The deep rumble of the engines filled the cockpit, constant, controlled, almost soothing.
The high-tech aircraft sliced through the sky with perfect stability.
Its cylindrical shape, devoid of superfluous angles, seemed designed to withstand both storms and battlefields. Inside, holographic interfaces projected navigation data in real time: trajectory, speed, altitude, heat signatures, vibration anomalies.
Everything worked flawlessly.
They had just left Japanese airspace.
The sun was slowly sinking toward the horizon, tinting the sky with shades of orange and purple. Through the panoramic cockpit, Daru and Aika watched the spectacle in silence. The low-angled sunlight reflected off the metallic fuselage, giving the aircraft an almost unreal appearance.
The sky was astonishingly calm.
No turbulence.
No electromagnetic interference.
Not a single threatening cloud front. The weather was favorable… too favorable.
Aika broke the silence, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the horizon.
"It's strange…
Everything is too quiet." Daru quickly checked the screens, his fingers gliding confidently over the touch controls.
"All systems are green. No suspicious temperature variations, no abnormal sonic waves, no unidentified radar signals." He paused, then added more seriously,
"Yeah… I see what you mean." Aika narrowed her eyes slightly.
"After what we saw on the energy readings… this silence is unsettling.
It's like the sky is holding its breath." Daru gave a wry smile.
"The calm before the storm, perhaps." He adjusted the course.
"We'll continue as planned.
Course due west. The desert awaits." The plane continued its run, devouring the kilometers with surgical precision, as the sun slowly disappeared behind the horizon.
Far behind them, something had just ended in absolute violence.
And ahead of them…
something even worse seemed to await them.
Daru touched the edge of the touchscreen.
The interface responded instantly.
The map retracted, then a sharp zoom on Tokyo appeared in the cockpit.
A heavy silence fell.
Where a vibrant megalopolis once stood, only a vast field of ruins remained.
Kilometers reduced to ashes.
No infrastructure standing.
No vital signals detected.
Worse still… a second zone was flashing on the screen.
"Neighboring city: total destruction."
The sensors confirmed the unthinkable:
"Zero survivors identified."
Daru clenched his jaw.
"…I hope Yamero and Maki are okay."
Aika didn't look away from the screen. Her face remained impassive, but her voice betrayed a palpable tension.
"No matter who they were facing… these individuals are on a completely different level." Razing two entire cities… this is no longer just an extremist operation.
She took a deep breath.
"This organization's plan has far exceeded their own expectations.
And it's a disaster for all of us."
A brief silence followed, then she continued, harder, more determined:
"That's precisely why we have to keep going. No matter the losses.
We don't really have a choice anymore." Daru nodded slowly.
Without another word, he pushed the throttle.
The engines roared.
The plane accelerated abruptly, the air around the fuselage compressed, then—
BOOM.
The sound barrier shattered in a deafening shockwave.
The aircraft became a luminous trail streaking across the sky at breakneck speed, leaving behind a torn landscape.
Half an hour had passed.
The plane was now slicing through the scorching air as it approached the Sahara Desert.
Through the cockpit, the horizon was tinged with ochre and gold, an ocean of dunes stretching as far as the eye could see.
No turbulence. Not a cloud.
An almost unsettling calm.
Daru broke the silence, his eyes still fixed on the instruments.
"Tell me… you said you were eight last year, but now you're fifteen."
He paused.
"Your ability allows you to lengthen your age… or manipulate it?" Aika's mouth opened slightly.
"Actually…" She didn't have time to finish.
"BOOM!" A violent explosion struck the right side of the plane. The fuselage shook, and alarms blared instantly in the cockpit.
"External impact!" Daru shouted, gripping the controls.
The aircraft veered slightly before the stabilization systems regained control.
Daru looked ahead… and his blood ran cold.
"Ahead of us… no."
Four fighter jets had just appeared in the sky, flying overhead in tight formation.
Their black silhouettes cut across the desert sky, too fast, too precise to be accidental.
Aika gritted her teeth.
"Damn… who are these guys?!" Daru frantically scanned the radar screens.
"I haven't the slightest idea."
"No transponder recognized."
"No standard military identification." The fighters were getting closer.
"But one thing is certain," he added in a deep voice…
"They knew exactly where to find us." The aircraft entered an evasive maneuver, its engines screaming at full power. Above the Sahara, under an otherwise peaceful sky,
a new battle had just begun.
Suddenly, a radio frequency crackled to life in the cockpit.
A sharp crackle preceded a cold, authoritative female voice:
"Please land immediately. If you refuse, we will be forced to shoot you down in mid-air."
Daru reached for the communication system to answer, but Aika stopped him abruptly, grabbing his wrist.
"Are you crazy?!" Daru exclaimed.
"If we don't land, they'll destroy the plane! We could die!" Aika stared at the horizon, her gaze hard, devoid of the slightest hesitation.
"In any case, we're doomed," she replied coldly.
"These people work hand in hand with the extremist organization." Daru paled.
"What...?" Aika continued, her voice deep, almost icy:
"They control the airspace." Air traffic control, patrols, everything.
"We are an unidentified aircraft heading straight for the Sahara Desert… exactly where their allies are stationed."
"You really think that's a coincidence?" She paused, then added,
"If we land, we'll either be executed on the spot or imprisoned, tortured, and then handed over as a gift to the extremist organization." A heavy silence fell over the cockpit, broken only by the roar of the engines. Daru gritted his teeth.
"In that case… we only have one option left." Aika nodded slowly. Daru grabbed the microphone, tuned in to the same frequency as the fighter jets, took a deep breath, and then said firmly,
"Sorry… but fuck off all of you." The radio channel cut out. And the sky, until then peaceful, suddenly became a battlefield.
Shots rained down from the sky like a death haul.
Heavy missiles, bursts of high-energy lasers, luminous trails ripped through the atmosphere in a deafening roar.
Daru and Aika's plane zigzagged wildly, pushing the limits of possibility.
"Right turn!"
"Immediate dive!" Aika executed the maneuvers with surgical precision.
The aircraft skimmed the side of a mountain, plunged into a narrow canyon, climbed sharply, and then dived again.
A true aerial chase.
Daru, gripping his seat, watched the tactical screens saturated with enemy signals.
"Isn't there really any other effective heavy weapon to take out these damn fighter jets?" he shouted over the noise. Aika gritted her teeth. "This plane is designed to handle one or two enemies at a time. Not eight."
"And the enemy is equipped with cutting-edge technology… probably superior to ours." A missile whizzed past the cockpit, shaking the entire cabin.
"All we can do is outsmart them and run," she concluded. A tense silence fell.
Then Daru unbuckled his seatbelt. The metallic click echoed through the cockpit. Aika turned her head, alarmed.
"Daru… what are you doing?" He stood up slowly, his gaze determined.
"Not really." He walked toward the side door of the plane.
"You said our plane couldn't handle multiple enemies at once, didn't you?"
"Then we'll level the playing field. 50/50… or even 60/40." Aika felt her heart sink. "What exactly are you planning to do?!"
"We don't have jetpacks! How do you expect to reach them?!" Daru offered a calm, almost unsettling smile.
"Nothing should surprise you anymore."
"We live in a world where superpowers exist." He placed his hand on a green button next to the door. A short beep sounded.
The door burst open, letting in a violent wind and a deafening roar. The sky and the desert stretched as far as the eye could see beneath their feet.
Aika shouted:
"DARU, WAIT—!"
Too late. Daru took a step forward…
and threw himself into the void.
His body was instantly engulfed by the wind, disappearing beneath the aircraft during its aerial pursuit.
The three fighter jets dove toward Daru like hungry vultures, their engines screaming as their weapon systems locked onto him.
The wind whipped violently around him, the air becoming suffocating.
Daru closed his eyes for a few seconds.
Then—
BOOM.
His aura exploded around him in an invisible blast. His body was propelled upward at an absurd speed, instantly surpassing one of the pursuing planes.
In a fraction of a second, he was above the cockpit.
—CRASH—
He planted his feet on the canopy and, without the slightest hesitation, ripped the cockpit off with his bare hands. The reinforced glass shattered, sucked into the void.
Inside: two servicemen, frozen in terror.
Daru grabbed one of them by the collar of his uniform and lifted him with one hand, his icy gaze locking with Daru's.
"Who do you work for?" His voice was calm… too calm.
"Talk. Or I'll throw you out of here. Your skull will splatter like butter on the sand." The soldier stammered, unable to catch his breath. His lips trembled, his panicked eyes searching for a way out.
"I… I…" Then, suddenly, fear forced him to compose himself.
"We… we're part of the Egyptian army!"
"We received reports of a plane coming from Japan, heading for the Sahara."
"Direct order: destroy the aircraft." Daru narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Hmm… I see." He leaned closer.
"And who alerted you to our arrival?" The soldier paused. He swallowed hard, his throat tightening painfully. His hands trembled so badly he struggled to stay conscious.
"I... it's..." A heavy silence fell, broken only by the roar of the reactors.
"Oswald."
"Oswald ordered your assassination."
"I don't know how he knew... but he did." At that precise moment, something changed in Daru's gaze.
A brutal shock crossed his face.
His pupils contracted, his aura pulsed for a fraction of a second longer.
"Oswald..." The name echoed in his head like a blade.
He loosened his grip slightly, not out of pity... but because his focus had just shifted elsewhere.
He grabbed the soldier by the throat and threw himself into the void with him.
The wind howled immediately, the pressure crushed the soldier's lungs, and he began to panic… but before he could even scream, two fighter jets appeared at full speed, heading straight for Daru. Their targeting systems lit up, missiles armed, ready to launch.
Daru sighed, almost weary.
He released his grip.
But the soldier didn't fall.
He remained suspended in the air, motionless, exactly like Daru. The ground, though thousands of meters below, seemed to have ceased to exist.
The soldier waved his arms in a desperate gesture, his face ashen.
"W… what's happening…?"
"Am I… am I dreaming…?" Daru burst out laughing, a clear, almost mocking laugh, echoing through the sky.
"Haha… no." "I just let you fly, in a way." He floated peacefully in front of him, hands in his pockets, as if they were standing on invisible ground.
Then his tone became calmer, almost pedagogical.
"Well… not really fly."
"I've trapped you in a confined space." He gestured vaguely toward the air around the soldier.
"Imagine a box."
"You can't go up or down."
"You're frozen in a state of absolute nothingness."
"No fall, no momentum, no way out." The soldier tried to move his legs. Nothing. He tried to lean forward. Impossible.
"But don't worry," Daru added with a smile.
"You can breathe."
"Your heart is beating normally."
"You can live… as long as I decide." The soldier was now trembling all over. Daru turned away from him, looking at the two planes now hurtling within firing range.
"But enough talk."
He simply raised his hand toward them.
There was no explosion, no spectacular beam.
Just—
— CRRRRRSH—
The two planes disintegrated in mid-air.
Their structures crumbled like poorly assembled toys: wings torn off, engines pulverized, fuselages shattered into dozens of pieces scattered in all directions.
The pilots were ejected by the brutal force of the decomposition.
They fell.
Without a sound.
Without hope.
Their bodies crashed against the desert floor, reduced to broken silhouettes in a cloud of sand.
Silence fell again.
Daru slowly lowered his hand, his aura barely calming.
He glanced at the suspended soldier, petrified with horror.
"Stay right there." "I haven't decided what to do with you yet."
Then he turned his head toward the horizon, where other signatures were still approaching.
[Dismantle] — one of Daru's core abilities.
It allows him to dismantle a target piece by piece, down to its smallest component. In this particular case, he hadn't simply destroyed the two planes: he had literally dismantled them, screw by screw, fiber by fiber, as if their mechanical existence had been negated.
But the fight wasn't over. Three more fighter jets appeared at high speed and, this time, left no room for hesitation.
Several missiles were launched simultaneously, their luminous trails slicing through the sky straight toward Daru.
The suspended soldier felt death approaching. Panicked, he covered his face, screaming.
Then…
Nothing.
No explosion.
He opened his eyes.
The missiles were motionless, stopped dead three meters away, frozen in the air like metal sculptures. Between them and the projectiles, something invisible existed—a wall, an absolute boundary.
The soldier trembled.
"I...it's impossible..." Daru simply waved his hand across the air, without even looking.
The missiles were sliced in two with a sharp crack, then exploded at a distance, unleashing a massive plume of black smoke that engulfed the sky.
Taking advantage of the opening, Daru propelled himself forward.
He reached the first plane, grabbed its wing with his bare hands, and in a brutal movement, hurled it against a second aircraft.
"BOOM!" The two planes exploded simultaneously, their wreckage scattering like flaming meteors.
Only one plane remained. Daru clasped his hands and rapped once.
"CLAP." The plane began to buckle under the pressure of an invisible force.
Fuselage, wings, engines—everything was crushed, compacted, until it formed a grotesque metal cube, which then fell silently, uselessly, into the void.
At that moment, Aika's plane appeared from below, perfectly stabilized beneath Daru.
He grabbed the soldier by the collar and climbed down with him into the aircraft.
The doors closed.
Daru set foot on the ground.
"You were quick." Aika smiled slightly as she took back the controls.
"I owed you that much."
"You seriously lessened the danger." She glanced at the soldier, still in shock.
"...A hostage?" Daru shrugged.
"More or less." "He told me that Oswald informed the Egyptian Air Force that our plane was leaving Japan for the Sahara…
—and that he ordered them to shoot us down." Aika's eyes widened.
"How could he have known?" Daru remained silent for a moment, his arms crossed.
"Honestly?"
"I don't know." Then his gaze hardened.
"But now we have a lead." He glared coldly at the soldier, huddled against the wall.
"And we're going to use this poor, living corpse to achieve our goals." The plane accelerated again.