~Chapter 2~

Akira was seeing a bloody battle. A group of teenagers dressing in exotic and weird costumes was facing against a monstrous mechanical monster. It rained down destructive beams that pulverized them and after a moment of resolution, one of the teens stood up and gathered strength into his hand and called forth an equally gigantic monster.

"Is that…me?"

Though bloodied and swollen, Akira could confirm the identity of the boy calling the black winged. It was him.

"!"

Akira shot up from his bed, sweats drenching his forehead and shirt. Every time he had that dream, his head hurt like hell and according to his foster mother, his eyes changed to completely blood red and he became furious for no reason. He had learnt to keep his mind calm all the time so when it happened, he would be angry at best.

"What the?"

Akira felt an earthquake. Having a bad hunch, he quickly changed to his uniform and took the Wakizashi before leaving his room to upstairs. The shaking was getting worse when he arrived at the first floor. He was shocked to silhouettes of demons outside the theater.

"They sure choose a good time to attack." Akira cursed as he made a run to the entrance and found that a pack of Koumas were destroying vehicles and street lights. Luckily, they were too occupied to notice him quietly approaching him via the wreckages. He was panting in anticipation as he was near one unaware demon. A Kouma's weakest body part should be its belly so he had to wait until it turned around for him. Akira twirled the wakizashi and held it in reverse grip before leaping towards the demon.

"CHESTOOOOOO!"

Akira roared as he brought down the sword, leaving a long gash on the Kouma. It screeched in pain before bursting into purple smoke. It was his first ever kill but unfortunately, this alerted the other demons as they began to flock around him. He rolled to the side as a sphere of acid was spat out from one of them. Trusting his instinct, Akira thrust the wakizashi forward and impaled the attacker before using its pain to get pass it.

"Damn it, of all the time, my first day at work too!" He shouted while running as fast as he could. He silently blamed his stupidity and overconfidence for this shit. A Kouma landed before him and almost sliced his face off with its claws. He abruptly turned right and continued his run until he hit a dead end. Akira turned around to see the demons slowly approaching him like predators to their prey.

"I…I…" The Koumas were closer with their fangs drenching with saliva. "I…won't die…in a place like THIS!"

*Thud*

Akira was cut short as a Kouma brought its claws to his abdomen and then retracted them from him, causing a stream of blood trailing in the air. He fell on his knees and stared at the bleeding gap with horror. The Kouma seemed to be laughing at its work as its jaws opened wide, preparing to devour him. Akira finally resigned to his fate as his vision was getting blurry and his strength was gone. The last thing he could see was four bulky machines before fainting.

"We were too late." Maria Tachibana said quietly in her Koubu as she looked at the motionless body of Akira Ishikawa. She and the other Hanagumi members were informed of him by Commander Yoneda, who thought that he had the 'potential'. While Sumire immediately dismissed the idea, the general presented a chart that the hidden sensor in Akira's room had recorded. It showed an absurd high rate of energy even though it could not identify whether it was Reiroku (Spiritual Power) or something else.

Half an hour ago, they were mobilized as signals of Koumas outside the Great Imperial Theater were detected along with Ishikawa's. It seemed that the man was foolish enough to take them on by himself. Foolish, but brave, Maria would give him that. They observed his first kill and even Sumire was impressed. And then things got worse so they got into their machines and moved out. And now they arrived at Ginza and were forced to witness his demise. So much for the soon-to-be comrade, she lamented.

"…Let's call the medic team and return. We can't do anything about him." Sumire said simply. She might look like she didn't affect but deep inside, she actually knew Akira well and was greatly upset at his death. But she wouldn't show it, as she was the Theater's Top Star. Then her sensor picked up something. A pillar of blue flames rose up from where the corpse was.

"What…the...?"

"…So dark. Iris can see it." Iris whispered from her yellow Koubu, her voice trembling with fear. "Demon…"

"Demon? What are you talking about, Iris?!" Kanna inquired before she saw it. From the pillar, a huge humanoid shadow emerged. It had a pair of black feathered wings; most of its attire was red and black, which looked like a French suit with a tall hat. But what made it look so horrific was a pair of long horns and its vicious, demonic face with burning eyes and jaws. It appeared to be chained to something within the flames.

"Everyone, do not let down your guard." Maria issued order. The flames soon died and revealed…Ishikawa? But gone was his worker's uniform and replacing it was a dark ankle-length tailcoat with four 'tails', a dark silver high-necked waistcoat with gold accents, black pants and red gloves. The chains from the monster were attached to his limbs and there was a crazed smirk on his face, not to mention his eerie yellow eyes.

"Ishi…kawa…san?" Sumire muttered before getting hit by a dark energy sphere. While it was not too dangerous, the blast pushed her backward. Maria widened her eyes at the speed of the projectile from the monster's hand before aiming her gun reluctantly at Akira.

"Don't make me do this, Ishikawa!" She shouted. Akira's smirk spread more as he pulled a revolver (a S&W 500 Magnum with 10.5" barrel) from the holster on his left waist and fired, forcing Maria to press the trigger. She was shocked to see the bullet from Akira's gun shatter her Reiroku-empowered one and blew up her Koubu's left arm.

"You bastard!" Kanna rushed at him with her Koubu's fist raised but it was caught effortlessly by the monster before the latter threw her away like a ragdoll. Suddenly, Akira dropped the smirk and his expression turned furious as he snapped his head to the sky.

"ARSENE!" He screamed as the monster, Arsene, sent crescent-shaped waves from its hand to the incoming Koumas. Akira himself also took aim and shot down the demons as well. Needless to say, the Hanagumi took the clue and joined with him.

…

The fight went on without troubles as Akira was able to calm his mind and switched his targets to the Koumas. In truth, Akira Ishikawa was 'dead' and the fragment of Akira Kurusu was in control. However, without the other pieces, the fragment could only act on instinct according to the previous owner of the body's memories. During its awakening, 'Kurusu' intended to kill everything in sight but after few minutes of adjustment, it set [Kouma] and [Steam Beast] as priority targets. Its mental detection spotted another pack of Koumas flying towards the group so it acted.

'This is not Metaverse but I can summon my rebellious side and Arsene.' Kurusu mused while pressing the trigger rapidly. 'And I can shoot indefinitely as long as my SP is plentiful. What's going on?'

"Ah!"

He heard scream. A purple robot was getting swarmed by the demons and for some reasons, the body urged him to protect her.

"Arsene, Maeigaon!"

Arsene placed its hand on the ground as multiple geysers of darkness erupted and consumed the Koumas. Kurusu himself ran to the robot and unloaded an Almighty-type bullet at the last one point-blanked to prevent it from tearing the machine's faceplate.

"Ishikawa-san…Thank you."

"…"

He didn't have the knowledge of the pilot but somehow her voice seemed to trigger something in his mind. He suspected it had something to with 'Ashikawa' but decided to put it aside as he drew the wakizashi and proceeded to cut down the remaining demons.

"Playtime's over! All Out Attack!"

Sword and gun ready, Kurusu made a leap towards the Koumas and started firing/slashing in frenzy before exiting with a dramatic pose (holding the wakizashi across his face and gun pointing to the spectators) as blood bursting out from the demons' wounds. The Hanagumi was completely silent until the yellow Koubu clapped at him and the pilot squealed.

"Wai wai, oniichan is so cool!"

Kurusu bowed lightly at the compliment with Arsene tipping its hat. He spun the revolver a few times before holstering it.

"Heh, show off." Kanna grinned in her cockpit.

"Ara, splendid performance I must say there, Ishikawa-san. Ohohoho" Sumire laughed before widening her eyes in horror. Kurusu was clutching his chest as his costume reverted to his Theater worker one and the gap earlier was there. He had a restrained expression of being hurt immensely but still managed to grin when he dropped to his knees and collapsed.

"Quick, get him back to the base!" Maria shouted.

"Hmm…" Yoneda stared at the display screen showing statistics of the battle involving Akira. The young man had everything qualified to join his squad but the one-sided battle prove that he had a serious mental disease.

"Commander, the Hanagumi has returned with Ashikawa." Ayame informed.

"Good, get him to the infirmary quickly."

It would seem that Akira Ishikawa needed further observation. Nonetheless, his power was not to be wasted. He would have to ask the Kanzaki Industries scientists to help him determine whether his mysterious yet destructive power was compatible with the Koubu or not.

"…Are you satisfied?" Aoi Satan sneered at the foreigner, who was clapping pleasantly at the scene. There was something wrong, very wrong, about this man. His presence along caused the Koumas and Wakijis simply fade into nothingness. His gaze suppressed Satan's power and forced him to kneel.

"Indeed! I cannot ask for more marvelous show!" The man laughed wholeheartedly before looking straight at Satan's eyes. "From now on, use every opportunity possible to get that man into combat more. In return, I shall undo your seal gradually. Try your best, Satan." And he disappeared in a cluster of feathers. Aoi Satan gritted his teeth so hard his jaws were bleeding. Damn that man, but for his ultimate goal, he must endure.

Two days later, Akira was still unconscious and there was no sign of him waking up. In contrast, it was a good time for the scientists to conduce intense examination on his body. Maria and Kanna were against this but Sumire was the most vocal one and even tried to use her status as Heiress of Kanzaki clan to cancel the operation but her grandfather managed to persuade her.

Now, they were outside the infirmary, looking worried at the machines the scientists had set up and the tubes attached on the experiment suit Akira was put into. Yoneda and Ayame were overseeing this entire process as the old man gave the scientists the approval to begin. One of them inputted a lot of commands on the computer and then the machine came to live. Substances were flowing into Akira's body and he screamed.

"KUAAAAAARGH!"

Akira started struggling against the restrains and veins surfaced on his face, showing that he was put on a lot of strains. His eyes kept switching between yellow and red as the nearest scientist was skeptical about increasing the output, fearing that it would destroy the boy's mind.

"Yoneda-dono…"

"…Keep the level within safe zone and do it."

So he complied. Akira's scream became more and more intense and heart-wrenching. Sumire was hitting the wall repeatedly while begging them to stop torturing her childhood friend. Despite them bickering almost daily, Kanna felt sad for her teammate and moved to comfort her. Maria grimaced at the length Commander Yoneda would go but decided to stay silent as they needed everything available to win the war. She thought of this beforehand so she told the Maiden Trio to play with Iris, poor girl would get a trauma just by watching this.

"Sir, we detected an abnormal energy reading!"

"The source?!"

"From…the boy! It is overloading our devices!" A scientist shouted frantically. "Sir, we must stop this operation or his brain will be permanently damaged!"

Yoneda frowned but gave permission to shut down the machines and Akira stopped screaming afterward. A doctor moved in to inspect him and his expression was not what Yoneda expected.

"He may suffer an amnesia but I cannot confirm how severe it will be. I must advise you from doing such thing to the boy from now on, Commander Yoneda, with all my respects and I hate to write a fake report about his death."

"I see. Thank you, Dr. Yamauchi."

So much for Akira (Kurusu)'s debut and now Ishikawa gets an amnesia as the price. Stay tuned for the next chapter to see how Akira deals with his disease as well as the disclosure of Sumire's past with Ishikawa.

R&R guys!