The wind howled past Flora's ears as she soared across the broken skyline, a green streak of electricity trailing behind her. Buildings blurred. Light bent. The entire world seemed to move in slow motion compared to her speed.

  She nded in the heart of the crater like a bolt of judgment, dust erupting around her feet.

  What she saw made her freeze.

  Bodies. Smoke. Rubble scorched bck. And at the center of it all—"Kus...?!" she gasped.

  Her voice cracked with disbelief. For a moment, she thought her eyes were lying. But no... the bck hair, the blue eyes, the shape of his face. Even under the metal and cables—she knew.

  It was him.

  He turned slowly, head tilting like a curious predator. The cables along his back twitched as if sensing her presence.

  But Flora didn't move toward him.

  She rushed to the figure crumpled on the ground—Loran, bloodied, barely breathing, the shield beside him scorched and cracked.

  "Loran!" she cried, kneeling beside him. "What happened?"

  But she never finished the sentence.

  Because in the next second, Kus was there.

  He moved without sound, like a shadow given flesh. One hand cmped around Loran's throat, lifting him like a trophy, and the other began to glow.

  The glow grew brighter. Hotter.

  And his smile... twisted wider.

  "This," Kus whispered to Flora, "is where the fun begins."

  Loran struggled weakly in Kus's grip, boots scraping against the broken concrete, fingers twitching near the edge of his shield. But it was useless.

  Kus's hand tightened around his throat with mechanical precision. You could hear the cartige crack. The glow in his other hand intensified, now a sphere of rotating electromagnetic force—hot enough to melt steel.

  "You said I was weak," Kus whispered, bringing the glowing orb inches from Loran's face. "But look who's begging now."

  "STOP!" Flora screamed.

  She surged forward—but the moment she did, Kus threw out his free arm and smmed her back with a bst of magnetic force. She was flung into a concrete pilr, cracking it on impact.

  She gasped, dazed—but not broken.

  Loran coughed blood, his head twitching toward her. He tried to say something, but Kus interrupted.

  The sphere in Kus's hand shifted shape, became a spear of pure energy.

  Without hesitation, he drove it through Loran's shoulder.

  The scream that followed was raw. Human.

  Flora watched in horror as blood sprayed across the rubble, sizzling where it touched the electrified ground.

  Kus didn't stop.

  He smmed Loran to the ground like a doll and stepped on his chest, pinning him. Then he raised a finger—and began cutting shallow, glowing lines into Loran's armor with surgical precision, almost pying with him.

  "You think your shield will save you from me?" Kus growled. "I'll peel it open and carve your pride out of your ribs."

  Flora clutched her stomach, trying to stand again, her breathing fast and panicked. She looked at him—not the metal, not the cables.

  The face.

  His face.

  "Kus... this isn't you," she whispered, voice cracking.

  Kus paused, head tilting toward her like he almost remembered.

  There was a flicker in his eyes.

  A beat of silence.

  Then—he ughed.

  It wasn't human. It was wrong. Corrupted.

  "I don't know who you think I am anymore, Flora..." he said, turning his full gaze to her."...but I'm not the boy you remember."

  The weapon in Kus's hand twisted mid-formation—its shape alive, pulsating, forming into a bded whip of magnetized psma. It cracked in the air with a high-pitched scream.

  Flora took one step back—then unched forward.

  She moved like a streak of green lightning, vanishing and reappearing behind him, a bst of ser firing from her palm straight to his shoulder.

  The shot hit. Kus grunted, sparks and blood flying from the joint.

  But he didn't slow.

  He spun, whip shing through the air—and slicing across her side. The metal cracked her ribs and tore her skin open. Blood spttered the ground as she cried out and stumbled back, hand clenching the wound.

  "I felt that," Kus growled, smiling wider. "Finally."

  His voice... wasn't his. It was deeper. Broken. Almost yered with something else inside—like a second voice speaking through him.

  "System override successful," it whispered beneath his words.

  His skin darkened, cables twitching wildly, teeth clenched so hard his gums bled. Veins of energy pulsed across his face like glowing blue scars. He started ughing—loud, wild, manic. His eyes rolled back, then snapped forward, locked on her.

  He charged.

  Flora dodged, barely, flipping backward as he swung the whip again. It hit the ground, and the earth cracked. Chunks of asphalt rose into the air from the magnetic force.

  She unched herself upward, spinning midair, two concentrated ser beams shooting from her hands.

  They hit his chest. A direct hit. The explosion fred—fmes, smoke, shrapnel.

  Silence.

  Then—he walked out of the smoke.

  Bleeding from his side. Face burned. But smiling.

  "Faster..." he rasped.

  He vanished—appeared right in front of her—smmed his fist into her stomach with bone-breaking force.

  She gasped, blood spurting from her mouth as she flew back, crashing through two concrete walls. Her body twitched as she rolled to a stop.

  Her lungs screamed. Her vision blurred. Her side was torn open, arm was possibly dislocated.

  And still, she got up.

  "Kus..." she whispered, spitting blood. "You're gone, aren't you?"

  He answered by hurling his whip at her head.

  She ducked—barely—and countered with a burst of raw electrical energy from both palms. It hit him square in the chest and sent him flying.

  He hit the ground. Hard.

  For a moment—he didn't move.

  Then his shoulders began to shake.

  He was ughing again.

  Only now... he was covered in his own blood. Face sshed, chest glowing from her shot, one eye dark and leaking.

  But he loved it.

  "I could do this forever," he growled. "More blood. More pain. This is what I was meant to be."

  Kus rose slowly from the crater he left in the ground, steam rising from his back. His face was cracked, raw—but his grin remained.

  "You're slowing down, Flora," he whispered."You feel it, don't you? The gap between us."

  She clenched her jaw, wiped the blood from her lip, and forced herself to her feet.

  She raised her hand to fire again—

  Too te.

  Kus was already in front of her.

  He grabbed her by the throat and smmed her into the ground.

  Before she could react, he threw her like a ragdoll across the battlefield.

  She tried to move—he was already there.

  He drove his elbow into her stomach. Cracking ribs. She coughed blood into his face.

  He held her by the hair now.

  "You thought you were ready for me?"

  He smmed her down.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Her body was limp. The floor is painted red.

  She tried to fight back. He crushed her wrist.

  Flora screamed.

  Kus leaned in. "This isn't revenge. This is... rebirth."

  He raised his hand. The bst began forming.

  She whispered: "Ignite."

  The chip in her spine triggered.

  A pulse of energy exploded from her chest, throwing Kus backward in a burst of light.

  She gasped. Alive.

  But barely.