The roar of the Kyojin Brute was a wall of sound, but it barely registered in Kenji's mind. The pain of the forced fusion was so intense it had become a dull, roaring background noise, leaving a cold, sharp clarity in its place.
His right forearm, now a grotesque fusion of scrap metal and black Yami-ishi crystal, pulsed with uncontrolled power. He looked at the Kyojin, and his mind, sharpened by the pain, suddenly saw the monster not as a terrifying beast, but as a bad piece of engineering.
Massive joints. Thick armor, but slow. Weak spot: the neck pivot, his brain analyzed instantly. This was the first use of his Kesshō Insight—not just speed, but surgical analysis.
"Alright, ugly," Kenji spat, his voice raspy. "Let's see if your armor holds up better than your manners."
The Brute lumbered forward, its massive fist smashing through a pile of concrete rubble. Kenji didn't run away; he ran into the debris, letting the blast shield him. He was too slow to outrun the monster, so he had to outsmart the junk around him.
He activated his arm. The fused gauntlet felt heavy, awkward, and desperately unstable, but it was strong. He shoved the gauntlet into the ground, aiming for a large, broken pipe.
Gattai. The Yami-ishi fragment in his arm surged with a corrupting energy. The energy didn't just touch the pipe; it consumed it, instantly integrating the scrap iron into his gauntlet. The crude, unstable fist suddenly grew heavier, covered in a twisted, black-iron plating. The power was intoxicating, terrifying, and completely controlled by his sheer panic.
The Kyojin Brute swung again. Kenji sidestepped, raising his newly reinforced arm. The colossal fist clipped his shoulder. The impact sent him flying, slamming him into a wall of rusting containers. Normal bone would have shattered, but the Kuro-Tetsu fusion on his arm had somehow absorbed the worst of the force, leaving him bruised, but whole.
"Okay, it's not just armor," Kenji muttered, struggling to draw breath. "It's a shock absorber. Good junk."
The Brute was getting smarter. It let out a piercing shriek, signaling for help. Through the smoke, Kenji could hear the panic of the Jieitai Sentinels fighting elsewhere on the base. No one was coming to the scrap yard. He was completely alone.
He had to end this, fast.
The Brute charged, trying to pin Kenji against the containers. Kenji sprinted along the wall, searching the ground with desperate eyes. He spotted what he needed: a salvaged, high-tensile steel cable, thick as a man's wrist, and attached to a heavy crane hook.
Just as the Brute lunged, Kenji dropped low, his gauntlet scraping along the ground. Gattai.
The Yami-ishi consumed the cable and hook instantly. The cable didn't just fuse; it lashed out like a whip, perfectly controlled by Kenji's panicked mind. The cable snapped around the Kyojin's massive leg, cinching tight just above the knee joint—the Brute's most heavily armored, but least flexible, area.
The Kyojin roared in confusion, its balance thrown. Kenji pulled back with all his terrifying, corrupting strength, using the crane hook as an anchor against a discarded engine block.
"You're fast, but I'm faster," Kenji snarled, his voice already losing its human tone, replaced by a metallic edge. "You missed your weak spot, but I don't miss mine!"
He released the cable, throwing himself toward the stumbling Kyojin's neck. His Kesshō Insight was screaming the path—a straight line, right to the barely protected pivot point.
But Kenji was unarmed. His gauntlet was too blunt.
He saw a jagged piece of titanium alloy plating embedded in the ground nearby. With a sickening, internal wrenching, Kenji diverted a massive surge of Yami-ishi power to his left leg. He slammed his boot down on the plate, initiating a crude, painful Gattai on his foot. The titanium fused, turning his boot into a razor-sharp, heavy blade.
He delivered a brutal jump-kick. The titanium blade, powered by the corrosive strength of the Null-Stone, struck the precise point of the neck pivot. It wasn't clean cutting; it was a violent, destructive explosion of alien energy that pulverized the joint.
The Kyojin Brute let out a horrific, gurgling sound as its massive head snapped sideways. The creature's body seized, its internal systems collapsing instantly from the concentrated Null-Stone discharge.
The ten-foot monster hit the ground with the force of a small earthquake, sending up a pillar of black dust.
The Brute was dead. Kenji stood over the massive, ten-foot corpse, panting. The pain was excruciating, and the foreign, humming power in his fused arm and leg felt utterly unstable. He realized the terrifying truth: he'd killed something, and the evidence was fused to his body.
He looked up. He heard frantic shouts approaching. Sentinels.
I can't let them see this, he thought. If they saw the Yami-ishi fusion, he wouldn't just be arrested; he'd be dissected.
Kenji frantically tried to release the Gattai, concentrating to reverse the energy flow, but the fusion was stubbornly locked down. He quickly scraped the crudest metal from his arm and leg, stuffing the fragments into his torn jumpsuit pockets.
He stumbled, falling under a partially crushed excavator scoop. He pulled the dissolving body of the Kyojin over his location just as the first Sentinel patrol rounded the corner.
The patrol was led by an exhausted but intact C-Rank unit. Kenji recognized their officer, Riko.
"My gods," Riko breathed, staring at the destruction. "A localized blast. But where is the source?"
"Captain," a soldier pointed to the massive crater where the Kyojin had fallen, "The Brute's body is... pulverized, not cut. It looks like a high-density, uncontrolled energy discharge. Maybe one of the supply crates exploded."
Riko nodded, relieved. Uncontrolled energy was bad, but it was an accident. "Call this in as a localized energy detonation. Get recovery teams here now. And find Ikeda—the civilian technician. He may have been caught in the blast."
Kenji lay under the excavator, heart hammering. They didn't see him. They didn't suspect.
Just as the patrol started securing the area, a shadow fell over the pile of rubble. It wasn't Riko.
"No need, Captain," a sharp, arrogant voice cut through the comms. Kaito Jin stood there, his chrome S-Rank armor gleaming, utterly untouched by the fight. His face was set in a look of cold, righteous contempt.
Kaito spotted Kenji's hand, bloody and bruised, protruding from beneath a slab of metal.
"I found the scrapper," Kaito said, his voice dropping to a low, vicious sneer, meant only for Kenji to hear. "He's injured. Or worse. Either way, he's useless." Kaito pressed his heel hard onto Kenji's hand, ignoring the suppressed gasp of pain. "Let this be a lesson, D-Rank. Stay out of the way, or the world will crush you."
Kaito lifted his boot, satisfied with the small act of cruelty, and addressed the patrol. "He was working nearby. He must have been knocked out by the shockwave. Get the civilian Ikeda to the infirmary immediately. He's a liability, but the paperwork demands we treat him."
Kenji endured the sharp pain. The irony wasn't lost on him: his rival just stomped the hand that killed a Brute, and his petty hatred just gave Kenji his perfect cover—he was a victim, not a threat.
Two hours later, Kenji slipped out of the infirmary under the cover of chaos. He wore a clean, borrowed uniform jacket over his fused arm, having told the staff he'd "crammed" his muscles moving debris. His official status: Slight concussion, minor scrapes, lucky survivor.
He reached his parents' quiet apartment building far from the coast.
He found Hikari in her room, coloring. She looked up, her relief immediate.
"Papa! The loud noises scared me!"
Kenji knelt down, holding her tight, hiding his fused arm. This was his reason.
He pulled back, forcing a smile. He noticed the picture she was coloring. It was a crude drawing of two figures: a small girl and a stick figure man. But the man was covered in dark, spiky lines—a black crown of chaos.
"What's this, princess?"
"That's Papa," she said simply, pointing at the dark figure. "Papa is a strong, dark knight now. You killed the big noise monster!"
Kenji felt a cold dread crawl up his spine. She had sensed it. The Yami-ishi left a trace.
"I'm just Papa, sweetheart," he whispered.
"No," she insisted, touching the dark crown on her drawing. "Mommy said the Sentinels are the strong heroes. But you are stronger, Papa. You're the strongest."
The words solidified a terrifying truth in Kenji's mind: his power was visible, at least to the one person he must protect. He had to get stronger to protect her, but every step closer to power was a step closer to becoming the black king she had drawn.
A sudden, sharp series of knocks rattled the apartment door.
"Kenji Ikeda! This is the Jieitai! Open up immediately!"
Kenji's blood ran cold. They had found him already.
He stood up, kissing Hikari on the forehead. "Stay with Grandma, Light. Papa just needs to talk to the neighbors."
He looked at his mother, his eyes silently pleading for her to protect Hikari. He walked toward the door, his heart hammering. He knew who was waiting outside: not an executioner, but a political chess player.
Kenji took a deep breath. He forced the defiant sneer onto his face, ready to play the role of the arrogant, harmless scrapper. If they wanted the civilian, he would give them a performance.
He opened the door. Standing there, not alone, but flanked by several grim-faced soldiers, was Akari Hoshina. The A-Rank strategist, her face cold and analytical.
"Ikeda," she stated, her eyes quickly scanning the civilian neighborhood. "You're lucky to be alive. We need you to come with us. Now. You are being temporarily reassigned to the Seimei Initiative."
Kenji raised an eyebrow, letting the arrogance bleed into his voice. "Reassigned? I thought I was useless, Hoshina-san. What, did your real heroes run out of batteries?"
Akari didn't flinch. "They ran out of time. You, Scrapper, have something they don't. A liability, perhaps, but one we are now desperate enough to use."