Training went on for what felt like hours. Charles's shirt clung to him with sweat, his chest heaving as he struggled to stay upright. His arms trembled, bruises and scrapes decorating his body, but for the first time, he felt it—control. The bubbles no longer flickered out randomly; they appeared when he wanted them to. Weak, unstable, but there.
Mimosa leaned back against a rusted car door, arms crossed, her sharp eyes watching. "Not bad, newbie. You're still clumsy as hell, but at least you've stopped looking like a deer in headlights."
Loid stood a few feet away, motionless as ever, his mask's grin aimed at Charles like an unspoken challenge.
Just as Charles caught his breath, a new sound broke through the junkyard's eerie stillness.
Crunch… crunch…
Footsteps.
The three of them froze. The noise came from above, across the towering heaps of scrap. Slowly, their eyes shifted upward.
At the peak of a mountain of twisted metal, a figure appeared—silhouetted against the fading sky. A man, tall and broad-shouldered, a half-empty bottle of liquor in one hand. He tipped it back and gulped loudly, the sound echoing across the junkyard.
The smell hit them next—stale alcohol, sharp and sour.
Mimosa narrowed her eyes. "…Who the hell—?"
Loid's stance shifted in an instant, calm but razor-sharp. His hand hovered near his side, ready to strike. The change in the air made the air seem as if it had gotten thicker.
The man let out a low chuckle. Then another. Until he burst into laughter, his voice booming across the junkyard. "Hah! Hahahaha!"
Charles instinctively stepped back, unsettled.
Still laughing, the stranger pulled something from his pocket—a tightly rolled joint. Without hesitation, he lit it, inhaling deeply. Smoke billowed from his lips as his posture loosened.
But then his head snapped upward. His eyes widened unnaturally, bloodshot veins glowing faintly crimson. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and then… his irises burned bright red.
A devilish grin stretched across his face.
"…The hell?" Charles muttered under his breath.
The man looked down at them from atop the junk pile, his smile twisted. With deliberate slowness, he reached behind him, grabbed something, and yanked it free—a dented metal pipe. He twirled it in his hands like it was a sword, the hollow clang ringing out.
Then he moved.
One moment he was standing above them, the next he launched himself forward, sliding down the pile of junk with reckless speed. His eyes locked on Charles, his grin never fading.
Charles froze, his body still battered from training. He raised his hands, but his mind went blank.
Too fast!
Before the pipe could connect, Loid was there. His masked figure blurred into place, intercepting the strike with his forearm. The clash rang out like steel on steel.
Loid didn't hesitate. With a swift movement, he drove his foot into the man's stomach and kicked him back, sending him flying several feet. The ground cracked beneath Loid's heel from the force.
The man tumbled across the gravel but landed on his feet, skidding to a stop. He coughed violently, clutching his gut, but then straightened with that same unhinged grin plastered across his face.
It was as if the kick hadn't phased him at all—yet the blood at the corner of his mouth told another story.
Charles's heart pounded. "H-he took that kick head on… how is he still standing?!"
Mimosa's expression hardened, her usual smirk gone. "Tch. Great. Just what we needed."
She glanced at the glowing red eyes of the stranger, her tone sharp with recognition.
"…That bastard's high. And not on anything normal."
Loid didn't waste time. As the stranger steadied himself, red eyes glowing with manic intensity, Loid slipped his phone from his coat. His fingers typed rapidly, and a moment later the text-to-speech voice echoed through the junkyard.
"Their Zenith Word is Intoxication. One of their interpretations allows their physical capabilities to increase drastically when consuming intoxicating substances. Additionally, they cannot die from overdosing. It seems they've bound Intoxication specifically to drugs and alcohol."
The stranger stopped twirling his pipe, his head tilting toward Loid. His devilish grin widened, and he let out a sharp bark of laughter.
"Heh… correct." His voice was low, gravelly, carrying an unhinged edge. "Finally… someone who gets it."
He licked his lips, his crimson eyes glowing brighter.
Charles felt his skin crawl. "He's… proud of that?"
But he didn't hesitate. Charles raised his trembling hand, fingers curled into the shape of a pistol. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he whispered the word that was quickly becoming his weapon:
"Bang!"
A bubble formed at his fingertip and shot forward with startling speed. It zipped through the air like a bullet and slammed into the man's chest.
For a split second, the surface of his skin warped and shredded under the spinning edge of the bubble, peeling away a thin layer of flesh.
Charles flinched at the sight. "I hit him! It worked-
But the man didn't so much as blink. His twisted smile remained fixed as if nothing had happened.
Charles's confidence faltered. "W-what…?!"
Loid's phone beeped again. The monotone voice cut through the tension.
"Another interpretation: he is completely incapable of feeling pain. His nerves are overridden by his Word. Physically, he still takes damage—but mentally, he cannot register it. In short…"
The voice paused, then concluded with chilling clarity:
"…he's basically an unstoppable addict with superhuman physicals."
The man let out another laugh, louder this time, manic and unrestrained. His grip tightened on the pipe until the metal groaned.
"Damn right!" he shouted. "No pain! No limits! Just me… and the high!"
Mimosa's expression darkened, her usual cocky tone replaced with raw seriousness. "Tch. A Zenith who ties their soul to something like that… that's about as dangerous as it gets."
Charles's throat went dry as the realization sank in. His bubbles could hurt the man—but not stop him. Not unless he figured out how to push them further.
The red-eyed stranger crouched low, his grin stretching unnaturally wide as he prepared to rush again.
The fight wasn't over. It was only getting started.