The song of flesh clashing against steel echoed throughout the empty streets. Two men fought for their lives in a place with only one spectator. She watched quietly and respectfully as their deathmatch dragged on.

The fight had been going in circles for a few minutes now. Ryuji would attack, but his sword wouldn't penetrate the thick manaskin. Wrath would retaliate, but Ryuji would always dodge at the last second. This cycle had played out somewhere near thirty times by now.

"Raiden!" Ryuji shot forward with blistering speed. Wrath had no time to react as two horizontal slashes etched into his abdomen. Ryuji now sat crouched behind him as two small cuts appeared. The manaskin had held out even against the final form of his lightning style.

While Ryuji was studying the handiwork of his attack, a kick flew out towards his head. With both of his arms to shield him, Ryuji saved his face from permanent damage but was sent back a few feet. His arms were now shaking thanks to the intense pain he felt.

"Even with all this extra bluster and planning, it falls apart. Your blade can't hurt me. What do you feel knowing this truth?" He stood looking down at the crouched swordsman. "So you intend to keep yourself empty. I feel as though a normal person would get quite angry in this situation."

Like a machine, Ryuji continued his singular mission, to kill. His blade struck at vital areas, but no matter how many times he succeeded in landing an attack, the outcome was always the same. His sword harmlessly would bounce off as if it were made of plastic. He knew that eventually, Wrath would run out of mana and lose his protective armor. But could Ryuji hold out that long?

He was beginning to think he might when his attack missed. "Sunset." He flipped into the air and slashed horizontally at Wrath's neck. With a sudden deftness, Furor dropped down and dodged. Ryuji was now left floating in the air with his only means of guarding extended in front of him. A swift kick landed on his collarbone, a profound cracking sound reverberated in his ear.

Ryuji flew back, bouncing off the ground and landing in a nearby building. Wood splinters and rocks bit into him. The sensation of agony penetrated even his bones. In the deepest parts of his body, he ached with burning pain. All he took was an enhanced kick, but it was as painful as dying. He knew the pain quite well thanks to the authority he held, but a shock like that is not something a person gets used to.

"Damn." His voice was quiet compared to the explosions sounding in the distance. He figured it was one of his friends fighting the good fight, yet here he was lying on his ass. The debilitating pain had taken him out of the zone he worked so hard to be in, and now he was letting his feelings take root. In a word, he was angry.

"DAMN!"

Ryuji pounded the wooden ground of the shop he landed in. The building shook, and his hand bled. Not satisfied, he continued to pummel the innocent floor while being watched.

From a distance, Nyanjo gripped her hands together as she observed him throw a tantrum. She bit her lip in frustration once she realized what she was doing. She had no clue why she was so invested in this man. To her, he was just another person she used to achieve her goal of survival. The fact that they met after she parted with them was pure coincidence. 'What about him is so vital to me?' She had an idea of why and the idea just made her even more upset. But even with how upset she was, she remained there to watch.

Wrath also scrutinized the man who flew off the handle with great intrigue. Or at least as much intrigue as a man like him could have. This was the first time someone had been able to truly hide their emotions from him. He was curious, curious about what he would feel in his final moments. But for now, he waited. It would be cruel of him to attack while he wasn't expecting it. The man in front of him had done nothing to deserve cruelty yet, so instead, he watched in silence.

"Fuck!" He whipped his head around to the red-haired man awaiting him. As if he had just remembered what he was doing, Ryuji stood up and took a stance with his sword. As if reciting a magic spell, he closed his eyes while muttering.

"Again." Wrath looked on while the feelings Ryuji harbored dissipated from his view. "So you'll try the same thing again? I don't quite get it, but I suppose this is you being stubborn."

"Shuten Doji." A gale of wind followed his blade. An extreme bend of wind magic, but Ryuji had learned that as long as it involved a sword in some way, he could use it. All he had to do was apply it to his sword, and it was no longer magic but an ability. The amount of mana it took to hold it together was, of course, massive. Ryuji had decided it would be best to end things before he took a hit he couldn't recover from.

"That looks quite impressive. I suppose that means you're a sword grandmaster?" Wrath entered his own stance and readied himself to weather the coming storm.

Ryuji slowly inched forward. He wanted to put Wrath just within range. After all, Wrath was only using his fists. In terms of reach, Ryuji had a clear advantage. The wind billowing off the blade he held felt sharper than any sword. He was sure that if he put it on top of solid metal, it would just burrow through without any help.

The whole world seemed to hold its breath as Ryuji made one more step.

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His sword arced, and Wrath took the brunt of the blade. His dismembered pinky flew through the air as he attempted to redirect the attack with his bare hands. "I see."

"Shuten Whirlwind." Another arc, another, and another. A hurricane of sword strikes bore down on him. Each one bit into his skin enough to leave gashes. His mana armor was being steadily dismantled by the harnessed wind.

"I see."

But even still, he did not care. He did not feel. Blood was blood to him. He would make more eventually. A finger was just a finger. He would pay someone to heal him later. At the moment, all that mattered was getting close and ending the man in front of him.

Against the storm, Wrath raised his arms to protect his eyes and pushed on. Then something made Wrath stop in his tracks. He felt a pang of happiness from Ryuji. It only lasted for a second, but it was definitely there. He had fallen into his trap.

Ryuji stopped the onslaught and immediately dropped as low as he could to the ground. With all of his power, he swung at Wrath's ankles. "Inch above!" Street lamps and buildings alike were sliced through, all at the foundation.

"El Rathor." Wrath stared down Ryuji while summoning a shaking power in his fists.

Not paying attention to him, Ryuji rushed around out of Wrath's field of vision.

"Oh." As Wrath moved to turn, he fell forward. His heels had been cut into from the last attack. Since he couldn't feel it, he had accidentally set himself up for a fall.

"Exodus!" From behind Wrath, Ryuji raised his sword high. With a single vertical slice, he would end the battle.

Wrath heard the skill, but he didn't know what direction Ryuji would attack at. If the attack was vertical, he needed to rush to the side. If it was horizontal, he needed to jump or duck. So instead, he waited. He would wait until the last second and hope he chose right.

Ryuji swung down with precision in the same manner as he had done umpteen-million times. In his head, a single thought of, 'I did it!' rang out.

Wrath felt the pang of emotion coming off Ryuji. With his hand still holding the skill, he released it to the side. He shot sideways as the vertical strike came down.

"Damn!" Ryuji knew he had fucked up. Wrath's right arm was soaring through the air. 'I need to back-'

A heavy kick pressed against his jaw. Thoughts spilled, and all he could focus on was how bad his face hurt.

A left straight etched its way into his gut. Bile rose and fell out of his mouth uncontrollably.

Another kick slacked against his jaw. Then another, and another, and another. He continued to stand, not because of his amazing constitution, but because every time he went to fall, he was kicked back into place.

Ryuji was busy counting the teeth he was missing as he noticed the blows had stopped.

He faintly could tell that Wrath was saying something but not quite what. The world was teetering too much for him to figure it out.

"M-O-OOOOOOOVE!"

A broken sound entered his head. 'Was that a woman? Did she say moo? No, can't be. She probably said move. Move what?' As he struggled to understand what was happening, a fist carrying untold energy sped towards him. 'Oh.'

The world disappeared for Ryuji. When it came back, he was standing somehow. His head was enveloped in white noise as his brain attempted to process what had happened. His face felt warm and wet. Opening his mouth even slightly felt impossible for him, thanks to his jaw not working.

'Oh yeah, I was dying.'

Ryuji recalled his unfortunate circumstances. With a glance over himself, he could tell his life was in danger. The blow to his head had probably given him some internal hemorrhaging.

Wrath stared down with unwavering eyes that revealed no emotion. "I'm amazed at how you're still conscious and even more so at how you're standing."

'Standing? My legs are about to give out. I look like a newborn deer.'

Just as he thought it, Ryuji's legs caved. 'Oh well. I guess I'll just have to try harder next time. It was crazy of me to think I could do this on the first go. Maybe... maybe I'm still just a loser. Maybe... I haven't changed at all.'

"What are you doing!? STAND!"

From the rooftops, the pink cat yelled as loud as she could. Her throat hurt as she tore it with her shout. She just couldn't let him die like that. She didn't want him to. She wanted to think that people could change, and she wanted to believe that the good guys could win. It was this desire that led to her outcries.

Ryuji couldn't see the person behind him who shouted, but in his mind, he thought it could only be one girl.

'Rhea?'

He planted his foot as if he were climbing and lifted his red face of the floor. 'If she's here then... that means... she won!'

With his sword, he leveraged himself off the ground.

'She can't see me like this! I need to get up, dammit!'

He thought about how uncool he must look. He obviously looked like hell, but even that can be considered cool given the circumstance. That being said, nobody looked cool with their face in the dirt.

'You finally meet up with a girl that any guy would die to be with, and what happens to you? You get your ass kicked! After all that bluster and all those speeches!'

He straightened his back and readied the blade in his hands. He found that they were no longer shaking. His legs were in pretty good condition too. All signs of just how hurt he was. Critical was going into overdrive for him.

'But if she still wants me to get up, then I'll oblige.'

In his stomach, a warm feeling was budding. He thought it might've been some kind of internal damage, but it quickly spread to the rest of his chest.

A feeling of hope. Amplified by the bastard in front of him, his entire body was running on the fuel of hope. He felt as though he could do anything and everything as long as Rhea was watching him, as long as she still wanted him to get back up.

'Why hadn't I thought of this? If he amplifies negative emotions, he must also be able to magnify positive ones as well.'

Wrath looked up and saw the girl. She flinched as soon as his eyes set on her.

"Hey. Keep your eyes on me, big guy." Blood covered his entire face. Untold amount and cuts and bruises were there, but behind it was a smile. "Boost!" His nerves broke, each one sending their mana and electricity straight to his brain and muscles. He was betting everything on these next few seconds.

"Why are you feeling hope? This doesn't make any sense at al-" In the middle of his psychotic rant, Ryuji slashed his gut with all the strength he could muster. Even though Wrath knew what he would do, he was too slow to react. His stomach split open as he flew through the air.

"Oh, we're not done yet!" Running up beside him as he was skirting over the ground, Ryuji hit him like a baseball. Another gash opened up on his torso, and now he was flying straight into the sky.

Wrath had no clue what was happening. Nothing made sense to him. Garbled thoughts floated through his mind. 'If he could move this fast from the beginning, then why didn't he? How was he still standing? Why was he brimming with hope?' And more importantly, 'What should I do now?'

Ryuji bounded off the ground leaving a small crater in his wake. Using quick jumps to ascend, he made it within striking distance of Wrath. With a smirk, Ryuji began his final plan. 'I'll attack him from behind!'

Wrath swiftly kicked out in the direction Ryuji was thinking, but nobody was there.

'Nevermind! I'll attack him on his left side!'

Wrath prepared his technique and looked to his left, but again he saw nothing.

'Fuck it! I'll attack from the right!'

He had no time to react. His whole body was in the wrong position, and Ryuji was moving too fast. There was nothing he could do except put his hand on his throat. With the last dregs of his mana, he put up the strongest shield he could.

"Goodbye fuckface!" From the right, Ryuji zoomed through the air, and with sonic speed, he spun himself along with his blade in a wheel-like motion. "Death Series: Raging Tiger!"

Wrath saw the visage of a great tiger in front of him. In his mind, he wondered what he should be feeling. This was clearly his end, but what was the appropriate response. His whole life, he had gone without knowing what anything felt like. People had tried to explain it to him, but they would have had the same luck trying to explain to a blind person what blue is. He had taken the authority to understand people, but through it, Furor lost the one thing he could feel; pain.

'What should I be feeling now?'

Four sword strikes tore into him. The first severed his hand, leaving it attached solely by the flap of his skin.

'What kind of pain do you feel when you die?'

He had killed so many people, but death was the one thing that made no sense to him. People would have all manner of different reactions. Fear, happiness, sadness, despair, pride, humility. It left him so confused, but it's not like he could ask the dying people why they felt that way.

'What would a normal person feel?'

The second strike tore into his throat, exposing his trachea to the elements.

'What would a normal person feel?'

The third split the back of his neck. His head was barely connected, flopping back and forth in the wind as he fell towards the earth. A downpour of dark red followed him. His once white shirt was now stained crimson. Ryuji's sword shattered, leaving him only a few inches of blade above the hilt.

'What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?'

The final strike liberated Wrath. His head flew through the air while his body plummeted alongside the now passed out hero. As his authority left his body, it crumpled to ash along with his head.

Ryuji's unconscious body fell into the water in between the streets. A spread of red floated around him as he bobbed up and down in the canal. On his face was an unmistakable smile.

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"Oh damn." His eyes didn't want to open. Just moving a tiny bit felt impossible. He had scarcely ever felt this drained before. The back of his head had also never felt so warm before. "Don't tell me." Having an injury on the back of his head would be the last thing he wanted. Reluctantly with his eyes still closed, he reached around and felt the back of his head. On his hand, there was no liquid, but for some reason, he felt something squishy. "Huh?" He forced his eyes to open. Looking down on him was a pink idol.

"You're awake."

"Yeah..."

She looked genuinely glad to see him doing okay. Ryuji sat there for a good few minutes before his addled brain could put two and two together. He was laying on her lap, so the squishy thing he just touched was- "So a few moments ago."

"Yeah?"

Her hand rubbed through his hair, which only made his situation more awkward.

"I touched your... ya know." He really didn't want to say it in fear that it would trigger a chaotic reaction.

"Yeah?"

"Are you not going to hit me?" This was the classic lucky perv. By the laws of the universe, he was destined to be beaten over the head for his incompetence.

"No?"

She sounded like a confused girlfriend, which put him even more on edge. She had just broken a fundamental truth of the world. 'Is something going on? Why is Nyanjo being so nice? Oh wait, I get it. I must've hit my head super hard when I landed.'

"Are you okay? I tried to heal you, but you were so hurt that this was the best I could."

She seemed to be concerned by his cast-off look as he tried to solve the crisis in his head. 'Oh, whatever! Dream or not, I like this new Nyanjo!' He dredged out of his thoughts and looked up to the pretty girl taking care of him. 'If this is what I get every time I work hard, then sign me up, baby!'

"Why does it look like you're having astonishingly stupid thoughts?" Her finger poked his cheek, which shot pain through his body. "Don't you have your own healing? Fix yourself, so I can stop looking after you."

"Oh, so that's why this is happening. I'm sorry, but I can't heal myself." She looked confused, so he carried on explaining. "As long as I'm not dying, I'm going to save my miracle in case one of my friends needs it. If by the end of this no one does, then I'll use it on myself while wearing the biggest smile, I promise you."

His lap pillow sighed after listening to his explanation. "I knew it. You really do remind me of Rudy."

"Rudy?"

She looked at him with fondness, but Ryuji knew that feeling wasn't being directed at him but to someone else. "I used to have a very... different job than what I have now. A job that would get me thrown in jail if I told you about it. Rudy was the one that took me away from all of that. He was a dreamer and an idiot, but more than that, he was... the best."

Ryuji's eyes softened, knowing that this story didn't have a happy ending.

"He told me that I could be anything I wanted. I told him that I just wanted to be his." She made a hollow chuckle before continuing. "He told me that didn't make money. Then one day I was singing while washing. He overheard and told me that I should consider being a performer. I was already used to lying, so I figured acting on stage wouldn't be that big of a stretch for me. But before he could ever see me perform, he got sick."

Ryuji knew what it was like to lose someone that precious. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." The slight nasalness to her voice told him that it wasn't fine. This obviously still a sore spot for her, which only made him question even more why she was telling him so willingly. "I buried Rudy a year ago. My old job found me pretty quickly after that. Now they continually track me down and send entourages like the one we met on the way up here."

He remembered the mafia. Not exactly the kind of people you want to track you down. "So that's why you were leaving?"

"Yeah, I needed to move on before they found me again, although they found me anyway. I'm sure they'll find me here too. It's not that hard to when I sing all the time, but if I don't, it just feels like I'm tarnishing Rudy's memory."

"Did he also tell you to talk like a cat all the time?"

"No, I just know that's what perverts like."

"Can't deny that."

An awkward calm air filled the space between them. She unconsciously continued to pet his head and play with his hair. Ryuji tried not to focus on it too much and instead focus on the noises around him. He could still hear concerning explosions sounding throughout the city. It then hit him that the voice he heard in the battle must have been hers. He looked directly into her eyes.

"So you saved me because I remind you of your husband?"

"We were never anything like that!" For the first time, he saw Nyanjo organically blush. "What's your point? Are you going to say that my reason was stupid and that I'm immature or something?"

Nyanjo started getting defensive, which just made Ryuji smile. "Thank you for healing me, and thank you for giving me the power to get back on my feet. You might not have realized it, but that shout of yours literally saved my life. So again, thank you."

Ryuji respectfully gave his thanks. If he could, he would've gotten up and done a proper prostration.

"Consider it payback for escorting me here."

"Well, in that case, it still only covers one of your actions. That means I still owe you one."

"Think whatever you like, after today, we probably won't ever meet again."

"Maybe not. But if we do, then I'll owe you one. It's not like that would be detrimental to you, so why are you being so obstinate?"

Ryuji was starting to get tired of the back and forth banter. It was like when you complimented someone, but they keep saying, 'Oh, that's not true!'

"Just accept it!" His yelling made his head fuzzy. "I should not have done that." The exhaustion was catching up to him fast. It was a wonder he was even awake at all. "Hey, Nyanjo."

"Hmm?"

"I won, right? This isn't a dream or something. I actually did it...right?"

She raised her eyebrow in response to his obvious question. "Of course you did. If you didn't, you wouldn't be breathing right now, idiot."

Her matter of fact tone hit it home to him just how real his victory was.

"So I really did, huh?" A tear rolled down his cheek. It had been hard-fought and pretty touch and go, but he had finally made a step toward the future.

"Woah, what's with you all of a sudden!? I-I'm not good with crying people!"

His eyes slowly glazed over as his mind fell into a deep sleep. The last thing he could hear was Nyanjo repeating, "What do I do!?"

He chuckled silently.

'Fantasy girls really are the best... so... cute.'

With the thoughts of a horny teenage boy, Ryuji fell into a deep sleep.