As Anjero and Jeremi secured the unconscious Devanga with spirit-nullifying restraints, a troubling thought struck the shadow user.
"Oh yeah, I saw another person head into the lab by himself," Jeremi mentioned casually. "But I didn't know who it was."
Anjero felt his blood run cold. "Oh no... was he tall, wore glasses, kinda muscular?"
"Don't know about glasses, but yeah..."
"Mashù... what is he doing here?" Panic gripped Anjero's chest. After everything Mashù had been through, after all of Hajime's warnings about emotional compromise, he was facing Tenki alone. "I gotta go back up and capture Tenki."
Anjero tried to stand, but his legs buckled. The sustained use of his enhanced Geyser Bazooka technique had drained more of his spirit energy than he'd realized. Jeremi caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Don't push yourself," Jeremi said, his voice carrying uncharacteristic concern.
"You're right. I'll just sit here for a sec," Anjero admitted reluctantly, though every fiber of his being screamed to go help his friend.
**One Minute Earlier - The Laboratory**
The laboratory that served as Tenki's inner sanctum was a monument to corrupted science and stolen souls. Banks of monitors displayed the vital signs and spirit energy readings of dozens of children who had passed through this chamber of horrors. At the center of it all, surrounded by extraction equipment that hummed with malevolent purpose, stood the two unconscious forms of Shinkei and Nanshi.
"All this darn noise, and Devanga is still not back," Bradoon Tenki muttered, checking the readings on his spirit extraction apparatus. "I guess I'll have to do the extraction myself."
That's when the laboratory door exploded inward.
"Bradoon, there you are!"
Mashù's voice carried three years of suppressed rage and pain. He launched himself across the room in a flying kick that would have decapitated a normal person, but Tenki moved with inhuman speed, catching Mashù's ankle in one hand and stopping the attack cold.
"Ahhhh, Mashù," Tenki said with the warm tones of someone greeting an old friend. "I see you've come back to give me my spirit back."
The casual possessiveness in his voice ignited something primal in Mashù's chest. "Err... your spirit? It never belonged to you!"
"Oh really!"
Without warning, Tenki's grip on Mashù's ankle tightened with crushing force. He spun like a discus thrower and hurled the teenager across the laboratory. Mashù's body struck the reinforced wall with enough impact to crack the metal plating.
"Ahh!" Mashù spat blood, his vision swimming from the impact. "What the hell was that?"
Tenki straightened his collar with the casual precision of someone who had just swatted a fly. "Oh, I'm glad you asked. I figured out how to use the machine and keep some of the spirits for myself."
The implications hit Mashù like a second physical blow. "You disgusting bastard... How many kids have you killed in the process?"
Tenki's expression didn't change—no guilt, no regret, not even satisfaction. Just the clinical detachment of someone discussing statistics. "I'm not obligated to answer that. But if you have to know, I'd say about eleven or so..."
The number hung in the air like a physical weight. Eleven kids. Eleven young lives snuffed out to feed this monster's hunger for power.
"I can't believe such a person exists," Mashù whispered, struggling to his feet. Both of his spirits—Qoyntauz and Retaliare—flared around him with an intensity that made the air itself crackle. "That's OK, because your grave will be here!"
"Yes!" Tenki's eyes lit up with genuine excitement. "Make it easier for me to take your spirits. Come at me!"
Mashù's attack was a thing of beauty and fury—three years of training, grief, and rage channeled into a perfect storm of martial precision. His fists moved like liquid lightning, each strike enhanced by the dual energies of luck and revenge. Any normal opponent would have been overwhelmed in seconds.
Tenki blocked every single attack with contemptuous ease.
"Pathetic!" he taunted, deflecting a particularly vicious combo with just his forearms. "I thought you'd at least get better in these last three years. I'm so disappointed."
"Shut the hell up!"
Rage overcame technique as Mashù pivoted into a devastating roundhouse kick. This one connected—his shin striking Tenki's cheek with enough force to shatter concrete.
Tenki's head snapped to the side, and for a moment, Mashù felt a surge of hope. Then the man turned back, a thin trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth and a smile that belonged in nightmares.
"Interesting... that actually hurt a little bit," Tenki said, wiping the blood away with his thumb. "I guess I can get a little serious now."
The change was immediate and terrifying. Tenki's arms began to glow with an orange-red light that had nothing to do with normal spirit energy. The temperature in the laboratory spiked as magma—actual molten rock—began to seep from his pores.
"Take this, boy! MAGMA DEVASTATION!"
Streams of liquid fire erupted from Tenki's hands, turning the air itself into a furnace. The laboratory equipment began to melt, and the smell of superheated metal filled the chamber.
"The heck is this? JACKPOT!"
Mashù's luck spirit activated at the last possible second, guiding his body through the spaces between the magma streams with impossible precision. He rolled, ducked, and leaped through what should have been certain death, his clothes singing from the heat but his skin unmarked.
"Huh..." Mashù landed hard, his breathing ragged from exertion and terror. "You're really pissing me off!"
That's when the laboratory door burst open again.
"Mashù, are you alright?"
Anjero's voice cut through the chaos like a lifeline. He and Jeremi had made it to the laboratory despite their exhaustion, drawn by the sounds of battle and the ominous glow of magical fire.
"Anjero?" Mashù couldn't hide his relief, even in the middle of a life-or-death battle. "What are you doing here? Right, it's your mission."
"Why are you here?" Anjero demanded, even as he assessed the tactical situation. "Mr. Aado said you couldn't be here!"
"I... uh..." Mashù's usual confidence faltered under his friend's direct question.
"Well, it doesn't matter now," Anjero said, making the tactical decision to address the immediate threat. "Just help us capture him."
"Alright... Thanks, Anjero."
The gratitude in Mashù's voice was almost heartbreaking—three years of carrying this burden alone, and now he finally had backup.
Another wave of magma forced all three of them to scatter, diving behind laboratory equipment that provided minimal protection against the hellish temperatures.
"Don't thank me yet," Anjero called out over the roar of molten rock. "We still have to complete this mission and all get out alive."
"Did you come here alone?" Jeremi asked Mashù, his professional instincts taking over even in the midst of chaos.
"No, there's two others."
"Who?" Anjero asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
"Yeah, they're currently fighting."
"Romaji and Kamira, right?"
Anjero activated his earpiece, trying to coordinate their scattered forces. "Yoku! Kamira and Romaji are here. Can you go make sure they're OK?"
Through the communication device, they could hear the distant sounds of ongoing battles—roars of rage from Kamira's direction, bestial growls that could only be Romaji's transformed state, and the consistent staccato of Yoku's modified gunfire.
"Copy that!" Yoku's voice came through clearly. "I've got the kids secured on the submarine. Moving to support the others now!"
At least the children were safe. That was something. But as another wave of magma forced them deeper into cover, Anjero realized they were facing an opponent who had evolved far beyond what any of them had prepared for.
Tenki wasn't just a spirit thief anymore. He was something else entirely—a creature that had consumed the powers of maybe more 3 or more kids and transformed himself into a living weapon.
And somewhere in this chamber of horrors, Anjero's little brother lay unconscious and vulnerable, waiting for his spirit to fully awaken so that Tenki could steal it too.
The rescue mission had become something much more dangerous: a fight for the very soul of the spirit guardian system itself.
"Jeremi," Anjero whispered as they huddled behind a melting computer console, "do you still have those spirit-nullifying restraints?"
"Two pairs left," Jeremi confirmed.
"Good. Because I don't think we're walking out of here unless we can cut him off from all that stolen power."
The real battle was just beginning, and failure would mean more than just their lives—it would mean giving a monster access to powers that could reshape the world itself.
Behind them, Tenki's laughter echoed through the laboratory like the sound of civilization ending.