--Sunday, August 2, 2172

Suddenly, everyone present in the Pussycats’ forest had the same strange premonition that made them stop dead in their tracks. Regardless of where they were or what they were doing, each and every one of them turned to look at the same spot in the middle of the forest. Upon doing so, no matter what obstructed their vision, all of them somehow managed to see a strange, dark humanoid figure sitting in a lotus position begin to rise.

As it rose, the strange humanoid figure opened its eyes, revealing piercing blue eyes that gazed down upon everything and everyone, brimming with wrath and contempt. Arrogant—infinitely arrogant—was the only possible way to describe that strange figure, which opened its mouth to utter a few words. But though no one could hear them with their ears, from the deepest depths of their being, from their very soul, a cold, authoritative, and infinitely arrogant voice resonated, making them shudder.

"You’re dead."

With those words, the figure vanished, and the world changed. Suddenly, a hurricane-force wind burst outward in every direction from the center of the forest, uprooting trees clean off and threatening to send everything flying. At the same time, dark purple electrical bolts—almost entirely black—flashed from the forest in every direction for kilometers, and the ground gave way, cracking apart and rising into the air.

"What’s happening?! Is this the enemy’s quirk?!!"

Clinging to an enormous chunk of earth rising into the air, Aizawa shouted the question aloud while fighting against the hurricane winds to look, with his quirk active, toward the place where he’d seen the strange figure. But his quirk was useless, as the destruction continued uninterrupted while the sky filled with dark storm clouds exchanging terrifying electrical bolts.

[Pixie-Bob, Ragdoll! Get the students to the bunker! I’ll go with Chatora!]

[[Understood!!]]

At that moment, Mandalay’s voice resonated in the minds of all the heroes, followed closely by the solemn response of the Pussycats. In that instant, Aizawa took advantage of the mental link that had formed and asked urgently.

[Mandalay! What’s going on?! Do you know something?!]

[It’s Kai. He’s angry.]

Mandalay replied solemnly as red armor with patterns resembling a combination of electronic circuitry and geometric runes covered her body. As an expression of disbelief formed on Aizawa’s face, Shino flew off at great speed toward the forest, concern written across her face.

...

...

...

"You’re dead."

Upon hearing Sage, Kai’s expression twisted into one filled with rage as he spoke in a deep, grave voice while his Conqueror’s Haki unleashed itself uncontrollably in every direction. As the world seemed to crumble, several figures dressed in black collapsed to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut, while the few who managed to stay on their feet moved with solemn expressions.

Immediately, Salem leaped from Kai’s shoulder, roaring menacingly as he grew in size, at which point the eight people still standing jumped backward. In midair, the figures injected something into their necks, and their bodies began to convulse strangely—at that moment, one of the figures’ masks broke. Without the mask, the stranger opened his mouth disproportionately wide, almost like a snake, while another figure extended their hands outward.

Simultaneously, three other figures grew enormously in size, tearing through their clothing and revealing skin of a metallic black color. Meanwhile, the heads of two others grew disproportionately large, while the last one began moving strangely before splitting into two as if undergoing mitosis. Immediately after, the divisions split again, initiating a process of exponential multiplication at a terrifying speed.

For his part, Kai appeared behind one of the three people transforming into giant black monsters—somewhat similar to Nomus but more human—and launched a slash at its neck. At the same time, Salem appeared right above one of the figures with disproportionately large heads, but at that moment both the cat and his master widened their eyes in disbelief.

Kai felt his body become trapped in midair with no possibility of movement, the instant he felt his swords escape from his hands. Simultaneously, Salem and Tama cried out in pain as they desperately tried to cover their ears. With a cold expression, Kai gripped the sword that materialized in his hand—the Will Keeper—regaining his mobility, and soon appeared behind the man with the enormous mouth.

Gripping tightly the sword being pulled toward another location, Kai launched a stab at the temple of the big-mouthed man. But to his disbelief, the man somehow managed to dodge at the last moment by mere millimeters, ending up with only a small cut on the side of his head.

At the same time, the three metallic-black monsters reached a height of at least six meters, at which point they stomped the ground hard, making the earth tremble. Looking up, Kai could see all three monsters open their mouths simultaneously and begin accumulating energy of different colors.

As the air around him grew even more erratic, whipping his hair violently, Kai looked at the now hundreds of copies of the self-replicating man and addressed his trusted assistant. All the while, he held tightly onto the Will Keeper, which wanted to fly from his hands, moving erratically.

[Mental interference, remote physical manipulation, ultrasound, enhanced reflexes, impact absorption, super strength, super speed, hardened skin, electromagnetic manipulation, ranged energy attacks, and ’fodder’ to keep support away... They studied us very well... How’s everything at home?]

[I am currently repelling electronic warfare attacks, master. Nemuri and Nejire are preparing for battle, and the basic defenses have already achieved six casualties. For now, everything is under control.] The beautiful fairy responded with a cold expression, eyeing the attackers with murderous intent as her wings changed color at high speed. Kai nodded and ordered with gravity.

[Move the satellites away and create distractions for the others. We’re going to finish this.]

[Immediately, Master.] Sage replied in a cold tone as her dress began to transform into full-body plate armor that accentuated her feminine figure.

At the same time, Kai—who saw everything moving in slow motion—moved his hand to aim the dagger Will Keeper at the big-mouthed man, who was barely finishing his dodge. Simultaneously, Kai looked at the man with outstretched hands, concentrated his Conqueror’s Haki on him, and generated a powerful electromagnetic field in his hand.

Like a supersonic missile, the Will Keeper pierced through the man’s mouth and throat, which prompted Tama and Salem to roar in relief. As an expression of disbelief formed on the face of the man with the ability to control electromagnetic fields, Kai called out in a cold voice as he felt himself losing control of his body again.

"Tama."

At Kai’s call, the beautiful white cat meowed toward the sky with visible fury, causing the air to ripple like a pond and her white aura to shoot outward in every direction. Soon, the white aura began forming various types of swords and what appeared to be large, armored feline guards. At the same time, the aura enveloped Tama to create a version of herself the same size as Salem, wearing a crown and mantle, with her at the center.

At that moment, the three giants fired their attacks while large quantities of Tama’s aura gathered to create three enormous barriers held up by giant cat guards. Simultaneously, Salem roared into the air with force, sending his electrical bolts shooting in every direction along with strands of his fur, which transformed into swords and exact copies of himself.

As the bolts struck the illusory aura barriers head-on, Kai—holding a new, restless Will Keeper—pulled a container from his pocket, from which he took a half-white, half-black pill. He swallowed it before picking up a white aura sword from the ground. Though the sword appeared illusory, as if made of smoke—just like the barriers—it was perfectly tangible.

In that instant, as if the pill had taken effect, electrical arcs similar to Salem’s surrounded Kai on all sides. Soon, his hair rose against gravity, his eyes began emitting an electrical glow, and thick electrical arcs flashed across different parts of his body. This gave him the appearance of an enraged thunder god enveloped in an electric aura. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"Salem."

At Kai’s call, he and the giant panther vanished from sight, only to appear behind those with disproportionately large heads, both holding beautiful black daggers in their hand and mouth, respectively, the Will Keeper. Mere instants after appearing, the cat-and-master pair vanished again, reappearing in front of two of the giants firing at the white aura barriers.

As the men with disproportionately large heads fell to the ground without limbs, Kai and Salem attacked the two giants with their swords and claws, creating devastating, large-scale flying slashes. On impact, the pair of giants were sent flying backward as massive amounts of blood began to rain down, at which point Kai and Salem prepared to finish off the last one.

"How terrifying... They really didn’t exaggerate one bit. No, perhaps they fell short. You truly are an authentic monster, Saito Kai."

But right at that moment, a deep, heavy feminine voice with a playful tone rang out, prompting Kai to look sharply in the direction of the sound. As if stepping through the void itself, a figure appeared out of nowhere, rippling the air like a pond, revealing herself as a tall, blonde woman with sharp features and an aquiline nose that gave her a "wild" kind of allure.

"So it’s you."

Upon seeing the woman, a predatory smile brimming with euphoria and infinite killing intent formed on Kai’s face. The moment the woman appeared, as if she were some kind of switch, Kai could suddenly feel the "voice" of every attacker, which told him everything he needed to know. That woman was the key to the strange event and was in all probability connected to the terrorist attack against his parents.

"It seems you have a little misunderstanding, but it doesn’t matter. You’re not too far from the truth anyway."

Hearing Kai, the woman commented with a playful, provocative smile. But right at that moment, her expression turned sharp, and she looked down. There stood Kai with a terrifying smile, his eyes blazing with an electrical light, surrounded by thick electrical arcs, and holding two heavy jet-black Jian swords.

"Don’t worry. You’ll explain everything to me soon enough."

As the woman tried to step back with a grave expression, she could suddenly hear Kai’s voice almost whispering in her ear, which made her clench her teeth and release a powerful light. The light soon became a brutal explosion that sent everything flying, while the woman rose into the sky through the smoke—a position she used to survey the battlefield.

As the pair of monsters attacked moments before landed on the ground, the woman could see the strange armored white aura guards and the giant panthers with blue eyes engaging the multiple copies of her man.

At the same time, the original blue-eyed panther was driving back the last standing giant, while the white cat—wrapped in a large, majestic version of herself created by the white aura—was tearing apart the one with the electromagnetic manipulation quirk as if he were a mouse.

"What the hell are those cats...?" The woman couldn’t help but mutter in disbelief, at which moment a dark electrical flash sparked in front of her, forcing her to shield herself and convert her entire body into light.

"They’re my adorable pets."

Again, the woman could hear a voice whispering in her ear, but before she could even process it, she was sent hurtling backward at a terrifying speed as a stab of pain shot through her entire body. But even though the pain was nearly incapacitating, the woman of light couldn’t help but stare at the young thunder god in the air with absolute disbelief, a single question written across her face.

(How?)

...

...

...

"What does Saito feed those ’cats’... They get more terrifying every time..."

In the middle of the forest, Todoroki couldn’t help but mutter in disbelief as he watched the aura barriers stop the giant lasers. But soon his gaze turned focused as he saw several slightly monstrous humanoid figures—like Nomus, but more human—come running out from among the trees. Moving his right hand, Todoroki froze everything in his path to encase the strange, monstrous figures.

"What?!"

But to his surprise, as if they were ghosts, the figures passed through the ice and materialized in front of him, prompting him to exclaim in disbelief as his fire activated instinctively to protect him. Even so, the enormous claws of the monstrous figures drew dangerously close to his face, but just before they reached his eye, the figures froze in place and a feminine voice resonated in his mind.

[Todoroki! Fall back toward the camp immediately!]

[Understood, Mandalay!] Todoroki replied with gravity through the telepathic link, simultaneously unleashing a brutal explosion that sent all the monsters flying.

Then, Todoroki created an explosion beneath his feet to launch himself into the sky, but while airborne, he watched in disbelief as the monsters split and multiplied in midair before rocketing toward him with bursts of air. Alarmed, Todoroki activated his ice and flames simultaneously, ready to engage in an aerial battle while gritting his teeth.

But to his surprise, at that moment, what appeared to be armored panthers made of a strange white aura emerged from the forest and leaped at the now nearly twenty monsters. Simultaneously, the earth moved on its own, forming terrifying beasts of metallic earth that jumped toward him as Mandalay’s voice resonated in his head once more.

[The earth beasts will escort you! Move fast! The situation is deteriorating rapidly thanks to that strange self-replicating monster!]

[Understood!] Todoroki replied gravely, and soon he began running alongside the earth beasts with everything he had.

***

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