Chapter 82: The Echo of Pain

Some wounds never heal.
They only learn to keep quiet.
But silence is not forgetting.
It is contained memory…
one that hides deep in the soul,
waiting for the moment to scream.
True pain is not cried out.
It hardens.
It turns into fury, into strength, into obsession.
And when it returns, it does not come back as a memory…
but as a living flame, impossible to extinguish.
Because there are echoes that do not die with time.
They only wait to be answered.
And when the past calls,
not everyone survives the reply.
——————————————————————————————————————————

A dense aura, like a scream in the dark, rose behind the hooded figure. It wasn’t energy… it was something older, darker. Something that should not exist in this world.

Yosa felt it on his skin.
“This guy… isn’t like anything I’ve faced before.”

He turned his head to his companion.
“Four-eyes, you’d better leave. This fight is too dangerous. I can’t promise we’ll both make it out alive.”

Juana shot him a murderous look.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she snapped. “I came here knowing exactly what this would be.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Shut up. And don’t get in my way. If anyone has to leave, it should be you. You won’t last long if you use your power.”

The white-haired youth ground his jaw.
“Shut up… I won’t lose to you, four-eyes.”

Both began to release their auras at the same time. Two opposing, complementary energies. Green and scarlet. Defense and offense. Endurance and fire.

“You better not die, Koala,” she said as the two launched forward.

The enemy waited… smiling. Two hands. One for each of them.

Both attacks were stopped instantly.
“More and more…” the stranger said. “Surprise me more, humans.”

His arms spun with brutal precision, and before they could react, he slammed their foreheads together. The impact was dry, direct, devastating.

Yosa’s and Juana’s bodies flew in opposite directions, crashing violently to the ground.

The enemy didn’t stop. Gathering energy in both hands, he formed two pulsating dark spheres threaded with spiraling red streaks. He threw them with obscene speed.

But the two warriors rose at the last second.
“Now!” Juana shouted.

They both sliced the attacks in half, creating a vortex of energy that disintegrated when it struck their combined auras.

Then… two blood-arrows. One hit each flank.

Both took the direct impact, opening new wounds across their bodies.

Yosa gasped, pain creasing his face.
“What the hell is this guy? Lightning, blood, energy… what else can he use? And how the hell is this even possible?”

Juana pressed a hand to her side.
“We have to use everything. If we keep going like this… he’ll kill us before we can do anything.”

“Come on, come on…” the enemy said, bored. “You’re boring me.”

“Koala!” Juana screamed.
“Okay!”

Yosa’s green energy exploded around him like a swirling jungle wave. Grey tufts of fur sprouted from his back. His nails lengthened into claws. His pupils narrowed.

“Lack: Koala.”

The transformation completed in an instant. His hybrid form radiated weight and authority.

“So sleepy…” he muttered, as if nothing really mattered.

Juana watched him with full concentration.
“Right now, we have the best defense. If he even tries—”

She didn’t finish the thought.

The stranger appeared right in front of her with a maniacal grin.

But before he could touch her, Yosa flashed in like lightning.

His fist struck the enemy square in the torso, sending him flying backward with a force that shook the entire forest.

Trees exploded one after another.

“So sleepy…” Yosa repeated, scratching his neck.

Willoc—or whatever that creature was—rose again. Three claw marks were perfectly etched across his face.

And he was smiling.

“Yes… yes… that’s what I want.”

Juana’s mind raced.
“We need a battle of attrition. In this form, we have all the advantage. It’s only a matter of time… we just have to hold out until the captain finishes his fight.”

But the enemy had no intention of letting them win through endurance.

He appeared behind Yosa, striking for a blind spot. But the young man reacted instantly, twisting his body and slamming a punch into the enemy’s stomach, knocking the air out of him.

And not just that—
Yosa’s claws sank deep into his chest. Blood poured like a fountain.

The stranger staggered back, coughing blood with a strange mixture of pain and ecstasy.

“Yes… this feeling… I’d forgotten it… this sensation…”

The creature was covered in wounds. But instead of retreating—he laughed.

A wild, deranged laugh.

“How fun! Truly fun! So much fun!”

His aura exploded—dense, dark, crushing.

And then… something unthinkable happened.

From his mouth began to emerge… a sword.

A black blade, stained with dried blood, sliding out as if his throat itself were a cursed forge.

Juana stepped back, horrified.
“What the hell…?”

Yosa froze.
“That sword…”

The stranger grasped it between his fingers. And smiled.
“Die.”

He lunged with fury.
“Yosa!”

Juana moved to intercept.

The blade sliced through her violently. Her body hit the ground, drenched in blood.

The enemy looked down at her.
“Well, well… you people just keep surprising me.”

Yosa stood silent. His breathing trembled.

His eyes locked on the black blade that had pierced his partner.
“That sword…”

Seven years ago...

Shun’s voice arrived weighted, impossible to hide.
“I’m sorry...”

Yosa didn’t react at first.
But denial was inevitable.
“It has to be a lie... that can’t be—”

“I’m sorry,” Shun repeated, lowering his gaze. “We couldn’t find his body after the battle. Even if he survived… he couldn’t have gotten far. Because that place...”

The image hit like a stab.
A cave. Blood everywhere. Spattered on the walls. Pooled on the ground. Soaked into the stone.

“It can’t be…” Yosa murmured. “The master… he couldn’t—”

Beside him, Tiresias folded his arms, solemn.
“We’ll send more expeditions to the site. We’ll make sure to find him. Dead or alive.”

Yosa nodded but did not answer. Something inside him had gone out.

•

A few meters away, Shun and Tiresias stepped aside to speak in low voices.
“Is it really possible for someone to vanish like that, without a trace?” Tiresias asked, brow furrowed.

Shun crossed his arms.
“The only way would be an attack too powerful to imagine. But there was no sign of anything like that. If someone had used a technique of that caliber, that cave would have collapsed completely.”

“I see...”

Shun lowered his voice.
“I knew it was a dangerous mission. After all, we’re talking about the Black Lights… but I didn’t expect something like this.”

“The whole squad?”

“Yes. The entire unit Kagutsuchi led died. Including him… or at least, that’s what we believe.”

They fell silent.
Images of the shredded bodies were still fresh: soldiers without limbs, others with flesh torn and crushed beyond recognition.

“That…” Shun looked away. “It didn’t look like the work of a human.”

“The only thing we can do,” Tiresias said through clenched teeth, “is wait until we find the bastard who did this… and beat him to a pulp.”

Shun nodded slowly.
“And the boy?”

“Yosa?”

“I don’t think he can get past this on his own…”

Tiresias regarded him with some surprise.
“I’m surprised you care about someone other than yourself.”

Shun let out a small smile.
“Who knows why...”

Tiresias turned to the young man, who sat on the ground at that moment, unmoving, glassy-eyed and with a hollow expression. Tears streamed down his face though he did not even blink.

“I’ll take care of him,” Tiresias said at last. “Kagutsuchi always spoke highly of him. He said he had enormous potential. I think he’ll go far.”

“Thank you,” Shun replied. “I entrust him to you.”

“All right.”

•

Yosa remembered everything.
The cold.
The blood.
The absence.

“At that moment… I didn’t know what to do,” he thought now, watching that sword in the enemy’s hand.

“I lost my master. The one who was like a father to me. The one who cared for me since I was a child. The one who taught me how to live, to fight, to think.”

After his disappearance, it was Tiresias who took his place. He taught him to maximize his qualities. To master his power. To survive.

“I literally owe my life to him too. He saved me when I was on the verge of dying from my ability losing control…”

And yet… even with all the support, with all the time, with all the growth…
there was something that did not change.

“In my head there was only one question: Who the hell took away the person I loved most?”

Training after training. Day after day. Tear after tear.
It always came back to the same thing.

“The day I found him… I would make him pay. For everything. For every single drop of pain.”

Seven years passed.
No answer.
No body.
No culprit.
Only the void.

Until now.

“That sword…”
“I would recognize it anywhere. At any distance. In any form.”
“That sword is Kagutsuchi’s.”

Present.

The sword trembled in the enemy’s hands. Its blade seemed to laugh with every drop of blood that fell from Juana.
Yosa could not take his eyes off it.

The other smiled cynically, reading his expression as if he were rifling through his soul.
“What’s wrong? Why that face…? Have you given up?”

His voice sounded too satisfied. Too comfortable.

Yosa ground his teeth.
“You… where did you get that sword?”

The enemy tilted his head, feigning surprise.
“Well… looks like you knew its previous wielder, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” the young man snarled, his gaze fixed like blades. “I asked you a question.”

The stranger didn’t answer in words at first.
He began slowly tearing the skin of his own face, leaving irregular lines across his flesh.

His body trembled… with ecstasy.
“Yes… I still remember his screams of suffering. They were truly beautiful…”

A tremor ran through Yosa’s body.
“His bones… breaking. That cracking… The sound of his skin tearing…”

The stranger closed his eyes, remembering.
Then he opened them.

The face that emerged beneath was not his.
It was Kagutsuchi’s.

The expression…
Eyes full of tears, of pain, of surrender.
His master’s face, imposed like a blasphemous mask.

Yosa froze. He did not breathe. He did not think. He only… watched.

“Yes… that… that is what I wanted,” the enemy muttered with a smile on the verge of madness. “To see that look again. I like it… I like it.”

Yosa’s breathing became ragged.
“Master… old man… four-eyes… I’m sorry.”

Juana’s voice was barely audible behind him.
“Yosa…”

But it was already too late.

His eyes had gone cold.
“Filthy monster… I will kill you.”

An explosion of energy burst from his back like a hurricane. The ground trembled. The clouds split. The earth cracked beneath his feet.

“I promised I would never use this power again…” he thought as the transformation began.
“But I have no choice. Juana won’t hold out much longer…
And I have the bastard who stole my master right in front of me.
I don’t care if I don’t walk out of this alive…
I will wipe him out.”

His muscles swelled, his bones tightened. His skin hardened like bark. His nose flattened. Fur multiplied. The air around him vibrated.

“Sorry, Juana… I could never tell you the truth about how I feel.
I’m sorry.”

“Yes, yes!” the enemy shouted, delirious. “Entertain me more!”

•

Kilometers away, Tiresias looked up.
A current of power swept through the whole forest.
“Don’t tell me that—”

He couldn’t finish. A shadow appeared before him.
“Don’t look away, old man,” said Unknown 39, raising his arm.
Tiresias blocked the blow and stumbled back a few steps.
“Hold on a little longer, Yosa… please.”

•

Back on the field, Unknown 59 lunged toward Yosa with brutal speed, confident.
“He’s gotten bigger… that makes him slower,” he thought as he descended with his fist forward— “I only have to—”

Crack.

A direct blow buried him in the ground with such force the terrain split beneath his feet. The earth shook.
Yosa roared. A primitive scream. Painful. Bestial.
The whole forest heard it.

And then… the blows began.
One after another. Relentless. Without rhythm. Without strategy.
Only fury.

The enemy’s body was driven down, crushed, deformed.
Juana, on the ground, tried to push herself up. Her gaze trembled.
“He’s really strong… but… something’s wrong. I don’t know what… but something doesn’t add up…”

The massacre stopped.
The field was soaked with blood. Trees uprooted. Rocks shattered into a thousand pieces.
The enemy lay beneath the weight of earth, formless.

“I won,” Yosa thought, breathing hard.

But then… the laughter.
High. Broken. Horrible.
“What…?”

Yosa raised his arm to finish him.
But the fist was stopped… by a disfigured hand.

The enemy lifted his head. His body was destroyed, bones exposed, flesh broken…
And yet… he smiled.
“I wasn’t wrong,” he said between laughs. “You are truly interesting. Although… I think I underestimated you a bit, human.”

“Therefore…”

His body began to rebuild. Bone by bone. Flesh by flesh. Nerve by nerve.
“I will give you the honor…”

Skin fell away like a layer of ash.
New limbs sprouted from his body: long, black, unnatural.
Each one ended in thin, blade-like fingers.

His form was no longer human.
It was a creature.
A nightmare.
Eyes completely white, without irises.
A body without symmetry.
A power without a soul.

“This is…”
“My true power.”

The monster rose in full.
“I will devour every last centimeter of you, human.”