Pablo's fist connected with Juryo's face, sending him flying through the hall. "Damn, what a punch! You really want to save him, don't you?!" The chains grabbed the walls tightly, protecting him from an otherwise dangerous collision. "You normies and your 'relationships'. You love, they love you back and one of you eventually dies. I really don't get the hype to be honest."
His feet touched the ground again and he stretched his jaw, the impact undeniably hurting him.
Pablo exhaled sharply and started closing the distance slowly, walking towards him.
"What's the endgame here, champ? You think when you escape you'll live happily ever after with your boyfriend? I should be the least of your worries." Juryo Ku started walking as well. Pablo cursed under his breath.
"I've never seen Commander Erik so passionate about someone before. But looking at you… I don't know what he sees in-" Juryo Ku was interrupted by Pablo.
"Oh my goooooooooooooooooooood…" Pablo facepalmed and groaned. "...Would you shut the fuck up already?"
A vein popped in Juryo Ku's forehead, and his cocky grin dropped.
"Huh?" His jaw was left open.
"Not everyone gets a monologue, pal." Pablo started sprinting.
Juryo Ku's hands were immediately wrapped with chains from his Treasure. He started sprinting as well. "If you want to fight that badly, you've got it!"
Juryo threw a left hook, which Pablo ducked under. To counter, he then swung his sword, only for it to be blocked by his chains, like chainmail.
Juryo tried to strike Pablo's face with his knee. Pablo quickly used his Zweihander to block the attack, pushing him back in the process. "GET OVER HERE!" Juryo unleashed his Treasure from the chains on his fists and grabbed Pablo's sword with them, then started pulling him towards himself.
"Ugh…!" Pablo pulled back his sword, even amplifying himself with mana, but he didn't seem worried. "Come to papa!" Juryo's grin returned as he tried to pull even harder.
"Poor choice of words." Pablo let go of his Zweihander, turning Juryo's strength against himself. The sword flew towards Juryo. "Wait, that's so smart! I'm a dumbass for letting him do that!" He thought.
With the chains still attached, he desperately swung it before the sword impaled him.
Pablo bit the sword mid-air, and his ring started glowing. He didn't shoot it back immediately and held it in.
"Nice! I turned it into an advantage! He doesn't have his sword anymore!" Juryo cackled. He let Pablo approach him, since he believed he could handle him in a hand-to-hand battle.
Almost suffocating, Pablo spoke with his last bit of air left. "I never showed you my Treasure, did I?!" The shards of the Zweihander were then shot out of his mouth in rapid fashion, impaling Juryo's stomach but not going all the way in. "AGH!" He yelled out in pain.
Pablo started panting. "I almost died there…" He started coughing violently, making it so that he couldn't follow up his attack. "What is this?!" Juryo pulled out the shards from his stomach. "His Treasure can shoot metal? Or worse, can he control it? Or was that sorcery? I didn't see anything glowing. Ugh! Which one is it?!" He thought.
"I shouldn't reveal my Sorcery just yet. He now knows I'm keeping information from him. He won't let me get close. But I also doubt he figured out my Treasure; he seems very stupid. I gotta confuse him." Pablo created a mouth inside his palm without Juryo seeing it, then raised and revealed his palm to him. "I cast upon thee, sound!" He made his voice deeper and then started using mana to make his shirt glow.
He amplified the mouth with mana so he could shoot out strong sound waves.
"His shirt just glowed! I must've missed it before. So he can shoot out anything he chants from his mouth and… mouths?" Juryo held the ground firmly with his chains.
The blasts hit him but failed to do any damage. Before he let go of the chains, Pablo lowered his hand and started rushing towards him.
"Now, he's right open!" When he got close enough, he went for a clean bite towards Juryo's neck. But something went wrong.
Sheer dominance entered his soul, rendering him immobile, paralyzed in fear. The same went for Juryo Ku; he too couldn't move a muscle.
"Man… I really hate interrupting fights." The stranger grunted and spat on the floor. "You guys should've waited for me."
Pablo and Juryo immediately stepped back, out of sheer instinct. They looked at the mysterious man in surprise and confusion.
He wore a prison jumpsuit, his silver hair slicked back. He looked around 40 and had dark skin as well as canine ears, his face filled with scars. Most noticeably, the one in his right eye that consisted of 3 vertical cuts. Almost like someone slashed him with their claw.
He had a golden bracelet on his left arm, engraved in a language both Pablo and Juryo couldn't identify. He was tall and had a broad stature, slightly bigger than Tsuyoi.
"What the hell? My body just froze! Who the hell is this guy?! Must be one of the inmates from the riot." Pablo stopped his hands from shaking.
"A Beastkin?" Juryo identified the man's species from his ears and overall appearance. "Get the hell out of here before I kill you, mutt."
"Just a sec'." He held up a finger. He pulled out a box of cigarettes and lit it up with his lighter, then took a drag. "Stole this from a guy in the Treasury room. A female agent and him were beefin'. I wanted a fight, but they weren't entertaining in the slightest."
Pablo's eyes widened as realisation dawned upon him. "I know that cigarette brand… Tsuyoi! What did you do to him?!"
"Relax, I didn't kill 'em. I wouldn't kill someone without their Treasure. The girl on the other hand…" He took another drag. Juryo gasped but then tried to hide his reaction.
"...I didn't kill her either. She was funny, so I let her live." He ate the rest of the cigarette and then faced Pablo. "You'd oughta be more fun, right?"
"Like I didn't have enough problems." Pablo could create a sword, but he didn't want to reveal his sorcery. "But I have no other choice." He opened his palm again, and made his shirt glow. "I cast upon thee, bone sword!" The mouth in his hand spat out a Zweihander made out of bones.
When he blinked, he saw the stranger right in front of him. "That's mana, isn't it?" He said. Pablo gasped and raised his sword to defend himself. "You ain't fooling anyone." He drew back his fist, and Juryo Ku saw this as an opportunity. He unleashed his chains to hold off Pablo, but the stranger then grabbed the chains and threw him away. "Don't interrupt!"
Juryo went through several walls before finally stopping.
Pablo backed off once more. "So a free-for-all, huh?"
"Now, where were we?!" The stranger ran to Pablo again. He threw a left hook that Pablo parried with his sword. "It's my first time meeting a beastkin! You guys make a very good first impression!" He tried to defend against his flurry of attacks. "I don't give a damn. Magiborn that, Beastkin this, Dawnthinker those, Giant these… It's all too fucking annoying at this point!"
Pablo sighed in relief. "Finally, someone with a brain-"
He grabbed Pablo's sword with his right, and swung his claws using his left. "All I care about… is a taste of you!"
His claws slashed Pablo's chest, and the blood splattered on the man's face. Pablo didn't heal it; he was still trying to hide his abilities. The beastkin licked the blood on his lips, and gasped. "This… this taste…"
His pupils turned red, and the veins on his neck popped out. "...It's fucking delicious! I've never tasted its equal!" He started slashing towards him in a frenzy; in response, Pablo started backing off while parrying his attacks. "I spoke too early, didn't I?!"
Pablo found an opening and delivered a clean thrust with his sword against the beast's chest. But the sword didn't go in; he barely even bled. Then, the hit area started glowing yellow, and the man's golden bracelet started glowing as well.
"Your blood tastes like a Dawnthinker's… but you just used mana. You're even tastier than I thought!" The man grabbed Pablo from the collar. "Yeah well, get in line, pal." Pablo released his mana in order to push the man away.
"What the hell do you want? I don't have time for you. I came in here to rescue my friend. In fact, I'm the damn bastard that started the riot! So you get to be free because of me!" Pablo raised his guard again; he couldn't even dream of going on the offensive against this guy.
"Freedom? You think I care about that? The Invitation was right there in front of me. And unlike everyone else, I could survive in the cold. I've been in this damn prison for almost 2 decades. I could've escaped anytime I wanted." He lit another cigarette and stared blankly at the floor, memories rushing in.
"Then why didn't you?" He asked, out of curiosity.
"The outside world is…" He took a drag and let the smoke out in a long exhausted groan. "...bland."
The man looked up. All of a sudden, the redness in his eyes disappeared and was replaced by grey. They didn't reflect anything, not even Pablo's face. It didn't even reflect his own soul.
"...Bland?" He said in disbelief.
"They threw me in here for something I didn't do. A government official was found dead, with claw marks on his corpse. I was with the guy the night he got murdered, and I couldn't see who the real killer was… but he gave me this." He pointed to the scar on his eye. "And yet, I was the one that took the blame. You can guess why." He took a long drag before eating the rest of the cigarette and then started to approach Pablo.
"After that day everything I ate became so bland. Nothing had any taste anymore, it all tasted the same. …Except for you." His eyes reflected Pablo as they met eye contact. "I see…" Pablo changed his stance and raised his sword. "...But you won't get the delicious meal you desire!"
"Alright, show me what you got!" The glowing light in his chest moved towards his finger, and a wave of pure energy was unleashed from it. "Ugh!" Pablo managed to dodge it, albeit barely. He started closing the distance.
He amplified his sword with mana and swung it; it only left a scratch on his body like before, and the impact area glowed. The beastkin didn't fight back. Pablo started swinging his blade repeatedly. "My name is Asim. What's yours?" The energy left his body again, burning Pablo and sending him back.
"Pablo. My name is Pablo!" He held onto the walls by creating tendrils from his back, then launched himself like a catapult. "Oh that looks delicious!" Asim cackled.
Asim caught him mid-air and smashed him towards the wall. He threw a punch towards his face, but Pablo quickly side-stepped and tried to slash him again. "You're only making me stronger, princess!" He grabbed Pablo from his hair. Then suddenly his arm was wrapped with chains. "These are…" Asim recognised the ability, but couldn't break free of it. "Couldn't you find another day to be annoying as hell?" The chains started heating up and burning Asim's left arm. He yelled in pain, but his arm started glowing. It was almost eye-blinding.
"Stop it, you're feeding him!" Pablo yelled out. "Shut the fuck up!" Juryo Ku kept increasing the heat in the chains. "I'll finish this clown!" He added.
"I can't believe it…" Asim shed a tear, surprising Juryo Ku. With a solemn expression, he met Juryo's eyes. "...I can't believe you're this boring." Another tear came out.
The room was lit up with eye-blinding light and an ear-deafening explosion. After hitting his head on something at speeds he couldn't even imagine, Pablo couldn't think properly. He started regenerating his burned body. "Damn it… that guy…!" Pablo winced.
Asim's arm was severely burned and damaged, though he didn't seem to mind the pain.
"That settles the case. His Treasure is painfully simple. He can absorb a large portion of energy, and then he can unleash it afterwards! I don't know if that's all to it though. I'll just have to out-sustain him." Pablo reforged his Zweihander with more durable bones and then amplified it with mana.
"So he isn't a one-trick-pony. He can create heat from his chains… but is that a part of his Treasure modification? If he really is an apostle, he must have a modified Treasure. The sweet Pablo on the other hand… I can't figure him out." Asim spat on the floor and shook his arm to ignore the pain.
"So that mana-having-twink wasn't lying. He can absorb my attacks and then directs them right back to me! I'll have to use my Treasure Modification then…" Juryo Ku's eyes glowed.
"I'll finish this in no time." All 3 thought.