With the fury-driven rampage still coursing through him, Soldier One hacked and tore his way out of the battlefield, carving a bloody path back to the USS Stannis.
When he finally staggered aboard, covered in wounds but alive, General Ross and Maverick did not linger. It wasn't the time to push further. Not yet.
They needed more. More preparation. More strength. More certainty.
When they returned to Wakanda, it would not be as raiders—it would be as executioners. That day would mark Wakanda's downfall.
"I won't forgive them. Not a single one of them," General Ross muttered through clenched fists, swearing silently to himself.
Wakanda might wield vibranium and its miraculous technology, but his own forces were far from powerless. He would plan a war—larger in scale, fiercer in scope—until Wakanda lay utterly conquered.
That, however, was for later.
As the Stannis turned back toward safer waters, Ross hurried from the command deck to the medical wing, where Soldier One had been rushed. He cornered the attending doctor almost immediately.
"I've never seen anything like this," the doctor admitted, visibly uneasy.
The man's injuries were… impossible. By all rights, every one of them was fatal. And the wounds didn't even look like bullet wounds. They came from weapons the doctor had never seen in his life.
Not being present in the command center, he hadn't seen what really happened in Wakanda, and so his mind could barely fathom what kind of horrors Soldier One had faced.
Even more unsettling was the man's healing factor—it was far beyond normal human resilience.
"To be frank, he doesn't seem human," the doctor sighed, his brows knitted. "I can't rely on past experience for a prognosis. Still… God will protect him."
Ross gave a tight nod, ordering the doctor to monitor Soldier One carefully. He didn't step inside the ward, didn't disturb the patient. Instead, he stood silently at the door, gazing through the glass.
Inside, Soldier One lay motionless, eyes closed, finally at rest. After what he had just endured, rest was the least he deserved.
The truth was plain: the man had clawed his way back from the very depths of hell.
"Incredible," Maverick whispered beside him, unable to contain his awe.
After seeing Wakandans unleash their strength and technology, Maverick had assumed Ross's entire strike force would be annihilated. In truth, everyone sent into Wakanda had been wiped out—except Soldier One.
His survival was not just luck. It was raw power.
"General Ross, looks like you've developed something extraordinary," Maverick said bluntly.
He wasn't even trying to hide his greed. If such technology could be harnessed, he wanted it for his own men.
Ross shook his head slightly. "It's just a replication of the super soldier serum once used by the Captain."
But that was a half-truth. He didn't reveal the whole story. The serum alone could never have carried Soldier One back alive. Every other enhanced soldier had perished. Against Wakanda's weapons, serum strength simply wasn't enough.
And Ross knew Soldier One's limits better than anyone. He had observed his training countless times. The power he had unleashed in Wakanda was far beyond anything Ross had ever seen from him.
It was the Heart-Shaped Herb.
Ross's eyes narrowed as he remembered the vial Senju Haruto had handed Soldier One before deployment. That single draught had pushed his body to its limit, awakening a berserk strength.
But unfortunately, Ross himself had no authority to demand Haruto hand over the herb or its formula.
His own will had been rewritten—subtly but completely—by Kotoamatsukami.
Now, without ever realizing it, General Ross served Haruto's designs. Whether he knew it or not, he was already playing his part.
Even so, Ross's heart was in turmoil. The herb's effects were leagues beyond the synthetic serums. It offered massive gains with none of the crippling side effects. The success rate was astonishing. The process itself was simple: just drink.
One bowl, and an ordinary soldier could be remade.
The thought left Ross shaken. If Haruto wished, he could topple a nation overnight.
"Wait…" Ross's brow furrowed. "Speaking of which… where is Haruto?"
He had appeared on the Stannis, had taken part in the operation—and yet, after the fighting, he had vanished.
There was no way Senju Haruto had died in Wakanda. Not with his power.
And yet Ross hadn't seen him since. No word. No trace. Nothing.
The uncertainty gnawed at him, but for the moment, he had larger concerns.
The mission had cost dearly: a nearly annihilated strike team, every serum-enhanced soldier lost—save one.
But it wasn't a complete failure. He had still obtained proof.
The battle recordings.
Those alone were enough to prove Wakanda's greatest secret before Congress: vibranium existed, and Wakanda possessed it in abundance.
Drawing a deep breath, Ross dismissed Maverick and returned to his quarters. He began preparing the evidence for presentation.
When the Stannis docked, the real show would begin.
But as Ross closed his cabin door, the faintest sound reached his ears.
Footsteps.
The hair on his neck bristled. He whirled, fists clenched, ready to summon the Hulk's power at the slightest threat. No one should have had access to his private quarters.
"Who's there?" he barked.
The figure who stepped from the shadows wasn't an assassin. It wasn't a soldier.
It was Senju Haruto.
He emerged from a ring of fire that closed behind him with a hiss. The footsteps had been deliberate—just loud enough to draw Ross's attention.
A small smile tugged at Haruto's lips as he approached. In his hand, he carried a thick stack of documents, which he held out toward Ross without a word.
Ross's gaze dropped instinctively.
He took the file, opened it—and froze.
Every page pulled him deeper, each word sharper than the last. By the time he reached the end, he was almost trembling.
This wasn't just intelligence.
It was the intelligence.
A full, detailed survey report of Wakanda's vibranium mines.
If this landed in front of Congress, it would detonate like a bomb—shock, outrage, and hunger exploding in every chamber.
The report was staggering: Wakanda's vibranium deposits could be mined for a thousand years without depletion.
It wasn't oil. It wasn't gold. It was something far more intoxicating.
"Where did you get this?" Ross asked, almost involuntarily—before realizing the stupidity of his question.
The man standing before him was Senju Haruto.
Did it really matter how?