and now experienced every cut, every stitch, every violation of their flesh.
He grabbed his injured hand, his face twisting with pain. "Ouch... fuck, it hurts like hell. Damn it!"
Hemanth and the bald man stared at him in utter confusion.
What was happening? One moment this man was an unstoppable killing machine, the next he was crying about pain like a normal person? What kind of creature was he?
"Papa!" Elena's voice cut through the chaos, high and desperate. "Papa! Help Elena! Please!"
Yuuta rushed to her side, ignoring the protests of his battered body. He carefully, gently, pried Ban's unconscious fingers away from his daughter, freeing her from that massive grip. The moment she was loose, he pulled her into his arms, hugging her so tightly that she squeaked.
Her tiny arms wrapped around his neck, holding on just as fiercely.
"Papa got hurt," she whispered against his shoulder, her small voice trembling. "Papa... it's blood. It hurts, right? Elena knows it hurts."
Yuuta shook his head, forcing a smile despite the agony. "It's not hurt, little princess. It's actually ketchup. Papa was eating a burger and got messy."
Elena pulled back just enough to look at his face, her crimson eyes searching for the truth. "Ketchup?"
"Definitely ketchup. The spiciest ketchup in the world."
She giggled, the sound fragile but real, and hugged him again.
Hemanth watched this scene with growing fury. This man—this father—had destroyed his operation, broken his men, humiliated him in front of dozens of witnesses. And now he was standing there hugging his daughter like nothing had happened?
His hand came out of his pocket.
In it was a pocket knife—not large, but sharp, deadly, more than enough to end a life.
"You will pay for what you did, brat," he snarled, and dashed toward them.
Yuuta looked up, his eyes widening in horror as he saw the knife descending. He didn't know where it would hit—face, head, chest—but it didn't matter. It would hurt. It would probably kill him. And Elena was in his arms, exposed, vulnerable, right there.
Hemanth screamed as he ran, the sound primal and furious. Around them, people scattered in panic, the sight of a drawn knife sending them fleeing for safety. The shopping center became a chaos of screams and running feet and overturned displays.
He lifted his hand.
The knife caught the light, glittering as it began its descent toward Yuuta's head.
Yuuta closed his eyes.
He pulled Elena closer, wrapping his body around hers, using himself as a shield. If the knife hit him, fine. If it killed him, fine. But it would not touch her. Would not.
The Headmaster closed his eyes too, unable to watch the murder of an innocent family.
Then—
Hemanth stopped.
His hand froze mid-swing, the knife hanging in the air, unable to move another inch.
"What?" he gasped, confusion replacing fury. "What's happening? Why can't I move my hand?"
Yuuta slowly opened his eyes.
The knife was suspended in mid-air, held in place by something he couldn't see. Hemanth strained against it, his face turning red, but he couldn't move. Couldn't push forward. Couldn't do anything.
Behind him, a figure stood.
Silver hair.
Violet eyes.
Cold, terrible grace.
Elena peeked over Yuuta's shoulder and her face lit up. "Papa! It's Mama! Mama is here!" She waved her tiny hand frantically. "Mama! Mama! Over here!"
Yuuta's eyes widened as he saw her—Erza, standing behind Hemanth, one hand wrapped around his wrist, holding him in place like he was a child throwing a tantrum. She must have been watching from a distance. She must have seen everything. And now, at the moment of greatest danger, she had stepped in.
"Erza..." His voice came out rough, cracked with emotion. Relief. Hope. Something warmer that he couldn't name.
She looked at him.
Just for a moment.
And in that moment, something passed between them—an understanding, a connection, a feeling that needed no words.
Her lips curved into the smallest, gentlest smile he had ever seen on her face.
Hemanth twisted, trying to see who held him. "Who are you? Don't you know what happens to people who interfere with me? I'll kill you! I'll kill your whole family!"
Erza's gaze shifted to him.
The warmth vanished.
"You disgusting, nasty human," she said, her voice cold enough to freeze blood. "Do you know what happens to those who stand in my way?"
She showed him.
Not with words.
With a vision.
For just a moment—a fraction of a heartbeat—Hemanth saw what she really was. A dragon. Massive. Terrible. Ancient beyond comprehension. Its eyes burned into his soul, and he saw his own death reflected in them—saw himself crushed, burned, erased from existence like he had never been.
He saw what real death looked like.
"You were just a spectator until you drew that knife," Erza continued, her voice carrying the weight of eternity. "I was content to watch. To see how my fool of a Mortal would handle things." Her eyes narrowed. "But the moment you decided to use that weapon, you put your life on the line. And now..."
She squeezed his wrist.
Just slightly.
Hemanth screamed.
Not from pain—from fear. Pure, absolute, primal fear. Sweat poured down his face. His legs trembled. His mind, for the first time in his criminal career, completely shut down.
The knife slipped from his nerveless fingers.
It hit the floor with a metallic clatter that seemed to echo through the sudden silence.
Hemanth stood there, frozen, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything but shake like a leaf in a storm.
Hemanth stood frozen, his mind still trapped in the vision Erza had shown him—a dragon of impossible size, eyes that burned like dying stars, death itself wearing the form of a beautiful woman. He had seen his own end, felt his own annihilation, experienced the absolute certainty of his own extinction. It had broken something inside him, at least for those few seconds.
The bald man's voice cut through his trance, desperate and pained. "Boss! Boss!"
Hemanth blinked, the vision fading like mist in morning sun, and looked around wildly. His men were in ruins—Ban unconscious on the floor with his jaw hanging at a wrong angle, the lean man bleeding from a face that would never be the same, and the bald man clutching his own shattered hand, fingers bent in directions fingers should never bend, bones visible through torn skin. The damage that ordinary-looking man had done was horrifying, the kind of destruction that shouldn't have been possible.
In the distance, security teams were approaching fast, their boots echoing against the shopping center floors. The Headmaster's assistant had arrived with armed guards—military-trained personnel moving in formation, weapons drawn and ready, their faces set in the expression of people who dealt with violence for a living. The chaos had drawn every authority in the vicinity, and they were closing in.
Hemanth tried to pull away, to run, to escape while he still could.
He couldn't move.
Erza's grip on his wrist was like iron—no, stronger than iron. Like the grip of a god who had decided he wasn't going anywhere, who had judged him and found him wanting and was now simply waiting for the consequences to arrive. He strained against it, pulled with every ounce of strength in his body, but she didn't even seem to notice.
She was eating a chicken leg.
With her free hand.
Chewing slowly, deliberately, completely unconcerned with his struggles or the approaching authorities or anything except the food in her hand.
Watching the approaching security teams with mild interest, like someone observing ants from a great height.
She wasn't in the mood to fight. Wasn't in the mood to do anything except hold him in place until the authorities arrived to deal with him. This was beneath her, really—dealing with human criminals like some kind of street-level enforcer, getting involved in the petty violence of creatures who lived and died in the blink of an eye. But here she was, holding a drug lord like he was a child throwing a tantrum, because somehow, impossibly, she cared about the outcome.
Hemanth's eyes darted left and right, panic rising like floodwaters. "No," he whispered, the word barely audible. "No, I can't get caught today. I can't."
His free hand—the one Erza wasn't holding—moved to his pocket.
Came out with something small.
A capsule.
Suspicious. Tiny. The kind of thing people took when they were desperate.
He bit down on it.
The capsule shattered in his mouth, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then the blood inside—a small drop, barely anything—exploded with energy. It rushed through his mouth, down his throat, into his veins, and suddenly his entire body was on fire.
His strength surged.
It wasn't natural. It wasn't human. The pill had contained something—blood, but not ordinary blood. Something ancient. Something dark. Something that burned as it spread through him, unlocking doors in his body that should have stayed closed.
Erza felt it immediately.
The sudden spike in his strength was noticeable even to her—and the gap between them was wider than between an ant and a whale. She could have held him forever if she wanted, could have kept him pinned until the sun burned out. But the change was wrong. Unnatural. The aura coming off him now was nasty, corrupted, the kind of energy that belonged in the darkest corners of her world.
Her eyes began to glow.
Violet light, faint but growing, as she stared at him with the full weight of her ancient perception. She was sensing him now, truly sensing him, peeling back the layers of his humanity to see what lurked beneath.
And what she saw made her grip tighten.
Not because she needed to.
Because she wanted to crush him.
Hemanth strained against her hold with all his borrowed strength, his face twisted with desperation. But Erza was stronger. Always stronger. Her grip tightened further, her fingers pressing into his wrist hard enough to crack bone, her glowing eyes fixed on his with the promise of death.
He couldn't free himself.
Couldn't move.
Couldn't do anything.
But his eyes scanned left and right, looking for anything, anything at all—
And he saw them.
Yuuta and Elena.
Still sitting on the floor where Yuuta had collapsed after the fight, holding each other, the father protecting his daughter even now, even battered and bleeding and broken. They were close. Close enough.
Hemanth's leg shot out.
The kick connected with Yuuta's side with brutal, desperate force, sending him flying across the floor. He hit the ground hard, rolling, and Elena tumbled away from him, screaming.
Erza's eyes went wide.
Her grip loosened.
Just for a second.
Just long enough.
Hemanth wrenched free and ran.
He ran faster than any human should be able to run, his borrowed power surging through his legs, propelling him toward the exit like a bullet from a gun. Security guards fired—shots rang out, aimed at his legs—but he didn't stop, didn't slow, didn't even flinch. The bullets hit, tore through flesh, but he kept going, kept running, disappearing into the maze of the shopping center before anyone could react.
The bald man wasn't so lucky.
He tried to follow his boss, hobbling on his ruined hand, but a bullet caught him in the leg and he went down hard, screaming, his escape impossible. Security swarmed him, guns raised, and within seconds he was pinned, caught, finished. His screams echoed through the shopping center as they cuffed him, as they read him his rights, as his life of violence finally caught up with him.
Erza didn't care about any of that.
She was already kneeling beside Yuuta.
Her heart—her ancient, frozen, untouchable heart—was pounding with something she didn't recognize. Fear. Panic. A sudden, overwhelming terror that she had never felt before, not in centuries, not ever. It consumed her, flooded her, drowned out everything else.
She knelt beside him, her hands reaching for him before she even realized what she was doing.
Yuuta was conscious, barely. He was rubbing his head, groaning, trying to push himself up. But the damage was worse than that. The fall had reopened every wound he had suffered today. His hand—the one that had crushed the bald man's grip—was bleeding freely again, the torn skin gaping, blood pouring down his wrist. His head, where the lean man had punched him repeatedly, was bleeding down his face, mixing with sweat and dirt. He looked like something from a battlefield, like a man who should be dead but somehow wasn't.
Elena was panicking, her small hands fluttering uselessly, not knowing what to do, her face pale with fear. "Mama! Mama!" Her voice was high and scared, cracking with the kind of terror only children feel when their safe world shatters. "Papa got hurt! Mama, Papa got hurt!"
Erza's voice came out cold, controlled—the mask firmly in place despite everything. "I can see clearly. I'm not blind."
But inside—
Inside, she was panicking more than Elena.
More than she had ever panicked in her entire existence.
She grabbed his injured hand.
Lifted it to her mouth.
And spat on it.
A Note for Curious Readers:
Dragon saliva contains magical healing properties. It has pain-killing effects and healing magic that works like a high-powered blessing. It kills bacteria instantly, closes wounds faster than any modern medicine, and promotes rapid tissue regeneration. If you have cancer or any dangerous disease and your wife is a dragon, one kiss from her could restore your health completely.
Just thought you should know.
The effect was immediate.
Where her saliva touched his wound, the bleeding slowed. Stopped. The torn skin began to knit together, visible even as they watched, the magic working at a speed that defied everything modern medicine knew about healing.
Yuuta gasped.
The pain didn't vanish—not completely—but it faded, receded, became something manageable rather than overwhelming. He looked at his hand, at the wound that was closing before his eyes, and then at Erza.
At her face.
At her eyes.
At the queen who had just used her magic to heal him.
Again.
"Erza..." His voice was rough, barely a whisper.
She looked away.
"Don't say anything, idiot mortal." Her voice was cold, but it wavered. Just slightly. Just enough. "You've caused enough trouble for one day."
Erza looked away, her face hidden behind that mask of cold indifference.
But her cheeks—
Her cheeks were pink.
Elena threw herself at both of them, wrapping her tiny arms around as much of them as she could reach. "Papa! Mama! Elena was so scared!"
Yuuta laughed—a broken, exhausted sound—and hugged her back with his good arm.
Erza didn't move.
Didn't join the hug.
But she didn't pull away either.
And when she thought no one was looking—
Her hand reached out.
Just slightly.
Just enough to touch Yuuta's shoulder.
to be Continued..