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"Why are you coming?"
With his hands in his pockets, Jin left the faculty dormitory and headed down the hallway without hurry. The footsteps behind him were impossible to ignore, and when he turned around with a sigh, he found exactly what he expected.
Two Taimanin fully geared for combat, looking at him with expressions that left no room for negotiation.
"Hmph~ so you really were planning to go to that place alone."
Shizuru walked with the ease of someone who hadn't come until she lost consciousness less than half an hour ago.
Her fingers gently pushed the frame of her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and behind the lenses, those emerald eyes had recovered their sharp gleam.
Though her legs trembled slightly if you looked closely.
"Jin-kun, we're not going to sit around doing nothing while our savior goes to a dangerous place alone!"
Rinko had also pulled herself together completely, hand on the hilt of Ishikiri Kanemitsu and her usual stern expression firmly back in place.
Not a trace of the girl who minutes earlier had faked passing out so she wouldn't have to look him in the face.
Though her ears were still suspiciously red.
'These two...'
Jin scratched his chin, sizing them up. He knew that even if he told them no, they'd follow him in secret.
They were Taimanin.
Spying was literally their profession, and tailing a stubborn ally to an enemy base was probably the least complicated part of their job.
"Fine, come along." He gave in with a sigh. "But the final boss down there is mine. So don't steal him from me."
Both nodded.
"By the way, Jin-kun~"
Approaching with a stride that made her hips sway from side to side like a hypnotic pendulum, and before Jin could react, Shizuru hooked his arm with both hands.
And her tits crushed against him.
It wasn't accidental. It was a deliberate, total press of those two enormous, soft masses compressing against the hardness of his arm, spilling over the sides with a heavy softness that could be felt even through the fabric of the suit.
"Seems like you know a lot about what happened tonight..." Shizuru tilted her head, looking up at him from below with an innocent smile. "About the chips, about the aphrodisiac, about what's down there..."
Her tone was playful. But behind the honey there was a real question that her eyes posed without blinking.
'Clever.'
Jin met those green eyes from inches away and a mischievous smile spread across his lips.
"Wanna know?"
"Mmhm~" Shizuru nodded, pressing his arm a little more between her breasts. Her nipples, still sensitive, showed through the fabric.
"Give me a little kiss and I'll tell you."
"Chu~!"
Shizuru's lips landed on his cheek before his brain finished processing what had just happened.
The sensation stayed imprinted on his skin like a burn.
"Now you can tell me, right?"
Shizuru blinked with wide eyes, the very picture of innocent curiosity.
"..."
Jin looked at her.
She looked at him.
"Guess."
He pulled his arm free from Shizuru's grip with a swift move and leaped away, putting three meters of distance between them before those tits could recapture him.
"Ara~"
Shizuru puffed out her cheeks in a pout that made her look ridiculously adorable. "I got played..."
"Shizuru-nee..." Rinko pressed her hand to her forehead in resignation. "Everyone has secrets they'd rather not share. You shouldn't pressure him to..."
But the sentence died in her mouth.
Because when she looked at Shizuru, what she found wasn't an expression of defeat. It was a smile.
Radiant and predatory.
"Fufu~... what a cute boy."
The tip of her tongue peeked out and traced her lower lip slowly, savoring the ghost of that stolen kiss. Meanwhile her eyes were locked on Jin's back with an intensity that would have made any man nervous.
"I'm more and more interested~"
"..."
Rinko looked at her, then looked at Jin walking away, then looked back at Shizuru.
A bad feeling tightened in her chest.
...
The three of them stood at the edge of the academy, staring at the dark forest that stretched out before them.
The same route Rinko and Shizuru had traversed hours ago, crawling, deactivating sensors, and holding their breath every time a flashlight passed nearby.
Jin shoved his hands in his pockets and strode forward. Straight ahead. Without crouching. Without looking to the sides.
"Wait!" Shizuru grabbed his arm. "Aren't we going to move stealthily? There are cameras, motion sensors, patrols every..."
"No need to overthink it." Jin glanced at her sideways. "We just go in by force."
"By force...?"
"Besides..." His gaze drifted toward the darkness between the trees. "You two don't actually think you hid all that well earlier, do you?"
Shizuru shut her mouth.
"Shizuru-nee, I think Jin-kun is right." Rinko positioned herself to Jin's left. "Judging by how the masked man acted, it's obvious they're tracking our every move. Stealth or not, they know we're here."
Her voice had a different edge than before. She preferred this a thousand times over: going head on, blade first, without crawling through the mud.
"... Fine."
Shizuru covered her forehead with her hand, defeated.
Surrounded by brutes. By two people whose combat strategy boiled down to "walk toward the enemy and hit them." How hard it was being the only one with a brain in the group.
Jin pushed into the forest without slowing his pace.
The motion sensors activated instantly. Red lights blinked among the trees, and the sound of alarms reverberated underground.
In less than thirty seconds, the forest came alive.
"Who goes there?!"
"Over here! Movement in the north sector!"
Flashlight beams cut through the darkness from every direction and a large group of guards appeared in front of the three, emerging from between the trees, with pistols aimed.
The one who appeared to be the leader stepped forward, his weapon trained directly on Jin's chest.
"Lower your weapons and surrender! Otherwise we'll..."
Jin raised his hand.
The pistols twisted.
Literally.
The metal bent over itself with the screech of steel being forced, the barrels curved, the magazines crushed, and the internal mechanisms compressed with a crunch.
The guards watched their own weapons deform in their hands with expressions of horror... and then they exploded.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Dozens of simultaneous detonations shook the forest. The guns blew apart in their owners' hands like firecrackers, spitting metal fragments and smoke in every direction.
Screams of pain and panic mixed with the echo of the explosions.
"Always getting in the way."
Jin flicked his hand with annoyance.
Swish
An invisible wave swept across the clearing and the guards were sent flying into the surrounding bushes like leaves in a gale.
In three seconds, the path was clear.
Behind him, Rinko had her katana half drawn, frozen, and beside her, Shizuru had her hands extended with thorned vines sprouting between her fingers, equally frozen.
Both looked at the cleared path. Then they looked at each other.
'Maybe... he really does have the ability to level this place on his own.'
...
Inside the research institute, the resistance was considerably greater.
The mechanical spiders now had company. Mechanical soldiers emerged from the walls like cockroaches, with articulated limbs and integrated weapons firing bursts from every angle. Behind them, beastmen, wolf and tiger hybrids with hypertrophied muscles and steel fangs, charged through the hallways with roars that made the pipes shake.
But the combat formation established itself: Jin at the front, destroying everything in his path with gestures of his hand that sent the mechanicals crashing into walls with the force of a truck. Meanwhile Rinko drew silver threads with her katana that bisected beastmen before their claws could touch her, and Shizuru in the rear, taking care of... supervising.
"Shizuru-nee, on your left!"
"Ara~, I already saw it."
A vine burst from the ground and twisted a spider's neck.
"Done~"
"Supervising" was a generous way to describe it.
But despite Shizuru's apparent laziness, every vine she threw was precise.
The three advanced without stopping, leaving a trail of scrap behind them, until the last hallway opened into the deepest chamber of the underground laboratory.
The atmosphere changed instantly.
A malevolent aura saturated the space like smoke, the temperature dropped several degrees, and the bluish light of the giant tree dominating the center of the chamber washed over their faces.
"Well, you sure made quite the ruckus, Taimanin!"
Shigeru Washizu's voice echoed from the shadows.
The old man was standing several meters away, but he was no longer the old man the world knew.
The hunched posture had vanished, the kind grandpa smile had disappeared, and what remained was a twisted face, crimson eyes, dark veins crawling up his neck, and an expression of naked cruelty that revealed the monster he had always been.
At his side, the masked man stood motionless.
And behind both of them, standing before the tree, the young man with dark skin and silver hair watched them.
Shizuru's eyes widened and her playful expression faded.
"Ara~... I'm quite surprised. You're not the one in charge here, Director Washizu."
Her eyes shifted from Washizu to the young man. The presence emanating from that boy was in a completely different league.
'That gaze... that presence...' She narrowed her eyes. 'Looks like we found the root of it all.'
On the other side, Rinko wasn't looking at the young man or Washizu. Her eyes were locked on the masked man with intensity. "I finally found you."
Her hand closed tightly around the hilt of Ishikiri Kanemitsu.
The wound on her back that bastard had carved into her was still throbbing, and Shizuru's... that debt weighed even heavier.
"Cut the chatter."
Stepping forward, Jin's eyes didn't leave the silver haired young man, and in them burned something Rinko and Shizuru hadn't seen from him until now.
The thirst for a fight.
"Those two are yours."
He pointed at Washizu and the masked man.
Then he looked at the young man, and smiled.
"That one's mine."
"YOU DISRESPECTFUL TAIMANIN... SHUT UP!"
Shigeru howled.
His malevolent aura spiked all at once like an explosion of pressure, and what had been hiding beneath that old man's skin began forcing its way out.
"AAAAAAAAH!"
His body contorted. The suit tore apart as his limbs elongated and his back curved. The white hair fell from his head, the beard detached, and all his body hair peeled away from his skin.
Dark brown skin, dry, cracked, with the texture of a corpse that had crawled out of its own grave. Long fangs sprouted from his upper lip, curving over his jaw, and his crimson eyes, which had barely glowed before, now burned like two lit coals.
"This place is territory dominated by the Incubi!" His voice boomed with a double resonance, as if two throats were speaking at the same time. "It is the forward base for the conquest of the Human Realm! You Taimanin are NOT PERMITTED TO BE HERE!"
Saliva hung from his fangs in black threads.
"And where you now stand is the sacred temple where the great Incubus Prince resides!" He pointed at the silver haired young man. "That you dared enter here without knowing your place... I WILL TEACH YOU THE LESSON IN BLOOD!"
'Prince? Not King?'
Jin frowned slightly, but this wasn't the time to get into a debate.
Without responding to Shigeru's tirade, he simply walked toward the silver haired young man.
"STAY RIGHT THERE!"
Shigeru and the masked man launched themselves. Shigeru from the left, and the masked man from the right.
But they never reached him.
"Your opponents are us~"
BOOM
The ground beneath Shigeru's feet exploded.
Thorned vines burst out like geysers, coiling around his legs, his torso, his arms, and tightening with a force that drove hundreds of thorns through his dead skin.
Shizuru was ten meters away. She had been preparing the trap from the moment they entered the chamber.
A smile curved her lips.
"This is a gift for you, Director~. In return for all the affection you've shown me these months as your beloved teacher."
"DAMN BITCH!"
Shigeru's muscles swelled, the thorns dug in deeper, and black blood splattered across his skin, but he didn't stop struggling.
And they burst.
"Ara~ How resilient." Shizuru adjusted her glasses without losing her smile. "Let's see how many times you can repeat that, Director."
Meanwhile...
CLAAAANNG!
The clash of Ishikiri Kanemitsu against the masked man's claws lit up the darkness with a fan of sparks. Rinko had intercepted his trajectory toward Jin with a horizontal cut that the masked man blocked.
Several exchanges, fast as lightning, and the two ended up squared off. Rinko's blade vibrated against the masked man's claws, the pressure between them making the steel screech.
"You're also a Taimanin, aren't you?"
Rinko asked tensely. She had sensed something in the previous encounter that she couldn't identify, but now, at this distance, she recognized it.
"Raiton..." Her eyes widened. "Are you from the Uehara clan?"
The masked man didn't respond.
"Why are you working for demons?!"
The answer was a swipe. Rinko snapped her head back, the wind of the cut rustling her bangs, and she countered with an ascending slash that forced the masked man to leap backward.
...
At the far end of the chamber, beneath the shadow of the pulsing tree, the silver haired young man watched as his two subordinates were intercepted and didn't move a single muscle.
And his gaze fixed on Jin, who kept walking toward him.
"Seems like you were the one who extracted the Chips from them."
His gray eyes ran over Jin from head to toe with interest. "What's your name?"
"Jin." He didn't even stop. "And yours?"
"My name in the human world is Kuroi Ryūji."
Kuroi sketched a faint smile and raised one hand, palm open toward Jin, in a gesture that could be either an invitation or a warning.
"I hope you have the strength to be my enemy."
Jin didn't answer him with words.
He answered with his fists.
His figure blurred and reappeared in front of him in a blink.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
With his hand raised, dark energy surged from Kuroi, concentrating in front of his palm like a shield.
Each of Jin's punches struck that barrier with a force that shook the air and made the ground tremble beneath their feet, but the shield held.
Kuroi's smile widened. "Is that all y..."
But it was a feint.
Every quick jab from his left had been a decoy, a distraction to keep Kuroi's eyes busy. Because meanwhile, Jin's right fist had pulled back.
And now it came back.
A blue bolt of lightning wrapped around his fist. The electricity crackled with a violence that ionized the air around him, and the blow he unleashed wasn't a punch.
It was a cannon blast.
CRAAAAAACK!!
The dark shield cracked like glass. The fissures spread across the entire surface in a fraction of a second, and the next, it shattered.
The fragments of energy scattered, and the fist connected cleanly against Kuroi's chest.
BOOOM!
The expression of disbelief painted itself across his face as his body shot backward like a cannonball, crossing the chamber at a speed that left a trail.
The entire chamber shook with the impact.
"Is this really all a Prince can do?"
Silence
And then, from the crater, a laugh.
"Fufufu~... Seems like I underestimated you."
Emerging from the rubble, Kuroi's uniform hung in tatters, his left arm dangled, broken, and dark blood trickled from the corner of his lips.
But he was smiling.
And before he finished speaking, his figure vanished.
'Invisibility?'
Jin narrowed his eyes. But his lips curled.
That was useless against him.
Electric arcs erupted around him, crackling with violence. The magnetic field waves expanded in a perfect sphere with him at the center, sweeping every inch of the chamber like sonar.
Thirty meters to the right. A human shaped outline appeared in his perception.
He didn't hesitate.
His spine compressed like a spring. Every tendon in his right arm tensed in unison, fifty thousand horsepower channeled into a single fist.
BOOOOOM!
The shockwave rocked the chamber like an earthquake, and Kuroi's body materialized again at the exact point of impact.
But compared to his earlier composure, he was now wrecked.
The left arm, which was already broken, was gone. His clothes no longer existed, just charred strips hanging off him like a mummy, and across his skin, residual flames licked at his flesh.
But he was still standing.
And on his face, beneath the burns and the blood, the smile had transformed. It was no longer sinister. It was furious.
A cold fury.
"You're very strong."
"And although I really like this body..." He looked down at himself. His skin was cracking, and through the fissures something dark was showing. "I have no choice but to abandon it."
CRACK!
A deep crunch traveled through his skeleton from end to end. His bones were rearranging. Expanding. Multiplying. The skin on his chest tore first, and from beneath it a new surface emerged: dark, rocky, with the texture of freshly solidified volcanic stone.
"I apologize for underestimating someone as strong as you..."
His voice was no longer a human voice.
"Now I'll show you my true self!"
A demonic aura exploded from his body like a bomb, kicking up dust and debris, forcing Jin to shield his eyes for an instant.
And in that instant, Kuroi stopped being human.
The Incubus Prince... revealed his true form.
The creature rose to its full magnitude, and the underground chamber, which a minute ago had seemed enormous, suddenly felt small. The arachnid legs drove into the floor and ceiling simultaneously, anchoring him like a spider at the center of its web.
The tentacles slithered around him, the toothed heads at their tips turning toward Jin with hunger.
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Jin's strength forced the Incubus Prince to abandon his human body! The real fight starts now. Let me know what you expect to see next in the comments, and please support the story with your Power Stones!
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