Previously on Hakuna, we find out that the older version of Freddie is setting out to kill all other variants, and his first destination leaves him facing an older version of Hakuna. Are they from the same universe…?
Fade in…
The cold wind of the mountain peak whistles through the obsidian spires of the palace. The variant, King Hakuna, stands tall, his presence alone weighing down the very air. He queries with a voice like shifting tectonic plates, "And who might you be?"
The Freddie variant, Leragga, thinks to himself, sighing heavily as he adjusts the tactical straps on his gear, "Ahh shit. I was hoping for a sneak attack."
He then says, looking the King up and down, "Hey, uhh, is this really what you would look like if you were older? I mean, no offense, but the beard is a bit much." He is referring to the variant of Hakuna back in the Void who gave him his mission.
King Hakuna retorts, his posture unyielding, "I hear talking but I'm not hearing the answer to my question." He bellows with the booming voice of a King, a sound that causes the snow on the distant peaks to slough off in minor avalanches.
Leragga, everything clicking for him—the sheer authority, the arrogance, the unmistakable frequency of the Nzilo—denotes, "Yup, you're definitely him. Listen, you don't need to know who I am."
King Hakuna responds, narrowing his eyes, "Is that so?"
Leragga then continues, a cold edge entering his voice, "Mhmm, all you need to know is that you're about to die. Nothing personal."
He enters his fighting stance, his body coiled like a high-tension spring, displaying a sinister smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"Hmm, how insolent. To think a mere shadow would challenge the sun," King Hakuna comments.
He reaches up and takes off his large Seanamarena, the traditional Basotho blanket resting on his shoulders. As the heavy fabric hits the snow with a thud that betrays its weighted lining, it reveals a physique nearly equal to that of Zeus. Despite his face seeming to be in his early 50's, his body is a temple of hardened muscle and battle scars. He enters his own fighting stance, one hand behind his back, the other inviting the strike.
Leragga excitedly thinks to himself, "Hahaa, spending so much time watching him fight actually did pay off. I've memorized every twitch, every breath. Fighting your variants is gonna be too easy. You're all predictable." He says, once again referring to the master variant he serves.
The fight begins…
Leragga launches himself towards King Hakuna, a blur of motion that breaks the sound barrier instantly. He unleashes a torrential flurry of strikes—kicks, palm thrusts, and elbow strikes—but King Hakuna blocks each and every attack all with his one right arm. His movements are minimal, efficient, a masterclass in economy of motion.
Using his left arm, which is tucked slightly away, King Hakuna begins to charge a Fist of Inferno. The air begins to warp from the sheer thermal output, preparing to punch Leragga while simultaneously blocking with his other arm.
Leragga, having studied the variant he refers to, notices the subtle shift in weight and the heat signature. He thinks to himself in a panic, "Woah, that's new. Left arm? The Hakuna I know always leads with the right for a punch... eh... left arm, that's not... errggh he's toying with me!"
He then leaps back, performing three backflips in mid-air in order to put distance between him and King Hakuna.
But as soon as he lands, his boots barely touching the frost…
King Hakuna appears in front of him immediately, his movement so silent it bypassed Leragga's refined hearing. He lands the left punch shrouded in roaring, white-hot flames directly into Leragga's guard.
BOOM!
The entire area is covered in a massive cloud of snow dust, obscuring the palace gates.
But wait, he missed…? Leragga dodged?!
King Hakuna, standing in the center of a melted circle of rock, looks to his left. He is seemingly studying Leragga's displacement. He thinks to himself, "Hmm. His reaction time isn't just physical. It's precognitive."
As the dust settles, King Hakuna is seen staring down Leragga, his eyes beginning to glow a light, intense brown. The ground beneath his feet begins to crack from the sheer density of his aura.
Leragga then thinks to himself, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, "Ahh, now he's taking me seriously."
Immediately, King Hakuna flies towards Leragga. They clash in mid-air, and the impact sounds like two freight trains colliding. They exchange a flurry of powerful attacks—hundreds of blows per second—leaving massive craters in the mountain's crust in their wake. Good thing there are no bystanders, as a deflected energy attack that came from King Hakuna literally slices a neighboring mountain peak in half, the top sliding off like a hot knife through butter.
Leragga, perplexed and struggling to maintain the pace, thinks to himself, "Oh shit, he really is taking this seriously!"
He almost fails to notice King Hakuna attempting to punch him, narrowly dodging the attack by a hair's breadth—or so he thought. King Hakuna quickly shifts the momentum of his missed punch, pivoting his shoulder and turning it into a devastating back-handed fist. It hits Leragga on the side of his head, sending him flying like a ragdoll through three obsidian pillars.
As he falls to the ground, Leragga attempts to stand, his vision swimming.
Leragga then questions the king, his voice rasping, "How is it that you're keeping up with me? I'm supposed to be the pinnacle of speed!"
He then thinks to himself, trying to recalibrate his strategy, "I know that as I am, I'm only slightly stronger than him in raw output, but I'm also a lot faster than him. I should have the upper hand, not to mention knowing all his fighting patterns from having studied him... but his adaptability... it's almost frightening. He isn't fighting based on patterns; he's fighting based on the moment."
King Hakuna answers his question leisurely, walking through the wreckage of the pillars as if taking a stroll in a garden, "I've fought wars long before you were born, child. I have survived extinctions and outlived gods. Sure, you're fast, but there's no skill behind that speed. There is no weight to your intent. You have little to no experience in a real struggle." He says, seeing the critical flaw to Leragga's fighting style.
Leragga then recoils, his pride wounded, "Long before I was born…? You barely know me, and we look almost the same age!"
Before he could even twitch a muscle to react, King Hakuna appeared in front of him. He reached out and grabbed Leragga's jaw, lifting him slightly and observing his face with the clinical detachment of a scientist. His eyes are still glowing menacingly.
Leragga frantically thinks to himself, his heart hammering against his ribs, "What the fuck?!"
King Hakuna then denotes, breaking down Leragga's flaw with terrifying accuracy, "Your aging was brought upon hastily. It feels hollow. It is likening to bodily modifications, or… your training dabbled with forces you cannot comprehend."
Leragga frantically thinks to himself, his internal voice's pitch rising with pure nervousness, "What the fuck?!!"
Leragga released himself from King Hakuna's grip by detonating a small burst of energy, leaping backwards again to the very edge of the palace balcony.
But while expecting the King to charge quickly to finish the job, King Hakuna simply walks towards him, each footstep echoing with the weight of a mountain.
King Hakuna then continues his evaluation, "Stubborn as you seem, you might've had specific instructions to your training. Perhaps a mentor told you to build your foundation first. But failing to abide by them, you still gained what you searched for—. And judging by your over-reliance on your speed, you were trying to master said attribute, or should I say, Talent. In turn, your failure to abide by the instructions and wait for your soul to catch up to your body has hastened your aging, physically, not chronologically. You are a boy in a dying man's shell."
Leragga frantically thinks to himself once again, his eyes wide with horror, "He learned all that from just fighting me for five minutes?!"
King Hakuna then says, stopping a few paces away, "And judging by your disbelief of my findings, you have a leader. Someone who told you these things before, but you didn't listen."
Leragga now says it out loud, losing his cool completely, "What the fuck?!"
Leragga then thinks to himself, "I knew that He—the one back at ANRI—is kind of a genius, but all his variants too?"
Leragga, returning his composure and forcing a jagged laugh, then says, "Hm, you're clever, Old Man. Sharp as a blade. So tell me… what have you concluded with your analysis?"
King Hakuna made a simple, chilling reply, "Hmph, that you're my new prisoner."
Damn I wrote this guy good!
The fight continues…
King Hakuna converges, his speed suddenly matching Leragga's. Grabbing Leragga's wrist in a vice grip, he slams him to the ground with enough force to create a shockwave that shatters the balcony floor, causing Leragga to bounce ever so slightly off the bedrock.
To which King Hakuna instantly grabs his jaw and shoves him face-first into the deep snow bank, pinning him there.
"Unresponsive…? Don't die yet." The king says, rarely enjoying his bout this much.
Suddenly, a large pillar of dense, white-hot energy appears where Leragga is pinned, vaporizing the snow and cracking the stone. It forces King Hakuna to leap back through pure warrior instinct.
"What's this—?" he thinks to himself with genuine curiosity.
Leragga walks out of the pillar as it fades away. He is covered in a shimmering, translucent aura. He has activated Divine Energy; his entire body is glowing, and the air around him is humming with high-frequency electricity.
He then says, his voice distorted by the power, "Now let's see what happens when I take you seriously."
King Hakuna retorts, unfazed, "Foolish boy, your arrogance will be the death of you. Divine energy is a tool, not a solution."
Leragga sends a barrage of concentrated energy blasts, each one capable of leveling a city block. They seem to hit King Hakuna directly. Leragga stops when the entire area is obscured by a thick, black smoke.
Through the smoke, two purple glowing eyes appear—larger and more predatory than before.
"What? That should have disintegrated him!" Leragga thinks to himself.
With one single pulsation of his energy—a literal flex of his soul—King Hakuna not only clears out the smoke, but the resulting shockwave blows away the clouds for miles, clearing the sky and halting the impending snow storm.
Leragga then says, "Showoff—eugh!"
Suddenly, King Hakuna lands a punch in his gut before Leragga can even register the movement. The force sends him flying like a bullet, but he's heading straight towards the main palace spire.
"Oh sh—!" King Hakuna mutters frantically. He didn't want to break his own house.
He vanished before he could even finish his sentence.
King Hakuna then appears above the flying Leragga and immediately grabs his face, redirecting his momentum and smashing him into the courtyard ground. Before Leragga can bounce, the King picks him up by the collar and tosses him upwards. As Leragga reaches the apex of the toss, King Hakuna lands a Fist of Inferno with his right fist, sending him flying in the opposite direction, away from the palace. His eyes now return to simply glowing light brown as he lands gracefully.
Leragga then thinks to himself, coughing up blood as he rolls across the frozen tundra, "Grrr, this is annoying! Why can't I land a clean hit?!"
He quickly gains his footing, digging his heels into the ice and immediately landing as he slides to a stop.
King Hakuna appears above him again, his shadow looming, attempting to throw another overhead punch to end it.
"Alright, that's enough." Leragga says, his voice cold and flat.
Time seemingly stops for a mere moment as Leragga raises his arm. In a display of speed that defies the laws of physics, he points his fist at exactly one inch from King Hakuna's chest as he says…
"Photon Spear."
At the speed of light—or something so close the difference is academic—Leragga hits King Hakuna. The vacuum created by the strike leaves a physical imprint of his fist on the king's chest. It's an attack which normally means his opponent's certain death, but the impact backfires. A sickening crack echoes as blood spews out of Leragga's own hand.
Leragga frantically thinks to himself in absolute agony, "Argh! What the hell was that?!"
King Hakuna lands on his feet, shaking the very foundation of the mountain with the impact of his landing. He doesn't even look winded.
He then stands up straight, stoically facing Leragga in his predicament. There is a faint glow beneath his skin where the punch landed.
King Hakuna then speaks, "For someone who seems to know a lot about me, you seem to not know much. You know my techniques, but you do not know my biology."
Leragga thinks to himself as the pieces finally connect, the pain in his hand forgotten for a moment, "Ehh—? Oh, right... the Titanium skeleton. I forgot his bones aren't calcium anymore."
He then suddenly puts his right hand on his chin, ignoring the blood dripping from his knuckles, trying to think of a workaround.
"Huh?" King Hakuna mutters, confused by the sudden change in demeanor.
Leragga then ponders out loud, "Hmm, I can't stab him, he'll just dodge or block me. I can't kill him with the Photon Spear because his rib cage is made from metal that fights back and absorbs kinetic energy... hmmm... oh, I'll just cut off your head."
Excuse Me?!! This guy is actually insane!
King Hakuna then scoffs, "Hah, well, if we're making death threats then I guess I shouldn't be holding back. I'll show you the true power of a King."
Leragga murmurs, "Oh? Show me."
King Hakuna's eyes turn a piercing yellow as his aura becomes a deep, swirling purple. He is activating the first stage of his Psycha's power—The Monarch's Wrath.
He then vanishes.
Appearing behind Leragga, King Hakuna sends a Fist of Inferno which Leragga blocks instantly, the heat singing his forearms.
The force of the attack is so great it leaves a massive crater where Leragga stands, the ground literally sublimating into gas.
Leragga, noticing the energy signature, then says, "You're still holding back, aren't you? You used a higher tier of this a minute ago, didn't you?"
King Hakuna, genuinely surprised by the accurate assessment, mutters, "Eh—?"
Leragga then says, a manic light in his eyes, "Come on, I prefer killing someone at their strongest. Give me everything!"
Oh damn… he's brave! Or just suicidal!
King Hakuna then says, "Arrogant. You definitely must be young to value a 'fair fight' over your own life."
He pushes his fist further into Leragga's arm, the purple aura beginning to corrode Leragga's divine shield.
Leragga then thinks to himself, "The stronger the variants I fight, the closer I can get to being stronger than Him. If I can beat a King at his peak, I can finally stop being a shadow." He is hinting at the level of the variant he follows—the one whose strength surpasses even this older, wiser King.
As he then concludes out loud, "That's why, you'll die, no matter what! I'll carve my way to the top of the Umbra!"
As he says this, he lifts King Hakuna off himself with a burst of speed and begins his counter-attack.
They both exchange a flurry of blows, each dodging, deflecting and countering with such precision that the air itself begins to scream from the displaced molecules.
King Hakuna's right foot gets caught in a deep patch of slushy snow as Leragga seizes the opportunity, "You're mine!" He swings a blade of light formed on his hand aimed at the King's throat.
Immediately, King Hakuna squats his right leg, dropping his center of gravity and dodging the attack with ease, the blade passing through the space where his head was a millisecond prior.
Leragga thinks to himself analytically, "He used his predicament against me... he didn't try to pull his foot out, he used the pivot to drop lower. Heh! This might truly be the strongest version of him in this sector."
Suddenly, King Hakuna punches Leragga's abdomen, the impact making him airborne for a moment. The King uses that micro-second of breathing room to finally free his foot from the snow with a powerful kick.
Leragga lands a distance away, stumbling a bit before finding his balance, clutching his stomach.
Leragga then says, "Eargh, that came out of nowhere, you just—ouuff!"
Before he can finish his sentence, King Hakuna lands a punch directly at his chest.
Leragga frantically thinks to himself, "He's getting faster?!"
He prepares to block the next attack, but King Hakuna appears above him, clasping his hands together and using them like a hammer to smash Leragga's head into the ground, leaving a massive dust cloud of pulverized ice and snow.
Leragga is seen leaping backwards out of the dust cloud, gasping for air, gaining distance.
As he lands on his feet, a silhouette with glowing yellow eyes is seen walking slowly out of the dust cloud. Suddenly the silhouette vanishes, the speed of the movement clearing the snow cloud in an instant.
Leragga mutters, "Eah—?! Huh? Where did he go?"
King Hakuna quietly appears behind him, his presence as cold as the mountain air.
He then says, "Do you now see the gap? Experience isn't just about knowing moves. It's about knowing the soul of the fight."
Before he realizes it, Leragga moves out of pure, panicked instinct, immediately swinging his arm behind himself in a wide arc, but he hits nothing but empty air.
"Wha—?!" Leragga mutters, spinning around.
King Hakuna had already vanished again. He appears behind him a second time, but this time, he calmly places his hand on Leragga's shoulder.
King Hakuna then says, "You seem rather unprepared for a battle of this scale."
Leragga only turns his head to face King Hakuna, but his movement is stopped by King Hakuna's finger pressing against his temple.
Leragga's body begins to glow in a completely different color.
King Hakuna, noticing the frequency of the glow, thinks to himself, "Pale blue? Ah… I see… his Talent is synchronizing."
Leragga then shouts, his voice cracking with rage, "Stop TOYING WITH MEEE!!!!"
A single, massive pulse of his energy pushes King Hakuna back fifty feet. Leragga has finally activated the true power of his Talent: Volant.
"Oh-ho-ho. Now we're getting somewhere," King Hakuna voices, brimming with genuine warrior excitement.
Leragga turns towards the king with speed surpassing lightning, leaving after-images that persist for seconds.
He sends an alarming number of attacks from every conceivable angle.
King Hakuna blocks every one of them, his hands moving in a blur, but something is happening… his own energy is shifting.
His eyes seem to be fading from yellow into a new, deeper color….
Purple.
Leragga thinks to himself, "Huh?! He's ascending again?!"
A sudden pulse of gravity sends Leragga sliding back across the ice.
King Hakuna then says, his voice echoing with a thousand layers, "Seemingly you don't want to understand the difference in our ability. 6000 years of battle separate us, child. So I'll bury you 6000 feet under mine."
He flares his energy, charging his power to enter the next, ultimate stage of his Psycha's power: The Mastered State. The sky turns purple, and the stars briefly become visible in the middle of the day.
Leragga then thinks to himself, "Incredible, his power is surpassing mine by a landslide. Wait, 6000 years?! If he completes the transformation, I'm dead. I may have to end this quickly."
King Hakuna is seen summoning all his power, his aura expanding into a massive pillar of light—then suddenly he stops.
His flared energy dissipates instantly.
Wait, why is Leragga behind him now?
Leragga is seen standing behind the King, his hand out, a thin line of blue light fading from his fingertips. He is seemingly responding to the narrator's confusion, "Forgive me, I had to break this sacred rule. I'm not here for a fair fight. I'm here for a result."
Suddenly, King Hakuna's head falls to the—HOLD ON!
HE DID WHAT?!!
A portal opens in the air, and Leragga walks into it without looking back, leaving the King's headless body standing perfectly in place in the snow, a grim monument to a broken rule.
Leragga had broken the all-important anime rule: Never attack an opponent while they are summoning their true strength.
Oh damn… that's just cold-blooded.
…At the Letebele palace (Our Universe)…
Hakuna, our main variant, is seen dreaming in his bed, tossing and turning, and suddenly…
He yells out, "KYAAA!" sitting bolt upright and panting frantically, sweat pouring down his face.
Psycha, appearing in a wisp of energy, queries, "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Hakuna then says, clutching his neck, "I don't know, but that…was a weird way to die. I felt it. The cold steel. The sudden stop."
Psycha mutters, "Huh? You're talking in riddles again."
Fade out…
End of Episode 65.