The journey to the Petrified Woods was a blur of azure-tinged fury. Katsuki, having opted for the more potent, magic-fueled version of his aerial propulsion – "Explode: Incinerate - Turbo Cluster!" – tore through the sky with a velocity that bordered on reckless. The air around him superheated, leaving a shimmering trail of distorted heat in his wake, a visible manifestation of the inferno raging both within and without. The trees and landscapes below were indistinct streaks of color, devoured by his relentless forward momentum. Each blast from his palms was not just a propulsion unit but a venting of the pressure building in his soul, a searing cry against the unwelcome vulnerability he'd tasted.
He arrived over the Petrified Woods with the suddenness of a thunderclap. The place lived up to its name. It was an eerie, silent expanse where ancient trees had been turned to solid stone, their gnarled, lifeless branches clawing at the sky like skeletal hands. The air was heavy, still, and carried a faint, unnatural chill despite the morning sun. It was a place of death and stillness, a fitting arena for the Basilisk that was said to lair within.
He didn't need to search for long. The Gorgon-Eyed Basilisk was a monstrous reptile, easily thirty feet long, its scales a mottled grey and brown, perfectly camouflaged amongst the petrified trees. Its most terrifying feature, however, was its cluster of bulbous, multifaceted eyes, each one glowing with a sickly yellow light – the source of its petrifying gaze. It slithered from behind a massive stone trunk, its head swaying, its numerous eyes already fixing on Katsuki as he descended with a ground-jarring impact.
"Ugly bastard, aren't ya?" Katsuki snarled, his voice raw. He felt the Basilisk's gaze attempt to lock onto him, a strange, cold pressure trying to seep into his mind, into his very bones. He channeled his rage, his magic, creating a shimmering aura of heat around himself that seemed to disrupt the petrifying effect, making the air waver and distort.
He didn't give it a chance to fully bring its primary weapon to bear. "Explode: Incinerate!"
A torrent of azure flame, hotter and more concentrated than any he'd unleashed before in a sustained stream, erupted from his outstretched hands. It wasn't just a blast; it was a focused jet of pure, liquefying heat, a miniature solar flare. The Basilisk shrieked, a sound like stone grinding against stone, as the superheated energy slammed into its flank. Its rock-like scales glowed cherry-red, then began to melt and slough off in smoking chunks. The creature recoiled, its multiple eyes blinking rapidly in agony and confusion, its petrifying gaze momentarily disrupted.
But Katsuki wasn't done. The initial assault was just to create an opening, to disorient. He needed something bigger, something to shatter its focus entirely, something to vent the furious pressure still building within him. He thought of his Stun Grenade, the blinding flash he used for disorientation. But that wasn't enough. Not nearly enough for the rage he felt, for the power he now wielded. He needed more. He expanded it.
His hands came together, palms cupped, channeling not just light, but a massive, condensed sphere of raw explosive magic, superheating the air within his grip until it thrummed with unbearable pressure. The light emanating from between his fingers was blinding, but it was more than light; it was the core of a miniature star, a volatile concentration of destructive potential.
"Blast Grenade!" he roared, the name a perfect, brutal descriptor of the evolved technique.
He thrust his hands forward, unleashing the condensed sphere of incandescent energy. It shot towards the reeling Basilisk, not with the speed of an AP Shot, but with a deliberate, implacable trajectory. The moment it neared the creature's head, Katsuki mentally triggered its detonation.
The resulting explosion was colossal. It wasn't just a flash and a bang; it was a wave of pure, obliterating force, accompanied by a wave of intense heat that vaporized the moisture in the air and turned nearby petrified trees to incandescent dust. The light was so intense it bleached all color from the landscape for a terrifying instant, followed by a shockwave that flattened everything in a wide radius. The sound was a physical blow, a deafening concussion that would have ruptured the eardrums of any normal human.
When the searing light faded and the dust began to settle, the Gorgon-Eyed Basilisk was… gone. Not just dead, but largely disintegrated. A few smoking, vaguely reptilian chunks of superheated stone and flesh were all that remained, scattered across a newly formed crater. The Blast Grenade had been an overwhelming success, a testament to his amplified power and his desperate need for a cathartic release.
Katsuki stood amidst the devastation, his breathing heavy, his new clothes singed in a few places despite their enchantments – a testament to the sheer, uncontrolled ferocity of the attack. Smoke curled from his palms. The fury within him had abated slightly, replaced by the grim satisfaction of annihilation.
He stalked over to the largest remaining piece of the Basilisk – a section of its jaw, still bearing a few of its grotesque, now-shattered eyes. He tore one of the larger, partially melted eye-shards loose with a grunt. Proof. He didn't even bother to clean it, just shoved the warm, gritty object into a pocket of his jacket.
One down. Two more to go. The Dragon's Tooth Peaks and their Razorwing Griffins were next.
Without a moment's pause, without a single backward glance at the smoldering ruin of the Petrified Woods, he crouched. The image of Mirajane's concerned face flashed briefly in his mind, fueling a fresh surge of irritation and defiance. He didn't need concern. He needed conflict.
"Explode: Incinerate - Turbo Cluster!" he bellowed, and with another series of azure-tinged, reality-warping blasts, he launched himself back into the sky. He was a vengeful comet, streaking towards his next target, the pain in his soul momentarily numbed by the sheer, brutal ecstasy of overwhelming destructive power. The monsters of Fiore would continue to serve as the unwilling outlet for his torment.
---
The subsequent hunts became a visceral, almost mindless torrent of destructive energy. Katsuki, fueled by a potent cocktail of grief, rage, and the intoxicating rush of his amplified powers, moved from one target to the next with a speed and ferocity that bordered on the demonic. The Dragon's Tooth Peaks, sharp granite spires that clawed at the sky, became the stage for an aerial ballet of azure fire and shattered stone as he engaged the swarm of Razorwing Griffins.
These creatures were swift, agile, their metallic feathers glinting in the harsh mountain sunlight as they dove and wheeled, attempting to overwhelm him with numbers and razor-sharp talons. But Katsuki, using his "Explode: Incinerate - Turbo Cluster" for unparalleled aerial maneuverability, danced around their attacks, his movements a blur of motion. He didn't bother with precision against the swarm; he unleashed wide cones of his superheated 'Explode' magic, turning a dozen Griffins at a time into flaming, shrieking meteors that plummeted into the ravines below. For the Alpha Griffin, a massive beast with a wingspan that dwarfed the others, he simply incinerated it mid-flight with a sustained, focused beam of azure energy, its defiant screech cut short as it was reduced to ash and falling, molten feathers. A single, perfectly preserved primary flight feather, large as a sword and smelling of ozone, became his proof.
Then, Mount Inferno. A towering, active volcano, its caldera belching smoke and rivers of lava, a landscape straight from a nightmare. The Magma Titan, a colossal humanoid figure seemingly composed of molten rock and superheated earth, rose from a bubbling lava lake to meet him, its roars shaking the very foundations of the mountain. This was a creature of pure elemental fury, its body radiating an almost unbearable heat.
Here, Katsuki truly let loose. The ambient geothermal energy of the volcano seemed to resonate with his own Incinerate magic, amplifying it further. He met the Titan's brute force with overwhelming, focused destruction. He dodged gouts of molten rock and swings from colossal, lava-encased fists, his movements now imbued with a grace born of pure, instinctual combat prowess, honed by his magic.
For the final, devastating blow against the Magma Titan, he drew upon a memory, a technique he'd perfected with his Strafe Panzers, now reimagined and amplified by his 'Explode' magic. He propelled himself high above the caldera, the Titan a lumbering behemoth of fire and stone below. He gathered his power, not just for a single Howitzer Impact, but for a sustained, mobile barrage, a storm of incinerating explosions.
"Explode: Incinerate – Howitzer Impact: Turbo Cluster!" he screamed, the name a declaration of devastating intent.
He became a living artillery barrage. A rapid-fire series of Howitzer Impacts, each one tinged with that terrifying azure heat, rained down upon the Magma Titan. He didn't just hit it; he pummeled it, each blast shattering its molten hide, sending sprays of lava and superheated rock hundreds of feet into the air. He spun, he dived, he adjusted his trajectory with blasts from his palms and feet, mimicking the enhanced maneuverability his support gear once provided, now achieved through sheer magical control. The caldera became a hellscape of continuous, overlapping explosions, the mountain itself groaning under the assault.
The Magma Titan, under such a relentless, overwhelming onslaught, didn't stand a chance. Its massive form began to crumble, to melt, to disintegrate under the sustained, superheated bombardment. Its roars of fury turned into bellows of agony, then silence, as its core was breached and its elemental energy violently dispersed. It collapsed back into the lava lake, not as a coherent entity, but as a cascade of cooling rock and dissipating steam, its essence extinguished.
Katsuki hovered above the now-turbulent lava lake, his breathing ragged, his body slick with sweat despite the enchantments on his clothes. His dark grey jacket was smoking in several places, the fabric pushed to its absolute limit, but it had held. He felt… empty. The rage had burned itself out, for now, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache. He descended carefully to a still-solid outcrop of rock near the edge of the caldera, the heat radiating from the ground almost unbearable. He found a large, obsidian-like core fragment of the Titan, still pulsing with a faint, internal heat – the final proof.
He stuffed it into his already overburdened pockets, the collection of monstrous trophies – the Basilisk's eye-shard, the Griffin's feather, and now the Titan's core – a testament to a morning of unparalleled destruction. He looked back at the mission sites as he flew away from each. The Petrified Woods was a smoking crater field. The Dragon's Tooth Peaks were scarred with fresh blast marks and littered with the charred remains of Griffins. Mount Inferno's caldera was now a roiling, unsettled soup of lava, its previous inhabitant utterly obliterated. The landscapes were unrecognizable, reshaped by his fury.
He didn't feel triumph, not really. Just a grim, weary sense of completion. He had unleashed the storm. He had survived. And he had proven, once again, primarily to himself, that he was a force to be reckoned with. But the underlying pain, the grief for a world lost, remained, a cold stone in the pit of his stomach. The explosions had only silenced it temporarily.
With a final, weary sigh that was more exhalation than emotion, he turned his Incinerate-Turbo Cluster towards Magnolia. He needed to report in, get paid, and then… then he didn't know what. The cycle of violence was a temporary distraction, not a solution. But for now, it was all he had.