Previously on Hakuna, we witnessed the fight of the 'millennium' as our new antagonist, Leragga, fights an older version of Hakuna, narrowly winning by breaking an important rule in anime. Oh, the savagery! Decapitating a King while he's mid-transformation? That's just cold-blooded. Anyway…
Fade in…
The afternoon sun hangs low over the streets of Khuma. The air is still, but the tension from the previous weeks lingers like a bad smell. Hakuna is seen walking down a quiet pavement with Super, the two of them moving with the rhythmic stride of warriors who haven't quite stepped out of "battle mode."
Super glances sideways at his friend, noting the way Hakuna's head keeps twitching toward every rustle in the bushes. He then says, his voice as flat and unbothered as ever, "You seem jumpy."
Hakuna sighs, rubbing the back of his neck where a phantom chill still lingers. He replies, "Yeah, well, you'd be jumpy too. I had a weird dream last night—more like a vision. It was vivid, man. An older version of Freddie was having a full-blown death match with an older version of me. It felt... way too real."
"Who won?" Super asks flatly, not even breaking his stride.
Hakuna avoids the question, looking up at the sky and whistling a nervous tune. "That is totally irrelevant, I mean, heh, who cares about the victor nowadays, right? It's about the journey, the growth, the... the art of the fight!" He concludes with a nervous chuckle that sounds like a dying engine.
"Who won?" Super asks again, his tone completely unchanged. He knows Hakuna too well.
Hakuna then relents, his shoulders sagging as if the weight of the multiverse just sat on them. "Fine. It was him. The Freddie-lookalike."
Super then mumbles in response, "Hmm. Interesting."
Hakuna then starts gesturing wildly with his hands, his frustration boiling over. "He literally cut my head off while I was powering up! Do you know the sheer amount of Nzilo concentration it takes to manage Psycha's power at such an intensity? And he just... snip. He broke a sacred rule!"
Super then denotes, crossing his arms, "Knowing Freddie, he would do that. He doesn't care for the tropes of anime like we do. To him, an opening is an opening. If you're standing there glowing and shouting for five minutes, you're just a target."
Hakuna continues, his voice rising in indignation, "I'm just saying, it's common courtesy to wait! You let the man reach his peak, then you fight! But nooo, he just had to bag that win by being efficient. It's cheap!"
Disgraceful! Truly, where is the honor among warriors?
"Right?" Hakuna says in response to the narrator's interjection.
Super stops walking and looks at Hakuna as if he's grown a second head. He then questions, "Who are you talking to? There's literally no one there."
Hakuna snaps back to reality, realizing he was arguing with the air again. "No one! Just... thinking out loud. Anyway, where are you taking me?"
Super replies, his eyes narrowing as he looks toward a house at the end of the block, "To meet a friend."
Suddenly, the atmosphere shifts. The temperature drops five degrees and the air begins to thrum with a dark, greasy energy. They both sense it—a frequency akin to that of demons, but disorganized and hungry.
Hakuna then queries, his hand instinctively hovering over his belt, "Your friend wouldn't be the one currently surrounded by those demons, would they?"
Super sighs, the sound of a man who is tired of his friends getting into trouble. "Let's go."
They begin to run, their feet blurring as they kick up dust from the pavement, moving with the synchronized speed of the BBC.
After a few seconds of sprinting, they reach the perimeter of a modest suburban house. The sounds of scratching and high-pitched screeching fill the air. "Should be around the corner," Super mutters.
They both leap over a high concrete fence in haste, landing silently in the grass. There, they find a tall, lean boy. He's dressed casually, but there's a certain sharpness to his frame. He's holding a standard kitchen broom like it's a legendary spear, and he's currently surrounded by a swarming, buzzing cloud of at least twenty level 4 Tikoloshe-class flying demons—nasty little critters with jagged teeth and oily wings.
Hakuna stretches his neck, the joints popping. He prepares to intervene, his eyes beginning to glow with the brown light of his Nzilo. "Alright, here goes nothing. I'll clear the air, you take the ground."
As he says this, his eyes glow and his fists become covered in flickering orange flames, the heat beginning to singe the grass beneath him. But…
The boy, Ivy, the friend Super spoke of, suddenly shifts his stance. Despite clearly being Zulu, he adopts a thick, flawless UK Roadman accent as he addresses the monsters. "Alright guys, how many times do I have to tell you to stop going into my roof? This ain't a B&B, fam. We don't offer accommodation for demons unfortunately. You lot are movin' mad."
Hakuna stops mid-charge, his flames flickering out in pure confusion. "Uhhh, huh? Did he just...?"
Ivy doesn't wait for an answer. He starts twirling the broom with a speed that makes it hum, showcasing a level of physical dexterity that borders on the superhuman. He enters a low, grounded fighting stance, the broom held diagonally across his chest.
Super mumbles, unmoving, "Hmm."
The demons screech in unison and attack, a chaotic whirlpool of claws and teeth.
Ivy starts off by smacking a demon that's flying towards his head with the broom handle. The impact is so loud it sounds like a gunshot. The demon is crushed instantly, its body dissolving into black mist before it even hits the ground. Ivy yells out, suddenly returning to a thick South African accent, "Voetsek!"
One by one, the demons fall. Ivy is a whirlwind of wood and raw physical power. He doesn't use energy blasts; he uses leverage and momentum. He's destroying them all with a cleaning utensil.
Hakuna comments, leaning against the fence now, his brow furrowed in observation, "Well... I have to admit, his form is actually decent."
A demon tries sneaking up on Ivy from behind, diving from the gutter of the roof. Without looking, Ivy reaches back and grabs it by the throat immediately. He slams it onto the concrete pavement with such force that the stone cracks. The demon dies easily, its essence flickering out.
Another demon flies towards him, pointing its jagged claws at his eyes.
Ivy returns to the UK accent, swinging the broom like a cricket bat. "Is that how you feel, bruddah? You really want to test the mandem like that?"
He slams the broom head onto the demon like a home-run baseball hit, disintegrating the creature completely on impact. The broom doesn't even snap.
"Oh my god!" Hakuna voices, his eyes wide as he reacts to the sheer, unadulterated brutality on display. "That was... that was just unnecessary."
Ivy then mumbles, the adrenaline starting to fade, "Hmm?"
He stops mid-battle, his ears picking up the unfamiliar voice. He turns with predatory speed to see who spoke, instinctively pointing the business end of the broom towards Hakuna and Super.
"Who are you? You lot looking for trouble or what?" He questions, his voice dropping into a low, threatening register. He displays an aura of pure, raw intimidation—it's not flashy energy, just the heavy, oppressive presence of a natural-born fighter.
Super then says, stepping forward with his hands in his pockets, "Relax, numnut. It's just us."
Ivy then recognizes the face, his posture relaxing instantly. "O-oh, Super. Didn't see you there, mate. And you..." He looks at the boy with the glowing eyes. "You must be the famous Hakuna I keep hearing about."
Hakuna queries, crossing his arms and trying to regain some of his "Prince" dignity, "You know who I am? Am I that popular in these circles?"
Ivy, still sticking with the UK accent for some reason, replies, "Yeah man, I've heard plenty, bruv. Stories about school-levelings and demon-slaying. You're quite the legend in the making, innit?"
Hakuna then says, feeling a bit of pride swell up, "Is that so—eh—?"
Suddenly, a stray demon that survived the initial cull lunges at Hakuna's neck. Without even looking, Hakuna's hand shoots up, catching the demon by its face mid-air. He doesn't even flinch. This is an automated response by his Titanus Skeleta—the metal in his body reacting to the threat before his brain even registers it.
He then mumbles, looking at the struggling creature in his grip, "Hmm? Persistent little bugger."
As three other demons attack from the same direction, sensing their comrade's plight, Hakuna doesn't move an inch. He simply says one word: "Kihimurra."
From his right hand—the one still holding the demon—he shoots a concentrated, powerful energy beam. It incinerates the demon in his hand and the three following it immediately, leaving nothing but a faint smell of ozone.
Ivy comments, leaning on his broom and nodding appreciatively, "Woah, man. That's a neat trick you got there, fam. Proper flash, that."
Hakuna then says, brushing some soot off his sleeve, "It's nothing special. Just a basic blast of concentrated energy."
Ivy responds, a bit of a shrug in his voice, "That's cool and all but I don't got none of that, fam."
"What do you mean?" Hakuna asks curiously. "Everyone has a release method."
Ivy then says, "Nah, not me. All the energy I build up goes straight into my muscles, man. It's all physical. No magical Kamehamehas or glowing spheres for me, innit? Just raw strength and vibes you know."
"Did he say what I think he said?" Hakuna mumbles, his pitch rising ever so slightly. His "nerd" radar is pinging at maximum frequency.
Yes, Hakuna, yes he did.
Ivy then asks, looking around the empty backyard, "Who are you talking to, bruv? You've been chatting to the air since you hopped the fence."
Hakuna answers instinctively, "No one. Don't worry about it."
Amazing how you're able to say that with a straight face, Hakuna.
"Alright then, man. Well, since the pests are cleared... wagwan? What brings powerful Milnerians to my humble abode?" Ivy queries, looking for the reason for the visit.
Super then says, smirking, "Oh nothing, just me introducing two idiots to one another. I figured you and Hakuna would get along, seeing as you both share a single brain cell."
Hakuna turns towards Super, his head turning so violently it's a wonder he didn't get whiplash. "Ex-scuse me?!"
Psycha, inside Hakuna's mind, begins to howl with laughter. "Pff-ff-ff-ffffff! He's not wrong though, Hakuna! You are a bit of a ditz!"
"Sometimes I wonder who cursed me with tolerance towards you," Hakuna says, both out loud to Super and directed toward Psycha in his mental landscape.
Ivy then says, watching the two of them bicker, "Proper cute couple, you two."
Both Hakuna and Super snap their heads toward him, shouting in perfect unison, "EXCUSE ME?!"
Ivy, having successfully caught their undivided attention, says, "There. Now that you lot aren't looking one another in the eye and blushing, you can at least see that we're still surrounded by the stragglers. Look up."
The sky is darkening as more Tikoloshes descend from the higher atmosphere.
Hakuna then says, wanting to finish this quickly, "Fine. Let's wrap this up. Concentrated Atmospheric Burst!"
A sudden, translucent dome of force sprouts from Hakuna. He manipulates the energy with surgical precision, the dome meticulously curving to avoid the outline of Super and Ivy's bodies respectively, but expanding outward with explosive pressure. The surrounding demons are crushed against the invisible walls or vaporized by the friction, cleared away with little to no effort.
Super then says sarcastically, dusting off his jacket, "And there we go with the showboating again."
Ivy then mutters, looking at the scorched circle on the lawn, "These man are on some' next level energy, fam. Proper madness."
Hakuna then says, trying to keep up with the slang, "Say what now?"
Ivy continues, "It's calm, fam. I'm just saying you're powerful. It's peak."
Hakuna is visibly confused. He looks at Super for a translation. "What?! Is 'calm' good or bad? And what is 'peak' in this context?!" He says, desperately attempting to understand this hybrid accent.
Super interjects, "Anyway, why were you being cuddled by demons in the first place, Ivy? They don't usually flock to residential areas like this unless there's a beacon."
Ivy goes into his explanation, leaning back against the house wall. "Nahh, bruddah, I don't know about no beacons. This collective of pussios just really like flockin' about my household lately, innit? Every time I try to watch my shows, they start scratchin' at the windows. Proper annoying, man."
Hakuna then mutters, his detective brain clicking on, "Well, that's odd. Demons of that class are attracted to high-density Nzilo. If you don't have a release, your body must be leaking energy like a sieve."
Ivy responds, "Yeah man, it's been interesting for a few days, but it's gettin' kinda boring."
Suddenly, Hakuna's pocket begins to vibrate. He receives a call.
"Typical timing. The universe hates a quiet moment," Super says sarcastically.
Hakuna retorts, "Shut up... ugh... Hello?"
It's Enzo on the other end, and he sounds like he's just run a marathon.
Enzo then yells into the phone, his voice distorted by excitement, "Hakuna! Where are you?!"
Hakuna then says flatly, "Bro, I'm not dead. What's wrong?"
"Fight Club is back!" Enzo says, his voice hitting a high note.
"Say what now?" The prince mutters in response. "I thought the DDF shut that down after the school incident."
Enzo continues, his words tripping over each other, "They tried! But the organizers moved it. They're actually opening up today."
Hakuna then sighs, thinking about his training schedule. "Let me guess, we're going there to show them who the real BBC is."
"No, actually," Enzo says, surprising him.
Hakuna, surprised by the deviation from the plan, mutters, "Uhh—really? Since when do you turn down a fight?"
Enzo then explains, sounding a bit dejected, "Matrics aren't allowed. The school board and the DDF put out a strict ban on competitive fighting for Grade 12s due to us being so close to our final exams."
Hakuna mumbles, "Hmm. Probably for the best. We need those certificates."
Enzo then says, his voice suddenly becoming much smoother, "Plus, I'm going out on a date tonight."
Hakuna, having completely forgotten about Enzo's romantic pursuits amidst the chaos, snaps, "Excuse me?!"
"Remember at the matric camps? There was that girl who caught my attention. We've been texting since the 40 Days ended. She finally said yes," Enzo states, sounding very pleased with himself while playing along to catch Hakuna up.
Hakuna then says, a smirk playing on his lips, "You sly mothafugga. You actually did it."
Enzo retorts, "Are you really gonna say that again? You know you're not Samuel L. Jackson, Hakuna."
Hakuna retorts back, "It has become a part of me and I have become a part of it."
Enzo relents with a groan. "Ugh, anyway, we also need to meet tomorrow at the usual spot. All of us."
Hakuna then mutters, looking at Ivy and Super, "Alright, here comes the buildup for this arc."
Enzo queries, "What? Who are you talking to?"
Hakuna, once again snapping back to reality and ignoring the 4th wall, says, "Nothing! Just... thinking. Go on."
Enzo, feigning oblivion to Hakuna's weirdness, continues, "It seems we still have to deal with people who refuse to believe the 40 Days of Corruption are over. Some rogue groups are trying to restart the rituals. We need to squash it before it gains traction."
Hakuna then voices, scratching his head in deep thought, "I see... there's remnants. Alright, I'll be there."
Meanwhile…
…In another Universe…
A portal—jagged and bleeding blue light—opens in a version of Klerksdorp. But this isn't the town Hakuna knows. The buildings are husks, the sky is a permanent bruised purple, and the streets are choked with ash. It's a city that seems to have been taken over by a total apocalypse.
Leragga walks out of the portal, his boots crunching on scorched bone and glass.
"Hmm, I wonder what happened here," he mutters, genuinely wondering what could have turned a thriving town into this graveyard.
Suddenly, a massive explosion takes place three blocks away, a pillar of black flame reaching for the sky.
Leragga then says, a cold smile touching his lips, "I think that's him. That's the frequency I was tracking."
He then fades away, his outline blurring. He is activating an ability of his Volant Talent, Phase Shifting, allowing him to vibrate his molecules to a frequency that makes him both invisible and intangible to the naked eye.
He moves toward the source of the blast. There, a version of Hakuna, dubbed Lord Hakuna, is seen sitting on top of the ruins of Milner High School. He is dressed in regal, yet tattered black robes, and his eyes are a void of darkness.
He then speaks to the empty, burning street below, "Do you see?"
He stands up, his cape billowing in the hot wind, continuing his monologue to a ghost. "Do you see the world we could've had?! The world without the interference of the weak?!"
An invisible Leragga is seen standing just ten feet behind him, his hand slowly moving toward forming a weapon.
Lord Hakuna continues, his voice cracking with a grief that has turned into madness, "I told you before that I would reduce this world to ashes for you, Nolitha! Do you see it now?! It's beautiful, isn't it?!" He is referring to his version of Nolitha, who had clearly died identically to our Nolitha, but drove him to genocide instead of peace.
Leragga thinks to himself, watching the broken man, "Damn. This guy is a mess. He seems even more gloomy than the one back in Void. Pure edge-lord energy."
Lord Hakuna suddenly stops. He doesn't turn around, but the air around him begins to freeze. "You seem fascinated by me, huh?"
Leragga thinks to himself in response, his heart rate spiking, "Huh?! Is he talking to me? I'm phased out! My form is undetectable!"
Lord Hakuna turns slowly to face the invisible Leragga. His eyes pierce through the veil, looking Leragga straight in the eye despite the invisibility.
"He can see me!" Leragga thinks frantically, his fist hovering over his waist, ready to send Photon Spear.
Lord Hakuna, noticing Leragga's microscopic jolt in surprise, says with a hauntingly calm voice, "Oh come on, don't be scared. I've already killed everyone else. An audience is welcome, for now."
Leragga scoffs, his pride forcing him to respond. "Heh. Scared? Nah. I'm just surprised at your keen senses," As he says this, he lets his frequency drop, fading back into reality with a shimmer of blue light.
Lord Hakuna responds, a ghost of a smile appearing on his scarred face. "Well then…"
He floats into the air, his arms spreading wide as the black flames behind him intensify, casting long, dancing shadows across the ruins.
As he then continues, his voice echoing through the dead city, "If that's the case, welcome… to Terra Inferni. The land of my eternal regret."
Fade out…
End of Episode 66.