[ March 21th, 2087 (Saturday, Night) ] Secret Basement Room (D-Blockade Dojo) > Maison Bella Cafe > Sector 13-05 > Mega Ark-City 01: Radiant City > Earth ]
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The following day, Niero found himself again in the underground D-Blockade Dojo, located beneath Maison Bella Café- where concrete walls were now an unending killing field, and silence was now pressure.
The air was even heavier than ever.
The room itself was holding its breath like.
Opposite him was his mother.
Not Emmy the proprietor of the cafe.
Not Emmy the sweet mother who kissed his forehead and called him her badger baby.
But Emmy Ripley—Rank-S.
As soon as the sparring test was resumed the dojo sprang into motion.
Fists were bristling fists.
Kicks met blocks.
Scraped guards.
Each blow was as thunderous.
Purple power swirled along around her body as she struck--her [Mana Art: Wrath of Raijin] booming through her body like a tempest made a man. Every blow was powerful enough to break the bone, every kick was quick enough to leave afterimages.
And yet—
Niero didn't fold.
He moved.
He ducked a blow, swung around, and struck with a hook--
and in order to receive a revolving heel kick which almost cut his head off.
He instinctively leaned back and felt his hair touched by the wind and the statical.
His heartbeat spiked.
Danger screamed in his body.
But his eyes stayed locked.
Focused.
Hungry.
He received a blow to the ribs--his breath bursting out of him--
and replied by a blow of his own, Nova-Spark as blue as he swung his fist into her guard.
BOOM!!
The collision had a wave of impact along the floor of the dojo.
Aunt Alura stood on the verge of the increased area, hands crossed, eyes open.
It was not a spar she was watching.
She was observing two monsters bump into each other.
A purple lightning-squall.
Fire of blue fire.
Mother and son fused as dueling comets over the dojo--striking, dodging, weaving, crashing against each other anew and anew.
As soon as Niero and Mom threw simultaneous punches, the collision detonated like a shockwave.
BOOM—!
The impact sent them flying apart.
Their boots scraped violently across the dojo's white floor, sparks and dust trailing behind them as they skidded to a stop—each of them digging in, refusing to fall, refusing to yield.
For a brief moment…
Silence.
Niero's chest rose and fell in sharp breaths. His arms trembled—not from fear, but from the sheer strain of blocking lightning-charged blows that could've crippled anyone else.
He lifted his gaze.
Above the dojo floor, the system timer hovered in clean holographic text.
[ 00:30:00 / 01:00:00]
Halfway.
Only half an hour left.
Mom straightened, purple arcs crackling faintly along her knuckles like restless serpents. Her expression was calm, but her eyes carried something heavier than electricity.
Pride.
And caution.
"…I'll admit it," she said, voice steady. "You've gotten stronger."
She rolled her shoulder once, testing her posture as if she hadn't just traded blows with a human storm.
"You're still standing even after taking multiple strikes from my lightning. Strikes that would've paralyzed a normal man."
Niero wiped a smear of sweat from his jaw, swallowing the burn in his lungs.
Then, despite everything—the pain, the pressure, the fear of losing everything—
he smirked.
"I had a good teacher."
Mom's lips curved into the faintest smile.
A mother's smile.
But it vanished just as quickly.
"Flattery won't win you this."
Her gaze sharpened, like a blade sliding out of its sheath.
"This is the third round, Niero."
Her voice lowered, carrying weight like a verdict.
"The final round."
She took one step forward—
and the dojo itself seemed to tighten around them.
"This fight decides whether you're truly ready…"
Her fingers flexed, purple lightning sparking louder.
"…to become a Marauder."
Her eyes sharpened, no longer warm—only deadly calm, like a storm that had decided to stop holding back.
"…Alright," she said quietly. "One more notch."
Niero's breath hitched.
He felt it.
That invisible pressure.
That familiar dread crawling back into the air.
Mom reached to her waist and pulled out the purple karambit.
The blade shimmered like liquid amethyst, etched with constellation-like patterns that pulsed faintly—almost alive, almost breathing.
Niero's pupils tightened.
He'd seen it before in the footage.
But seeing it in reality—
made his blood turn cold.
Mom raised the karambit to her palm.
And without hesitation—
stabbed it in.
Blood welled instantly.
The blade drank it.
The constellation engravings flared brighter, glowing like a violet star map igniting across metal.
Then Mom closed her eyes.
And spoke.
Her voice wasn't loud.
But it carried through the dojo like a sacred command.
"Lamina Mea, Ascende et Transfigura."
The air exploded.
A flood of Mana surged outward, purple lightning roaring like an awakened dragon. The D-Blockade containment field immediately screamed into higher output, black cubes and crimson lines spreading across the space as the dojo expanded into a fortified domain.
A blinding violet radiance engulfed her.
For a heartbeat, she wasn't Emmy Ripley.
She was something ancient.
Something ordained.
When the light faded—
she stood transformed.
Her Sororitae form radiated oppressive elegance.
A white bridal dress flowed around her like holy fabric, trimmed with purple accents that shimmered with arcane energy. Long black leather gloves wrapped her arms, and thigh-high black boots grounded her stance with predatory grace.
But above it all—
a nun-like habit draped over her shoulders, dark and solemn, with a veil trailing behind her like a shadow.
A bride.
A saint.
A killer.
Behind her, blades began to form—floating swords and knives forged from lightning and metallic particles, orbiting her like a crown of judgment.
Her Arcana ignited in the air, undeniable.
[ARCANA: THE BLADE]
Niero stared, jaw tight, breath caught in his throat.
This wasn't just power.
This was divinity sharpened into murder.
And then—
Nova-Spark flared.
Blue plasma surged along Niero's arms and legs, wrapping his body in crackling energy as he lowered into stance. The floor beneath his feet cracked, caved into a webbed crater while scorched by the heat of his aura.
His eyes hardened.
His heartbeat thundered.
He didn't step back.
He didn't freeze.
He didn't hesitate.
Because if he wanted to be a Marauder—
if he wanted to prove his worth—
then he had to face her at her peak.
Even if it meant standing in front of a storm that could carve him apart.
Niero clenched his fists, Nova-Spark roaring louder.
"…Bring it on," he whispered.
And across from him—
Sororitae Emmy Ripley opened her eyes.
They glowed with violet lightning.
The moment Emmy's transformation stabilized, the dojo's hidden systems reacted like a living organism sensing a predator.
A cold mechanical voice echoed through the expanded space.
[D-BLOCKADE CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL: ESCALATING…]
[LEVEL 5 CONFIRMED.]
The air trembled.
The walls dissolved into darkness.
The floor stretched outward endlessly, transforming into a vast plane of black cubes and crimson lines—square grids spreading to the horizon like an infinite digital battlefield.
A war zone.
A domain.
A cage meant to hold monsters.
Emmy stood at its center, veil fluttering in the unnatural wind of Mana. Violet lightning crawled across her arms, and in a shimmer of metallic particles—
two silver broadswords formed in her hands.
One in each.
Thick blades.
Wide edges.
Blunt.
But infused with crackling purple electricity, they radiated an aura that promised agony without mercy.
Her gaze locked onto Niero.
"These are blunt," she warned, voice calm as a priest delivering judgment.
"But they won't be painless."
Niero's Nova-Spark aura flared brighter, blue plasma rippling like a living flame around his limbs.
He smirked through the tension in his jaw.
"I don't mind."
He tightened his stance.
"I'm confident I can bear it."
For a fraction of a second, Emmy's expression shifted—something between pride and disappointment.
Then she moved.
She dashed sideways—
and vanished.
Not blurred.
Not dodged.
She became a thunderstrike.
CRACK—!!
A streak of purple lightning ripped across the grid floor, leaving sparks dancing in the air like afterimages.
Niero's eyes snapped wide, scanning.
His enhanced perception strained, tracking the faint static trails around him—tiny electric whispers in the air, like footprints made of stormlight.
His danger sense screamed.
Behind him.
Now.
Niero didn't hesitate.
He raised his right leg high—
then slammed it down.
BOOOOOOM!!
The stomp shattered the grid floor, a crater blooming beneath his foot as a shockwave blasted outward in a circular ripple. The black cubes buckled and split, red lines warping like torn veins.
The force hit Emmy mid-dash.
Her lightning trail flickered.
Her movement stuttered.
For the briefest heartbeat, her balance broke—
just enough.
Niero twisted instantly, spinning on the same planted foot like a top, his body rotating with violent speed.
His Nova-Spark aura whipped outward with the motion, tearing dust and shattered fragments into the air.
The Dojo responded, simulating debris and smoke—
a thick cloud rising like a battlefield smokescreen.
A veil of darkness and grit.
A moment of blindness.
A moment of uncertainty.
Inside the swirling smokescreen, Emmy's vision turned useless.
Dust and simulated grit clung to the air like a curtain, swallowing the battlefield whole. The world became muted—only the faint hum of containment fields, the crackle of her lightning, and the whisper of movement remained.
Emmy didn't panic.
She'd fought in worse.
This was a battlefield trick, an old one—used by soldiers and assassins alike to blind stronger opponents.
She stood perfectly still, swords lowered but ready, listening.
Feeling.
Waiting.
Her eyes narrowed as she caught it—
a subtle disturbance in the dust.
A ripple.
A shift.
There.
She took a careful step back.
And then—
WHAM!
A spray of pebbles exploded out of the smokescreen like buckshot, pelting toward her face.
Emmy snapped her blades up in a cross-block.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The blunt broadswords caught the stones effortlessly, sparks bursting where rock met lightning-infused metal.
Her expression hardened.
"…So that's your plan."
More pebbles fired.
Not one burst.
Not two.
A storm.
A rapid barrage that kept coming from different angles—left, right, above—like invisible hands were loading and firing a psychic shotgun again and again.
Emmy's swords moved in smooth arcs, blocking every shot with near effortless precision, but her mind clicked into place.
Psychokinesis.
Niero's psionic ability besides his enhanced conditions, the ability to move objects with the mind.
Not just pushing.
Not just lifting.
Weaponizing the environment.
And while she blocked—
she could feel it.
That faint pressure in the air.
A presence circling her, weaving through the smoke like a predator stalking prey.
He wasn't charging.
He wasn't rushing.
He was hunting.
"You can't hide in the smoke forever, boy..." said Emmy as her eyes scans her surrondings, possibly for a faint changes..
"You can only hide until the winds blown away..." Talking to her son that hides in the smokescreen, then she raised one of her sword into the air, in the attempt to swing her sword in great srength.
But then her instincts screamed.
Right side.
Emmy's body reacted before thought could catch up.
She pivoted—
and launched her sword forward with a violent, thunder-charged thrust.
CRACK—!!
Lightning exploded from the blade as it pierced through the smokescreen, aiming for flesh.
For bone.
For impact.
But instead—
THUD.
The sword struck something soft and armored.
Not a body.
Not a person.
Emmy's eyes widened as the dust shifted just enough for her to see it.
A training chest pad.
Hanging in the smoke.
A decoy.
Niero had thrown away his own defense—
just to bait her strike.
"…You little—!"
Before she could retract her blade—
the real presence hit her left.
A blur of blue plasma.
Double fist wreathed in Nova-Spark energy drove into her waist like a meteor.
BOOOOOOM!!
The impact detonated with a burst of cyan light, shockwaves ripping through the smokescreen and scattering it like torn cloth.
Emmy's body lifted off the ground.
Her Sororitae aura flared violently as she was launched across the grid floor, skidding through the air like a struck comet—
before slamming down hard, sparks and dust erupting around her.
For a heartbeat, the dojo was silent.
And in that silence—
Niero stepped out of the fading smoke, breathing hard, eyes blazing.
Emmy's body lay half-sunken into the grid-patterned floor, a shallow crater spiderwebbing beneath her back.
Then—
she exhaled.
And laughed.
A low, breathy chuckle that sounded almost amused… almost proud.
"Ahh… damn," she muttered, pushing herself up with one arm. "Guess I really have gotten rusty."
Purple sparks crawled across her shoulders like restless serpents as she rose to her feet, Sororitae dress fluttering in the charged air.
Niero stood a few meters away, chest heaving, Nova-Spark still faintly pulsing around his knuckles.
He didn't mock her.
Didn't gloat.
Instead, he said quietly, almost sincerely—
"…Maybe that's a good thing."
Emmy blinked.
Niero's eyes stayed locked on hers.
"If you're rusty… it means you've been living." His voice tightened. "Not just surviving. Not just fighting. You chose us."
For a moment, the lightning around Emmy flickered.
Her expression softened—just for a heartbeat.
But the battlefield didn't allow heartbeats to linger.
With a sharp motion, Emmy snapped her fingers.
The blunt broadsword embedded in the floor—still pinning Niero's discarded chest pad—shuddered violently.
Then ripped free with a metallic shriek, dissolving into crackling violet particles before reforming in her right hand like it had never left her grip.
Her second blade hummed in her left.
Two electrified broadswords.
Two arcs of thunder.
Her stance lowered.
Her smile returned—small, dangerous, motherly in the worst possible way.
"Nice try," Emmy said, voice calm but heavy with warning. "That smokescreen trick? Confusing your opponent? It'll work… sometimes."
She tilted her head, lightning crawling along the edges of her blades.
"But outside the walls of Mega Ark-City 01… it won't be enough."
The dojo's containment field groaned softly, as if reacting to her rising output.
Emmy's gaze sharpened.
"There are things out there that don't get confused that easily. Things that don't hesitate. Things that won't matter if you're clever."
Her boots scraped the grid floor as she took a step forward.
"So if you want to be a Marauder…"
Her voice dropped into something colder.
"Then prove it."
Niero's throat tightened.
His fingers curled into fists, Nova-Spark flaring brighter, burning cyan against the purple storm around his mother.
He took a step forward too.
Not retreating.
Not trembling.
His voice came out rough—but unwavering.
"I will."
His eyes burned with stubborn fire.
"I'll prove it to you, Mom."
Then, quieter—almost like a plea.
"…And I'll make you proud."
For a split second, Emmy's eyes widened.
Not because of fear.
Because of something far more dangerous.
Emotion.
Then her lips curled into a grin.
"Good."
At that moment, both mother and son began to circle.
Slow.
Measured.
Predatory.
Their footsteps scraped softly across the grid-patterned floor as they paced around one another, never lowering their guard, never breaking eye contact—each of them searching for the first mistake.
The first twitch.
The first breath out of rhythm.
The smokescreen slowly thinned as the containment field stabilized.
Above them, the timer continued its merciless countdown.
[ 00:24:09 / 01:00:00 ]
Twenty-three minutes left.
Roughly twenty-three minutes to decide everything.
Niero's fingers flexed, Nova-Spark pulsing across his knuckles like living fire.
Emmy's twin broadswords crackled with violet lightning, humming like thunder trapped in steel.
Then—
they moved.
Both dashed forward at the same time, the ground beneath them cracking from the force of their acceleration.
BOOOOM—!!
They collided in the center of the dojo.
Blunt swords met plasma-charged forearms.
Nova-Spark clashed with Raijin lightning.
The impact detonated into a shockwave that not only blow away the remaining dusty smokescreen but also rippled across the grid floor like a quake.
For one second, they locked—
steel and energy grinding against each other—
then they exploded apart into motion.
Emmy swung.
Her swords moved like lightning itself, cutting through the air in violent arcs far beyond human reaction speed. Each strike carried enough momentum to shatter stone, each swing laced with electrical discharge that screamed through the air.
But Niero kept up.
He didn't retreat.
He didn't freeze.
His Nova-Spark flared, reinforcing his limbs and sharpening his reflexes until his entire body moved like a living weapon.
He dodged.
Weaved.
Blocked.
Countered.
His palms met her blade flats with explosive bursts of blue plasma.
His feet skidded and pivoted with impossible precision.
A punch.
A knee.
A spinning kick.
A stomp that cracked the floor.
Their movements became a blur—an exchange too fast for the mind to properly process.
A storm of violet and cyan tearing through the dojo like a clash of natural disasters.
From the sidelines, Aunt Alura could barely follow it.
All she could see was a whirlwind of purple lightning and blue plasma streaking across the battlefield, colliding, separating, colliding again—each impact lighting up the containment grid like fireworks.
Her eyes widened.
She rubbed them hard, squinting like an old woman trying to read tiny text.
"…Oh Empress," Alura muttered, voice half-amazed and half-terrified. "I will go blind if I keep staring at this lightshow…"
Another collision—
KRAKOOOM!!
The dojo flashed.
The air shook.
They crashed into close-quarters again.
Too close.
Too fast.
Emmy's blades swung in brutal arcs, each strike a blunt guillotine wrapped in crackling purple electricity. Every impact that landed on Niero's guard sent a surge of semi-paralytic shock through his arms—meant to lock his muscles, disrupt his rhythm, and end the exchange before he could adapt.
But this time—
Niero didn't falter.
His body trembled under the voltage, veins flashing with blue Nova-Spark—
yet he gritted his teeth and forced his limbs to obey.
He buckled down.
He endured.
And Emmy's eyes widened slightly.
Because she could feel it.
The difference.
He was resisting.
He was staying in control.
A flurry of electrified swings followed—left, right, overhead—her twin broadswords moving like violent thunderclaps. Niero dodged under one, blocked another with his forearm, then countered with a Nova-Spark punch that detonated against her guard.
BOOM!!
The clash threw sparks and plasma in every direction.
Then Emmy shifted her stance.
Her right sword lifted high above her head, lightning screaming along the blade's spine as she prepared a crushing overhead slam.
The air tightened.
Gravity itself seemed to lean toward the strike.
Niero's danger sense screamed.
Emmy brought it down.
KRAAASH—!!
The blade slammed into the ground with monstrous force, carving a massive webbed crater into the grid floor, cracks branching outward like shattered glass.
But Niero wasn't there.
He had jumped at the last possible instant—timing it so perfectly that the shockwave passed beneath him instead of through him.
A split-second evasion.
A razor-thin margin.
And then—
he struck.
While Emmy's sword was still buried in the crater, Niero grabbed the blunt edge with his right hand—Nova-Spark reinforcing his grip against the surging electricity.
His palm smoked.
His muscles spasmed.
But he held it.
Emmy's eyes snapped toward him.
Too late.
Niero twisted his hips midair and whipped his left leg out—
THUD!!
His kick slammed into the side of her face.
The impact snapped her head sideways, veil fluttering violently.
Before she could recover, Niero used the sword itself as leverage, pushing off with his right hand in midair—launching his body like a spring-loaded missile.
He spun—
then drove his right leg forward.
BOOM—!!
A Nova-Spark-boosted kick struck Emmy's abdomen.
The shockwave rippled through her Sororitae dress, purple sparks scattering as she was forced backward, boots scraping harshly across the floor.
She slid several meters, stabilizing herself with sheer strength.
Emmy lifted her head slowly, lightning crawling along her jawline.
And for the first time in the fight—
her expression wasn't just calm.
It was sharp.
Focused.
And faintly… impressed.
Emmy's boots finally dug into the grid floor, stopping her slide.
She straightened slowly, veil swaying, lightning still crawling across her arms like restless serpents.
Then she chuckled.
A soft laugh—almost affectionate.
Almost proud.
"You've improved," she admitted, eyes gleaming violet. "Incredibly well."
Niero's breath came out sharp, Nova-Spark pulsing in uneven waves across his shoulders. His arms trembled from strain, but his stance remained solid.
Emmy lifted one sword slightly, tilting her head.
"But you're not out of the water just yet, baby badger."
The moment she spoke—
the air beside her rippled.
Mercury-like liquid metal oozed into existence from nothingness, swirling around her hands and shoulders like living silver smoke. It spun, stretched, and sharpened in midair, morphing into an array of short swords and daggers—dozens, then hundreds—each one glinting with cold menace, infused faintly with purple sparks.
A blade storm.
A weaponized swarm.
Emmy's fingers snapped.
The daggers launched.
SHRAK-SHRAK-SHRAK-SHRAK!!
A rapid volley tore across the dojo like minigun fire—silver streaks screaming through the air toward Niero's body.
Suppressive fire.
No openings.
No breathing room.
Niero's eyes widened.
He jumped sideways—
a blade grazed past his ribs.
He ducked—
another stabbed the air where his throat had been.
He twisted mid-step—
two more slammed into the floor behind him.
Each time a dagger struck the grid ground, it dematerialized into glittering particles, vanishing like mist, leaving no evidence except the sound of impact and the pressure of near-death.
Niero kept moving.
But every dodge forced him backward.
Every step was retreat.
Every breath was stolen.
No…
His jaw clenched.
If I keep backing up, she'll control the entire fight.
He changed tactics instantly.
Instead of retreating, he surged forward—zig-zagging in short bursts, using subtle hops and sharp angle changes to throw off her targeting.
His Nova-Spark aura flared.
Blue plasma ignited under his feet as he lunged forward again.
Emmy's eyes narrowed.
But Niero's voice cut through the storm of blades, raw and stubborn.
"I'm not stopping!"
He gritted his teeth, electricity stinging his skin as the blades clipped his guard and grazed his arms.
"If I have to keep fighting…"
Another volley screamed past his head.
"…even if it hurts—"
He ducked under a dagger and punched forward, Nova-Spark detonating outward to deflect two incoming blades.
"—then I'll take it!"
Emmy's expression tightened.
No longer amused.
Now fully serious.
She lifted both hands.
And the air around Niero shimmered.
Suddenly, countless daggers formed in a perfect 360-degree dome around him—an orbiting cage of silver points, surrounding him from every direction like a metallic halo of execution.
Niero's breath caught.
Emmy's voice was calm.
"Then endure."
The daggers fired.
All at once.
SHRRRRAAAAAK—!!
The dome collapsed inward like a guillotine sphere.
Niero's world became flashing silver.
He moved.
Fast.
Faster than he thought possible.
He ducked, spun, leaned, twisted—Nova-Spark flaring along his arms as he blocked with forearms and palms, deflecting blades with violent sparks of plasma.
CLANG! CLANG!
A dagger struck his shoulder guard—deflected.
Another aimed for his eye—swatted away.
Two more came at his ribs—he crossed his arms, Nova-Spark exploding outward to shove them aside.
His feet never stopped.
His breathing turned into ragged bursts.
His body screamed from cuts and shock and strain.
But he stayed standing.
At that moment—
some of the daggers finally bit into him.
One punched through his shoulder.
Another sank into his thigh.
A third buried itself into his waist, scraping bone.
And one stabbed clean into his forearm, pinning his muscle with a sickening wet crunch.
Niero's breath hitched.
Pain detonated through his nervous system like wildfire.
His vision blurred.
His knees almost buckled.
But his Nova-Spark didn't fade.
It howled.
Blue plasma erupted along his veins, surging like a living storm beneath his skin—fury forced into motion, desperation forced into power.
Emmy froze.
Her eyes widened in genuine shock.
"Niero—!"
She was about to stop. About to call it off.
About to rush forward and catch him like she should've.
But Niero's face twisted—not in fear.
In refusal.
In pure, wounded defiance.
He planted his feet.
And then—
he punched upward.
BOOOOM—!!
The impact cracked the air itself.
A shockwave exploded from his fist, a violent gust born from sheer force—like he'd torn through the sound barrier with nothing but willpower. The grid floor trembled. The air screamed.
The entire 360-degree blade dome shattered apart, blasted outward like scrap metal caught in a hurricane, dissolving into pixel-like fragments before they could strike again.
Silence.
A single heartbeat.
Then Niero looked up—
blood dripping.
Breath shaking.
Eyes burning with cyan light.
And he moved.
WHOOSH—!
He vanished into a zig-zag rush, tearing across the dojo in near lightning speed, leaving streaks of blue plasma in his wake.
Straight toward his mother.
Emmy's instincts kicked in.
Her right blunt sword swung in a thunder-charged arc—
CRACK!
—but it struck nothing.
Niero slipped past it in a split-second dodge, leaving behind a faint afterimage that dissolved like smoke.
Emmy's pupils tightened.
Behind—!
She spun and swung with her left sword—
WHAM!
Again, nothing.
Niero wasn't retreating anymore.
He was hunting, just like the smokescreen.
He kept coming, even with blades in his flesh, even with blood staining his clothes, even with his body screaming at him to fall.
Emmy swung again.
And again.
And again.
Purple lightning carved through the air like guillotines.
But Niero slipped between every strike—close enough for her to feel the heat of his Nova-Spark, close enough for her to hear his ragged breathing behind her shoulder.
He was injured.
He was bleeding.
He was trembling.
Yet somehow—
he was still keeping up.
At that moment, Emmy's chest tightened.
Not with fear.
With something far more dangerous.
Pride.
Her son was keeping up.
Her son was bleeding and still charging forward like a beast that refused to kneel.
And in her eyes—
that stubbornness was almost beautiful.
Almost.
Then her gaze sharpened, a spark of violet lightning dancing across her pupils.
A cold, familiar edge returned to her voice.
"…You're doing well yet again, Niero."
She smiled.
Not the warm smile of a mother.
But the sharp smile of something that had once lived in the dark.
"…But don't misunderstand."
Her lightning crackled louder.
Her veil fluttered like the wings of a predator.
"I may be rusty… I may be out of practice…"
Her aura flared.
"But I was an Umbral Maiden."
The air itself seemed to recoil.
"A Rank-S assassin."
Her swords hummed.
"A monster… that slaughtered monsters."
Niero's instincts screamed.
His Nova-Spark surged.
He tried to shift his footing—
to adjust—
to brace—
But his momentum betrayed him.
His focus slipped for a fraction of a second.
And that was all Emmy needed.
Her left sword moved.
Not fast—
impossibly fast.
A violet arc flashed.
THUD—!!
The blunt edge slammed into his abdomen.
Niero's eyes went wide.
All the air in his lungs vanished.
His body folded as if the strike had erased gravity itself.
"K-KH—!"
The wind was knocked clean out of him.
Pain detonated through his ribs.
Before he could even stagger back—
Emmy twisted her wrist.
The sword hooked his body midair like a cruel lever.
And with a sharp pivot—
she dragged him through the air.
Then she slammed him down.
BOOOOOOM—!!!
The dojo floor exploded into a crater.
Black cubes and red lines shattered outward like broken glass.
Niero hit the ground on his back so hard his vision flashed white.
His bones screamed.
His body convulsed.
His Nova-Spark sputtered like a flame being smothered.
He tried to rise.
He couldn't.
His limbs wouldn't respond fast enough.
And above him—
Emmy lifted her hand.
The air rippled.
Purple lightning roared like an awakening storm.
Countless blades began to form midair—
not daggers, not shortswords—
but massive, brutal claymore-like swords, thick and heavy, forged from liquid metal and wrath.
Dozens.
No.
Hundreds.
All hovering above her like the judgment of a god.
Each one crackling with mana-infused electricity.
Each one screaming with violet arcs.
Niero's eyes widened in horror.
His throat tightened.
His body screamed to move.
But he was still trapped in the crater.
Still stunned.
Still too slow.
Emmy's voice came down like thunder.
"Never underestimate your opponets."
And then she pointed downward.
The sky of swords fell.
SHHHHHHHHHK—!!!
A torrent.
A storm.
A metallic rain of execution.
They slammed down in a minigun-like barrage, detonating the dojo floor again and again—
KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK—!!
Purple lightning exploded on impact.
Steel screamed.
The crater became a grave.
Niero finally managed to scream—
a raw, desperate sound—
but it was drowned beneath the deafening roar of crashing metal and violent crackling thunder.
And in that moment, buried under a rain of blades…
Niero realized something terrifying.
His mother wasn't just sparring anymore.
She was reminding him—
exactly what a Rank-S monster truly looked like.
-
It lasted almost thirty seconds.
Thirty seconds of pure brutality.
A controlled catastrophe.
Claymore-like swords slammed down into the crater again and again, like a meteor storm guided by a merciless hand—each impact detonating thunder, each strike burying Niero deeper beneath shattered black cubes and sparking violet arcs.
The air trembled.
The ground screamed.
And Emmy…
Emmy walked away.
Not because she was careless.
Because she believed it was over.
With every step, her shoulders felt heavier, her breath uneven beneath the veil of her Sororitae form.
She clenched her jaw.
Her fingers twitched.
Her heart twisted with something ugly—guilt*.
"…I had to," she muttered, voice low, almost bitter. "I had to do this…"
The swords continued to fall.
Then she snapped her fingers.
SNAP.
The storm died.
The claymores dissolved into motes of light, vanishing like ash in the wind.
The crackling thunder faded into silence.
Only smoke and rubble remained.
Emmy exhaled, long and tired.
Her eyes lowered.
"…Fair enough," she whispered, almost as if she were comforting herself. "A fair loss. Better you lose here… than die out there."
But then—
her skin prickled.
A sound.
Soft.
Wrong.
Rubble shifting.
A faint scraping echoed from the crater.
Emmy froze.
Her head snapped back toward the impact zone.
"…No."
The crater moved again.
Chunks of broken grid-floor rolled aside.
Dust poured upward.
And then—
a figure rose.
Slowly.
Like something crawling out of its own grave.
Niero climbed out of the crater.
His body was battered.
His sports wear torn.
Blood streaked his nose, lips and chin.
Bruises darkened his skin like storm clouds.
His breathing was ragged, shaking, and uneven—
but he was standing.
Still standing.
Tall.
Unbroken.
Emmy's eyes widened.
Her voice came out sharp, almost panicked.
"Niero—!"
But before she could finish—
he lifted a trembling hand and pointed upward.
Toward the dojo timer.
The glowing display above them flickered.
19:00.
Nineteen minutes left.
Niero's lips curled into a crooked grin, half arrogance, half madness.
"The rules…" he rasped, voice hoarse, stained with blood.
"…are that this ends when one of us is incapacitated…"
He coughed.
A wet, painful sound.
Then he smiled wider.
"…or when the timer hits zero."
His finger remained raised.
"And I'm not down."
He lowered his hand, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his wrist.
"And the timer…"
He glanced up again.
"…ain't zero either."
Emmy stood there, frozen in her Sororitae form, lightning still crawling around her blades.
Her heart was pounding.
Her motherly instinct screamed at her to stop.
To run to him.
To hold him.
To end this before she broke him for real.
But her warrior's instincts…
They recognized it.
That look in his eyes.
That fire.
That refusal to fall.
A monster's stubborn will.
Her voice softened, trembling with concern.
"…Do you still want to continue?"
Niero didn't answer right away.
He spat blood onto the floor.
SPAT.
The red splattered against the black-and-crimson grid.
Then he raised his fists.
His stance locked in.
His Nova-Spark flickered weakly around his knuckles like a dying star refusing to go out.
And he smiled.
A smile that was painful.
A smile that was defiant.
A smile that said he'd rather die than surrender.
"I can do this…" he breathed.
His shoulders shook.
His legs trembled.
But he didn't fall.
"…all day."
For a moment—
Emmy couldn't move.
She felt it all at once.
Horror.
Sadness.
Pride.
And love.
So deep it almost hurt worse than any blade.
Her son wasn't just fighting her anymore.
He was fighting the world.
And Emmy Ripley—
could only stand there, lightning crackling around her like a storm…
feeling her heart break and bloom at the same time.
=====
Before the timer reached 15:39 the dojo was no longer of any sort like an exercise-room--it was a broken battlefield of burnt marble, broken grids, and swirling sparks of continuing electricity.
Mom was floating in mid-air in her Sororitae outfit, her veil and habit fluttering in the stiff wind. She disappeared and re-emerged in broken fragments like a glitch in the real world itself, each re-entry was accompanied by a flash of violet lightning.
From every angle—
blades rained down.
Claymore-shaped swords. Daggers. Steel smithed with mercury and laced with wrath of Raijin. They all hit hard enough to divide the ground and discharge lightning bolts in the arena.
And yet—
Niero kept moving.
Not retreating.
Not breaking.
He was galloping up the storm as a shadow that would not die.
He stepped under a falling sword that made a trench where his head had been a fraction of a second before. He skated on broken rock, turned half way in motion, and struck a dashing knife with his fist, sending it flying out of its path.
Each blow gave him shivers along his arms.
Each evasion was a moment too late to be safe--not to be safe, however, too late to live.
The eyes of mom were drawn up.
And standing there.
She waived a hand.
The air screamed.
A handful of claymore-swords had become a whirl of destruction blowing on Niero,--then tumbled down, like thunderbolt.
Niero's breath hitched.
Then he moved.
Down he went, scrambled along, and in one quick, two-handed strike, which he made with his hands, tore open the broken floor, and caught hold of a two-fold handful of loose pebbles and debris.
For a brief instant, he didn't look like a fighter.
He was a child who would not fall.
He sank into a crouch.
Looked up.
And fired.
The pebbles burst out of his hands in a burst of telekinetic shotgun fire, and the shot went streaming away in a thick stream of accelerated particles.
Mom reacted instantly.
Like a violet crown a ring of daggers sprang up round her.
CLANG—CLANG—CLANG—!
Steel struck stone in a staccato symphony in the air, every pebble was met and struck or repelled by a blade.
Along the lines of the elevation the wave that followed was as a falling execution.
The Sororitae wings of Mom flew--sparks of violet flashing the dojo roof--and she called in another tempest of claymore-level swords. They fell, and fell, thick as thorn, heavy as to smash up hardened rock, and they all hummed with restrained lightning.
Niero did not withdraw this time.
He moved into it.
One of the blades fell towards his shoulder.
He turned, grabbed it in between falls--metal screaming as it burnt his hand--and pushed it, pushed it, upwards, electrical crawling along his forearm as smoke was spurting out of his flesh.
He took a second sword off the ground.
Then another.
But he was a moment in the eye of the storm--**in the hands of two claymores that had not been designed to be held, each of which seemed to crackle with the mana of Mom like a living stream attempting to shun him.
His arms shook.
His teeth clenched.
Smoke rolled off his clothes.
These. are heavy. he grumbled to himself pushing himself up.
Mom had a little widening of his eyes.
Not that he was holding them--
but that he was about with them.
The exo-frames were only necessary to enable most of the trained soldiers to pick up a weapon of that kind. Even at that time, they were not able to fight with it.
Niero swung.
In mid-flight the first claymore struck a blade coming in its direction--
CRASH.
Divided steel on steel.
He did so, turning his body, dancing with the impulse of a savage motion.
The second claymore rose up out of the ground, and in another stroke caught another, even as his foot jerked upwards and hurled a third grounded blade in the air like a gunshot.
As soon he swings both claymore to deflects attacks, he got an idea.
He no longer blocked.
He returned fire.
The kicked claymore flew forward, hitting another sword falling down and pushing both of them out of course. His hand-thrown blade came in, to cut through the opening and go directly at the location of Mom.
Mom raised her hand.
The air stopped.
The claymore that had entered, stood motionless in the air, as though the world itself had caught it by the throat.
Niero's eyes widened.
"…What?"
Mom didn't move.
Her voice was like a slice of storm, and serene yet decisive.
"Did you forgot, boy?" She said softly. "I am the Sororitae of Blades. These are not just weapons."
The sword, that was frozen, whirled slowly about in the air, still spurting violet lightning--but perfectly obedient to her whim.
"They are the manifestations of my Arcana."
The claymore that was floating in the air came swinging back round her like a meteor.
Mom's gaze sharpened.
"And any thing I make. is to me."
A pause.
Then she wickeded her fingers.
It wasn't just a warning anymore—it was a decision.
Niero felt it first in his bones.
The weapons embedded around him—daggers, swords, the heavy claymores—began to hum in unison. Not randomly. Not chaotically.
Synchronised.
His instincts screamed.
"—No—"
He surged Nova-Spark energy through his body, blue-cyan arcs bursting from his skin as he tried to break out of the kill zone. His muscles coiled—
Too late.
Mom snapped her fingers.
The dojo ceiling answered.
A thunderstorm detonated into existence, not above the arena—but anchored to it, as if the entire space had been turned into a circuit board.
Lightning struck down.
The embedded blades acted like relay pylons.
And the world became a cage of electricity.
KRA-KOOM—!!
Niero's body jerked violently as the first strike hit.
Then the second.
Then a chain reaction—lightning leaping from blade to blade, turning the ground into a web of screaming current. His Nova-Spark energy flared instinctively in response, but it wasn't enough to cancel it out—only enough to keep him conscious through the pain.
"Ghk—!!"
His muscles locked.
His nerves ignited.
It felt like every synapse was being dragged across broken glass and set on fire at the same time.
He tried to move—his leg gave out.
He tried to push forward—his arm spasmed, pinned by electricity chaining through the surrounding weapons.
Mom's voice cut through the storm, steady, almost distant.
"This is what happens when you treat the battlefield like it's predictable."
Another lightning strike hit.
His vision flashed white.
Niero forced his head up through the pain, teeth clenched so hard they shook.
"I'm—NOT—DONE—"
His Nova-Spark output spiked again—unstable, raw, reacting to desperation more than control. The air around him distorted, cyan light struggling against violet thunder.
But the storm didn't lessen.
It intensified.
Not to kill him cleanly.
To force him down.
Mom stood beyond the lightning curtain, watching.
Not merciless.
Not pleased.
Just… measuring.
"Stand if you can," she said. "Or fall here and admit it."
Another strike chained through the blades.
Niero's scream broke through the lightning again—
—but this time, his fingers dug into the cracked ground.
He didn't move yet.
But he didn't let go either.
-
The thunderstorm finally faded.
Not because it was stopped.
Because it was released.
The last arc of lightning crawled off the embedded blades, sliding down into the cracked dojo floor like dying veins of light before dissolving into silence.
For a moment, there was nothing but the faint hiss of scorched stone.
Mom stood still.
A single tear slipped down her cheek—quiet, involuntary.
She exhaled slowly, almost like she was trying to push the weight of what she'd just done out of her chest.
"…Enough," she murmured.
Her shoulders lowered slightly.
She expected it to be over.
She needed it to be over.
Then she saw him.
Niero was still on the ground.
Not unconscious.
Not out.
Breathing—ragged, uneven, but present.
Smoke rose off his body in thin threads. His clothes were torn, his skin marked with burn-lines and bruises that flickered faintly with residual Nova-Spark discharge. His fingers twitched once… then slowly clenched into a fist.
Mom's expression froze.
"No…" she whispered.
A second tear followed, but this one didn't fall cleanly—it trembled, caught in disbelief.
"That should've… been enough…"
Niero coughed hard, dragging air back into his lungs like it hurt to exist. His body shook, refusing to fully obey him—but his eyes were still open.
Still focused.
Still him.
Mom stepped forward instinctively, then stopped herself.
Her voice softened.
"It's over, Niero."
A pause.
"The test is not worth this. Stay down."
Silence.
Then—
Niero slowly turned his head upward.
Through blurred vision, through pain, through the fading static in his nerves… he found the floating display.
The timer.
[00:10:20 / 01:00:00]
He stared at it for a moment.
Then let out a weak, breathy chuckle.
"…Still ten minutes left," he muttered.
His lips cracked into something half-smile, half-grimace.
"I'm still not down yet."
Mom's breath caught.
Not anger this time.
Not frustration.
Something heavier.
Something that didn't have a clean name.
Because she realized—
He wasn't holding on because he couldn't let go.
He was holding on because he had decided, somewhere deep in the pain, that falling wasn't an option he recognized anymore.
=====
By the time the timer crossed the five-minute mark, the dojo had stopped resembling a training ground.
It looked more like a battlefield that refused to collapse.
Cracks webbed across the black-grid floor. Lightning residue still flickered in faint pulses along broken blade fragments. The air itself felt charged—like every breath might spark another strike.
And still—
They moved.
Mom and Niero collided again.
CLANG—!
A Sororitae blade met a Nova-Spark reinforced forearm.
The shockwave rippled outward, scattering dust in a perfect ring.
Mom's expression remained calm—controlled, almost clinical. Her movements were precise, economical, every strike arriving exactly where it was meant to be, as if the fight had already been solved and she was simply executing the answer.
Her white-black Sororitae attire stayed unnervingly pristine.
Not a tear.
Not a stain.
Not even a wrinkle from the violence unfolding around her.
Niero, on the other hand—
Was the opposite of untouched.
Blood streaked his jaw. Burn marks traced his arms and collarbone. His breath came in sharp, uneven pulls, each inhale scraping against bruised ribs that refused to fully heal between exchanges.
And yet—
He kept stepping forward.
BAM—!
A punch from Niero snapped into Mom's guard.
She slid half a step back.
Barely.
Her eyes narrowed—not in surprise, but in recalibration.
"Again," she said quietly.
Niero didn't answer.
He moved.
A low kick aimed at her stance.
Blocked.
He spun—elbow strike.
Deflected.
A follow-up jab wrapped in Nova-Spark energy grazed her shoulder—
—but she twisted away mid-motion, lightning flickering across her blade as it passed his cheek by millimeters.
The air between them was no longer empty.
It was a sequence.
A language of violence being spoken faster and faster.
Punch. Deflect. Kick. Parry. Impact. Shift. Counter.
Mom's style was inevitability.
Niero's was adaptation.
And as the seconds drained away, something changed.
Niero stopped reacting.
He started reading.
A faint opening—half a beat in her rotation.
He slipped inside it.
THUD—!
His fist landed clean against her guard—hard enough to push her back a full step this time.
Mom's eyes widened—just slightly.
Not from damage.
From timing.
"…You saw that," she murmured.
Niero exhaled sharply, blood at the corner of his mouth, but his grin returned—small, strained, but real.
"I'm learning faster now."
Mom's aura shifted.
The air tightened.
Lightning flickered along her blades again—but differently this time. Less storm. More focus.
"Then keep up," she said.
And she vanished.
BOOM—!
A thunder-step.
Niero barely raised his arm in time—
The clash sent him skidding backward, heels carving lines into the cracked floor.
His body screamed.
But he planted his foot anyway.
Refused the collapse.
Across from him, Mom reappeared mid-air, blade angled downward.
For a split second, the dojo held its breath.
Rank-S precision.
Rank-E endurance.
And in between them—
a son who refused to stop standing.
The timer ticked again.
[00:05:00 → 00:04:59]
=====
At the one-minute mark, the fight stopped feeling like a sparring test.
It became a controlled collapse of distance—two combatants refusing to give ground in a space too small to contain what they were doing.
Niero could feel it now.
Not just pain—he was past that stage.
It was signal degradation. His body was starting to misfire under sustained output: cracked bone structure resisting regeneration, torn muscle fibers refusing clean repair mid-motion, every breath dragging heat through his ribs like broken glass.
But he still moved.
Mom stepped forward.
The air snapped.
Her voice was calm.
"Eight Form."
Her palm tightened.
Lightning didn't just wrap her arm—it redefined it.
"Thunder Blade."
Her hand became a blade of pure high-current discharge, edges forming in unstable arcs of violet-white light. Each movement left afterimages in the air, like reality lagging behind her intent.
Then she struck.
Not once.
Not a single attack.
But a sequence of slashes that existed between moments.
SHHHH—KRAK—SHHHH—KRAK—!
The air itself fractured with each swing.
Niero reacted on instinct.
Nova-Spark surged through his arms, condensing—compressing—refining into something sharper than raw force.
His hands ignited into a cyan-white edge.
"Plasma Blade."
The moment Mom's Thunder Blade reached him—
Niero met it head-on.
BOOOOM—!!!
Light detonated between them.
Plasma and lightning collided so violently the dojo's containment grid screamed in protest, red lines flaring across the floor like a system warning made physical.
Mom's slashes came faster.
Niero answered slower—but steadier.
Each block sent shockwaves up his arms.
Each deflection burned deeper into his nerves.
He gritted his teeth hard enough to feel something crack again—he didn't know if it was bone or will.
But he kept the blade up.
Kept meeting her strikes.
Even as his stance started to break.
Even as his knees trembled under accumulated force.
Across from him, Mom's expression finally changed—not softness, not hesitation—
but recognition.
He wasn't just enduring her anymore.
He was learning her rhythm under pressure.
She accelerated.
Lightning tightened.
Space compressed.
The Thunder Blade stopped being swings and became a storm line drawn directly toward him.
Niero's vision blurred at the edges.
His breathing hitched.
And still—
he shifted forward.
Not away.
Forward.
CLASH—!
Another impact.
His plasma blade held—but barely.
His feet dragged half a step.
The floor beneath him fractured deeper.
Mom's voice came through the storm, low and steady.
"You're at your limit."
Niero laughed—quiet, broken, but still there.
"Yeah," he rasped. "I noticed."
He tightened his grip anyway.
Nova-Spark flared again—unstable, overclocking under strain.
"I just need… a little more."
And for the first time in the entire fight—
Mom didn't immediately answer.
She only watched him through the lightning.
Niero tried to create space with a kick.
It didn't work.
Mom caught his leg mid-air.
Her grip tightened instantly—no hesitation, no wasted motion—and the next moment Niero felt the world invert.
He was swung like a weightless object.
Then slammed down.
BOOOOM—!!
The dojo floor fractured again, the impact carving a deeper crater into the already broken grid. Dust and static-light rippled outward in a violent pulse.
Niero's body bounced once, then went still for a fraction of a second—eyes unfocused, breath caught somewhere between shock and pain.
His consciousness flickered.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
A dangerous edge...slowlycreeping out from deep of his consciousness.
No...not here....
He forced it down.
Not allowed.
Not here.
Not again.
Across from him, Mom was breathing harder now.
Not exhausted in the traditional sense—but strained. Sustained combat like this wasn't something she indulged in anymore. Not since the Umbral Maiden days. Her aura still burned bright, but there was a weight behind it now, a human fatigue pressing against the Rank-S precision she still maintained.
She looked at him on the ground.
"…Do you ever stay down?" she asked, voice low.
Niero pushed himself up.
His arm trembled.
His ribs screamed.
But he rose anyway.
Mom's eyes tightened.
This time she moved before he could fully stabilize.
A hand pressed into his chest—firm, crushing force.
She drove him back into the ground.
THUD—!
"Stop, PLEASE!" she said immediately, quieter now. Not commanding. Pleading. "Just...stay down."
Her grip tightened slightly, lightning flickering but unstable—less controlled than before.
There was something breaking through her composure now.
Fear.
Not of losing.
Of what he was refusing to become—or worse, what he might become if he pushed further.
"Niero…" her voice lowered, almost shaking. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep—"
He moved.
Even pinned.
Even crushed.
Even bleeding.
He forced one hand up and pushed against her hold.
Slow.
Unstable.
But rising.
Mom's breath hitched.
"Niero, stop—!"
And then—
he smiled.
Blood at his lip.
Bruised face.
Eyes still burning faint cyan under fading Nova-Spark flicker.
"I'm still standing," he said.
Simple.
Stubborn.
Absolute.
Mom froze.
Her hand didn't loosen—but it stopped pressing harder.
For a moment, the entire dojo felt suspended in that contradiction:
A mother trying to end the fight…
And a son refusing to be ended.
Emmy's voice came out quieter than before.
"…Why won't you stay down?"
Niero coughed once.
Spat blood to the side.
Then, with effort that looked like it hurt just to exist—
he answered.
"Because if I do…"
He tightened his shaking fist.
"…I won't know if I could've stood back up."
=====
At thirty seconds remaining, the dojo felt eerily still.
Not calm—never calm—but suspended, like the entire space was holding its breath for what came next.
Mom stepped back into stance.
Lightning gathered around her arm in tight, controlled spirals. Her Sororitae form no longer looked like overwhelming spectacle—it looked focused. Condensed. Final.
But her expression wasn't sharp anymore.
It was conflicted.
"…I don't want you outside the walls," she said quietly.
A pause.
Her grip tightened slightly.
"I've seen what's out there. I've buried enough people who thought willpower was enough."
Her eyes flickered.
"But I also don't want to take this from you."
Her voice softened further.
"This fight… it was supposed to be a test. Not a sentence."
Across from her, Niero struggled upright.
Every breath hurt.
Every movement screamed.
But he still lifted his head.
Still met her eyes.
And then—
he spoke.
Not loudly at first.
Then louder.
Like something inside him refusing to stay contained any longer.
"I want to be a Marauder!"
His Nova-Spark flared weakly—unstable, flickering cyan light crawling across his fists.
"I don't want strength just for me!"
He coughed, blood dripping down his chin.
"I want it so you don't have to worry about us!"
His stance tightened, shaking but steadying.
"So my sisters can live without fear!"
His voice cracked—but didn't break.
"I want to be someone you can be proud of—not just as your son—but as someone who earned it!"
The air tightened.
Mom's eyes widened slightly.
And then he roared—
"I WILL STAND MY GROUND!"
He stomp onto the ground into a solid stance.
"I WILL FACE THE IMPOSSIBLE!"
He tighten his fist and his every muscles.
"I. WILL. RISE. AGAINST. THE. HORRORS!!!"
He roars as loud as his burning lungs can reach.
Silence hit the dojo for a fraction of a second.
Then—
both moved.
Mom surged forward like a violet thunderbolt.
Niero pushed off the ground like a collapsing star refusing extinction.
CYAN VS PURPLE.
Fist against fist.
Will against will.
They collided in the center of the shattered dojo.
BOOOOM—!!!
Shockwave exploded outward, cracking what remained of the floor into radiating fractures.
For a brief instant—
their fists crossed perfectly.
Mom's lightning-coated strike connected cleanly.
Niero's Nova-Spark punch landed at the same time.
And then—
Mom's blow followed through.
Niero's body was driven down into the crater like gravity had doubled around him.
His aura flickered.
Then collapsed.
His eyes lost focus.
His grip loosened.
The cyan light faded from his fist.
And finally—
he went still.
Mom stopped immediately.
Her arm remained extended for a moment longer than necessary.
Then slowly lowered.
The lightning around her dissipated.
Silence returned.
The timer above the dojo flickered—
00:00:00
The test was over.
Emmy stood there, breathing heavily, staring down at the crater.
At her son.
Unmoving.
A long pause.
Then her voice broke, barely above a whisper.
"…I told you to stay down."
But there was no anger in it.
Only exhaustion and sadness.
And something far heavier.
Fear that she had just proven both her point…
and her worst fear at the same time.
=====
Niero's unconscious body was dragged away from the crater and laid carefully onto the dojo's battered sofa, his limbs limp like a broken marionette.
Aunt Alura moved fast—too fast.
She popped open her emergency kit, shoved medicine into his mouth with zero bedside manners, then began wrapping him in bandages with the frantic precision of someone who thought she knew what she was doing.
Within minutes, Niero looked like a mummy again.
A very expensive, heavily bruised mummy.
Alura stepped back, hands on her hips, squinting at her handiwork.
"…Good enough."
Mom—now long depowered back into her normal form—sat beside him, gripping his hand like she was afraid he'd vanish if she let go.
Her tears didn't stop.
They kept falling, silent and heavy.
Aunt Alura rubbed her forehead. "Emmy. Calm down."
Mom's head snapped up.
Her eyes were red, wild, furious.
"Calm down!?" she hissed, voice cracking. "How am I supposed to calm down when I just beat my precious baby until he's more bruised than a banana!?"
Then she broke again, shoulders shaking as she cried harder.
Alura sighed, kneeling beside the sofa.
"Listen," she said, voice firm. "That boy has something burning inside him. Something that's been there even before he told us about his so-called Psionic powers."
She glanced at Niero's bandaged face.
"He wants to be a Marauder so badly it's practically eating him alive."
Alura snorted. "And besides… he's tough as nails."
Her eyes flicked toward Emmy.
"Just like his mommy."
That didn't help.
Mom rose abruptly, pacing left and right like a trapped animal.
"What if he needs a hospital?" she muttered, panic spiraling. "What if I ruptured something? What if I damaged his spine? What if his brain—"
She grabbed her hair.
"I should've stopped. I should've stopped earlier—!"
Her eyes darted wildly.
"Maybe I can make it up to him… I can dip into my separate funds, buy him that high-end ArkNet VR rig, the premium one with full haptic feedback—maybe a limited edition console—maybe—"
Alura groaned.
"Emmy, you can't just buy forgiveness like it's a pastry."
Mom kept pacing.
Alura was about to grab her shoulder and force her to sit down—
when she paused.
Her brow furrowed.
"…Wait."
Mom froze mid-step.
Alura's gaze sharpened.
"Where's the talisman?"
Mom blinked. "What?"
"The jade dragon talisman," Alura repeated slowly. "The one you tied to your waist."
Emmy's breath hitched.
She looked down.
Her hand flew to her belt.
Nothing.
Her face drained of color.
"No…"
She spun, scanning the dojo ground.
The cracked arena was already restoring itself, the D-Blockade's geometry smoothing over fractures like time reversing.
But the talisman wasn't there.
Not on the floor.
Not near the crater.
Not anywhere.
But then...something weight their senses
Mom and Alura turned at the same time.
Their eyes landed on the unconscious boy.
On the bandaged, battered "mummy" sprawled on the sofa.
And then—
slowly—
they noticed the faint green glimmer near his chest.
Alura's lips parted in disbelief.
Emmy's voice came out in a whisper.
"…no."
Niero's unconscious body lay still on the sofa, chest rising faintly with shallow breaths.
His right arm was free.
But his left arm—
was wrapped and pinned beneath layers of bandages.
Aunt Alura narrowed her eyes, then leaned in and began peeling the wrappings away.
"Hold him steady," she muttered.
Mom obeyed immediately, gripping his shoulder and forearm with trembling hands.
Alura pried open the bandages—
and froze.
Nestled in Niero's left palm…
was the jade dragon talisman.
Emmy's prized possession.
The very win-condition of the sparring test.
It was clenched so tightly in his fist that his knuckles had gone pale, veins bulging beneath bruised skin as if even unconscious, his body still refused to let go.
Like he was holding it for dear life.
Alura blinked. "…You've got to be kidding me."
She tried to pull it out.
The talisman didn't budge.
She grabbed his fingers, trying to loosen them.
His grip was insane.
She managed to pry off one finger—
barely.
And the moment she did, his hand reflexively tightened again, almost like a sleeping predator snapping its jaw shut.
Mom stared at it.
Her eyes wide.
Her mouth slightly open.
"…When…?"
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"How did he…?"
She looked down at Niero's unconscious face.
Then the memory hit her like a punch.
The thirty-minute mark.
The smoke screen.
The pebble buckshot.
The decoy chest pad.
That single blow to her left waist—
the one that sent her flying.
Her breath caught.
"…That was it."
She realized it with sudden clarity.
That strike hadn't just been an attack.
It had been a theft.
A clean extraction.
A perfect Marauder move.
He had taken the talisman then—
without her noticing.
Mom's hand flew to her mouth.
Her eyes shimmered.
But the shock didn't end there.
Because if he had already taken it…
Then why did he keep fighting?
Why did he keep standing?
Why did he keep pushing himself until his body nearly collapsed?
Mom stared at the talisman in his grip, and the truth settled into her chest like something heavy and cold.
He didn't keep fighting because he needed to win.
He kept fighting because he wanted to know—
if he could survive her.
If he could keep up.
If he could stand on the same battlefield as a Rank-S monster and not be killed.
Mom's expression twisted—caught between awe and horror.
"…Idiot…"
Her voice cracked.
"…You already won."
She looked down at him again, at the bruises, the burns, the bandages.
And her heart clenched painfully.
Impressed by his determination.
Terrified by his recklessness.
-
Aunt Alura didn't waste time.
Her fingers were already on Niero's hand again, trying to pry open the locked grip around the jade dragon talisman.
"Emmy," she urged sharply, "help me. Your… Umbral Maiden strength or whatever. We can get it out before he wakes up."
Mom blinked. "Why would we do that before he wakes up?"
Alura exhaled through her nose, annoyed now. "Because if we remove it now, we can tell him he didn't get it. No talisman, no win. He fails Round Three. Clean outcome."
She glanced at Niero's unconscious face.
"And then you get exactly what you wanted. No Marauder path. No risk. No outside-the-walls nonsense."
Silence.
The words landed too neatly.
Too dangerously neatly.
Mom's gaze shifted to Niero's clenched fist again.
The jade dragon talisman was still there—locked in a grip so tight it looked less like possession and more like refusal to let go of reality itself.
For a moment, something conflicted flickered across Emmy's face.
Everything she had feared.
Everything she had tried to prevent.
Everything she had been fighting for since this whole mess began.
A life where her son didn't walk into the Fog.
Didn't become a weapon.
Didn't become a casualty.
Alura stepped closer. "Emmy, this is your chance. You said you didn't want him to be a Marauder."
Mom didn't answer immediately.
Her eyes stayed on Niero.
Bruised.
Burned.
Wrapped like a failed attempt at emergency care.
Still breathing.
Still holding on.
"…He got it fairly," she said quietly.
Alura paused. "That's not the point—"
Mom's voice sharpened, cutting through.
"No."
A beat.
Then softer again.
"That is the point."
She stepped forward and gently placed her hand over Niero's clenched fist—not forcing it open, not trying to take anything away.
Just holding it.
"He fought me," she said. "He took it from me. I didn't let him have it."
Her throat tightened slightly.
"And he still didn't stop."
Alura frowned. "So what? You're just going to accept this?"
Mom closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, there was clarity there now—painful, but steady.
"I don't get to rewrite the result because I'm afraid of it," she said.
A pause.
Then, more quietly:
"He earned his victory."
Alura's expression tightened. "Emmy—"
But Mom lifted a hand.
"No."
Firm.
Final.
"He keeps it."
The room went quiet.
Even the faint hum of the recovering dojo grid seemed to soften.
Alura slowly exhaled, frustration giving way to reluctant acceptance.
"…And after he wakes up?" she asked.
Mom looked down at Niero again.
At the boy who refused to let go even unconscious.
At the hand that had beaten her, matched her, and stolen from her—without ever once calling it stealing.
"…Then we tell him the truth," she said.
A pause.
Her voice softened, almost breaking at the edges.
"All of it."
Both women fell silent after that.
Their attention drifted back to the sofa.
To the mummified, unconscious boy still gripping a jade dragon like it was the only proof he had ever needed.
=====
<<<[ Ch22, Part 08 - END ]>>>