There were a couple of Hybrids who saw the entire thing, and they quietly scooted off as harmlessly as they could just so they wouldn’t incur Ayaka’s wrath upon themselves. They knew that once the Blood Art got the better of someone, they had the tendency to go wild and hurt everyone around them.

Upon seeing what happened to Ayaka, Kazuichi wasn’t surprised at all. Although it took him a couple of hours and even then he could barely control the Blood Art. He was a genius, or so that’s what he thought, but he didn’t expect Ayaka to be worse off than him.

She just used her Blood Art for a couple of minutes and now she had become feral. One mistake and it could literally cost her her title as a Hybrid. After all, it only takes one bite to the uninfected for someone to go mindless... and in the middle of everything, there were Shig and Tris who were totally uninfected.

"Oi~! Ayaka, don’t joke like that." Kazuichi muttered but he knew Ayaka couldn’t listen to him. Her mind had been shut off, and everything that fueled her system was her primal instincts.

In a flash, she lashed out at Kazuichi with her blade-like arms, and then she turned around in mid-air, hoping to stab Kazuichi through the heart with one blow. All this time she was gritting her teeth, baring her fangs at Kazuichi while her eyes turned even more bloodshot.

Inwardly, Kazuichi thanked Arisu for training her that day. He knew that she only did that to one-sidedly beat him up and express her frustrations since he was gone for a long time... but deep down, it really helped him when it came to controlling his Blood Art, as well as utilizing it against a stronger opponent.

"Geh~!" Kazuichi exhaled as Ayaka’s blade arms almost pierced his lungs. Fortunately, he sidestepped and parried her blade arms with his muscly arms (author’s note: I have no idea what to call them heuheu)

Not sparing a single second, Kazuichi used his right hand to get a good grip on Ayaka’s other blade arm, which she clocked right before her strike. Surprised, Ayaka tried to step back, but Kazuichi pulled her towards him even though her blade cut through his palm, making it bleed profusely.

"Kugh~!" Kazuichi flinched in pain, but he didn’t let go of the grip. Right now, what he set out to do was bring her nearer and trap her in his embrace. That way, she’d have time to calm down and turn her Blood Arts down a notch.

Kazuichi knew what going out of control felt like, and he also knew that the most effective way of calming someone down was to pin that person so they could have time to think and breathe. Right now, Ayaka was certainly not having enough of those things.

However, before Kazuichi could trap Ayaka, he felt like she was about to do something dangerous, and so he inadvertently let go of his grip and backed away.

That’s when Ayaka’s arms ballooned in size, and she delivered a punch right at Kazuichi’s solar plexus.

’I... I can’t dodge it!’ Kazuichi screamed in his head, bringing his hand up to guard for the punch.

But Ayaka knew better. Despite her brain being taken over by the virus (not completely) she had enough rationality to fight better than Kazuichi. Then again, her combat capabilities were much better than Kazuichi’s since she wasn’t new to the game.

Right before her ballooned-up arms could hit Kazuichi’s guard, it reverted to its blade form, and it slipped past his guard and onto his heart.

If it weren’t for Kazuichi’s heightened senses and reaction speed, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge it. Thankfully, he stepped back in time and repositioned himself slightly to the left as soon as he touched the ground.

Pierce~!

Well, the blade still pierced him, but it went straight through the gap between his lungs. It did destroy his sternum, but it would heal, right? RIGHT?!

Kazuichi coughed up a mouthful of blood and once again grabbed Ayaka by his hands. At this point, he was too weak to even get a grip on it, and with the auction about to commence, he didn’t have the luxury to hug her for who knows how long just to calm her down.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as Ayaka brought up her free hand, transformed it into its blade form, and then proceeded to stab Kazuichi with it. Memories played in Kazuichi’s mind, and he instantly remembered what Arisu told her.

The shock factor.

Should all else fail, and someone who had activated his or her Blood Art is on a rampage... and there was absolutely no chance he or she could be calmed down through normal means... then there was always the shock factor.

For instance, yelling out to someone that you like her, or telling him that his breath stinks— those kinds of shock factors.

But Kazuichi didn’t know that. All the shock factors he knew were on the extreme side of things. Like getting bitten by a Hybrid, seeing a woman with a detached arm right on his doorstep... or a sudden kiss. Those were great shock factors, and always effective.

Since Kazuichi was pinned to the ground with Ayaka’s blade arms, there was little to nothing he could do. He couldn’t bite her, because that would just be another form of attack, not a shock factor. He couldn’t detach his right arm and show it to her, there was literally no point in doing that aside from injuring himself... and he would die at this rate so what was the point of an injury?

So Kazuichi went for the third option.

Before Ayaka could stab him with her second blade arm, Kazuichi parried it and then grabbed Ayaka by the neck. He then pulled her towards him as fast as he could, so she wouldn’t have time to recover. While it made the stab in his chest go a little deeper, he didn’t mind it at all.

He went in for the kiss, or rather, he pulled Ayaka’s neck and she was forced to a kiss. Technically, she went for the kiss, but Kazuichi assisted her big time.

Mmph~!

Ayaka’s pupils dilated, and then her eyes returned to normal. Her blade-like arms also retracted as well and reverted back to their normal hands.

"Hbhh ubh cbhh dbhh nbh?" Kazuichi asked if she had calmed down mid-kiss.

In response, Ayaka nodded her head, mid-kiss as well. And just for good measure, she slipped in her tongue to return the shock factor to Kazuichi. It was also a way to thank him, and a weird one at that.

"MMPH!" Kazuichi exclaimed.