The guards were not a threat or anytging at all; they were an exercise in efficiency. Madara moved through them like a storm, a blur of motion leaving a wake of broken bodies. If this was the best security this town could muster, this city was already his. It was a simple, undeniable fact. It was not even a question.
He paused, standing amidst the groaning, writhing forms of the city's finest. His gaze fell upon the last guard who had been left on his feet, the one who had run.
The man was on his knees now, his body shaking uncontrollably. He stared, not at Madara, but at the mangled bodies of his comrades, men he had shared drinks with, men he had stood watch with for years.
One was trying to push his own intestines back inside, another was just staring blankly at a leg bent at an impossible angle.
The terror was a physical force, too much for the man's body to contain.
A dark stain spread across the front of his trousers, and the foul, sharp smell of fear and human waste filled the air. He had peed and crapped himself all at once, his shoulders heaving with silent, terrified sobs.
Madara looked at the pathetic man, a flicker of pure contempt in his eyes. "Disgusting," he said, the single word a final judgment. With that, he turned and began to walk back towards the slave building, the man's breakdown having saved him from a similar fate.
From a shadowed alley across the street, Rin watched, her heart pounding with a mix of horror and righteous fury.
"He's a monster, Taichi," she whispered, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "We have to stop him. He's just toying with them."
Taichi, hidden beside her, felt a cold knot of dread in his stomach. "Rin, look at them. He took them all down without a scratch. This is different. He's not like some nobody."
"That's why we have to do something!" she insisted, her youthful idealism blinding her to the mortal danger. "You're strong, Taichi. I will distract him. You will hit him from behind. We can do this."
Before Taichi could argue further, she acted. Just as Madara was about to re-enter the building, a small, desperate blast of energy, crackling with a faint light, came his way. It was a weak attack, barely enough to sting, but it hit him squarely in the back.
Slightly annoyed, Madara looked over his shoulder. He already knew who it would be. And there she was, the very picture of foolish, self-destructive heroism. It was the girl from the inn.
"What exactly are you doing here?" Madara asked, his voice low and dangerous, each word a cold promise that carried across the street. "Do you remember what I said would happen if I saw you meddling in my affairs again?"
Rin, now exposed, took a shaky breath, trying to project a confidence she did not feel. "I'm not scared of you, murderer!" she shouted, her voice trembling slightly. "Killing these guards in such cold blood! They were just doing their jobs! They have families here! They have children!"
Madara almost laughed, a cold, empty sound that held no humor. "It is not a matter of if you are scared or not," he said, his voice turning to ice.
"It is a matter of consequences. If you remember what I said last time, then you know what happens now. You are once again taking a stand for these disgusting human beings... and if they have children, they should have chosen a more respectable profession than defending a den of slav…." He cut himself off, a look of profound boredom crossing his features.
"Nothing. I don't want to waste my breath on something so profoundly stupid."
In an instant, he was gone from his spot, reappearing just inches from Rin's face.
Her eyes went wide with pure, undiluted shock at his impossible speed. She tried to scramble backward, to get away, but it was useless.
Madara delivered a normal, simple punch to her stomach.
For her, it felt like a battering ram had caved her in.
The air was driven from her lungs in a single, violent gasp, and she doubled over, her body heaving as she vomited a sour mix of her last meal and bile onto the stone street.
"No, please..." she whimpered, her throat burning. Before she could even straighten up, Madara grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back with a sharp, brutal motion.
He then slammed her face down into her own puke. Again, and again, and again. The wet, slapping sound mixed with the sickening, wet crunch of her teeth shattering against the stone.
He pulled her up by her hair. Her face was an unrecognizable, bloody mask.
Tears mixed with blood and vomit streamed from her swollen, rapidly closing eyes. Her mouth was a ruin of broken bone and bloody gums.
The only thing she could manage was a weak, gurgling cry, a name gasped in desperation. "Taaiichi~~"
Taichi was frozen by the gore and blood and everything that happened in just a few seconds that his mind didn't even process. when he came to his mind… he wanted to call for help. Like maybe Adventurers but he didn't have time.
Then like having no brain or his stupid brain took over he dashed like an avenging spirit, a boy enveloped in a strange, pulsing red energy burst from the alley. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
"GET AWAY FROM RIN, YOU BASTARD!" he screamed, his voice raw with fury.
A powerful, swirling blast of wind shot from his hands.
Madara crossed his arms to block it, but the force of the attack was surprisingly strong, far greater than anything he had encountered in this world so far.
It didn't stop. He was pushed back, sent flying through the wall of a nearby building, which exploded into a cloud of dust and rubble.
Taichi didn't care about the destruction. His eyes were locked on his childhood friend. He stared at Rin's bloody, mangled face, at her ruined mouth, and his anger burned hotter than a star.
Madara stepped out from the pile of rubble, brushing dust from his clothes and crimson armor as if it were a minor inconvenience. "Is there some kind of competition going on today?" he asked, looking genuinely annoyed.
"A contest to see which weirdo bothers me next. First that girl, and now this one. I was hoping for more guards, or maybe some adventurers, not a pair of ignorant ruts."
Taichi dashed towards him again, his fists glowing with red energy. But this time, Madara was ready. He blocked the enraged punch with one hand, his arm not even budging.
In response, he threw his own, seemingly casual punch. It connected with a hollow thud. Taichi was sent flying, crashing to the ground beside Rin, a spray of blood erupting from his mouth from the sheer, overwhelming force of the impact.
Madara walked towards them at a normal, unhurried pace. "You aren't stupid enough to come here alone," he said, his voice calm, analytical. "So tell me, who sent you? Of course, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But you both are going to die here."
Taichi struggled to get up. Just one punch from Madara had nearly knocked him out. His vision was blurring, his consciousness fading into a tunnel of pain.
At that last moment, as his world began to go dark, a voice echoed in the depths of his mind. It was ancient, cold, and not his own.
Do you want power?
Taichi didn't know where the voice was coming from. He was injured, confused, and the next second, a sharp, white-hot agony shot through his leg.
He looked down to see Madara standing over him, having just broken his leg with a casual, brutal stomp. The sound of the bone snapping was sickeningly loud.
"Man, you are even weaker than this girl," Madara said with a sigh of disappointment. "At least she endured a little more than you."
The voice came again, insistent, a whisper in the screaming silence of his pain.
Do you want the power to fight your enemies?
Can I protect Rin if I do? Taichi thought desperately, the question a silent plea. And who is this speaking to me?
That will all depend on how you use it, the voice replied, a hint of something ancient and amused in its tone. I'm breaking some rules to do this, so it's going to hurt… a lot.
I-I don't mind, Taichi thought, his resolve hardening into a single point of desperate, all-consuming hope. Not if I can save my friend Rin.
As if sensing the shift in the air, or perhaps just growing bored, Madara turned his attention back to the girl. He walked over to Rin, who was trying to crawl away with her one good leg and broken arms.
"No, no, please... stay away from me..." she sobbed, her words slurred and bloody.
He picked her up by her hair again and thrashed her against one of the stone walls. Then, with methodical, terrifying cruelty, he delivered a sharp kick to her other leg.
A terrible, animalistic scream tore from her throat as the bone snapped with a wet crack.
"No! Please, stop! It hurts! My leg! You broke my leg!" she shrieked, her voice raw with pain and terror.
He then grabbed her left arm. "Taichi! Help me! Please, someone help!" she cried, just before he twisted it.
The snap was loud and final. He did the same to her right. The cry that came from Rin was no longer human. It was the sound of a spirit being utterly broken, a howl from the depths of hell.
Her tears, her bloody face, her now completely broken and useless limbs… it all told a story of a girl who had lost everything.
Her pleas devolved into incoherent, choked sobs. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... please... make it stop..."
"If I don't kill you, you'll just come back again, like some stupid mutt," Madara muttered to himself, his voice cold and logical. "But... whatever."
He lifted her limp, broken form by the hair one last time. She was like a ragdoll, a thing of shattered bone and ruined flesh. And then, he threw her.
He tossed her broken body high into the air with so much force that she was just a small, tumbling, pathetic shape against the sky, a final, silent scream lost to the wind before the long, terrible fall back to the unforgiving ground.
….
A/N: So, How was it? No 25 days or a month this time i ipdated this under a week. Jist to let people know there will be a time skip i wont stretch this with just fights for multiple chapters, in the next 2 chapters there will be a time skip to when the fight is over.
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