After Karito was blasted by Ishigaki into pieces, he went berserk and transformed into a mech with all the scrap metals around him, alerting both the warriors and the darkness into the area. Aotori stood on one of the apartment buildings near the now destroyed metal cage, even though that building was barely standing with parts of it already destroyed.

Kyuuto looked at the calamity that is Karito, out of control, different from when he saw him for the first time. He was the one who taught him about the Zodiac sword, and how to properly fight. He thought Karito was one of the 'good guys', and that he would help Aotori to defeat the darkness. But since the truth was already revealed, everything he believed seems to have fallen apart. Seeing Karito like that, fighting to revive his family and gaining power as much as he could reminded Kyuuto of himself, and how he tried to fight the curse.

Karito finally spotted the team, he then attempted to swipe them with his arm. But Aotori managed to avoid his attack, he then launched some of the scraps from the ground directly towards Aotori. The speed of the scraps were faster than the team, but Hikiri managed to deflect them with his gust of wind. Aotori then hid inside the other building that still has windows. Ishigaki peeked at Karito from one of them, while his chest and back gradually healed.

He then turned towards Kyuuto and Rin, who were wounded from Karito's attack from before. Rin came back from her unconsciousness after getting punched in the face with just a bruise on her left cheek. While Kyuuto recovered from Karito's choke, his neck was also slightly bruised.

Ishigaki then saw the warriors from base 37 and the other bases came from different directions to raid Karito, making him busy. But then he was shocked to see what was coming from the other side, the darkness was coming with roughly the same number of the possessed as the warriors.

"We have to move," Aosuke suggested. He was still holding Rin as she could not stand up on her own yet, "it's not safe in here," he looked at Ishigaki, unresponsive while his eyes widened, "Ishigaki?"

From behind the possessed, Ishigaki saw an unnerving figure. He saw Yusuke for the first time, behind the possessed, commanding them. Yusuke looked terrifying with his neon green acid dripping from his sleeves, corroding anything in his path. He then turned his head towards Kyuuto.

----

"I found him!" at the artificial island, Raizen suddenly sprang up from his chair in the grandmaster's office with Yuukai, "I finally managed to detect his presence," he turned to Yuukai who was busy reading some ancient texts, "he was near Kyuuto and the others. If we don't act fast, his presence will be lost again, he's already changing form again. We need to do something,"

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Yuukai seemed frustrated by his inability to take action towards his old colleague. He tore some of the pages he was reading, and crumpled them, "No, not yet. We have to make sure he opened himself first, we already know his breaking point, but he was always smarter than us,"

Raizen did not agree with Yuukai's answer, and so he confronted him, "That's the problem with you. Always waiting for the perfect opportunity, but you know there's no such thing. Your power to manipulate time didn't work on him, and so you keep waiting for him to lower his guard to strike. And it's always already too late," he then approached Yuukai and banged on his table, "we must not delay this any further! Anrui was changed since that day, you and I both know what makes him do all this, we can't lose him again,"

The office door suddenly opened, and Kentarou walked in with a broom in his hand. Turned out he was tasked with cleaning around the school building as a part of his long chain of punishments after the Akazaru incident, and just so happened to walk by their office, overhearing their discussion. The two looked at him, but then Kentarou commented, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think it's better for you guys to tell us more about yourselves and the ties to all of this,"

Raizen sighed, while Yuukai stared at him signaling him to not talk, but he proceeded to talk anyway, he then explained the near forgotten past that he came from and lived through for more than 3000 years. It all began even before the first reign of Ookami on the Mainland. Him, Yuukai, and Anrui were practicing magic and studying the secrets of immortality.

----

Long story short, they finally found the key by accident. A meteorite fell from the sky some times before, and intrigued by its supposed aura, Volkus brought it into their lab. "It has a strong ethereal presence," he said, while theories flooded his mind. Excited, Volkus gathered his most loyal students and insisted them to touch the slightly glowing extraterrestrial stone. He explained that the moment he touched the stone, an unfamiliar power surge within him that he did not understand yet, that was why he wanted the boys to touch it too.

The first couple hours they touched the stone, nothing really happened. But then Volkus suddenly collapsed on the floor in the next room. After helping him to bed, Yuukai noticed something strange with him. Volkus' body slowly fading as if he was getting erased from existence. The other two students were also panicked and tried as hard as they could to get him to normal. While Raizen tried to use any spell under his arsenal, Anrui was sifting through Volkus' hundreds of scrolls looking for solutions.

But in the end, they failed, Volkus shortly faded into nothingness. And his hands were no longer able to be held, they had just vanished. That day, the three lost their most respected teacher.