Esaka Interrupted (Wild)

[GEAR]

Suita, Esaka
OE 102, January 5th
7:02 AM JST

An ordinary morning in Esaka. Salarymen packed themselves into railcars like sardines, young girls ran to school with toast in their mouths, and somewhere, someone was feeling like they were about to catch a cold from standing near the AC too long.

That is... Except for what was on television.

A melancholy figure was projected across the nation's screens, smartphones, and websites, cast in a dark light, scanlines flickering across its obscured features. At length, it spoke, a chanting, soft voice... As though speaking from somewhere very far away.

​

"People of Earth, please hear my plea...
Disaster comes upon us, as swift as the falling night.

"The Heavens will split...
The Earth will tremble...
And the Moon cries tears of crystal...
Blood will run like rivers,
And the Alabaster God descends to judge us,
As darkness returns to the world once more!

Prepare, all of you, please!
A new era of conflict has begun...!
The Sundering has come...!"​

The TV screen panned out from the picture, focusing back to the anchors, located at the Channel 5 JNN News station. The anchors, a pair of middle aged Japanese - one man, one woman, labeled Mister Naraota and Mrs. Shifune.

"And that was the dire prediction given this morning by the Lunar Priestess, Lady Kaguya XIV, in an emergency press conference." Began Naraota, "The reclusive Lunar royalty made an unannounced, urgent appearance, saying that the world was on the brink of an unprecedented catastrophe. Previous predictions by the Lunar assembly have been uncannily accurate, and are normally reserved only for the upper echelons of the aristocracy."

"Now, we take you to Channel 5's Senior Lunar correspondant, Mister Morimoto, for analysis..."

 

[Wild]

"Sounds like a bunch of bull..." A young man said, addressing the television.

A young girl walked into the living room, having found the young man wearing a singular piece of underwear to make himself "decent". Having taken a brief moment to look at the girl, he turned to the television and began to laugh mockingly at the television.

He's getting better... I suppose. The girl thought to herself.

"Never mind that!" She snapped herself out of it. "Akira, didn't you hear the news!?"

"Yeah, I did," the young man, Akira, responded. "What's so special about it?"

"Aren't you the least bit worried?" The girl asked.

Akira got up off the couch, tossing the remote aside, and walked towards the girl. She began to back up, nervous as to what he was about to do, until she backed herself into the wall of the living room, unable to back up any further, while Akira, still nearly naked, had his face mere inches away from her own, with his hand placed just above her shoulder. His breath smelled like... Strawberries and ice cream?

"What reason do I have to be worried, Chizuru?" He asked. "If anything, this might even be good for business!"

"P-Personal space, Akira, please!" The girl, Chizuru pleaded. "And I, if not you, should at least be concerned about the house!"

Akira stopped to think, then proceeded to tap the wall lightly with his fist before backing away.

"Alright... We gotta keep the house running." Akira responded. "Whaddya need me to do, vacuum the rugs or something? Sounds a bit dumb to me, still, but if it matters to you, I can kill time with meaningless tasks."

Chizuru bowed her head slightly in a small tinge of regret.

"Sorry." She stated. "Maybe I'm making a bigger deal of it than I really should be." She then smiled, letting go of the negativity. "Let's have breakfast for now! But, you know, please get changed."

She walked over to the kitchen and prepared her signature recipe - toasted bread left to burn until just below charred. Akira, meanwhile, decided to go put some clothes on - a black muscle shirt and some blue jeans.

The two of them sat at the table, silently. Akira nearly swallowed his crispy toast whole. To many others, such a task would've resulted in choking, but it seemed to pose no problem to him. He reached for another slice in the pile just as Chizuru reached her own hand out, having intended to grab her first slice. Their hands collided, and Chizuru blushed. No boy had ever really touched her before, and she wasn't sure how to feel about it.

What do I even say to him? I know, maybe I could... invite him to the amusement park? Chizuru thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Akira, having made nothing of the interaction, returned to eating his next piece of toast.

 

[GEAR]

The idyllic scene came to a sudden halt, as the TV stopped broadcasting, turning to a dark black... and then, an emergency broadcast cue card, a dial-tone like sound filling the air... But even that was superseded in sheer volume by the coming moments. With a supersonic roar, something passed overhead, spitting flames... and a distant explosion was heard. Sirens began to blare - air raid ones that hadn't been used in ages. Were the two to peer outside, they would have perceived an extraordinary sight, as in the distance, located directly over the city's electrical grid, the sky itself seemed to tremble.

To Akira, alone perhaps in his understanding of what was about to occur... it was perhaps something had hoped never to see again in his lifetime.

The space above the district buckled and bent, twisting and warping before the naked eye. Byestanders took out their phone cameras, and captured it live, as reality itself seemed to churn in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. There was a gentle tinkling noise, like breaking glass - a scraping, and tremendous thudding that filled the air, as if something were trying to... Escape. Suddenly, and with terrible crash, the boundary gave way, and something... dark slithered forth from the ether.

The juvenile DAMON lurched out from the Dimensional Rift, its grey and black body rapidly becoming more real, more certain, as reality adjusted to its violent intrusion, the hole it had made slowly starting to fade back into the sky. It raised its, head, giving an unearthly screech that shattered the glass around it - a battle cry against the world of man, temporarily drowning out the cries of those around it.

"Ggkkshaaaa…!"

 

[Wild]

"Ah, hell." Akira called out as he dropped his piece of toast.

"Akira?" Chizuru responded, scared, questioning his sudden chance in countenance.

Akira, without having excused himself, got up from the table, looked for his white jacket, and put it on.

"Chizuru." He began. "If you know what's good for you, you'd get the hell out of here fast."

"W...What is that thing, Akira!?" She asked, more frightened than before, having seen the chaos that ensued after Akira opened the door outside.

Maybe he's home? Akira thought to himself, contemplating what the sudden presence of the DAMON could imply. Whether it was out of an unwillingness to show his own vulnerability, or whether it was for Chizuru's sake, Akira began to laugh wildly. Ironically, this frightened Chizuru just a tad bit more, as she began to suspect that Akira had gone mad. Having noticed this, Akira stopped and looked at her.

"It's do or die time, Chizuru." He stated flatly. "Drop everything and follow me."

She complied and followed Akira to her (father's) car. For whatever reason, Akira hadn't liked to be in a car. He claimed that it "wasn't his style", but perhaps there was something more to it.

"Get in and drive away as far as possible," Akira commanded Chizuru.

"Wait! Aren't you coming in? Where are you going?" She asked, confused as he apparently began to walk away.

"..." Akira remained silent for a brief moment.

"Don't tell me you're going to try to fight that thing on your own!" Chizuru scolded Akira. "I know you think you're strong and tough and everything, but whatever that THING is, we can't stop it! So, get it through your thick skull! We're getting away! Together!"

"Heh." Akira shrugged and laughed. "Alright, but I need you to do me a favor."

"A favor?" Chizuru questioned, notably confused.

"I have... a friend, you could call him," Akira answered. "I'm concerned about him. He's not too far away from here - he's on the way out, even - and I'd like us to at least try to pick him up."

"You have friends?" Chizuru asked.

"Oh, shut up," Akira answered, visibly dismayed by her remark.

He got into the car, and they began to drive away from the destruction.

 

[GEAR]

As Akira and Chizuru sped away, other Dimensional tears - and with them, more DAMON - were materializing across Japan. Not for nothing was the subcontinent referred to as the home of the Special Humanoid Weapon, however- the Super Robot, and various exotic machines lumbered forth from underground pools, secret caves, from inside statues, and all manner of hidden locations to do battle with the invaders.

Chizuru's route took them across the city's outskirts, and more than a couple of the creatures had already been across their path, their strange, biomechanical howls echoing in the morning air, leaving tracks in the ground and smoldering wreckage in their wake. They paid little attention to the scampering vehicle... At least for now, focusing their efforts on dismembering whatever security forces - tanks, planes, whatever the Directory could get together on short notice - attempted to bar their path.

As the car careened around a corner, the two wouldn't quite have had time to notice the figure darting across the road, clad in a green jacket, who himself would have had barely a moment to utter:

"Oh, shi-!"

- Before being summarily sideswiped, sending him tumbling back across the road... To lay still. Thankfully after a moment, he sat up, looking dazed and confused. He couldn't have been older than Akira, enough to be his classmate - yet, his countenance was as foreign as they came, more European than anything else, a pale white face under a heap of wispy blonde hair.

 

[Wild]

"Oh my goodness, are you alright, sir!?" Chizuru exclaimed, panicked by the entire situation.

"Hey, dumbass, do you know how much this car costs?" Akira asked, merely annoyed by what he perceived to be an inconvenience.

"YOU don't even know how much this car costs!" Chizuru scolded Akira.

She extended her hand out to the stranger as he groaned in pain and confusion.

"Eh?" The stranger called out, bewildered by his situation.

Chizuru struggled to pick up the stranger, seemingly too weak to carry him.

"Oh, forget this!" Akira exclaimed. "Get over here!"

With those words, Akira grabbed the stranger clumsily and shoved him into the backseat of the car.

"Let's go already! We're not too far!" Akira shouted.

Chizuru, bewildered by Akira's decision, complied and got back into the car. The car struggled and sputtered as Chizuru placed her key into the ignition, ultimately refusing to turn on. Akira became increasingly impatient and annoyed. At one point, he attempted to get out of the car and punch its engine with his bare fist. The car didn't seem to react positively to his input, and yet Akira was likewise unaffected by punching mechanical pieces of the car's interior.

"Huh?" The stranger mumbled in apparent confusion, seeming to not know where he was.

"Akira, what are you doing?" Chizuru asked.

Akira stood still in what appeared to be despair before his face lit up as though blessed by some newfound wisdom. Immediately afterward, he began dashing away from the car like a wild animal.

 

[GEAR]

"Guh."

The stranger's eyes snapped open. Despite the nature of his injury, he seemed quite alive, albeit disoriented. His jacket was scuffed, and it looked as though all his clothes had been gotten second-hand, giving him a kind of run-down look. Compared to the muscled Akira, he was more lithe - a swimmer's body, rather than a weightlifter's. His eyes focused on Chizuru, momentarily, before sitting up, grunting in pain as he did.

"Who... Are you?" He said, slowly, before catching Akira running off in the background, his features morphing to an expression of surprise as he did.

"He shouldn't..." The stranger gasped; "It's... argh... It's dangerous...!"

 

[Wild]

"Akiraaaaa!" Chizuru shouted out, hoping that her voice would reach him and hopefully change his mind about what he did.

Unfortunately, Chizuru's words were to no avail - whatever Akira was about to do, he was determined to do it. And that left Chizuru alone with this stranger. What was Chizuru to do? She couldn't catch up to Akira. All she could do, as far as she knew, was to attempt to start the car again. And attempt she did, to seemingly no avail.

"Are you unhurt?" She asked the stranger. "The car doesn't seem to be working anymore..." Chizuru responded, hopeless. "Well fine! Akira can just go without us! Doesn't he understand that I... He's so selfish! What's his deal!?"

Chizuru helped the stranger out of the car and gazed up at one of the DAMONs rampaging throughout town.

Meanwhile, Akira found himself alone, dashing frantically through the outskirts of town, hoping to find what he was looking for. As he dashed, he remembered that he had left some things in his pockets - a pair of black gloves, and a necklace. Having put the necklace and gloves on, he started shouting loudly in his exasperated state.

"Gespenst, get the HELL over here!"

Despite his best efforts, nothing happened, so he continued to run. It seemed as though he ran for miles on end. To him, though, this was a fairly easy task. However, whether it be from the noise that he made, or something far more sinister, the frightening presence of a DAMON was attracted to his location, and it began steadily approaching his direction. For the speeds he was running at, Akira seemed to have no problem keeping up a steady pace - though it was pushing him just a little. Eventually, he found himself at a warehouse guarded by fences.

"Screw it, let's go!" He shouted as he used his momentum to propel himself over the fence in a single bound.

No one was around to see him demonstrate this uncanny strength, so he wasn't particularly concerned. However, with a horrible noise that he recognized all too well, Akira found debris flying over him as he landed on the other side of the fence.

"Gespenst for the love of GOD get over here!" He shouted once more.

His objective was clear - if his weapon wasn't going to respond to his voice commands as he'd been testing, he'd have to reach it manually. And the only way to accomplish that was to get to its location, in a bunker underneath the warehouse. It was a short distance normally, but now there were new obstacles thanks to the intervention of one annoying beast. He pointed his right finger straight to his goal and ran like mad. He ran up a large chunk of rock which served as a ramp of sorts, allowing him to jump off and propel himself. However, the landing was not going to be a smooth one, so carefully thinking, he grabbed onto a displaced light post which managed to stand, albeit at a poor angle. He swung from the lamp post and kick dived into the entrance to the warehouse, which he found was pitch black and empty, save for the soft glow of a computer screen. His necklace, too, began to emit a soft hum of light.

"Not much longer..." He stated.

Still hearing the commotion from outside, Akira chose to enter a password into the computer inside the warehouse. 082594. With that, a trap door made itself known, opening up to a darker abyss below his feet.

 

[GEAR]

The stranger managed a thin smile at Chizuru's worrying, and allowed her to help him to his feet. He looked after the young man as he fled, thoughtfully, as though he had forgotten something.

"Akira, huh?" He said, quietly.

He dusted off his clothes, surprisingly salient for someone who had just been hit by a car, before suddenly remembering his manners. He turned back to Chizuru and folded his arms, saying as he did:

"...Ah, sorry." "Please, call me Johannes... Johannes Factotum. I'm a student at Daedalus Technical... and an apprentice technician. Nice to meet you."

He looked back at the cityscape behind them, flames and the sound of stomping Dimensional Beasts giving it a rather dark color.

"...Though, I wish it were under better circumstances, Miss...?"

 

[Wild]

"Chizuru. Chizuru Yagami." Chizuru answered. "Likewise regarding the circumstances, but pleased to meet you, Mr. Factotum."

She inspected the young man, noting that he had, miraculously, been completely unhurt by the car. How bizarre, she was certain that he took quite the blow from the car. While her suspicions were raised, she was more concerned with their overall safety given the circumstances.

"Let's get out of here. If Akira wants to throw his life away, I can't stop him."

The two began to make their way out of town, as the stomping of the Dimensional Beasts grew ominously louder.

Meanwhile, back at the warehouse, Akira found himself exactly where he wanted to be. An underground hangar, housing a fine piece of equipment... A red Gespenst, custom painted to his own liking. He could still hear the loud crashing of objects being thrown around by the beasts outside.

 

[GEAR]

"Nice to meet you, Miss Yagami." Said Johannes, again giving a small smile.

"He does seem... The brave type." He remarked at her concern for Akira, scratching the side of his head with surprise.

He nodded in agreement at her suggestion that they leave, and trotted after her. The two traveled a fair ways, down several ruined streets, before Johanne placed an arresting hand on her shoulder, his face full of concern.

"Listen." He said.

"Ksss..."

A dreadful hiss echoed about them, the kind that made glass windows rattle in their panes. If the two were to crane their gaze upward, they would have seen... A terrible sight. A dimensional beast, hunched down over the roof of a creaking building... watching them, closely. It began to crouch down... and in one fluid movement, leapt, hurtling down towards them.

"Run!" Yelled Johannes, tearing away as fast as his feet could carry him as the creature hit the pavement behind them... And began to give chase.

As Akira finally reached his Gespenst, he would have rapidly realized the reason for the sudden increase in volume. With a terriffic screech of tearing metal, one of the doors to the hangar suddenly caved in, and a dark head suddenly jutted into the opening, peering about before it was followed in short order by a long, jet-black saurian body, tail swishing behind it menacingly.

The Dimensional Beast turned its eyeless head back forth, eventually settling on him. Its webbed mouth dripped a strange liquid, one that, like the body of the creature itself, seemed to reflect all the colors of the spectrum, pooling on the floor below.

"Kkkkrrrr..." It growled, as sparks of light began to fill the crystal-like structures on its legs...

 

[Wild]

"Try me, small fry." Akira taunted, boarding his robot.

It was small, but it did exactly what he needed. As the Gespenst's eye lit up, it glowed an ominous red.

"Your whole attack... is WEAK!" Akira shouted from within the cockpit, charging towards the beast's face with the right fist.

"What's wrong, do I scare ya or what? I don't have much time to play, but... let's have some fun."

The Red Gespenst quickly pressed its fists together as it began the real fight, anticipating the beast's response.

Meanwhile, the two bystanders continued to flee for their lives.

Akira... Please be alright. Chizuru thought to herself, panicked and scared as she ran.

 

[GEAR]

Akira's swift strike caught the DAMON off guard, the Gespent's punch cratering in the side of its face with a spray of sparks and jet-black viscera. The creature stumbled in surprise, gurgling a vicious roar in its throat, before turning the momentum into a spin -

From the creature's tail, a razor-sharp disc of dimensional energy lashed out at close range, sawing through the air with a whine as the beast spun in place, simultaneously attempting to smash the Gespenst's chest armor apart with its armored tail.

Meanwhile, Johannes led the way as the DAMON bore down on them. This, he thought, was really not turning out to be his day. As they ran, all around them were the wrecks of various Personal Troopers that had fallen to the DAMON, the military manufacturing district they were currently in a victim.

"...There!"

The young man grabbed Chizuru's hand, and tugged her to the left, out of the street, down an alleyway between two sturdy-looking buildings - hangars, it appeared, similar to the one Akira was currently squaring off against the monster in. Behind them, the DAMON came to a halt... Briefly. With a resounding Boom, it began to slam its head against the opening, slowly starting to pulverize the reinforced concrete apart as it did. Meanwhile, Johanne looked on, having paused for a moment to catch his breath.

"...It really must like us, huh?" He managed, giving a pained grin as he took an unsteady couple of steps back.

 

[Wild]

"Oh no, you don't!" Akira shouted.

The Gespenst attempted an evasive maneuver and lept off its feet into a stylish flip.

Meanwhile, Chizuru was concerned regarding their current predicament. She wondered why Akira had led them to this area with these hangars - what were his intentions? Did this have something to do with what he was doing while she was in class?

"I don't think now's the time for sarcasm..." She mused aloud.

"What should we do? We're trapped!"

 

[GEAR]

As the Gespenst leapt into the air, the DAMON's attack went wide - the disc of energy slicing under his feet to tear a hole in the rear of the hangar. The DAMON, caught off guard, stumbled as he landed, still evidently groggy from his initial strike, hissing impotently as it struggled to lash out at the red machine.

"...Not quite. Here."

Johannes made his way down the alley a little further, to a door set into an alcove. Trying the handle, it refused to move. Grimacing, the young man exhaled, and closed his eyes, concentrating. The space around the handle - and his hand - began to flicker, slightly, just like the space around where the DAMON had forced their way into the world earlier.

With a small flash of multi-colored energy, the lock snapped off in his grasp, and the door opened.

"...Just a little trick." He breathed to Chizuru, seeming... A little worn out, after the fact.

"Come on, let's go."

As the two entered, they would be greeted by a row of five mobile weapons, each crouched in standby mode - Directory machines, it appeared, that hadn't managed to sortie yet. There was nobody around, either, for that matter... Presumably, the personnel here had already evacuated, but in cases like this, it was hard to say for sure. Various maintenance machines were strewn about, as well as replacement parts - evidently some manner of repair bay.

"Looks like we're not out of luck quite yet." Said Johannes, clasping his hands together.

 

[Wild]

"I'm not too happy that these things are around here right now." Akira mused to himself, remembering that speaking to such creatures was pointless.

Akira then proceeded to jump high into the sky, and attempt to strike the creature's head with a kick, wondering now how long it would be now before he got back to... No, such thoughts, were unneeded in combat.

"What... is this place?" Chizuru asked, bewildered.

Chizuru looked around and began to think aloud.

"Is this why... Akira?"

She then turned to Johannes.

"What are we doing here? You don't intend on getting into one of those things? They're far too dangerous!"

 

[GEAR]

Akira's kick smashed into the side of the DAMON's head, connecting exactly with the spot he had struck earlier - causing the beast's face to shatter in a spray of ichor. It staggered back, neck flailing uselessly, before the light faded from its crystalline flanks. In a burst of flame, the creature vanished from view, sucked into a tiny pinprick of black - a small-scale hole between worlds - with an eerie screech.

The foe, for the moment, had been vanquished, but he was far from safe. In the distance he could hear the bellowing of more of the creatures... From the direction that Chizuru and Johannes had just fled.

Meanwhile, Johannes scratched the side of his head again in thought as he examined the machines, giving the worried young girl a sideways glance as he did with his strange, silvery eyes.

"You certainly talk a lot about him. Are you and Akira...?" He said, trailing off suggestively as he inspected the cockpit hatch of one of the crouched machines - a humanoid type with a pair of pointed ears, and a set of bladed tonfas dangling off it's arms.

He didn't appear to be asking out of any kind of malice, but given the young man's strange appearance, and his recently displayed "talent"... His true intentions were difficult to decipher.

 

[Wild]

"Stay the hell away from this place." Akira muttered, frustrated by the circumstances.

"Huh?"

Following the sound he could hear, he began to express some concern.

"Chizuru..."

The Gespenst began dashing in the direction of the creatures.

Meanwhile, Chizuru looked back at Johannes, confused, and seemingly unaware of what he had meant by such a question.

"Are we what? He's a friend of mine. We kinda met under strange circumstances. A while back, a meteor fell from the sky, and I checked it out. Er, um." She interrupted her own explanation, as though thinking of the words to describe her situation.

"I happened to be nearby at the time, in a park. I was a little scared, I thought something was about to explode, but then... Nothing, you know? And when I decided to head home, I ran into some guy."

She blushed a little and began to laugh.

"He was completely naked! So here I was, thinking he was some kind of pervert. I panicked and took out one of my school books to try to hit him over the head, but then for a brief moment I looked at him and I noticed something else was off. He looked... kinda sad, you know? Tired, even."

Her eyes took on a contemplative look, though shortly relapsed into a bright and energetic stare.

"B-but, more than that, he looked absolutely charred. His nearly naked body was covered in burns. I asked him what happened, and he just looked confused. Like he had no idea what was going on! Come to think of it, he looked completely out of it."

She crossed her arms, reflecting on this situation as though she had done so previously.

"After a while though, he spoke and simply said that he was near the meteor and that it had burnt off all his clothes and even scorched him. I was amazed to see and hear that despite that, he survived!"

She smiled sincerely.

"I guess there really are some miracles in this world. Although, when I asked who he was, he answered that he had no clue! It looked like whatever hit him made him lose his memories, the poor guy. So I told him I could help him by letting him stay at my place for a while, as long as he didn't make a huge mess."

She uncrossed her arms, extending one of her hands in the motion of writing.

"In the meantime, I decided on giving him a name of sorts to go by until he remembered, or uh, well, remembers, his actual name. I went with... what was it, Ryo, Kyo? Kyo Akira. I think? In the end, I just tend to go with Akira. You can thank a book I was reading for that. Or, was it a book? A game? A TV show? I don't remember myself. I guess I have a bad memory too!"

For a moment, the girl had been lost in another world, a more peaceful and playful one than the one she was currently in. But her mind quickly returned, remembering the gravity of the situation.

"B-but, what are we going to do now?! Do we really have no other choice but to get into one of those things?!"

 

[GEAR]

Johannes kept his features carefully neutral for the duration of Chizuru's tale, blinking slowly as she gushed. Goodness only knew what he was thinking - the entire thing sounded too farfetched to be true, to a casual observer... But he said nothing, only nodding along, absorbing it in silence, a pale hand circumnavigating his chin. Named after a video game, he thought? Maybe that... King of the Street thing?

"I see. Well... Stranger things have happened." He said at length, giving a shrug.

If there were questions he had, or if he was somehow incredulous, he didn't have the chance to ask them. A resounding boom echoed through the hangar, as well as a low growl:

The DAMON had found them.

"-Like those things." Finished Johannes curtly as he closed the hatch;

"If you want to live, follow my lead."

The faded purple and grey machine rose off it's haunches, a bright green visor coming to life as it brandished the twin bladed tonfas under its arms before it. Within the cockpit, Johannes dusted off the controls - Not much fuel, he noted, but hopefully enough for them to drive off the immediate threat. A handful of other machines remained in the hangar for Chizuru to choose from - not that he was immediately concerned for the girl, right now all he needed was for her to step out of the way.

He tensed... And waited.

Meanwhile, as Akira approached the two, his Gespenst thundering down the street that had previously run down, in the distance he could see a DAMON hammering its head against the hangar the two occupied, beginning to break down the entranceway. Two more had joined it, their crystalline forms circling the structure like sharks. The creatures seemed to be oblivious to his approach - for now, giving him the element of surprise.

 

[Wild]

"They're coming for us!" Chizuru braced herself, entering the cockpit of a machine completely foreign to her.

The Beasts began approaching. Would she be ready to challenge them?

"Hold it!"

The Beasts were taken aback by the sudden sonorous war cry of Death itself - a Red Gespenst standing high above them with its arms crossed.

"T-That voice...! That couldn't be...!?" Chizuru cried out in astonishment.

"In the midst of chaos... A warrior of chaos comes to deliver judgment! It seems only fitting that chaos itself should strike from within! Right... Beasts have spawned from a Hell which has no place in this world. It is the responsibility - no, it's the natural order for a warden of such a Hell to come to keep them in check! Whether it be by detainment... or death!"

The Beasts let out agitated roars.

"..."

"..."

"...Ehh."

"...What the hell did I just say?" Akira asked, lamenting how uncool his speech made him feel.

"Tch. Anyway! Bring it on, I'll take you all out!" Akira cried out.

"A-Akira? Is that really you?" Chizuru asked.

"Oh, no way. How the hell did you end up here, lady!? I thought you were running away! And now you're in a robot too?! Are you stupid or dumb? Tch. Alright, whatever."

The Gespenst descended from above, unleashing a powerful kick.

"Let's begin, Gespenst!"