In the middle of the forest, beneath the pale moonlight, the battle between Upper Rank Five, Gyokko, and the machine Yoriichi Type Null Alpha erupted without warning.
Alpha burst forward with thunderous steps, six Nichirin blades flashing in perfect mechanical unison as it aimed straight for Gyokko's head, but the blade met nothing.
CRACK!!
The vase shattered instead, Gyokko's body already gone.
A new porcelain jar formed several meters away, and the demon slithered out, his grotesque form twisting with irritation.
"You have a lot of gall, slashing it! My vase! My art!" Gyokko screeched, eyes bulging with theatrical rage. "You have no eye for beauty, you metal trash! Clearly, you are just a puppet who lacks the ability to appreciate my artwork! I will crush you!"
Two of his hands warped, twisting and stretching until vases bloomed from his palms.
From them, two massive goldfish demons launched into the air, their scales glinting with unnatural sheen.
"Blood Demon Art—Thousand Needle Fish Kill!"
FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP!!
The flying fish opened their jaws, firing volleys of needles at blinding speed.
Alpha dodged effortlessly, with movements far smoother than its metallic body suggested. its sensors tracking every trajectory. It knew it could withstand the hits… but its combat algorithms favored evasion unless necessary.
"You can't escape!" Gyokko cackled as more needles tore through the air.
CLANG! SHNK! CLINK!
Alpha's six swords moved like a storm. Each blade slashed in perfect sync, cutting down every incoming needle as it advanced, closing the distance.
SHING!!
The machine sliced through both flying fish in a clean, merciless motion.
Then, without slowing, Alpha continued its charge straight toward Gyokko.
But just before the blades reached Gyokko, one of the demon's arms twisted, and a vase grew from it at high speed.
A torrent of water erupted from it.
"Blood Demon Art—Water Prison Pot!" Gyokko declared.
The water spiraled and solidified into the shape of a giant pot, trapping Alpha inside.
Alpha stabbed the water, but the liquid shifted, reforming instantly around the blades. No escape.
Gyokko leaned forward, smiling with grotesque delight.
"Fufufufu… Look at you. How pitiful! A mere mechanical husk, thrashing like a drowning insect!"
He tapped the vase-like limb mockingly.
"Machines don't breathe, do they? You don't float either. You don't swim… You sink. All that precious metal… rusting away inside my masterpiece!"
Inside the shifting prison, Alpha's sensors analyzed the structure.
Yes, its body was waterproof.
Yes, it could remain submerged indefinitely.
But time was the issue.
Gyokko continued, voice dripping with mockery, "You're not even alive enough to make an interesting corpse! Just a toy. A puppet. You'll decay beautifully at the bottom of my ocean as my art."
Alpha's glowing red eyes locked onto him.
All six arms rotated backwards, locking into place, and then it spun.
WHRRRRRRRRRRR!!
It spun like a Beyblade of death, exactly as it had done to Muichiro, generating a whirlpool of rotating blades.
KA-THOOOOOM!!!
The Water Prison Pot exploded outward, shredded into mist by rotating Nichirin blades. Water sprayed everywhere.
Gyokko recoiled, eyes bulging. "W-WHAT?! IMPOSSIBLE! How are you moving in there!? That prison was flawless! Machines shouldn't be able to DO THAT!"
Alpha stopped spinning and rushed again. Six Nichirin blades raised to sever Gyokko's head again, but Gyokko vanished once more, leaving only another shattered vase.
Reappearing in another pot on a tree branch, Gyokko shrieked,
"You… you abomination of metal!! I refuse to acknowledge such crude violence as anything but garbage! You hear me?! GARBAGE!"
One of his hands transformed into a red porcelain pot, patterns glowing ominously.
"Blood Demon Art—Octopus Vase Hell!"
SCHLORP!!
Eight massive octopus tentacles erupted outward, wrapping around Alpha and lifting it into the air.
"Fufufufu! How do you like it? This springy octopus flesh! Surely, you can't slash THIS!" Gyokko jeered. "I wasn't really trying earlier. This time, I'll crush you and bring your body to Muzan-sama. I'm sure he would find you interesting. Fufufufu"
But before he could finish,
SHING—SHING—SHING—!!!
All eight tentacles were severed in an instant, and Alpha landed with a heavy THUD.
"Such violence! Such barbarism!" Gyokko screeched. "How dare you destroy more of my artworks!"
Two of Gyokko's hands extended, morphing into pots again as fresh tentacles surged forward.
But Alpha had already analyzed the attack pattern.
This trick would not work twice.
Alpha rushed through the mass of writhing limbs, slicing every tentacle that approached, its movements and Its swordsmanship resembled Yoriichi Type Zero's, but faster, deadlier.
Its six blades danced in perfect mechanical harmony as it closed in once more, aiming to take Gyokko's head, but Gyokko vanished again.
SLASH!!
Alpha's blades severed only the vase he had been standing in.
Gyokko reappeared, perched on a pot lodged into a tree branch, smirking smugly.
"Well, that was some rapid-fire chopping… but you don't seem able to keep up with my vase's speed. You can't even touch me."
But the moment he spoke, a thin cut opened across his neck.
A faint burn spread across his skin.
Gyokko's eyes widened.
"Wisteria poison…?! You're filthy…..."
He didn't even finish before Alpha darted toward him again.
Gyokko vanished mid-lunge and reappeared in another vase embedded in the ground.
"Your poison won't affect me, trash!"
Two pots sprouted from his hands, spitting high-pressure water jets that sliced trees in half.
Alpha dodged with mechanical precision.
More flying goldfish demons burst from nearby pots, firing a rain of needles.
PING! PING! PING! PING!
Alpha deflected every needle, sparks flashing off its Nichirin blades.
But Gyokko only grew more manic.
"You can't dodge all of them!"
Several pots sprouted from all six of his hands.
"Blood Demon Art—Ten Thousand Gliding Slime Fish!!"
FWOOOOOOOSH!!
A tidal wave of translucent, razor-toothed fish flooded the clearing, pouring from every pot.
Each fish was coated in acidic mucus, their bodies sizzling as they slithered and swam across the air, leaving corrosive trails in the soil.
The swarm twisted in the moonlit clearing like a living storm, ten thousand of acidic fish spiraling toward Alpha in a howling vortex.
But Alpha did not flinch.
Its six Nichirin blades snapped forward, and two of its arms rotated at blinding speed, exactly like General Grievous wielding lightsabers.
Then.
WHRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!
Alpha charged.
Gyokko twitched. "O-oh? That's… unpleasantly fast…"
The first wave hit.
Alpha charged straight into the heart of the swarm.
Gyokko's eyes twitched.
"O-oh? That's… unpleasantly fast."
The first wave of slimy fish rushed forward. And Alpha moved.
"SHRRRRAAAAAA!!"
The spinning blades tore through the swarm like a blender made of sun-steel, carving hundreds of the creatures at once. Their bodies burst into sour blue vapors, spraying acidic slime everywhere.
The sizzling mucus splattered onto Alpha's armor, but the pure scarlet iron did not yield.
More fish attacked from above.
Alpha leapt, twisted, and spun midair, its blades forming a perfect, rotating storm of death.
Gyokko's eye jaws hung open.
"Impossible…"
Alpha landed directly in front of him.
Its six arms moved as one.
SHLLKKK! SHLNK! KACHAAA!
In a single seamless strike, Alpha cut off Gyokko's head.
But something was wrong.
Gyokko's head flew, but it wasn't real.
Only skin.
The demon shed it and vanished again.
Alpha looked up sharply.
From the treeline, Gyokko's real body emerged at last, gleaming, warped, and transformed. His upper half resembled a pale, scaled human, while his lower half twisted into a serpentine tail. Translucent, diamond-like scales shimmered across his body.
He smiled with those not-quite lips.
"Fufufufufufu… allow me to show you my true form." His voice dripped with twisted pride. "You're only the third person to ever witness me like this. These translucent scales, harder and stronger than diamonds, I kneaded them myself inside my vase. Behold my perfect beauty and bow down in awe!"
but Alpha just stared at him without saying anything.
In the first place, no one knows why he is still talking to a machine that couldn't talk, but well, a psychotic demon is a psychotic demon.
Gyokko twitched.
"Why don't you SAY something, you useless puppet?!" he shrieked.
"You really know how to rub someone the wrong way, you TRASH!"
Alpha tilted its head, the mechanical equivalent of, Huh?
Gyokko lost what little composure he had.
"You…!!"
He shot forward at terrifying speed, faster than before, the movement so erratic it resembled a snake snapping in eight directions at once.
Before Alpha could brace,
CRACK!!
Gyokko's fist slammed into its torso, sending Alpha skidding backward across the ground.
"Fufufufufu! What do you think of my sublime body?" Gyokko taunted, flexing his diamond-like scales.
"These flexible yet tough springs… these rippling scales… they allow me to move without restraint. See me in all my serious glory!"
He blurred again.
"Blood Demon Art—Killer Fish Scales!"
Gyokko vanished from sight, reappearing around Alpha like a streak of distorted glass.
Alpha swung its blades, but,
He was too fast.
Alpha's weight and size slowed it.
Its armor began to take visible damage as Gyokko's clawed strikes slammed into it from impossible angles.
"Fufufufufu! Now what do you say about my illogical movements?" Gyokko cackled. "My scales let me move however I want, impossible to predict! Now… how should I make art out of you?"
He licked his eye lips.
"Maybe I'll turn your head into a vase."
Alpha's internal processors tracked him with 360-degree vision, it could see him. It could calculate his trajectories.
But it could not move fast enough to counter.
Gyokko slammed Alpha again.
"Oh hoho! Look at you! Your precious iron shell is cracking!"
His smile widened, twisted.
"A machine that cannot bleed is no art at all!"
Alpha staggered back, one knee sinking into the dirt.
Its internal HUD flashed warnings.
STRUCTURE INTEGRITY… DOWN 34%
MOBILITY… DOWN 18%
ENEMY APPROACHING
DANGER THRESHOLD EXCEEDED
Gyokko lunged, second-form body writhing like a deranged serpent.
"DIE ALREADY, YOU USELESS, UGLY, UNINSPIRED TOY!!"
Gyokko raised his webbed claw for a killing blow.
Alpha's vision flickered between solar-charge levels… enemy trajectory… and Akira's earlier instructions:
"If something outruns you…Don't match speed. Overpower it."
Deep inside Alpha's chest, the solar reactor pulsed like a mini-sun awakening.
The metal shell glowed faintly red.
Heat radiated in waves.
SYSTEM: OVERDRIVE MODE — ACTIVATED
The air warped around it.
The six Nichirin blades in Alpha's hands ignited red, glowing as though they had been reforged inside a star.
Gyokko froze.
"A... A red blade?! That's…"
He never finished.
Alpha moved, or rather, detonated forward.
With a thunderous BOOOOOOM, the machine launched forward.
A shockwave blasted through the trees, ripping foliage into a storm of leaves.
Gyokko's eyes widened, pupils, trembling, but all he could see were red arcs.
SHKKKK!!
SHLNK!!
KRRRCH!!
An arm severed.
Another.
The torso.
Half his face.
"GYYYYAAAAAAAA!!" He screamed, the red blades burning him from the inside out. Wisteria poison and sun-charged metal annihilated his flesh faster than he could regenerate, and then Alpha's blade carved clean through his neck.
FWOOM
Gyokko's head turned to ash before hitting the ground.
His body followed.
Upper Rank 5: Obsolete.
Alpha's blazing-red glow sputtered violently.
The machine trembled, steam hissing from every heat vent.
Its reactor whined and cracked under the stress.
The six arms lowered, their red-hot blades flickering back to normal metal.
SYSTEM WARNING:
Solar Core… DEPLETED
Overdrive Limit… EXCEEDED
Initiating Emergency Shutdown
The machine fell to one knee, and its glowing red eyes turned off.
Using overdrive does put a lot of strain on it, so it had to be shut down. To save it.
It may be out of commission.
But it had completed its mission.
On the other side of the forest, Akira and Akaza recovered from the earlier collision that had blasted both of them through the trees.
Akira skidded backward, boots carving trenches into the soil. One of his hands dripped blood.
Akaza, on the other hand, stood tall, his wounds already gone, as if nothing had happened.
Akaza grinned with genuine excitement.
"I am so happy, Akira! To finally face you again. When I was sent here, I was… disappointed. But to think I would meet you again here, it must be fate."
Akira deadpanned back at him.
"Why are you always talking like that? I already told you, I have zero interest in you."
Akaza's smile twitched, visibly offended.
"…I don't care what you think."
He lowered his stance. "Right now, I just want to beat you."
In the next instant, he sank into a stance, one hand before him, the other pulled back. A glowing red snowflake pattern bloomed beneath his feet.
"Technique Development."
The red pattern shifted, turning blue, like ice reflecting moonlight.
"Destructive Death — Compass Needle."
Akaza vanished.
He rushed at Akira with speed that shattered the ground beneath each step.
But this time, Akira didn't dodge.
He stepped forward and met Akaza's fist with a punch of his own.
BOOOOOOOM!!
A shockwave blasted the forest apart as both fists collided.
Trees split. Dirt exploded. The air warped from the force.
Akira and Akaza exchanged a flurry of high-speed blows, fists, elbows, and knees, each strike stronger than the last.
Cracks spread across Akira's skin, and cracks spread across Akaza's flesh also, but healed instantly.
And finally, Akira's punch sent Akaza flying.
Akaza recovered midair and roared,
"Destructive Death— Air Type!"
Compressed shockwaves fired like invisible artillery.
Akira, still wounded, unlike the instantly recovered Akaza, dodged with the help of his Mystic Eyes, weaving between the shockwaves as they carved deep trenches into the forest.
He closed the distance, rushing at Akaza
But Akaza landed again and replied instantly.
"Destructive Death— Annihilation Type!"
He lunged forward, unleashing two massive circular shockwaves from his palms, raw compressed power meant to obliterate anything in its path.
Akira didn't retreat.
He pulled back his fist, heat swirling around it.
"Falcon… PUNCH!"
His fist shot forward at supersonic speed, igniting the air into the shape of a massive flaming falcon.
The exact same clash they once had, reborn.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The world turned blinding white.
A pillar of dust exploded skyward.
The ground quaked, and Trees destroyed.
Both were blown back.
And in the aftermath.
Both fighters remained standing.
Both were heavily damaged.
Akira's arm was drenched in blood, ribs aching, and breath uneven.
Akaza's body was torn open, but healed in seconds.
His eyes lit up like a predator sensing the moment of truth.
"Don't die on me, Akira." He stepped forward, voice low and certain. "I will ask you again, become a demon."
Akira said nothing, breathing heavily, blood dripping from his arm and staining the soil.
Akaza spread his arms wide, as if presenting an undeniable truth.
"Akira… a human cannot win against a demon."
His tone was gentle, almost kind. "Even if you fight to the death, you cannot defeat me."
Akira still didn't answer.
Akaza continued, eyes narrowing.
"The damage you inflicted on me with your impressive punches… has already healed, but what about you?"
He pointed at Akira.
"A destroyed hand. Shattered ribs. Damaged internal organs. All irreplaceable. You only keep getting hurt… while your attacks have no effect on me."
Akira didn't speak.
Akaza spread his arms.
"So I ask you again. Become a demon."
Akira grinned, A slow, dangerous grin, as if he was waiting for Akaza to say that exact line, that instantly put Akaza on edge.
Inside his mind, Akira sent a telepathic message to his sister.
"Sister… It's about time."
Selena's voice echoed back immediately.
"I got you, brother."
And then.
The system activated.
From nowhere and everywhere at once, a triumphant melody erupted.
[Escanor's Theme from The Seven Deadly Sins] began playing from the system.
Akaza's face froze.
"…Again… what is that music?"
Akira's grin widened, eyes gleaming with a purple brilliance.
He cracked his neck once, standing tall.
"My wounds cannot heal like yours… who decided that?"
At visible speed, His wounds sealed.
His flesh stitched itself together.
And his bones realigned.
Thanks to his upgraded healing factor.
Akaza's eyes widened.
"Impossible…"
But Akira didn't give him time.
He disappeared from sight in a burst of wind, using Star Breathing, First Form.
And in the same heartbeat.
BOOM!
Akira appeared right in front of Akaza, fist already ignited.
"FALCON PUNCH!"
A massive flaming falcon burst forth, far larger and brighter than before.
Akaza reacted instantly, launching a punch of his own, but Akira's strike overwhelmed him completely.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!!
Akaza was blasted through the air, tearing through the forest floor before skidding to a stop.
Smoke rose from his body. His entire left side was destroyed, bone, muscle, skin, all obliterated.
He pushed himself up with a trembling arm.
"…W–What…?"
His body began to regenerate, but slowly, far slower than a demon of his rank should.
Akaza looked down at the sluggish regeneration in disbelief.
Akira stepped out of the dust cloud, cracking his neck.
"My attacks have no effect on you… Who decided that?"
Akira grinned sharply.
"I will be the one to decide."