“Hold her off for a moment, these bodies will be in the way if we don't remove them nowю” Makoto whispered, giving instructions like a navigator.

  “I figured that out without you. I wonder when the Specialists will arrive at the scene...” Minato thought, pushing all other thoughts aside.

  The distance between him and Aranagi was about 10 meters. The antidote hadn't fully taken effect yet, so he felt a slight weakness after each muscle contraction. But he could cover that distance in 1.5-2 seconds.

  “She has the advantage, I don't know her abilities, and she definitely has long-range attacks, plus I'll have to avoid routes that will cause even more injuries to those around me. What a pain in the ass.”

  Popping up from his spot, he shot forward like a rocket at a speed that exceeded normal human capabilities. At the same moment, threads flew from Makoto's hands toward the wounded, wrapping around one of each wounded person's limbs like fishing line, with the goal of pulling them out of this hell.

  “Clear, very reasonable,” thought Aranagi. One of the abilities taken from the network, accelerated perception, allowed her to keep track of everything at once, but even so, she was distracted from Minato for literally a hundredth of a second, and when she looked back at his original position, he was no longer there.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his silhouette, flickering like a phantom, much closer to her than she wanted. If Minato's assumption was correct, then she had not yet used this system for serious combat, and this was her first serious battle. This factor more or less evened the odds.

  Aranagi planned to attack, but seeing Minato so close, she decided to go on the defensive. Minato jumped from a running start and, twisting his hips to increase the force of the blow, struck Aranagi with all his might on the arm she was using to block her face. Spinning like a tornado, he only increased the force of his kick, so that even Aranagi's arm, covered with hard stone, cracked, and she herself was thrown back a meter.

  Half of her body went numb from the blow, but Minato showed no signs of discomfort, as if breaking stones was a familiar task for him.

  He continued his frenzied assault, not giving her a chance to catch her breath, delivering blow after blow that made her bones tremble treacherously. Time after time, she used the stone surface in the hope of wearing him down, but it was like injecting fuel into an internal combustion engine; it only made him faster.

  "He doesn't have a single fighting style. It's not boxing, not taekwondo, not silat, not krav maga, not Thai boxing. It's like a combination of everything, turned into his own style," Aranagi reasoned calmly, while Minato crushed the stone like a cookie.

  A blow with the base of his right palm to her jaw, followed by a blow to her liver, sent shivers through her body.

  Even blocking his attacks, she was taking cumulative damage, but it was insignificant.

  The moment she thought that, his shin crashed into her ribs, striking an unprotected area. There was a crunch of bones, and her body was thrown to the side.

  Normally, the human brain allows only 10-15 percent of its power to be used, subconsciously limiting the damage a person can inflict on themselves in order to avoid injury. In Minato's case, it felt like his brain wasn't limiting anything, releasing the beast within.

  The hair on the back of his head stood on end. His whole body was literally screaming at him to attack, but his brain warned him to calm down a little. It was like the feeling Minato had when he realized he was about to encounter the parasite in the form of Makoto.

  In the next moment, Aranagi's two fingers rose, and an invisible force began to cut through the hard asphalt as if it were not a solid material, but a melted piece of butter.

  He barely managed to react to the cut, turning his body counterclockwise. The cut shaved off a few strands of hair and cut his cheek under his eye, passing tangentially. With that, a new chance appeared.

  With the back of his left fist, he aimed at Aranagi's neck, one of the most unprotected parts of the head, which cannot be trained in any way. But his fist bounced off her head as if he were trying to break an armored personnel carrier with an iron rod. This left him paralyzed for a couple of seconds.

  At the same time, a small whirlwind spun in Aranagi's hand, as if from a multitude of wind blades. Her palm, filled with compressed air, aimed at his stomach, with the intention of ripping open his belly. Minato noticed this too late, but still jumped back as far as he could, covering his stomach with his hands, as the space on either side was cut off by two simultaneous cuts in the ground.

  At that moment, a cloud of dust rose from the wind, and the wind blades cut through the asphalt beneath his feet. But there was no sound of flesh being cut.

  “Is that all you've got?” Aranagi asked with slight contempt, but it was clear how sad this battle was for her.

  “What are you talking about? That was just a friendly pat on the back,” came an empty voice from the other side of the dust wall.

  A sharp gust of wind blew away the dust, and Minato was not even scratched from the last attack. A thread stretched from Makoto's hand was wrapped around his belt.

  “That was close. Think before you do something, you idiot!” Makoto shouted, hitting Minato on the head, which hurt her fist more than it hurt his head.

  “It all worked out. There's no point in getting angry.”

  Glancing at the bodies lying around them, Minato sighed with slight relief, realizing that none of the wounded had been seriously injured. However, there was cause for concern.

  “Arnie, I have a theory. I've fought the stone guy before, but his armor wasn't as strong. Compared to Aranagi's armor, it was like a pizza crust.” Minato muttered.

  “If everything works on the principle of a network, then perhaps she uses the power of other users to enhance one specific ability. That is, she uses one crust that is denser than a hundred.” Makoto replied, her mind was trying to come up with a countermeasure.

  “If you two aren't going to do anything, I'll go first,” Aranagi replied reluctantly, as if trying to end it as quickly as possible.

  Minato felt a chill run down his spine at her words, and at that moment, the roadside railings vibrated as if during a slight earthquake. A second later, they flew out of the concrete as if pulled by a strong magnet and flew toward them.

  With no time to discuss a proper plan, they just nodded to each other, and Minato flew forward again, continuing his rampage.

  Pulling a long, thick thread from her wrist, Makoto swung it through the air like a whip, cutting through the metal effortlessly. Immediately after cutting the handrails into many pieces, the thick thread split into many thinner ones that wrapped around the small pieces of metal.

  Controlling them as she pleased, Makoto sent them flying at Aranagi, who was standing right next to Minato. He pressed her again, and she calmly fought him off. Noticing that Minato was about to jump again to kick her, she turned the ground beneath him into a viscous swamp, preventing him from gaining momentum for greater force.

  Despite this, Minato still managed to grab Aranagi's arm and pull hard enough to make her shoulder crack unpleasantly.

  In the next moment, as if stabbing with a knife, Minato's fist, into which he had put all his body weight, struck her in the stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  Even changing the stone armor to ballistic protection invisible to the human eye did not help to completely absorb the blow.

  “It was like a point-blank shot from a shotgun...” thought Aranagi, gasping for breath as she watched Minato jump back after the earth's grip weakened. At the same time, a rain of chopped metal fences fell on her.

  But it had no effect, as all the metal melted instantly. Finally, Aranagi's serious face, which swept away any doubts, looked at them.

  Many small red lights flew out of her palms, resembling fireflies in the night. They did not fly fast, no, they rather circled in the air, but something told him that they would cause a lot of trouble.

  And Minato had reason to worry, as his fundamental unwillingness to use Special, which would have ended everything very quickly, forced him to fight as a melee fighter.

  Sensing the danger from these lights as soon as he saw them, the air began to heat up extremely quickly, and Minato jumped into a nearby armored vehicle through a hole in the side. No sooner had he done so than all the lights exploded like dozens of powerful firecrackers, creating a symphony of destruction.

  If Minato had stayed there, there would have been nothing left of him. The explosions were still ringing in his ears, but it seemed to him that the shelling had ended, when suddenly the armored vehicle was thrown into the air by a powerful gust of wind.

  The vehicle spun around, causing Minato to literally fly out of it, as if he had opened a porthole while flying in an airplane. And now, he was hanging in the air ten meters above the ground.

  “Huh?” Minato asked into the void. His brain didn't even have time to process the information before he paused for a split second. Air again.

  It was unfair to assume, but the only person he knew who had this ability was Tsuna. And he was now lying on the ground, next to all the wounded. Except he was conscious. From the incredible pain that made him wake up and scream in unbearable agony. He held his head, digging into it with his nails, wishing the pain would go away, even if he had to tear his skull apart with his bare hands.

  “He couldn't have...”He couldn't think as he was pinned to the nearest building, rebar piercing his right shoulder through and through, leaving him hanging five meters above the ground.

  “It's just as you think,” Aranagi said wistfully, standing perpendicular to the wall, apparently magnetizing herself to the metal in the concrete. “This guy, in a desperate attempt to resist me, injected himself with the serum, hoping to gain at least a moment that would give him a chance to win, or at least survive.”

  There was no triumph, mockery, or enjoyment of such superiority in her voice. Rather, it was cold calculation mixed with sadness that she spat out.

  Makoto tried to touch Tsuna, who was having a seizure, but even his skin was so hot that it burned, as if his blood was boiling, and nothing helped, there was nothing to ease the pain.

  “Is this happening to everyone who is currently connected to the network?” Makoto asked in disbelief. She tried to dull the pain with acupuncture, but it had almost no effect.

  The pain ceased to matter, the burning sensation faded into the background. Only anger rose to the surface, like boiling water in a geyser.

  Without realizing the danger, Minato broke the rebar that pinned him to the wall with one clean blow, falling down, straight to the lamppost, which he used as a pole to climb down.Not wasting any time, he ripped one of the handrails straight out of the concrete and, putting all the strength of his body into the throw, hurled the iron bar at Aranagi with superhuman speed, like an Olympic champion.

  Not anticipating such a quick attack, Aranagi carelessly dodged the throw, and the handrail managed to scratch her arm slightly. She sent out a flurry of lights again as she descended, barely noticing how the diagonally cut piece of the building began to fall on her under its own weight.

  She didn't have time to see it, but she understood that it was all because of Makoto's sharp thread, one of which cut through the house, and the other pulled sharply downward, grabbing her leg.

  Thanks to her protection, Aranagi was unharmed by the fall, but the piece of the entire building was a problem. Yet she didn't look confused or scared. She just reached up with her hand, her fingers spread wide, as if trying to grab the sun at its zenith.

  As soon as the piece of concrete touched her palm, it exploded into hundreds of small pieces from the explosion that came from inside.

  “That incompetent bomber's ability is clearly useful, but too unrefined,” Aranagi thought, coughing as she looked at the blood spurting from her mouth.

  She herself was unharmed, as she had created a force field to protect herself from the explosion. Her body had suffered. Even accelerated regeneration did not help with such a load on the body. So many abilities, and their rapid rotation, were wearing down her resources.

  Sensing danger, like a rabbit being watched by a wild wolf, Aranagi wanted to dodge, but at that very moment, two iron rods pierced her legs. Due to her weakened state, her body did not have time to react, and she was pinned to the ground.

  A moment later, Minato's fist struck her temple with a dull thud. He did not spare his health and struck with his right hand, despite the pain that made him want to scream at the top of his lungs.

  The temple, like the back of the head, was one of the most vulnerable areas for a blow, as the bone there was extremely thin. Minato took advantage of this, giving her a concussion. But he didn't continue hitting her; instead, he stepped back, which at first seemed strange to her. But immediately after that, her right side, just above her liver, was cut by some sharp object flying at high speed.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  She wouldn't have thought much of it if she hadn't been knocked off her feet in the next couple of seconds. But before she could think about it, the first cut was followed by a second, and then a dozen more, after which she couldn't even stand on her feet and fell to her knees with a thud.

  The taste of blood in her mouth and the burning sensation throughout her body made her realize that the objects, which cut like circular saws fired from a large slingshot, were poisoned. And she knew only one person who used such tricks.

  “Seriously, what the hell took so long? Couldn't you set them up faster?” Minato said indignantly, spitting out both arrogance and blood.

  “Yeah, we're busting our asses here, and you're running around like a rat,” Makoto joined in the rebellion.

  There was a faint smell of tobacco, which had been drowned out by other priorities. A cloud of smoke escaped from slightly parted lips.

  "Yeah, I'm the king of freaks, I've heard that before. Come up with something new already.“ Suoh muttered lazily, pressing the cold metal barrel against Aranagi's neck.

  “I thought you preferred to do everything yourself, these thunder sticks are too loud and inconvenient. Your words, right?" Aranagi asked sharply.

  Suoh ignored her remark, instead tightening his grip on the service pistol he had taken from one of the operatives. His grip was coldly calculated, leaving no room for emotion. Even if he had to point the gun at a loved one, his hand must not waver.

  “Stop it. Has rage blinded you so much that you can't even see what you're doing?” Suoh asked. Despite his firm grip, his voice did not hide the pain he was feeling. Pointing the barrel at her was like pointing it at himself.

  This woman, the very fact of her existence meant that something human still lived within him. And he didn't want to lose that part of himself, which was more important than anything else.

  “Don't you understand that by conducting experiments like this, you are no better than Kosaku? Any research that requires such measures to achieve results will never, under any circumstances, lead to anything good!” Makoto begged her to stop.

  She wanted to break through to her, tear away all the layers of pain and hatred that had sustained her all these years, and get to the real Aranagi Shinso, who was gradually turning into the monster she wanted to destroy.

  "Tsk, what do you know? You have no right to say such things. Take off your rose-colored glasses and look at the world for what it really is! How safe do you think the ability development program really is?! What had to be done to make it more or less palatable? How many people have died for this, and how many more will die? Without knowing this, without having any idea how I feel, what it's like to hold the mutilated body of the one you love most, you have no right to dictate how I should feel! You don't know a damn thing about it!"

  All the malice, all the hatred and contempt came out. And it wasn't even the increased nervousness from being connected to the network that was to blame, but the emotions that had built up over years of despair.

  Now, in her eyes, Suoh and Makoto were the same. They were all hypocrites. Suoh acted as if he had already forgotten the pain that could not be forgotten under any circumstances. And Makoto spoke from the position of someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who didn't have to tear their body apart because of an inherent predisposition to development.

  “I don't understand,” Makoto whispered. "And I can't hope to understand. I can't understand the pain you feel, but I understand. I understand hatred and despair. And I have no right to ask you to give them up completely, because you have lived only with them all these years. But just because you pushed everyone away from yourself in order to get revenge, building an insurmountable wall, doesn't mean you're alone. There are other people who don't want to leave you alone!"

  Makoto's words, which tried to convey such a simple but necessary idea, made Aranagi's teeth grind.

  She understood, she understood that with the passage of time, she was becoming no better than those she considered monsters in human form. But she couldn't stop, because once she had embarked on this path of self-destruction, she knew there would be no turning back.

  "Forty-seven times. That's how many times I requested assistance with the investigation. Forty-seven times I asked for access to the best computing and simulation devices they had. If they had given me access, I would have been able to find a cure, I would have been able to expose the atrocities they had been committing for years, I would have shown a mountain of corpses, and they would have been held accountable! Ignorance is not equal to innocence! And forty-seven times my pleas were rejected! Forty-seven times I was told that I had no evidence, simply because those I asked were dancing to the tune of Kosaku and Zero!

  Her desperate cry burned in my soul. Every cell in my body absorbed this endless anger, and I couldn't argue with it. She had every right to hate everyone and everything, because she wanted justice to be done more than anyone else.

  But personally, Minato felt a chill run down his spine at the mention of those two names, and his body trembled uncontrollably. The name Zero made his bile rise to his throat, and his nails dug so deeply into his skin that they drew blood. His very nature was turned inside out.

  “When fighting for something like this, morality is the last thing you need to think about! When fighting a monster, is it important to remain human? That's bloody nonsense! You surely understand that my words are true, do you not?!”

  It felt like she was only asking Suo, who had experienced this horror firsthand, but for the most part, her words were directed at Minato. And he understood that, because she glanced at him.

  He understood, and most likely would have felt the same way, so he didn't think he was in any position to object.

  All this time, Aranagi, kneeling on the ground, was not only pouring out her soul, but also stalling for time. Her native ability, accelerated regeneration, was enhanced by the power of dozens of minds. This helped her to neutralize the effect of paralyzing poison.

  Not wanting to talk anymore, Aranagi tapped her knee lightly. This sent a shockwave through the ground beneath them, causing the asphalt they were standing on to crack into many pieces, which, reinforced by the wind, flew around at a speed that turned small pebbles into armor-piercing grapeshot.

  Minato managed to react just moments before the impact, but his body acted on its own. So, he grabbed Makoto by the collar of her turtleneck and, covering her with his body, jumped back.

  Slightly embarrassed but quickly recovering, Makoto pulled several large pieces torn from the transport armor plates with her threads, creating a field shield. However, she didn't manage to do everything in time, and the thread stretching towards Suoh was thrown aside by the shock wave, while several dozen traumatic shells flew into Minato's back, taking the damage upon themselves.

  He could have sworn he felt a couple of cracks in his spine and his insides being crushed.

  Suoh fared the worst. Standing at the epicenter of the explosion, his body, reinforced with titanium plates and augmentations, was severely injured. If one were to compare the damage to his body to that of a human, one could say that half of his organs had been turned to mush and his bones had been shattered into dust.

  And yet, Aranagi was not going to stop. Her hand turned into a long drill that pierced Suoh's torso, creating a through hole in his stomach.

  The pain caused his hands to fail, and he dropped his gun. The agonizing pain was nothing compared to what he felt inside. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't kill the only part of him that made him human.

  He regretted it, but at the same time he was glad. Euphorically glad that he couldn't bring himself to do it. That even though his body was artificial, his soul remained human. A soul that couldn't abandon the only person he loved.

  “I... couldn't...” Suoh croaked, gasping for air, looking at Aranagi, who was slowly realizing what she had done. “But these kids... they're really fucked in the head...”

  If Minato had heard him now, he would have laughed for sure. And Suoh wasn't sure he wanted to see or hear it, but he would put what little was left of his soul into him and Makoto.

  Leaving Aranagi confused, he fell onto his back, reluctantly entrusting his duty to two children who clearly had more courage than he did. Let him never dare say it out loud.

  The explosion created by Aranagi still echoed in Minato's ears, and his body was the only proof that he was still alive. But more than himself, he was concerned about the well-being of the girl he had shielded.

  “Are you alive, Arnie?” Minato asked hoarsely, feeling his own wounds.

  “You better take care of yourself! You took the hit!” she shouted nervously, trying to examine Minato's wounds despite his resistance. By this point, there was hardly any spot on him that wasn't injured.

  “I'll think about myself after we take out Aranagi. You heard her yourself, there's no point in talking to her right now. I have a plan, but it will require high stakes.” Minato said, flexing his fingers and setting his broken bones.

  “I guess you're suggesting we improvise for now? Okay, I'll cover your back, and you go to the front and do what you do best. Fight like King Kong!” Makoto said decisively, even though it was the first thing that came to her mind.

  “Well, thanks for the kind words!” Glancing at Aranagi, who was staring at them with a detached look, the look of someone who had nothing left to lose, Minato rushed back into battle, despite the terrible pain in every cell of his body.

  With no restraints but a weakened mental state, Aranagi was literally on the brink. She sent a flurry of stones flying at Minato, turning them into deadly projectiles flying at bullet speed.

  Aranagi's emotionality and impulsiveness made her attacks more predictable, allowing Minato to easily dodge the stones with the smoothness of a leaf dancing in the wind.

  Seeing the ineffectiveness of her attack, Aranagi stamped her heel on the ground. A large stone pillar rose from the ground directly under the remaining armored vehicle, and she launched it in an arc toward Minato, hoping to rain iron on him.

  To prevent an attack from the front, Aranagi set off hundreds of explosive fires, preventing Minato from getting any closer.

  Looking at the flying multi-ton projectile, Minato noticed the power lines, which the van would surely break under its weight. Clenching his fist in the air, he gave a non-verbal command to Makoto before veering left. Gaining enough speed, he ran along the wall, dodging the fireflies.

  Logically, she should have gone to intercept Minato, but controlling several abilities at once took all her strength, which is why she stood still every time she attacked.

  As soon as the wires broke under the weight of the multi-ton piece of metal, tongues of electricity burst from the exposed wires, giving Makoto a second signal. Cutting off one of the armor plates she used as a shield, she wrapped it in threads and, spinning it, launched it at the vehicle like a shot put.

  At high speed, piercing the gas tank, the armor plate opened the way for electric sparks, which jumped inside the tank and tore the special services' armored vehicle apart from the inside. A rain of scrap metal fell on Aranagi, which she had not anticipated, but she still blew up the fireflies before Minato had time to run far away.

  However, Minato's silhouette was not visible in the cloud of dust after the explosion, because he was already behind her, his body pressed to the ground, his legs kicked up in the air, adding momentum and aiming for her chest.

  But he lacked speed, and Aranagi magnetically pulled out a large piece of armored steel and pulled it toward her, bending it inside out and surrounding herself with it like a cocoon. Minato's blow hit this steel and only rebounded off his own leg.

  Given the precious moment to catch her breath, Aranagi realized how exhausted she really was. In the heat of battle, the mind does not pay as much attention to fatigue as it does in a moment of calm.

  She knew she had to find a way out and calm down, but she heard Minato's repeated blows on the armored steel and his indistinct cry. A second later, her steel cocoon was cut in half like a birthday cake. The cut was clean and precise, like a red-hot knife.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Makoto staring at her with a fierce look and a thread stretching from her wrist.

  Before she could recover, Minato pulled her out by her hair, and she felt as if he could rip it out at any moment, which prevented her from even breathing.

  Letting go of her hair and grabbing Aranagi's face with a death grip, he slammed her head into the ground with all his might.

  Since the brain is responsible for Special's work, it was most advantageous to strike the head to disrupt the ability. Anyone could understand such a banal truth. And although Aranagi protected her head from fatal wounds with weak ballistic protection, she could not extinguish all the beastly power of his blows.

  He slammed her head into the crumbled asphalt like a crazed berserker, sparing neither her nor his strength. It was as if he was pouring all the anger that had built up inside him onto her. For Aya-nee, for Tsuna, for everyone who had suffered from this damn serum.

  And Aranagi could do nothing. Only endure the incredible agony every time the back of her head was slammed into the asphalt. Her limbs were bound by Makoto's threads, and it was only a matter of time before she lost consciousness from the pain.

  All she needed was a single moment. A small, insignificant moment. A single moment separated this agony from salvation from the pain.

  Gathering all her strength, Aranagi waited for the moment when Minato lifted her head again to strike, and at that moment, she slammed her bound fist into the ground, and two earthen pillars squeezed Makoto's fragile legs in a stone embrace, breaking her bones and causing a piercing scream of pain.

  Pain that paralyzed her. That cracked both her kneecaps and shins. Even her thigh bones made a nasty crunch that made her feel as if someone had set her nerves on fire.

  “Arnie!”

  Makoto's painful cry distracted Minato from beating Aranagi, and he instinctively turned toward her. It was a mistake. The threads loosened their grip on her limbs, and Aranagi grabbed Minato's arm, putting all her strength into her ability to create cuts.

  Dozens of small but damn deep cuts covered Minato's arm. Each one cut through his arm to the bone, ignoring skin, muscle, nerves, and fat. She may have been weakened by the heavy blows, but she could still use her powers.

  Like a cornered beast that becomes more dangerous when cornered.

  Minato's reaction to the cuts was exactly what Aranagi had expected. He grabbed her by her clothes and threw her away from him, and she hit the ground a couple of times like a stone thrown into water.

  Forgetting Aranagi for a moment, Minato walked wearily over to Makoto and smashed the stones to pieces, freeing her bloodied and broken legs from their stone prison. It was impossible to look at them without grimace.

  Standing on her legs, which were as unsteady as those of a newborn puppy, Aranagi felt every cell in her body screaming in wild pain. If it weren't for her protection and increased resistance to pain, she would have died long ago.

  Everyone was wounded, everyone was on the verge of losing consciousness from the pain. But despite the pain, despite the injuries, Makoto's face was adorned with a smile, and Minato's face returned to its usual emptiness, as if a few seconds ago there had been no animalistic scowl there.

  They looked at her again, looked at her with arrogance, as if they knew how she felt. And she couldn't stand it. Each of them had one blow left, and Aranagi planned to deliver it. But when she tried to breathe even the slightest breeze from her nose and mouth, blood flowed from Aranagi like a stream. A wave of pain washed over her head, as if her skull were a small cube of ice that had been struck with an ice axe with all her might.

  “Here comes the rebound. Just as you planned,” Makoto said with a slight smile, leaning on Minato for balance. “Aranagi-san, as someone who has contributed greatly to the ability development program, you must know that even the use of a double ability by a person with first-class training and excellent genetics will cause exhaustion and excessive strain on the body.”

  “Not to mention the frequent use of a variety of abilities by an untrained person over a long period of time. My blows were also aimed at that.” Minato sighed wearily, like a seventy-year-old man. “It hurt, but the wounds I received more than justify the plan.”

  “Speak for yourself, I won't be able to get up tomorrow,” Makoto grumbled, tugging Minato's cheek.

  Leaning Makoto against a surviving stone pillar that pinned her legs, Minato slowly walked towards Aranagi, who was desperately trying to use at least one ability, causing herself only more pain. So strong was her unwillingness to lose everything she had achieved over the years.

  She tried to move at least her body, but it wouldn't obey her. If she didn't have her ability, it didn't matter. She would beat and kick until the bones turned to dust. When her limbs were torn off, she would bite if necessary, but she didn't want to lose everything like this.

  Minato slowly began to run. There were less than ten meters between him and Aranagi.

  Despite his insignificance, endless hesitation, and fear, which had caused everyone to be so badly injured, he wanted to help Aranagi. With all his rotten soul. But not by helping her commit suicide, bringing the blade of the guillotine down on her head. But by trying to help her say goodbye to the past and move on, despite the pain, despite the rejection of the very idea of giving up the fight for her justice.

  But he was not a savior. He couldn't bring the dead back to life, he couldn't turn back time, he couldn't erase grief. After all, he was only human, just like her. And so, he could help her by responding to violence with violence, fighting for what he believed in.

  “I'm sorry, but it's time to knock those damn ideals out of your head.”

  Minato's fist slammed into Aranagi's face, knocking her to the ground and sending her into the realm of Morpheus.

  He wanted to save her, to truly save her, like the hero every little child aspires to be. To protect her from pain and despair, from grief and loss.

  But he could only save her from herself.