Time stretched on in an eerie silence as they watched this mysterious person imbue his essence into the seemingly animated corpse on the floor.
His irises shone a vibrant lime, the breeze brushing his short, messy red hair across his stale features.
However, none of that mattered in comparison to the dying woman underneath—
"Is that..."
Akira's whisper was too low to be heard by anyone.
She slowly rose to her knees, but she didn't move.
No, not yet.
The shock hadn't fully settled yet.
Maybe because a part of her was hoping it wasn't true.
Because if that was who she thought it was—
Thrrrrmmmmm...
The air vibrated violently.
Graham's pupils shot up to the sky as he saw another massive wave of energy flowing over to them again.
"Sh-Shit!"
His body recoiled downward.
Akira felt his weight over her.
Then, in the next moment, the ground shredded around them as a violent wind rushed past—
...
"Huh?"
Graham's cascading pulse forced his body to tense around him, only to realize that there was no wind rushing over his back.
No burns.
No fire.
The ground itself hadn't even shaken yet.
He opened his eyes...
and his glasses nearly fell off from the speed of his head snapping up in disbelief.
Green.
All he could see,
was a thick, green layer of what appeared to be flowing particles that burned red-hot on the outer shell...while the inside remained a calm, saturated green.
What the hell was going on?
Jukiko, who'd long since gone quiet upon seeing the mysterious man—who still hadn't looked up from the twitching body on the floor—quietly shifted his footing forward as he forced himself to breathe.
It wasn't fear he felt.
It wasn't even shock.
It was the immense excitement that shook him to his core.
Because the person in front of them wasn't supposed to be—
"Yourname."
All three individuals immediately looked at the young man.
His voice didn't even command respect, yet the calmness in it suggested it'd be wise to.
His eyes never left the casualty beneath him, his green matter attaching to every glowing green particle around the body's blank spots.
It took him too long to realize the relaxed fellow was speaking to him.
His vibrant irises met the masked rescuer's.
Then they flickered to the frozen hybrid on the floor, then the blonde protecting her before going back to the masked individual.
"I asked you," he said, his voice deep and relaxed, like they weren't in the middle of a violent torrent of energy outside their secure green bubble, "what's your name?"
The dazed rescuer's eyes blinked beneath his mask as he stood up straighter than most of the roads right now.
"I-I-uhm. My name is Jukiko, sir!"
The nonchalant individual sighed gently as he looked back at the body, whose skin was now halfway rewoven.
"Not your real one," he murmured, his fingers weaving slowly as green, silky spiderwebs connected every pore onto the missing muscle fibers, tracing over them like melting ink.
He cut the line.
"Doesn't matter. Just wait there for further instructions."
The young lad tied his lines.
Connected them to the missing pores.
And suddenly, the animated corpse had an actual voice.
Small.
Raspy and barely functional.
Yet Akira could practically feel the staleness in its tone.
The hybrid's eyes dilated as her heart stopped.
And Graham's breath vibrated in his chest as the biggest wave of relief hit him like a freight train.
The corpse breathed.
"Damn, Shrill..."
The young lad's vibrant eyes landed on the woman's body.
"Half your clothes were gone by the time I found you," he said calmly, removing an object from his small bag beside him.
Akira recognized the bag.
It looked small yet...felt heavy somehow.
A small, tennis-sized white ball with a single-digit number across its surface.
He crushed it.
"Here," he said, feeding the older woman the sticky contents of it.
The moment she swallowed its contents, the glowing green recipients of his matter immediately deepened,
from a vibrant, young green...to a familiar, old sunset gold.
Jukiko's eyes widened in astonishment.
The young blonde professor's blue eyes flickered, bewildered and afraid.
And the hybrid's ruined cross-bun hair spilled across her teary features as she witnessed the impossible.
Golden steam.
Illuminating yellow veins.
A deep, deep sigh of relief as this dead body slowly sat up, its first instinct being to tap its surroundings, looking for something.
Looking for—
"There they are."
metallic frames that pushed up the bridge of its nose as it slowly looked over its shoulder.
"N-No..."
"H-How...how is this..."
"Don't assume we're done yet, Akira."
Her purple eyes shone in the light as the torrent of energy finally stopped shaking the world around them.
An old, gray eye landed on a pair of certain violet irises as its hair settled over its face.
"We still have a lesson after this."