CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD

CH.13 'NOWHERE GENERATION'

Realizing now that Ban had been out of the fight for a few moments, Andrei felt the headache that came with his power strike. Ra's voice was almost clear, though still inconceivable in his head, almost as though he was calling for the boy to give up already. Slamming his burning palm to his forehead and letting his sword's tip hit the ground, he gritted his teeth, and the red in his eyes became tamer... though it never left them. "Grk... God dammit- Get outta' my head!" He yelled out, his eyes twitching.

Saionji looked up and over as she twirled through the air. Worry clouded her thinking, and she nearly pointed her sword at Andrei before the large red hand began to reform in full before her. Gasping, she shoved Andrei out of the way, then herself dashed to avoid the incoming overhead magic-infused slam, which surely would have crushed them both without her help, or worse.

Collapsing to the ground, Andrei writhed with splitting pain in his mind... then he somehow wrestled control from the other. Now yelling with all his might, he picked himself up, unable to see Saionji with the cloud of dust and smoke from the explosion, he threw his blade back with both hands on it once again, and flames once more erupted from the black steel. The instincts in his mind, and now in Ra's as well, were going wild. He would fight like a wounded dog, rabid and mindless, even if he himself was not injured.

Trapped and subjected to simply watching through his vessel's eyes, Ra felt his world spinning. The alleyway, the domain he had called his own, thousands of piercing gazes held him in place, seemingly swirling around him, triggering him at every possible point of weakness, if only he would admit that he had any. As he threw up his hands to steady his head, the demon noticed once more the burned away scales and leather on his off hand. Holding it back, he refused to make contact with it, straining against it. Wind whipped at the humanoid dragon-demon, and he roared as his chains chimed in the storm. "What... What is happening... You bastard child, give up! This power...!"

Andrei felt a searing sensation in his off hand, and the chain in his undershirt began to glow red hot. A flame lit on his chest, burning away part of his clothing, but not touching his already unbuttoned uniform. The chain inside him now radiated a mirage, and glowed molten reds. He gritted his teeth and leapt into the air, above the Chimera before him. His explosive boost in power came with a pressure to the atmosphere around him, throwing himself off as black energy began to form a diamond-like shape on his chest, splitting his flesh and lining itself with crimson red. "Shut the hell up..."

In the air, he felt the stinging grow worse, and in a fit of beastly rage he threw his sword downwards, all the energy in the mana conductor exploding out and firing it forward like a guillotine's blade. It lodged itself in the spine of the Chimera, and the monster above it, neither Man nor Chimera, took a moment to roar to the world, to the world inside his head. "Bastard!"

The black energy ruptured from his hand with a pulse of crimson-red, and black energy consumed his flesh up to his wrist, even though it was uneven. Seething with pain now, Andrei hit the ground, and the dust having settled as the Chimera before him writhed in agony, he was able to spot both Saionji and Shimoda.

Standing before the mouth of the Chimera, he watched as it threw its head up and began to pour more energy into another colossal attack, but he was no longer his old self. He did not care for the sense of danger lingering in the back of his mind. "Final shot... Breaker...!!" Andrei began to yell, putting one-hundred-and-ten percent of his power into the attack.

Ban turned to see the changed Andrei, the boy's wild hair whipping in the winds his own power produced, his feral eyes. Something about it was terrifyingly familiar... but he didn't feel threatened by the animal before him.

In that moment, three star-like flashes of crimson red-black shone from Andrei's arm, and mana-infused runes began to glow on his skin like the marks of the Chimera he had been facing down. Black-red fire enveloped his arm, pouring out from the night-colored flesh on his arm and chest, creating a collar of fire behind him. Pulling back his arm as the sphere of opposing energy burst into a beam, he yelled out, and awe overtook a grieving Ban.