Central Square was already half-collapsed from Masaboru's rampage, but when Iroko Ryusei arrived, the air itself recoiled. His aura hit the plaza like a boulder thrown into a lake—waves of raw pressure rippling outward, cracking pavement and sending loose rubble skittering.
The Suicidal Division stood in the center of it all, utterly unfazed.
Masaboru lounged on a broken fountain, eating dried fruit he stole from a guard's pocket. Nogare leaned on a shattered pillar, picking dirt from his blade. Zentake flicked corrosive mist from his nails, humming. Gaikotsu drifted in slow motion toward a corpse, fingers twitching. Kaito cracked his neck, loosening old restraints. Shinjitsu stood still—too still—like a blindfolded sculpture waiting to move.
Iroko's voice cut through the maelstrom.
"Masaboru Hoshikage. Stop. Now."
His fury was enough to make trained soldiers faint. But Masaboru didn't even blink.
"No," he said.
The square froze.
Iroko moved in a blur, going straight for him—
—but the killing blow never landed.
A hand wrapped in white bandages caught Iroko's monstrous strength mid-strike.
Shinjitsu had stepped forward.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Iroko's jaw tightened. "You."
Shinjitsu tilted his head, almost politely.
Then Iroko's killing aura surged again—this time exploding outward like a bomb.
"Beast Art: TRUE FORM—UNLEASH."
His body erupted into fur and muscle. Bones realigned, claws cracked from fingers, fangs punched through his jaw. He became a towering dire bear, ten feet tall, roaring with primal rage.
He charged.
Shinjitsu lifted a single finger.
"Amorphous Iridophores—Beast Mirror."
Zentake snorted. "Bro, you gotta rename that. Sounds like a medical disease."
And Shinjitsu changed.
No flash. No fanfare.
Just… shifted.
Where Iroko was a hulking bear, Shinjitsu became something larger—sleeker—more terrifying. A creature of perfect symmetry and predatory elegance, as if sculpted by a god with far too much time and far too little mercy.
Iroko roared and struck.
Shinjitsu matched him.
Then outmatched him.
The pavement cratered beneath their clash.
Iroko switched—bear to wolf, wolf to tiger, tiger to elephant—each transformation exploding with power.
Shinjitsu mirrored every one, but improved.
Faster wolf. Heavier tiger. Stronger elephant.
Efficiency sharpened to cruelty.
Zentake laughed loudly from the sidelines. "This is cheating! Beautiful, wonderful cheating!"
For one minute, Central Square became a battlefield of beasts.
Claw met claw.
Fang met fang.
Shockwaves crushed windows three streets away.
Civilians screamed, running through clouds of dust. Buildings buckled under the pressure. Statues cracked. Debris rained like hail.
Then—
It ended.
Shinjitsu's blade flashed once.
A thin silver line cut through the drifting dust.
Iroko—Emperor of the North, strongest warrior of Ostoria—stopped mid-charge.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then his transformed body split cleanly, as if cut by a celestial thread. He fell without a cry, collapsing like a toppled monument.
Silence swallowed the plaza.
The dust settled over the bodies.
Masaboru let out a long whistle. "A minute. Not bad. Thought he'd last ten seconds."
Gaikotsu reached Iroko's body at a glacial pace and knelt. His fingers hovered over the corpse, twitching like a metronome.
"I claim this one," he murmured.
Bone cracked. Flesh shifted. Mana sparked.
A new skeletal giant began to rise, crafted from Iroko's fallen form.
Zentake grinned. "Reflynne's so screwed."
And as the skeleton took its first rattling breath, the ground trembled—not from battle, but from the city itself… beginning to fear them.