Sunset in Ishabana was a violent display of beauty. The sky wasn't just orange; it was a bleeding crimson that made the palace walls look like they were carved from rubies.
Himeno stood in the center of a specialized testing arena, her yellow dress replaced by a high-collared, reinforced uniform that looked both regal and tactical. Around her, several high-frequency dampening towers hummed, creating a localized field designed to contain energy spikes.
"You're late," she said, not looking up from her wrist-mounted console. "Though I suppose the extra calories have settled your nerves. Are you ready to be useful, BJ?"
"Useful?" I repeated, my hand drifting toward the coin in my pocket. "You're playing with fire in a room full of gunpowder, Himeno. You shouldn't be standing this close."
A sharp, challenging smile crossed her face. She didn't move an inch. "I'm a doctor, BJ. I don't fear the fire; I study the burn. Now, begin."
"You wanted to accelerate the tests, Himeno," I said, walking further into the center of the massive, sunken circle of reinforced stone.
She didn't correct me on the 'Queen' title this time. She was too busy tracking the way the air around me was beginning to shimmer. She stayed on the arena floor, just outside the primary strike zone, her silhouette framed by the dozen flickering holographic screens floating around her.
"The dampening towers are at maximum capacity, BJ," she said, her voice no longer clinical—she sounded like an excited child. "Don't hold back. I want to see the 'hunger' you were talking about. Give me the variable."
She smirked, a look of pure, unadulterated triumph. "Indeed. I'm setting the dampeners to maximum power. I want you to channel the energy into the target monoliths. Don't worry about the output; I've designed this field to withstand—"
"Forget the dampeners," I interrupted.
I didn't wait for her permission. For the last twenty-four hours, I had been building a dam in my mind, trying to keep the "Cold Constant" of that vision away from my reality. Now, I simply let the dam break.
I reached for the coin's power—not with the caution of a patient, but with the desperation of a man trying to start a fire.
The air didn't just vibrate; it tore.
A shockwave of static-heavy gold and sickly green energy exploded from my skin. The dampening towers shrieked, their internal gears grinding as they tried to process a surge that defied the laws of Chikyu's physics.
"BJ! The levels are—" Himeno started, her professional calm finally cracking as the holographic screens in front of her began to pixelate and melt.
I didn't stop. I leaned into the hunger. I let the "voice" speak. My vision began to tunnel, the beautiful red sunset being replaced by the grey ash of the ruined command center.
"Is this beautiful enough for you?" I roared, my voice sounding layered, as if a thousand versions of myself were speaking at once.
The ground beneath my boots cracked. One of the dampener towers buckled, its top half melting into slag as the energy licked against it. I could see Himeno's face through the distortion—the pride was gone, replaced by the wide-eyed realization of a doctor who had just realized the virus she was studying had already infected the room.
The scream of the dampening towers was drowned out by a sound like shattering glass. only it wasn't glass-it was the air itself tearing open.
The gold and green energy didn't just swirl; it solidified into a physical weight. Molten metal seemed to pour over my skin, hardening into heavy plates of jagged, obsidian-black and white armor. Over my chest, a massive golden mantle snapped into place, holding a deep, aggressive "V" shape that broadened my shoulders and tapered down my torso. It didn't just sit on my shoulders; it locked me into a rigid, sovereign frame. From the sides of the mantle, the shoulder pauldrons flared upward into sharp spikes, and veins of gold filigree crawled across the white plating like a glowing, toxic infection.
A helmet snapped shut over my face, the visor glowing with a predatory, ruby light that turned the entire arena into a blood-soaked hunting ground.
I wasn't just BJ anymore. I was a King standing amidst the ruins of a world I hadn't even conquered yet.
**"Is this... what you wanted to see?"** My voice didn't come from my throat; it resonated from the armor itself, heavy and layered with a cold, metallic echo that made the air vibrate.
Himeno staggered back, her hand flying to her mouth. For the first time, the "best doctor in the world" looked like she was facing a disease she couldn't cure. The holographic screens around her shattered into digital dust as the power radiating from the golden mantle fried her tech. The grass at my feet didn't just wither; it turned to black ash in a perfect, scorched circle.
"BJ, stop!" she commanded, but the royal authority in her voice finally wavered. "The output is—it's tearing the localized space apart! You're going to collapse the arena!"
I ignored her. I felt the "predatory pressure" surging through my veins, and instead of fighting it, I pushed back. I reached deeper into the coin, dragging more of that sickly green lightning into the physical world.
**"You said you could handle the variables, Himeno,"** I growled, stepping toward her. Each footfall cracked the reinforced stone beneath me. **"You said everything in Ishabana obeys your design. So, design this."**
In my hand, the energy condensed into a heavy, ornate hilt. I slammed the blade into the central monolith. The explosion wasn't fiery; it was a vacuum of sound and color that sucked the light out of the sunset. The monolith, designed to withstand a Shugod's direct impact, disintegrated into nothingness.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the hunger hit its peak.
The armor didn't fade; it cracked and flaked off my body like burnt skin, leaving me raw and gasping. The helmet dissolved into smoke, and I collapsed to one knee. I didn't pass out—the coin wouldn't let me have that mercy—but the weakness was absolute. Every muscle felt like it had been shredded and stitched back together with hot wire.
But the sword stayed.
The white tiger-headed hilt lay on the scorched earth, the blade twitching with a life that shouldn't exist. Before my eyes even opened, a name pulsed in the back of my brain, vibrating against my skull.
Saba.
I didn't know how I knew it. I hadn't read it in a book or heard it in a legend. It was just there, carved into my subconscious by the same dark energy that was currently eating my nerves alive.
The tiger head's eyes snapped open, glowing a frantic, flickering red.
"Where... where am I?" she rasped, her voice sounding Hollow. She sounded terrified, her jaw snapping as if she were gasping for air. "This isn't the Command Center... The Morphin Grid... it's silent. Who has summoned me to this... this hollow place?"
The tiger head twisted a full 180 degrees, her gaze locking onto my face. "You... you have the same soul as that Usurper.. but your soul is leaking. Why am I awake? Where is the monster who broke me?"
I couldn't even answer. I sat there, gasping for air, my vision blurring as the cost of the transformation settled into my bones.
Himeno walked toward us and stopped a few feet away, her fingers twitching rhythmically as her sensors struggled to calculate the anomaly standing before her.
She didn't kneel in the dirt.
She didn't reach for the hilt.
She simply snapped her fingers.
Two medical drones hovered forward, their scanners whirring as they projected a sterile blue containment field around the twitching sword. Himeno watched the holographic readouts, her eyes tracking the energy spikes. "A soul trapped in a kinetic delivery system," she mused. "Crude, but the consciousness is—"
"Back. Off."
The growl didn't sound like me. It was low, vibrating with the same "predatory pressure" that had just leveled the arena. My fingers clamped around the hilt of Saba.
I didn't push the drones away. With a snarl, I swung.
Even in my mangled state, the blade moved with a mind of its own. It cut through the air with a sound like a thunderclap. The edge of the blade caught the first drone, cleaving through its reinforced alloy as if it were wet paper. The second drone didn't even have time to retract; the shockwave from the swing sent it spiraling into the stone wall, where it shattered into a thousand useless pieces.
Himeno froze, her eyes widening as the blue containment field flickered and died. A stray spark from the wreckage singed the hem of her yellow skirt.
I leaned heavily on the Saba, the tip buried an inch deep into the scorched stone to keep myself from face-planting. My knuckles were white, and every breath felt like I was inhaling lead, but the pulse of saba was still screaming in my ear, telling me that a Queen was just a target with a crown.
"Vicious..." Saba rasped, her tiger eyes flickering as she felt the heat of the strike. "The boy has the heart of a Usurper, even if his body is failing."
I looked up at Himeno through the sweat and the dirt. I was shaking, my body felt like it was made of lead, but I let that Drakkon smirk crawl onto my face—just for a second.
"Don't study me like a bug, Himeno," I wheezed, the threat clear even through my exhaustion. "I told you it was a monster. You don't put a leash on a monster. You just stay out of its way."
Himeno didn't scream or run. She stood there, looking at the smoking remains of her drones, and then back at the jagged, ancient sword in my hand. The greed in her eyes didn't dim; it caught fire.
"Physical defiance, even at the point of total systemic collapse," she whispered, her voice breathless with excitement. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, looking at the wreckage I'd made of her technology with a terrifying kind of admiration. "Fine. No drones. If you want to be handled with bare hands, BJ, I can accommodate that."
She finally stepped closer, ignoring the warning growl from the sword. "But don't mistake your anger for freedom. You're still in my kingdom. And I still have the only medicine that can keep you alive."
She gestured toward my throat, where the black veins stood out in sharp, dark relief against my skin. Now that the armor had retracted, there was nothing to hide the tremors in my hands or the way my breath hitched. The sickness felt like ice water in my lungs, a heavy, hollow weakness that made me feel like I was about to collapse right there in the dirt.
Himeno leaned in, her voice a silk-wrapped blade. "The throne is expensive, BJ.but the results? A true masterpiece. Are you sure you can afford the bill?"
I stood there, leaning heavily on Saba, the tip buried an inch deep into the scorched stone to keep myself from collapsing. My knuckles were white as I gripped the hilt, and every breath felt like I was inhaling lead. Saba wasn't just any sword; I could feel a low, heavy thrumming vibrating through the gold mantle and straight into my marrow, like a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
Himeno stepped closer, her heels clicking on the debris. She was waiting for the "patient" to finally drop, waiting to be the one to catch me.
I didn't give her the satisfaction.
Instead of falling, I straightened my spine. I didn't move fast, but I moved with an inevitable weight, pulling Saba out of the stone with a sharp shink that echoed through the quiet arena. I didn't need a suit to make her flinch. I just needed the look in my eyes—the one that had seen the throne she was so obsessed with building.