Ajuka raised his arm to block. In any other circumstance, the Green Satan would have been reinforcing his limb with magic and using his Kankara Formula to fight back against this human.
But in this dead zone, his synapses felt sluggish, his muscles unaccustomed to battle like this without mana. The most brilliant mind in the Underworld suddenly felt like he was trapped in a cage, fighting like this.
He was too slow. Too weak.
BOOM—!!
Kenji's fist collided with Ajuka's forearm, sending the Devil King of the skidding backward, his boots carving deep furrows in the dirt. He was flying until he collided squarely with Sirzechs, who had been lunging forward to assist.
The two Devil Kings crashed together in an undignified tangle, rolling across the bedrock before scrambling back to their feet. They looked breathless, primal, wide-eyed. Their clothes and bodies covered in dirt and blood, a sight that would have been blasphemous just an hour ago.
Kenji didn't give them a moment to breathe. Right foot first—
CRACK—!!
The ground beneath him exploded. A spiderweb, deep crater fanned out from his point of impact, sending jagged shards of stone flying like shrapnel. Without pausing, Kenji dropped into a low crouch, his fingers clawing into the earth. With a guttural roar that vibrated in his chest, he ripped a jagged, Seven-foot chunk of bedrock from the ground and hurled it with the velocity of a bullet.
Sirzechs, already lunging toward the center of the field where the sword Yamato sat humming in the dirt, caught the movement in his periphery. Without his Power of Destruction to vaporize the incoming projectile, he had to rely on raw reflex. He twisted mid-air, a desperate, acrobatic contortion that allowed the boulder to whistle past his chest by an inch.
But the effort cost him. His center of gravity shifted, and as his boots hit the uneven rubble, he lost his footing, stumbling into an uncoordinated roll.
Unfortunately, that was the only opening Kenji needed.
Kenji launched from his position. He was aiming for the red-haired King, but Ajuka was faster. The Green haired Satan intercepted Kenji mid-flight, tackling him around the waist.
The two slammed into the ground together, a chaotic mess as Ajuka punched him repeatedly with Kenji returning the favor. They rolled through the ground, grappling for dominance.
Ajuka tried to pin Kenji's arms, but the human's raw strength was overwhelming. Kenji's hands shot forward, fingers bunching the front of Ajuka's tattered clothes.
With a surge of violent effort that made his own muscles scream, Kenji planted his feet and stood, lifting the Devil King like he weighed nothing more than a used rag.
SLAM—!!
He drove Ajuka's back into the ground with enough force to rattle the devil's teeth.
SLAM—!!
He did it again, the force of the impact creating fresh spiderweb cracks in the bedrock. Ajuka grunted, the air fleeing his lungs in a sharp, painful wheeze, but Kenji was relentless. He spun on his heel, using the momentum of his turn to toss Ajuka directly at Sirzechs, who was just regaining his feet.
The two devils slammed together once more, a chorus of pained groans rising from the dust. This time, Kenji was a fraction of a second behind. As Sirzechs caught his friend to keep him from falling, Kenji's fist arrived to deliver the punchline.
BOOM—!!
The blow caught Ajuka squarely in the chest, the shockwave passing through his body and into Sirzechs behind him. Both were sent skidding back twenty meters, their heels screaming against the stone as they struggled to arrest their momentum.
Kenji came to a halt in front of Yamato. He stood over the blade like a guardian deity, his golden eyes flicking to the hilt briefly before locking back onto his opponents.
Since the moment he had activated LAW, they were fighting to reach the anchor of the domain. They wanted to break the field. They wanted their Magic back, they knew they won't win fighting him without it.
Kenji rolled his shoulders, the sound of his joints popping echoing in the eerie silence. He cracked his neck, tilting his head as a slow, mocking grin spread across his face. He didn't say a word, but the challenge was written in every line of his posture. Try and take it.
Sirzechs spat a mouthful of blood, his red hair matted with dust and sweat. He looked at Ajuka, a silent communication passing between the two lifelong friends.
They were the pinnacle of their race, and they would not go down without exhausting every ounce of their remaining Strength. They rushed him from opposite sides, a pincer move.
Kenji stepped forward, meeting them head-on. He caught both incoming fists, one in each palm, and the impact shook his very frame, vibrating through his bones. He didn't budge, though.
He pulled Sirzechs inward, driving a brutal knee into the Satan's stomach that made the King double over in agony. Simultaneously, he twisted Ajuka's arm, folding it back at a painful angle that threatened to tear the shoulder from its socket.
Kenji jumped, wrapping his legs around Ajuka's neck and using his own weight to wrench the devil's head toward the earth. He flipped mid-air, releasing them both, only to twist his body to dodge a desperate haymaker from Sirzechs.
Block. Parry. Duck.
A kick from Ajuka caught Kenji in the ribs, a sharp crack signaling a bruised or broken bone. Kenji didn't even flinch. He leaned into the pain, headbutting Sirzechs so hard the red-haired King tumbled back, dazed. He followed up by kneeing Ajuka in the gut, then locking his hands together into a massive double-fisted hammer. He brought the blow down on Ajuka's back, pinning the Satan into the dirt with a heavy, final thud.
With a fluid, spinning kick, Kenji sent Ajuka skidding away like a piece of trash and landed a clean punch to Sirzechs' jaw, sending the Satan tumbling into the rubble.
Kenji's right hand slammed into the earth, his fingers digging into the very crust of the world. With a roar of exertion that sounded like the earth itself was screaming, he ripped out a boulder the size of a carriage and flung it at the staggering Sirzechs.
At the edge of the boundary, Serafall watched in horror. her eyes wide as she witnessed the impossible.
Her friends, fellow leaders of their race, beings who had surpassed the original Satans, the literal pillars of the Underworld, were being rag-dolled around like helpless children.
She had tried to intervene at first. The moment she saw them lose their magic, she had lunged forward. But the moment she crossed the invisible threshold Kenji had established, her magic vanished too. She had crashed to the ground. She had scrambled back out of the zone immediately.
It was a no-magic zone. And she couldn't do anything but watch. She could enter and fight, but she herself knew that without her magic, she was the weakest of the four satans, and watching the two strongest get wailed on, she knew she'd only get in their way if she joined.
Even attacks launched from outside vanished the moment they touched the perimeter, anything magic that entered just poof. gone.
The sound of the fight turned even more stomach-churning. She watched as Kenji grabbed Sirzechs by the left leg and began slamming him into the ground repeatedly, left and right, like a man beating a rug against a stone floor. The dull impacts echoed across the territory.
"Brother!" Rias Gremory screamed from the sidelines, her face pale. She tried to rush forward, her eyes fixated on Sirzechs' battered form.
"DON'T!" Serafall shrieked, grabbing the girl's shoulder with a grip that left bruises. "If you go in there, you'll die!"
Rias looked at Serafall with eyes full of betrayal and confusion. "Why aren't you helping? We have to save him! He's going to kill them!"
Rias ignored the warning and sprinted toward the line, her desperation overriding her fear. The moment she crossed the mark Serafall had mentally noted, Rias stumbled, her legs turning to lead. She collapsed to her knees, her face hitting the dirt. The jarring sensation of all her magic being gone was horrible.
Serafall dove in, grabbing Rias by the collar and dragging her back across the safety of the line.
"I told you to stop!" Serafall snapped, her own nerves frayed to the breaking point.
"What… what just happened…?" Rias gasped, clutching her chest as her magic slowly began to pool back into her soul.
"An anti-magic field," Serafall explained, her gaze fixed on the man standing in the center of the carnage. "By my guess, the only way to remove it is to get that sword out of the ground," she had seen him do something similar during the meeting of the three factions.
"But look at him, Rias. Do you think he's going to let anyone near it?" She told the girl.
"Then we have to try together! All of us!" Akeno shouted, her lightning flickering at her fingertips.
Serafall shook her head bitterly. "It takes a single mistake to end up dead, or worse, to distract Sirzechs from his own survival. I am not confident enough in my physical strength to help them in a fight where magic doesn't exist. We would just be more bodies for him to throw at them."
"I'll go."
Everyone turned. Ayaka stood there, her eyes fixed on her father. She looked smaller than her usual self.
"What?!" Aoi snapped, grabbing her sister's arm. "Have you lost your mind? Can you not see what's happening? You want to get in the middle of that?"
"I have to," Ayaka said, her voice small but steady.
"You don't have to do anything!" Aoi shouted, her voice cracking. "Why do you keep making more problems? None of this would have happened if you hadn't gone looking for Azazel! You think you're just going to walk in there and talk to him? What do you think will happen if you get hurt more? "
Ayaka flinched as if struck. She looked at her younger sister, seeing the terror and the blame, and took a deep, shaky breath. Aoi was right after all, had she not been stubborn, then she didn't think it would come to this.
She pulled her arm away with a gentle but firm motion. Without another word, she ran toward the fight, hoping nothing bad would happen.
Kenji was bleeding. His knuckles were raw, and blood matted his hair. But across from him, the two Devil Kings looked like they were one breath away from permanent collapse.
"Hah… hah…" Sirzechs leaned on his knees, his chest heaving as he struggled to pull oxygen into his battered lungs. "What a… monster. I've never felt... so small."
"Sirzechs," Ajuka muttered, his face swollen and one eye nearly closed. "We can't hold out much longer."
"I'll provide an opening," Sirzechs whispered, his eyes narrowing with a final, desperate resolve. He wiped the blood from his mouth, his gaze hardening. "Finish this."
The two rushed him one last time. It was a messy, brutal exchange. After a series of blows, Sirzechs managed to dive under Kenji's guard. He wrapped his arms around Kenji's waist, locking his hands together in a crushing bear hug, pinning Kenji's arms to his sides.
"NOW!" Sirzechs roared, the veins in his neck bulging from the strain.
Ajuka didn't hesitate. He ignored the stabbing pain in his ribs and sprinted for Yamato, his hand reaching for the hilt that anchored this nightmare.
Kenji's golden eyes flared, he shifted his stats, pumping every available point into Strength. He jumped backward, arching his body so he would land directly on top of Sirzechs with all his force.
BOOM—!!
Sirzechs took the full impact, the air forced from his lungs in a sickening gasp as Kenji used him as a cushion. The grip loosened for a split second, and Kenji broke free with an explosive surge of power. He rolled into a squat and launched himself at Ajuka.
He caught Ajuka inches from the sword. He grabbed the devil by the back of the head and smashed him into the ground, dragging him across the sharp rocks before lifting him high into the air. Kenji's hand migrated to Ajuka's throat, his grip tightening with a sickening pressure.
Ajuka clawed at Kenji's hands, his legs kicking uselessly in the air, his face turning a dark shade of purple as he struggled to breathe. Kenji's eyes were cold. He was going to end it.
"Dad…! Dad, stop!"
The voice pierced through the adrenaline and the white noise of battle.
Kenji froze. The pressure in his hand faltered for a fraction of a second.
That was all Ajuka needed. The Satan delivered a desperate, two-footed kick to Kenji's chest, using the human's own grip as a fulcrum to launch himself away. Kenji was sent flying back into a pile of rocks.
"…Dad!" Ayaka yelled out.
Kenji laid there in the rubble, unmoving. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of light, frantic footsteps running across the dirt, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Slowly, painfully, Kenji pushed himself up. His movements were stiff as his body ached. He stood just as Ayaka reached him, his shadow falling over her frame. He turned his head, his golden eyes meeting hers.
She was crying. Tears streamed down her face. She was trembling, her hands reaching out for him as she screamed his name.
The sight of her, tears in her eyes, hit him harder than any punch the Satans had landed. The hot, righteous fury that had sustained him suddenly evaporated. It left behind only a deep, hollow, and crushing exhaustion.
"…Tch."
He exhaled a long, shaky breath. He didn't look at the battered Satans. He didn't look at the audience beyond the line. He just looked at his girl.
Ayaka reached him and threw her arms around his waist, burying her face in his blood-stained shirt. She held him with a grip.
Kenji stood there, his arms hanging limp at his sides for a moment, his fingers twitching. Then, slowly, with tenderness, he lowered them, resting a bruised, scarred hand on her head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
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