"Who the hell are you?" Ethan gritted out, his breath cut off.
Harold only tightened his iron vise on Ethan's throat, his knuckles turning pale. He stared into Ethan's face, expecting panic, but met only a cold, unsettling vacuum.
Something isn't right with this kid... Harold calculated, his eyes narrowing.
BOOM!
Before the thought fully formed, Ethan brought his right elbow around in a devastating, short-range arc, cracking Harold flush across the jaw. Harold's grip loosened as he staggered backward.
In that split second, Hayato blurred in from behind, wrapping his arms around Harold's massive torso and executing a flawless German Suplex. The impact rattled the floorboards, forcing Harold to release Ethan completely as his skull bounced off the metal grate.
Hayato rolled to his feet smoothly. "You good?"
Ethan gave a curt nod, his breathing heavy. "Leave this one to me."
Hayato glanced at Ethan, his cheerful expression flickering into subtle concern.
Is he... the same guy I met? His, everything is normal, but something feels completely off.
Hayato nodded slowly. "Alright, man, as you wi—"
CRASH!
Before Hayato could finish his sentence, Shisui came crashing backwards through the drywall, slamming directly into Hayato and sending both men tumbling into a heap against the far wall.
Harold hauled himself up from the shattered floor just as Eliza stepped casually into the corridor, adjusting her dark gloves.
"Where are the rest of the squads?" Harold growled, wiping blood from his lip.
"They're en route," Eliza replied serenely. "I've already pinged the lower garrison."
"Get off me, Shisui! You weigh a ton!" Hayato wheezed from the bottom of the pile.
"Shut up!" Shisui snapped, pushing himself to move aside and sitting on the floor.
Harold cracked his neck, fixating his glare on Ethan. "In the meantime... I'm going to tear this brat apart."
Eliza offered a cold nod before turning her attention to Hayato and Shisui.
In a flash, she closed the distance, her fist whipping toward Hayato's jaw.
Hayato ducked under the strike and threw a lightning-fast counter-punch aimed at her face—but before his knuckle could connect, the bio-mutant lunged from the shadows, its writhing tentacle clamping around Hayato's wrist in mid-air!
"What?!" Hayato gasped.
Eliza smiled, pivoting on her heel to deliver a brutal, point-blank sidekick directly over Hayato's sternum.
THUMP!
The precise, armor-piercing strike sent a shockwave through his ribs, forcing a spray of dark blood from Hayato's lips.
Surgical precision... she targeted the exact nerve cluster... Hayato realized, his vision swimming.
He tried to sweep his right leg up to break free, but the mutant was faster—driving its jagged bone-blade deep into Hayato's shin before hurling him like trash into the far corner of the laboratory.
Eliza strode forward calmly, the monstrous bio-mutant stepping in lockstep beside her like a loyal hound.
Hayato leaned against the wall, clutching his bleeding abdomen.
Why isn't that freak attacking her...
Eliza's smile widened, taking on an eerie, unnatural curve. "Are you truly wondering why my creation doesn't turn on me, Hayato?" She let out a soft laugh. "I am its mother. I designed its neural pathways."
Hayato let out a dry, raspy laugh of his own. "You set this up from the very beginning... You knew those containment tanks were brittle. You let me walk around freely so I'd shatter one and unleash the alarm before we even stepped inside."
Eliza clapped her hands together in mock applause. "Brilliant as always. You figured it out... truly impressive."
She stepped closer, pulling a long, gleaming syringe from her coat—its needle the length of an index finger. "Any last words, old friend?"
Hayato wiped the blood from his chin, a wild smirk spreading across his face. He pointed to the mutant, "Do you really think this mindless monster like that can put me down?"
Eliza paused, momentarily thrown off by his sheer confidence.
Shisui, watching from a distance as he held his ground against Harold's pressure, shook his head in disbelief.
These two are absolute lunatics...
In one fluid motion, Eliza stepped in and drove the long needle straight into the side of Hayato's neck, depressing the plunger fully.
"This chemical agent will systematically destroy every white blood cell in your bloodstream," Eliza whispered in his ear. "Your body will liquefy from the inside out. You will beg me for death."
Hayato's chest rose and fell, but then... he began to laugh. A deep, mocking chuckle. "You really underestimate me, Doc..."
Eliza froze, her hand hovering near her coat.
Does he still have a card to play...?
"You're brilliant, Eliza," Hayato murmured, his voice dropping into a chilling tone. "Which means you should know... you never, ever look down on your opponent. Not even when they're cornered."
Eliza's eyes narrowed, but after a second, a mocking grin returned to her lips. She began to turn away. "Your little mind games won't work on—"
SWIFT!
In a fraction of a second, Hayato exploded upward, his hand clamping like a vice over Eliza's face! Before she could react, he ripped the empty syringe from his neck and drove the needle deep into her left shoulder!
"AGH!" Eliza shrieked.
The bio-mutant reacted instantly, driving its massive bone-blade straight through Hayato's midsection. Hayato coughed up a violent wave of blood, his grip slackening as he fell to his knees.
Eliza stumbled backward, collapsing onto the cold steel floor as her vision began to blur and warp. "How... how did you...?"
Hayato looked up through bloodshot eyes, a pale grin plastered on his face. "Your father... he would have dodged that..."
Eliza's head spun out of control as the neuro-toxin took hold, her body paralyzing as she slumped against the wall.
Meanwhile, Ethan was weaving past Harold's heavy strikes with eerie precision. Slipping under a massive left hook, Ethan drove a devastating straight right toward Harold's face. Harold barely managed to raise a forearm to block the impact, the sheer force vibrating through his guard.
As Ethan pulled back to chamber a second strike, a blinding surge of agony detonated behind his eyes.
His vision flashed brilliant white. The laboratory around him began to spin violently.
What... what is happening to me...? Ethan thought, his knees buckling beneath him. He hit the floor, clutching his skull as intense nausea clawed at his chest.
The entire room seemed to pause, every eye shifting toward him.
"What's wrong with the kid?" Shisui muttered under his breath, stepping back.
Harold didn't hesitate. Taking advantage of Ethan's sudden paralysis, he stepped in and planted a brutal, full-power uppercut directly into Ethan's abdomen.
Ethan coughed up a spray of crimson, his body launching into the air. Before Ethan could touch the ground, Harold unleashed his signature technique—a blinding execution sequence.
"FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR STRIKES!" Harold roared.
Moving at a terrifying velocity of over four hundred kilometers per hour, Harold's fists transformed into a blur of destruction, hammering Ethan's airborne frame from every angle in a fraction of a second!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The final blow sent Ethan crashing onto the concrete floor, his clothes torn, his body covered in deep contusions, and his eyes barely open.
"What... is happening... to me...?" Ethan rasped into the dust, his strength completely drained.
Darkness crept in from the edges of his sight, swallowing his consciousness whole as his world turned black.